Yearly Archives: 2014

Ask a Lemur – Our new intern answers all your questions and more!

Greetings, Dear Readers! Allow me to introduce myself. I am The Brothers Brick’s intern and I have been given the honor of answering the tasty mail that you send to us.

I am a green-tailed lemur from the island of Madagascar and am very happy to be working in the TBB compound. This “mailbag” feature is my own invention. I got the idea after noticing that the lovely paper that I was given for lunch had messages on it. When I asked Master Andrew about them, he said they were from our readers and that I could eat them. The messages that is, not the readers. He said the other contributors were too busy to deal with the mail, but that I was free to do as I pleased as long as the coffee was fresh and his Bugatti Veyron was washed.

I plan to answer a few questions each week. In this first post I will answer some common questions we have received. If you have questions that you would like me to answer, either serious or silly, real or imagined, please ask. Here we go!

Will you sell me the models featured on The Brothers Brick?

Unfortunately, no. With few exceptions, they are one-of-a-kind creations and are not owned by The Brothers Brick. You can always contact the builder, via whatever website they are using to host their pictures, and see if they are interested in selling their work. We do not sell contributors at this time either. Please stop asking about Simon. We are keeping him.

What is an AFOL?

AFOL is an acronym that stands for Adult Fan of LEGO. It is a broad term that applies to anyone over 18 years old who is a fan of the LEGO company and/or its products. Similar terms are ALE (Adult LEGO enthusiast), AFFOL (Adult Female Fan of LEGO), TFOL (Teen Fan of LEGO), KFOL (Kid Fan of LEGO). There are many kinds of AFOLs including those who build their own creations, those who collect sets, those who customize LEGO elements, etc. It also can stand for Adult Fan Of the Lemur.

Are the contributors of The Brothers Brick actually brothers?

No. One of us is a sister.

Thank you for your time and messages! Please leave any new questions in the comments below. Josh is having one of his ‘episodes’ and won’t come out of his office. Once he recovers, I will ask him to create me an email address.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

We are going to need a bigger Lightsaber

Chris McVeigh has mimicked the classic ‘Jaws’ poster and shown us what goes on inside the fevered mind of the world’s whiniest Jedi. Swim, Luke, swim!

As the crow flies

Crows have created an interesting place in culture and literature. They are the tricksters. They are wise. They transport the souls of the dead. If you ask Edgar Allan Poe, they’re a bit irritating and don’t do much to uplift your spirits, what with the repetitive “Nevermore” business.

At any rate, nobu_tary has given us this excellent rendition, making great use of the wing piece we first saw in the Arkham Asylum set a couple years ago. They’re currently in the Chima sets as well.

Particle Accelerator in LEGO

While this rendition isn’t going to get the same results as a real particle accelerator, I invite you to take a look at this fantastic LEGO version from Jason(JK Brickworks).

This “working” accelerator does in fact send a LEGO soccer ball around the track at 440 studs per second, or approximately 12.5 km/hr. Jason outlines some of the build in more detail on his blog.

I highly recommend checking out the video, too.

Sub-level 3, Main Corridor

Jeremy Williams has built a beautiful corridor. I don’t say that often but this one is special. I love the circular walls and the amount detailing is just right. But, on top of all that, the lighting is perfect.

Many thanks to Pete Reid for the tip!

“We jumped out of a window!”

What do you get if you combine the Pillsbury dough boy with the Michelin man and the Stay Puft marshmallow man? You probably get BayMax, the robotic sidekick from Disney’s new animated adventure Big Hero 6 (very loosely based on a Marvel comic of the same name). Oregonian builder Cole Edmonson wasted no time in creating a LEGO version of our inflatable friend with his mortal enemy, a soccer ball.

Lego Ideas announces two new sets: Birds and The Big Bang Theory

Although I do like the Ecto-1 set and am happy for fellow Brickish member Peter Reid, whose exo-suit got turned into a set, I never cared much about Lego Ideas. However, today LEGO announced the next two ideas that are to be turned into sets and I like both of them.

The first idea is the brainchild of Thomas Poulsom, who by coincidence is also a Brickish member. It is the fantastic Lego birds project.

The set will undoubtedly be a bit different from the submission, but I’m sure the birds will be cute and I can imagine a lot of people finding inspiration in the set to build their own birds. What is not to love?

The second is The Big Bang Theory, by Alatariel and GlenBricker.

As some of you may know, I have a PhD in physics and when this show first aired the then-girlfriend/ current wife of one of my friends remarked how much Sheldon, Leonard, Rajesh and Howard reminded her of her boyfriend and his circle of friends, including yours truly. We never had the same superhero fetish as the characters in the show and, of course, she is far smarter than Penny, but I cannot deny the similarities. Somewhat worryingly, though, in The Big Bang theory it’s Sheldon who builds with LEGO, referring to his Lego Death Star in a number of episodes. In any case, the submitted model has all the characters and lots of details of Sheldon and Leonard’s apartment and I’d be surprised if the final set won’t include all of the characters as minifigs. Somehow I picture Sheldon’s as wearing a green T-shirt with a classic space logo.

Elsa’s Ice Castle from Disney’s Frozen in LEGO

Last year, Disney unleashed Frozen upon us, and since then, everyone has heard “Let it Go” in one way or another. Every parent has heard the soundtrack, and probably has contemplated hiding it.

Simon MacDonald (SIMAFOL) has gone one step further, creating a minifigure-scale version of Princess Elsa’s castle.

Continue reading →

Calvin and Hobbes

Evan and our very own Simon have revisited their childhoods and created a beautiful homage to what is possibly the best comic strip of all time, Calvin and Hobbes.

Simon should have posted this himself but he’s too lazy. Feel free to tell him that in the comments.

In space no-one can hear you rust

One of the more notable Maschin Krieger inspired builds from this year’s Ma.Ktober fest is probably the Baumeister Spinnentier, a “construction arachnid” style zero-G hardsuit, created by Canadian builder Josh Derksen.

Clearly the break-out technique Josh has used here is the application of paint to give the model a rusted look (…yes it rains in space, deal with it!). Using paint to artificially ‘weather’ LEGO is something I’ve wanted to do myself for a long time, but have not yet been man enough to attempt. But Josh totally nails it with this creation. Check out his full breakdown to get a look at all of its finer details and play features (which include poseable arms and pincers, and an openable cockpit).

Panduro’s box

Tim Goddard and Andrew Hamilton revisit the distant planet of Panduro, but this time it’s no mere colony. They’ve built a thriving microscale city on the inhospitable planet, filled with movement, motorization and monorails.

Be sure to check out the video to see the whole display in action;

Stickering 101 – the magic tutorial

Applying stickers used to be something my dad would do for me when I built sets as a kid, and seems to be far less common in today’s adult builds. But anyone paying attention to the space builders this past year has seen a steady rise in stickering, especially in the micro-sized builds. Enter Jacob Unterreiner (4estFeller). We’ve seen him a few times here on this blog but I don’t think we’ve really seen him like this:

That’s a pretty amazing stickering job. But look at it closer, that’s a micro GARC and is only 11×5 studs! Feels a lot bigger, eh? He’s taken stickering to the next level and really able to skew the sense of scale with his intense stickering. By my count (assuming symmetrical stickering and no stickers on the bottom) I found 54 stickers! That’s probably 2-3 times the usual sticker sheet size for a 1000 piece LEGO set.

But dear reader, you might be asking yourself, how does he achieve such wonderful results? Thanks to our friends at Build Like a Boss who have been running a series of tutorials on everything from advanced bricklink buying, building frames or bases, and of course stickering:

You can check out the awesome three part sticker tutorial series:
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

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