Whatever happened to Fabuland – the 1980s animal-character driven play theme from LEGO – appears to be Dutch builder Sebastiaan Arts‘ raison d’être in creating his last habitat in the world. In one of the strangest takes on the post-apocalyptic theme, the various animal-headed Fabuland characters have holed up in the Last Resort, a towering orange residential complex.
See more of this LEGO Space / Fabuland mashup
Lennart C is no stranger to the pages of The Brothers Brick and returns with another iconic vehicle, the Volkswagen Beetle Type 1! While the Beetle may have been knocked off the best-selling charts by the ubiquitous, evolving Toyota Corolla, the world’s longtime “Most Popular Automobile” can live on in our hearts with this stunning, slick black edition.
The model boasts some really great features for being such a compact creation, including working doors and engine lid, and teeny tiny foot pedals. Printed pieces from the official 10252 Beetle are smartly placed, and I’m pretty sure the seats have some degree of reclining action. Lennart is also already putting newer pieces to good use: the new 1×2 plate rounded with open studs is tucked away in the tail lights.
If you like this Beetle, check out more Volkswagen action in our archives!
The TBB Cover Photo for September 2018 is this beautiful triptych (a fancy word for a picture or carving featuring three panels side by side), which shows the journey of wood during medieval times, from logging through cutting and use in a large building. The photo is a collaboration between three builders: Travis Brickle, who built the forest, Simon NH, who built the sawmill, and Ralph Langer, who built the medieval construction scene. While each of the builds is stunning in its own right, the builders did an excellent job coordinating their photography and build styles to create a trifecta of creations that tells a simple yet charming story.
Want to see your own LEGO creation featured across TBB social media for a month? Then read the submission guidelines and submit your photo today. Photos that do not meet the submission guidelines will not be considered, and will be removed from the group.
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Dripping with charm and dressed to impress, TBB regular Sheo has built this most stylish of dragons. Capturing the spirit of the dandy in the beast’s elegantly coiffured wings and debonair attire; a triangle tiled handkerchief poking out from his suit’s breast pocket. You have to question the sincerity in Sheo naming him a respectable dragon; there’s literally a twinkle in his eye, formed from a clever combination of ring, small cone and mudguard elements. I can’t help but imagine passing him in some shady back street, tipping his hat and grinning roguishly as he goes about his disreputable business.
I’m always thoroughly intrigued by the build process and parts when a LEGO build does not have its signature sharp edges and squared-off parts. This build by mocworld bears a lot of resemblance to the operatic performer Diva Plavalaguna from the sci-fi movie Fifth Element. I never knew there were so many translucent light blue or cyan pieces in the LEGO arsenal of parts. The few that stood out to me include the head construct and the dress piece of which both are Bionicle parts. What impressed me the most was the head, which is actually made up of two separate pieces to form the headpiece and the crown-like feature.
Creating a street scene with real character is all about the details – big and small. And when it comes to post-apocalyptic scenes, like this street scene by Jan T. the best details are in the destruction and erosion of man-made structures as nature re-claims what is hers. I’m not sure how I feel about the clown. Either it would freak the heck out of me if I were to encounter him on the street, or it would bring a smile to my face, and we would share a laugh as we scrounged for supplies.
There are so many great parts used in this scene and one of my favorites is the use of the twisty stem surrounding the large leaf plant part that most of us just throw away. You can find these used as vines flowing in and out of the buildings. Then there is the mini-fig back brackets used to create a lovely architectural detail above the door on the left building. The broken walls and windows are also quite nice.
A couple months ago we featured a spectacular LEGO shipyard, built by Arjan Oude Kotte. Adding on to his harbor town, his most recent creation is this awesome billiards hall. The architecture of this building has its own sense of style, as it perfectly resembles what you might think of when you hear, “Hamilton’s Billiards”.
There are lots of great side-builds used to create the signage and siding of the structure, especially the lettering. The roof shingles look fantastic as well! And, as always, the billiards hall fits seamlessly with the rest of the town. Our only wish is that we could see what fun lies inside!
We’re really impressed by Arjan’s attention to detail, and the story that he tells with his work. For this reason we’ve requested an interview! Stay tuned for a chance to learn more about this awesome builder.
September has arrived and so have new LEGO sets, from the Hogwarts Castle and 2018 LEGO Advent Calendars to the Las Vegas Architecture skyline set. These will likely sell out quickly, so make sure to get yours soon before they are out of stock.
