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.
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.
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!
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.
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:
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.
![[MOC] Temse Skyline](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/media.brothers-brick.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/36074846882_e670b229c7_z.jpg)
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.
Nanoscale — taking microscale building and shrinking it further. Karf Oolhu takes teeny-tiny city building to the extreme with this lovely little creation. There’s an impressive amount of texture and detail on these buildings, especially when you consider the entire model occupies a footprint of only 3 x 3 studs! Particular kudos should go to the use of an official LEGO pen top for the building at the rear right. Sweet.
It’s not every day you see a castle made of body parts. And you might not expect such a thing to look quite this pretty. Fresh from using bananas for a cottage roof, alego alego has now put together a cute little microscale castle which makes extensive use of torso pieces from Friends minidolls. The parts selection somehow works, resulting in a creation that’s both weird and wonderful. I particularly like the minifig lifejacket used to create the yellow gatehouse — inspired.
This microscale scene is instantly recognizable: the Great Sept of Baelor in Kings Landing from HBO’s Game of Thrones, built by Antonio Cerretti. It’s so lovely to have a reminder of the Sept’s beauty and splendor. It’s a shame it’s no longer a location seen anymore – at least, not in the way pictured here. The other homes and buildings are simple and easily identifiable. The fountain and statue using the white horn stands out, and the textured brick for the steps makes it clear just how much of a hill the building sat on.
LEGO’s 2015 line of Architecture sets introduced a skyline format which has become quite popular amoung fan builders from Paris to Tokyo. Simon NH takes a brand new approach to creating skylines, building a one-of-a-kind evolution of construction. No matter how much building experience you have, each of these tiny structures features some crazy solutions, like the Colosseum’s walls built from light bluish gray 1×1 tiles with 1/2 circle (aka Stadium tiles).
No, it’s not the tagline of a new superhero blockbuster, it’s Brian Kescenovitz‘s LEGO version of the day in July 1945 when humans created the world’s largest synthetic firework display ever seen, proving conclusively the destructive truth behind Einstein’s famous formula: Mass times the speed of light squared really does equal a whole lot of kinetic energy.
Brian’s chef-hatted mushroom cloud looks just like one of the old photographs of this event. The stunning lighting effect was achieved using a tight-beam flashlight shining straight down and shooting with a long 1.6 second exposure. I love how the miniature New Mexico mountains and blurred objects in the foreground give this micro-scale fulmination a real sense of magnitude.
Disclaimer: Playing with nuclear weapons is really a very silly idea.
We’ve featured the marvelous structures of master LEGO architect Rocco Buttliere quite frequently here at The Brothers Brick, from downtown Chicago to his recent 12-foot Golden Gate Bridge. Rocco’s latest LEGO build captures the heart of the sprawling Westminster World Heritage Site in the City of London, centered (or centred, if you prefer) on Westminster Abbey, the Church of St Margaret, and the Palace of Westminster where the UK Parliament meets.
See more of this iconic London location