Before co-founding Studio Ghibli and going on to win two Oscars for Best Animated Feature, it was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind that cemented Hayao Miyazaki as Japan’s great animation auteur. Joffre Zheng pays tribute to the film with a brick-built Nausicaä on her swooshable glider racing over a herd of Ohmu as they skitter across the desert. The diorama uses forced perspective to sell how high Nausicaä soars over the titanic bugs. The use of bowed slopes to give the dust clouds a sawtoothed edge does a great job evoking Miyazaki’s style and conveying the Ohmus’ terrifying speed. As a bonus detail, Nausicaä’s glider features an LED that lights up with a button press. For other masterful Nausicaä models, check out these builds from Tino Poutiainen, TBB alum Iain Heath, and Alex Hui. The post LEGO Nausicaä glides to a brighter future appeared first on The Brothers Brick....

No-one likes a show-off. Now I’m not accusing Peter Botcher of being one – although his builds are certainly worth bragging about. But the owner of this enormous LEGO tower? That’s a different story! At the bottom, you’ve got two medieval small businesses: one a bakery, the other a small kiosk. I imagine the owners have to work really hard to get customers. But an alchemist has moved into town, and built their potion shop to tower over the others. What a nerve! I suspect it may backfire on them, though. Elevators won’t be invented for another few hundred years, and going up all those stairs may put off all but the most athletic of clientele… The post Tall towers are all well and good – as long as you don’t mind stairs appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Theo Spencer

I do sometimes wonder where Andreas Lenander gets his inspiration for some of his more fantastical LEGO creations. Part of the fun is taking a guess, and for this one, I’m somehow getting a vibe of mythical Mesoamerican deities. It looks like some form of bird, but equally, it also looks like… Not quite a bird? The strange foliage and dragonfly-esque creature next to it certainly evoke somewhere exotic. Perhaps it’s a cousin of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. As a matter of fact, Andreas has named this piece ‘Kolibri’, and Wikipedia tells me that Colibri is a genus of birds with brightly-coloured plumage from Central and South America. Hey, maybe my hunch isn’t that far off after all! The post A Colibri of the highest calibre appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Theo Spencer

You don’t have to be a member of the KISS Army to lick up this sizzling concert scene from virtuoso LEGO builder Paul Hetherington. In this fantasy staging, The Starchild, The Demon, and The Spaceman shred on pedestals above lava, while The Catman owns the drums from atop a flame-spewing podium flanked by metallic demon dogs and backed by a deafening wall of speakers while Detroit Rock City burns in the background. Doesn’t get more rock and roll than that! Paul artfully blends flat typography and graphic design with a minifig vignette to create this popping poster. (It’s a technique he’s used before, including in this TBB favorite golden age batman masterpiece). I find the use of color particularly striking, with flame shafts and geometric brick-built lava matching the KISS logo. While there are few visible LEGO studs on the stage itself, Paul uses an enviable amount of silver-grey elements to...

How’s this for a classic Star Wars moment captured in LEGO diorama form? It’s 2008, and you’re watching The Clone Wars, surely the last Star Wars movie you’ll ever see in theaters (haha, right?) when suddenly, a normal-looking All-Terran Tactical Enforcer starts climbing a frickin’ purple cliff like some sort of fat metal spider. Tim Goddard uses unevenly layered sloped bricks and tiles laid out in SNOT (studs not on top) fashion to achieve the irregular surface of the cliff. The AT-TE looks great in midi-scale—all the way down to the tiny clone trooper sitting at the turret. The post This AT-TE does whatever a spider can appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Ryan Kunz