How to build a LEGO jungle – composition and lighting

Not every realistic or effective LEGO build of a jungle is achieved just with bricks – find out how composition and lighting helps create just the right result.

A quick search online will highlight that LEGO jungles, forests, grasslands, or any scenes from nature are as plentiful as they are varied in size, scope, techniques and parts used, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the relative surface-level approach that the LEGO Group takes to the same subject material in official sets.

When it comes to building natural scenery in LEGO form there are any number of inspirational builds out there that can get the creative juices flowing, and any number of LEGO parts and snippets of techniques from official sets to give you lots of ideas. But equally there can be as many creative challenges and pitfalls to building, say, a jungle out of LEGO.

More than with any other type of LEGO model, building a large, overgrown, colourful jungle out of hard, static plastic can be tricky. You can work a lot of colour into the model, and use a variety of plant and tree pieces too, and fill a tiny space with a lot of LEGO, and that approach can sometimes give you what you want.

But not every jungle looks like that, and not every jungle that you may want to build will work with just a mish-mash of LEGO greenery. So how else could a LEGO jungle come together if, say, you consider light and composition as much as the pieces that you use?

That’s the driving focus behind this build, alongside the parts library available at Pick a Brick to choose from and made available for this project courtesy of the LEGO Group. The aim is to select particular techniques but, using real-world inspiration of jungle imagery, consider how setting up the build and focusing on where the light will hit the model from can impact the final, overall effect.

Parts selection

Studying various images of real-world jungles helped to identify a few key effects that I wanted to recreate, whilst I was already aware of a handful of techniques that would help with this. Light was almost always pictured coming from above, in an inconsistent pattern as it peeked or streamed through the treetops and canopy, with less and less of it reaching the very floor of the jungle.

Leaning into the spotlights of my office room for a similar light source from above, I knew that focusing on the design and behaviour of the canopy would be key to capturing that same light-and-shadow effect for this LEGO jungle, as well as keeping enough of the floor open so as to actually see the effect in action – too much greenery down below would compete with any shadow effect, rather than complement it.

Planning out the build, I wanted a canopy across the top of the jungle and for it to be held up by very tall, winding trees, whilst I wanted a muddy floor with a select variety of plants, bushes and smaller trees growing from it, to surround but not overwhelm the subjects of the model – in this case, Johnny Thunder and his modern-day City team from 60426 Jungle Explorer Off-Road Truck as they traverse through the undergrowth.

The build

A more specific breakdown of the parts used in this build (and they are purposefully relatively simple techniques) will be the basis of part two of this feature, but here I would like to talk about the method of approach and how the intention to find the most realistic jungle effect guided my creative decisions, with one eye on not ‘busying’ the model and another on finding just the right effect with light.

It’s very much a trial-and-error approach but I knew that the design of canopy and floor – and that of the winding, tall trees that connect them – was more or less locked in and would create the framework within which I could fill out the rest.

These three elements to the model were locked in because I knew that I needed a canopy that was strong enough to hold the tops of the trees together, light enough to not risk collapse and with enough gaps within it to let light through in a realistic way. It would also need to be held up high enough so as to give space and visibility to the rest of the model built underneath, and for enough of the light shining through to disperse.

The canopy technique is nothing ground-breaking, based around the long-standing 4×2 and 6×5 Plant Leaves parts (2423 and 2417) held together by Plant Stems (37695). Importantly, though, this provides the ideal effect of letting sporadic amounts of light through, creates a realistic shadow effect and allows for plenty of randomised anti-studs for tree tops to connect into.

The trees could connect to the underside of the canopy thanks to being built around some of the 24L Rigid Hoses (75c24) – we say ‘built’, but really it is rounded bricks (3062) and plates-with-holes (85861) loosely slid on to the hose. This creates a simple-looking tree but with the capability to bend a fair bit to the flexibility of the hose inside for a more natural appearance.

After topping off the tree with a couple of the Plant Brick with Bamboo Leaves (30176) and the newer Curved Upright Leaf (2682), the very top end of the hose connects into the canopy via one of the many anti-studs made available. They can connect to one directly underneath, or the tree can bend and stretch a little to connect to an anti-stud a little further to one side, to create the winding tree effect.

With the trees and canopy sorted, it’s a matter of mimicking the same effect in the floor, providing studs for the bottom end of each tree to slide into and anchor the entire structure. The floor has been built using 1×1, 1×2, 1×3 and 1×4 bricks and 1×1 modified bricks with one stud on their side, all placed on their side to create a smoothed-out appearance with sporadic studs available to connect trees and plantlife too.

The flatter surface of the floor is also purposefully designed as such so as to best highlight and allow the shadows and light from the canopy above to pattern it. The floor is still coloured with reddish brown, dark brown and dark green to mimic the mix of mud and plantlife that you’d find, with occasional details like fallen trees and aged leaves that have come from above, but the main purpose to the floor is to give space to our minifigures and to accentuate the effect of the light and shadow shining through from the canopy above. Too busy of a floor would hide it.

Composition and light source

Light source is the focus to this jungle build. The floor is very simple and very flat and the canopy is built out of just a handle of different parts carefully placed together, and these two sections are attached together by a balanced number of spaced out, hose-based trees. There is select vegetation and smaller plantlife to the sides of the build, but the main effect to making this all come together and look like a jungle is achieved through these three main sections and how light is used.

Specifically, the brightest source of light is spotlights from above allowing for the model to be lit in the same way such an environment in a real jungle would be lit, with light shining through the canopy above and spreading a mix of sunlight and shadow across everything below.

Above you can see the difference that the light source plays – the image on the left, and most images above, are lit with even lighting spread across the model – everything is shown clearly but it does not necessarily come together for a realistic effect. The photo above on the right, and the photos below, are shot with a concentrated light source from above, which begins to turn the exact same model into something much closer to a realistic jungle. The only difference is in how the model is lit.

Next time you build something, consider what impact lighting could play and how it could be used to your advantage to change simple techniques into effective techniques.

Come back for part two of this feature where we break down some of the parts used to build this model, all of which were available on Pick a Brick at the beginning of 2025.

Two of last year’s LEGO City jungle exploration sets are still available at LEGO.com, including 60426 Jungle Explorer Off-Road Truck – which features the tiger and minifigures pictured in this build – and 60437 Jungle Explorer Helicopter at Base Camp.

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