Tag Archives: Microscale

Some say “Go big or go home!” but it takes real talent to compress something down to just a few studs and still keep it recognizable. Of course, many of the micro models we feature here aren’t so small after all, whether it’s a vast cityscape or starship.

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the bricks of a LEGO man!

Adding to his streak of amazing creations, Grant Davis creates this whimsical interpretation of the classic fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk. The focus of the build is the cloud tops, made mostly out of the curved panels that are the focus of the current round of the Iron Builder contest. The field of white clouds is complemented by Jack’s beanstalk, built using some interesting green pieces. But the real icing on the cake? The elegant curved path leading up to a microscale castle, in forced perspective. Grant manages to fill the image with just enough detail to be interesting, while keeping it simple and straightforward — a hard balance to achieve.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Living it up in the Land of Cleve

If you’ve ever strolled through the streets of downtown Cleveland, you’ll definitely recognize Spencer Rezkalla‘s most recent microscale creation. It’s Key Tower, the tallest building in Ohio! This build is chock full of amazing building techniques like SNOT and some weird, half-plate offsettings. Spencer even included the Marriott and Society for Savings buildings, making his tiny city block match the original one perfectly.

Key Center, Cleveland

If you happen to be within driving distance of “The Land,” you can see Spencer’s creation in person at the Great Lakes Science Center’s Build it! exhibit going on right now. You’ll also see other amazing LEGO creations that we’ve featured in the past such as Tyler Halliwell’s Monkey King, Adrian Drake’s life-sized Bender and Matt De Lanoy’s Springfield layout, just to name a few.

Key Tower & Key Tower

The smallest Prime

Optimus Prime is an ever-popular subject for modelling in LEGO bricks. Just recently we featured an impressively large Transformers city scene featuring the big ol’ truck-bot. However, it’s not often we see such cute details at small scale as in Peter Reid‘s latest creation. Immediately recognisable, this great little build has a nice depth of texture despite its size. I can’t help but provide my own soundtrack to this model — Peter Cullen’s tones pitch-shifted up to Calvin And The Chipmunks levels of squeakiness.

Tiny Prime

A timeless naval chase

I have a big soft spot for triremes, more so than for other historical ships. This microscale scene by Micah Beideman, despite its questionable historical and engineering implications, delivers on many levels. Both the ships are done well, with a good solution for the sails, and the trireme’s oars look quite convincing. While simple, the overall scene is very immersive, with the clouds adding a lot to the effect.

Sea Chase

This piece of junk made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs

Happy 40th anniversary, Star Wars! Sad Brick has created this wonderful microscale Millenium Falcon to help us celebrate. Despite being made out of only two or three bricks each, our much-loved heroes are instantly recognizable – and I just love the cupcake top for Chewie’s head! The scene is packed full of skillful little details, like the piping on the back wall, the sideways use of tan arch elements, and LEGO shooters used for the seam of the landing bay doors. The Corellian freighter itself is a fantastic representation of the most beloved ship in the galaxy. The guns, the dish, and the cockpit all look perfect and that subtle coil of LEGO string charging the Falcon is a masterstroke.

Millennium Falcon

Miniature Medieval Marvel

It never ceases to amaze me how builders like Simon NH invent ingenious uses for unique LEGO elements. Spy the new pyramid piece cresting a pair of Thor’s Hammers as the half-toothed Technic bush crowns the crenels of the tallest towers. Did you notice the minifig arms as the rocky foundation or how Simon has used a broom as the little wooden bridge? The two swords as the path and the rippling surface of the water both also look brilliant. My favorite part usage has to be the new ‘tooth’ piece as the stone entranceway to this inspired little build.

Rushwater Fortress

A beach scene that will float your boat

There’s a gentle wave lapping at the shore as you gaze out over the panoramic deep blue ocean. Swedish builder Magnus has chosen to maximise the view by building his beach house on stilts. Although the focus of the build is the beach house, my own favourite part is the use of the minifigure lifeguard float as a dingy sitting by the dock. The palm tree is also a nice touch, with clever use of the 4-leaf plant part to bring a touch of tropical flora to the scene.

