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Walk among the beavers, bears, deer, rabbits and birds at Carlsbad’s Legoland, and you might never know you’re in an amusement park. The animals, made of the brightly colored snapped together Lego bricks, strike convincing poses in surroundings that re-create their native North American habitats. They exploit our willingness to see more than mere plastic crenelated shapes. Stare long enough, and -- look! -- one of them moved. But don’t get too obsessed with making your own fake menagerie: The pros used 25,000 Legos to create the exhibit, including these species with their own design challenges.

Shape: To mimic the slinky neck of a bird, Lego experts choose different-colored Legos and then stack them in a large-to-small progression of steps. “Imagine a staircase with the lowest stair being four times the size of a regular stair, the next being three times as large, the next being twice as large and the next a regular stair,” says Legoland senior model designer Tim Petsche. “When you step back and look at that, it will look like a curve.” Your eye connects the dots -- or in this case, the rough edges -- to create a smoothed-out, coherent image.

Color: To create a shimmery, scaly salmon jumping upstream, use lots of translucent bricks, Petsche says. Layering a translucent Lego over, say, red and blue bricks provides a glowing purplish cast. To really nail the secret of sheen, work from a photograph, just as professional designers do.

-- Mary Forgione