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.

Building more with less

Sometimes, all it takes for a great creation is to make creative use of an unusual part. Take these space ships built by Haypro. Shamefully, it’s taken me almost two months to post this photo, which I loved as soon as I saw it.

First, I was struck by the creative use of the Hero Factory armor pieces as armor on the larger ship. These pieces work great as armored cowlings, and I know that they are difficult to attach to normal LEGO bricks. Upon further examination, I noticed the front of the smaller ship. Those are minifigure neck baskets, but the shape is absolutely perfect for a Corellian style ship.

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Between home and the war’s desolation

After I posted my little fleet of microscale spaceships in September, I kept tinkering with the design of the ships, and when I got bored, built new ones. By BrickCon, I had added a new cruiser and hospital ship.

The cruiser is based on the same keel as the carrier, but the most notable improvements overall are the little bits of light gray, red, and yellow, plus the decals. Exo-Force sets provide a remarkable diversity of military/industrial designs on clear sticker sheets that add cool details to a finished model.

Since I had all that gray greebly LEGO lying around, I tried building a Silverback from Gears of War 3, but it got considerably bigger than I intended — though I like the ultimate design — so I’m calling this little battlemech “Sasquatch”:

For the minifigs, I’m trying out the new Gears-inspired armor and weapons from BrickWarriors. Their lineup doesn’t currently include a non-retro Lancer rifle or Gnasher shotgun, so I’m using the old Amazing Armory versions.

(I’m also experimenting with a new indoor photo setup and post-processing, which explains the difference in the same light bluish gray between the two photos.)

The Scope of War

Over the last few weeks, Sean and Steph Mayo (aka Siercon and Coral) have been creating a strikingly skillful set of microscale dioramas for the Microscale Castle Contest at Classic-Castle, with each vignette depicting a scene from an epic struggle for a fantasy world. All eight of the individual scenes fit together, adjoining to create a complete panorama of the battle.

There are too many imaginative and implausibly tiny details to highlight them all, so be sure to check out the photographs carefully. A few of my favorites include the mounted knight, the war elephants, the stairs to the dark castle, and of course, the microscale angelic warrior (below). This is microscale building at its finest.

And, as if all this wasn’t enough, Sean and Steph have teamed up with Blake Baer (aka Blake’s Baericks), who is creating the second part of this saga. Although Blake has so far only shown the first vignette of a planned five, his work looks like it will be right on par with the first segment, so keep an eye on his photostream to see the rest.

Microscale Gothic Castle

This little treat was posted for Classic-Castle‘s Microscale Castle Contest by Toltomeja.

The presentation on this is quite lovely. All of the focus is on the castle, foregoing the need for landscaping. It just works for this build!

Countryside Keep for the Mini-Castle Contest

Each year, Classic-Castle runs a number of contests. Right now we’re in the middle of the Mini-Castle Contest, a sort of precursor to the massive Colossal Castle Contest. You’ve still got until October 31 to enter!

In the meantime, I invite you to check out some of the competition. Ru Corder has posted this lovely micro-scale landscape/castle mix-up. I’m in love with the timber fence-line.

U.E.F. Expeditionary Strike Group

As most LEGO builders do, I’ve been through several non-building funks over the course of the last 10 years or so. Andrew Lee suggested to me once that a good way to get going again is to try building a little microspace fleet. Fearing I wouldn’t get unblocked before BrickCon in just a few short weeks, I did just that. Turns out Andrew gives very good advice.

My “Expeditionary Strike Group” consists of an Escort Carrier, Destroyer, and Gunboat. I set out to build them with a fairly utilitarian aesthetic, but in retrospect it’s clear I’ve spent quite a bit of time immersed in the BSG / Halo / Star Wars universes. I’ve tried building a space carrier in microscale several times, but this is my first completed vessel.

The carrier was built around the weird engines on the back, while the Destroyer mimics the shape of the Carrier:

More photos on Flickr.

A little bit of every LEGO

“This build features a bit of everything: modulex, duplo , fabuland and regular system bricks”… that really says enough about Pierre E Fieschi’s Sobani Battleship. Well almost enough, it’s also beautiful.

Opalite-class H-17 cargo freighter

I love a good micro freighter. I can just imagine all the interesting things being carted around the galaxy. Lazer Blade uses pattern repetition and a wide variety of colors for the cargo containers to make a potentially boring freighter really rather awesome. My favorite detail is the ship number in red and gray near the back.

Hat tip to Evan B. for the suggestion (and photo editing, apparently).

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Mike Szita (OrangeKnight Studios) has been building a series of microscale mecha from the Gundam universe over the last while, and he’s just posted a group shot of the squadron that shows off their variety.

Collectible Godzilla

Obviousness doesn’t necessarily diminish awesomeness, as Steve’s man in a dragon costume proved. The first thing I thought of when I saw the Lizardman from the Series 5 Collectible Minifigures was, naturally, Godzilla. While the Pacific Northwest takes a break from being first in the world to get them for a change, Bobofrut gets to be the first to post a Collectible ‘Fig Godzilla (at least that I’m aware of).

Via MicroBricks.

Microscale tornado rips up tiny houses

Blake Baer‘s microscale tornado vignette caught my attention at BrickFair. It’s a unique concept carried out effectively with the simple technique of stacking layers of SNOT’d bricks. I also love the use of books as the roofs on the houses.

...keeps the blues away

… Rob Morrisseau (dasnewTEN) brings another excellent micro-starship with the Valyrian Frigate: Bastard of Winterfell. Again the command of angles and colour really sets this apart from the pack.