Captain Nemo Posted July 5, 2022 The Oasis Each year, a dedicated group of Eurobricks members assemble in Schaumburg, Illinois, at the annual Lego convention--Brickworld Chicago--to construct one large and crazy collaborative display. This was the result: The Eurobricks collaborative display for Brickworld Chicago 2022 was the Oasis. A sprawling adventure across deserts and jungles, the Oasis display attempted to replicate that exciting feeling of discovery. Utilizing sightlines and some clever (if perhaps intense) planning, the harsh desert and lush jungle were hidden not only from each other, but from the viewer too. Upon approaching the display, the viewer was greeted only by the endless desert and the tenacious adventurers traversing it. But like the adventures, as the viewer explored further and walked around the display, a massive jungle would appear and a new epic would begin. And just as the explorers would ask themselves upon seeing the ruined temples of the jungle, you too are probably pondering, who built this?! Well Eurobricks that's who! From Jungle to Desert: @Darkdragon @Cecilie @KotZ @Quarryman @Hinckley @RoxYourBlox @Kristel @MKJoshA @ZCerberus @Rogue Angel @Cheesey @Silver.Smith @Captain Nemo @Peppermint_M @Evensong Not Pictured: @Ryushi @Prune Face @Vincent Kessels The Oasis was built by 18 Eurobricks members over the course of three years! Yes, read that right, three years! Our dedicated Eurobricks collab family has been working on this display since Brickworld Chicago 2019 and one short apocalypse later, we were finally able to come together at Brickworld 2020 2021 2022 to display it as we always intended. Spread across four tables, spanning 10 feet by 8 feet, with a height difference/drop of around 4 feet, this was our most ambitious and intensive display yet. Utilizing hundreds of thousands of pieces and just as much blood, sweat, and excess jungle water, this display was finally assembled together at Brickworld after a three day setup process. After which it was promptly destroyed. The Desert While the display itself is massive, the entire collaboration is comprised of smaller segments built by all of our teammates. Just like the spectators would see in person, let's start with a closer look at the Desert side: While on paper a desert might seem like a bit of a bland build concept, in reality it is anything but! Covering 8x5 feet, this desert features massive dunes, insurmountable cliffs, downed planes, and even a mobile tavern. Also, this was built with all of the tan plates in the world. With such a large barren landscape, what's the best way to cross it? A plane of course! Built by @Silver.Smith & @Evensong (Phil & Maria), this downed cargo plane now acts as a makeshift home for explorers. Deceptively massive, this wreckage now features a campsite, a shanty shack of fabric pieces, and even a functioning windmill created with one of the plane's propellers. Phil & Maria also built sections of the jungle that we will see later, but their plane was nominated for Best Airship. Additionally they received nominations for Best Small Group Display, Best Group Train, Best Land Vehicle, and Best Mecha In addition to building the downed plane, Phil & Maria built the desert section below it--which included a previously hidden cave filled with crystal blue water. This area is now being explored with some most-likely-not-up-to-code wooden walkways. A plane is a more traditional way to travel, but if you have the money and want something with style, perhaps try this steampunk walker built by @Quarryman / Jens. Utilizing some nice large transparent domes and lax child labor laws, this Wild Wild West styled walker makes exploration a breeze. This build was nominated for Best Mecha. If you don't mind the heat or slumming it with plebs, you could also try the cheaper option of an old tank turned tavern turned bathhouse? Whatever this is, Jens' equally impressive tank certainly added some stylish (hats) flair to the desert. That tank is all the more impressive when you realize it traversed the massive dunes built by @RoxYourBlox / Pete. Elsewhere at Chicago, Pete's builds won Best Mechanical, Best Humor, Best Group Display, and was nominated for Best Creature and Best Large Building. While dunes are difficult to cross (and even more annoying to build!) having to watch out for holes that fall into a river is also a bit of a challenge. Built by @Captain Nemo / Tim, the cracked earth on the desert side shows hints of the adventure to come. Beneath the earth is a five foot long, partially mechanized, underground river that flows from the edge of the desert through to the jungle and beyond. The desert holds more secrets than a river though, as adventurers are uncovering hidden temples