We're sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for /moms/Best-Lego-Sets-2013-32560380 on this server. An invalid request was received from your browser. This may be caused by a malfunctioning proxy server or browser privacy software. Your technical support key is: 3697-dd27-1756-6707 You can use this key to fix this problem yourself. If you are unable to fix the problem yourself, please contact and be sure to provide the technical support key shown above.By Ramón and Amador Alfaro Marcilla.Contact 1: The Millennial Celebration of the Eternal Choir at K’al Yne, Odan (2013). By Mike Doyle.Guardian Heavy (2011). By Aaron Williams.Hello (2013). By Chris McVeigh.Victorian on Mud Heap (2011). By Mike Doyle.The Doll (2008). By Ramón and Amador Alfaro Marcilla.CubeDudes [Abe Lincoln] (2009–2010). By Angus MacLane.Bradley the Blue Jay (2012). By Thomas Poulsom.Cetanclass Baseship (2012). By Garry King.Flower Petal Study (2002). By Katie Walker.Three Story Victorian with Tree (2011).
By Mike Doyle.Harley Davidsons (2011). By Dennis Glaasker.Mirage (2012). By Nannan Zhang & Tyler Clites.LEGO Treats (2010). In his new book, Beautiful LEGO, Mike Doyle has curated more than 200 pages of the world’s best Lego art. From museum-ready sculptures to indulgent geek references, the book highlights the impressive evolution of the legendary toy. “Every year this stuff gets more and more intricate and the technique gets better, so I thought it would be great to celebrate the merits of the medium,” says Doyle, who is also a Lego artist and includes some of his own work in the book. A graphic designer by day, Doyle re-discovered Legos four years ago after visiting Legoland with his two sons and then cruising around the internet to see what other people were doing. After a lot of research on technique, he tackled his first project. It was 2009 and the housing crisis was in full swing, so he decided to make an abandoned and decaying house. It took him hundreds of hours to complete, but he was hooked.
Now he spends months building larger and larger houses that have an increasing amount of detail and several hundred thousand pieces. The appeal for Doyle is the ability to “go beyond the medium.” At some point, he says Legos stop being the subject, and instead just become a tool. Like a painter seeing beyond the paint to envision the painting. He calls it a kind of “transcendence.” Much of the other art in Beautiful LEGO also breaks boundaries, not getting hung up on the bricks themselves. One artist, Nathan Sawaya, uses Legos to create Dali-esque statues that are intricate and perception-bending. Katie Walker builds mosaics like the kinds you might see on the floor of the Alhambra in Spain. Earlier this year Lego built a life-sized Star Wars X-Wing fighter from 5,335,200 individual bricks. It was 11 feet tall, 43 feet long 44 feet wide, and weighed almost 46,000 pounds. It was an amazing feat of Lego construction, but the artists featured in Beautiful LEGO show that finesse can be just as impressive as scale.
In his series CubeDudes, Angus MacLane keeps the pieces to a minimum but builds beautiful portraits of famous figures like Abraham Lincoln, Smokey Bear or Spock. Like clever 8-bit art, MacLane boils these figures down to their essence and in doing so makes them immediately recognizable. The same is true for Thomas Poulsom who builds simple but elegant birds and for the artist known as MisaQa, who made an entire series of snails with just a handful of pieces. On the technical side, there are artists like Dennis Glaasker, who builds chrome-covered replicas of Harley Davidsons and old hot rods that would make car and motorcycle enthusiasts drool. Arthur Gugick has taken on the gargantuan task of using Legos to recreate historical and fictional structures like Angkor Wat or the Tower of Babel. Doyle called for submissions from around the world. Since he couldn’t send a photographer everywhere, he asked artists to submit their own photos, which he then cleaned up. “I often brought in a colored backdrop which gave it an atmosphere and created a uniform look,” he says.
For Doyle, photography is essential to his Lego art because his creations are often just temporary. He’ll build them, make a nice photograph and then tear them down so he can start on the next. This is because large structures can get exorbitantly expensive. (an eBay for Legos) but each one costs between five and ten cents and you can do the math if each house features several thousand bricks. Doyle says the book, which is out now, is by no means completely comprehensive, just his view of the contemporary Lego art world. It acts as a historical document, and judging by the breakneck pace of Lego art, it will be quickly outdated. “Every year we get to see a new bunch of works that supersede the previous ones in terms of detail and technique thanks to the online exchange of ideas,” he says.Our community, 5577 want it Red Five X-wing Starfighter Our community, 4494 want it Brickmaster Star Wars: Battle for the Stolen Crystals parts Our community, 527 want it
Our community, 806 want it Our community, 931 want it Our community, 996 want it Our community, 869 want it Our community, 729 want it Star Wars Value Pack Our community, 427 want it LEGO Star Wars Super Pack Our community, 578 want it Clone Troopers vs. Droidekas Our community, 1701 want it Republic Troopers vs. Sith Troopers Our community, 1588 want it Our community, 1938 want it Our community, 2319 want it Our community, 2272 want it Our community, 3196 want it Jedi Starfighter & Planet Kamino Our community, 1534 want it Republic Assault Ship & Planet Coruscant Our community, 1664 want it TIE Bomber & Asteroid Field Our community, 1643 want itIt’s…an X-Wing made entirely of LEGOs? That’s right: almost 30 years to the date after the release of Return of the Jedi, LEGO is stoking Star Wars fans with a life-sized replica of the iconic aircraft, which just debuted in Times Square.
Some 5.3 million LEGO bricks were used to build the 46,000-pound model, besting the Mecha Robot to become the largest LEGO creation in the world. (MORE: WATCH: The World’s Longest Working LEGO Railway) How’d they do it? “Very carefully,” quips Eric Varszegi, a LEGO “master builder” who consulted on the project. And yes, that’s his actual job title. Planning began roughly 18 months ago, at a LEGO facility in the Czech Republic. Execs knew they wanted something big and Star Wars-y to promote their new toy-inspired animated miniseries (The Yoda Chronicles, premiering May 29 on Cartoon Network), and recreating a fan-favorite flier like the X-Wing “just seemed like a great thing to do,” says Varszegi. (MORE: The 8 Best Lego Reenactments) But this was no ordinary plaything. The official X-Wing prop planes—as LEGO learned from Lucasfilm—measure 42 feet from tip to tail, with a lengthy wingspan. They’re also 11 feet tall. Structurally, says Varszegi, there was no way a creation that big could rise from LEGO bricks alone, especially if it needed to weather earthquakes (a must when it moves to a Legoland theme park) and support kids in the cockpit (hello, photo-ops).
So the engineers started sketching. Their solution: a steel substructure, which would be wholly covered in real LEGO bricks to preserve the illusion of LEGO-ness. They also chose to keep the wings closed, because the open “X” formation would be tough to execute safely. Once plans were set, 32 builders worked day and night to make them a reality, placing one tiny LEGO after another. “That first brick is always the biggest challenge,” Varszegi recalls. “If you put it in the wrong spot, it will throw everything off.” Several months later, the finished X-Wing was shipped to the States—because, alas, it cannot fly. The model will stay in Times Square through Saturday, before trekking West to Legoland California, where it will join LEGO replicas of the Taj Mahal, the U.S. Capitol, and maybe, eventually, a Death Star? “At life size?” says Varszegi, laughing. “There aren’t enough LEGO bricks in the world.” (MORE: Behold: The LEGO Batcave of Your Dreams)