Yearly Archives: 2018

Final Solo: A Star Wars Story LEGO set photos just in time for the latest trailer [News]

The LEGO Group have sent us the final LEGO Star Wars set photos for Solo: A Star Wars Story just as the final official trailer has hit the Internet. With the complete set of photos now in hand, this is the perfect occasion to take another look at the sets and compare them to the ships and machines as seen in the trailer. While some of the sets are already in stores, the rest go on sale this Friday, April 13th.

75210 Moloch’s Landspeeder – 464 pieces, $39.99

Review by The Brothers Brick

Since The Brothers Brick never misses a chance to bring you the very first look at the new models, you can also explore links to our early reviews right after the jump. Stay tuned to The Brothers Brick for full coverage of the remaining sets over the coming weeks.

Click here to see all Solo: A Star Wars Story sets…

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.

A little aquarium comes to life as these LEGO fish really move [Video]

Brick-built aquariums are often extremely cool, but how many can say their LEGO sea-creatures actually move? My guess is not too many. But one clever builder, Mark Smiley, has managed to create an adorable little “LEGO Clockwork Aquarium” that does just that! With the turn of a crank, the fish move in a circle along the tank perimeter. There’s also a crab that hops up and down, and a starfish that spins! If you look closely, you can even see a little Easter Island head in the corner, and a shrimp in the helmet. The whole thing is modular and customizable. But just wait until you see it in action!

Click to watch the video of the tank coming to life!

An ace Sky-Fi fighter

When it comes to the “Sky-Fi” Dieselpulp style of LEGO building, one man is the undisputed master of the air: Jon Hall. He strikes again with his latest retro-flavoured aircraft — the P-98 Nemesis. The shaping of the hefty triple-fuselage structure is excellent, and there are loads of lovely touches on display — the strong colour-blocking, the raked exhausts peeking from beneath the engine cowls, and the racks of ordnance slung under the wings.

Packed full of Jon’s trademark attention to detail, the model includes custom stickers, a folding undercarriage, and a detailed cockpit interior. Check out this view of the seat and the instrumentation panel with its trio of joysticks. And don’t miss the spanner mounted up-front as a gun sight — great stuff.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for April 8, 2018 [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 second week of April 2018.

TBB NEWS, REVIEWS, & INSTRUCTIONS: LEGO announced a new UCS set, and we take a look at several sets from the upcoming Star Wars film, along with a peek at what’s coming for Harry Potter.

- Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series 75181 Y-Wing announced – LEGO took the wrappings off this new UCS set, bringing the venerable starfighter to large scale for the second time.
- Harry Potter teaser site revealed on LEGO.com – LEGO is preparing for the long-awaited return of the Harry Potter theme, and we’re getting another early look.
- Review of Star Wars 41608 Han Solo & 41609 Chewbacca – These lovable smugglers are back in BrickHeadz form, as the first two sets to be released from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
- Review of Star Wars 75207 Imperial Patrol Battle Pack – Is this as-yet-unreleased set from Solo: A Star Wars Story really great, or just a way to get some minifigures? We find out in this hands-on review.
- Donald Trump (unofficial) BrickHeadz instructions – Want to build your own copy of our April Fool’s Donald Trump figure? Check out these instructions, which uses mostly parts from the new Go Brick Me set.

See what else happened in the world of LEGO this week

Scorch is the final LEGO Titan

Shortly before the release of Titanfall 2 in October 2016, talented builder Marius Herrmann uploaded his first Titan build of Ronin. After that he went on to recreate the rest of the mechs from the game, but stopped short of Scorch. But now Scorch has been completed, and it may be the best of the bunch.

Like the other Titans, Scorch was done in his base colour, which translated into mostly light tan. But the amount of added detail from black, dark tan and a few printed pieces make this far from boring. The overall shaping is just about perfect but it’s the small details that make this build so incredible. This continues around the back of the build and you can spend a long time staring at this and pointing out all the great parts usage. The only thing that’s really missing is the thermite launcher, but that’s more than forgiven here.

Incredible self-driving LEGO train system shuffles balls around endlessly [Video]

This railway contraption by Akiyuki seems to have a single objective: mesmerizing viewers with an incredible orchestration of moving trains while appearing to be doing something relatively productive.

