Yearly Archives: 2016

The Foxbat Fighter rebuilt for combat

As new pieces and building techniques emerge and as builders improve their style, it’s interesting to see a builder revisit a previously built design. Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann shows a side-by-side comparison of his custom fighter design, the FB12 Foxbat, with his original 2013 build on the left and 2014 rebuild on the right. Improved color blocking, an overall smoother shape, and added rear fins and air intakes show Benjamin’s efforts to rework an already great compact fighter design.

See more views of Benjamin’s FB12 Foxbat on his Flickr, with an album each for Mark I and Mark II.

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Keeping things running at optimal level

This rad little droid built by Marco Marozzi has all kinds of neat details packed inside its frame. I especially like face, with the thin tire squeezed in between two translucent orange armor plate pieces to break up the orange a bit. Though the droid is what grabbed my attention here, don’t miss the overall maintenance scene with engineers in oversize helmets — a bold idea to choose over standard minifigure headgear, but it works well.

Slimes: they make a popping sound when they burst

Slimes. What are they good for? Nothing. They’re purple and oozy and maybe a little bit cute, but they get into everything and multiply like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes, you just have to take a the drastic option, and that means grabbing the biggest hammer you can find. SPLAT! Well, that’s one fewer slime to worry about. I feel like this hilarious little vignette by Letranger Absurde was inspired entirely by the purple splat piece, aka Toy Story Stretch’s octopus arms, and I don’t think I’ve seen a better use for that piece yet.

Cold winter at the Nordheim Greathouse

Isaac S. is working on a Skyrim collaboration, and based on the other bits he’s posted, it looks like it’s going to be wonderful. The Nordheim Greathouse brings it all with lovely textures to the wood and stone, along with a very very chilly atmosphere with bits of ice and lots of snow. I love the details, like the wood around the windows at the top of the tower, and those wonderful brick built, locked doors.

If you’re in the area, I encourage you to check out BrickFair VA, coming up Aug. 3 – 7, 2016.

The Brothers Brick is now a tween! Happy 11th birthday to us! [News]

11-year-olds are notoriously problematic — or at least I think so, having worked with unruly preteens as a lifeguard and summer swim instructor back in the day. Now that The Brothers Brick is a tween, you never know what trouble we’ll get up to. One of the things that frequently lies ahead of the tween LEGO builder is that he or she will enter what adult builders in hindsight call the “dark ages,” that time in your life when LEGO matters a whole lot less than, well, all the other things that teenagers typically do.

The thing is, The Brothers Brick has already been through a bit of a LEGO dark ages, as real life caught up with many of our long-time contributors back in 2013 and 2014. Hey, it happens — we’re all volunteers and our families and day jobs always take priority over LEGO. The good news is that we’ve made a number of significant changes to how we run things around here, and we think you’ll agree.

After we wrapped up the Battle of Bricksburg at BrickCon in October, we recruited a cadre of 10 new contributors, from all over the world. Over the years, TBB contributors have hailed from the US, Canada, UK, the Netherlands, Australia, Croatia, South Africa, Turkey, Russia, and Mexico. We feel that it’s important to reflect the diversity of the global LEGO fan community — while we write and publish in English, there are TBB readers everywhere. A few weeks ago we even interviewed a group of LEGO builders and TBB readers in Antarctica! About only bits in the following coverage map that aren’t blue are North Korea, Eritrea, and Western Sahara. Globally, that’s more than two million people who visited Brothers-Brick.com over the past 12 months.

Click through for more about you and everybody else who reads TBB

Hispabrick Magazine 25 is out now [News]

Hispabrick Magazine issue 025 is out now and is packed full of articles. As always, this magazine is free to download and is available in both English and Spanish.

