Tag Archives: Jaap Bijl

Jaap Bijl rolls a natural 20 on creativity with this D&D inspired LEGO scene

Sometimes castle-themed builds can lean heavily on the grey bricks to the exclusion of all the other colors in the LEGO palette. That’s definitely not the case with Jaap Bijl, whose fascination with color has made us big admirers of his LEGO creations. For this latest work, “New Area Discovered,” Jaap plays with negative space rather than a central building, taking inspiration from the towering architecture in Balder’s Gate 3. Jaap brings in his favorite color, purple, to contrast with the gold, including an unusual Ninjago snake blade. Greenery is blow-out bright, with ghostly beards adding otherworldly texture. For vines, Jaap unfurls round sprues. Looking past the splashy parts, the model demonstrates some wonderful castle brickwork, especially the round mosaic courtyard. The scene looks deserted, but I would suggest making a perception check with those 20-sided dice just in case…

'New area discovered'

Careful! Cool colours can conceal conniving crazies...

Do not adjust your set, reader: this LEGO build really is this colour! It’s not the result of a messed up RGB balance, but the work of LEGO Masters alum Jaap Bijl! At first glance, it’s a house full of whimsy: slightly cartoony proportions, those bright colours, and a fantastic technique for the roof. Who would’ve thought to use chicken drumsticks as tiles? Brilliant! But there’s a sinister side here too, as evidenced by the ominous red light emanating from inside. Surely such a colourful abode can’t hide anything nefarious inside, right? It’s probably fine to stay the night. All the same, I’ll let you go in first. No really, after you, please. I’ll be right behind you, promise…

Mansion of Mysterious Mornings

Forcing us to think about color through forced perspective

Forced perspective is one of those artist’s buzzwords (or phrases) that means to achieve the illusion of a vast depth of field within a very narrow space. LEGO artist Jaap Bijl understands forced perspective quite well. The central road bisecting the composition down the middle appears to trail off into the long distance, but from the sky to the foreground, the composition is no more than twenty studs deep.

A Colorful World

The builder tells us the width is more than a meter across, which certainly helps create the illusion of depth. The other trick Jaap clearly understands is the use of color. This is a world bursting with color for sure but the brightest of which is relegated only to objects in the extreme foreground. Midground is awash in a bit more subdued pastels, clueing us in that, even that far down the road, this is a colorful world but dialing back the intensity and details helps create the illusion of depth. The sky shifts the color palette and dials back the amount of detail, giving us a suitable background. This builder is a true artist indeed, but check out our Jaap Bijl archives to see what I mean.

The rockstar and her 5-star cabin

Somehow famed LEGO builder Jaap Bijl has made a non-food-related creation look downright delicious. It likely has everything to do with that sweet and refreshing color scheme. I’m imagining the flavors of strawberry ice cream and lemon sherbet. Do they go together? I just might be willing to find out! Aside from seeming dastardly delicious, this cabin is chock full of amazing build techniques. I love the smoke emanating from the chimney (it’s a white serpent!) as well as the gold scorpion nearly hidden among the filagree along the roofline. The chef’s kiss probably goes to the multitude of walkie-talkies making up the thatched roof. I love the musician’s lute but that hair-like lovely cotton candy! I feel like I could stay in this cabin forever but I just might be tempted to take a bite out of the wall just to see if it’s as delicious as I imagine.

The Rockstar

Under the moon in love!

Like so many other things, LEGO can look completely different in the light of a full moon. As we follow our darling couple into a second build by Jaap Bijl, we see a great transformation! And not just in the beau, but also in the cottage and surrounding forest. Warm tones have been replaced with icy blue and steel colors. The forest of deep green is now a black mass, thick with leaves made from minifigure flippers. Intricate metalwork has replaced the turquoise detailing, utilizing other minifig accessories most expertly. The weathervane is particularly wonderful, as are the spoons for door handles. And the pink spire is no more, replaced with an equally-astounding purple structure built around a large wheel. And yet, even amid all this change, it’s clear that the love between the duo remains as strong as ever. That smile tells us that she’s prepared to accept him, fleas and all!

Forbidden Love [Night]

Dragon pagoda but subterranean and also in a cave

Ever since the pandemic I haven’t been on a holiday. So my expectations when it comes to holiday destinations have become very high. I almost expect them to look as magical as this LEGO subterranean Dragon pagoda in a cave by Jaap Bijl. I have to be honest, English being my second language, I had to look the word subterranean up. And it turns out to mean ‘done under the earth’s surface’ or ‘secret/concealed’. And now I am not a bit closer to understanding whether this Dragon pagoda is either under the earth’s surface or very well concealed. So I decided that this Dragon pagoda is secretly hidden underneath the earth’s surface.

The dragon cave

What strikes me about this creation is the use of colour. The cave is dark grey, the base of the temple is grey, the water is sand green and the soil in the cave is sand blue. All muted colours go great with the lavender foliage and the details on the pagoda. They almost make the lavender look a bit greyish. And then bam in the centre of it all there is this light blue pagoda roof which really pops. The pillars supporting the bright blue roof are adorned at the top and the bottom with stone carved dragon heads. You really have to zoom in on the temple to spot them but they are done exceptionally well.

Smaug the Tremendous taking down Lake-town

To this day it still baffles me that they managed to make three movies out of the book The Hobbit. It’s not a complaint, I do love the movies, but it’s just strange to me. Especially since the book is about a third the length of The Lord of the Rings, which also is three movies long. But let’s not get into that for now. Jaap Bijl drew inspiration from the movie The Hobbit for their latest LEGO creation.

