About Chris

Chris Malloy (porschecm2) has been a LEGO fan nearly all his life, having started with System bricks at age 3. He is the co-author of Ultimate LEGO Star Wars, and his creations have been featured in several books and The LEGO Movie. He also helped develop the first LEGO Minecraft set, 21102 Minecraft Micro World: The Forest, which has gone on to inspire a whole theme of sets. He's been active in the online community since 2002, and regularly attends LEGO fan conventions such as BrickCon and BrickCan. He enjoys building in a wide range of themes, but keeps returning to Castle, Space, and Pirates. Check out his LEGO creations and photography here.

Posts by Chris

LEGO reveals new Ideas set: 21340 Tales of the Space Age [News]

Today LEGO is revealing the newest Ideas set, 21340 Tales of the Space Age. The 688-piece set will feature four vignettes in striking colors depicting sci-fi scenes in a vintage style. The four scenes can be displayed separately or connected together, as well as standing up or hanging on a wall. The set will be available for LEGO VIP members starting May 5, with general availability May 8, and will retail for US $49.99 | CAN $64.99 | UK £44.99.

The set is based on a submission to LEGO’s crowdfunding platform by Jan Woźnica which was chosen in the first 2022 round and we featured back in 2021 when he first entered it into the LEGO Ideas “Out of This World” challenge.

Click to see more of this set

It’s more of a defensive structure than a Hutt

LEGO builder WG Productions takes us down to the surface of Teth for this elite Clone Trooper raid on a Hutt ion cannon guarded by battle droids. The clouds above a black surface give a foreboding sense of the pinnacle the defensive structure is perched upon, and the posing of the figures lets you feel the action frozen during this tense aerial combat mission.

Mission 6.2: The Slice

Harboring good builds

Last month I wrote about Andreas Lenander’s desert port, and now he’s already back with another waterfront LEGO medieval build. This one seems to be more inspired by Venice, but it’s every bit as wonderful, absolutely chock full of great techniques and little details. For instance, don’t miss the black wands, still attached to their sprue, that are used as the bars on the top windows, or the dark tan skates that are used as details throughout, from the roofline to the inside of the main arches.

Cedrica - GoH 10 year celebration

LEGO reveals next UCS set: 75355 Ultimate Collector Series X-wing Starfighter [News]

Today LEGO has taken the wraps off the latest Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) set, returning to its roots with 75355 X-wing Starfighter. This set marks the third iteration of the X-wing as a UCS set, with an X-wing being one of the original two UCS sets, and the most recent version having been discontinued in 2015. The new set takes advantage of more recently released elements (including at least one previously unseen) to give more details to the starfighter model. It’s also the largest version with 1,949 pieces. The set includes Luke and R2-D2 minifigures. It will be available starting May 1 for US $239.99 | CAN $319.99 | UK £209.99.

Click to see the full article

Great flying turtles!

It may sound like something Robin would exclaim, but this great flying turtle by Markus Rollbühler is delightfully whimsical instead. Markus notes that the whole LEGO build clocks in at just 96 pieces, though I spy some elements in there that are quite uncommon, like the dinosaur head that’s the turtle’s head….except backwards! All the gear piled haphazardly atop the turtle’s saddle completes the feeling of a wandering magician.

101 Bricks: The Cloud Strider

The trade winds blow in this desert port

TBB regular Andreas Lenander takes us to a desert port of commerce, and while it’s a lovely LEGO scene at first glance, the details bear close examination. There are obvious points of excellence like the stonework that just has the right amount of weathering or the gently curving hull of the trading vessel, but I’ve got my eye on those beautiful palm trees, which might be the best LEGO palms I’ve ever seen. And of course, let’s not leave out that beautiful blue domed roof on the tower made with tails.

Port of Mophet

The tree of knowledge

LEGO builder Ted Andes brings us a more upbeat take on the dystopian cyberpunk future with a gorgeous sculpture he calls the Shrine of the Cyber Tree. The tree is made of stacked Vahki head elements from Bionicle, and their angular lines and matte finish creates a striking use for that rarely used piece. The sculpture is surrounded by a simple but elegant stone garden wall, which has great details like one broken egg post cap. 

Shrine of the Cyber Tree

An elegant dragon

This elegant LEGO horned dragon by Aiden Rexroad appears to have a fluid, sinewy shape thanks to the ball joints of Bionicle, something that’s difficult to achieve with traditional System elements. A pair of large claws turned upside down gives the distinctive horn on the dragon’s nose, which lends a lot of uniqueness to this build. Meanwhile, Aiden has turned to Destiny’s Bounty from Ninjago to repurpose the cloth sails as wings.

Athaya

The cutest little LEGO Cloud City

We’ve often remarked that you don’t have to have a lot of pieces to build great LEGO creations, and this microscale Millennium Falcon and Cloud City from Star Wars by gGh0st are perfect examples. They’re also an excellent use for those cloud plates, which look much more realistic here than they usually do, and help integrate the two different scales of the ship and mining colony to create a forced perspective scene. I would love to see LEGO release little sets like this for $10 or so.

Escape from Cloud City

A family gathering

OK, so the builder of this awesome LEGO robot family, Bartosz Sasiński, didn’t actually imply they’re a family, just that they’re a team. But especially with the little four-legged dog bot, I prefer to think of this as a cute family of exploration drones, and they’re magnificently sculpted with a clean aesthetic that Bartoz has carried through to the display base, which is perfectly minimalist.

M-5

Storage wars in the 1700s

I’ve had a soft spot for white-washed buildings guarded by red- or blue-coated troops in tricorns and shakos ever since I got LEGO Pirates 6267 Lagoon Lock-Up for Christmas around 1991. This supply depot by Ayrlego tickles that nostalgia, while bringing it up to date with much more detailed building. My favorite part of this build, though, is that Ayrlego has figured out the perfect use for all those yellowed and dirty white bricks that are probably floating around in your collection. While they’re normally unsightly and probably relegated to the filler-brick bin (or worse), they’re on prominent display here and couldn’t look better as the weathered stucco on this colonial-inspired structure.

Supply Depot

LEGO Icons reveals 10317 Land Rover Classic Defender 90 with 2,336 pieces [News]

Today LEGO has revealed that the next large-scale vehicle in the Icons theme will be the venerable Defender 90 in celebration of the brand’s 75th anniversary this year. The Defender 90 is one of the most iconic vehicles in automotive history, with this design having been available from 1983-2016 before an updated version was introduced in 2020, which has already been the subject of a LEGO Technic model. 10317 Land Rover Classic Defender 90 includes 2,336 pieces, making it one of the biggest System vehicles LEGO has ever made, edged out only by two movie vehicles, 76139 1989 Batmobile and 10274 Ghostbusters ECTO-1. The sand green Defender 90 is kitted out with loads of gear, all of which is removable, allowing you to display the vehicle either as stock or in full expedition mode. It also prominently features new System wheel arch elements that mirror those introduced in the Technic Defender model. The set will be available starting April 1 for US $239.99 | CAN $329.99 | UK £209.99.

Check out all the details below.
Continue reading →