We all know what Swedish houses look inside like (thank you, Ikea), but what about the exterior? Emil Lidé hones his microscale building skills with this lovely traditional Swedish cottage. We’ve already seen these brilliant trees in his previous set of sketches, however this house steals the show. Actually, there’s not much to describe besides the particular Scandinavian style, which the diorama is full of. And some huge boulders in the garden complete this land property especially well!
This adorable vignette by Cecilie Fritzvold first made me laugh. Then, I looked at the local forecast for tonight and burst into tears. Although, this is a perfect way to build a car without actually building one. Finally, nobody is arguing whether it should be 5 or 6 studs wide! Oh, and just wait for this guy’s face when he finds out this is not his car!
Gabe Umland‘s latest creation is a beautiful LEGO flower shop. The technique used for the clapperboard walls is interesting — 1×1 bricks built sideways and slightly skewed to create a slope effect. It looks great here in sand green, particularly against the brown of the building’s frame and the porch. In fact, one of the things that makes this model appeal is the overall color balance of the image — with the tan of the roof reflected by the little delivery truck. Often LEGO creations can be a riot of color, but sometimes it’s nice to see something a little more restrained. You wouldn’t describe the color scheme here as dull or flat, but it’s certainly classy.
The build was apparently inspired by an actual flower shop Gabe’s grandfather owned. That explains some of the painstaking attention to detail. Don’t miss the interior and all the ways Gabe has used different plant pieces to create the wide variety of flora on sale…
Finnish builder Heikki Mattila has built the essential Finnish social space from LEGO — a wonderfully tranquil sauna. Paneled in wood with a stove heating up the rocks, I like to imagine that this sauna sits in a little cabin by a lake, the cool water ready to embrace one’s fiery body.
One of my favorite details is actually outside the sauna — a birch tree with a bird box glimpsed through the window.
…with the sound of sub-standard housing. According to the builder, simply bricking it, this LEGO model represents a favela, one of the core urban slums of Brazil, where the firetrap structures stack up the hillside like a precarious house of cards, ready to collapse at the mere mention of a disaster. But scratch your head: it also kinda looks like one of those central Italian castle towns, carved into the hillside centuries ago and still struggling to catch up with the times. And the University of Colorado in Boulder is well known for its cluster of red Spanish tile roofs. So is it a slum? Is it a castle town? Is it a prestigious campus nestled at the foot of the mountains? Or is it… a spaceship? Depends on who you ask!
Minifigs residing in a city of LEGO modular buildings can purchase and repair their bicycles at this custom modular bike shop built by Łukasz Libuszewski. Interesting colors and unusual use of elements define the series as much as the modular standard, and there is no shortage of this throughout the build.
Łukasz added an elevator to his bike shop modular, and looking in the center column with gear racks on either side and a janitor standing slightly elevated, it appears to be functional.
View more shots of Łukasz’s building on Flickr.
The best thing about LEGO sets in the 1990s? Well, ok, besides all the awesome themes likes Ice Planet and Dragon Knights. Every LEGO set came with a miniature catalog, either a folded single page or a half-sheet booklet, and besides just advertising new sets, they included dioramas showing all the sets from a theme in action on a cool bit of scenery, like this Castle diorama from 1995. Builder Pixel Fox is creating some amazing images that bring back that nostalgia. LEGO catalogs need to do this again.
Last week we got our first look at 2017’s City sets, starting with the full Police line. Today we get a look at what the civilians in LEGO City will be doing next year, and it seems they’re rather active with aerial acrobatics, rally racing, deep sea fishing, and more. And, of course, to feed all that sporting, there’s a food truck serving fresh pizza. Check out all 9 new sets below!
Still haven’t picked up this year’s City sets? Amazon has many of them are on sale just in time for the holidays, such as 60051 High-speed Passenger Train for 30% off and 60097 City Square for 23% off.
What’s not to love about a big American tow truck? EROL‘s latest vehicle is a beefy behemoth of a truck, inspired by the official LEGO Tow Truck set 60056. The shift to “7-studs-wide” rather than the “6-wide” standard gives the builder plenty of space to play with, adding smart detailing and shapes whilst preserving the interesting color scheme of the original set.
I really enjoy when builders take on this sort of challenge. Getting the balance right is tricky — using your fan building tricks and wide brick collection, but not straying so far from the source material that it becomes unrecognisable. The air horns on the cab roof, the addition of chrome exhausts, the functional-looking chunkiness of the tow bar itself — this is a great reimagination of a set.
Builder LEGO 7 brings us a beautifully modern two-gate airport. Look closely, because this model is impressively large and very thoroughly detailed with all the hustle and bustle of real aviation.
The first minifigure-scale LEGO airport, 6392 Airport, released in 1985. Since then LEGO has produced about a half dozen more, most recently 60104 Airport Passenger Terminal. They’ve all been fantastic sets, and the planes have grown larger and more detailed with each iteration. However, they all suffer from one flaw: the terminals just aren’t big enough, even for very small airports, and none includes a jet bridge. Not so with LEGO 7’s stunning creation, which features not one but two jet bridges so jetsetters in this airport don’t have to step outside to disembark. Check out more photos below.
For any minifigs on the run after stealing $40,000 from their boss, there is finally some good news! The members of Brickstons Group (Pepi Blas, Emiliano Martinez, Jose Luis de la Fuente, and Alfonso Abeger) have created a LEGO Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film Psycho and it is open for business. What a perfect place to lay low and avoid the police.
The builders based the design of the house off of the original drawings used in the film. And the Brickstons Group even built furniture for each motel room and the office. I wonder if there are any taxidermied birds in there? Of course, the recreated shower scene in black and white looks great. Check out even more photos of this great build on Flickr.
Here’s the lineup of City sets for the first wave of 2017. Police are a surefire seller for the City theme, so it’s no surprise that the first wave revealed focuses exclusively on law enforcement. 2017 will bring everything from ATVs to helicopters to mobile command centers for the world’s most crime-ridden city. We don’t have the prices yet, but it won’t be too hard to guess from the part counts. Check out all 8 sets below.
