Yearly Archives: 2019

A trio of traps – Claptraps, that is

When it comes to hilarious AI sidekicks in video games, it’s hard to beat the exuberant, boisterous, stair-challenged inverted triangle designated CL4P-TP, or better known as Claptrap. And what could be better than one Claptrap? If you asked Jerac that question, the answer would be three Claptraps.

Borderlands Claptrap family - 2.0!

Jerac has captured the distinctive look of these mono-wheeled robots very well, from the spindly arms to the oversized guns. And speaking of wheels, they are attached using the 1×1 modified plate with handle as if the part was made just for this purpose.

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The Tim Burton Batmobile, building digitally and making it a reality

As a fan of the Tim Burton’s Batman movie and the Batmobile, this midi-scale vehicle picks up all the right details and I have to admit, I always have my doubts when looking at a build done digitally in LEGO that looks great. Who knows if it’s going to all fit together and hold up? I’m glad Kaijuworld took his original digital design and made it into a reality, even making the alternate Batmissile split-mode possible!

lego 1989 Batmobile moc (IRL)

lego 1989 Batmobile moc (IRL)

This was the original render that caught my attention a few months ago that had me drooling all over for its accuracy at this scale.

lego 1989 Batmobile (+ Batmissile) moc

How popular is the lean machine from the 80s? Here’s a bunch of LEGO Burton Batmobile goodness that’ll leave you going bat-crazy!

What do you get when you combine a Stealth Bomber and a ’68 Chevy? The Batmobile.

How to build a LEGO Batmobile from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman Movie [Instructions]

Burton-era Batmobile blasting off

Nostalgic Tim Burton-era Batmobile

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Wealthiest Disney character of all time

Despite his namesake, Scrooge McDuck is a cool and adventurous dude and one of my favorites from the 80s Duck Tales Adventures. It’s nice to see him come alive and reproduced beautifully in brick form. This build not only features the wealthy duck, but is also rich in Nice Parts Usages (NPUs). You’ve got to love how Koen Zwanenburg used the magnifying glasses for the pince-nez, and the bucket handles for his belt buckle. Most appropriately perhaps, parts of the treasure chest are made of gold ingot elements.

Uncle Scrooge

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LEGO Advent Calendar 2019 revealed and available for pre-order on Amazon (US) [News]

LEGO has revealed all of this year’s holiday season Advent calendars with new images and they’re now available on Amazon US for pre-order. This year we have an addition of Harry Potter to the regulars of City, Friends and Star Wars. The same prices are holding as previous years: $29.99 USD each for City and Friends, while Harry Potter will be priced at $39.99 along with the Star Wars set. They will be released on September 1, but if you want to make sure you’re good and ready before Christmas, you can pre-order them at Amazon right now.

Click to see the rest of the Advent Calendar sets

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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for August 10, 2019 [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 August 2019.

LEGO officially unveils the new Ideas Friends set just in time fore the show’s 25th anniversary.


TBB NEWS, REVIEWS AND INSTRUCTIONS: This week we had a cup of coffee with our Friends, found the elusive Barb minifigure and taught you how to make your very own Castle Byers.


OTHER NEWS: There were a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:

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We could all live in harmony if Aliens just attended social etiquette schooling

We love our Ridley Scott adventures and can continue to worship Alien Xenomorphs like what the folks over at Build Better Bricks did with LEGO bricks and parts. That lighting and pose is awesome, making this one of the slickest medium-scale Aliens we’ve seen. It smoothly blends System and Bionicle elements to create the cold, clammy, terror-inducing Xenomorph form.

Alien Xenomorph

But, let’s all calm down and think a little. These Alien creatures that we see running around in the movies are not dumb species. They can certainly walk upright like us homo sapiens, and with a bit of schooling, surely we all could live together in harmony. To start with, get them to don clothes and manicure down those claws down to something manageable. They’ve got to also learn to close those gaping mouths to avoid all that drooling. The problem with us is that we human explorers fail to communicate. As soon as we see something ugly, we just whip out the blasters and assume these creatures want to just eat us all alive. Sure they need to figure out a way to survive, but I’m sure we can work something out for when they need to implant us with face-huggers and reproduce those cute tiny babies. Volunteers perhaps?

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It’s OK to rock the boat sometimes

A builder named 呱氏神 (Gū Shìshén) has constructed, in my opinion, one of the most nauseating, vomit-inducing LEGO creations ever, but not because I dislike it. Quite the contrary. The skill level and presentation are all top-notch as evidenced by the beautiful waves, palm tree and gold filigree. My younger self would have loved the chance to go on this “Viking Pirates” ride, but as I get older it seems I’d rather quietly read about vikings or pirates and leave the real adventures to you crazy kids.

