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.

It was a very small box of scraps

Way back in May of 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off with Iron Man. Now, a mere 12 years later, Josephine Monterosso pays tribute with an amazing microscale rendition of the Mark I armor. As you’d expect at this tiny size, there’s a lot of meaning packed into each and every piece. The legs, made of robot claws add some weight to the hips, and the connection grooves on the minifigure hands that make the arms manage to suggest elbow joints. The round helmet (looks like the base of a lever to me) conveys the right shaping. But the real star is the torso – made from a single roller skate. Not only does that part provide all the necessary attachment points, it also transforms the central LEGO stud into a perfect ARC reactor. It’s amazing how much information you can get from just six tiny LEGO elements.

As impressive as the armor is, it’s also important to call out the setting Josephine built for it. Without this jagged rock backdrop, you might have mistaken the figure for a robot or even a sci-fi spacesuit. It may be a “simple” build of slopes and plates, but it adds great depth and context to the scene. Makes me wonder what other Marvel Moments might be possible at this scale. It’d make for a great, space-efficient diorama!

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Blessed brick Jubilee Church is a divine achievement

ARK.builds’ 1:125 scale model of the Jubilee Church in Rome is a stunning facsimile with its accurately recreated curved walls, a supremely technical feat.

I’m just blown away by this model; there’s complexity in representing a very organic real-world building and ARK.builds made it look easy. With such a complicated exterior I didn’t expect to see was any kind of interior, but he’s done it up complete with pews, organ, altar, and cross.

I asked the builder how these stunning curved walls were achieved and he shared the photo below. It looks incredibly fiddly with multiple hinges but it certainly got the job done.

If you can dream it, you can build it

I’m a die-hard Disney fan. Walt is one of my creative heroes — a constant source of inspiration — and the theme parks at DisneyWorld are some of my favourite places. The current lockdown situation has seen us have to cancel a family trip to Florida, and whilst there are obviously much more serious problems in the world than a missed holiday, I’ve been feeling a bit down about it. I decided to cheer myself up by attempting to recreate some Disney magic with LEGO bricks. Three years ago, I enjoyed putting together a microscale LEGO version of Cinderella’s Castle, so I decided to set myself the challenge of creating some other iconic theme park sights. In addition to a rebuild of the Magic Kingdom’s centrepiece castle, I took a crack at Spaceship Earth at Epcot, and the Chinese Theatre at Hollywood Studios. We’ll see where my microscale tour of central Florida takes me next, but I feel Animal Kingdom and Typhoon Lagoon beckoning…

Magnificent Minas Tirith in Microscale

Minas Tirith, the White City, capital of Gondor, is one of the most recognizable locations from the Lord of the Rings series. From its many levels to the distinctive knife-edged stone dividing the city into two halves, and the massive rock face it was carved from. While it may be easy to recognize, it is not so easy to build, and Mountain Hobbit has done a masterful job of bringing this iconic city to life in microscale.

One of my favorite features is the gently curving outer wall, which features random studs, and an assortment of plates and tiles with some great offsets to give the wall a truly weathered look. The many subtly tinted slopes for roofs are a nice touch.

No more milling around!

I hear it all the time from would-be builders that they just don’t have enough pieces in their collections. “I can’t make anything cool,” they bemoan, as if having a billion LEGO elements at their disposal would make building easier. Now, in some respects, that is true; having more parts does expand the horizons of what you can build. But more importantly, building cool things comes from an eye for how to use the parts one has, rather than the parts one wishes one had, and a small collection is as good as a large one in that respect. Take this windmill by Inthert, for example. It’s not huge. It didn’t take a lot of parts. Granted, there are some specialty parts like the green palettes and the green feathers, but most of what is in the build could come from the collection of anyone who has a few sets. It’s in the art of arrangement, the way the parts are used, that the coolness comes. And that comes not from having a ton of bricks, but from using them a ton and getting familiar with them.

For example, who, having the fence piece, thinks to put it into the bottom of a jumper plate? Not I. And the tiny round tower, the artfully placed foliage of all sorts, the grille tile fence…the list of clever constructions goes on. And the little Heroica figures are just the cherry on top. And it did not take a billion bricks! So what are you waiting for? Go get your collection out and start building something, if you aren’t already. With this quarantine, I know you have time.

Deserted in the desert

“Eventually it shall be reclaimed by the sands. But until then, it stands there still — empty and abandoned. A warning to us all.” I love when a LEGO model begs the observer to create a story, when narration springs into the mind as you look over the builder’s work. This excellent microscale castle by Eli Willsea somehow demands the creation of a backstory — its formidable walls and soaring towers seem to require an epic history to explain its emptiness and sense of decay. The model is well put-together, with a nice depth of texture despite a relatively limited selection of bricks and a monochrome colour palette. And its that colour selection which is key to the scene’s appeal, immediately placing the model in a desert environment and conjuring up an atmosphere of decay and mystery and romance.

Small, or far far away?

