As a kid, I developed a mild obsession with prehistoric creatures, especially dinosaurs, and loved looking for fossils along limestone bluffs. I found a tiny trilobite or two, and a few segments of worms, but never anything cool like a chambered nautilus. That would have been awesome, since all the pictures of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs had nautiloids, too. And then one day I discovered that animals of that sort still exist, and look almost the exact same as they did 200 million years ago. Mind blown! And then I see that Jonas Kramm built one out of LEGO bricks, and, as is usual for Jonas, the build is amazing. But he also did it with only 101 pieces. Mind blown again.

It’s a study in concise use of LEGO elements since there is no wiggle room to get complex and piece heavy; every element has to be carefully considered, like a DUPLO plant and a pearl of great price in the oyster. The colors are spot-on, and the cephalopod eye staring at me is perfect. My only complaint is that the shell of Jonas’ model does not exhibit a precise logarithmic growth spiral. Come on, Jonas! Why can’t you do the impossible with just 101 LEGO bricks?