by the base of the cliffs. Built by @MKJoshA / Josh, this expedition force is digging out a large tower, which features a hidden chamber beneath the ground. Desert vehicles were created by @Peppermint_M / Christie, who also built an Ice Cream Shoppe for the Eurobricks Gingerbread train layout, which was nominated for Best Train Layout. Below you can see various hidden details such as geodes, dragon skulls and skeletons embedded into the cliffs and ground, all built by Josh. And of course we need to talk about the cliff work, which is rather difficult to breakdown into segments, as they miraculously lined up rather well on site! The desert cliffs (both the desert facing side, and their jungle facing backside) were built by (from plane/left to dune/right) Josh, @Rogue Angel / Kevin, Tim, and @Cheesey / Caleb. In large part the quality of the cliffs is due to Caleb, as he first constructed his cliff sections in 2019, and created the style template that the rest of us matched. Caleb also built a segment for the jungle and numerous other builds for Chicago, taking home the win for Best Small Building, Best Group Layout, Best Dirty Buildster, and the nomination for Best Medieval. Caleb also created a spectacular video detailing this collaboration and it's creation, which is posted at the bottom of this recap. On the other end of the desert, we can see some Easter eggs built and within Caleb's cliff section, including a hidden temple to rubber duckies and the unnecessary inclusion of a full staircase to the top the cliffs. Of course all those amazing builds only make up HALF of the display, so prepare to gasp! The Jungle Following the flow of the underground river, which runs entirely through the base of the desert, you'll discover a massive jungle on the other side. Or actually you might not! Because hilarious aside, on numerous occasions we would see spectators be wowed by the desert and then just like walk off and not even bother to walk around the display and then we'd also we other spectators dragging their friends and family to the jungle saying, "No, no! Look there's a jungle too!" It was confounding and also hilarious. Anyways, on to the jungle: Dominated by a massive waterfall, this atmospheric rainforest was a wonder to behold. Featuring multiple mist machines, moving functions, and every Lego plant piece ever produced, it covered tables spanning 8x5 feet and the surrounding convention floor in water. The main waterfall was built by Tim, reached 2.5 feet tall and was fully mechanized, featuring jumping fish and a large mist machine, which blanketed the surrounding bricks in a thick layer of water. For authenticity of course, it is a rainforest after all. The nearby T-Rex skeleton was built by Caleb. The jungle cliffs (from T-Rex level down) were built by Mark (left), Tim (Middle/Waterfall), and @ZCerberus / Ben (Right). Now like all hidden secluded unexplored jungles, this one is a bit difficult to traverse, so we'll try to break it down by segments: From the left is the large temple by @Hinckley / Mark. This was the first temple structure started for the Jungle side, so it established the style that the other temples followed. As the main ruined temple, this one was also the most haunted of course. It features a Pepper's Ghost function, which was placed about a foot off the ground. So it was hilarious watching kids bend down to see the ghost with ease and then watching non-ghost-believing dads straight up lay on the ground to see this there's-no-ghost for themselves. Note for next time, make sure to place your ghosts like a foot and a half off the ground. Also, hilarious aside, there was no top build to cover the Ghost section directly, so during setup we kept constantly dropping bricks into the ghost temple, and then hitting out hands on the invisible glass when we tried reaching through the side hole to grab them. No doubt the curse of the ghost! Directly in front of the temple is the reason it is most likely haunted, which is the killing fields territory of the big cats, which was designed by @Darkdragon / Lisa. No doubt this is the most dangerous section of the jungle, and that's saying a lot. Lisa also build the surrounding beach and river that flows from the waterfall. On the river was a nice, if somewhat sinking and snake-assaulted boat, which was built by @KotZ / Emilio. This was both Emilio's first time building with the Eurobricks collab and first time attending a Lego convention, so it's a joy to have him on the team with us going forward! We got another one! Next to the left side river, and in front of the waterfall, are two temples dedicated to animals of the jungle: the Temple of the Parrot, built by Phil & Maria, and the Temple of the Monkey, built by Tim. Both