This microscale scene by Nicolas Kolbeck is instantly recognizable to any Harry Potter fan as the eclectic wizard village found on the other side of a brick wall behind the Leaky Cauldron in London. Even more impressive than the many details that stand out, like the angled windows of Olivander’s shop and the leaning pillars of Gringot’s Bank, is how recognizable the various miniature characters are. Notice the fez part used as a skirt for Hermione, and see if you can name the rest.
LEGO dropships are a favorite subject for many sci-fi fans of both movies and video games. While this particular model by Oscar Cederwall is original, it does seem to take some inspiration from the dropship featured in Aliens, which also includes a deployable vehicle.
The craft features some heavy-duty thrusters, along with great color accents like the orange stripes. A mini-drone, cargo, and a vehicle with some nice details like steering, round out the scene. Some Modulex pieces make great stand-ins for cargo pods.
While we so anxiously wait for the official Ideas release of the Tron Legacy Light Cycle later this year, this might be the next best thing to hold us over. Even though Grantmasters makes this tiny creation with only about 10 elements (not counting the base), the transparent orange and blue ‘jetwall’ makes this classic instantly recognisable. While it may look simple, Grantmasters says that it took over 100 photo shots to get the right lighting and effect he wanted. Talk about dedication to the art!
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is probably one of the most famous schools thanks to J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series of novels and subsequent movies. Joshua Wray has captured the school and it’s surroundings in LEGO and there’s a lot of detail in this fantastic microscale creation. While not everyone will sanction such a thing, I did notice that Joshua has been busy painting some of his LEGO pieces! Look carefully and you will notice a few coloured parts that do not exist in LEGO’s current parts list.
See more of this lovely miniature LEGO Hogwarts
In 2006, LEGO released the Exo-Force theme, and 7709 Sentai Fortress was the largest set in the line. Marius Herrmann created a microscale version complete with the surrounding elements seen on the box art. The iconic round orange gate and the microscale mechas makes the creation instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the original set.
If you’re not inclined to fork over money for 21310 Old Fishing Store, Simon NH has you covered. This microscale recreation is do good that I actually thought it was the real set, albeit zoomed out, when I scrolled past it in my feed. A lot of different colours and shapes had to be crammed into this small build to give it that hobbled together look. A favourite technique here is the textured bricks which are upside down on the tower. Their anti-studs give the illusion of a platform with railings.
Rebuilding Creator modular buildings in microscale presents LEGO builders with many challenges, from recreating key architectural details using completely different parts to matching colors that may not exist for the needed elements. Simon NH has created a stunning replica of one of my personal favorite modular building sets, 10243 Parisian Restaurant making good use of some new parts, including the 4×4 quarter circle tiles.
The best microscale building takes regular LEGO parts and looks at them in a totally new way, allowing their shapes and details to represent something very different when the scale is changed. P.B. provides the perfect example in this teeny-tiny rendition of everyone’s favourite fraternal plumbers. Turn minifigure neckerchiefs upside-down and what do you have? Blue dungarees of course! The hats and moustaches round off a pair of immediately recognisable characters. Fantastic stuff.
Sometimes it’s a single LEGO piece which sparks the inspiration for an entire model. That’s what seems to have happened here, with David Zambito deciding the Nexo Knights helmet visor might make a good cowcatcher for a locomotive. He wasn’t wrong – it looks excellent – as does the rest of this microscale creation. The details on the train are good, although I wish the loco itself was a different colour to offer better contrast with the grey rockwork around the tunnel. The mix of skeleton arms used for steam is an obvious highlight, but don’t miss that little tent and campfire – a lovely touch which breaks up the surrounding landscaping.
The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in South Korea have already provided their fair share of drama (gale-force wind snowboarding anyone?) and now they’re providing some excellent microscale LEGO models. Jae Won Lee has put together tiny versions of the stadia and event venues. First up, the towering Alpensia ski jump arena…
The curves at the base of the hill might be a little steep for nailing the perfect Telemark landing, but the rest of the creation is spot-on — immediately recognisable from the TV coverage. Beyond the twin hills of Alpensia, the builder has also created an impressive reconstruction of the main arena in Pyeongchang itself. A pentagon isn’t the easiest shape to capture in bricks, but this little model does it well. Nice job on the outer-wall textures too…
There’s a range of models in the series, from the speed skating arena through to the ice hockey stadium. Whilst some of them are quite simple in their execution, they make a lovely set, as seen in the image below, which also provides a nice view of the main stadium interior seating…
Master microscale landscaper Full Plate brings us another lovely LEGO scene that captures the moment on a roadtrip when he finally reached rolling hills and winding roads instead of the boring plains he’d been driving on. I often feel the same way when returning to the green of western Washington State from the barren wastelands east of the Cascade Mountains. While many of the builder’s previous microscale masterpieces have featured a wide variety of trees, this build is at a smaller scale, and uses varying heights in the underlying terrain to add variety to the forest of evergreens.
Perhaps this helicopter is actually a better size for ants rather than people, but it is definitely a fun little LEGO build. GolPlaysWithLego has built this great microscale helicopter out of 30 LEGO parts. The fuselage is built using some of the newer 1×2 curved slopes with notch and the tail rotor is a boomerang. Clever use of parts for a small build!
