Whilst we’ve never had an official set, Mario and Luigi are no strangers to LEGO. Many builders have tackled these gaming icons before, but it’s always good to see another take. These figures by ZiO Chao are excellent — tightly-built in a chibi style, but immediately recognisable, and full of character. The outfits are perfectly captured, the faces expressive, and I love the stands beneath each figure. Don’t miss the brickwork on Toad’s mushroom head, and the simple but effective way ZiO has captured Toad’s face. Lovely stuff.
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Today LEGO is officially taking the wraps off the latest set originating from its crowd-sourcing platform, LEGO Ideas. 21318 Treehouse is the largest Ideas set yet, with a whopping 3,036 pieces. It stands more than 14 inches tall and features leaves in two colors to build either summer or fall versions. First announced last fall, the treehouse features three cabins and four minifigures. Be sure to check out our full, hands-on review of it that we published earlier today, and continue reading below to see all the official images and information.
Despite the enormous part count, the set will retail for US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £179.99. It’s slated to be available in LEGO stores and the LEGO Shop Online tomorrow, July 24, though LEGO did accidentally sell the set briefly to very excited–and surprised–fans last week at San Diego Comic Con, before pulling it from shelves.
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LEGO’s purpose for the LEGO Ideas program is to encourage and crowdsource new concepts from the LEGO building community that typically might not be produced as mainstream designs from LEGO’s in-house design teams. LEGO Ideas 21318 Treehouse is the 26th entry that has been mass-produced to date and is the largest Ideas set ever released, coming in at a whopping 3,036 elements. Based on the other sets that have been released this year so far, it will be the fourth-largest set for 2019. With such a high piece count and price, at US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £179.99, LEGO fans might think twice before deciding if this is something that they’re going to fit into their budget and collection, so we’ve got an in-depth review of the set to help you decide.
This original idea was conceived by adult fan of LEGO Kevin Feeser and then designed as a LEGO set by LEGO Designer César Soares. With many other LEGO Ideas finalists are tied to some kind of intellectual property like a nostalgic movie, the concept here is a rare original idea. Let’s dive in and evaluate if it makes the cut in its final form.
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We recently posted our review of LEGO Creator Expert 10269 Harley Davidson Fat Boy. It’s an amazing set, but that didn’t stop Bricksonwheels from taking to the road with a 1:10 scale Harley-Davidson Road King Lowrider. As you’ve surely noticed, this creation is awash in gleaming chrome, and this is no accident. Bricksonwheels has been advocating the use of custom chromed LEGO elements for over ten years. As the name suggests, their featured builds are trucks and other vehicles, all decked out with those shiny elements. (My favorite is the Kenworth K100 classic milk trailer combo.)
There’s a lot to admire about this creation beyond the mirror finish. The engine is crammed full of detail and real-world shaping. The blues of the bodywork provide a rich color contrast, gliding through some graceful curves. From the rear, you can see even more chromed elements, along with a better look at the instrument panel.
Bricksonwheels hopes that this creation will inspire others to incorporate more chrome into their own builds. You might even be driven to mod your Harley Fat Boy set…hint, hint!
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When these cops come to kick your door in, they don’t mess around. Armed to the teeth and itching for a fight, the squad’s tactical mech carries a faint whiff of ED-209 from Robocop. However, Tim Goddard‘s model is a throwback to an altogether different slice of retro cop sci-fi–LEGO’s Space Police theme of 1989. There’s a tonne of lovely mechanical detailing in amongst the black, and the blue panels and red cockpit give the model some striking standout. I love the guns and missile launcher this thing is carrying, but the smaller arms hanging beneath the cockpit are the killer detail, lending the model some goofy character along with its more obvious menace.
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Fascinating builder Kobalt brings his latest LEGO creation to the table, and it seems to jump straight from the cover of a 1960s sci-fi novel. The slim, lightly curved legs of the Atomic Bug support a large bulbous body constructed predominantly in olive green. This speaks to me of treading over rubble in some alternate universe’s cold war. Red highlights and pinstripes adorn this strider, while the touches of yellow bring out some rather clean greebling towards the rear. This craft has been well looked after. A series of snug searchlights are found under the cockpit canopy as well as some nifty aerials, made from a couple of varied lengths of flex cable. I couldn’t personally think of a better part for those large transmitter-receivers.
On turning this craft around, we are presented with what I can only assume is a power source. Built primarily in white, it stands out nicely from the rest of the body. The white 4×4 multifaceted cylinder hemisphere as the cap on the end allows the continuity to be smoothly ended. This reminds me of a futuristic energy core containment system, presumably for its atomic fuel. From this reversed angle we can also see more of the yellow hints, peeking out from the top. The girder piece gives such a great industrial feel and though it’s almost all hidden, the glimpses you get from the varied angles is all it needs.
