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.

This micro Mount Rushmore is monumentally beautiful

Located in South Dakota and finished in 1941, Mount Rushmore is one of the most iconic U.S. monuments. It depicts the busts of four famous American presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. It’s an excellent candidate for modeling in LEGO, such as this beautiful microscale layout built by Rocco Buttliere. Rocco has gone the extra mile by building the visitor center, rows of state flags, and the surrounding terrain. It’s a sight to behold, and I bet it looks even more impressive in person.

See more of this tiny monument

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This singularity engine is a singular sensation

Even though the month-long LEGO ship-building challenge known as SHIPtember may be months behind us, epic models started in or inspired by this ultimate challenge are still showing up, and this late entry by Spencer Hubert really captured our attention. The name suggests that the primary weapon involves heavy gravity, and the ship’s many details combine to make this vessel both elegant and capable. One of my favorite details is the subtle angle built into the sides of the forward fuselage.

The color choices for the top and bottom cones at the front really pop, and the extensive dark gray greebly details throughout are well integrated into the body of the ship. Another great part use is the airplane landing gear used in the recesses on the side mounted engine housings.

On reflection, the Death Star’s not so bad

Here at Brothers Brick HQ, we’ve been following the microscale LEGO Star Wars adventures of Didier Burtin with enthusiasm. Didier’s recreations of iconic scenes from the various Star Wars movies continues with this cracking build of the captured Millennium Falcon sitting in a Death Star hangar. Taking photos of LEGO creations built from predominantly black bricks is normally a complete pig of a job, with rogue reflections and shiny bits ruining the composition. Here the model’s high reflectivity is a perfect match for its inspiration, as are all the brick-built details like the wall striping, floor graphics, and the lift shaft.

Graceful and deadly mech

Building articulated mecha at a small scale can be a challenge. But it is a challenge that Dead Frog Inc has measured up to quite nicely with this flying mech. The gun arms made from just a few parts look deadly, and the angled panels used for wings have an angelic quality that looks graceful and strong. Another very nice part use is the bucket handle attached to the shins with simple tension.

Around and around, the seasons come and go

In some ways this rendered microscale build is simple, but my eye was drawn to its neat little features and techniques. Everything fits so nicely against each mountain segment in this model designed by Aukbricks. Simply put, it’s clean and elegant.

The overhead view doesn’t do it complete justice. I believe the best way to view this build is to watch it as it’s turned. The Technic axle pins make for great crops and the books are lovely rooftops. The trees made from foliage elements are also perfect. While the techniques aren’t entirely new and unique to this build, the cohesive combination is beautiful.

We recently covered another one of Aukbricks’ renders, a holey sports store!

A wheely great tower

Builder Sarah Beyer built this model for one of New Elementary’s fantastic parts exploration articles, which challenge builders to use newly released LEGO elements in interesting ways. The microscale tower employs the hubcap element from the James Bond Aston Martin DB5. The center stud allows the parts to be stacked neatly, and the edges of the spokes bring a fascinating texture that implies intricate detail on each level of the tower. It’s a great reminder to break outside the box of using LEGO elements for their intended purposes.

If you could build anything in the world...

Apparently, Martin Latta could not choose between all the amazing things on Earth to build out of LEGO, so he just built all of them, in a really tiny scale. Can you pinpoint the exact brick on which you live? I have found mine!

The build is based on Bram’s Sphere Generator, a free online tool anyone can use to generate instructions for a LEGO sphere of any diameter (Martin’s Earth has a radius of 14 studs). The builder adds a lot of his own flare to the creation with different colours and textures used for different regions of the world – from dark green as vanishing rainforests to white as vanishing glaciers. Stay tuned for our 2075 article when we will feature a new globe made of all tan and grey colours!

A collection of micro city blocks

One of the great things about building with LEGO, is the many different scales which are open to you. Your creations can be built for standard minifigs to live and work, or you can populate your building and vehicles with larger brick-built inhabitants. Or, you can build at a much smaller scale, where the people are only in your imagination. This microscale encourages builders to think about their collection in a different way. LEGO builder Christian Benito has been flexing his micoscale building muscles in a series of city blocks.

In this block, Christian is trying out a few techniques for trees, and I rather like the simple structure of those lime-green trees made from sandwiching 1×1 round plates between 2×2 round plates. The dormer windows are also a nice touch. For the backyard, Christion used a clever way to get more visual interest by alternating 1×1 tiles.

See more city blocks by Christian

Circling the wheel in space

If like me you’ve been following Tim Goddard’s Instagram feed, you’ll have seen him teasing a fleet of colourful microscale LEGO spaceships over the past few weeks. Well the big reveal is finally here: I give you the Perhelion Point space station and attendant spacecraft. Constructed as a series of scaled disks that rotate around a central core, it looks wonderful hanging atmospherically in orbit.

Up close you’ll find some neat building techniques, like the modified plates with pin holes, which are matched with turntable disks to form the station’s super-structure. Naturally, there are multiple landing ports and shuttles to liven things up too. Continue reading →

Lloyd, your Destiny is...small?

When I reviewed the newest official Destiny’s Bounty set, I was surprised at just how big the set was, coming in at a massive 21 inches long. Now, W. Navarre is seeing just how far to the other end of the spectrum Ninjago can go with this absolutely adorable tiny Destiny’s Bounty. As with any micro model, every piece counts and must be made good use of, but the curved roof of the Bounty’s quarterdeck is what I like most, since getting that rounded top is no small feat, though it’s helped tremendously by the new 1×1 quarter circle tiles.

Long have I served as the guardian spirit

Guardian of the Hyrule Forest. Giver of Quests. Insides infested with Skulltula Spiders.
The Great Deku Tree from Nintendo classic Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is given the LEGO treatment by Julius von Brunk. The microscale model is nicely-done, perfectly capturing the tree’s sleepy-looking face. But it’s the amazing photography which sets this creation apart — Julius has combined three images into one to create this stunning look, which manages to make a small model appear much larger. I love how the low angle and out-of-focus foreground foliage gives the tree such physical presence. Excellent stuff.

LEGO Millennium Falcon hides in plain sight

It’s one of the coolest moments in The Empire Strikes Back, when Han Solo evades the Imperials by hiding his ship in plain sight, latched on to the hull of a Star Destroyer. Here this memorable scene is recreated in LEGO bricks by Didier Burtin. The model is immediately recognisable — indeed, at first glance it’s practically indistinguishable from a still from the movie. The Star Destroyer’s surface is impressively detailed, packed with a generous level of detail that breaks up all that grey, and the lighting for the photo is spot-on, managing to capture the stark contrast and drama of the original scene.