Tag Archives: Immersive Scene

The Art of the LEGO Tableau – building in the “Ground-Based” style [Feature]

When setting a LEGO scene, how much of a world needs to be built to spark the viewer’s imagination?

There are two approaches to bringing a world to life in LEGO: 1) meticulously build out every aspect of the scene with bricks, or 2) provide just enough detail to suggest the bigger picture while letting the viewer’s imagination fill in the rest. While building it all can make for impressive displays, I am drawn to the latter approach.

Various styles can achieve this, each with its distinct charms. Immersive scenes transport us to new worlds, like a window into a picture, by filling the frame with LEGO. Vignettes, on the other hand, embrace the artifice of a model and give the impression that a slice of the world has been captured in bricks. Even if vignettes have their appeal, I have a preference for immersive scenes. They’re more fun, if more part-intensive.

But there’s a third style worth exploring, one that many in the community – including myself – have experimented with. It’s a style that I call “Ground-Based.” As you’ve probably already guessed, this is the topic I’ll be covering today
Learn how to create MOCs in the ground-based style

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Documenting LEGO Middle Earth with a photographer’s eye

Of all the partnerships in the LEGO library, none is more cinematic than the Lord of the Rings. While sets like Rivendell are rapturous enough just sitting on a shelf, with amazing lighting and post-production, LEGO Lord of the Rings MOCs can transport you right to Middle-earth. Valenque is a builder and photographer who blends official sets, custom landscaping, and VFX to create immersive scenes from Tolkien’s books and the films they inspired. The builder’s latest borrows a Hungarian Horntail to recreate an epic meeting from the posthumously published Children of Hurin. The minifig of Túrin is supplemented with a digital dragon crest on the helm to match Alan Lee’s illustration.

Valenque has previously captured scenes from the Hobbit and Rings trilogies, like this scene of Gandalf igniting pinecones to ward off goblins on the slopes of the Misty Mountains.

Click to see more of Valenque’s amazing scenes from Middle Earth

Lose yourself in this immersive tribute to Attack on Titan made from just 100 LEGO pieces

Anime doesn’t get more visceral than Attack on Titan, where all that stands in the way of annihilation at the hands of fleshy giants is the brave Survey Corps, zipping around on wires like steampunk Spider-men. Builder nu_montag thrusts you right into the action with this immersive LEGO scene. You can feel the weight of the Colossal Titan’s sinewy gaze thanks to the dynamic perspective. Even more amazing, this shot contains just 100 LEGO elements!

Read on to survey how the scene was done with just 100 pieces

Frontier justice under a brick-built sky

Here at The Brothers Brick, we’re always fans of immersive scenes where every inch of the image is built from LEGO bricks. Scenes like this wild west showdown from RebelLUG member James Libby. The staging takes a note from director John Ford’s playbook – “When the horizon’s on the bottom, it’s interesting. When the horizon’s in the middle, it’s boring as…” Shout out to the wonderful buildings, each of which uses a different SNOT building technique to achieve rugged frontier authenticity. The brick-built sunset, drawing the eye to the horizon where our lawman and outlaw face of, is a stunner and a colorful alternative to a duel at high noon.

Hejjo Demokowicz’s immersive LEGO steampunk worlds

Immersive LEGO scenes fill the frame with bricks and make you feel like you’re getting a glimpse into another world. Hejjo Demokowicz demonstrates a mastery of the form with his series of steampunk districts that began in 2022, each depicting a solitary figure beginning a journey. The latest entry, District 3, depicts a snowy, urban realm. Hejjo draws on an eclectic mix of rounded parts for the white snow and the nougat path for a lush texture. Wrought ironwork impresses in both the foreground gate and the ornate station awnings in the background. A solitary character stuns with clever parts usage, such as eggs for arms, helmet shoulders, and a pirate’s beard as trailing hair.

