MicroBricks

Aloft

2012-01-27T16:31:00.002-05:00

Titolian has taken floating rocks into different scales. A couple of weeks ago he made aloft, and then today took that same scene and shrank it further.

Mountain temple

2012-01-21T09:20:00.001-05:00

James Pegrum's gorgeous Temple of Jugatinus was built for the micro temple challenge.

Launch Pattern Alpha

2012-01-20T08:09:00.000-05:00

Tervlon made this Yavin-esque scene.

Dai Yum Corp HQ

2012-01-19T07:55:00.000-05:00

Lemon boy made a great galactic headquarters for Dai Yum Corporation.

Trade Federation Battleship

2012-01-18T07:53:00.000-05:00

Xinjack made a great version of the Trade Federation Battleship.

Tuskegee airmen

2012-01-17T07:39:00.001-05:00

Tbone-tbl posted this great P51 Mustang.

Dwarven stronghold

2012-01-15T12:43:00.001-05:00

LukeClarenceVan The Revanchist made this awesome dwarven stronghold.

Any old port in a space-storm

2012-01-12T10:02:00.003-05:00

Captain Limabean made this port.

These are the microvoyages of the Starship Enterprise

2012-01-11T08:30:00.001-05:00

Elephant Knight has made a fleet of Star Trek ships.

Architecture competition

2012-01-10T13:54:00.000-05:00

King Darconius is judging some towers (here by si-mocs).

Jackie Britton

2012-01-06T11:41:00.002-05:00

I've been totally remiss in not posting about Jackie Britton. Her amazing world-wide exploration is back on, and for the past three months she's been in Central and South America, seeing Unesco World Heritage sites like Qiuto and Tikal.

2012-01-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

Over on Brickd I saw this great Armadillo and Mammoth by CommanderHawk.

That's no moon

2012-01-03T11:31:00.002-05:00

LEGO has come up with another interesting series for micro builders, the Star Wars Planets sets. The first series consists of 9674-1: Naboo Starfighter & Naboo, 9675-1: Sebulba's Podracer & Tatooine and 9676-1: TIE Interceptor & Death Star. Each of these sets has a minifig, a microscale vehicle, and, at probably the smallest scale ever in a LEGO set, and 11-wide planet (or space station). This is the most scale mixing we've seen in an official set since, I believe, 7468, Saturn V Moon Mission. The ships are nice - I particularly like the TIE Interceptor, but those planets will be interesting elements. I'm sure we'll see builders put these to use in forced perspective scenes in space battles. Probably the most obvious application I see, given that I just packed away my Christmas decorations, is to make a Star Wars themed Christmas tree next year, with micro ships and these planets as ornaments. There's apparently another series coming out this summer, so I look forward to seeing what those are like.

Battle of Hoth

2012-01-01T18:07:00.001-05:00

Battle of Hoth is an upcoming game release from LEGO. No clue what game play will be like, but I see microfigs of almost every major character, including Hoth Han, Chewie, Darth Vader, Snowtroopers, Luke in a flight suit (okay, well, some rebel in a flight suit), Boba Fett (huh? he wasn't at the battle), and others, plus micro versions of an AT-AT, an AT-ST, a Snowspeeder, and a Tauntaun. I'll bet every Star Wars fan will want this, regardless of how the game works.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've featured Joe Meno's Nativity before, but it's the best micro for the day. Merry Christmas, one and all.

Kurrendesänger

2011-12-24T13:47:00.000-05:00

Kurrendesänger (here by Jojo) are either wandering carolers, or little wooden figurines of carolers found as decorations in German homes.

Twas the MOC before Christmas

2011-12-23T23:39:00.002-05:00

From Tony Sava
Twas The MOC Before Christmas
When what on my wandering tracks should appear,
But a mini-scale coach, and eight tiny traindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than diesels his engines they came!
While they whistled, he shouted and called them by name:

"Now, Zephyr! now, Memphis! now, Empire and Bullet!
On, Comet! on, Chieftain! on, Daylight and Rocket!
To the end of the line! Slip the brake and highball!
Now chug away! chug away! chug away all!"