The Piloti House

I hope those foundations are deep, as we all know what happened to the man who built his house upon the sand…

A city of grey, blue and hexagons

The somewhat obscure new hexagonal NEXO Knights piece, appropriately named the “Nexogon”, keeps inspiring people to use it in all manner of creative ways, an effort supported by New Elementary’s Nexagon Festival. Lisqr joins the fun with a very charismatic space-themed microscale city scene. There is much lovable texture throughout the build, but the best thing must be the masterfuly limited colour pallete. Light blue and translucent light blue accent the gray very well, making the creation pleasing to look at, an effect that is enhanced by the photography. Another point of interest is that the “Nexogon” is not the only hexagonal element of the build; the central tower achieves this shape with the use of 1×2 30-degree slope pieces.

Hive City

A smart little place in town

Every gentleman needs a smart little place in town, and Emil Lidé‘s microscale LEGO townhouse definitely fits the bill. With the elaborate stonework of the frontage, the elegant bushes flanking the entrance, the crest above the door, and the nicely-executed Mansard roof, this lovely little building has all the trappings of a desirable residence in one of the better parts of town. Emil has made good use of textured bricks, grille tiles, and scroll pieces, giving a real depth of detail — the key to the best microscale building. I’d love to see Emil build the rest of the stylish boulevard which this building surely calls home.

Period Townhouse (5 of 5)

A media empire under one LEGO roof

Manhattan bustles with the edifices of American enterprise, towering symbols of capitalism whose many styles span New York City’s distinct historical periods. Past, present, and future often lie within the same block, Art Deco and Modern architecture mingling to reflect the city’s status as a permanent symbol of capitalism. One building which exemplifies this mix of old and new is the Hearst Tower, painstakingly recreated here in LEGO form by Daniel Stoffler.

NY Hearst Tower (AVG)

Built for and named after the famous American publisher William Randolph Hearst, the building claims a spot as the headquarters for one of the world’s largest media corporations, Hearst Communications, with ownership of numerous newspapers and publications including Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan. The builder took on a daunting challenge recreating Hearst Tower, but the effort paid off with this accurate and realistically detailed model – which includes the original six-story base as well as the 40-story glass tower finished in 2006, here accomplished perfectly with triangular road sign elements. This makes for an interesting mix of architecture and an extremely impressive LEGO model.

Magnificent micro-builds in glass domes

Building micro-scale brings a unique set of challenges, and finding the right piece to represent a particular feature can often be a particularly tricky task. Builder yang wang seems to have a knack for it though, as demonstrated by these two delightful domed dioramas. The first is a wonderful Romanesque revival style castle poised on a rock over the sea. The highlights for me are the tiny ship with smokestacks, the small tree made from a brown droid arm, and the spindly towers with golden ski pole spires.

lego mirco castle in a galss dome

Continuing the colorful creation on a rock under a dome theme, the second build is a vertical wooden town atop a rocky outcrop, complete with bell tower and windmill. I love how the builder has used the grill plates to give the small buildings windows — plus there’s that cute little car made from a rollerskate. And not only does the dome make the building inside look wonderful, it also keeps the dust off!

lego town in a galss dome

Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn

LEGO microscale is typically reserved for contemporary buildings like skyscrapers and pizza delivery shops, but recently Issac Snyder has been building one amazing tiny medieval model after another. Check out his microscale Dwarven workshop and his tiny walled port town. However the micro-masterpiece is surely this gorgeous Edoras from the second installment of The Lord of the Rings films.

Edoras - MELO

If this MOC would look nice sitting on your desk or shelf, then you’re in luck! Isaac donated his lovely creation as a prize in the 2017 Middle Earth LEGO Olympics (MELO 2017) contest over on MOCpages. The first round of the contest runs through May 21, 2017, so you’ve got nearly a month to enter the fray.