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.

Welcome home to Bosco Verticale

Bosco Verticale is a skyscraper full of lush greenery in Milan, Italy . Built by TBB’s own Elspeth De Montes, this micro-version is a fantastic urban forest coupled with beautiful architectural details. There are a lot of things to love in this build. I particularly love the use of non-traditional green bits to bring diversity and life to this miniature forest: I spot cheese grater slopes, quarter-circle tiles, brushes, and combs. There are teeth pieces, taps, blades, and Medusa’s hair from Series 10 of the Collectible Minifigure line. Repurposing the Eye of Ender tiles from the Minecraft line as solar panels is a fantastic use of that piece.

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Ole!

Microscale LEGO building tends to focus on buildings and vehicles, but Teabox(henrik_zwomp) has taken up the challenge of depicting a figure and an animal at a tiny scale. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s pulled it off admirably with this adorable little matador facing up to a bull. Immediately recognisable, the subject matter not be to everyone’s taste as a sporting spectacle, but there’s no doubting the building skill on display.

Many names for this towering sight

Orthanc, home of the corrupted white wizard Saruman, is an important part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and is even referenced in the title of the second book, The Two Towers. The film version of the tower may not be quite as iconic as Sauron’s Barad’dur, but it’s still managed to burn itself into the memories of fantasy lovers all over the world. This microscale LEGO recreation by Maelven isn’t the first LEGO Orthanc model we’ve featured, but the builder has added a lot of great style to it.

Although quite a departure from this builder’s comfort zone of highly accurate Star Wars vehicles, Maelven did not disappoint in this turn to fantasy. The intense details on the tower will keep your attention for more time than you would expect, but what I really like is the gradual but very fluent tapering of the tower’s shape towards the top — an effect achieved by slightly tilting many bars and plates on the surface of the creation.

Like this tiny Orthanc? Check out this diorama of the breaking of Isengard featuring a 7 ft tall Orthanc, or a detailed 8 ft tall Orthanc with a full interior.

Up, up and away!

Pixar fans — or parents of Pixar fans — will no doubt recognise Karl Fredrickson’s beautiful colourful house from the heartwarming animated movie Up! (…if you haven’t see the movie I thoroughly recommend it). Jonas Kramm loved the movie and loved the image of the flying house getting carried away only by balloons. However his supply of colourful bricks was limited so he went with a scaled-down version of the famous airborne cottage, and it looks superb!

I love the azure trim around the eaves and the well-constructed railing around the front porch. Jonas has even managed to capture the detail of the sidings at this scale, and employed some great techniques to recreate that chaotic cluster of balloons. Oh, and if we happen to get separated, don’t forget to use the wilderness explorer call: “CA-CA! RAWRRR!”

A heavenly alignment

The great American eclipse of 2017 may have passed, but this microscale build by “why.not?” still casts a cool shadow. The backdrop uses dark blue tiles to create the effect of the eclipsed area. It goes to show that a simple concept is sometimes all it takes to make a wonderful creation.

Modern castle is just a tower with no walls

This very aesthetically pleasing microscale skyscraper by Sheo. definitely houses something evil inside. It totally looks like a villain’s headquarters from a dystopian movie or a book, plus “Nasty tower” is a very peculiar choice of name for a building! Although its design seems to be advanced, this tower is just a polygonal hinged core with attached vertical stripes, and this is what makes this build a very smart and remarkable creation.

One does not simply walk into Mordor

Serbian builder Milan Sekiz‘s miniature Mordor is the perfect finish to the (accidental?) collaborative Lord of the Rings microscale triptych (see also microscale Hobbiton and a microscale Rivendell). Sekiz’s adorable LEGO creation features a tiny Mount Doom, a teeny tower of Barad-dur (where men fear to tread), and a wee Black Gate. Not to mention, the ashy base and background results in a general feeling of gloom that is wonderful.

A hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Following quickly on the tiny heels of the excellent microscale Rivendell, Austrian LEGO builder Patrick B. has crafted the Hill from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, also in microscale. Patrick’s tiny scene is complete with Bag End under a large tree and Bagshot Row beneath. Each of the round doors has a unique color, and the path leads across a bridge to the Green Dragon Inn, which Patrick also built in minifig-scale recently. I particularly love the fences, but don’t miss the tiny boat built from a paper minifig hat.

You are never lost when you can see the temple

Built relatively recently, around the turn of the 20th century, Kek Lok Si is said to be the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. Now local builder WingYew has constructed this gorgious LEGO diorama of the famed site:

As you can see below, and also in the full photo album, the build is brimming with tiny details such as the central 7-storey pagoda that contains 10,000 statues of Buddha (which are sadly too small to be captured at this scale!). From the looks of it, a person could lose themselves for hours in this temple – and quite possibly in this LEGO version as well!

A wonderfully hairy rendition of Rivendell from Lord of the Rings

Isaac Snyder, the author of an excellent microscale Edoras build, returns to Middle-earth with his latest build, a miniature depiction of the Elven realm, Rivendell. Microscale creations usually bring out the most creative and innovative part usages, and this build is no exception as Isaac uses earth orange pikes as autumn colored fir trees and minifigure hair parts as deciduous trees. However, my favorite usage is the ribbed 1×2 light gray bricks as tiny stairs.

Parts aside, it’s quite the beautiful build all around with intricate column work on the buildings and excellent usage of some less common colors to give the build a very natural aesthetic.

Last rest stop before Tatooine

Spaceport’s hollowed from the cores of asteroids are a staple of science fiction, but Spaceport Sphaera-Petram Iota by Casey McCoy is the first time I’ve seen one created in LEGO. Despite being microscale, the build packs plenty of detail thanks to some interesting parts usage and just the right amount of stickering.

And while the busy and colorful front side of this model succeeds in conveying the sense of an inviting waystation for weary space travelers, the rear – which represents the leftover shell of the asteroid – is also worth pointing out, being constructed from three sides of a Bram sphere:

A skyline view of Flemish architecture

Belgium doesn’t feature in the LEGO Architecture theme yet but Bert Van Raemdonck has corrected this oversight with his own skyline view of the Flemish municipality of Temse. His skyline of Temse creation includes, from left to right, Boelwerf Crane, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Church, Old Town Hall and Temse Bridge. As with a lot of microscale builds we feature, Bert has used some clever parts and techniques to pack texture and detail into a small space. I love the helmet that forms the spire of the church and the lever handle flagpoles on the side of the town hall. You will need to look closely at the church to spot the clever placement of tiles forming the buttresses.

The Old Town Hall is a magnificent piece of neo-Flemish renaissance architecture so my only critique would be the lack of colour as the actual building is a fantastic shade of pinky red and tan.