Click to explore Hejjo’s other districts

“You’ve always been the caretaker, Mr. Torrence”

A thing that Alex Eylar does really well with his LEGO creations is set a mood. Sometimes, often actually, that mood can be deeply unsettling. You don’t need to read the title to know this is an iconic scene from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Here we see an already deranged and inebriated Jack Torrence taking family advice from a ghostly Delbert Grady. The advice in question was chilling and unwholesome, even for 1980 standards; and let’s just say nothing went well for anybody. It turns out this wasn’t the only deeply unsettling bathroom scene in the movie. Alex, if you go on to build the nightmare fuel that was the green bathroom, I’m pretty sure I’ll be damaged goods forever.

Paleolithic paleontology beneath the LEGO ice

We know what dinosaurs are these days. Big, reptilian-avian creatures that roamed the Earth millions of years ago, doing cool dinosaur things. But what would early humankind have made of fossils, had they found them a mere 10,000 years ago? This is the question that photomark6 is pondering. It’s a superbly staged photograph! The eye is drawn to the T-Rex fossil around which the scene revolves. But the bright colours of the minifigures make us focus on the real story here. What are they feeling? Wonder about this new discovery? Fear, that it might break out of the ice and devour them? Or cold, from their outfits that don’t look particularly well-suited to the ice and snow? (I know which one I’d be feeling the most!)

Crusading LEGO knights get a horned visitor

While LEGO’s official Castle sets have stuck to European and fantasy inspirations, adult fans have been increasingly inspired by Middle Eastern architecture for medieval builds. This immersive scene from Alberto Ulfhednar has Classic Castle knights playing crusaders in a grand walled city. The arches, weathered brickwork, and clever supports (love the use of roller skates!) are all excellent, but the standout technique is the cracked street. The camera work is beautifully done, with the angle and depth of field putting the viewer in the scene. It could almost be a historical build if it weren’t for one mysterious rider. Is the rider hinting at epic worldbuilding in Alberto’s imagination, or is this the D&D city of Al-Qadim, and the rider is a canonical Tiefling looking for a quest?

Bear witness to history in this brick-built Viking diorama

With the benefit of a few hundred years of hindsight, we can look back and say that the vikings were pretty cool. But if you were a resident in a village on Britain’s eastern shores at the time, you might not agree with that assessment. We can look to James Pegrum‘s LEGO snapshot to see what one of their frequent raids might have looked like. There’s a fabulously-textured chapel or monastery juxtaposing the much newer-looking longboat, while the resident monks are showing a mixture of fear and defiance. The minifigure’s-eye perspective really makes you feel among the action – a witness to history in LEGO form!

A holiday home for beach-lovers

Architectural LEGO whizz Pan Noda is taking us to the seaside! There’s just one problem: their apartment is nowhere near the sea (I presume). So what to do? Bring the seaside to the apartment! Pan’s builds skirt that fine line between realistic and whimsical so well, and this is another fine example. At first glance it could just be a painted wall, but when you notice the sandcastle and the water on the floor, it makes you wonder if someone really did make a beach in their own digs. A touch of forced perspective with that excellent deckchair in the foreground really sells it as a surrealist artwork in its own right.

Take a break in this courtyard of calm

Hot on the heels of one great immersive Arabic LEGO scene, comes another courtesy of Ids de Jong. Although made on a slightly smaller scale, it shares some similarities in scope, giving us a view into the courtyards that are so typical of this style of architecture. The arch pieces framing the entrance immediately set the tone for where we are, and the minarets and towers in the background employ forced perspective to give the impression that we’re somewhere in a bustling city. And that’s all great – but what my eye is drawn to is that mosaic at the front. It uses some clever LEGO geometry: the ridges on those inverted slopes are a half-plate thick, which combines with two more plates to give the exact width of the tiles on the corners!

A scale model in plastic kit form (no, not that sort)

Joao Nunes is sharing some pictures of his latest plastic kit. The painting is done, he’s got the brick separator and scalpel ready, and all that’s left to do is… Hang on. We’re confusing our LEGO bricks with our Airfix here! This is a very convincing facsimile of a Tamiya-style model, where instead of simply clicking bricks together, you need to painstakingly cut and paint each piece before gluing it all together. (With Kragle, presumably.) To the purist, that might sound like a nightmare – but fear not, no LEGO pieces were harmed in making this tableau. Even the box and sticker sheet are as good as new!