Today’s awesome thing was discovered on the Tacky Raccoons website. Go give them some love!

Minibricks (A.K.A. Khramov Brothers Studio) is an amazingly-creative Prague-based company that creates museum exhibits and architectural models using innovative methods and materials. When I first spotted their ultra-realistic wildfire scene, I was absolutely blown away. The scale is pretty grand for a miniature, more suited to museum use than for home display, and that makes it all the more impressive. Using a crazy combination of technology, practical art techniques, and ingenious ideas, Minibricks manages to do impossible things like crafting The Last Supper as a 3D model and creating what looks like a real, active lava flow.

“We deliberately avoided generic, off-the-shelf solutions and aimed for maximum realism. For comparison, other studios often simulate fire with a blinking LED and a smoke machine—resulting in a flat, unconvincing effect. The same goes for trees: most often they’re bought ready-made from model-making shops, so they look similar and the species aren’t distinguishable. We create our trees from scratch, using our own 3D printing and an original technique for building the crowns. The naturalistic sequoias in our model amplify the drama of the entire scene. In the end, it became more than just a model—it’s a true atmospheric diorama that’s impossible to look away from. Standing in front of it, viewers feel as if they’re right at the edge of a raging forest: any second now, they expect to smell smoke and hear the crackle of burning branches.”

Minibricks writes fascinating articles explaining their processes, and I’m truly looking forward to absorbing them all!

You can follow the amazing Minibricks on their website and on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.