Tag Archives: Vignettes

Vignettes are like the haiku of the LEGO world. Usually built on a base 8 studs wide by 8 studs deep, vignettes show a little scene or a moment in time. But like written poetry, there’s plenty of variation on the basic theme.

Rare sighting of a LEGO elephant in the room

British builder Tim Goddard is well known for his fantastic Neo-Classic Space creations, but his latest build provides a change of scenery.  We are not the only people admiring this lovely scene of a mother elephant and her calf — there’s a brave photographer filming their every move. Her camera is mounted on a professional looking LEGO tripod and she has managed to locate a rare ‘Classic Space safari outfit’ for the event. Up in the tree, a vulture seems to be keeping watch.

Elephant Idea

The elephants are minifig-scale and ingeniously constructed with Mixel joints providing movement of the calf’s legs and the mother’s ears.  Tim has designed their skin with a mix of textures; studs on show, smooth tiles and the odd light bluish grey ingot to provide a wrinkle or two.

I was going to make a clever comment about the mother’s knee joints and impossible movements but remember, this is LEGO and anything is possible!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Scramble the Rebel fighters from LEGO Echo Base

Markus19840420 continues to impress with his LEGO Star Wars dioramas. Following up his Sullust scene, he presents a slice of Echo Base from The Empire Strikes Back, impressive in both size and detail. The carved snow cave look, hanging lights, maintenance bridges, and runway lights make the whole scene feel authentic. I won’t overlook Mike Psiaki’s X-wing and Larry Lars’s Snowspeeder, both great models recreated by Markus from their respective building guides, with some modifications.

EpisodeV - Echo Base

EpisodeV - Echo Base

See more photos of Hoth Echo Base on the builder’s Flickr.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Harry Potter in vignettes: tiny scenes from the wonderful world of wizarding

Builder Marcel V. is on a mission to picture Harry Potter’s life one little slice at a time. These terrific vignettes take us from 4 Privet Drive, to Platform 9 and 3/4, Ollivander’s, and right on to Hogwarts’ Sorting Hat and the Gryffindor Common Room. Marcel tells us he’s planning a rather lengthy series, so we’ll check back in as he continues to create these brick snapshots. For now, though, check out the first five scenes in Harry’s life:

#001 - Privet Drive No. 4

Click to see the other 4 scenes

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

A walking garden

IGU from Japan has created the cutest garden ever! But it’s not the sort of garden you would expect. Look closely, and you’ll see that this garden is atop an old and huge turtle. He may look a little bit exhausted, but don’t let it mislead you. He is so full of happiness that all sorts of flowers keep popping off his back. All the animals rush to his shelter. Hayao Miyazaki would totally approve this creation!

Walking Garden

Make sure you check out the flickr album for more close-up photos which reveal lovely details.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Cyberpunk Tripartite

I love the verticality to Sam Malmberg‘s slice of a cyberpunk cityscape. The builder mentions he was inspired by the architectural concept of a tripartite structure, which gives an appearance of vertically dividing lower, middle, and upper social and economic classes. A great concept for a cyberpunk scene, and rather well executed too!

Cyberpunk Tripartite

Cyberpunk Tripartite

There are several small details and scenes that bring this build to life, so be sure to check out the rest of the photos on Sam’s Flickr page.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Only 19 Mondays more till vacation

Thanks to this lovely Tiki Fruit Hut I finally realized how tired I am of snow, biting wind and heavy winter coats. Miro Dudas created the hut to look like a sweet postcard from a faraway tropical resort. And even some fetching girls in the picture can’t make me take my eyes off this awesomely executed thatch decorated with reddish-brown carrot tops.

Tiki Fruit Hut

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

A little monkey business at the spa

This fun build by LEGO7 depicts a comical scene of some Macaque monkeys chilling out at the spa. Interestingly, this is typical macaque behaviour as they are known for spa visits in real life. The monkey faces are perfect, especially the use of lever bases for the eyes.

Macaque spa獼猴溫泉

They are definitely making the most of the dunking pool with some banana nibbles, a warm towel on the head and …actually I’m not sure if the light grey monkey is checking herself out in the mirror, about to shave her legs or texting on her iPhone…

The monkey in the background looks a bit suspicious. Is he keen to jump in too, or just checking out the ladies?

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Comfy getaway

This elegant interior built by Laura Jenkins is a prime example of simplicity at its finest. Using a main color scheme of white, tan, and the always gorgeous sand blue, Laura has designed a cozy living room that evokes an inviting beachfront. From the potted plants to the pair of chairs that utilize life preserver pieces, this is truly one place anyone would love to spend a vacation.

Room Interior by Laura Jenkins

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

A room with a view

As a predominantly character-focused builder myself, I have really enjoyed watching prolific Romanian builder Legranger Absurde develop his own distinct brand of small-scale characters over the past few months. His signature style invariably features Mixel eyes, long bangs, and curvaceous females in shoulderless outfits. But it also demonstrates some new clever limb articulation techniques, allowing for wonderful posing. And with his latest creation, the builder has even taken a crack at building a detailed scene around one of these figures:

I feel remiss in not having featured more of these delightful characters here before. So click below the fold for a gallery of previous examples of this builder’s recent work…

Click here to see the gallery

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

All the world’s a stage...

…and all players are utterly creative combinations of pieces. Letranger Absurde’s vignette depicting a theatre stage blows my mind with its extremely unsual usage of a regular frog animal piece: once for the actress’ hairdo and several more as seats in the hall. When I saw this little masterpiece for the first time it took me a moment to decide what astounded me more — the fact that I can distinguish the emotions of these tiny little microfigures or the rats in the background…

The Princess and the Knight - A Play

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Virtually probing and roving

I typically shy away from LEGO rendering. Having unlimited access to every piece ever made, in every color, can be overwhelming and often leads to rather ostentatious builds. But Sunder_59 demonstrates with just a handful of virtual pieces (and an impressive level of self-restraint) that renders can be quite dramatic. Sunder_59’s sparse use of fictitious pieces and muted color palette makes for two very pleasing space-themed vignettes.

Probe

Rover

As a side note, that wonderful light aqua base under the rover is meant to represent Minmus, the smallest moon of Kerbin, from the Kerbal Space Program game.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

I want to believe... it was all a dream

German builder Steinestecker has captured a common nightmare scenario in LEGO form with his series of alien abduction shots. The poor pyjama-wearing victim displays one of my favourite minifigure expressions, which can be interpreted as a ‘yawn’, but is more of a night terror scream this time!

Alien Abduction

The perpetrators in this alien abduction series are the Classic Alien minifigure from Series 6 of the Collectible Minifigure series; perfect with their passive expression and seemingly unresponsive to his screams. I hope the abducted victim wakes up before any experimentation or probing begins!

Alien Abduction

As a slight aside, as soon as I saw these scenes, I immediately remembered a photograph posted by TBB favourite Chris McVeigh back in 2012. To me, Chris’ build represents the eerie ‘prequel’ to the abduction series created by Steindecker…

Don't Wake Up

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.