Details: You may remember the spectacular pop-up model of Kinkaku-ji (the Temple of the Golden Pavilion) from a few years back. More recently, the builder has made another excellent pop-up temple - Nara, Japan's Todai-ji. This one also includes the Daibutsu inside the temple. Around the 1:52 mark, the video switches from a demonstration to CAD-based building instructions, complete with part counts for each step. All 8,816 pieces are accounted for, and there's a complete parts list with BrickLink part numbers at the end.
Details: This is a model of a Japanese ferry boat. You might not be able to tell from the thumbnail here, but the real boat's in the background of that photo. The ship is in minifig scale and features some nice on-deck detailing. The back has some open sections so you can see the cars it is carrying inside.
It looks like there's some more info on this graphic, but I can't read Japanese (my ability to pretend to speak all languages on the internet depends on text not being part of a graphic).
Details: While most of us are used to seeing sculptures built out of LEGO bricks in a straightforward manner, I think it takes a bit more effort to build with the studs facing in every direction. This technique gets much better resolution, allowing for round shapes to look rounder. It also is very effective on smaller creations - after all, the idea is to capture the likeness of something, not to show off how many pieces you have. This model of Hello Kitty perfectly captures the character. The studs-out-in-all-directions technique is difficult enough (and used to great effect here), but what really makes this Hello Kitty is the way other parts were used for details. Levers make perfect whiskers, and the 1x1 "cheese" slopes make the frill of the dress. Elsewhere, curved slopes round ears, arms, and even legs. Even the angled 2x2 corner plates and round 2x2 plate that make up the bow stand out as a great use of a technique.
This is the first great model of the Golden Pavilion that I've seen - and that fact is going to get lost in the shuffle due to just how unique this creation is. This thing is spectacular on several different levels. On the one hand, it's built to look like a LEGO set box - all the sides are assembled as mosaics, and the details (including letters in English and Japanese, as well as a "parts list" and "actual size" minifigs) are all spectacular, even though things are kept strictly at low resolutions to match the side they are on. On the other hand - it's a giant pop-up creation that folds out to construct the perfect minifig-scale model of the Golden Pavilion inside! The close-ups near the end of the clip provide some insight as to how this was done, but it still remains a mysterious marvel.
Details: Piece of Peace is a touring exhibit that features landmarks from around the world rendered in various scales. The blog post linked to above is a round-up of details and photos of the exhibit that the Brothers Brick put together. Most of the models are worth featuring individually (and there are quite a few pictures that are linked to from the site above instead of being immediately visible), but there's only so much time and there are so many great models here. If you're like me, you probably don't recognize that many of the locations, but there is a list of all UNESCO World Heritage Sites at http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/ that can make it easier to figure the rest out. These are all very impressive - it's worth bookmarking and finishing later if you don't have the time to look at them all right away. Oh, and if you live in or near Nagoya, Japan, you can visit this one through March 24th.
