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.

The tiniest Bantha you ever did see

How many pieces does it take to build a great LEGO creation? Not a lot if you’ve got a great imagination and a little bit of skill. This tiny vignette by Dan Ko of a Bantha on the sands of Tatooine consists of only around 20 pieces, but it’s perfect. The brown minifigure hair forms the furry body of the poor Bantha tied up as bait, which is a scene that may look familiar to fans of The Mandalorian. The tauntaun horns stand-in for the pack animal’s giant curved horns and a black wand serves as the hitching post.

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If Aragorn were running for president, I’d vote for him

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll repeat it, but I love The Lord of the Rings. The books, that is. Simon Hundsbichler must love the books, too, since he has finally finished the third installment of his trilogy, commemorating the climactic The Return of the King. I’ve been waiting for this one for a while, and it does not disappoint! From an incredible microscale Minas Tirith to an imposing Barad-dûr, every bit of this build is packed with great details and clever parts usages. Ogle that oliphaunt from Harad for a while, and admire the lever-arm orcs. There’s even an eagle and fell Nazgûl beast in the air!

Did you miss the first two volumes? Check out Simon’s The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers builds here. And don’t miss the other great Lord of the Rings builds in our archives, too!

Miniature Mount Olympus for the world’s smallest gods

If you are going to live high above the earth, looking down on the many millions of us humans on the surface, there can be no better place than Mount Olympus, built in miniature by KitKat1414 featuring some excellent rockwork, and a sparkling river flowing right through the middle, and some lovely light fluffy clouds, a few of which are fittingly made from white croissants.

Brickin’ the gap

You’ve probably never seen the Golden Gate like this before – so minimal and so orange. Simon Liu really gives us the essence of the iconic bridge down at micro-scale with this LEGO model.

Liu renders San Francisco and Marin County using a variety of light brown slopes and tiles. The star of the build – the bridge itself is comprised of 1×4 tiles, minifigure hands, and binoculars all in a lovely orange color; the use of these parts is clever indeed. The micro-build as a whole sits on some trans-clear blue tiles, which serve as the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Although it is a minimal micro-scale build, this model certainly conveys the idea of the revered structure very well.

Follow the yellow brick...castle?

If you’ve been seeing a lot of yellow LEGO creations around here lately, that’s because Eli Willsea has been engaged in a competition with Jonas Kramm to see who can put the yellow 9V train track switch to use best. This striking microscale castle is one of my favorites from Eli, in part because everything in the picture is brick-built, except the blue sky. There’s some great forced perspective among the tiny jagged mountains in the distance, the castle in the middle, and the cave in the foreground, but the best detail for me is the parapet over the castle gate, which is made with yellow lever bases attached to the bottom of an upside-down 1×4 plate.

Orange is the new bley

Every year, for a little over a month, the LEGO sci-fi fans among us get a treat: SHIPtember. A celebration of insanity and massive amounts of small interlocking bricks, it is one of my favorite times of year (it doesn’t hurt that I enjoy everything else about autumn, too, like Oktoberfest beers and wool sweaters). One name that consistently shines out among the rest is ZCerberus, who, perhaps taking his cues from the changing foliage of the Northern Hemisphere, has created a fleet of massive orange spaceships. This year’s model is a repair frigate, LL885, ready to fix any small fighter that might have an issue. Small cranes, tons of greebles, and lots of roller coaster tracks make this one a great addition.

Love orange spaceships? Then check out ZCerberus’ other builds, since he has built a whole fleet of them.

One of ours, out of the main hangar

If you take a stroll through my post history, you’ll see that two things I love are Star Wars and microscale. So Eli Willsea hits out of the park, in my book, combining the two for his Theed Hanger. Zeroing in on N-1 Starfighter, you’ll see that nifty parts usage abounds.

Whether it’s the blades as the front fuselage, the paint cans, the switch track throw, and minifigure hands as engines, or the simple silver cupcake icing swirl as an astromech droid, this ship is ready to leave the hanger. A hanger, which contrasting the minute detail of the fighter, stays true to the large and blockyness of Theed. But as simple as the structure might appear, it is also rife with neat ways of using pieces, such as the old school wheels as the top and bottom of the columns.

