Tag Archives: jnj_bricks

Arcane cityscape joins Lord of the Rings and other immersive LEGO masterpieces from jnj_bricks

Immersive scenes in LEGO transport you to a universe where everything is made of plastic bricks but feels alive. Creations like these not only require building on a large scale but also need a keen eye for perspective and lighting to create a convincing world. One of the very best builders in the format is Joe (jnj_bricks), whose epic scenes over the past five years have consistently left us spellbound. For his latest, Joe visits the opulent city of Piltover from Netflix’ Arcane show. (Keep your Stranger Things, this is the Netflix show I wish had official sets!). Joe explains that the scene was prompted by his wife, who build the teal-roofed building on the left. The remainder of the majestic cityscape uses a clever mix of scales, starting with minifig scale for the rooftop where Vi and Jinx survey the city (love the subtle mosaic work!), to midi-scale pavilions of glass and gold and aristocratic residences, to distant towers in microscale.

Joe’s Arcane tribute is just the latest in a long line of LEGO vistas from this RebelLUG legend. Let’s take a look back at some of Joe’s other immersive builds, starting with those based on the builder’s favorite film saga: The Lord of the Rings. The seven-tiered Gondorian city of Minas Tirith is famously immense, yet Joe finds a way to pull off the epic impact of a Peter Jackson bigature in Microscale with incredible forced perspective.

Tour more immersive LEGO destinations from this incredible builder

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Summoning a friend to take down Elden Ring bosses for a LEGO Collab

From Software has fully embraced co-op with their latest release, Elden Ring Nightreign, all but requiring players to team up with a couple of friends in order to take down waves of bosses. So it’s only fitting that to bring down some of Elden Ring’s most iconic enemies in LEGO form, a team-up is in order. Joe (jnj_bricks) leads the charge against Godrick the Grafted, the first big mandatory boss in your journey through the Lands Between. Joe perfectly captures the decaying Stormveil Castle, especially the shattered road that subtly undulates off the LEGO grid. While he doesn’t often build characters, Joe nails Godrick’s grafted form with his monstrous arm. I’m having flashbacks to the first (and second, and tenth…) time I battled the boss.

Joe’s friend and collaborator Brickelangelo travels beneath Caelid to Mohgwyn Palace for a face off with Mohg, Lord of Blood. Mohg looks imposing atop the brick stairs, but also quite dashing courtesy of robes borrowed from Queer Eye’s Fab 5 Loft.

This collab has me itching to get back to Shadow of the Erdtree, but I’m not sure I’m ready to die again and again. Maybe I’ll just stick to bricks and enjoy this Elden Ring classic boss.

Collaborative LEGO builds lead to the best views

With the powers of eight LEGO builders are combined, some truly spectacular creations can come into being. For instance, the amazing team of jnj_bricks, Eli Willsea, Carter Witz, Joel Tyer, Micah Beideman, Roanoke Handybuck, Davis Brown, and J2_Bricks all came together to show Omar a world worth exploring. There is some phenomenal forced perspective at play, with darling rockwork, bridgework, and tower-work(?) all coming together into something magical. I am just wishing that Omar will take me along on his next voyage.

A honey of a village shows the sunny side of the dark ages

Joe (jnj_bricks) has impressed us many times with his immersive medieval LEGO displays, whether in winter, by the harbor, or across the Pelennor Fields. For his latest epic build, created over 3 months to show at Brickworld, Joe takes us to Honey Crest Village, an idyllic hamlet bursting with color. Half-timbered homes are quite popular among medieval builders, and Joe is master at rendering the style in LEGO with a great using SNOT techniques (Studs Not On Top) for cracked plaster and finding creative parts (like hot dogs!) for the timber. The color scheme for this build is reminiscent of the Inn Plain Sight building from the Dungeons and Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale set, but Joe has been here before.

What makes this build such a delight, beyond the technique and scale, is how packed with delightful details of village life and crowd-pleasing elements. Joe’s trademark shirtless Woody is there, of course, as are at least 11 types of animals, including the LEGO frog in all 16 available colors. (To find them all you have to visit Joe’s instagram gallery). I’ve only located 4 so far. How many can you find?

This LEGO Dark Knight is more than black and dark gray

While LEGO Batman will forever be Will Arnett, there’s certainly room for creations that take the caped crusader a bit more seriously. For instance, check out this glorious scene from Batman Begins by Joe (jnj_bricks). Within their temple high in the Tibetan Himalayas, the League of Shadows is about to adopt a new member. But Bruce Wayne manages an escape from Ra’s al Ghul and his minions. Here we see the explosion that kicks off the action-packed scene, frozen in plastic-y time. And it’s a good thing, too, because it allows us plenty of time to admire Joe’s impressive use of Harry Potter wands in the vignette. Employed both in the windows above and the railings below, the pair of wands still attached to their sprue provide an interesting and hard-to-achieve texture in the model.