Kepler

2011-12-22T13:09:00.002-05:00

Adrian Florea made this great scene.

Let's go for a drive

2011-12-22T10:56:00.000-05:00

V&A Steamworks has an ongoing Cabinet of Curiosities project, where he invites other AFOLs to contribute small MOCs to a group display. Tim Gould made this great car.

No island is a man

2011-12-21T10:54:00.000-05:00

V&A Steamworks has an ongoing Cabinet of Curiosities project, where he invites other AFOLs to contribute small MOCs to a group display. Chris Edwards made this amazing island.

Dino Bowling

2011-12-20T09:22:00.003-05:00

Adam Meyers is going dino bowling.

Berzerk

2011-12-18T17:57:00.002-05:00

Appollo keeps posting great BSG-inspired MOCs, like the Battlestar Berzerk.

Advent Calendar

2011-12-12T15:15:00.001-05:00

Over on FBTB they've posted a review of the first half of the 7958 Star Wars Advent Calendar. This looks like a pretty great set to me, you get eight figs (six if you don't count droids), including the new, and quite fun, Yoda Claus. Relevant to this blog, though, is the series of great little microscale ships. My favorite is probably the Slave 1.

Pisa

2011-12-03T13:10:00.002-05:00

Gabriel Riutort built a nice Pisa MOC to the micropolis standard.

Castles galore

2011-12-02T12:00:00.001-05:00

There were so many wonderful entries in the Mini Castle Contest. I want to go back and look at some other in addition to the great winning entries I've already noted.

Knight Eklund's Cliffport Castle has a really beautiful sweeping coastline. I really like the color scheme and the variation in slope pitches from the upper plateau down to the beach. The castle itself is great with a non-square shape. I assume that most of the objects are held on by gravity, which is a liability of using the SNOT base. Another minor liability of the SNOT base is that it makes everything so unnaturally flat. Of course, at this scale, studs make fairly large hills, so maybe flat is better.

Ru Corder's Countryside Keep is also on a SNOT base, with the same advantages and disadvantages noted above. The wall made of brown rods is outstanding, as is the sandwiching of grill plates to make small windows in the main keep. I also really like the tree design using flower stems. Oh, and the use of log bricks to make plowed fields is another great piece usage.

LEGO Ideas Book

2011-11-27T08:37:00.001-05:00

If you're looking for a great gift for the AFOL in your life, check out the DK LEGO Ideas Book (hmm, good sale price on Amazon). Anyway, this includes a large number of models by AFOLs you may know, like several of Debrah Higdon's micro models.

Mini Castle Contest

2011-11-25T13:27:00.000-05:00

I apologize for being away from blogging for three weeks. Anyway, in the meantime, the winners were announced in the Mini Castle Contest. And the winner is ... Blego7's Warscape Volume 2, and second place went to the related Warscape Volume 1 by Siercon and Coral. While there were a lot of great entries, and I'll go back and look at some of those in future posts, these three builders really raised the bar by building a series of connected MOCs that all work together to tell an epic story.

Micro fleet is getting bigger

2011-11-13T11:41:00.001-05:00

CommanderHawk's micro fleet is getting bigger. (Previous post here.)

Centre Pompidou

2011-11-04T10:48:00.000-04:00

Theolego made the Pompidou Center.

WWII

2011-11-03T14:15:00.000-04:00

Henning Birkeland made this great airport and planes.

One Penn Plaza

2011-11-02T14:12:00.000-04:00

I don't know who 'moctown' is, but they just posted three great landmarks - One Penn Plaza, the Metlife building, and the leaning tower of Pisa.

Monster mash

2011-11-01T14:11:00.002-04:00

There's so much to admire in lisqr's monster battle: the scale mixing, the great Japanese castle, the tree design, and that rainy backdrop.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T10:30:00.002-04:00

The Mini Castle Contest finishes up today on CC. More on that later. For today, I thought Lolino's entry Tartarus had a sufficiently spooky feel to celebrate the day.

