“Tell us, O Muse, of those ingenious colored blocks, which wandered under couch cushions and into places they could be trod upon.”
That’s not exactly the beginning of the poet Homer’s epic classic The Odyssey. But it seemed like a fitting way to tribute his work’s latest manifestation—a massive recreation of the hero Ulysses’ journey from the shores of Troy to his home in distant Ithaca, done entirely in Lego.
The build is the product of online invitation-only Lego users group VirtuaLUG, and was presented earlier this month at Brickworld Chicago 2014. The builders recreated every part of the classical hero’s travails, from his encounters with the cyclops Polyphemus, to his journey into the underworld, to the perilous crossing between the monstrous Charybdis and Scylla. It’s a massive undertaking, and pictures can barely do it justice, given the number of moving components, lighting effects, and even water features that have been built into this thing. Luckily, there’s also a video available, with Chris Phipson, one of the builders, walking the viewer through the entire thing in all its massive, nerdy glory.
You can find even more pictures of the build on VirtuaLUG’s Flickr.