LEGO Renders

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Inspiration flows from various sources. For some time I’ve wanted to create a messy model, one with greebles and imperfections. A space article about a moon—I don’t remember which—provided the push I needed. With Frank Sinatra’s In Other Words playing in my head, I headed over to Mecabricks and started building.

When I ran across Iain Heath's Brick-moji, there was this instant need to build them myself. My wife thought they were cute, which was enough for me. Not long afterwards, I had my first render of the face with its tongue sticking out and tears of joy.

Inspiration and Milk Trucks. It was sheer luck that I found my latest build. Searching for a LEGO sticker set, I happened across this Milk Truck. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to render it. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a sucker for old LEGO sets, although I like modern ones too. Lucky or otherwise, there is a method to my madness. Join me for a few minutes and learn the fives ways I discover new models to render.

Meandering around Flickr, I ran across a picture of Floating cube houses Havneby Rømø island Denmark by Arkitema Architects. With black walls and expansive glass windows, the design was striking. Inspired by the modern lines, I pictured how they might look in LEGO bricks. Below is the result of me acting on that inspiration.

I continue to grow my skills in Mecabricks and, to a smaller extend, Blender. When I ran across What's missing? A New Hope on BrickSet, the Yavin IV model depicted intrigued me. Doing some research into the unreleased set, it ultimately led me to render my own version of it.

I follow a number of LEGO sites through RSS feeds, looking for inspiration on what to render next. A long time back, I booked marked this article, Build the Big E Cow. It was small, had instructions, and was kind of cute. Something my wife would like. I booked marked the site, thinking someday I’d get back to it. I finally did.

Hard to believe, but 20 years ago I started dabbling with POV-Ray to render models with virtual LEGO bricks. Set 373, my second rendered model, is over 20 years old now. Started in April of 1996, it’s seen many iterations over the years. This month I decided to build it once more—this time using Mecabricks and Blender.

This is the LEGO bricks puzzle panda from the “What is it?” section of “Bricks and Pieces,” Spring 1975. I solved the puzzle in LDD years ago, originally rendering it in POV-Ray. For this remake, I thought it’d be fun to import into Mecabricks and render again in Blender.

“Beware what lurks beneath the sea. Sharks, you say? No, not sharks. Something much, much worse. It comes from below and you’ll never see it until you find its maw enveloping you. What’s that? You don’t believe me? Sonny, I’ve seen it. I barely escaped myself when it took a liking to our boat.” Cheesy story aside, this is anotherof my older LDD models from 2010, converted and tweaked to use Mecabricks.

I’ve been a long time Star Trek fan, predating Star Wars by a few years. I have fond memories of watching the original series in re-runs, but it was TNG that rekindled my fandom. I even went to a convention while living in Indy. So, it should be no surprise that I built a version of the Enterprise D using only basic LEGO bricks. This is the story of my attempts at rendering it.

When I first created my Mini ZX81, I had modeled a Timex Sinclair 1000 (TS1000) as well. My intent was always to render them together, but other projects kept getting in the way. Finally getting back to it last week, the results came out better than I expected.

Up until now, all my Mecabricks work has been from me importing models. Sure, I’d tweaked a few pieces here and there, as I noted in my last post. Yet, I was still designing them in LDD and exporting them to render in Blender. LEGO model 352 is my first attempt at building something only in Mecabricks.

I’m still messing around with Mecabricks. Originally modeled in LDD and rendered in POV-Ray, this is the Blender version. It’s shiny! I like the lighting, but would have preferred to put a nice sky like I did in the first version. Perhaps I should go hunt down some Blender tutorials and figure out how to do that. Maybe later. For now, the model looks great with its realistic bricks.

Since 1995, I’ve been rendering LEGO models using POV-Ray. For most of that time, I’ve used scripting to place and build those models. It’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot over the years, each model looking a bit better than the first. That said, I’m never quite happy and always looking for new ways to render my models and, below, are my recent attempts using Blender.

I’ve been trying to get back into my LEGO ray tracing the last few weeks, but find myself distracted. Not with other activities, but with research and all the cool things others are doing. My journey led me to Mecabricks, where it provided the image you see to the right. Not yet at my destination, I thought I’d share this stop along the way.

Trying to get back into my LEGO ray tracing yesterday, I begin looking for old instructions on the internet again. It’s been awhile since I’d done that. Like coming home after being gone awhile, I enjoyed browsing through the old and new scans that are out there. I remembered liking the old house sets and, when I landed on 353 Terrace House, I thought it would be nice to render it. Yet, something made me think I’d already done that.

LEGO’s May mini build was a Blue Jay. I thought he’d look better in a tree which I modeled in LDD. I rendered the scene with POV-Ray 3.7RC7.

I’m a little behind in sharing some of my recent LEGO renders. One is an updated model, and one is a new one. Let’t take a look.

LEGO released this set in 1975 in Europe, and in 1976 as 485 Fire Truck in the US. Having grown up with these old sets, I have a special place in my heart for these short-lived LEGO mini-figs. Although I enjoy the great designs of today, I miss how simple these models are.

Happy Thanksgiving! This is the November Mini Build from LEGO rendered with POV-Ray. I love the Mini Builds as they are quick to render and fun to build.

Blast from the past. This set is one of mine from 1980. I believe one of the last I received while still in Norway. This was rendered with POV-Ray 3.7R6.

Goofing around again with some simple LEGO fireworks. Still waiting on the larger render to finish. Fireworks was the LEGO Club Monthly Mini Model Build for November 2009. Flame part courtesy of LDRAW and LeoCAD. A simple, yet effective model. Rendered with POV-Ray 3.7RC6.

Happy Easter! This is a great little set. The ducks are well designed and I love the little ugly duckling. I wonder if he'll become a swan? This is rendered with POV-Ray 3.7RC5.

I posted this a couple of days back on Flickr, but hadn’t made it around to posting here. Happy belated Valentine’s day to all!

It is a strange time for me. For years, I have run my web site locally as a way to test out new designs and programs. I have used that site as the home for my catalog of LEGO parts and colors. Unfortunately, the computer that housed that catalog failed and I still haven’t gone through the trouble of reinstalling Apache. While working on a recent project, that decision is becoming a problem. Today I decided to do something to correct that. I uploaded my L-Bricks catalog to my hosted web site. Now I can find the names I need to put parts and colors into my POV-Ray renderings.