Oh Canada

2011-10-21T04:26:00.000-04:00

Thadjantzi has made six great Vancouver landmarks.

Warscape Volume 1

2011-10-20T04:22:00.000-04:00

Mini Castle Contest VII continues to inspire great MOCs. Siercon and Coral made an amazing series of eight separate scenes, each of which could be a post all by themselves, but tell a whole story and fit together to make Warscape Volume 1. More on Volume 2 in the near future ...

Failed?

2011-10-17T14:48:00.001-04:00

Walter boy calls this a failed attempt at forced perspective. Maybe, but that castle is pretty cool.

Love, exciting and new, come aboard, we're expecting you!

2011-10-12T15:46:00.000-04:00

CharityBuzz is holding an auction, with the proceeds to benefit Gabrielle's Angel Foundation for Cancer Research. Anyway, they are featuring Love to the Rescue, which is essentially a bejewelled version of set 10155, the microscale Maersk container ship. This artist has done several other sculptures where they took LEGO, plated the bricks with gold, silver etc, and then added jewels and crystals to get a fairly stunning result. If you've got a spare $5000 burning a hole in your pocket you can place a bid right now.

Soyuz spacecraft

2011-10-09T14:19:00.003-04:00

Pascal Schmidt (Flickr user Pasukaru76) put together a micro Soyuz spacecraft. For comparison, here's a photo of the real thing.

Nano Hogwarts

2011-10-08T14:35:00.003-04:00

We've featured a microscale Hogwarts before, but this one from Stacy Sterling is remarkably smaller, while still quite recognizable. Stacy writes that it was created for Guy Himber's Cabinet of Curiosities.

For a better view of the tiny objects in the Wunderkammer, check out this photo, which includes notes about the builders who contributed to the project.

City

2011-10-06T16:34:00.000-04:00

This gorgeous cityscape was on display at BrickCon. Anyone know the builder?

Trains!

2011-10-05T16:33:00.000-04:00

These wonderful trains by James Matthes were at BrickCon.

Unity Temple

2011-10-03T00:02:00.002-04:00

GW Scholbrock, known as The Brick Sho on flickr, presented Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple at BrickCon.

Globe

2011-09-28T07:30:00.000-04:00

Lego.Skrysston made the Globe Arena in Stockholm. Be sure to check out how this was constructed.

Mini Castle VII

2011-09-27T14:34:00.000-04:00

Over on Classic-Castle it's that time again: Mini Castle VII is being run this year by forum member Wobnam, as previous contest administrator Robin Hood is now busy with college. Try your hand and win cool prizes. This was only announce a couple of days ago, and we've already seen three entries, including Subix' rendition of the Slovenian castle Sneznik.

10230 Mini Modulars

2011-09-26T12:28:00.004-04:00

10230 Mini Modulars will be released in 2012. More details and photos here and here.

University of Derby

2011-09-23T10:52:00.000-04:00

Clare Currie and Luke Dolman made the University of Derby, where they both work. They made this for a contest at LEGO Fan Weekend starting today in Denmark. Good luck, guys!

Into the valley of death

2011-09-23T01:43:00.000-04:00

Brickdoctor has this great mission 10.2.

Set 3300005 - Copenhagen

2011-09-22T01:41:00.002-04:00

Set 3300005 - Copenhagen was an exclusive offering at the grand opening of a LEGO store in (of all places) Copenhagen this past March. Nori-gallery has pictures showing all sides, the packaging, etc. This is an impressive little set. They've gotten more elaborate with these store opening offerings, and even include unique elements in this set. At least according to Bricklink those printed bricks are exclusive to this set.

Purchase this set and see an inventory on Bricklink.

Viking Ship Hall

2011-09-20T15:54:00.005-04:00

Anne Mette Vestergard made the Danish museum Viking Ship Hall.

Gotcha!

