If you live in North America, then you’ve probably seen a few Chili’s Restaurants around town as noted by their unique logo with the chili pepper. Brian Lyles has captured the look of the restaurant and built a full interior complete with a bar and kitchen.
Many Cafe Corner style buildings begin to look the same after a while, but not this one by Barney Main (SlyOwl). I haven’t seen many dilapidated buildings, so it’s always refreshing to see something so old (as in run down). The bars on the windows are a great effect despite being simulated from tape. The mannequins inside are just creepy, and they probably come to life at night.
One of the advantages of cover version LEGO is that it allows us to blog older models with fresh pictures. Aaron Dayman recently posted his variants on Adam Grabowski’s (misterzumbi) motorbike from the 1988 film Akira. Adam’s version is many years old as are my instructions for it (much older than the 1×1 brick with stud on side).
And it’s entirely possible this was blogged when it was new but that’s a long, long time ago.
I’ve got a real soft spot for realistic town dioramas and this LEGO version of a Norwegian city center has realism in spades. Built by members of Brikkelauget it’s had pride of place in the window of Riktige Leker toy shop in Oslo. The walls of the metro are a particular highlight for me. If I were a minifig I’d be pretty happy to live there.
Immediately after the start of the Normandy invasion on D-Day, Allied forces began a battle for the strategic port city of Cherbourg that lasted more than three weeks. My diorama highlights the aftermath of the battle, when townspeople begin emerging from the rubble, while Free French partisans hoist the Tricolour above their safe house.
The diorama features an updated version of my M4 Sherman tank:
For more photos, check out the photoset on Flickr, and you’ll be able to see this in person in just over a month as part of the Operation Bricklord collaborative display at BrickCon 2010.
Better late than never. Nate Brill (Shuppiluliumas) and PennLUG debuted this wonderful container ship and port at BrickFair2010. RAILBRICKS have already written at great length about it so I’ll spare the details here but I will add that I’m a huge fan of the old rundown port next to the much more modern one. Lovely!
Dave Sterling shows dark red some modular love with this lovely city corner building, which illustrates the kinds of realistic, repeated patterns you can achieve by using many of the same parts.
Click through to MOCPages to see this beauty light up the night.
Ray Kwan builds the Hong Kong Coliseum complete with working lights and an illuminated interior. I recommend checking out the gallery for shots of all corners of the building, which features some nice modern city details.
Marcos Bessa‘s Ancient Lady’s Museum is an astounding work of art and quality. The front of the museum accurately captures the Greek facade architectural look, where advanced techniques are used to create subtle offsets and detailed ornamentation. The dark blue also adds a tone of establishment to the building.
What amazes me the most is the extravagant interior of the museum, which features the best Lego circular staircase I have ever seen. This is the most difficult type of staircase to build in minifig scale. Not only does Marcos succeed with the form, he also adds ornate railings and a carpet pattern. This is the work of a truly skilled builder.
Matija Grguric made some quality buildings for the City Diorama at Kockice Expo 2010. The brightly colored structures really added a liveliness to the city. I recommend checking out the diorama by clicking on the picture below.
With my return from a travel and jetlag induced hiatus I’m going to break the chain of large MOCs to go to the other extreme. Brian Cash (The Magic Tuba Pixie) reinterprets a Glatorian mask to create a lovely micro-scale submarine. A good dose of creative parts application can replace a lot of bricks.
Between lack of LEGO time and an unsorted collection, I’ve been struggling with what to build for BrickCon — especially Big in Japan. I wanted to build Tokyo Tower, a big Shinto shrine, Ginza, and the National Diet Building. My solution to build them all was to go microscale.
Naturally, every Tokyo skyline needs a rampaging Godzilla-style monster, or kaiju. From the moment I saw the alien in the LEGO Star Wars set Freeco Speeder, I couldn’t help but thinking he would make a great kaiju.
This was my first attempt at following the Micropolis Micro City Standard and gives me an opportunity to enter Reasonably Clever’s 2nd Micropolis Building Challenge (for which the deadline has been extended to July 24th, by the way).
After I’d finished six standard Micropolis modules for Tokyo, I experimented with some non-standard, non-urban modules, and ended up with Himeji Castle.
See more pictures in my photoset on Flickr.
