Tag Archives: Sculptures

This plant is my soil mate

When I look out my window today, there’s snow on the ground. It’s been a long, cold winter already, and I’m starting to really miss the color green. If the drab snows of winter are getting you down, too, here’s some welcome relief. Stilly Bricks collaborated with Jonathan Lopes to create a 45″ inch tall, 18″ diameter topiary wonder. It’s so massive that it required a metal bar through the stem to support the flowers, and even the vine has a metal tube running through it. From the brick-built pot and leaves to the varied flowers in the ball, this is one creation that should make any plastic-loving botanist smile.

If you like LEGO flowers (and really, who doesn’t?) then be sure to check our archives for more leafy goodness!

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Arvo brothers bring Robocop to life with LEGO – I’d buy that for a dollar!

If you haven’t heard of the Arvo Brothers before, they’re Ramon and Amador Alfaro Marcilla, a pair of Spanish builders who are known for truly amazing LEGO sculptures. Their latest effort pays tribute to the 1987 classic, RoboCop. Standing around 2 feet tall, this towering figure is a dead-on recreation of Peter Weller’s portrayal of the titular character and is filled with intricate and screen-accurate detailing.

The first thing that becomes apparent is that there’s a level of articulation built into this sculpture. The shoulders, elbow, and head can all be adjusted to create a variety of bad-ass poses. The next thing that you notice is the spectacular part usage. There are just a few LEGO studs exposed, enough to let you know what he’s made of, but so few that you’re still required to really lean in to be sure. Curved tiles and slopes are everywhere, smoothing out the shapes and creating a perfectly streamlined set of armor.

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When you have to be separated over the holidays

The holiday season has been a tough one this year. The COVID situation in the US means that I can’t be with all the people I care about, and every wintery milestone goes by with a hefty helping of separation. But, thanks to Allyson Gail I can at least share a wry bit of LEGO creativity that makes a good pun out of the whole deal. She’s once again taken the hard-to-repurpose brick separator and turned it into something special. This time it’s a holiday wreath that could easily go toe-to-toe with LEGO’s own offering.

You’d be forgiven if you thought this was just a clever arrangement of parts on a flat surface. But, if you look closely, you can see that all of the separators are actually connected by a hinge plate. That means that this creation can even go on a wall (if you hang it from a standard over-the-door wreath hook). And let’s also take a moment to enjoy the construction on that bow! The smooth lines and curves really play well with the texture of the separators.

My own collection of green brick separators is too small to duplicate this build myself, but maybe I can find some other holiday creation to reverse engineer. I’ll have some time on my hands, after all…

A huge step up from those stud shooter “play features” [Video]

Masters of LEGO Technic animations, builder duo Jason Allemann and Kristal (Collectively known as JK Brickworks) have unveiled an amazing animatronic archer. Styled after the Greek goddess of the hunt, Artemis, this charismatic sculpture features some lovely white drapery and an adorable deer in the background.

You’d be forgiven if you thought the archer would “just” pull back on her bow and then reset back to a “getting ready to fire” pose in an endless loop. But this statue goes well beyond those expectations by actually launching that arrow! Totally freaked me out the first time I saw it happen.

Want to know how it works? Check out the full video below to learn all about this creation and its construction!

If you like this creation, you’ll be equally amazed at the other builds from JK Brickworks that we’ve spotlighted!

More than your usual rubber-stamp build

Ah, bureaucracy. Nothing is quite like the teeth-grinding angst of shuffling papers and getting the right permits. There’s also nothing quite like this creation by Inthert. Making use of an unusual 2×3 modified LEGO plate as a basis, they’ve managed to stamp out something new. There are a lot of great techniques in play, from the white rubber band around the pen clip to the layered wall panels that make up the pages of the book. But the skill used in inverting the rubber stamp’s pattern onto the page is the real treat for me.

This build is part of the latest Iron Builder challenge. Check out our archives for more great creations from that competition.

Just a little messy

LEGO bricks are used to make stuff, sure. But when LEGO bricks are used to make stuff that makes stuff…that’s a different level of meta. SephiMoc FF7 has created some painting supplies that do indeed look ready to be applied to canvas. I like how they’ve used different building methods to show the pooling paint, but it’s the brushes that make me smile most. We’ve seen minifigure brooms and plumes as brush tips before, but this may be the first time I’ve seen both a banana and carrot in play as well. I do kind of feel bad for the table, though. That’s a lot of messy spillage to clean up.

If you’d like to see a different design for paint tubes, I found a gem in our archives.

A very heart-y tree

Spooky builds don’t have to be all black to get their point across. Anthony Wilson has created a LEGO-based human-tree hybrid called the Aortis Bloom that instead leans into the crimson side of the spectrum. The medically-inclined among us might not even find it creepy – the heart is just a biological necessity, after all. The twisting veins and arteries made from dinosaur tail elements may be a little disquieting, but they’re also very vital to good health. And the blood-red and dark-blue leaves suggest the flowing of oxygen through the system. I’m not sure what those little bits of “fruit” are supposed to represent, though. And just what is the tree sitting in? Dirt? Dried blood? And while really elegant looking, I think that table is actually evil, too. (Just trust me on that.)

