ChromeBricks currently offers three colors of chrome including gold, silver, and a new copper chrome. Consistency of color among the parts is flawless. When compared with chrome LEGO elements, the silver is also an exact match while the gold is darker than LEGO’s chrome gold (LEGO does not currently produce chrome copper bricks). The richer chrome gold color results from actual gold being used to coat the bricks!

On the flip side, ChromeBricks differs from LEGO bricks where most of the parts from the former are not coated on the interior or underside. This should not be a concern since the uncoated sections will not be visible in a LEGO creation.

Overall, I recommend ChromeBricks for their high quality of parts. The price of each piece can be on the expensive side, but the cost is justified (you can ask other custom vendors who have tried to chrome LEGO bricks). Shipping is relatively inexpensive and very fast (about a week to the US) while the parts are individually packed in separate baggies. If you want to make a few minifigs with chrome accessories, this is definitely the store for you. For those interested in customizing a car model with chrome bricks, you probably need more money than pocket change.

That’s because I’m approaching our review of the latest custom accessories a bit differently from the reviews we’ve posted of BrickArms and BrickForge in the past.

Our past reviews have taken somewhat of a purist approach — using nothing but items from one custom accessory creator. But I believe that the accessories LEGO fans have created to work with LEGO are best when they’re used together, so that’s how I approached the minifigs in these photos.

You’ll also see accessories from vendors we’ve reviewed more recently:

• V&A Steamworks Stovepipe Hats
• 2009 BrickForge Accessories

Still, each custom accessory vendor deserves their own review, so read on for my take on all the recent minifig accessories from Arealight, BrickArms, HAZEL, and Minifig World.

Arealight

LEGO customizer Bluce Shu goes by Arealight online, and has been selling resin-cast accessories from his Bricklink store for some time.

I’d never seen any of Arealight’s items in person, but I hadn’t been impressed with the quality of the resin-cast stuff I’d seen from other customizers. When my batch of Arealight accessories arrived in the mail, though, I couldn’t have been more pleased.

True, some of Arealight’s accessories don’t have the same tolerance as official LEGO elements — the hair doesn’t fit quite as perfectly and the headlight tends to fall off my Roman Holiday Vespa unless I twist the clear piece just right. There are also minor imperfections that differ from item to item.

Surprisingly, I’m willing to dismiss these quality issues because they just give the accessories a charming, handmade feel.

And because Arealight creates accessories unlike all others — Ithorian heads, Mandalorian armor, Vespa scooters, wavy capes, and more — I haven’t had so much fun building custom minifigs in a very long time.

For more photos, see my full photoset of Arealight accessories on Flickr.

BrickArms

One reason we didn’t do the full review of 2009 BrickArms accessories we’d promised is that the quality of Will Chapman’s prototypes has improved so much that many of the released items don’t differ substantially from the preview versions we’ve already highlighted here.

That’s a great thing, but it makes a review seem a bit redundant.

Nevertheless, the latest BrickArms weapons include the wonderfully designed Lewis gun and Bazooka, as well as the much-anticipated MGL and combat shotgun. The quality and playability are nothing less than we’ve come to expect from BrickArms.

As always, Will is cooking up new prototypes in his garage.

The “photon pistol” is lovely in the hands of my Star Trek minifigs, the buildable ammo chain has infinite uses, and the “buzz gun” looks awesome.

History buffs are sure to be pleased by the Browning Automatic Rifle.

See lots more photos of past, current, and future BrickArms accessories in the full photoset on Flickr.

Amazing Armory by HAZEL

Custom accessory creator HAZEL is fairly new to the LEGO scene, first posting custom samurai on Flickr less than a year ago.

It wasn’t until he posted a batch of minifigs decked out in armor and weapons inspired by Gears of War that the customization community really took notice. There was clearly demand for these items, and HAZEL soon had a Bricklink store up and running.

Unfortunately, HAZEL disappeared from the online world just around the time I thought I’d buy a few items to review for the blog. With a string of negative feedback on Bricklink, I looked elsewhere, and ended up buying my HAZEL accessories from Custom Minifig Shop in the UK. Prices were about the same as directly from HAZEL, and shipping to the US was also reasonable.