This issue includes:

An in-depth review and test drive of Set 42056 Porsche GT3 RS.
The creator of series of Star Wars Maxifigs talks about his ‘larger than life’ creations.
Reviews of
- 75098: Assault on Hoth
- Minecraft 21128: The Village
- 71012 – LEGO® Minifigures Disney™ Series 1
- 71011 – Collectible Minifigures Series 15
- 21305 – The Maze
- 76052-1: Batman™ Classic TV Series – Batcave
- Energy LEGO® Tablet 8”
Exhibition of LEGO® constructions at the XIV Collectors Fair in Mungia
A look at fan creations, this time the theme is sailboats.
A review and photos of Nathan Sawaya’s touring exhibition “The Art of the Brick”.
The team take a look at the updated WeDo 2.0 robotics set and compares the new educational robotics sets to their predecessors.

This latest issue can be downloaded in PDF format – Hispabrick Magazine 025 PDF (English)

The Force Awakens in Miniland

Larger than minifig scale, Miniland scale is a scale used in Legoland theme parks around the world, and it places a character about 5 inches tall. It’s become a popular scale for fan builders wanting to create brick-build characters. TBB Contributor Ralph often uses this scale to create iconic vehicles and their drivers, such as his recent Ghostbusters Ecto 1. Builder Casey McCoy used this great scale to build the cast of The Force Awakens, and he’s done a lovely job. I particularly love the details on Poe’s flight suit. Check out the flickr album for individual shots of the cast.

Down the rabbit hole

Since the release of the Collectible Disney Minigures earlier this year, I’ve been waiting to see the adorable Alice figure put to great use. And that’s exactly what The Knit Knight has done here! Knight built the iconic scene where Alice falls down the rabbit hole in her quest to crash the white rabbit’s party. This LEGO scene is truly complete, including excellently-built, falling furniture, striped wallpaper, sweets and fizzy drinks (presumably all labeled “eat me” and “drink me”), a miniature rabbit-sized door, and even a tiny Dinah waving goodbye to Alice from the real world.

The future of law enforcement

Here’s a new twist on an old set: Central Precinct Headquarters from 1993. The old black and white color scheme has been updated to a futuristic black and green, and all the flowers are gone. But the rooftop technology bits and the safety railings are still around. Most of the original vehicles are here too (helicopter not pictured). Big_Sal_224 also has a full backstory and script available, featuring a lot more gender diversity than the original set. I wonder what other old sets are ripe for re-imagining?

Back in the Red

Hang in there Red Dwarf fans, only a couple more months before Series 11 airs! In the meantime, feast your eyes on this totally spot-on Red Dwarf custom LEGO play set designed by Bob Turner. The dance-ready Series 8 version of Blue Midget shuttlecraft is definitely the star of the show here, but it’s the smaller details that really make this scene a real fan-pleaser:

Of note are the brick-built scutter, the inclusion of the Holly Hop Drive from Series 2, and most importantly a set of custom Red Dwarf minifigs. Each one is accurate and immediately recognizable. And in addition to the main crew, Bob has even included minifig versions of popular alternate characters Duane Dibbley and Ace Rimmer.

Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!

Microscale office looks like the perfect place to work

Modern architecture might appear to be the perfect subject for recreating in LEGO. However, many of the angled planes currently in vogue amongst building designers actually make for difficult modelling in bricks. Polar Stein pulls it off in style with this microscale version of an award-winning office complex in New Jersey.

The model is beautifully simple, with excellent lines, much like the building it’s based on. I’m a particular fan of the angled supporting columns at the open corner. Also, at this scale, the use of multiple trans-clear bricks manages to suggest an internal structure. The builder suggests they’re going to have a go at this in minifig-scale. Interesting challenge, and they’ve already set themselves a high bar with this lovely microscale version.

LEGO Spaceman is made of LEGO Spacemen

aido k has created a fabulous tribute to LEGO Space — a classic blue space figure created from a multitude of classic space figures. I’m not normally a fan of rendered LEGO creations, preferring to see models and scenes created within the restrictions of regular part availability. However, I dread to think how expensive this idea would have been to recreate “in the brick”, and besides, as far as I can tell, there are no weird part/color combinations used here, just spacemen… lots and lots of spacemen.