If you’d like your October to be a bit more direct with the disquieting images, just take a scroll through our horror archives.

Alas, a fellow of infinite jest

Pardon the nonsensical title, but who can look at a skull-like this and not think of poor Yorick? Unfortunately, we used the quotation that I’m sure many of you are thinking of for a LEGO skeleton holding its own skull in 2006, forcing me to use the messy hacked up title that I did. That wasn’t the case for TBB alum Nick Jensen though, as he sculpted quite the smooth looking skull.

I don’t think I’d be wrong to call Nick the master of 1 to 1 LEGO weaponry, so it makes sense that he’s also skilled at recreating what happens to someone who faces down the wrong end of that weaponry! This LEGO skull is a great exemplar of what can be done with rounded and angled elements like slopes and wedges. I can’t really explain why, but I love the way the 3×4 triple curved wedges are held in place with 2×2 corner tiles to shape the sides of the forehead. The gold tooth is a nice touch too!

Art imitates marketing with this stellar Monkie Kid logo

I am a HUGE fan of the new Monkie Kid LEGO theme, with its bright colors and a marvelous mix of traditional and sci-fi elements. It looks like I’m not the only fan, based on this free-standing Monkie Kid logo by Noel Mallet which perfectly re-creates the vertical logo on the side of the packaging, and includes both a large version of the Monkey King’s staff and a place for the Monkie Kid Minifig… all built onto a black and red base. Check out our Monkie Kid archives for more.

This harp plucks at our heartstrings

Ten minutes ago if you would have told me a LEGO baroque harp would have been the best thing I’ve seen all day, I’d respond with “you must be hitting the nipperkin”, or some other clever 17th-century phrase denoting my disbelief. Now ten minutes have passed and here we are. This is pretty much the best thing I’ve seen all day. It comes from a builder aptly named Vincent’s LEGO Creation. I’m in awe of the intricate detailing, the filigree, which is nearly entirely monochromatic. To see this in person would certainly be a sight to behold. It conjures up images of fancy lords in pantaloons and powdered wigs, ladies in hoop skirts and heaving bosoms, and both with questionable grooming practices. No, it’s true! I’ve read books on the matter. You don’t want to know! Anyway, this is a thing of beauty.

If only we had more photos, we’d feature multiple shots of this from every angle. But for now, we have but this one image and the hope that we’ll see more creations from this builder again soon.

Storage just overflowing with bricks

Recently LEGO announced a collaboration with IKEA to produce some new storage solutions. They won’t be available to the masses until October 1st, but Brothers Brick contributor and LEGO Masters US competitor Flynn DeMarco and his partner Richard Board, collectively known as TrickyBricks, had a chance to try them out early. Using the largest box as a base, they’ve built a breathtaking palace of white and transparent light blues. I’m particularly fond of the crests formed from Legends of Chima Wings and Nexo Knight shields, and the repeated use of trophy statues help create a sense of vast scale. Also, check out that “studs to the side” inlaid mosaic in the central archway. The varied shades of blue and clear plate really unify the color choices of the whole creation.

But what really caught my eye was the way they didn’t just use the box lid as a base. By adding waterfalls of blue brick to the lower section, they created a great visual pun of “overflowing LEGO storage bins” – a common lament in my household. I’m not sure things are actually useful as a storage solution at this point…but I don’t think anyone will be complaining about that.

Part wild cat, part bird of prey, this sculpture is stunning

Some LEGO creations look more like what you traditionally think of as art than others. Large scale sculptures are a good example of this, and Ekow Nimako’s are my favourite LEGO sculptures, and his latest piece is no exception. Part hawk, part Lynx, this Griffyx cub is all beauty.

While this isn’t the first time The Brothers Brick has shared one of Ekow’s creations, this is the first one that I’ve had the pleasure of writing about. And like Lino before me, I’m having a hard time picking my jaw up off the floor and finding the right words. LEGO sculptures are so often made up of the easier-to-acquire-in-mass-quantities bricks, most notably the most basic of all LEGO elements, the 2×4 brick. But Ekow’s palette includes a much more vast array of shapes and sizes of LEGO pieces. In what I can only imagine is a ridiculously thoughtful process, he’s able to craft the best, most organic-looking brick-built shapes I’ve ever seen.

Take the Griffyx. Just by looking at it, you can feel the way it’s stretching its neck as if it just woke up and it’s loosening up its muscles. You can see the flick of its tail, as it whips back and forth. The fur looks soft to the touch and the wings – expertly engineered out of smaller chima wings – look primed and ready to take flight. I don’t get those same strong sensations from other brick-built sculptures, only Ekow’s. Will my editors allow me to go as far as to say he’s the greatest LEGO sculpture of our time? Nothing against all the other brilliant brick artists out there, but Ekow is just rewriting the game.