This sweet ride by Michael Kanemoto is looking mean in a way only classic muscle cars can. The black beast is a LEGO Technic scale recreation of Mad Max’s 1973 Ford Falcon, which is of course heavily modified and redubbed the V8 Interceptor. It appears here as it did in 1982’s Mad Max 2: Road Warrior, with massive fuel tanks mounted in back.
Up-and-coming builder Aubrey Beelen presents a detailed cyberpunk street scene with a food vendor. While the scenery appears desolate, it is colourful and packed with stickers that enhance its futuristic nature. The fun, rugged minifigures also reflect the genre of the build alongside the vibrant speeder. In addition to a detailed exterior, the food stall includes cooking appliances and Power Functions LED lights that brighten up the kitchen.
With Hollywood shut down and most movie theaters closed worldwide due to COVID-19, new entertainment has been a little harder to come by lately. I’m not sure our current global pandemic was the inspiration behind Eli Willsea‘s scene, but we find the protagonist (played here by the Lucas minifig from the LEGO Stranger Things set) fishing for DVDs from what is apparently the very last Redbox to have survived an apocalypse that turned the water a toxic green.
Eli’s build features a slew of wonderful details, such as the rebar or conduits sticking out of the elevated roadway and electrical bits on the power pole built from pieces like a rollerskate (the new universal greeble piece). Eli makes good use of printed pieces on the Redbox machine, including old-school LEGO Space 1×1 button panels and window panes from the TARDIS in the LEGO Ideas Doctor Who set.
Not every image of the post-apocalypse world has to be Mad Max-inspired bleakness. Builder Mountain Hobbit brings a bit of light and color to the wasteland two thousand years from now with their build New Babel. Graceful, densely packed microscale towers make for a great place to spend the end times. I particularly like the use of purple modified angle tiles in the exterior wall. Also neat is seeing the backside of the yellow tooth plates in the towers. And it may be a drab grey, but the use of a stud shooter housings in the domed towers is clever.
Yeah, this looks like a great place to visit. But being post-apocalypse and all, you might not want to live there. If you’re looking for other scenic destinations, be sure to check out some of Mountain Hobbit’s other idyllic builds.
As we learned on the first US season of LEGO Masters earlier this year, LEGO creations are best when they tell a story that is easily understood. Keith Reed has been setting up a story through his series of apocalyptic modular buildings, and the plot has become very clear with his latest scene. Here you see a family trying to escape their own impending doom, their car broken down, taking refuge in the back of a Nuka Cola truck.
They figured they’d be safe there for the night, but unbeknownst to them, they’d almost made it to the shelter. Turns out they didn’t make it. Whatever they were running from caught up with them that night, and they died right there, baby in arms.
Earlier this year, back when we could still gather in groups, this model was on display at Bricks Cascade. Keith was standing proudly beside his creation engaging with the public. A twelve year old kid came up and described the scene to his dad. Keith was floored at how well the intended story came across — I thought he might cry.
With the world seemingly ending at the moment, Keith Reed took the opportunity to recreate what the iconic Green Grocer will look like once the apocalypse actually does come. And that look is decaying, faded, rusty, decrepit, crumbling, and rot. That many words are needed to describe just how many different ways this building is falling apart.
The signature sand green walls have faded to olive green. The siding of the building has eroded, the horizontal slats in behind are expertly represented by the underused side of masonry bricks. Huge chunks of the walls have fallen off and the windows are smashed. The fire escape and awning frame are rusted. The rooftops are pock-marked. Nature has started to reclaim the building, with plants sprouting through the sidewalk and vines climbing inside. But one man remains a stalwart holdout, down to his last square of toilet paper.
It’s not clear whether LEGO builder Shannon Sproule‘s roving habitat is meant for use on a distant planet or the apocalyptic future of our own, but this repurposed APC looks like it’s seen it all. Shannon says it used to have a turret, but that’s now been replaced with a hab module and comms equipment. The vehicle is battered and worn, with Shannon doing a great job with the weathering thanks to introducing some brighter colors like dark orange and coral. The simple digital background also gives the presentation that sense of place, which goes a long way in telling the APC’s story.
