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.

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

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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…

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.

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.

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!

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!

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…

Miniature hive of scum and villainy

The hype for Star Wars continues with CreativBricks and his adorable mini Mos Eisley Spaceport scene from A New Hope. The landspeeder at the Imperial checkpoint is recognizable with just a few pieces, and I love the way the vendor stand, in the back right corner of the scene, is built.

The Doctor, the Alien, and the Crossover

For myself, the wonder of being a licensed theme builder is the fact that everything I create is not only something new, but never before possible. With the release of the LEGO Doctor Who set we finally have official minifigures of our favorite Doctors, and it’s now possible to build our own adventures for the famous time traveler.

Not only that, but with LEGO we can create cranium-exploding crossovers. So while the epic sight of the 11th Doctor marveling over the appearance of a Xenomorph may never happen on TV, it can surely happen in LEGO. And we’re all the better for it – well, until the Alien starts attacking that is.

This is my jam

David Hensel presents two pieces of musical equipment at what appears to be full scale. First up is a mini guitar amplifier that makes clever use of a LEGO net, as well as sword hilts as dials.

The second build from David is a replica mechanical metronome. Notice the tempo markings are created with stacked individual track links. I can just hear that constant ticking looking at this build.

At a smaller scale than David’s musical builds, Jimmy Fortel shows us a rock-n-roll drum set played by a rock-n-roll drummer with a rock-n-roll haircut. 16 hour drum solo!

Hidden in the mangroves

Mangrove trees have a chaotic, almost alien feel to them. In salty, waterlogged conditions, where other trees flounder, they thrive. Tirrell Brown has perfectly captured the majesty of these strange trees in his most recent build. His swampy scene, which was built for Eurobrick’s Guilds of Historica, depicts a hidden croc warrior desperately fleeing a pair of dangerous dark elves. For now, the croc is escaping their notice. Can you spot him?

The Gallery

Ryan H. uses rare marbled LEGO bricks as paintings in a beautifully composed art gallery scene. The clever parts usage doesn’t end there; look closely at the floor pattern, and notice the hook hands and steering wheels on the rope barriers.

Let’s go fly a kite!

This delightful harbour scene by Simply Bricking It is the perfect antidote to some of the more ghoulish and macabre Halloween builds we’ve been showcasing.

There are awesome little details in this scene with the buoy, the railing around the base of the lighthouse and the harbour paraphernalia. I particularly love the textured walls of the lighthouse itself and the curved harbour wall.

Of course, leaving the best until last, we have the kite which brings the scene to life. It’s worth taking a closer look at this build to see the details…

Island hopping redux

It’s hard to imagine that one of the most beloved LEGO themes, Adventurers, is already seventeen years old. Time flies quickly, apparently. But luckily with LEGO, there’s always the possibility to literally rebuild the past – but better! That’s what Joshua has done – rebuilt the Adventurers set 5935 ‘Island Hopper’ with new modern parts and building techniques.

Not only does Joshua’s build provide the classic Adventurers nostalgic feel, but it also greatly improves upon the original. This new Island Hopper really goes to show how much LEGO itself has evolved over the years too.

A long time ago in a restroom far, far away

Ok there are probably a dozen directions the title of this post could have gone (let your imagination run wild). And there are probably a dozen ways builder Sad Brick (why so sad?) could have portrayed the brilliant gag of using Imperial Stormtrooper helmets as urinals in a Rebel Alliance base. But I’m glad he went for this very stylish – almost palatial – design.

Given the old joke that we never see people in science fiction going to the bathroom, I think this is the sort of thing that would work great as an easter egg in some future LEGO Star Wars video game!