Click to take a closer look at the new LEGO sets for September 2018
Last year, after Brickfair Virginia 2017, over a few drinks Magnus Lauglo, Aleksander Stein and I had a discussion on what to bring for 2018. The three of us have been attending BrickFair for years and have often admired the large collaborative displays at the event, with builders creating something together. Because of this we figured it would be nice for us to collaborate too rather than bringing our own stand-alone models. We soon agreed to build scenes from the Vietnam War.
I suspect that most ideas that come out of conversations in bars lead nowhere and that is probably a good thing. However, earlier this year we found that we were still pretty excited about this idea and we found that more people wanted to get involved. Ultimately, eleven more builders contributed (in no particular order): Peter Dornbach, Stijn van der Laan, Matt Hacker, Dean Roberts, Eínon, Evan Melick, Casey Mungle, Corvin, Yasser Mohran, Bret Harris and Brian Carter. Corvin, Aleksander and I are the only builders who don’t live in the US or Canada to regularly attend the Virginia event, but our Vietnam group turned out to be a pretty international crowd. We had builders who live in six different countries: the US, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Norway and the Netherlands.
We picked Vietnam as the subject because we all watched classic Vietnam War movies when growing up, it is largely novel for most of us and it is far less common for military builds than models from, say, WW2. We considered building a single collaborative battle diorama, but chose to build separate scenes instead. It is hard to find a single battle that is actually interesting to build, as there is usually just a lot of terrain involved and multiple copies of trees, bunkers or vehicles. Separate scenes have the advantage of allowing different builders to give the subject their own twist. I was excited to see what the other guys came up with. The Vietnam War offers a lot of scope for building interesting military hardware, but we could also show some of the history, including the aftermath. Given the wide range of different models on display, we nailed it.
See more details and a gallery of the builds
Did you know that 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the modern minifigure? In recognition of this very special birthday, the LEGO Group released its party-themed Series 18 minifigures a few months ago, including a remake of the 1978 policeman. The LEGO Group continues to celebrate, this time by reaching into their archives to share some historic images with our readers. Here at The Brothers Brick, we love minifigures and are excited to share the images and history behind the LEGO Group’s versatile and lovable characters.
In the post-World War II economy, the LEGO Group began shifting its priorities in toy manufacturing. While the foundation of LEGO rested on wooden toys, Ole Kirk Christiansen saw a future in plastics and purchased the company’s first plastic injection molding machine in 1947. It was with this equipment that the LEGO group first began producing its Automatic Binding Bricks in 1949. These hollow-bottomed bricks were the forerunner of the modern LEGO brick.
LEGO’s earliest sets were fairly basic construction toys, and characters were never packaged with the sets. This changed after Ole’s son, Godtfred, introduced the System of Play series in 1955. “System of Play” referred to the versatility of LEGO bricks to be used by themselves and with a child’s existing toys. LEGO advertised the toy as the perfect companion for dolls and HO (1:87) scale toy trains. LEGO created the Town Plan series, which is populated by brick-built buildings and prefabricated vehicles, to serve in part as an add-on for model railroading.
It was also during this time that LEGO introduced the great-great grandfather of the minifigure, a set of four tiny police officers. The figures were posed in four different positions, designed so they could direct traffic throughout the intersections of the Town Plan. Resembling HO-scale figures, they did not have moving limbs or recessed indentations for connecting to studs but were nevertheless LEGO’s first people manufactured for the System of Play.
Click to read the full history of the LEGO Minifigure
There have been dozens of Batmobile designs over the years — one for each generation and iteration of the Dark Knight. If you grew up in the late 80’s and caught the 1989 Batman movie directed by Tim Burton, you probably love and remember that version well. Jerry Builds Bricks shares with us a version of the 1989 Batmobile in an instructional video format. The best part is you can actually fit a Batman Minifigure in the vehicle quite snugly!
If you like this, check out this amazing build of a “UCS”-scaled 1989 Batmobile too!
This incredible spaceship by AdNorrel features distinctive profile shapes and smartly integrated LEGO pieces. The lovely bits of filled-in details within the crevasses and armored surfaces of the starship are great examples of greebling done well. Not too out of place, not too overshadowed — there’s some real inspirational craftsmanship here.
I don’t want all of my articles to become running checklists of parts, but see if you can spot the messenger pouches, croissants, and frying pans. It’s a really fun scavenger hunt kind of model.
Click to see even more of the Valzaleer