Tag Archives: Nature

Say it with a huge bunch of flowers

People have been conveying messages of happiness, love and sorrow with flowers for centuries. Bigger is not always better when it comes to your favourite bouquet, but when it comes to LEGO flora, there’s something special about big flowers. Chungpo Cheng has built a much larger version of the 1×1 Plant with 3 Stems. In fact, the flower is upscaled about ten-fold — a LEGO version is 1.5 cm tall and the upscaled version is 15 cm tall.

Other builders loved Chungpo’s design so much that they decided to build one too. Miro Dudas‘s version has been spotted growing in the wild.

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From the Cairngorms to your own home, build the wildlife of Scotland [Instructions]

Earlier this month, we wrote about Brick to the Past‘s huge Scottish diorama, The Jacobite Risings, a build taking 10 months and using 1 million bricks. Within this creation spanning 16 square metres, were some adorable, microscale models of the Scottish wildlife found in the Cairngorms. Brick to the past have provided instructions so you can build your own Osprey, Deer, Capercaillie and Black Grouse.

Osprey are a bird of prey and returned from extinction within the UK to make their home in the Cairngorms.

Click for more instructions to make Scottish wildlife out of LEGO

Flitting hither and thither, the fantail always appears in a dither

The New Zealand fantail, or pīwakawaka in Te Reo (the language of the native Maori), is one of the cheekiest little birds you will ever meet. Beautifully recreated in LEGO by BrickMonkey MOCs, the fantail is known for its friendly ‘cheet cheet’ call and energetic flying antics. Smaller than a house sparrow, these audacious little guys flit around twittering and swooping within centimetres of your head if you find yourself outdoors in the native bush. The aptly named fantail is one of the most common and widely distributed native birds on the New Zealand mainland.

The dragon that still roams our earth today

The largest species of lizard that still roams the earth today is the Komodo dragon. This monster LEGO version, built by Dennis Qiu, is made from about 5500 bricks and sports a very lifelike menacing pose. It might surprise some to know that recently researchers have discovered that Komodo dragons can reproduce without mating ensuring a single isolated female can have male offspring and ensure the species continues. Dennis has used a lot of curved slopes and wedges to achieve this shapely, pose-able LEGO version of the Komodo.

A brave minifigure has volunteered to stand next to this beast to give a sense of its huge scale.

Dreams of summer in Tuscany

Picture it, Tuscany 1982. The sky is blue, the cypress trees are green and the sunflowers are in full bloom. Sandro Damiano has built a peaceful LEGO scene that is the perfect antidote to some of the post-apocalyptic creations we feature here on TBB. While technically this is not a complex build, the composition and colourful scene has been well crafted in a picture postcard style. I love the meandering stone path and the shapely cypress trees, while the balance of bright colours is ideal for this cheerful scene.

Nature’s ascending colour palette

The changing colour of trees and their foliage can be diverse in Alpine areas, usually making the long, steep hike with a camera well worth the effort. Inspired while hiking in the Swiss Alps, Emil Lidé has built an artistic impression of these natural foliage changes by creating a beautiful slice of LEGO mountain. As the eye ascends his build from left to right, the colours change from vibrant green and lime though the autumnal palatte of oranges and reddish browns to peak at the stark, snowy summit.

We have blogged previous builds by Emil, showcasing his skill at capturing the natural world in LEGO. Have a look at his polluted ocean, Krakatoa’s volcanic eruption, changing seasons in microscale and fall in the Avalonian countryside.

Mankind’s gift to the seas from which life arose

It’s easy for LEGO builders to focus on the happy, shiny world of little plastic people surrounded by fake plastic trees, but builder Emil Lidé doesn’t shy away from making a powerful statement with his latest LEGO creation. Did you know that every piece of plastic ever produced (yes, including all the ABS that LEGO is made from) will continue to exist indefinitely in the environment? That there is a floating patch of trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean hundreds of thousands of square kilometers in size? Emil uses LEGO as a medium to remind us of the impact that our modern lives have on the planet we live on.

As much as I love the message that Emil’s creation conveys, it’s also an excellent LEGO build on its own merits. The tranquil beach scene above the water contrasts harshly with the waste beneath the waves, from the usual tires and barrels to bicycles and even a washing machine.

Somewhere over Australia, rainbow birds fly

The Rainbow Lorikeet is a species of parrot found in Australia — unmistakable with its bright red beak and colourful plumage. Gabriel Thomson has built this fantastic LEGO rendition, complete with a tree branch to perch upon, and a little avian friend, a Superb Wren. I love the bright blue plumage of the Wren, a display of colour designed to attract the ladies in real life. Both birds have been well-shaped to give an accurate, natural appearance — no mean feat with plastic bricks instead of feathers.

If you want to see this model ‘in the brick’, it is on display in LEGO House — the new LEGO experience over in Billund, Denmark.

Birds in their little nests agree

Builder Josephine Monterosso once again demonstrates her flair for out-of-the-box building techniques with this beautiful bird’s nest. We’re used to seeing builds with no exposed studs, but this one seems to take the biscuit, lacking any normal connections whatsoever! Josephine jokes that “there are a few illegal techniques used here”. However, I don’t see any illegal techniques because this isn’t intended to be an official LEGO set.

We amateurs aren’t bound by same rules as LEGO’s designers. If we were, half the stuff you see here would never have existed. So be thankful that people like Josephine keep pushing the envelope on what’s possible with all these tiny little – and often highly flexible – plastic bricks.

A bloom opens, as the storm begins

One of the most prestigious contests in the LEGO community, the Iron Builder challenge, is once again underway. Grant Davis kicks off this round with a serene scene featuring a cute little bee and a lotus flower. The leaves are near perfect, but the flower looks more like Leontopodium alpinum than a lotus. Grant has apropriately titled his creation The Calm Before The Storm, and I cannot wait to see said storm bringing us more amazing creations to see.

We’re gonna need a bigger rolled-up newspaper...

I always love builds that use a specific part to great effect. Case in point is Takamichi Irie‘s utilization of the wings from an Ant Man LEGO set on his macro scale hornet. The shaping of the segmented body and precise colour blocking is expertly done. Not to mention the lovely combination of technic parts and robot arms for the legs.

The model appears to have a fair amount of articulation, allowing for some realistic poses. Couple that with some nicely presented photographs and these shots almost appear to be out of an entomology journal.

It’s time to flamenco with a flamingo

The word flamingo actually comes from the Spanish word flamenco, which came from the earlier Latin word flamma, meaning flame or fire. The name seems all the more apt for this LEGO Flamingo created by BrickBro given that it’s actually built from red bricks rather than pink. The posing of this bird is perfect, with one foot characteristically tucked up whilst the other wades through the shallow water. I love the dual purpose of the clear dish, which firstly holds the bird in a standing position, but also depicts a ripple in the water. Those stick legs look just as fragile as an actual flamingo’s legs.

This shapely bird has some clever, albeit illegal, techniques in the neck area, where the builder has used a short length of tubing to attach the tiles bottom-to-bottom. The model is built only from LEGO parts however, and stands surprisingly steady on that one little stick leg.