Let’s face it, sometimes we like to root for the bad guy. Or bad robot — as envisioned by Joe Perez in this scene featuring an amazingly accurate and fully posable LEGO version of transformer Nemesis Prime.
Amusingly, Joe recently bought a Nemesis Prime action figure and was surprised how similar his version ended up in terms of detail and scale. And of course like the toy, his version also transforms!
ArzLan shows us there is beauty in simplicity with this stunning build. Included are various representations of Chinese culture, with a seated figure playing the Ehru (a two-stringed fiddle). Also pictured is a Go board, and supplies for calligraphy and painting.
There are a number of eye catching things here; the seated figure stands out in bright red, and the scroll background has brick-built calligraphy.
I particularly love the dragon brush holder. It’s so fragile and perfectly executed.
If you’ve played BattleBlock Theater before, then you’ll definitely recognize this adorable cat guard built by Letranger Absurde. If you’ve haven’t played the game before, let me just say it’s pretty much exactly like soccer, except more like basketball, and nothing like soccer. Absurde perfectly captured the soulless gaze and boxy stature of the game’s heartless prison guards. I’d love to have this guy sitting on my desk at work. My productivity would likely triple under this little guy’s iron paw!
This post was brought to you by yarn. Yarn, it’s a ball!
Microscale is challenging in its own right, despite it’s tiny tiny size. Rocco Buttliere is a master of this impressive scale, and we’ve featured his work before, notably with his Houses of Parliament and 40 Wall Street.
This newest addition to his tiny empire is certainly more understated than what we’ve featured before and no less impressive. The Rosenwald Apartments, named after former president of Sears and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, feature lovely landscaping and the tiniest art deco I’ve ever seen. I particularly love the use of the grill tile, held in place presumably by sheer will, that gives the impression of tiny windows. It’s very effective!
While we’re a little late for Shark Week, I think our toothy fishy friends deserve all the recognition we can muster. This shark from LEGO 7, I’m sure, does not agree with Bruce’s claim that fish are friends and is perfectly happy to snack on whatever he finds in this sunken ship.
You’re welcome to ask him and his friends if they’ll share that treasure. I’m inclined to say no.
The shark has just lovely shaping to it. It looks perfectly pudgy, like a shark should be. The varied sea life growing on the ship is quite eye catching, too!
Graham Gidman reconstructs the barrel escape scene from The Hobbit with stunning landscaping techniques. The use of the SNOT techniques to sculpt the rock formations creates an organic look to the landscape. The flow of the water blends seamlessly with the rocks to the point that it looks like actual water from afar. Take a closer look and you’ll appreciate the fine craftsmanship of this build.
Jongno Tower is a unique office building in Seoul designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and completed in 1999. bigcrown85 has faithfully recreated the structure in LEGO, with extensive use of transparent blue bricks. Similarly, the outer structural elements of the building use numerous LEGO struts, demonstrating that repetition is often a key element of achieving a real-world look in a LEGO creation.
Even the trees at ground level use some interesting techniques.
Excellent brickwork by LEGO 7 lends character to this brick-built portrait of Gargamel, the villain from The Smurfs. The face is great, but the posing of the arms and fingers give a real sense of the figure’s creeping motion…
Just exactly what Gargamel was going to do if he ever found the Smurf village was never entirely clear to me as a child. At various points I think he wanted to destroy them, eat them, or turn them into gold. His greatest achievement, of course, was the inadvertent creation of Smurfette — something for which I think the male Smurfs, previously starved of female company, should offer a vote of thanks.
LEGO 7 has also built Azrael, Gargamel’s long-suffering cat…
LEGO has announced a new product line called LEGO BrickHeadz, coming in 2017, which allows builders to “create, collect and display versions of iconic characters and superheros out of classic LEGO bricks and elements.”
The first versions will be unveiled at San Diego ComicCon (SDCC) next week, where fans can get a sneak peak at this upcoming line.
Captain America and Iron Man
Batman and Joker
Doctor Strange and The Panther
Superman and Wonder Woman
While the first offerings from this new line are SDCC exclusives, we’ll keep you posted on the availability date, and pricing as we get closer to 2017.
In the meantime, if you (like us) are not attending SDCC, you have a chance to win one one of the first sets. LEGO will be giving away prizes each day. To have a chance to win, follow @LEGO_Group on twitter and the hastag #LEGOSDCC.
One of my favorite minor characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books is Radagast, a wizard like Gandalf and Saruman who cares for the plants and animals of Middle-earth. I really kind of hated how Peter Jackson blew up The Hobbit into a bloated monstrosity of a movie trilogy, but I did deeply enjoy the extended screen time that Radagast had. Who can fault a sled towed by a team of enormous rabbits, handled by a man with birds’ nests in his hair? Real-life Middle-earth resident David Hensel recently built this enormous version of Rhosgobel, the house in Mirkwood where Radagast lives, for the Christchurch Brick Show this weekend.
The largest LEGO creation he has ever built, David says that the build includes twenty to twenty-five thousand LEGO bricks, and measures 77 cm (30 inches) on each side.
This bird’s eye view shows just how huge the build really is, with Radagast walking along the path on the left side of the scene. This photo also shows off David’s skill at incredibly detailed landscaping, from the varied flora at ground level to the trees around and into which the house is built.
The roof of Radagast’s house is built from the arms of Star Wars battle droids, and the whole thing includes David’s signature level of detail. Just look at the stonework around the brick-built front door, which has hinges made from minifig hands.
The whole build is modular so that David can take it to LEGO shows, and he plans to display it around New Zealand over the next year, since it’s too big to fit in his own house! You can see more pictures in David’s thread about his creation on Eurobricks, and see it in person 16th & 17th July at Horncastle Arena.