The Sea Smashes Sand Castles on the Sea Shore

Built for the #Summer Memories Contest on the Brickly app, this scene titled “Summer Beach” by Mark E. is a beautiful representation of an idyllic visit to the beach. I love the visual of the waves breaking and foaming on the beach, with the dark greens highlighting the ocean. Illustrating fond memories of building sand castles with friends and siblings, the only thing more certain than a fun afternoon in the sand was the incoming tide sure to level all your hard work.

Summer Beach

If you have a spare five minutes I would thoroughly recommend watching the mesmerizing time-lapse of Mark’s build on YouTube.

Ultimate LEGO Star Wars book from DK now available for preorder, authored by TBB editors Chris Malloy and Andrew Becraft [News]

The Brothers Brick Senior Editor Chris Malloy and Editor-in-Chief Andrew Becraft recently completed a new hard-cover coffee table book titled Ultimate LEGO Star Wars from DK. An up-to-date reference that covers the full range of LEGO Star Wars sets and minifigs from the first sets in 1999 to The Force Awakens and Rogue One, the book is due out on October 3, and is available for preorder now.

Ultimate LEGO Star Wars

The book includes spreads on characters, locations, and vehicles, such as the various LEGO B-wing sets that have been released over the years.

Ultimate LEGO Star Wars B-wing spread

Here’s the press info from DK:

The definitive guide to the LEGO® Star Wars™ universe, showcasing the vast collection of LEGO Star Wars sets and minifigures released over the last 20 years.

This is a complete, unrivaled encyclopedia of the LEGO Star Wars theme. Fans will have an all-encompassing companion to the LEGO Star Wars cultural phenomenon. Produced in large format and featuring beautiful imagery, this is an indispensable guide for young fans and a stunning reference work for adults. With behind-the-scenes material, it tells the complete story of LEGO Star Wars, from the earliest concepts in the late 1990s to the creation of the most recent sets for The Force Awakens™ and Rogue One™. Created with the LEGO Star Wars team.

Keep your eyes peeled for our exclusive follow-up interview with the authors — and who knows, there may even be a chance for lucky TBB readers to win autographed copies! And if you’re heading to BrickCon 2017 in Seattle in just a couple weeks, the book will be out two days before the convention starts, and Chris and Andrew will be there to sign your copies for you.

Plunder the skies in your raid zeppelin

Of all modes of aerial transport, zeppelins are almost certainly the coolest (possibly because they are the least common). And while using one for raiding other aircraft may literally be the worst possible idea, that just adds to the fantasy. The sky pirates of The Travesty seem twice as crazy and intimidating for daring to raid aircraft in something as fragile as a zeppelin. The build is somewhat simple, using many large and specialized pieces, but Ted Andes manages to bring it all together quite well.

"The Travesty"

I may be biased by nostalgia for the Adventurers zeppelin piece, but I am sure the creation has something to offer for almost everybody. The deck looks like it was just slapped together and hardly supports the clutter it carries, which is exactly what one would expect from pirates. The light use of stickers breathes just that little extra life into the creation to make it quite memorable and recognizable.

Tyrants and cowards, for metal you will kneel!

The master of Bionicle character builds Djordje is consistently churning out such great creations that one would feel like he can’t surprise any more, but somehow he does just that, with every new build he posts. So it is with this powerful-looking Viking warrior named Asmund the Banisher, who the builder says was chosen by Odin to wield magical steel to banish those corrupted by darkness. If I were in the All-Father’s place, my choice would probably be similar.

Asmund the Banisher

The figure has lots of character, with the Chima lion head as a beard and some simple yet effective limbs. There is a perfect balance of system and Bionicle characteristic for Djordje, who keeps making great characters with this subtle skill.

Build a cool cyan-colored cruisin’ Cadillac [Instructions]

Nothing evokes the 60s like a cyan-colored Cadillac — oozing the charm of the era of flower power. I always wonder why our modern cars don’t come in this shade any more? Anyway, buckle up, and put the pedal to the metal — now you can own a piece of nostalgia with this mini Cadillac build by Grantmasters.

Cadillac

Click for the parts required and a guide to build your own version

Prescribe yourself some meditation

I’m hoping the LEGO Ninjago Movie prompts a swathe of Ninja-flavoured creations. Rollon Smith certainly seems to be getting into the spirit of things with this sweet little vignette of Lloyd meditating before a shrine. The calm pool makes a pleasant change from typical Ninja settings, and the haphazard planks are nicely laid-out. The shrine itself is simply done, but detailed enough to look interesting, and the surrounding greenery offers a strong colour contrast to the blue and grey of the base. Overall, this is a great little scene.