featured hidden built in mist makers, which just got water like everywhere. The lands next to the Temple of the Monkey were built by @Cecilie / Cecilie, which features perhaps the guardian of the temple, a massive legally distinct giant ape. Surrounding jungle and river lands were built by Kevin (who was also nominated for Best Group Display, for WisLUG's castle display) and @Ryushi / Alysa, who was nominated for Best Replica. On the front right of the jungle is the Temple of the Snake, which was Built by Tim two days before the convention, proving that even with three years we decided to wait until the last minute! As an example of someone who did not wait until the last minute, @Kristel / Kristel's Hippo lagoon was built in 2019, and survived all the way through three years and a flight from Australia to make it to Chicago. Featuring some cute hippos and transparent water, this lagoon was the ending point for the right side river that sprang from the Waterfall. In addition to bringing the lagoon, Kristel brought other builds that received nominations in Best Small Group Collab and Best Train Layout. Leading to the cliffs was a temple path built by Caleb and the Temple of the Bat build by @ZCerberus / Ben. Ben also constructed the surrounding Jungle cliffs featuring a scary(?) face. Ben's other builds won for Best Spacecraft, and was nominated for Best Group Train Layout, Best Medieval, and was nominated for Brickworld Master. Finally, as is tradition at Brickworld Chicago, there is the World of Lights event, where all the lights in the convention hall are turned off, leaving only the lights of the builds remaining. Oasis did not disappoint! Overview That's a brief look at the Eurobricks display for Brickworld Chicago 2022. With such a large display, it's impossible to cover everything, but hopefully that gave you an idea of what this build was like. A cherry on top, or rather a red brick on top, was the fact that Oasis won the award for Best Group Display. This is now the fifth consecutive Best Group Display WIN for Eurobricks. Which just means the pressure is on for our next display! If you would like some more insight into this display, please check out this awesome video created by @Cheesey / Caleb: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PassengerJet Posted July 5, 2022 Wow!! Jaw on the floor! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Marooned Marin Posted July 5, 2022 Trying to find any word, or using all the words available to give anything resembling a compliment how awesome this build is, would do it no justice. I can only stare in long silence and try to comprehend how astonishing and awe inspiring this build is. And I'm only looking at pictures. Fantastic! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DaleDVM Posted July 6, 2022 I have been waiting for this thread to get posted. The pictures do not do this creation justice. It was absolutely amazing to see this in person! Congrats and thank you to all involved in making this awesome display. You are some of the most amazing builders in the world and even better friends. I can't wait to hang together again next year! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KotZ Posted July 7, 2022 So excited to see this post! I had a blast at Brickworld and thanks for letting me take part in this absolutely fantastic collab. It was great meeting people I've known online for years and then finally building with them, and this was the build to jump in on! Can't wait for next year! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Braunsfeld Posted July 7, 2022 Fascinating stuff! Let me praise the "Tempel of the Monkey" - but I would have loved to see everything in real life! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Joebot Posted July 7, 2022 I was at Brickworld on Saturday, and I can say that this display was truly jaw-dropping. Easily one of my favorite things I saw there. The pictures don't do it justice. They fail to capture the sheet SCALE of the thing, especially the cliffs. So many tan bricks. Just so many. It was hard to take it all in, so I appreciate these close-up pictures showing some of the details I didn't notice. Really incredible work! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Krol Zmija Sebastian Posted July 12, 2022 Extraordinairy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jack Sassy Posted July 15, 2022 Good job! I saw this in a Brickworld tour video and was stunned. Builds like these are what proves that Eurobricks certainly unites LEGO fans around the world! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dignow Posted August 26, 2022 WoW! Just, wow! Some amazing work and so many impressive details! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
