A tall tower stands alone in the woods, looming

Farwin Castle by Brother Steven is one of the most striking pieces of castle architecture I’ve seen recently. This exceptionally tall, spindly tower still manages to capture an elegance of proportions, looking mysterious yet stately. Unlike many contemporary medieval themed builds, Farwin Castle doesn’t employ much of the precariously complex stonework that’s in vogue. Instead, its strength lies in its solid geometry and fascinating dimensions. You have to wonder what purpose this tower serves. The home of a lovesick, ascetic prince? The prison for a lunatic mage? The guard tower on a dangerous border? Whatever it is, we like it.

Farwin Castle

Brother Steven says this castle is part of a larger collaborative display, where multiple builders created locations from the same world, so don’t miss the fantastic stable from the collection that we already highlighted.

Farwin Castle

Chibi-style Rogue One battle scene

Rogue One continues to inspire new Star Wars LEGO creations. Check out this fantastic beach battle scene, lifted from the Rogue One trailer and “chibified” by Boba-1980. The microscale vehicles are really good — I particularly like the versions of the U-Wing and the TIE Strike Fighter.

Rebel Attack on Scarif

Aside from the good landscaping and figure posing, there’s a whole ton of action packed into a tight space in this diorama — justifying the builder’s choice to go with an unusual scale for the vehicles. Nice work.

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The Edge: Step into a LEGO painting

It’s not often that I see a LEGO creation and think to myself “this is art.” But Lukasz Wiktorowicz‘s most recent build, “the Edge” certainly is art. Using both classic architecture and surrealist imagery, Lukasz created an absolutely stunning build. The proportions on this thing are spot on and the details are ridiculously, well, detailed. But what really pushes this build over the top is Lukasz’s out-of-the-box building techniques.

The Edge

Normally I’m a stickler for lining up LEGO bricks perfectly (90 or 180 degree angles only, people!). A little crease from a cattywampus brick in an otherwise smooth wall is a downright sin in my book. But Lukasz purposefully stacked the bricks in his four pillars all askew and the resulting texture is fantastic! Another creative feature of this build is the base. When I accumulate a boxful of seemingly useless bricks, I shove them to the back of my shelf and forget about them. Instead of doing the same, Lukasz used those ball socket bricks to create an unconventional base for his build that makes the whole thing look like it is floating. Well done all around.

It’s Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff at the Hogwarts quidditch pitch

While it’s doubtful any builder will ever challenge the sheer scale of Alice Finch’s LEGO Hogwarts, J.K. Rowling’s magical series of books continues to inspire LEGO builders. At nearly seven and a half feet long, Martin Harris and his son have built a massive minifig-scale quidditch pitch that gives Alice a run for her money. The pitch features all the colorful stands shown in the second movie, and there’s plenty of action both inside and outside the structure.

Harry Potter Quidditch arena. Based mainly on the 2nd H.P movie we have accurately recreated one of the most iconic pop culture sporting arenas of all time. This was such a fun father/son project to complete and measures almost 7.5 feet long.

Each end of the pitch features a trio of goals.

Harry Potters Quidditch

Naturally, beaters are aloft to protect Harry from bludgers as he tries to catch the golden snitch.

Harry Potters Quidditch

You have no idea how good this LEGO ammonite is

While my favorite lifeform from the age of the dinosaurs (and before) is the trilobite, I also have a soft spot for the hard-shelled ammonite. Leonid An has built a scientifically accurate, albeit fictional, ammonite that he’s dubbed Ammonoidea fictum. The Bionicle pieces make an excellent shell, and I love the big yellow eye glaring from behind a mouthful of tentacles.

Ammonoidea fictum

Sadly, ammonites died out around the same time as the dinosaurs, survived by the similar (but only distantly related) nautilus. If you like this LEGO ammonite, check out the white nautilus we featured here back in 2009.

This doctor prescribes some madness

It is no secret that Djordje is one of the best character builders, and he usually manages to inject incredible personality to his builds. This time, he managed to capture the essence of a mad scientist with Doctor Karnakogg:

Doctor Karnakogg

First of all, the cartoonish proportions are spot on, and you can see that this build is not really heavy on pieces — but those pieces are used in a really creative way, making it all the more impressive. What really gets me is the personality of this build, expressing that perhaps a mad scientist can be both  scary and charming.

The future of luxury is now

For my latest creation I wanted to use the unique canopies from the UCS Slave I set. They formed a nice bubble so I decided to build a futuristic bubble boat. The initial photos taken against a standard poster board backdrop didn’t do the model justice, so I decided to photograph using real water dyed with food coloring.

Bubble Boat

LEGO mech * (black + yellow + weird) = Awesome

Every so often you come across a model which makes you sit up straight and PAY ATTENTION. This unusual mech from tankm does exactly that. The combination of atypical shaping, the double cockpit, and the in-your-face color scheme creates immediate standout from the crowd of regular LEGO mechs which appear on a regular basis. However, this model isn’t all just bluster and noise, there are also some great building details which reward a closer inspection.

tkm-STILTwalker-01

I’m not sure if this is a walker or a flyer, or some sort of chimeric combination of the two — the rear view suggests this bad boy can take to the air if it needs to. All I really know is this thing looks like a two-headed death pigeon decked out for a Blacktron parade. I like it.

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Protecting the solar system via Echo 3

Michał Kaźmierczak has posted this lovely security base, orbiting the sun in the Kuiper Belt. The base has tucked itself into one of the many, many objects in the belt, which I imagine is hugely helpful, given the amount of raw materials one could find there. The presentation is just lovely. I particularly like the thought and care given to how to build the security base as if it’s part of the rock itself, which gives the whole build a very otherworldly feel.

Echo 3

LEGO sea serpent is coming to get you

Fresh from delighting us with a rusty hot rod, Austrian builder sanellukovic turns his building skills to more organic shapes with his Midgardsnake creation. The curves and scales of this mythical water-serpent have been captured brilliantly with some nice use of slopes and smart color choices. Whilst the splashes and water running from the serpent’s body are well made, the mix of trans-clear and trans-black plates used for the water itself is just inspired. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed that particular combination being used like this before — it certainly creates a great impression of water in motion. Lovely stuff.

Midgardsnake