Tag Archives: Contest

Contests and build challenges are often a great way to get creative juices flowing. Check out our coverage of new contests here, and congratulate the winners of contests that have finished.

The Amazing Spider-Man is amazing as a LEGO-built classic comic cover

I’m an artist but it may surprise some of you to learn that I wasn’t much into comic books as a kid. However, the few comics I had held a specil place in my heart. I had a few issues of Star Wars, Superman, The Hulk, even Spider-Man. Speaking of which, this mind-blowing LEGO creation by Bas van Houwelingen is made to look like a classic comic book cover. This uncanny technique uses both intentionally built sections as well as seemingly haphazardly poured elements to create an amazing cohesive image. Here we see a closeup of Spider-Man as well as Sandman’s fist creeping (or sifting) into the shot. As 3-D art goes, especially in LEGO, you’d normally build Spider-Man with parts of him red, other parts blue and call it a day. But as 2-D artists know, you can often use other colors in surprising ways to give the illusion of a 3-D image. Here we see white, yellow, pink, lavender, green and other colors used beautifully here to tell a complex story.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Not only that, but if you look closely, you may find LEGO elements you wouldn’t normally use to build Spider-Man such as flowers, boats, even a few minifigures. The builder tells us that this work of art took a week to design and is comprized of about 5000 LEGO bricks and utilizes nearly all the red and pink bits in their collection. This technique is a great way to use some of those less-utilized pieces in any collection.

If this already looks a bit familiar to you, then your sharp eyes may have seen that this was submitted to the LEGO Ideas Friendly Neighborhood Comic Book Hero Contest and it was the grand prize winner in the Brick category!

LEGO Ideas ‘We Love Sports!’ winner unveiled at LEGO CON 2021 [News]

LEGO Ideas announced the winner of the LEGO Ideas We Love Sports! building contest during the LEGO CON 2021 today. The Foosball Table by Donát Fehérvári will become the next LEGO Ideas set and will be released sometime in future. The contest was held between December 2020 and February 2021 and gathered more than 800 entries.

LEGO Ideas contest winner “Ray the Castaway” will become an official Gift-With-Purchase item [News]

On April 13th, LEGO Ideas blog published a post announcing a new contest called “Do you want to go to the seaside”. The winner was announced on May 31st: Ray the Castaway by Daditwins by a total of 969 votes.

Click to find out more!

LEGO Ideas space-themed contest results announced [News]

LEGO Ideas blog has just published the results of the most recent building competition. The Out of this World Space Builds contest was all about spaceships and space exploration, with entries between 150 and 250-piece large. First, the panel of judges evaluated all the entries based on their originality, use of elements, and other criteria. The 15 entries selected by the judges proceeded to the fan vote stage. The winning entry will be turned into the next LEGO Ideas gift-with-purchase set, so today, we learned what to expect in LEGO stores next.

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LEGOLAND New York needs your help to name their Big Red Dino [News]

LEGOLAND New York, which will open its doors sometime later this year is looking for your help to name the Big Red Dino that will be a centrepiece on Brick Street at LEGOLAND New York Resort. It’s made out of 182,101 LEGO DUPLO Bricks and over 1800 hours to build weighing 6245 pounds (over 2832 kgs).

Click for the link to the voting page

Can you solve this? The LEGO Reverse Engineering challenge will have you scratching your head [News]

Most of us are staying home a lot more these days, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably already built all the LEGO sets laying around your house and have run out of ideas for your custom build. Our friend Ryan Howerter has just the thing to solve your brick doldrums and keep you flexing your LEGO muscles with a little brick workout. Introducing the Reverse Engineering Contest, a daily challenge wherein you, the viewer, are tasked with recreating a tiny but deceptively complex model with your own bricks. Ryan will be posting a new challenge to his Instagram every day from now until August, so you’ll have plenty to keep you busy.

Much like the crossword puzzle in the papers, there are no prizes to be won in this contest, just a victorious sense of accomplishment and expanded knowledge of your favorite highly sophisticated interlocking brick system.

Designed by Ryan and his friends, each of these small creations uses only a handful of elements and looks pretty simple, but don’t be fooled: there’s more than meets the eye to these brain teasers. Here’s today’s challenge to get you started.