As it turns out, HAZEL was in a horrible motorcycle accident and has apparently been in the hospital for a while. He recently posted again to Flickr and promises to make good on his overdue orders.

Why is all this relevant to my review? Because it’s important to remember that you’re often buying from a single individual with a side business, not a big corporation.

The custom accessories themselves appear to be resin-cast like Arealight’s. The texture isn’t perfectly smooth, nor the black a perfect match with LEGO, making these ideal candidates for further customization through painting. Having no talent in that area, I prefer my own accessories ready to use. Still, HAZEL’s accessories are great fun and a nice match for mecha pilots, post-apocalyptic survivors, and other sci-fi characters.

Minifig World Stands

Unlike the weapons, headgear, and other accessories we’ve reviewed so far, Minifig World produces display stands for minifigs.

The stands have two studs for your little plastic friend’s feet, as well as holes on the underside for stackability.

Minifig World stands are excellent for showing off your minifigs, like that super-rare chrome-gold C-3PO.

7195 Ambush in Cairo:

7196 Chauchilla Cemetery Battle:

7197 Venice Canal Chase:

7199 The Temple of Doom:

The hats are like hilariously exaggerated versions of the official LEGO top hats, and are absolutely perfect for steampunk and Victorian fantasy minifigs.

Guy was kind enough to send along a couple of the hats for us to review, and they’re made extremely well. I put one on a minifig and couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes.

The hats are beautifully machined from Delrin plastic and have that perfect “LEGO fit” — they slide onto the minifig’s head without effort, hold well, and come off easily with that satisfying “pop!” you expect from official LEGO headgear.

The V&A Steamworks Stovepipe Hat is currently available in brown, black, and white. Click the lineup photo above for pricing info and how to order.

(The Brothers Brick has a small backlog of custom accessories to review, including all the new BrickArms items, HAZEL’s accessories from CustomMinifig.co.uk, minifig stands from Minifig World, new accessories from Arealight, and more. Please bear with us as we get caught up.)

The Tribal Spear works perfectly as a scalloped obsidian blade from the Neolithic — just the sort of weapon for cavemen to take down a mastodon or mammoth:

The Tribal Sword is designed to resemble the Aztec macahuitl, inspiring me to give my Aztec god minifigs some Aztec warriors:

Of course, not all of the new BrickForge accessories are stone implements.

The Plasma Blaster and Crowbar enable LEGO fans to build video game minifigs like Master Chief from Bungie’s Halo and Gordon Freeman from Valve’s Half-Life:

The Goblin Sword and Goblin Shield allowed me to update my Uruk Hai minifigs from Lord of the Rings. What horde of orc minifigs would be complete without a Saruman minifig? Saruman wields a Sorcerer Staff.

The new Nightstick (right) combines with the older Military Helmet and Round Shield to create a policeman in riot gear.

Finally, the Particle Gun and Particle Pack (below) work beautifully for Ghostbusters. With multiple connection points like the Megagun, both of these new BrickForge accessories can hook up hoses or whatever else you can think of:

I have quite the backlog of ideas for musical minifigs, so I couldn’t decide which one to highlight BrickForge’s microphone. I’ll get to that new accessory later…

With so many things to inspire interesting minifigs, this may be my favorite batch of BrickForge accessories so far. All of the new stuff is available in both black and gray (though I still prefer BrickForge’s black accessories over their gray).

See all of the new items (except the microphone) in my BrickForge photoset on Flickr, and check out the BrickForge website for the full line of custom accessories.

In our first Brothers Brick exclusive review, we bring you a look at the newest LEGO Star Wars set: 7752 Count Dooku’s Solar Sailer, scheduled for release in February 2009. This limited edition set first appeared at a few Toys R Us stores this week, marked for sale at $59.99. It includes 385 pieces and 4 minifigures, most notably the new Count Dooku.