2011-09-19T16:35:00.000-04:00

Gotcha! by Karf Oohlu

Cathedral

2011-09-14T15:50:00.001-04:00

Lolino made this wonderful cathedral.

Back to Taiwan

2011-09-13T14:09:00.000-04:00

RMingTW built the Grand Hotel in Taipei.

9-11 memorial

2011-09-12T14:07:00.001-04:00

This 9-11 memorial is the TexLug display this month at the Stonebriar LEGO store, built by members Corey and Dave.

Ten years ago today ...

2011-09-11T08:46:00.002-04:00

I really debated what to post today. Some time ago Todd Webb made a stunning rendition of the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center, but for today I'd rather remember it as it stood in happier times, here by Spencer Rezkalla (btw, Sean Kenney was really the early builder to make New York landmarks, but his photos from 2000 are pretty poor quality)). Spencer also looked ahead to the rebuilt WTC.

BTW, I looked around for a good LEGO version of the Pentagon, but couldn't find one. Having lived in the DC area for five years and driven past it every day, it seems like such an obvious build. Of course, the angles involved would be an interesting challenge given the inherent shapes of LEGO.

Taiwan

2011-09-10T12:05:00.003-04:00

LEGO recently displayed a map of Taiwan in a mall (in Taipei?) full of landmarks like this (hmm, I thought it was the national theater, but re-looking at pictures now I'm not sure - could someone who knows anything about Taiwan help me here?) and other scenes like this bridge and this shipyard.
Edit - Thank you to Aimless Pursuits, who pointed out in the comment that the first building is Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

Who ya gonna call?

2011-09-09T11:55:00.000-04:00

Chris Deck did this great Ecto 1.

Loews Philadelphia

2011-09-07T16:04:00.005-04:00

Greg Majewski recently built the Loews Philadelphia Hotel.

Falcon family

2011-09-07T15:05:00.000-04:00

Muggsey has this family photo of the micro Millennium Falcons from set 7778, 4488, the keychain and the Advent calendar.

Trump International Hotel and Tower

2011-09-06T11:49:00.002-04:00

Sean Kenney's latest masterpiece is the Trump International Hotel and Tower now on permanent display at the LEGO store at Water Tower Place Mall in downtown Chicago. Via the Brothers-Brick.

I'll show you qujibo!

2011-08-31T02:04:00.002-04:00

I love the minimal but still completely recognizable version of the Simpsons here by Sehjo_vlc. I think Bart might be dropping a water balloon over the side.

Tornado

2011-08-25T10:11:00.000-04:00

Blake's Baericks gives us this tornado.

microscale theater

2011-08-23T22:59:00.000-04:00

Stacy Sterling presents this theater, inspired by the Town Plan set.

LL-186

2011-08-21T10:18:00.000-04:00

Matthew Maulfair made this LL-186 Deep Space Freighter.

BrickFair

2011-08-20T10:17:00.002-04:00

BrickFair 2011 had this micropolis display with over 45 modules.

Vizcaya Bridge

2011-08-19T10:06:00.001-04:00

Jackie Britton presents the striking Vizcaya Bridge from Bilbao, Spain.

Starship Peacekeeper

2011-08-18T09:43:00.001-04:00

Bladewood made the Starship Peacekeeper.

Daley Center

2011-08-17T09:10:00.001-04:00

RoccoB also made Chicago's Richard J. Daley Center.

CNA Plaza

2011-08-16T09:08:00.001-04:00

RoccoB made the CNA Plaza from Chicago.

Rampage

2011-08-15T09:55:00.000-04:00

B. Ezra recreates the old Rampage video game.

Bogensperk

2011-08-15T09:04:00.002-04:00

Subix made this beautiful rendition of the Slovenian castle Bogensperk.

Godzilla

2011-08-12T10:48:00.000-04:00

Bobafrut used the new lizard-man fig as Godzilla.

Puerta de Alcala

2011-08-11T10:39:00.003-04:00

Victor Martinez Nouvilas designed this Puerta de Alcala in the style of the Architecture line.

