Tag Archives: Spring

How to wring iron elegance from unlikely elements [Building Techniques]

In celebration of spring’s arrival, Flatland Brick shares a charming LEGO build of a gardener tending to the season’s first blooms. The real star of this scene is the wrought iron bench. The builder draws on some clever parts for the ornate metalwork, such as umbrellas for the armrests, minifig hands for the rear legs, and a samurai headpiece for the back. The cleverest techniques are hidden until you flip the build around.

Link treads are used to hold the wooden slats in place at a subtle angle. They also offer connection points for the antennae that hold up the horns! LEGO kicked off the trend of finding unusual black elements to use as wrought iron in the earliest modulars, turning screwdrivers, harpoons, and skeleton feet into railings. Flatland Brick shows how much room there is to innovate, especially with parts like the tank treads that offer unconventional anchor points.

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Bringing new life to old parts

Spring is swiftly approaching, and in celebration, Jonas Kramm and Martin Gebert built a sweet LEGO garden. It’s lovely enough on first glance, but take a closer look and you’ll be even more enamored! Fun parts usage abounds, including fences that only came in a couple 1987 Fabuland sets in this color (3659 Playground and 3675 General Store). More rare Fabuland parts make an appearance in the little gazebo (yellow decorative arches), and nestled in the cart (the earth-orange “carpet beater”). Speaking of the cart, a Duplo crossbow sneaks in as the tongue. Other notable rarities include the medium-blue barrel, only appearing in one set (4579 Ice Ramp Racers Freeze and Chill), the aspen/birch trunks, which only came in 41164 Disney Frozen Enchanted Treehouse, and the Series 13 Collectible Minifigure Carpenter’s saw. Scala even makes an appearance with the flowers centered in the Sonic rings at the top of the gazebo! The more you look, the more you find!

Harbinger of spring beckons forth flowers of LEGO

Now, I know we’ve already seen a lot of builds on here from Patrick Biggs. But you have to admit, the guy has definitely mastered the antlered LEGO beast. And his most recent, the Spirit of Spring, is no exception. As in his past work, Patrick displays his prowess with tooth and tail pieces in shaping this fauna of choice. They’re used everywhere: in the face, torso, feet, legs, and antlers. But I’m especially impressed by his use of this very awkward tail part for shaping the Spirit’s tail. I’ve never seen such flow with such a clunky piece! Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel the urge to step outside and into the sun.

Springtime in Weydale Valley

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have four distinct seasons. We have a rainy winter and also a rainy spring. We have summer, which this year fell on a Tuesday and we have Spider Season. With that said, I may consider moving to Weydale Valley. Kevin Wu makes the place seem absolutely enchanting with this stunning LEGO layout. Everything from the bubbling brook to the Tudor-style mill just screams peace and serenity. Or rather it whispers peace and serenity. You can forgive the mix-up as spider season is coming upon us here in the Pacific Northwest and there’s a lot of screaming involved, as you can imagine. Anyway, I love the techniques used on the bridge and the roof of the mill. The deer, the chicken, even the little pig is chock full of charm and tranquility.

A rustic cottage just in time for spring

We’ve had a couple of warm days here in New York already, which means the time for long drives on scenic country routes is here. Eero Okkonen’s LEGO cottage model is just the type of home one would encounter on such excursions.

What I love most about this brick-built dwelling is its imagined silo incorporated into the home’s build; you can find such a design in the real world. Okkonen utilizes many 1×2 plates in the formation of the dome topping his silo, while the house as a whole utilizes various bricks and differing slope pieces in varying configurations. The stone foundation of the home is rendered with ingots, slopes, bricks, and round-bottomed 2x2s in light grey, which complement the popping green evergreen trees Okkonen primarily fashions out of flower stem elements. Overall this is a timely model for the shifting of seasons.

When butterflies flutter without care, spring must be in the air

It’s been a long and bitter winter for those of us in the northern hemisphere. But the official start of spring is just a month away and signs of this most rejuvenating of seasonal changes are already in the air. Dario Minisini has an idea of what awaits us with a colorful scene featuring two of spring’s dramatis personae, the butterfly and seeding dandelion. The windborne seedlings add a sense of movement to the creation, almost photo-like in its composition. For the spring people out there, there’s no doubt this bright image will have them hankering for more.

An Orchid for Spring

Easter is here! For many of us, that means we are bouncing right into spring; one hop closer to summer! Alongside all the festive bunnies and eggs, we’re beginning to see flowers poke their heads out to say hello to a new world. One of the most beautiful and delicate groups of flowers are those we love to have inside our homes: the Orchids. In addition to bringing life and happiness to a room, they can be a lovely conversation starter! White orchids, for example, are a symbol of innocence, purity, and elegance. And now James zhan has engineered one that isn’t even high-maintanence! He used some incredibly clever building techniques to create this gorgeous plant.

Click to see more photos of this work of art!