Most builds on Mister Blocks are small and playable: a truck, a robot, a figure you can hold. But I also wanted big display pieces, the kind that sit on a shelf: a 1,300-piece Dragonite, a portrait of Jensen Huang, a tennis player mid-serve.

Nobody is going to draw those layer by layer. So I sculpt them in code: describe the shape with a few geometric primitives, sample it at brick resolution, and let a packer turn it into real bricks.

Mega Dragonite as a 1,297-piece voxel sculpture on a wooden table
Mega Dragonite: 1,297 pieces, 125 steps. See all LEGO sculptures and dragon builds.

A sculpture is a list of rules

Each rule is a body region, a colour, and a test that says whether a point is inside. The first rule that matches a point wins, so details (eyes, stripes) go first and the big body shapes last:

['head', 'yellow', (x, y, z) => ell(14.7, 22.3, 7.9, 1.25, 0.8, 1.4)(x, y, z) || ell(19.3, 22.3, 7.9, 1.25, 0.8, 1.4)(x, y, z)], // eyes ['head', 'black', ell(...head, 4.7, 3.9, 4.3)], ['crests','azure', chain([[15.4, 24.2, 12.5], [12.5, 25.6, 16.5], [9.5, 26.4, 21]], 1.55)], ['body', 'black', ell(17, 13.6, 12.4, 4.1, 4.6, 3.3)], ['legs', 'black', (x, y, z) => cap(L.ankle, L.knee, 2.0)(x, y, z) || cap(R.ankle, R.knee, 2.0)(x, y, z)], ['feet', 'dkblue', (x, y, z) => ell(10.6, 0.9, 8.6, 3.1, 1.3, 4.4)(x, y, z) || ell(23.4, 0.9, 8.6, 3.1, 1.3, 4.4)(x, y, z)],

That's a slice of Mega Greninja. There are only a handful of primitives:

  • ell: an ellipsoid (heads, bodies, eyes)
  • cap: a capsule between two points (a limb)
  • chain: a bent tube through several points (a tail, a crest, an arm with an elbow)
  • box: for stands and bases
  • mirrorAbout(x): the other side of a symmetric figure, so you only write one arm

Anything else is a plain function. Greninja's water shuriken is a small polar test: a hub, a rim and four blades twisted into a pinwheel.

From shape to voxels

Units are studs, and one brick is 1.2 studs tall (a LEGO brick is 9.6 mm high on an 8 mm grid). A scale knob sets how many voxels per model unit. That one number is the piece-count dial: at 1.4, Greninja lands on a 48×40 base at around 1,200 pieces.

Every voxel centre is tested against the rules. Each voxel is one stud wide and one brick tall. A lone voxel with nothing above or below gets a copy underneath, so single studs don't hang in the air.

Jensen Huang voxel sculpture in his black leather jacket, holding a chip
Jensen Huang: 1,360 pieces, 142 steps. More famous people.

From voxels to bricks

Each layer is packed greedily with the biggest same-colour brick that fits, from 2×8 down to 1×1. The long side runs along x on even layers and along z on odd ones, so the layers interlock like a real build instead of forming loose columns.

The display base is two layers of plates laid crosswise: 16×16s underneath, and on top a pattern of 4-wide and 8-wide plates offset by 4 studs, so no top seam ever sits on a bottom seam. The base must be a multiple of 8 studs on each side, or the script refuses to run.

Clear supports, until it's one piece

Here's the part that makes it work in real plastic. A sculpted arm or a wing tip is often attached to nothing below it. After packing, the model goes through the same stud checker the site uses for every build. Anything that "falls apart" or "is not attached to anything" gets a trans-clear voxel under every empty cell beneath it, and the whole thing is packed and checked again. It repeats (up to 40 rounds) until the checker says the model is a single connected piece.

Clear supports are what real display models use too: you barely see them in a photo, and the model doesn't sag. When Mega Dragonite was first built it needed only three, because its wings hold each other up.

Coco Gauff voxel sculpture mid-serve on a blue tennis court base
Coco Gauff: 1,188 pieces, 124 steps. More sports builds.

1,200 pieces, in steps a person can follow

A 1,200-piece model with one step per layer would have steps of 80 bricks. Nobody can follow that. So the steps are cut like a real instruction book:

  1. The first three steps are always the base: the bottom layer, then the top layer's left half, then its right half.
  2. After that, each layer is grouped by body region (head, arms, legs…), and regions marked as "sided" are split into left and right.
  3. A group of more than 18 pieces is split front to back into "(1 of 3)", "(2 of 3)"…
  4. A tiny group of fewer than 5 is merged with a neighbour, as long as the result stays at 18 or fewer.

The step text writes itself: "Layer 14 of 29, part 2 of 3: 12 bricks for the arms." Finally the model is mirrored front to back, so the 3D guide opens on the face.

Running one

Every sculpture is a single file that exports its rules and runs on its own:

node scripts/data/mega-greninja.js --steps

It prints how many supports were added, the piece and step count, the colours used, the smallest and largest step, and either "ok: holds together" or what doesn't.

Porsche Mission S as a white voxel sculpture
Porsche Mission S: 965 pieces, 73 steps. More LEGO cars.

Same character, two sizes

Many sculptures also have a small brick-built version for kids, made with the hand-drawn layer packer instead: Mega Dragonite and Mega Greninja are both around 200 pieces, next to their 1,200-piece display versions. Browse the Pokémon builds to see both.

Every guide is free, turns in 3D and prints as a booklet. Or start from your own pile at misterblocks.com.

Unofficial fan builds. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor or endorse this site. Characters, people and brands belong to their owners.