Attack on Laketown

Here we see the dragon Smaug setting flame to Lake-town. The atmosphere Jaap managed to create is amazing. Smaug itself is a miniature and the fire he is breathing is done simple yet really effective with bricks, plates and tiles transitioning from yellow to red. Smaug being dark red makes him feel and look like he is part of the fire he is creating. But what’s interesting is that not a single fire piece was used in this creation, and yet it still looks and feels very much on fire. One thing that also contributes to this great model is the backdrop, which to me hardly even looks like it is edited in. Framing the main scene with a dark brick build archway is a really nice and effective way to set the mood and draw your attention to the center of the picture. However, if you zoom in on the arch you’ll find lots of hidden details in the darkness. Last but not least I would like to note the use of round quarter tile to create those great rooftop shingles.

Sweet dreams are made of bricks

Your head hits the pillow. Your eyelids grow heavy. It’s the end of another busy day for you. But it’s just the beginning of the workday for those who keep watch in the Citadel of Sweet Dreams. LEGO builder Jaap Bijl has created a location above the clouds that evokes a sense of storybook charm while showing off some impressive construction. There’s some wonderful use of roundness throughout, but I particularly like the way the front door is framed with headlight bricks in an arc. And the choice to render the tree truck in shades of blue is an effective way to create a sense of another world that’s grounded in the familiar.

Citadel of sweet dreams

This clock tower looks like a giant clock

This LEGO clocktower made by Jaap Bijl, looks just like a giant grandfather clock. The shape of the build made me chuckle but that is not the only reason this creation is aesthetically pleasing. The cobblestone base is constructed very well using bars and half round tiles mixed with regular 1×1 and 1×2 tiles. Giving it a bit of a weathered look. There even is a small pendulum hanging between the two base pillars of the build, On top of that we have a Tudor style house with the Big Ben clock dish to represent the clock. It is always nice to see a part that is so tied to a particular set being used in a fan creation. The roof of the building is purple with some golden details. Adding a pop of colour to a roof of a build always makes it pop. The little turrets made of lanterns and splat gear add so much character to the little building. To top it off the build is set on an irregular base composed of all different kinds of earth tones and is adorned with birch trees, which are in fashion with LEGO right now.

Clocktower

Artifacts from a vintage family room

The ’50s are calling! Don’t tell my father – he was born in 1955 and would be highly offended if he heard me using the term “vintage” to describe these items. I’d love to know what inspired LEGO builder Jaap Bijl to choose this era, but I’m so glad he did. The collection inspires images of a very different point in history. A tube radio, rotary telephone, and even a WW2 medal define the time. And the old-school toys and treats mixed throughout tell the story of a young family. Jaap used a bunch of the white 4×4 flower elements to achieve the look, but a couple of my most favorite examples are the ones that aren’t as easy to see, like the racecar wheels and radio tuning sliders.

A family's life

There are many more fantastic examples of Jaap’s work in our archives!

When science and (LEGO) art collide.

In this rather solemn LEGO mosaic by Jaap Bijl titled “Einstein’s One Great Mistake”; a more serious topic is explored – Albert Einstein and his role in the Manhattan Project. If we’re going to get artsy here, I would even say that the color palette and aesthetic of this build are reminiscent of Picasso’s “Blue Period.”

Einstein's 'One great mistake'

The 4×4 petaled flower element is back in multiples, this time in an ominous arrangement forming a mushroom cloud – the shape generally synonymous with nuclear explosions. The rest of the scene in the right panel is formed with various sized plates and tiles in dark hues with white 1×1 round bricks and cones creating the stem of the cloud. A portrait of Einstein is presented in the left panel; his face is carved out of various bricks, slopes, and tiles, for the most part utilizing the SNOT (studs not on top) technique. Einstein’s notoriously unruly and spiky hair is rendered by a synergy of the white 4×4 petaled flower pieces and white dinosaur tails. In terms of composition, although this work could be called a mosaic, it differs significantly from the new LEGO Art mosaics which are comprised mostly out of 1×1 studs. For me, Einstein’s hair and the mushroom cloud both being heavily composed of the petaled flower elements represents a kind of mirroring effect, but I could be looking too deep into this. Either way, I think it could be said that this build is genuinely thought-provoking.

RuinScape

The ruinous landscape – a popular pictorial theme is recreated in the LEGO medium here in this beautiful vignette by Jaap Bijl. Of course, LEGO is great for construction, but even more so LEGO can provide builders with an opportunity to be forces of deconstruction and deterioration – creators of ruin. This sublime energy is perfectly captured in Bijl’s build.

Forgotten glory

The main part of this built scene is arguably the decaying classical temple. The triangular roof at the top – the pediment is depicted as half existent and utilizes the 4×4 petaled flower piece and some white wing pieces as ornament. The broken columns are built using 2×2 round profile bricks. Perhaps my favorite mini-build here is the broken statue which is made out of a pair of white minifigure legs with some random elements piled on top. The statue on the left looks rather intact but creatively uses the 4×4 petaled flower once again, this time as a shield. Bijl generously applies a variety of LEGO plant elements to give viewers a sense of natural reclamation. I really appreciate how Bijl builds the ruins in such a way that they appear to be sinking into a swamp of green tiles. No ruinous destination is complete without some tourists taking in the sights, and we can see here some minifigures making their way across the swamp in a brick-built boat ready for adventure.