Tag Archives: Lego ideas

Incredibly Detailed LEGO PlayStation One comes with Controllers, a CD, and even Memory Cards

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The LEGO-based pixelated look goes well with the PS One, which ran 32-bit games when it launched in the 90s. We’ve come a long way since then, but LEGO Builder GoofySwan099 decided to do a grand throwback to the good old days with this LEGO version of Sony’s first-ever gaming console. It isn’t clear how many bricks this build uses, but it comes with all the bells and whistles, including memory card and controller inputs on the front, an opening CD tray, and RCA ports on the back. Accompanying the console itself is a controller, multiple memory cards, and even a LEGO compact disc that fits right into the machine!

Designer: GoofySwan099

Although a little rough around the edges, the LEGO PS One is a spitting replica of the original. It’s fairly operational with maneuverable parts, add-ons, and a matching color scheme complete with logos to remind you of the real deal. Lift the hood and you’ll see a rotating CD that comes out (don’t forget to blow on the CD as you put it in like they used to back in the old days), and along with memory cards that saved game progress, you’ve got two slots for controllers, enabling team and mano-a-mano gameplay.

“The console has working features such as a power button, open button, memory card ports, controller port, and reset button. The back of the console is also detailed, showing all of the ports to connect the console to a television,” says LEGO builder GoofySwan099.

There’s even venting on the sides, designed to push air backward and out of the console!

At 2487 votes, the LEGO PlayStation One is gradually climbing up the Ideas forum charts, where community members like you and me get to vote for our favorite fan-made pieces. If it reaches the 10,000 vote target, LEGO’s internal team will consider making this into a box set, following some amount of design refinement.

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These LEGO Geodes and Minerals let you be a gem-collector without burning a hole in your wallet

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Who knew that a humble interlocking brick from 1932 would become such a versatile ‘pixel’ of the human world nearly a hundred years later?? The LEGO Mineral Display turns plastic bricks into precious gemstones, relying on their inherent geometric nature to mimic the beauty of crystals forming under the extreme pressures of the earth’s crust. Designed in a variety of shapes and styles, these minerals, created by LEGO builder Dario Del Frate, turn you into a gem collector overnight, with the added benefit of allowing you to build the gems instead of mortgaging your house to buy them online! Sure, they aren’t authentic, but they’re intricate, and thanks to the use of transparent gems, gorgeously eye-catching!

Designer: Dario Del Frate

Del Frate designed these minerals back in 2020, sharing them on LEGO’s Ideas forum in August of the year. In a statistical rarity, his submission received 10,000 votes from the broad LEGO community but wasn’t approved by LEGO’s internal team. Del Frate, however, decided to refine his design and renew his effort, also building a display unit with the minerals, giving you a nifty place to store and exhibit them to your friends and guests.

LEGO Amethyst Geode

“The old & new specimens are now displayed in a lovely case, built with available dark and reddish brown elements, enriched with golden rivets. The case can be hung directly to a wall or simply put on a shelf,” Del Frate mentions. “The collection is composed of 6 pieces: Rhodochrosite, Amethyst Geode, Black Tourmaline with Aquamarine, Orange Quartz, Emerald, Pyrite.”

LEGO Rhodoschorite

It’s honestly baffling how versatile LEGO bricks can be, replicating the different kinds of gems rather incredibly well. The different geometries, transitions between amorphous and crystalline structures, and the wide variety of colors get captured in Del Frate’s collection beautifully. While he mentions that his previous LEGO entry had a few ‘illegal’ joining techniques, he’s refined all his designs to now be made in a legal fashion, with no wedging, gluing, breaking, or manipulating the bricks in any unintended ways.

LEGO Orange Quartz

LEGO Pyrite

LEGO Black Tourmaline with Aquamarine

LEGO Emerald

Del Frate’s latest submission sits at the 3,500 vote mark and is open for voting. If it crosses the coveted 10,000 vote threshold, he gets yet another shot at having the LEGO review team consider turning this into a box set that people like us can buy and assemble!