Bank of China

2011-08-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

Simon Lu made the Bank of China from Hong Kong.

Brickville

2011-08-09T10:52:00.001-04:00

Luap31 is building Brickville.

Chateaux

2011-08-08T10:48:00.003-04:00

It looks like some members of FreeLUG (who?) were inspired by the Architecture line to build MOCs of various French Chateaus. One is clearly labeled as Chambord, but I don't know enough about these to identify the others.

Castel Del Monte

2011-08-07T00:48:00.001-04:00

Castel Del Monte by Diabel:

A shipyard in only 10 pieces

2011-08-06T14:25:00.002-04:00

Porschecm2 came up with this clever shipping dock as part of a challenge on Builders' Lounge.

Fleet

2011-08-05T23:26:00.000-04:00

Commanderhawk made this carrier and destroyer.

PM racer

2011-08-04T01:43:00.001-04:00

Harry Russell made this PM racer.

Launch

2011-08-03T12:02:00.001-04:00

Pete Reid made this missile launcher.

Battlestars

2011-08-03T01:13:00.002-04:00

I've been watching Battlestar Galactica on Netflix recently, so it was great to see these MOCs by LensFlareApp.
-Oops, thanks to Iain for the correction, the Battlestar is by El Barto. LensFlareApp helped add special effects to the image.

Micro city

2011-08-02T17:11:00.000-04:00

Lisqr made this micro city.

Freedom Tower

2011-08-01T17:07:00.000-04:00

Spencer Rezkalla made this One World Trade Center.

UN

2011-07-31T17:05:00.000-04:00

Spencer Rezkalla made this great United Nations.

Venator

2011-07-30T17:00:00.002-04:00

Vacherone made this great Venator class Star Destroyer.

Lady Liberty

2011-07-29T16:55:00.000-04:00

Brucewaynelego made this Statue of Liberty.

You, on the motorcycle!...You two girls, tell your friends

2011-07-28T07:41:00.002-04:00

Tonight only, the fabulous Blues Brothers. Rhythm and Blues review. The Palace Hotel Ballroom. Route 16. Lake Wazzapamani. The fabulous Blues Brothers show band and review.
It's the Bluesmobile by Legostein.

Azkaban

2011-07-27T07:39:00.000-04:00

Boba-Fett has his own version of Azkaban.

Guan-vs-Aliens

2011-07-26T07:33:00.003-04:00

Giant monsters battle it out through the Hong Kong skyline in TKH's Guan-vs-Aliens. Also a still photo.

Woolworth building

2011-07-25T07:32:00.001-04:00

Spencer Rezkalla made the Woolworth building.

WTC

2011-07-24T07:29:00.000-04:00

Spencer Rezkalla also made Building 7 from the World Trade Center.

Burj al Arab

2011-07-23T07:30:00.001-04:00

SPCgrimes made the Burj al Arab.

Peachtree

2011-07-22T07:27:00.001-04:00

Spencer Rezkalla made the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta.

Micropolis construction site

2011-07-19T01:00:00.004-04:00

Construction crane, from the Micropolis display at Brickworld.

Photo by Michel Labelle, who has posted a nice set of Micropolis photos taken at Brickworld.

micro mecha

2011-07-09T16:44:00.003-04:00

Flickr user Raygam presents this little mecha. The stud tube in the transparent slope on top looks a bit like the helmet of a tiny operator.

Azkaban

2011-06-17T11:13:00.001-04:00

Chris Deck turns to Harry Potter themes with his Azkaban.

Eureka! I built it!

2011-06-16T10:24:00.001-04:00

Aaron Amatnieks built Melbourne's Eureka Tower.

Black Pearl

2011-06-15T10:22:00.002-04:00

LEGO recently released set 30130, the mini Black Pearl.

Arcturus Casino

2011-06-14T10:20:00.000-04:00

BrickFX made this Arcturus Casino.

Town Hall

2011-06-13T10:10:00.000-04:00

Rob Ratius made this great micropolis town hall to win a ULUG contest.