Tag Archives: trees

Bring in the Lunar New Year with this gorgeous (and huge!) LEGO apricot blossom tree

The last time Khang Huynh and Ky Duy Phong teamed up, they built one of the most impressive creations to feature on this website last year. With the Lunar New Year – or Tet, in their native Vietnam – coming up, these builders have joined forces again to create this suitably seasonal affair! It’s a colossal apricot blossom tree, symbolising good luck, good health, wealth, happiness and love in the new year. At the same time, this creation in particular symbolises just how talented Khang and Ky are! The large scale means some parts can be put to clever uses. A bunch of green swords are perfect for blades of grass, and the butterfly at the top uses wings re-purposed from an Avatar set.

Chậu Mai

This tree stump is very much still in the game

Sometimes a LEGO build doesn’t need to be really big to be impressive. Small creations can be just as wonderful! gGh0st created a beautiful little tree stump that also functions as a home to a little woodland critter. When building really small almost every part of the build is visible and, therefore, noticeable. Seemingly single use parts are a lot harder to ‘hide’ in the build. Because it is so small they will stand out more. This didn’t scare gGh0st from using spiral stairs as a part of the tree stump. It does not only stand out because of the texture, but also because of its colour. And yet it blends in perfectly with this creation.

Tree Stump House

The tree of knowledge

LEGO builder Ted Andes brings us a more upbeat take on the dystopian cyberpunk future with a gorgeous sculpture he calls the Shrine of the Cyber Tree. The tree is made of stacked Vahki head elements from Bionicle, and their angular lines and matte finish creates a striking use for that rarely used piece. The sculpture is surrounded by a simple but elegant stone garden wall, which has great details like one broken egg post cap. 

Shrine of the Cyber Tree

A construction rooted in cold, hard stone

As the northern hemisphere is awakening from the cold slumber of the last 5 months, Ventum Vox drags me back into the icy chill of winter with this frigid-looking LEGO scene. The trees here, with rootholds in this snow-covered crag, are a masterful compilation of brown bits. They eschew the typical grid of the blocky medium, instead providing some of the most natural gnarls of wood I’ve seen in a build. There’s plenty of flex tubing and minifig utensils in the mix helping to manage this natural aesthetic. And the rockwork these trees cling to is no slouch, either. There’s a clear delineation in style between the stone of the ruined structure and the rocky precipice it sits upon, going well beyond just the color change. And while managing that transition perfectly, Vox still is able to add in enough snow to remind us that this is a cold, exposed destination. Let’s hope that knight is wearing some long underwear.

Cold Solitude

A dominating domino for intense introspection

As the most prominent LEGO landscaper of alien terrain, Bart De Dobbelaer once again transports us off-world to a peaceful (and piece-full) forest scene dominated by a large, cryptic monolith. The color contrast on the structure is striking, with gaps of textured azure breaking through cracks in the large standing stone. A solitary figure sits at the base of one of the rings cut from the slab. This woman in red surveys the garden of leafy trees and large yellow blooms, no doubt reflecting on the beauty of it all. As is typical for Bart, the part usage here is top notch. I particularly like the X-Pod lids used at the base of the large flowers. Such a great throwback part!

Garden of contemplation

Birch tree shepherd meeting

Birch trees continue to be a great source of inspiration for LEGO fans. This creation by gGh0st features a beautiful birch tree surrounded by some well put together LEGO minifigures. The birch tree features large patches of black due to the technic connector attaching all the dinosaur tails to each other. Brooms hide between all the tail parts, adding texture to the tree trunk. The use of the coral, as seen in the LEGO Ideas Winnie the Pooh set, is quite clever as it is a nice way to attach a lot of different LEGO leaves in different directions. This sure looks like a friendly gathering that I wouldn’t mind attending.

Generations of Shepherds

This one will grow on you

You may know builder Big Stannis from their meme-tastic large character creations, but the creativity doesn’t stop there. (25+)Wise Mystical Tree features some really clever part usage. It’s somewhat easy to spot the raft forming the front of the face, but if you look very closely at the eyes you might find some surprising Thanksgiving leftovers. There are even some 1×1 round tile cookies in there if search for them. And, just to be juvenile, there’s also plenty of SNOT.

