This fantastic minifig-scale LEGO motorcycle was built for a contest for the German LUG ‘Imperium der Steine’. The task was to build a motor vehicle from a movie or TV show. Ben Tritschler chose the John Travolta movie Wild Hogs (or as it’s known in Germany, Born to be Wild ) This bike is very reminiscent of the motorcycles used in the film, provided by Harley-Davidson. Simple techniques have been used to create the uneven and cracked road with fantastic effect, the flowering cacti dotting the desert drive look great. But by far, though, the best part usage goes to the Shark Guy’s arm as the bike seat.
a blip patrols the executive corridor in Alpha Zero Niner
There have been many LEGO versions of the famous Star Wars trench run, and this one in minifig scale by Martin Harris 1 appears to have all the ingredients just right. This massive and highly detailed diorama with X-Wing, TIE Fighters and Darth Vadar’s TIE Advanced X1 is a feast of grays and shadows. At a length of 8 feet (2.4 meters) it’s hardly surprising that completing it took nearly a year and every gray tile and plate Martin and his son had in their collections.
Built for Brickfair Alabama, there are viewing windows cut out of the trench to allow us into the action, as accurately replicated turbolasers shoot at (and miss) Luke Skywalker as he hurtles along the surface of the Death Star with the Empire hot on his tail.
There are so many fantastic techniques and bricks used to create the complex detailing of the trench. I found myself spending a long time appreciating the various shapes and greebling throughout the trench.
Martin must have watched this scene a thousand times as he appears to have captured it perfectly. It even comes with a thermal exhaust port no bigger than a womp rat! A fantastic representation of the infamous cinematic climactic battle.
Created three years ago for a competition and one of his first big creations, this coral reef was built when Orlando Hay was only 11! Looking good enough to go diving in, it’s constructed with a variety of interesting and novel piece choices. Moon tires make wonderful anemone, clear round 1×1 bricks make convincing bubbles, and various technic pins make the ocean floor look textured. This colorful underwater scene contains a plethora of piscine and invertebrate inhabitants as well as an eel, squid and a turtle all sitting on a carefully hidden LEGO moulded baseplate. No reef would be complete without shipwreck and treasure, but if you plan on going diving just watch out for that mine and the shark chewing a flipper!
At first glance Jeremy Williams‘ Night Patrol might not look like much is going on, but this atmospheric space corridor with patrolling “blip” is fantastic. Simple yet brilliant, I love the clever use of the 1×4 spring shooter for the door details. Combined with clever creative lighting, the scene feels real. You can almost feel the silence, waiting for the whhhhhsht of the door as it opens and the automated electronic beep as the blip passes through. Then whhhhhsht the door closes again, leaving the corridor silent and empty once more.
If you haven’t heard of The Last of Us, it’s a third-person action-adventure survival horror game set twenty years after a plague decimated civilization. Tim Schwalfenberg has captured the tone of the game perfectly with this tribute, including anti-hero smuggler Joel, as he escorts teenager Ellie through the post-apocalyptic United States.
Tim worked on the build for around a month, putting in well over 100 hours, He estimates he used around 20,000 bricks (although I think it may be more). Measuring 3.5 by 2 feet (100cm x 60 cm) and featuring custom 3D printed bricks this masterpiece is a thing of decrepit beauty.
This little castle might look a bit run-of-the-mill at first glance, but don’t be hasty to judge a book (or castle) by its cover. Michael Kalkwarf has created a modular castle creation system allowing this castle to be reconfigured to create endlessly different types of castles for hours of fun.
Michael’s design is based on series of modules that can be arranged and re-arranged very simply to create a wide variety of castles.
By simply expanding the number of modules you can make one of many different castles or even this enormous super castle. Continue reading
First there was Blacktron in 1987, then there was Blacktron II in 1991. Now Luc Byard may have created Blacktron 3.0 with this awesome updated Blacktron landing pad. His ship “Aerial Intruder” sits on the octagonal landing gantry with alien hieroglyphs. Sitting atop four carefully constructed legs on a tidy base with realistic moon surface pocked with brick-built craters.
The whole construction took over a year to complete (6 months for the ship and 7 months for the pad). When you see the level of complexity and details that have gone into this incredible creation you can understand why. Continue reading
The facial expression and ever present fob-watch make this guy immediately recognizable as the White Rabbit from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Julius von Brunk creates a suitably trippy-looking bunny to join his LEGO Mad Hatter and playing cards. The minifig torso used here seems strangely in proportion, and looks great with the lower brick-built legs and large head.
With the addition of a brick-built Mad March Hare and an Alice minifig, Julian has even brought his new and old Wonderland characters together for an impromptu musical performance. Great use of party lights and a small number of props are all that is needed to showcase Julian’s marvelous creations together in Alice’s band:
This nifty little creation by Ordo is a simple idea that has been well executed. The builder has created the perfect snapshot of a recording session. And while the room is decorated minimally with a couch and some golden records, there is plenty of clever part usage in the recording area. The sound board is represented with a brilliant assortment of printed tiles. Tires are used for the speaker cones and stool. And a feature that I only noticed after repeated viewing are the black cheese slopes making up the back wall of the sound booth.
Bigger isn’t always better, and this micro machine by František Hajdekr is living proof. I’m always impressed with the amount of detail builders are able get into builds at this scale. The inverted 1×2 plate on the side looks just like grill on the real thing. Follow this simple instructions video and this miniature bulldozer could be clearing away small piles of rubble on your desk too.
The shapes attainable with LEGO bricks appear endless. Jens OhrndorfR16;s perfect mini replica of a rhinoceros proves that with clever part usage anything is possible. The parts used for it’s haunches, flank, dip in the back, legs and rump gives the impression they belong to a real Rhino. The rhino by itself is wonderful but a little set dressing in the form of a bird, tree and mound of earth really complete the scene.
The Flashman Papers is a series of humorous novels and short stories about a cowardly British soldier who is placed in a series of real historical incidents at the end of the 19th century. For the last 5 years, London based builder Workshysteve has been delighting us with a series of beautiful little LEGO vignettes depicting the most poignant moments from Flashman’s life. Here is the latest, largest and sadly last of these creations, in which an elderly Flashman prepares to write his memoirs, surrounded by trinkets he acquired during his adventures.
According to the builder, this scene contains 25 hidden LEGO pieces that have only appeared once in each of the 25 other creations in this series. I hope you have fun trying to spot them all. But be warned: There are also quite a few red herrings too, where an item in this picture appears in more than one of the other scenes. Check out the whole series and try to find them for yourself.