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LEGO Brings Adorable A-Frame Cabin to Life with Amazing Details

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An architectural icon from the years 1950 to 1975, the A-Frame cabin still remains one of the most eye-catching and visually memorable home styles. Characterized by an A-shaped design, the frame eschews a ceiling, instead opting for tapering walls that create a unique space to inhabit, with the option of high ceilings or even multi-level living that feels dynamic yet rustic at the same time. This cabin designed in LEGO bricks by LEGO user Norton74, captures the trend of the A-Frame heyday. In ways it also challenges the very nature of the LEGO Brick, which was itself designed to make traditional cuboidal structures back when it was invented in the 1930s.

Designer: Norton74

The beauty of Norton74’s A-Frame cabin is just how remarkably real it is. Whether observed from the outside or even its immaculately detailed insides, every corner of this build has something new to reveal. The cabin itself sits on a stone brick plinth, with colorful larch trees in the background. It’s mildly decrepit, with crooked staircases and boarded-up doors, but that adds to its charm.

The inside of the cabin shows exactly how charmingly rustic and cozy it is. A multi-level design gives you a recreational area at the bottom (with a fireplace), and a bedroom on the top that features two single beds and even some cobwebs on the wall for that forest charm. To access the insides of the cabin, all you need to do is ‘open’ its slanting walls outwards. Hinges on the bottom of the walls make it easy to access the interiors during play-time, and close it back once you’re done.

The inside is just filled with all sorts of details, from tools to trinkets, and even a tiny kitchen of sorts with a dining table. Norton74’s rather mindfully used discolored wooden bricks (including even some with shingle detailing) to mimic the variety often found in wooden cabins – especially ones that have been repaired and restored.

There’s even a backstory to Norton74’s cabin design. “Two brothers, Dan and Ethan, burned out on modern working believed that stripping away modern comforts and living more simply in nature would lead to a more spiritually a creatively fulfilling life. They looked for a cabin in the woods and finally found out this old wooden A-Frame Cabin. They fixed it up, and now they live there happily,” he mentions.

Dan and Ethan aren’t the only occupants of the cabin. Aside from the spiders on the first floor, the cabin is also accompanied by chickens, rodents, a skunk, and even a bear lurking around in the back.

Norton74’s LEGO A-Frame Cabin started its journey as a submission on the LEGO Ideas forum, where it received overwhelming support from the LEGO fanbase. Earlier this year, LEGO turned Norton74’s submission into a retail box kit (you can buy the LEGO A-Frame Cabin right now), although the design went through multiple rounds of changes to make it smaller and simpler for younger users to build. If you ask me, I prefer Norton74’s MOC (My Own Creation) overwhelmingly. It’s charmingly crude, has a son-of-the-soil appeal to it, and certainly possesses much more character if you ask me!

The post LEGO Brings Adorable A-Frame Cabin to Life with Amazing Details first appeared on Yanko Design.

LEGO and Air Hockey Combine in This DIY Brick-Based Mini Table

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Although there’s no air involved in this particular build, the LEGO Ideas Tabletop Air Hockey kit captures the joy of slinging a puck around from left to right, trying to score a goal while protecting your own post. Submitted to the LEGO Ideas forum, this fan-made build from ‘LordFamousTulip100’ sits on the global LEGO forum with nearly a 1000 votes.

Designer: LordFamousTulip100

With a highly sturdy reliable construction that can easily handle the occasional violence of Air Hockey, LordFamousTulip100’s build comprises a staggering 2,500 bricks. The playing surface is smooth, has all the markings, and is spacious enough to accommodate two players comfortably. It’s still compact enough that the entire apparatus can sit on a coffee table, occupying perhaps the same amount of space as a large board game.

“The model features two brick build mallets and two pucks, which the goal can comfortably fit and store when you are not playing,” says designer LordFamousTulip100. “The playing surface is made with the largest pieces possible to ensure a smooth game.”

The board also features a goal counter to keep score, and has exposed dotted bricks on either side that you can plug your mallets/strikers into when not in use. The lack of air-based lubrication may be the one thing really missing from this game, but it makes up for it with the ability to be customized/modified thanks to the open-source LEGO-based design!

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The Iconic Interstellar ‘Miller’s Planet Scene’ gets its own Adorable LEGO Brick Recreation

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“Cooper! This is no time for caution.”

