Yearly Archives: 2017

2018 LEGO sets available now, including Downtown Diner, Shanghai and more [News]

With the new year, comes a new wave of LEGO sets, now available in LEGO stores and online. We’ve highlighted few from each theme we think you will love, from Downtown Diner to Shanghai. We’ve already reviewed a few of these sets, with more on their way in the coming days and weeks.


CREATOR EXPERT

The next modular has arrived and is ready to transport you to the 50s with its teal highlights.

10260 Downtown Diner | $169.99 USD

Also available from eBay

Click to see all the new 2018 sets on sale now

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for December 31, 2017 [News]

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the last week of December 2017.

TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: Another year here and gone, but the news still keeps on coming. We have a few reviews for your review as you revel in the revelry.


TBB 2017 YEAR IN REVIEW: Let’s look back at the year that has past, and see some of the amazing things that have been built out of LEGO.

Top 10 LEGO news articles of 2017 on The Brothers Brick [News]

As 2017 comes to an end, we can’t help but look back and reflect on what a tumultuous news year it has been for the LEGO fandom. From controversial re-releases to the top 11 largest LEGO sets all available for purchase from LEGO simultaneously, The Brothers Brick has brought you all the credible LEGO news that we can. So let’s look back at the year and see what made the biggest splash, as we dissect our top 10 LEGO news articles of 2017.

Click to reveal the Top 10 Most Read News stories of 2017

Brothers Brick LEGO Builder of the Year 2017 [News]

Every day the team here at The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO models from the global community of LEGO builders. Their creations amuse, inspire, and excite us on a daily basis. However, each year there are a handful of builders who take things to new heights, able to turn their hands to a wide variety of building styles, and wow us with their mastery of building techniques and parts.

Brothers Brick is delighted to name Jonas Kramm as our LEGO Builder of the Year 2017.

TBB LEGO Builder of the Year 2017

Jonas has had an astonishing year of building — multiple models, many of them featured here, across a range of building styles, not to mention an excellent performance in Iron Builder (the highest-profile and most stressful LEGO community building competition out there). We’ve loved seeing everything he’s put together during 2017, and we hope you’ll enjoy this retrospective look at his last twelve months…
Click to see some of Jonas’ models from 2017

Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2017 [News]

Developing a shortlist of the best LEGO creations of 2017 was a tricky task, but narrowing it down to a single “best creation” proved even worse! However, after much discussion, some arguing, and a few tears, the Brothers Brick is delighted to highlight Jeff Friesen‘s Cityscapes as our LEGO Creation of the Year for 2017.

TBB LEGO Creation of the Year Winner 2017

Jeff’s microscale cityscapes are simply beautiful. They don’t rely on access to a vast collection of LEGO parts, nor on a handful of particularly esoteric or rare pieces. They are great examples of how incredible things can be built from LEGO with “regular” bricks and plates, in common colours.

Although Jeff’s models are fantastical, and undoubtedly evoke a sci-fi feel, they also display an appreciation and understanding of key elements of differing architectural styles. The Miami-Art-Deco-Meets-The-Jetsons styling of the city in the main image above is a mash-up of 30s and 50s futurism, with a dash of what feels like Disney’s Tomorrowland. Whereas the cityscape below offers a different flavour of retro-futuristic architecture — New-York-Meets-Gotham-City with more than a whiff of Steampunk about it. It also showcases Jeff’s attention to detail and sense of fun — don’t miss the little trains in their subway beneath the streets…

We felt these models represented something genuinely exciting and new on the LEGO scene, executed brilliantly, and with a scale and selection of parts that we felt would inspire LEGO builders of all levels. That’s why Jeff Friesen‘s Cityscapes are our LEGO Creation of the Year for 2017.

LEGO Architecture 21039 Shanghai skyline [Review]

Heading into 2018, LEGO’s city skyline series is growing again, with LEGO Architecture 21039 Shanghai available on January 1st from the LEGO Shop Online (and available now in some local LEGO stores). The set features many iconic buildings on the Huangpu River, including the Chenghuang Miao Temple, Longhua Temple and Pagoda, HSBC Building, the Customs House, Radisson Blu Hotel, Oriental Pearl Tower, World Financial Center and the Shanghai Tower. The Shanghai skyline contains 597 pieces and retails at $59.99.

