Beach House

Inspired by a page in his LEGO Play Book, my brother decided to make a beach house.

 The fence railing here is made of four white 1x2 angled bricks. The top two have 2 studs on top and 1 on bottom and the bottom two have 1 on top 2 on bottom.

 The base is made of lots of tan tiles and plates. Building different layers and types of pieces gives a textured look and is great for building bases.

 Here's a side view. The beach house is held up on stone pillars (light gray 2x2 round bricks). Real beach houses have this so the house doesn't flood their beach front property.

 I poked the camera through the door to get some interior shots.
We have a chair, bed, wall decoration and a table holding a tablet and two goblets. Next to the table is a barrel for a trash can.

 There's a metal detector by the bed for searching for lost treasure in the sand.

 On the wall you can see a surfboard.

 This is how the wall decor is attached.

 The surfer is ready to hit the waves!

 Here's the page in the LEGO Play book about the beach house.

Bookshelf

 Here's a simple LEGO bookshelf. My original plan was to build my own, but I found a cool one in my brother's LEGO Play book that uses the SNOT* building method.

 Bookshelf
Here's the pieces you'll need:

• 25 white 1x2 bricks

OR

• 5 white 1x2x5 bricks
• 2 white 2x8
• Two stacks of multi-colored 1x2 plates five bricks high (15 per stack, 30 total)

 Place three of the 1x2x5 bricks on one of the 2x8 plates, two studs apart like so.

 Place the remaining two 1x2x5 bricks in between the three as shown.

 Now add the multicolored 1x2 plates.

 And the other 2x8 plate.

 I added a 1x2 tile and a 1x2 plate to make the legs wider.

Ta-da! Turn your creation on it's side and your bookshelf is complete.

The original shelf was brown rather than white. You could make yours any color you like.
*Studs Not On Top

Microracer

This 14 piece microscale race car was taken from the LEGO Play book.

 Microracer

• 2 bricks with two side studs
• 2 1x1 round plates
• 3 1x1 slopes
• 1 transparent 1x1 slope
• 4 black 1x1 round plates
• 1 1x1 brick with side stud
• 1 1x1 plate with ring

Notice I have round plates and 1x1 slopes listed separately. This is because the pieces can be any color, except one of the slopes has to be transparent (It's the windshield)and four of the round plates have to be black (They are the wheels).

 Attach the three bricks. This car is built using the SNOT* building technique, so lay the bricks down sideways. Lots of microscale things use this method.

 Put the black 1x1 round plates on the side studs for the wheels.

 Add one of the slopes to the front. Put the transparent slope on top.

 Add the plate with the ring to the back.

 Put the other two 1x1 round plates on either side of the ring.

 To finish it, add the last two slopes to the 1x1 plates, completing the spoiler on the back.

 Your microracer is ready for a race! In the LEGO Play book, there was a whole track for microracers to race around. try building your own, complete with a microscale audience and pit crew.

*Studs Not On Top

Baby Dragons!

After seeing the huge dragon on the cover of his LEGO book, my brother decided to build his own dragon. The large one he built came apart a while ago, but we have these baby dragons for you to enjoy!

This one is a little (Okay, a lot) more awesome.

Before making it, know that you will need a lot of clip pieces.
Here is the body. It's made with two 2x2 slanted bricks, a bunch of clip pieces and 2x2 tiles.

The clips hold on the wings, legs, tail and neck.

Here are both of the dragons bodies. They are slightly different, the boy dragon has a red plate instead of tiles.

The wings are made of slanted plates. The girl dragons wings are a 3x6 slanted plate, The boys have a red 2x4 slanted plate on top. For larger dragons, you could use lots of layered plates. The hinge clip piece attaches the wings to the body.

Now the tail(s). A jumper plate holds horn pieces. Hinged pieces allow the tail to bend. A 1x1 slope piece adds a spike to the end of the tail.

The feet are 1x2 slanted bricks the a 1x1 plate with a clip on top. For the base of the feet, he used plates. For the girl, 2x2, the boy has slightly larger 2x3 plates.

All my pictures of the dragons neck have disappeared. You can check out the pictures of the finished dragons if you need to look at it. Basically, it's just two 1x2 plates with bars, a round 2x2 plate on top and a 2x2 plate on bottom and a horn piece in the center of the round plate. There is just one neck section on these dragons, but for a larger dragon you can add more to make the neck longer
Now the heads. You can build them however you wish. We used transparent cones for the eyes

As you can see here, the teeth are horn pieces held in with 1x1 horizontal clip pieces. The jaw is held on with a hinge piece. (We call them Wall-e eyes because our Dad once built a tiny LEGO model of Wall-e and used that piece as his eyes.) On the larger dragon, rather than a 1x2 tile, he used two 1x1 slopes for lower teeth.

Make sure to add clips on the back to attach it to the neck.

Now to attach it all together! This part pretty much explains itself. Just snap all the pieces together.

Head and neck attached to the body.

Now the legs and tail.

And finally, the wings.

Here is the finished dragon and all the different parts.

And now, you can enjoy some more pictures of the dragons.

There you go! You can build baby dragons, or size up the different parts to make a full sized dragon. Any colors can be used and you can personalize your dragon however you want.

Centaur

Yet another idea from the LEGO Play Book. They had a couple ideas for a Centaur. This was the simplest. Here it is:

LEGO Centaur
Here are the pieces you'll need:

• 2x4 brick
• 2 Mini figure pants
• 1  Mini figure shirt
• 1 Mini figure head
• Optional accesories

Attach the legs onto the brick. This will be the body. You could use black pieces, brown pieces white pieces or another color. Whatever you want.

Now add the Mini figure parts. I used a shirt from a knight set.

Accessorize!

He is holding a crossbow here. Is he attacking someone? Or defending his home?

This Centaur has a walking stick. Could he be going on a journey?

Also, you could put some black 1x1 plates on the bottoms of the feet for hooves. Have fun playing with your Centaur!