Ruins are hard to do convincingly in LEGO form. I think this is partly to do with the rigid grid of the brick, which does not lend itself to organic shapes of decay, and partly to do with the visual incoherence that often results from too many shapes and colors in the same visual field. Even though we are a far cry from the primary/white/black color days at the dawn of the LEGO brick, there is still a limit to the shades and hues that can be used to differentiate areas of a build and maintain something that still makes sense to the brain. That being said, this post-apocalyptic build by Peter Ilmrud does a good job of showing buildings that look both coherent and ruined, covered with verdant vegetation, while a menacing black ship prowls air above the streets.
I’m fairly certain that nearly every botanical element produced by LEGO appears in the build somewhere, from vines to leaves to leafy vines to seaweed and more. Even the sprues from the three-leaved plants appear as vines. It is a lush city. The bad guys (you can tell they’re bad because they wear black) are aliens trying to kill the humans to harvest natural resources (like Avatar in reverse), and their ships are filled with greebles, especially ones from the Batman pack. Of course, with evil aliens on the prowl, one of the poor kids has lost his teddy bear crossing a street. Kids, I tell you what. Good thing they’re cute.
When I first saw this post-apocalyptic build by SweStar one little word came to mind but, wouldn’t you know, I plum forgot it just as I was about to mention it. It’s a little one syllable nonsense word. Gosh darn it, the ol’ noggin isn’t what it used to be! Let’s see, there is a rather leggy mech, a black cat, a garbage can on fire and a mysterious figure with a papoose but none of that is helpful, really. I swear, I’d forget the nose on my face if it wasn’t right in front of me! Sometimes I walk into a room and forget why I did it. Has that ever happened to you? What the heck was the little word I was thinking of? Oh, well. With my luck, It’ll probably come to me just as I’m falling asleep. I hate it when that happens!
What are your Halloween plans? Mine are to buy a bag of candy for trick-or-treaters, stay in and watch a few schlock horror flicks, but leave the lights out in hopes trick-or-treaters won’t actually come so as to have all the delicious candy for myself. What? Don’t judge. I like schlock horror flicks. It would seem Pieter Dennison has some schlock Halloween plans of his own that involve surviving the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Shipping containers make great zombie deterrents (right up until they learn to climb) and a rickety ladder serves as optimum transport between the two of them. I can’t see how that can go badly. Cattails (nature’s corndogs) populate the center area while the power lines in the background are an excellent touch. If this layout was a movie, I’d totally watch it with a bag of candy. Trick-or-treaters be damned!
“The End” clearly isn’t the end of fantastic LEGO creations in this post-apocalyptic build by SweStar. Using more than 50 round tiles as roadway, dozens of clear slopes and a random assortment of brick debris, SweStar is able to pull of the look of mankind’s dreary future. I found the use of slopes as broken windows to be very insightful and realistic. The red truck frame also stuck out due to it being one of the oldest LEGO accessories in this build, a literal relic from another time.
Many prefer the safety, practicality and reliability of a Toyota while driving to work. Others find that the versatile design and all-wheel drive of a Subaru speaks to their rugged sensibilities while exploring the great outdoors. Some, with greater means, may enjoy the sense of dignified luxury that a Lexus can provide. Chris Perron’s Gyrobike, on the other hand, is none of these.
Because when your name is Buzzsaw and you’re sporting a post-apocalyptic mohawk, you ain’t got time for dignified luxury, Jack! You’re all about rippin’ the road and raisin’ hell! Based on the wild concept designs of artist Calum Alexander Watt, this beast, like the Subaru, is also all-wheel drive. Meaning…it is all wheel and not much else. Can it pick up the kiddos from school? Sorry, rugrats, get your own damn ride! Can it get groceries at the local supermarket? Heck no! This Gyrobike is designed for crushing groceries! And heads, probably.