Some might be simple to you, but no matter what your skill level, others are sure to have you pulling your hair out and wondering if Ryan has invoked the Kragle. However, the only shenanigans that may be involved with building the models are weird pieces and outside-the-box thinking. Ryan says that none of the solutions include things like stickers, flex tubing, or rubber bands–and certainly no Kragle. Can’t find the right parts to make it work? Give it a try in a digital building program like Studio or Mecabricks.

And if you get stuck, Ryan will be posting the answers every Sunday to a Dropbox linked in his Instagram bio (so as to not accidentally spoil anyone). This is the fifth time Ryan has run a challenge like this, and I’ve had a blast puzzling out the devious intricacies of previous challenges and can’t wait to see what else is in store this time around.

Free tickets to BrickCon 2019 LEGO Exhibition in Seattle [Giveaway]

BrickCon 2019 is only a week and a half away, and we are giving away free tickets to the public exhibition. Come see the amazing LEGO creations that builders from all around the world have brought to Seattle. (You may even see some of your favorite writers from The Brothers Brick roaming around in our bright green shirts or hanging around at the TBB Brick Banquet.)

The BrickCon 2019 Public Exhibition is open Saturday Oct. 5 and Sunday Oct. 6 from 10am to 4pm, located at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. You can get your tickets online now.

Click to find out how to win tickets to BrickCon

LEGO and Amazon launch a Mindstorms voice-powered robotics challenge [News]

LEGO and Amazon are launching a new “Mindstorms Voice Challenge: Powered by Alexa” for developers and LEGO robotics fans with some serious prizes up for grabs. The challenge is to envision and create new ways that voice controls can work with LEGO.

More than $100,000 worth of prizes are available, with the grand prize winner receiving $20,000 in Amazon gift cards, tons of LEGO sets, and a trip to LEGO Headquarters in Denmark. You can get a $150 Amazon gift card just by entering.

Click to learn more about the LEGO and Amazon voice challenge and watch a video.

Announcing the winner of TBB’s Stranger Things “Darker Hawkins” building contest [News]

To celebrate the launch of the third season of Netflix’s sci-fi drama Stranger Things, TBB kicked off a contest on the Fourth of July, challenging our readers to build other locations from Hawkins, Indiana not featured in the LEGO Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down. The challenge was actually quite simple — the LEGO creation needed to feature both the normal world and its “Upside Down” counterpart location, as we showed in our own free instructions to build a LEGO Castle Byers. It’s been great to see builders interpret this design brief in so many different ways, through the contest entries on Flickr. Today, we’re happy to announce the clear winner of our contest — “Barb’s Disappearing” by talented German builder Jonas Kramm.

Barb's Disappearing

See more of Jonas’ winning creation along with honorable mentions

Build a darker Hawkins in TBB’s Upside Down building contest and win 75810 The Upside Down plus rare Castle Byers event set [News]

The third season of the Netflix series “Stranger Things” was released on July 4, and we have the perfect activity for you as you binge-watch the whole season. Build any location featured in any season of the show! But unlike some other contests inspired by the show recently, there’s a catch: You have to build both the real-world version of your favorite Hawkins locale and the Upside Down version, as seen in the official LEGO set LEGO Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down — one of our favorite LEGO sets of the year so far. The top builder of our contest, judged by TBB staff, will win this fantastic set, plus the super-rare Castle Byers mini-build set released only to attendees of the LEGO Stranger Things launch events in London and New York.

Learn how to enter the contest and read the fine print

It’s all about the tasty things in life

Who needs riches when the best part of your day is food? This plump little guy is all about his next meal rather than gold. Sassafras the “Happy-Go-Lucky” dragon is the work of Mitch Henry, who designed him for a dragon building contest hosted by Jayfa, an excellent builder we’ve featured numerous times. This adorable creation caught our eye for its unique character and parts usage. Do you have an idea for a cool dragon? Give the contest a shot!

Sassafras, the Happy-go-Lucky Dragon

Microscale Magic! Harry Potter LEGO building competition – winners announced [News]

We saw some fabulous entries to The Brothers Brick’s microscale LEGO Harry Potter building contest — click here to see photos of all the entries. However, despite the amazing quality on display, there can only be three winners — one in each of our two categories, and the MASTER WIZARD who will win a copy of the stunning 71043 Hogwarts Castle: the largest Harry Potter LEGO set ever released.

Click to see the competition winners…