Oveview:
$60 for 385 pieces is a very steep price and will deter many from purchasing this set. However, the remarkably well-designed Count Dooku minifig and the set’s limited edition bearing will spur others to purchase it right away. In my following remarks, I will list the qualities of Count Dooku’s Solar Sailer pertinent to builders of all ages, collectors and sellers.

Building experience:
This is a simple and straightforward set to build without any awkward connections or fragile sections. Only a few Technic parts for the missle firing mechanism interrupt the entirely System-based build. Symmetry and repetition are displayed on the folding wings and basic SNOT techniques are used effectively to achieve the overall appearance, making the build slightly more fun the average set.

Play features:

• Back panels open to unveil a removable speeder bike
• Push mechanism fires two missles from each side of the ship
• Four folding wings: two on top and two on bottom
• Cockpit opens to reveal removable pilot droid

Overall, an average set of play features, nothing new or revolutionary. The push-fire missles are weak as usual.

Parts:
If you’re buying this set for parts, something is wrong. 7752 offers a very low parts per price ratio and do not contain notably unique pieces except for the two light bluish gray bubble windscreens. A few dark tan pieces and 1X6 tiles may be useful; there are no notably unique brown parts. In the end, I find the stickers to be the most interesting piece; their neutral bluish gray tones make them applicable on a variety of creations. An image of the parts list can be found here.

Collectibility:
Star Wars minifig collectors will be pouring over the new Count Dooku, and rightfully so since this unique minifig is likely to have its only appearance in this set. The pilot droid is also a unique minifig, but unlike the Count, it can be made with LEGO pieces from other sets, but I admit that the use of a skeleton leg for the head is pretty clever. The limited edition bearing marks this set as an exclusive to only the store that carries it (in this case Toys R Us) and LEGO stores/LEGO Shop at Home. In addition, this set may have a short lived production frame and may be sold out within a shorter time period than the average LEGO set. For collectors, keeping a new copy of the set may be a good investment.

Display:
As a set for display, the Solar Sailer lacks any dynamic visual appeal except when its wings are expanded, but in this position, the model cannot sit upright (the left side photo above makes use of a temporary support). Even in its collapsed-wing version, the model either tilts forward or backwards and is extremely difficult to balance as in this picture.

Resale value:
Not all of us are builders or even collectors, just ask the sellers on Bricklink and Ebay. This set may be sold in several forms, from MISB (mint in sealed box) to parted out with minifigs. The Count Dooku minifig will fetch a hefty sale price of at least $20 and possibly over $30 while the Magna droid guards currently go for about $10 each. Once the set is out of production, you can expect both its MISB value and minifig value to rise to more than 200% of the set’s retail price, talk about a lot of money!

Concluding remarks:
For a set with limited positive attributes, it sure has a lot of downers to discourage buyers. Most obvious is the heavy pricetag, but less so are the uninteresting selection of parts. Nevertheless, a few redeeming features like the unique Count Dooku minifig and decent collectibility value make this set more geared towards collectors than builders. Unless you really want the Solar Sailer, there are other sources to spent $60 of your income or allowance money.

For more pictures, see the full gallery here.

As my kids have their own collections, I let them use one of the Box4Blox sets. It sorted their pieces by size and made it easier for them to find those small pieces that get lost in among the larger ones. They had a lot of fun with it and I was happy that it worked as advertised. But now was the time to try it out on my own collection.

I was intrigued to see if this system would be of use in my own, more complex, sorting arrangement. I started off with my bin of green plates. I use these a lot for landscaping but had never taken the time to sort them by size. I figured this would be a good initial test. At first I dumped the whole bin into the top tray. This clogged up the tray and it took a lot of shaking before the pieces began moving down. So I dumped it all back into my bin and I used a large Pick-a-Brick cup to dump smaller amounts into the tray. This sped up the process and I was able to run the entire bin throught the Box4Blox in sort order. As each tray filled up, I dumped them into seperate piles.

After I was done, I shuffled throught the piles and was happy to see that each pile was made up a distinct group of pieces. So, while the trays didn’t sort out the pieces into each individual kind, they did make the job much easier. I only had to sort out the 3 or 4 different kinds in each pile, instead of tackling the entire bin. That was most satisfying.

