You’ll need perfect timing to get past the snapping jaws of the lovely and deadly piranha plant unless you’ve got a power-up or an extra life up your sleeves. This pixel-perfect model of the most deadly of deciduous plants from the world of Mario, by ZiO Chao is packed with great details. From the gently curving leaves to the rounded Mario-munching mouth to that shiny pink tongue.
Check out the poseable stem on this beauty!
Nature has been manipulated by human hands for centuries. While certainly nature always finds a way, seemingly so do we humans. Simon Liu’s LEGO bonsai model which was entered into Brickset’s bonsai contest, inspires the philosophical mind to produce musings on the relationship between humankind and nature.
Simon’s model is visually striking and compositionally different from most bonsais I have seen so far. Instead of the tree growing out of the typical rectangular pot, this plant is growing out of the palm of a grey hand fashioned out of a number of small elements including 2×2 tiles, diamond shields, and ingots. The bonsai itself is shaped by a number of wiry black elements most notably the whip and twig pieces. The flowers featured on this build are rendered by baby minifigure heads – an unusual but effective choice. This handy bonsai rests on a sea of 1×2 trans-clear blue bricks, which was a nice touch. For whatever reason this model reminds me of the film WALL-E, with the robot’s little hand carrying the plant – the key to our planet.
There’s something special about a family building LEGO together. Dave Kaleta and son, Elliot, collaborated on this slice-of-life diorama. It was a gift to Elliot’s grandmother, celebrating one of their favorite shared activities: watering the plants in her back yard together. The quality of the build is stunning, but the sentiment behind this is even more touching. But…since this is a LEGO-focused site, let’s take a moment to appreciate the offset between the tiles in the patio, the use of fences in the chairs, and the expressive characters. Even the watering can is a tiny bit of joy.
If you like this collaboration between Dave and Elliot, you’ll be amazed at the work they did together on their Alphabet fleet.
I’m loving everything about this other-worldly scene by captainsmog! From the satisfyingly shaped spaceship that is reminiscent of the Rocket Boy LEGO Collectable Minifigure, to the cleverly crafted plants. The creative parts usage is rad and makes me want to go dig through my oddball parts. I particularly love the claw elements used to make the wavy red and orange… thingy? Genius!
This builder is not a stranger to TBB. He built one of the first tensegrity builds we featured.
In the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Millennium Falcon lands on a coast, somewhere on the planet Savareen. The view of the ocean behind the Falcon is a brief, peaceful rest stop for the weary yet indomitable ship. While its stay is temporary in the 2018 film, we now have new vision of the Millennium Falcon as a house. Lmcpicture‘s creation makes the most recognizable parts of the Millennium Falcon livable. The starboard side airlock serves as the entrance, which leads either to a bedroom or a back deck. The blue 1×4 tiles are visual references to the beaming blasts on the original ship’s rear drive units.
Read on to see the interior of this tastefully appointed spaceship
Plants are nature’s greatest display. The cathartic feeling of seeing a tiny jungle is alive in Dave Kaleta’s LEGO plant box. Using the new IKEA BYGGLEK, Dave fills the inside of the base with some loose brown bricks, representing the soil. The small garden is made of green studs, slope-shaped bricks, and leaf elements. The real life plants, accompanied in the photo, contrast the plastic counterpart.
Dave’s 26x18x12cm BYGGLEK is a picturesque centerpiece mirroring the realism of indoor plants. The installation of a grow light gives some hope that these babies will sprout into trees. We’re just kidding. Notice the three button elements on the front of the BYGGLEK planter. They symbolize various power functions (left to right): bright light, water, and night mode (possibly a dimmer). This smart build puts the theme of sustainability at the forefront as we’ve seen in recent years from The LEGO Group, as they’ve rolled out plant-based elements (40320) in an effort to lower their carbon footprint. We’re digging this!
Brick built plants can help make bring a LEGO scene to life. And when the plants are the focus of a diorama, that scene is full of life, such as this collaboration between Emil Lidé and Bartu. This diorama shows four different sections of the amazon jungle that work together as one scene or as the same scene through time.