Some LEGO builders return over and again to the same subject — obsessively tinkering with a particular design, fiddling with the structure or details in an endless quest to “improve” their creation. My particular obsession is with microscale Star Wars — the attempt to capture iconic spaceships and movie scenes in the minimum number of pieces. Microscale building can be a dangerous time-suck of a pastime, as the smallest tweak in part choice or connection can make all the difference in the final appearance of a model. For as long as I’ve been an adult builder I’ve been fiddling around with tiny Star Wars scenes. I must have built these subjects in microscale dozens of times, but on every occasion, the design gets tweaked and revised and tightened. Maybe someday I’ll be content with them, but in the meantime, here are the current iterations. First up, Episode IV: A New Hope…

Click to see models from Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi

Epic tale, epic microscale

I love The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Like, really, really love it. I have more than a whole shelf in my library (yes, I have a library, filled with many leather-bound books) devoted just to the book and its ancillary volumes (The Hobbit, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc.). Tolkien is my favorite author, by far, and I’ve read his major work at least twelve times. So when I see really well done LEGO builds based on the stories, like this one by Simon Hundsbichler, it gets the warm fuzzies going inside. Even if it is based on the movies, I still love it; after all, for whatever butcheries they did to the characters (e.g. Faramir), Peter Jackson et al. did a phenomenal job of representing the material cultures of Middle Earth. This particular build is inspired by the second volume of the work, The Two Towers, and features many towers, from the horn tower of Helm’s Deep to Orthanc to Minas Morgul to Cirith Ungol.

Microscale is notoriously tricky to pull off, but Simon is a master among masters at it. Some features that need to be pointed out include using the tiny hole in the bar holder with clip as the window at the top of Cirith Ungol. Genius. But it is all amazing. Helm’s Deep bears repeated looks, with the absurd number of unconventional pieces in the rockwork, from grey hawks and frogs to saddles. But then there’s my favorite stair technique with a grille brick leading up to Meduseld. And a stud shooter in Cirith Ungol. And rockets in the towers of both Minas Morgul and Helm’s Deep. And a spider as Shelob, a giant spider. Brilliant. And there’s a Treebeard, too! Add in the book base, and the water flowing through it, and you have one of my favorite LEGO creations ever.

If you missed Simon’s masterful representation of the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, check it out here. I can’t wait to see the third installment!

The brightest of battles amongst the stars

From movies to TV shows to LEGO models, we all love a bit of Star Wars action. But one of the persistent criticisms of the franchise is the peculiar need it appears to have to return to similar planetary environments over and again. In an entire galaxy of apparently habitable planets, it seems weird we keep ending up on desert or frozen worlds. Here’s a LEGO creation that decides instead to revel in the possibilities of alien environments, setting a battle between the Republic and the Trade Federation on the colourful world of Tealos Prime. I love the bright foliage and unusual tones in the scenery here — a brilliant contrast with the typical grey vehicles of the Star Wars universe.

The scene, a collaborative effort from Tim Goddard, Mansur Soeleman, and inthert is an absolute cracker — massive in scope despite the micro scale employed on the individual models. Check out this wider top-down view which reveals the full size of the layout, with scenery ranging from forest to cliff-side landing pad, and the impressive array of vehicles from both factions…

Frogzilla for the win

Step aside Godzilla, there’s a new monster in town! And she brought offspring! This LEGO amphibian by alego alego is one the best I’ve seen. It has excellent shaping, and those helmets for eyelids are awesome! Green cherries were a great choice for toes, too. But the nifty parts usage doesn’t stop there! As your eyes wander around the scene, you can make out garage door elements and crates/containers giving texture to buildings, and 1×1 dark green round plates with holes attached to upright paintbrushes for tiny trees. Not to be forgotten, the 1×1 plate with a printed square is perfect for adding depth to the smaller buildings.

Check out more of this excellent builder’s work by visiting our archive.

At this research facility, the future is NOW!

Inspired by the work of Syd Mead, builder Jme Wheeler packs a lot of punch into a fairly small area, creating a sprawling, Futurist research facility in LEGO microscale form.

The builder makes great use of a limited black and blue color palette on the buildings and all light gray rocks. Restricting the colors of the structures gives the whole facility a cohesive look. It makes the green plant matter quite striking and yet doesn’t distract from the beautiful building designs. The tall, stacked building gives us some impossible architecture that somehow feels right at home in the scene and you can almost imagine workers bustling through the covered walkways between buildings. I love the use of the gray curved tiles to represent a raised road or perhaps a monorail track. The windmills are a clever addition and the tiny island with a single palm tree is a great little gem hiding in plain sight.

Stunningly large microscale model of Burj Khalifa

At first glance, this LEGO model of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai could be mistaken for the official set… wait, who am I kidding? there’s no possible way you could confuse this incredible model by Rocco Buttliere for the LEGO set made with only 333 pieces.

There are so many great details that I’m not sure where to start. How about with the inner ring at the base of the model, which uses circular roller-coaster tracks to create a faceted plaza between all three spurs of the building.

Rocco also creates large trees that match the look of the tiny trees made from green flower parts.

Along with the many stunning architectural details like the symmetrical recessed circular gardens, and the gently curving buildings along the edge of the model and the multiple sloped and terraced plazas, the three tapering spurs capture the look of this iconic landmark beautifully.