Next, I decided to give the Box4Blox a real workout. I have a large 18 gallon tub where I throw everything that needs sorted. I’d been lazy and hadn’t sorted it for quite a long time. The tub was almost full and the job was overwhelming. So I put in a movie and started dumping cupfulls of pieces into the trays. I did run into a couple of problems. Pieces that were long and thin tended to fall through to the bottom, but remain standing straight up. This blocked the flow but after I discovered this, I would grab those out before I dumped the pieces in. After that, I didn’t have much trouble and I made good progress. After about an hour, I hit bottom.

Unlike the plates, when the trays filled up I dumped them into plastic bags. I had stacked the full bags into seperate piles, based on which tray the pieces came from. After I was done, I took all the bags from one pile and I dumped them out on the table. I spread the pile out and could see that each of the bags had the same kinds of pieces in it. The Box4Blox basically pre-sorted my 18 gallon tub in a little over an hour and greatly simplified the rest of the job. Now, when I have some spare time, I can grab one of those bags and quickly sort it out. I don’t have to take on the whole heap and I know that each bag contains specific kinds of pieces.

Overall, Box4Blox easily surpassed my expectations. Not only is it a good product for keeping the kids’ bricks sorted, it also has a definite place in the Adult hobby as a pre-sorter. I recommend it.

You can see a short video of the model to get a sense of the windmill’s size and functionality.

Being primarily a Castle fan, I was most excited by the Long Sword and Rapier:

Another historical weapon that should be popular with the Pirate fans is the bayonet, attached via an extremely versatile U-clip:

I also fell in love with the Sawed-Off Shotgun and the miniscule Derringer:

I know Andrew has already shown off the Derringer. But it’s so darn cute, I had to do it again!

Last, but not least, is another weapon that is close to my heart. The long-awaited Paintbal Marker:

Starting with BrickWorld 2008 in June, each LEGO convention has revealed more and more new products and prototypes.

Thanks to the extra time he has now, Will has been churning out more prototypes in his garage than we can count — particularly for those of you eager for World War II accessories.

For your Allied minifigs, the Bazooka M9 (with M6 rocket) will pack a serious punch:

On the Axis side, the German Panzerfaust 30 anti-tank weapon and MG42 machine gun will complement the MP40 SMG and C96 Mauser:

One of the most intriguing new prototypes is the U-clip (”U” for universal). The U-clip can connect any two objects that can fit into a minifig hand.

The potential applications seem infinite, such as attaching a bayonet (also a new BrickArms prototype) to your Lee-Enfield SMLE, a Combat Knife (again, new) to your M4 Carbine, or simulating an M203 grenade launcher with a black LEGO lightsaber handle:

Between our earlier coverage and the Zombie Apocafest, readers should already be familiar with the Lewis gun and Combat Shotgun:

The current Lewis gun prototype solves a minor issue with the earlier version (the drum tended to pop off fairly easily) by attaching the drum to the gun with a clip-like stud. This does make the drum more secure, but it resembles T-21 blaster from Star Wars a bit less with the drum removed.

A couple of the more unique new weapons include a game-inspired gunblade and a Derringer:

The MGL (multiple grenade launcher) will enable your minifigs to take on Decepticons and Predators alike with ease:

Finally, fans of Western movies get two iconic pistols — the Colt Navy 1861 revolver and the M1917 revolver (which looks a lot like the Colt Single Action Army “Peacemaker”):

For those of you wondering when we’ll see all this great stuff in production, here’s the final word from Will:

The next mold (in black and/or bley) will include the Combat Knife and Combat Shotgun for sure, and most likely the MGL, Lewis Gun, and Paintball Gun, but the lineup is still being decided. Look for that mold in early 2009, perhaps even by BrickFest 2009 in Portland!

The swords and Colt Navy will most likely be added to a silver mold, sometime soon as well. I’m still coordinating the layout for it. The other items may be limited-edition “garage releases”, as time permits. All will eventually see production.

Did he just say swords and paintball guns? Yes indeed. Look for a preview of those in the next few days from Josh. ;-)