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Stranger Things season 3 will undoubtedly have given Limahl’s royalties a boost with its use of the theme song from The Neverending Story. But if you’re a fan of the original movie, then Jason Allemann‘s latest creation will have you smiling and humming the song to yourself without a single reference to Hawkins, Indiana. He’s put together an excellent LEGO version of Falkor the Luck Dragon.
Jason is the undisputed master of LEGO kinetic sculpture, imbuing his creations with wonderful motion, and this model is a perfect example. Check out the video featuring the Luck Dragon in flight, and Jason talking through the design process.
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Sometimes the best inspiration for a LEGO creation comes from someone else’s failure, or at least from their frustrated abandonment of a complex idea. Pau Padrós‘s brother attempted to build Raphael’s masterpiece “The School of Athens”, but was about to give up; Pau took the build, changed the scale, and ran with it to create this amazing digital model. The painting, and thus the plastic version, focuses on the two most important philosophers of the Greek world, and thus of Western civilization: Plato and Aristotle. Naturally, some details of the original painting have been lost—I don’t recall Euclid’s face being a hollow square in Raphael’s version—but it is still a masterwork in forms; Plato would be proud. (That’s a philosophy pun, if you missed it.) I love how Pau has kept the detail of the two philosophers’ hands, with Plato’s pointing to the sky (where the ideal forms of all things reside) and Aristotle’s flat over the ground (which is the natural world, the observation of which is the source of our knowledge).
Besides the philosophers shown, which is exciting enough, Pau has hidden all sorts of details in the build. Each of the figures of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are comprised of twenty-two pieces, which in numerology means that they are on the path to turn dreams to reality. Of the 41 solid colors of LEGO in production, 38 are used, which perhaps represents the broad range of ideas held by these different men (and woman). The sextant makes for an effective lyre in Apollo’s statue’s hand, and a droid body approximates Athena’s Aegis-shield well enough. Don’t miss the green barbed wire as Epicurus’ garland, either. With forty-seven philosophers here (everyone from Alexander to Zeno) there’s something for everyone to appreciate and emulate. Most importantly, perhaps, is the lost art of disagreeing amicably and discussing rationally.
Want to see more of the build? Check out the video here:
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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 third week of July 2019.
Toys ‘R’ Us returns to the U.S. in time for the 2019 holiday season. Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.
TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS: This week we learned that you can’t keep a good giraffe down, watched the making of a life-size LEGO model of Iron Man, and reviewed two sets: a Technic Car Transporter and Jurassic World T. Rex vs Dino-Mech Battle. Meanwhile, our mind flaying Stranger Things contest continues gathering strength and entries.
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This bright blue Tachikoma-like mech by Blair Archer is affectionately known as the S.P.I.D.E.R. despite it having two fewer legs than members of the arachnid family. However, it makes more sense when you learn that stands for Solar-Powered Interstellar Drone for Extraterrestrial Research, which explains the multitude of solar panels, which Blair cleverly co-opted from Anakin’s Jedi Starfighter. But as incredible as the mech is, I might be even more interested in the buried fossil. Look closely, and you’ll see that it’s LEGO too, made of a variety of Bionicle and Hero Factory pieces!
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Once you sample gelato, you won’t look at ice cream the same way anymore! It’s absolutely creamy and delightful, and a little bit goes a long way. Builder Sebastian-Z has taken the famous Italian dessert and given it a LEGO home. The architecture is iconically Italian, complete with an outdoor dining area and tall shuttered windows. Looking through the tall first-floor windows reveals a glimpse of the interior, though the exterior steals the limelight. The lighting in the central courtyard is a nice touch, as is the greenery alongside the building and crawling up its walls.
To be truly appreciated, the building is best viewed from multiple angles. I didn’t notice the sculpture in the courtyard until seeing this composite image. It’s a delicious looking build that will leave you exclaiming, “Buon appetito!”
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In the depths of LEGO space and time, the amount of creative ways to build space craft has blossomed exponentially. Sometimes from the most complex of concepts and other times, from something as simple as a basic letter from the alphabet. Dave Kaleta has been working on his letter based starfighter series since the beginning of this year. Though what really impressed me, aside from his great creations, was that his three-year-old son, Elliot, sat predominantly at the head of the build team. Inspired by a Star Wars letter-based starfighter contest a few years back, they set some of their own rules to build by and opened up a newly inspired space.
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