Lloyds Meditation

Spaceship makes two-pronged attack

Intergalactic space is getting busy with SHIPtember traffic as the number of large LEGO spaceships begins to rocket. Here’s another fine looking vessel called the ZC Lapsadle. Built by TBB alumnus Simon Liu, it definitely meets the longer-than-100-studs criteria to be a SHIP. The flashes of Bright Light Orange are a standout feature along with the interesting two-prong shape of the bow. I love the central launch bays on either side — dark and deep enough to generate some intriguing shadows.

ZC Lapsadle

Do you think Simon actually built two of these ships or are we seeing some artistic jiggery-pokery at work?

Hands on with the new LEGO Star Wars 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon [Review]

When LEGO sends The Brothers Brick an early copy of a LEGO set to review, receiving it a few days before it’s widely available is generally not a problem. We just spend a couple evenings building, photographing, and writing up the review — no big deal. But when the new 75192 Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon lands with a resounding “thump!” on our doorstep two days before it’s available to LEGO VIP Program members, that’s a bit of a different story. TBB Senior Editor Chris Malloy and I have spent literally every spare moment since last Monday (a week and a half ago) slaving at the brick to bring you our hands-on review of the largest LEGO set ever released.

75192 Ultimate Collector Series Millennium Falcon

The new UCS Millennium Falcon includes 7,541 pieces with 10 minifigs, and costs USD 799.99. That obviously makes it the most-expensive LEGO set ever released, and we’ll address the price later in the review.

Fair warning up front that this review will be as much about the subjective build experience and our Gestalt perspective on the completed model as it will be about details like parts, minifigs, and building techniques. We expect that many of our readers will not be able to afford an $800 set, and we want to give you as much vicarious insight as possible into the end-to-end experience. We’ll also do our best to compare this set with the earlier 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon from 2007.

Read our complete, hands-on review of the new LEGO Star Wars 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon

Win free tickets to The LEGO Ninjago Movie [Giveaway]

With The LEGO Ninjago Movie opening on Friday, we thought it would be fun to give away some tickets to our dedicated readers. We enjoyed the movie (read our review), and we think you should see it too!

We are giving away 10 codes, each good for two tickets to The LEGO Ninjago Movie on Fandango (worth up to $24 total), provided by Warner Bros. We’ll choose the 10 winners at random from the comments below, so leave us a comment on this post telling us which of LEGO’s other themes, past or present, should be given the full CGI treatment and made into the next LEGO movie and why.

We love our global audience, but unfortunately we’re only able to open this contest to readers in the USA (the codes won’t work outside the States). We will choose winners from eligible entries in one week, submitted before 11:59 PM PST on Sept. 26. Winners will be contacted via email. Good luck!

Don’t miss TBB’s other reviews of the sets from The LEGO Ninjago Movie:

Nothing is true, everything is permitted

Inspired by the upcoming stealth-adventure game Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Kevin J. Walter presents a LEGO statue of ancient-Egyptian protagonist Bayek. His leaping pose is dynamic, enhanced by the flow of fabric from his outfit. The shaping is excellent and the choices of parts and colors for his assassin’s gear match up well with the character in the trailers.

Dawn of the Creed Bayek Statue

Brickheadz just won’t get terminated

Brickheadz are like The Terminator — no matter how much you might want them to die, they just keep coming. Yet despite some of the ambivalence out there towards the style, this Terminator transformation by Dick Cheung is just too delightful to miss out on! From flesh and skin to the infamous exposed red-eye and the final exoskeleton in all its glory! My favorite part has to be the special effect of censorship via the mosaic pattern — a nice touch to avoid Arnie’s full-frontal.

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The LEGO Ninjago Movie is a fun, yet familiar, daddy issues story with LEGO at its core [Review]

When I first heard that LEGO was going to produce a movie featuring Ninjago, I was flummoxed. As an adult fan of Lego (AFOL), the entire Ninjago line fell outside my realm of interest when it came to building sets. I hadn’t watched the show, played the games, or even purchased a set outside of 70751 Temple of Airjitzu which I bought on discount one day because I thought it was a brilliant architectural model. Saying that I had any sort of expectation to enjoy a press screening of The LEGO Ninjago Movie this past weekend would be a stretch.

Heading into the second LEGO-themed movie of the year, I couldn’t help but think the movie could use a bit more breathing room on the calendar, coming only seven months after the successful run of The LEGO Batman Movie. This bias seemed confirmed by the sheer amount of marketing I saw for the film, from Ninjago-themed obstacles on American Ninja Warrior to baking a La-Lloyd cake on How to Cake It, all paid opportunities to promote the film. If a movie needs to work this hard to get people to the theater, the movie itself needs all the help it can get, right?

Read our full review of The LEGO Ninjago Movie