(25+)Wise Mystical Tree

This is just the latest example of the great builds you can find in our tree archives. Go take a look!

Fall scene in the forest with fall colours

Jake Hansen drew inspiration from the fall colours for his latest LEGO creation and we need to say that it paid off. The little scene looks so peaceful. LEGO has been creating more and more bricks in new colours and at times I am struggling to identify which colours are used in fan creations. It appears this little house is created with three shades of nougat which are greatly accented by the dark orange base and the white and bright light orange leaves. The use of horns attached to the leaves of the tree instead of the base of the tree makes the tree itself look marvellous!

The Old Birch Cottage

Massive CAT themed Sloth Walker

Making its way through the canopy, this enormous piece of LEGO equipment keeps a steady grip on the weaving branches of the rainforest canopy. Builder Charlie Jones brings us his second ambling piece of construction equipment with a CAT-themed color scheme. Perhaps suited for traversing the jungles of Pandora from James Cameron’s Avatar, the Sloth Walker’s crew clambers about its hanging body, making their way up its legs to the thick branches to survey the unique biomes and the territory below. The builder spent almost 200 hours working on this beast, along with the branches above, and it surely paid off with an impressive final product. First off, the branches of the tree are ingenious, if not a bit laborious. Time consuming as they may be, their repetition and semi-woven pattern provide a convincing effect on the overall build.

CAT Sloth Walker

The Walker, if you can really even call it that when its making its way upside down like this, is its own masterpiece though. At just under a meter long, every centimeter of this build is detailed and intentional. Using droid bodies and arms on the claws gives a delightful industrial texture, while the pneumatic-like structures in the front arms compliment a convincing design. Of course, I can’t go without mentioning that awesome domed canopy for the pilot, providing a full view around them. Using the frames of Harry Potter’s glasses from the Hogwarts Icons set as the framing for the cockpit was an ingenious move, honestly.

I commend those workers on the outside of the craft. Making my way over the exposed engines, hanging on as the arms and legs move above me, I’d hope to at least be tethered somewhere safe. I wouldn’t want to fall and get caught by the tether only to get crushed by some mechanical components. I leave this part of exploration to this brave crew, I guess, and just move on to commending Mr. Jones for a magnificent build. Keep up the good work, mate!

A moment in the Quantum Lands

I adore this serene LEGO scene by builder exluse. Depicting a weary samurai discovering a strange new land, this construction displays some excellent prowess in natural and sculpted forms. The statue is gorgeous, based heavily on this design by fellow Quantum Lands builder Stan Building. It makes for a wonderfully pose-able sculpture atop a top-notch plinth with some sharp angles, and also helps anchor the viewers that follow the QL project in said realm. But the real star of this vignette is the tree: several beautiful twists of brown pieces leading to explosions of pink leaves and flowers at the ends. This is just about as organic as I’ve ever seen our toy of choice, and its flow contrasts the placid water so well.

A New Discovery...

The pagoda and the dragon tree

Sometimes little details get lost on big LEGO models. This is not the case for Marius Herrmann’s latest LEGO creation. This one is big! At least 50 bricks high not counting the antenna. We are looking at a model loosely inspired by ‘The Legend of Anchin and Kiyohime’. I am not at all familiar with the story so I’ll just take Marius’ word that it is about unrequited love. After being rejected one of the characters transforms into a dragon to trap the other in a temple. This is beautifully translated to this build where we can see a tree with lavender foliage violently wrap itself around a Pagoda. I love how subtle yet evident the dragon shape is hidden in the tree. If you focus on the temple you’ll lose the dragon. But if you focus on the tree the dragon is most definitely there.

Kiyohime (清姫)

A house with lines that trick the eyes

I may have gone cross-eyed trying to follow the lines on this house built by Pan Noda. With its atypical architecture, I’m picking up some serious Burrow vibes from the Harry Potter franchise. The color choices here are perfect, featuring white with brown trim. But it’s those subtle patches of tan, and the occasional chip or crack in the walls that give the structure a weathered look without taking anything away from its crisscrossing vectors. And I adore the unusual choice of pine tree design in the house’s front yard. The straight lines of needles on each bough take me deeper into the Google DeepDream that is this construction. And overall, it’s oddly satisfying!

House of Distortion