Is Unikitty a Disney Princess?

Sure, you might recognize this build by Koen Zwanenburg as a mini version of the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland Paris. But if you imprinted on The LEGO Movie like I did, this looks like Unikitty bought and redecorated Cinderella’s castle. And that’s not a bad thing. (Well, maybe for Cinderella.) Built on a 32 x 32 baseplate, Koen has crammed an enormous amount of detail and creativity into a compact footprint. There are little rewards all over for taking a close look, like spotting a Gungan shield as decoration, or recognizing bunches of golden ski poles as turret toppers.

There are even more building Easter eggs on rear of the castle. Can you spot the hot dogs and unprinted minifigure heads?

All in all, it’s a masterful effort, and an impressive display piece. But we’ve come to expect that level of “wow” from Koen, as a trip into our archives will show.

A trio of South American birds [Instructions]

You don’t have to be a birdwatcher to appreciate this collection of South American birds by Luis Peña. Each South American bird is built from between 35-55 LEGO pieces and would look great on your display shelf, desk, or bookshelf.

First is the Black-necked swan, which swims on a small stand of water.

Check out more instructions from Luis

An alternative to coarse sand and cold space

Most Star Wars sets and fan creations tend to take the form of ships or other types of vehicles, of course LEGO has welcomed more buildings recently but such builds are still a minority in the theme. Eloi Parizeau takes us to Naboo not in a starship but with his LEGO micro-build of the Theed Royal Palace.

The nicest thing about working in micro-scale is that a builder is able to use small parts that are actually pretty common or easy to obtain, Parizeau’s structural build of the palace consists of some pretty standard parts in varying shapes and sizes such as dishes, cones, tiles, and slopes. The colors he utilizes for this creation as a whole are a little uncommon including pieces in forest green, tan, and sand green. The one part that seems rather unique to me is the rock panel in dark grey.

Using these small pieces Parizeau not only recreates the structure of the Theed Palace, but also the beautiful and lush environment of Naboo, his use of the forest green slopes and bricks along with the trans-clear blue elements brings back scenes from the Star Wars prequel films which portrayed Naboo as a blue planet filled with green vegetation. All things considered, Parizeau’s LEGO rendition of this Star Wars universe building is quite unique. It will definitely be great to see more fictional architecture brought to us by the brick in the future.

A fleet favorite in microscale

Star Wars starships can come in all scales and sizes especially when built out of LEGO. Ron McPhatty demonstrates this concept of size variation in his digital microscale LEGO build of the Ghost, the premier starship of the rebel fleet piloted by the fierce Hera Syndulla.

The most interesting thing about this particular model is that the interior space is fleshed out. Most microscale models do not have interiors, while the Microfighters that LEGO offers just include a seat to place an out-of-scale minifigure in. Continue reading →

A shipshape ship of brick

With many ship festivals and sailing events cancelled this year due to the ongoing pandemic, it is nice to be able to get my ship fix in via LEGO. Builder Lennart Cort certainly materializes the fine craftsmanship of a well-built sea vessel into the LEGO medium for viewers to enjoy in his build of the Dannebrog from 1852.

The Dannebrog is a “ship of the line,” which is a type of naval warship that was produced in the 17th century to the mid 19th century. Cort’s micro-scale Dannebrog certainly exhibits the details necessary for a military ship. One example is his utilization of multiple round 1×1 with bar and pin holder pieces as gun ports. The Dannebrog was specifically an armored frigate of the Royal Danish navy – in fact, the word Dannebrog is the given name of the Danish flag, and through this build we can see this connection via Cort’s use of two red streamer flags modified with what looks like white tape to form the white cross on the Danish flag. My favorite part of this build is actually the brick-built sails that Cort expertly executes using white wedge plates and tiles; he really does an excellent job at making brick-built sails look like the real deal. In my opinion, Cort’s brick-built sails are visually more appealing than the ones featured in the new Creator 3-in-1 pirate ship designed by LEGO. As a whole, Cort’s creation certainly is beauty and must look wonderful on display.