While the set is technically the second largest Architecture skyline set by piece count (one less than 21028 New York City), Shanghai is largest by any other measure, ranking as the tallest, widest, deepest and heaviest of the skyline series so far.

Click to read our full review of the Shanghai skyline.

Build your own super cute orange LEGO fish [Instructions]

This amazingly cute little fish is a perfect showcase for how to exploit the natural shapes of LEGO bricks to form imaginative creatures. Builder gonkius uses two curved slopes meeting each other to form a perfect fish mouth, and a curved fender element suddenly looks as if it were always made to be fish fins.

However, this adorable little fish is also a perfect example of complex engineering that looks deceptively simple. Think you’re pretty good with LEGO? Maybe you can even reverse engineer some of the builds we highlight. But how many parts does it take before a model is too complex? This fish has only 39 pieces. See if you can reverse engineer this guy using only the image above.

We’ve got the instructions below if you want to skip straight to the solution and build one yourself! Let us know in the comments if you think you figured it out without the instructions.

Click to see the instructions

Top 10 most popular LEGO creations featured on The Brothers Brick in 2017 [News]

We feature a lot of amazing LEGO fan creations here at The Brothers Brick, lovingly constructed by  builders from all over the world. As 2017 comes to a close, we have been taking a look back over the past year with our  Top 10 LEGO set reviews, Top 10 Custom LEGO Build Instructions and  our shortlist for The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2017 . Now it’s time to look back and reminisce once more, as we count down the top 10 most popular LEGO creations featured on The Brothers Brick.

Click to see our top 10 most popular creations

LEGO Horizon: Zero Dawn Corruptor war machine

Marius Herrmann shows his mastery in constructing machinery from video games with this Corruptor from Horizon: Zero Dawn. His intricate use of Bionicle pieces, minifigure utensils, and string throughout add to the intimidating appearance. However, it’s the techniques to create the tail claw that is most outstanding to me.

Corruptor (from "Horizon Zero Dawn")

If you enjoyed Marius’s Corruptor, you may also like his colossal Thunderjaw, or try your own hand at constructing Wayne de Beer’s Tallneck.

Top 10 LEGO set reviews of 2017 on The Brothers Brick [Reviews]

Stop for a moment. Let’s go back to the very beginning of 2017. What were your expectations for new LEGO sets in 2017? Most of us had no idea what the LEGO company was preparing for us fans. Little did we know that in 2017, the top 11 largest LEGO sets of all time would all be available for purchase from LEGO simultaneously. These are exciting times, with more large LEGO sets targeting adult fans than ever before, and we’ve had the pleasure to review many of them for you. And while we can’t yet tell what 2018 will bring us, let’s have a look at our Top 10 most popular reviews during the last 12 months.

It’s no surprise that several of these sets also made our 10 Best LEGO sets of 2017, so be sure to also check out that list to see what we think are the very best LEGO sets of the year.

Click to see the Top 10 Reviewed Sets for 2017

Oil is the lifeblood of the earth

Black gold, some call it. This striking piece by timofey_tkachev shows how humanity has drunk this precious resource at an astonishing rate since we discovered its multitude of uses, and with each new miracle we welcomed, an array of troubles followed. From the blazing infernos of uncapped wells to the broken pipelines polluting the ground, Timofey paints a picture of the horror of human technology run amok.

1 And there will be bloodThe face of an unknown abomination drenched in black oil springs from the ground beneath the hellish landscape. In the foreground, a streak of oil seeps toward a lighter, inching closer to Armageddon.

6 And there will be blood

Build your own LEGO Yoshi, Baby Mario & Yoshi Eggs [Instructions]

Yoshi is a fictional dinosaur who first appeared in Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as Mario and Luigi’s sidekick.  In the game, Yoshi can grab objects with his tongue, swallow the object  and then produce a distinctive spotted egg to throw.  Well thanks to Mr Kevin Hinkle, you can now build your own LEGO Yoshi, complete with Yoshi eggs and Baby Mario.

LEGO Yoshi
LEGO Yoshi and Baby Mario
Click here for video instructions to build your own Yoshi