We all know what Swedish houses look inside like (thank you, Ikea), but what about the exterior? Emil Lidé hones his microscale building skills with this lovely traditional Swedish cottage. We’ve already seen these brilliant trees in his previous set of sketches, however this house steals the show. Actually, there’s not much to describe besides the particular Scandinavian style, which the diorama is full of. And some huge boulders in the garden complete this land property especially well!
To be fair, this maze does have an exit, assuming, of course, the rat (or minifig) can find it. Kevin Moyer took the simple LEGO building technique of pressing tiles in between the studs on a baseplate and created something quite extraordinary. The slightly rounded edges of the tiles make this microscale maze look ancient and worn down by time.
Of course, the best thing about this build is trying to solve the maze. See if you can find the path to the exit. But don’t start at the end like I always do, because that is cheating.
…with the sound of sub-standard housing. According to the builder, simply bricking it, this LEGO model represents a favela, one of the core urban slums of Brazil, where the firetrap structures stack up the hillside like a precarious house of cards, ready to collapse at the mere mention of a disaster. But scratch your head: it also kinda looks like one of those central Italian castle towns, carved into the hillside centuries ago and still struggling to catch up with the times. And the University of Colorado in Boulder is well known for its cluster of red Spanish tile roofs. So is it a slum? Is it a castle town? Is it a prestigious campus nestled at the foot of the mountains? Or is it… a spaceship? Depends on who you ask!
I don’t know about everywhere else, but this weekend saw winter begin to take hold in Scotland. Appropriately enough, along come two lovely little LEGO builds which perfectly capture the chill in the air. First up, IamKritch‘s cabin looks like a great place to sit out the blizzard. The trees and the frozen stream are smart, but it’s the simple use of a brown grille brick for the cabin’s log walls which grabs the attention.
And then there’s Brick Blue Wren‘s wonderful winter diorama. I like the variety of techniques used for the trees, and the curved backdrop and base evoking the shape of a snow globe. The color scheme properly pops off the page, particularly those hefty snowflakes against the blue sky. A few more models like this and I’ll be all set for Christmas.
P.B. spends his time building fabulous microscale walking tanks and artillery units. This one, in Jovian Regimental Colors no less, is a little cracker. The tank carries an impressive level of detail for such a small model — delivered through effective color blocking and a nice depth of texture. I love the use of bucket handles to add detail to the legs — I haven’t seen that before. But the undoubted stars of this show are the teeny-tiny figures — the crewman and the Commissar — effortlessly carrying off some Communist-era chic with their little red scarves. Well played Comrade PB, well played.
Check out this smart LEGO space rover scene from Sad Brick. The mining vehicle itself is an excellent example of quality microscale building, creating an impression of detail and realistic function with the use of only a handful of parts. But it’s the quality landscaping in tan bricks — tanscaping, if you will — which really impresses me. Don’t miss the tracks left in the dust behind the rover’s wheels — brilliant.
Pico van Grootveld‘s latest spaceship is a smart little model. The building techniques and bricks usage are on point — wheel hubs and dishes creating a selection of smooth curves. The stark color scheme works well, particularly against that lunar backdrop, and the presentation is simply perfect. Too often LEGO space builders can overdo the photo-editing on their images, leaving models marooned in a sea of garish lens flare. Pico gets it just right here — subtle effects providing the streak of engine trails, and colored spots on the twin weapon prongs and the drone’s central eye. An eminently swooshable design, presented well — this is my kind of space building.
Cecilie Fritzvold has once again been inspired to create a microscale city skyline in the style of the skyline sets within the LEGO Architecture theme. LEGO released 21028 New York City, 21027 Berlin and 21026 Venice as part of a trio of new city skyline sets earlier this year. Cecilie has chosen the beautiful French capital, Paris, a city full of impressive architecture and grandiose buildings. Cecile’s build includes (from left to right) Arc de Triomphe, Tour Eiffel, Dômes des Invalides, Notre-Dame, and Colonne de Juillet (Place de la Bastille). The small strips of transparent blue on each side represent the River Seine.
Notre-Dame is my own favourite in this build — I think that the combination of ingenious parts use and the textured stonework for such a small build are fantastic. If you like this type of build, you will also enjoy Cecilie’s Tokyo skyline build that we blogged a couple of months ago and Michael Jasper’s microscale model of Dortmund.
The official LEGO Eiffel Tower 10181 set is one of the largest sets released, with 3428 parts. For those with less room for such a monster set or fewer pennies to afford such a sizeable price-tag, have a look at LegoJale‘s latest creation, which users a single part depicting the Eiffel Tower: A minifig hand. This microscale build manages to capture the essence of the Eiffel Tower, the skyline in the background, and the fountains in the foreground (as per the image that the build is based upon) with just a handful of parts.
The set-up for this shot shows how distancing parts of the build can give a very good foreground and background feel to the final shot without requiring any scaling. I always enjoy seeing set-up shots and this one is great because there is no fancy equipment — just LEGO, a book, and a camera.
We’ve seen many great LEGO renditions of ED-209 from RoboCop in a variety of scales, but none this small. Grantmasters has managed to make both the hulking robot as well as RoboCop himself using only a handful of pieces. We don’t have an official count but it looks to be under a dozen of LEGO’s smallest pieces.
If you’re still in the mood for microscale ‘bots, check out this equally small AT-ST.
We can’t emphasize often enough how challenging it can be to create really small LEGO creations. Roy of Floremheim has built an AT-ST “chicken walker” walking not on the verdant moon of Endor but on the blackened plains of Sullust, as featured in the training mission in Star Wars: Battlefront. Despite being built from only about 20 pieces, this Imperial vehicle is instantly recognizable.
There’s an art to making tiny LEGO cars, and Johnni‘s got it. This sweet little chop top looks the part, and is impressively small considering the engine detail. Check out that slanted grill and those old 1970s tires used for the rear slicks.