Through the series, these builders display a dried riverbed, which is overtaken by a fully grown jungle, then destroyed so someone can mine for gold before the jungle finally begins to retake the land. The vegetation throughout the build is fantastic, so much so that it is difficult to call out any one part! The colour choices are also on point, from the vibrant mixture of greens in the thriving jungle to the more drab dark tan and olive in the mining scene. Not to be overlooked is the subtle landscaping, from the smooth sides of the bricks making up the wet river bed to the slope made up of wedge plates showing how the miners have dug into the earth.
LEGO has been doing their part to make their bricks more of a renewable resource in recent years. Builder Green Axles takes things a step further with Nature taketh, nature giveth, showing us a full cycle of plastic life. At first glance all you may see are the vibrant colors of undersea plant life. There are clever techniques and creative part usage everywhere you look. I like the yellow dinosaur tails topped with Technic Bushings, orange Bionicle shooter halves, and dark turquoise Technic ball sockets.
Look again and you’ll spot a more somber inclusion in the form of the skeletal remains of a diver. Their suit has rotted away, leaving only a collar and a bit of brown cloth. The use of tan Technic gears for the teeth provide a visual context to the bleached bones.
It’s a somber scene, to be sure. But also a sign that life, uh, finds a way.
2020 has been a whirlwind so far. It started off with Australia on fire, then the Coronavirus shuttered the entire globe indoors, the stock market took us to a time when I had other haircut choices and now we have murder hornets. And it’s only May. If this LEGO creation by Eric T is any indicator we’ll be seeing man-eating plants later this month followed closely by taser sharks and then slaughter rabbits. All kidding aside though, this toothy plant is pretty neat. Eric tells us it comes from a Japanese anime called Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? I imagine it would depend on the dungeon. Dungeon Girls…either that’s a cult pulp movie or the forecast for June.
Builder Frost takes us to a forbidden planet where the plants have a mind of their own. We’ve featured some of his terrific space builds here in the past and he doesn’t disappoint in this latest offering. While this couldn’t be considered “Classic Space” in the LEGO sense, it exudes a wonderfully vintage vibe.
I’m a big fan of old science fiction pulp novels. Their covers, painted in lurid colors, have a certain take on weird fantasy visuals that doesn’t really exist anymore. This model really captures the feeling of those old covers with its oversized alien-looking, tentacled plants. I appreciate the thoughtful use of transparent pieces that really help sell the bizarreness of the landscape. In particular, I’m quite fond of the blue and purple lighting pieces and the pink half domes. The decision to use the Flash Gordon style suits on the space travelers further drives home the whole 1940s look.
Not satisfied with a purely stationary LEGO creation, Frost has built animation into it and as an added bonus, the large green egg-like centers glow under blacklight. As you can see in this video, the large tentacled plants move and sway, beckoning our heroes ever closer to what may be a gruesome fate.
In a world where human influence seems more and more destructive, it can sometimes feel like there is less hope for life every passing day. Patrick Biggs tackles this topic with an expressive character that seems to embody wild plant life. Now, we should not oversimplify the ecological crisis to just deforestation, but as a symbol this creation is quite powerful. It may be a touch ironic to talk about such problems through plastic bricks, but if it makes just one person consider their carbon or plastic footprint, the world is better for it.
The character’s leafy face has a perfect shape and an expression achieved by two simple pin holes. The body has much more detail than I would expect from brown. But the character would not have the impact it does without the burnt stump it is presented on, as well as the flowers sprouting from said stump under the gardener’s influence.
Realism in LEGO sculpture is a difficult thing to achieve, and when it’s done right it can be amazing. Barbara Hoel has created a tiny slice of (plant) life that feels very real indeed with Small Planter on Books. The human-scaled books each have their own unique style and size. The variations in the spines make this feel like a real pile of tomes, and not just a repeated build in different colors.
The planter and greenery really are what really caught my eye, though. Seeing a plant that is, perhaps, not the perfect specimen of health is pretty unusual. One side of the plant looks like it’s been kept out of the sun a little too long, while other parts are thriving. Unicorn horns and transparent green ball joints represent new growth. Rare blue capes and technic gears make for some vibrant flowering bodies and buds.
There is a detail view of an alternate build of the planter in Barbara’s photostream. I recommend checking it out for even more great botanical creations.