Bionicle Lobster

Name of Model: Bionicle Lobster

Created by: The Lego Obsessionist

Found at: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/168947

Details: Bionicle might not be the most natural looking thing to most people, but this lobster looks surprisingly realistic. When building animals like this, there's always a certain trade-off between realistically adding movable limbs and trying to squeeze in the most accurate appearance possible. This lobster looks like a good balance to me.

Penguin Sculpture

Name of Model: LEGO Penguin

Created by: Robert VH

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/galaxy53281/tags/penguin/

Details: This adorable and slightly cartoonish penguin looks like something straight out of a Disney movie (I'm half-expecting someone to tell me it is actually from a Disney movie about an hour after this post shows up on the web). At 34 cm (13.4 inches) tall, this is a little short for a penguin, but a believable height nonetheless. The anthropomorphized features work exceptionally well - especially the suitcase. In an interesting twist (from a builder's perspective, anyway), this model is a odd number of studs wide. While most bird-builders decide to use bills that overly wide or use offset plates (those little 1x2 pieces with one stud centered on top) to make the bill fit, this builder decided to do the entire model in such a way that the face can be thin without changing the width at an offset (coincidentally, this also solved the tail problem). This makes construction much more difficult, since ordinary symmetrical building would leave gaps in the body - it's completely doable, but extra effort is required to make something sturdy when building this way. As if that didn't show enough dedication to the craft, he went ahead and made the head swivel as well, making it hard to even spot the unusual construction if you're not looking for it. Update September 7th, 2009: It turns out that this character is based on the penguins in the movie Madagascar.

LEGO Toby Jugs

Name of Model: LEGO Toby Jugs

Created by the Australian LEGO Model Team

Found at: http://danstoymuseum.blogspot.com/2009/01/one-of-kind-collection.html

Details: This is a nice set of sculptures recently acquired by the Bellaire Historic Society and Toy and Plastic Brick Museum. This is one of many rare items that they've been able to showcase - the odds are pretty good that if you've found a bizarre LEGO display piece, you can track down info about it through this museum. I haven't seen too much info about these particular sculptures, but there are several more photos currently on flickr at the top of one photostream. Enough photos that you could copy the techniques, anyway - I'm sure I'm not the only one who does that...

Turtles

Name of Model: Turtle Power!

Created by: Mariann Asanuma, a former Master Model Designer from LEGOLAND California

Found at: http://modelbuildingsecrets.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/turtle-power/

Details: Sometimes you can do something beautiful just by re-imagining a few parts at a different scale. It only took one extra part to turn these starfishes into turtles, for example. The egg shells and beach make it adorable, but it was already darn clever to start with. If the starfish part doesn't look familiar to you, that may be because it's a Scala part - Scala is one of those "girly" lines that people tend to skip over without realizing how many great exclusive parts are there.

Frog (with a Knight's Kingdom II Torso!)

Name of Model: Frog

Created by: Ca'gerrin

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cagerrin/2623156960/in/photostream/

Details: This mechanical frog is a pretty brilliant idea. A few years ago, LEGO tried out a line of large Castle-themed Knight action figures. They didn't catch on too well, and the parts (often with special printing or colors) are now all easy to pick up used on the cheap. The torso from one of those figures makes up the bulk of this frog. More widely available Technic and System parts fill out the rest of his body. The effect is spectacular.