Warships used to look so much flashier

You know what the problem with military vehicles is these days? It’s all so grey. Or stealth black, sometimes. Or a drab green. Or some – anyway! Point is, they’re not very interesting colours. Back in the day, warships on the high seas sometimes had a fair bit of bling on them. Joe (jnj_bricks) harkens back to these flashier days by throwing some golden LEGO handcuffs at this Man-of-War. Coupled with that dark blue, it looks rather smart. Sure, it’s not very practical – you could see this coming a mile off. But isn’t that for the better, so that we can appreciate this masterful little build?

A lone pop of colour in a lonely village

We love a good LEGO creation that uses about double the amount of LEGO pieces to be built as you’d expect. This creation by Joe is composed of a lot of small little pieces to create patterns and structures. The scene depicts an abandoned village with one sole visitor. The visitor is apparently the only living soul in the town, just as the blue door is the only thing with colour in the town. Your eye gets drawn to the door due to the vibrant colour, and the door itself is exceptionally well built. But if you look past it, you’ll notice that the rest of the creation is as well. All the walls are made by slopes, tiles and plates to resemble woodwork. The use of the paled fence for windows is quite clever. Throughout the entire creation there are a lot of fangs, horns, angled bars, plates with a handles, and small windows used to represent snow and ice. Of those four, the last two are most resourceful.

Tonight’s special is Lobster a la Woody

For a giant, bottom-feeding sea bug, these bright red crustaceans sure make for a tasty meal. Then again, a lot of things taste delicious covered in melted butter. Builder Joe of jnj_bricks takes us out for a nice lobster dinner but he’ll probably never call us again. Dated as an Anchorman reference may be, it seems apt given the shirtless Woody getting cozy in the bed of parsley. That’s some definite Ron Burgundy energy. Joe found quite a few uses for the red hexagonal plates with hinges that make up most of the crimson carapace. Beyond the boiled ocean insect, Joe built some delicious lemons for garnish as well as a nice slate serving plate, clever clamps, and a checkered napkin to clean up with during dinner. You might miss it if you don’t look carefully but there are couple actual Lobster pieces used near its mouth for a clever bit of added realism.

I can’t help but wonder if Joe wasn’t trying to make a surf and turf joke with this build. The lobster is on point but Woody is a bit of a stretch. I’ll give it to him since this was clearly a feat of clever organic building.

A rocking ride for some outer space ore.

As part of a Space Jam collaboration with some fellow builders, jnj_bricks has crafted a transport ship designed to carry aurum from an asteroid to a refinery. And no mined rock has ever traveled in such grand style before. This ship is an elegant blend of sharp edges and rounded corners. And the black and white color scheme, accented by medium azure and yellow, is gorgeous. Which should come as surprise, since it’s a color scheme that’s worked for this same builder before.

Beware the servants of the Goblin King

Busts have become ever-popular, and with them have come a wealth of fun ideas. Builders trying their hand at sculpting a character’s features with bricks are forced to try new things and innovate. This Goblin bust by builder Jnj_bricks was such a foray that was definitely successful. Texturing really helped this character come through, from the spikey, short hair to the boats used in his jacket. The knobbly, green skin translates well as a Goblin, as do the bright orange eyes which hold a mischievous light. The gold earrings and jutting jaw with sharp teeth add that extra bit of character emblematic of this trickster species in lore, old and new.

Quite a few techniques were used to achieve all the interesting angles and textures of this build. Though Jnj_bricks says this is a very different style for him, it’s clear it wasn’t too far out of his range.

A new twist on an old windscreen

I don’t know that I have a favorite LEGO piece of all time, but my top five would have to include the long, faceted windscreen that debuted in 1989’s Space theme offerings. Something about that wedge’s multiple sloped angles inspired so many of my childhood builds. I used it to build cockpits, magical jewels, the jaws of various monsters…but I hadn’t given it much thought in the last decade or two. So I was delighted when I spotted the White Tiger Star Fighter by jnj_bricks. One of my favorite pieces had been given new life.

By twisting two of the windscreens sideways and building over the resulting bottom half, the White Tiger employs the existing slope angles to create a new cockpit shape that blends perfectly with the more modern pieces that make up the majority of the ship. It’s got me wanting to dig through my old bricks to see what inspiration might strike.

What’s behind the door in this fantasy LEGO build?

This LEGO creation from Joe (jnj_bricks) was created for the Summer Joust 2021 contest, and it’s wonderfully moody. There are plenty of unique parts used here (see if you can spot the shark head), and the lighting is top-notch. The highlight of the build to me is the brickwork on the wall; it helps tell a story about this building and a lot of work clearly went into it. Another aspect that works really well is allowing the viewer to fill in the rest of the room by having it focused on the door and not having everything self-contained.