As the Ranger Ship descended on Miller’s Planet, hope suddenly turned to dismay and then to horror as Joseph Cooper and Dr. Brand realized that not only was the planet unviable for human life, their crew member was dead, they had wasted 23 years simply in the minutes they spent on the planet’s surface, and they were just mere moments away from a killer tidal wave approaching them from the horizon. The scene from blockbuster space-thriller Interstellar is noteworthy for causing a wide range of emotions and creating a visual tension only director Christopher Nolan can conjure. Now, LEGO builder Minibrick Productions is paying tribute to the Miller’s Planet scene with their tiny LEGO-based recreation that features the ranger aircraft, astronauts Cooper and Brand, and the shapeshifting robots TARS and CASE.

Designer: Minibrick Productions

Miller’s Planet is the first of the 3 planets explored by the group of astronauts looking for a viable alternative to earth. While crew-member Romilly stays back on the main ship, Cooper and Brand (played by Michael McConaughey and Anne Hathaway) travel to the planet, located close to a black hole. Little did they know that not only would this visit be futile, it would cost them decades because of the planet’s proximity to the black hole, causing a warp in space-time. Minibrick Productions’ rendition of this scene is as accurate as it gets, with all the characters and a rather realistic-looking Ranger spacecraft to match. McConaughey and Hathaway come outfitted in their space suits, while TARS and CASE, two monolithic-looking robots sport repositionable arms that allow them to walk like a human.

The Ranger craft itself is more than just aesthetic. Pop its hood off and there’s an entire cockpit where Cooper and Brand fit right in, along with a crawl-space where TARS or CASE can dock themselves. The rear hatch on the craft can open and close too, revealing the ramp through which the astronauts enter and exit the craft.

“This set would be mindless fun to a child who dreams of exploring space, as well as any collector who wishes to display one of the most iconic vehicles from science fiction,” says Minibrick Productions, the creator behind this LEGO scene. The LEGO Miller’s Planet scene from Interstellar comprises just 532 bricks, making it a relatively simple build for kids and enthusiasts alike. It currently sits in LEGO’s Ideas forum with over 4000 votes from the community. If it reaches the 10,000 mark, LEGO’s internal team will review it before turning it from a fan-made submission into a box-set that anyone can buy. Click here to vote for this build!

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This LEGO Snow Globe with the Lo-Fi Girl inside is Peak Holiday Wholesomeness!

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It’s truly amazing what people can do with the right combination of LEGO bricks. From building Bugattis to functioning calendars, the bricks have an unmatched versatility, and just in time for the holidays, LEGO-builder BrickAbe came up with yet another perfect LEGO project – a functioning snow-globe! The cherry on the cake, however, is that this snow globe also features YouTube’s most well-known fictional character, the anime girl from the LoFi Girl YouTube channel, known for her endless streams of great downtempo music.

Designer: BrickAbe

The Lo-Fi Girl Snowglobe is an interactive mechanical toy that features elements of Christmas along with the popular LoFi girl character, seen writing in a notebook with headphones on, with a laptop and a lazy ginger cat becoming a standard fixture in the background. BrickAbe’s globe captures these elements beautifully, turning the album art into a full LEGO-based diorama with a ground and first floor. The first floor becomes LoFi girl’s study, while the ground floor transforms into a living room during Christmas season, complete with gifts, and a decked up Christmas tree that rotates when you crank the lever outside!

The entire construction is incredibly wholesome, capturing the Christmas spirit in a rather adorable way. The diorama sits on a red platform that comes with its own Yuletide motifs, including stockings and presents, while being covered with a clear bell jar that is capped off with a snowflake on top!

“My greatest escape with Lo-Fi Hip Hop comes around the holidays. I feel very relaxed sitting next to a glowing fireplace, under a warm blanket, with Lo-Fi music playing in the background,” BrickAbe mentioned. “The idea for the snow globe came from a drawing I made a while back for #lofigirlchristmas. You can see this drawing displayed right above the fireplace. I created a charming loft apartment inside, decorated with holiday joy and Lofi Girl references!”

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