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i am a leaf on the wind – watch how I soar

i am a leaf on the wind – watch how I soar

Built for the 2017 Middle Earth LEGO OlympicsFarewell We Call to Hearth and Hall! is a beautiful little vignette based on J.R.R Tolkien’s song of the same name that Merry and Pippin sing on the night before they leave the Shire. John Snyder has portrayed the three main themes of the song: hearth and home, travel through the wild, and Rivendell.

MELO R1: Farewell We Call to Hearth and Hall!

The hobbit hole looks great. I also love the tree leaves on grass stalks and intricate domed building on levers! But most impressive is how John has stitched the three scenes together with the irregular rock shapes in the forest.

Homer Simpson’s hard at “work” in Chris Adams perfect vignette of Sector 7G of the Springfield nuclear powerplant. The vibrant colors of the cartoon have been brought to life with LEGOs brilliant pastel colors – it looks just like the real thing. Simple yet sophisticated, the little touches like the box of donuts and the fire extinguisher all help to complete the scene. The control panel with its levers, dials and even a telephone looks great and I love how Chris has used the yellow and black bricked platform to mimic the lines on the security doors.

'Sector 7G' - LEGO The Simpsons: Homer's Workstation

The Grenadier 929 by halfbeak is the Lunar League’s primary attack/defense unit operating between the Moon and Earth. Able to vertically take off and land on most flat areas, its primary propulsion is a photovoltaic powered, hydrogen propelled magnetoplasmadynamic thruster – also known as the Lorentz Force Accelerator. Its four gimbal-mounted directional rocket thrusters and four photo voltaic panels include redundancies allowing it to still operate one as little as one of each.

Grenadier 929

Heavily armed, its main offensive weapons are four self-guided shrapnel mortars, designed to approach enemy units at high speed, then exploding to create a highly destructive cloud of shrapnel causing huge damage without the need for pinpoint accuracy.

The 929 is well defended with bow-mounted laser, reinforced titanium front shield and an EM field-generating cage to protect against EMP attack and general environmental radiation. It also features a pilot module that can separate from main propulsion unit and function as a lifeboat with its own limited propulsion and guidance systems.

Grenadier 929 Technical Details

The builder has also included a fantastic visual breakdown of all the components and created swaths of background information to go with it!

Building micro-scale brings a unique set of challenges, and finding the right piece to represent a particular feature can often be a particularly tricky task. Builder yang wang seems to have a knack for it though, as demonstrated by these two delightful domed dioramas. The first is a wonderful Romanesque revival style castle poised on a rock over the sea. The highlights for me are the tiny ship with smokestacks, the small tree made from a brown droid arm, and the spindly towers with golden ski pole spires.

lego mirco castle in a galss dome

Continuing the colorful creation on a rock under a dome theme, the second build is a vertical wooden town atop a rocky outcrop, complete with bell tower and windmill. I love how the builder has used the grill plates to give the small buildings windows — plus there’s that cute little car made from a rollerskate. And not only does the dome make the building inside look wonderful, it also keeps the dust off!

lego town in a galss dome

Your inner time-traveller may get giddy for this wonderful Ultimate Collector Series styled rendition of Doc Brown’s famous DeLorean from Back to the Future. Builder jazlecraz has faithfully recreated the classic time machine’s beautiful lines in LEGO bricks, including the signature gull-wing doors. The model uses a number of clever techniques to achieve the unique shape of the bodywork, including effective use of Mixel ball and sockets to nail some of the more difficult angles.

UCS DeLorean

See close-up images and video showing the folding wheel mechanism

Elliott and E.T.’s flight over the forest has been described as the most magical moment in cinema history — probably why it was featured on the film’s advertising poster and became Spielberg’s company logo. You may recognize the building style here as Chris Adams has been building a series of 80s movie posters in LEGO. We already featured his brilliant Ghostbusters and Jaws 3D posters, now he brings us E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The piece stands 16″ tall by 14″ wide and 5″ deep (40 x 34 x 14 cm), and consists of about 2300 bricks. My favorite features are the perfectly executed silhouette in front of the moon, and how Chris has captured the sparkle between Elliott and E.T.’s fingers — brilliant!

'E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial' Movie Poster

I’ve forgotten the number of hours I spent playing Skyrim, so when I saw Proudspire Manor by soccersnyderi it was like I was back in Solitude with a sword in my hand and a pack full of loot. This LEGO model of the game location was built as a commissioned model for one of the actual game designers, since Isaac had already built Sigurd’s Store and the Holt Windmill. Besides being very recognizable, it also features fantastic roof work, textured stone walls, and a brilliant slanted roof.

Proudspire Manor

Anyone who has seen LEGO’s beautiful set 10253 Big Ben was no doubt impressed but might have wondered how many sets you would have to get to build the entire Palace of Westminster. Well, Jamie Douglas not only wondered that himself, but actually discovered the answer to be eleven. Yes, eleven!

Westminster Palace

That’s one Big Ben set used for Elizabeth Tower and the other 10 used to build the Victoria Tower, the House of Lords, St Stephens Hall, and all the various libraries and committee rooms in between. Plus a lot of Bricklink orders for all the extra pieces, including the roof of the beautifully angled Westminster Hall and the wonderfully decorated Parliament Square – and he did all that in just five months!

Westminster Palace

Jamie’s giant and detailed model was built exclusively for the UK event Bricktastic, taking center stage for the July 2017 show. With a footprint of 5.5 x 3 feet (1.7 x 1 metres) not a single detail of this 19th-century architectural masterpiece has been left out (I checked for myself on Google Earth). Constructed from over 50,000 bricks, Jamie confesses to having spent 30 hours planning it before even starting the epic 234-hour build. You can see more pictures on Jamie’s Flickr stream.

I have a thing for space corridors. I can’t explain it, I can’t define it — I just have a thing for space corridors. Turns out, I’m not the only one! Tim Goddard has created an H-shaped corridor section inspired by Jeremy Williams’ Alpha Zero Niner and built as part of a collaboration to be revealed in a couple of months. Tim has captured all the elements of a good space corridor: plenty of details, cool greebling, great depth of field, creative lighting and a Classic Space minifig.

Service corridor

Love him or hate him, Lex Luther is a pretty cool bad guy! Kale Frost has captured Superman’s archenemy in his famous Warsuit. With its huge Popeye-like forearms and big solid stomping boots, he is intent on ridding the earth of the alien Superman. Kale has taken the color scheme (and a printed tile) from the LEGO Juniors set Batman & Superman vs Lex Luther and created the souped-up custom Lex Mech. I love how he has blended Bionicle parts with System to create this suit of awesome power. Superman better watch his back!

Lex Mech

Shown at Bricks Cascade 2017 and winner of Interstellar Bella trophy, Jonathan Walker‘s breathtaking Shadowcaster is a masterpiece. At 133ish studs in length, the leaf-like beauty is massive. Inspired by a train station in France by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, Jonathan spent a lot of time building curves, stressing LEGO in ways it shouldn’t be stressed; the results are extraordinary. Each 4 stud section is attached by a single stud to the spine and they are all held in place by the curve of sand green on the edges. I love the colors he has used and the multi-directional engines mounted underneath. A spectacular spaceship to demonstrate the limitless potential of our beloved plastic brick.

Shadowcaster

Behold the hulking mech robot warrior that is B-43 by Simmon Kim. With its ominous red light and enormous black rifle, this beast looks like it could take on a small army itself. Look closely at the detail and you will notice minifig arms for fingers, some very cool arm connections, and an additional pair of guns. I love the inventive use of stickers to complete this custom build. The B-43 is well armed, well protected and well… awesome!

B-43

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