Its only function is a closed looped system that transports LEGO balls. This type of machine is commonly known by LEGO fans as a Great Ball Contraption. Here, the machine consists of a circuit of tracks and seems to perform a crucial task, and that appearance is itself quite a major feat of design and ingenuity. For me, I’d prefer to call it out as an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) machine—which is a fancy way of saying it gives me the shivers—and it makes me want to stare at it continuously.

Consisting of several modules and utilising four carriages to transport the balls from section to section, let’s take a look at the various modules that make this thingamajig tick.

Click to see the modules in detail

Cruise right back in to the 50’s

Lego artist Martin Redfern has a unique signature style to his builds: they always seem to be from a bygone era, and captured beautifully. This police cruiser is loosely based on a 1950’s cruiser like it was straight out of a mobster movie. He even built an engine under the hood and loaded it with full decor on the dashboards. You’ll definitely want to check out all the details on this one.

Click to see more under the hood

When made out of LEGO bricks you are, look as good, you will not, hmmm?

Large LEGO sculptures made out of mostly regular bricks are most commonly created by LEGO itself for promotional displays, but fan builders sometimes make their own too. Felix Jaensch has done just that with this great rendition of Yoda, which instantly reminds us of the old 7194 Yoda UCS set.

There’s a lot of good shaping here, especially because a large percent of the character is a robe, which you can see better in this shot of Yoda’s back.

A beautiful pair of red-crowned cranes

If you’ve never seen a red-crowned crane, they are certainly a site to behold. Standing at 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, with a wingspan of 7-8 feet, and weighing up to 25 Lbs (over 11 Kg), these endangered creatures are among the largest birds in the world. Their mating dance is also incredible! Native to East Asia, the sacred cranes have significant symbolism in Japanese tradition. They represent luck, longevity, and fidelity, and they often show up in art, like this elegant diorama by ggwingx.

The background and base are a perfect tribute to the homeland of these beautiful animals. But what really stands out is the terrific use of those white clamshells, and black and white feather pieces to really give them dimension. The legs, necks, and heads are also clever. Altogether it’s a great use of simple parts to make something that truly embodies the gracefulness of these creatures.

The bandit in one the best bad movies ever made

Watching Top Gun is like eating a Philadelphia cheesesteak with cheez whiz. Some of the ingredients are a bit dodgy and there really is an awful lot of stringy cheese, but it tastes oh so good. Why? Forget Tom Cruise—the undisputed star of the movie is the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. However, instead Lego Admiral chose to build one of the villains, called the MiG-28, and that’s cool in my book.

The MiG-28s in Top Gun weren’t really Russian, of course, because they never made a MiG-28. In reality, the planes on-screen were F-5 Tigers, which are normally used by the US Navy as adversaries in air-to-air combat training. However, the jets certainly looked the part, as for the occasion they were painted in temporary color schemes with fictional national markings of some Communist country. This made them look even more sinister, as we all know that evil wears black. The LEGO model has a long shark-nose and an expertly rendered coke-bottle fuselage. Even more than thirty years later the MiG-28 still looks bad-ass.

Tripping the light fantastic with this Tron cycle

Hot on the heels of the official duo of cycles from Tron: Legacy, Fictitious Pasta brings us this epic microscale version of the bike from the original Tron film. The simple setting with scattered rocks and a gleaming light streak is perfect for the digital frontier. And in a twist that seems particularly appropriate, this model exists only in digital form, as the scene is an excellent CGI render.

This model may be tiny, but don’t miss the excellent large-scale version of the same vintage Tron bike we also featured recently.

You don’t need many red bricks to build a beautiful Italian car

Ferrari 308 GTB is one of the rarest Ferrari cars with only 800 copies produced. But Jonathan Elliott builds one more. Although, it is not of metal and not quite as large, it is just as red and looks fabulous. Even though it looks very simple and easy to build, certain parts of this tiny 308 GTB are perfectly executed for this scale. The builder admits that there some compromises, but I simply can’t imagine what can be done differently to make this car look even better.