LEGO Fighting Pit

The Summer Joust competition left me wanting to build something really big. So though this creation doesn’t set my record for the largest footprint, it sure does use more minifigures than I’ve ever used before!

I designed this creation to have two different immersive scenes. There’s a lot more to it than just the bit of theater you can see behind the gladiator!

This build took me about five weeks to build, though the first week was mostly just me procrastinating on that tedious desert floor.

I had a terrible time trying to narrow down all the pictures I took of this build. So although there are still more than usual, trust me, there were far more yesterday!

Although a lot of the build is lost in these gladiator shots, I love the way the stone walls frame the theater.

Usually when I build all LEGO scenes there are lots of rough edges. But because I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing when I started, I finished off the edges as I went along.

I had fun taking some pictures in the sunlight.

It was a lot of fun to see this build get bigger and bigger as I added the layers, though it did make it pretty difficult to take outside for the photography session. I ended up rebuilding most of the middle layer where the big crowd is!

This layout was inspired by this piece of concept art.

You might have noticed the rows of mixel joints I used as architectural details. I doubt I’ve ever found those joints this useful before!

The dark red awnings were the last thing I added, and I have some mixed feelings about how they turned out. I think they do help finish the pit off, but they’re so gappy! They look better in some pictures than in others.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve never used this many minifigures in a build before. Basically, I filled the lower stand with all the torsos I had that looked even remotely medieval. Then I went and borrowed all my brothers medieval minifigs for the second stand!

I threw in a bunch of 1×2 purple tiles in order to bring some cohesiveness to the crowd. In theory these are the gladiator’s colors (notice that he’s wearing a purple cape!).

One of my favorite things about this build is the way the red drapes over the pillars looks. Those sections were all very fun to build… not so fun to try to attach at weird angles.

By the time I had finished the last level, I was pretty tired of finding ways to attach each wall in a circle!

I also put together a time lapse video of the build process. I highly recommend watching at least the first forty seconds, it’s got some fun effects!

So there we have the Fighting Pit! My goal with this was to build the Fighting Pit to end all Fighting Pits… how did I do?

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