3斜面2

Queasy old stomach aside, this indeed looks as if it would be fun to play with. There is no video presentation for this, but the backside makes it clear that the ride works in exactly the way you’d think with the help of a manual crank and Technic gears. Continue reading

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Background jobs have never been this adorable

When it comes to cute robots, Eero Okkonen really knows his stuff. Huwbot, built for the Huwbot contest brought to you by our friends over at Brickset, brings you LEGO with an extra side of delight. This robot has the Brickset server’s background jobs clearly in mind, with the logo incorporated as the robot’s brain. The shaping and build also has deliberate callbacks to web design and function, as Eero discusses at his website.
Regardless of his origins, though, Huwbot a stellar creation. Technic eyeball joints bring a lot of expressive character, enhanced by the super-poseable arms and hands. I also love the repeated use of macaroni bricks to add some smooth curves to both the head and base. But the best bit is the Clickits heart that is displayed front and center.

Huwbot

Eero has also provided Huwbot with a red wagon to assist in those background jobs. This, too, is a fun little build. The handle construction is topped with a 1x4x2 bar element that lets Huwbot get a grip on things. And the wagon comes filled with LEGO sets! Really, what more could you ask for?

Huwbot

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A Middle-Eastern microscale masterpiece

Some builders just wow me time after time with stellar parts usages, not to mention their rapid-fire building. Pieces are used in ways that make me mentally file them away for a future build, or add to an imaginary Bricklink wishlist. One such builder is the highly skilled Simon NH, who after just visiting Hades in an awesome creation we highlighted earlier today, brings us a microscale build set somewhere in the Middle East. The building on the left is particularly rich with clever construction, but the whole thing bears closer examination. In fact, I’m pretty sure Simon looked over his white pieces and tried to find the strangest ones, and then worked out how to make them all fit together in some sort of mad-scientist LEGO lair.

Khalif's Summer Stay

The building closest to us in the forced perspective contains a basketball net as a rose window, which works because of the angle of the shot. Moving to the left (since Arabic and other Semitic languages are read right to left, and after all, this is a Middle Eastern-inspired build), the dark tan-domed tower is comprised mostly of stretchers and spinner bases. The tan archway uses a pre-fabricated piece, but at microscale it looks better than it does at minifigure scale, quite frankly. But then we come to the mother lode of exotic white parts in the leftmost building. Who even has a window with shutters last produced in 1975? (I might, actually, since I inherited my dad’s old collection of Samsonite sets from the 60s, but still…) Then there are the Aquanaut helmets turned upside down, and the Blacktron II jet pack for an archway, as well as, well, some 2×4 wheel wells for other arches. There’s more, too, but all of these parts from my childhood are making me nostalgic, and so I need to go find my own childhood LEGO sets, as well as my dad’s, and get the cool pieces to use in future builds of my own.

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Welcome to hell...I mean, Hades

If you want to get the god of the underworld to do you a favor, you had best rosin up your bow and get ready to fiddle for your soul. Oh wait, wrong story. Music is still the key, though, and I’d wager a fiddle made of gold that the Ancient Greek hero Orpheus could even beat Johnny from Georgia; at very least he played his lyre so beautifully that it moved the cold heart of Hades to compassion, granting him his desire to take the shade of his beloved wife Eurydice back to the surface (with some provisos, admittedly). Simon NH has built the scene of the hero before the god, and it captures the feeling of the underworld perfectly.

Hades' Favour

The god is fittingly large in relation to the mortal, and his face is cold and foreboding. His crown is made from sais is nice and spiky, and chains hanging everywhere give it all the feel of a dungeon. My favorite bits are the green flames made from jagged-edged swords, just for the splash of color it gives to an otherwise dreary-toned build. But what really sets this build apart is the dramatic lighting. Everything is in shadows except the figures and the bit of path separating them, setting the stage for the dramatic performance of Orpheus. Despite being, in my mind, the Hawkeye of the Greek heroes (Jason: “What’s your superpower?” Orpheus: “I play the lyre.”), Orpheus ends up being one of the most impressive of them all.

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LEGO continues the BrickHeadz theme with 40351 Ghost this Halloween [News]

LEGO seems to be slowing its BrickHeadz release cycle, but it’s not done creating the cute brick-built characters just yet. LEGO has just published images of the newest set in the line, 40351 Ghost. Presumably a Halloween seasonal item following in the vein of similar sets for the past several years, we expect the Ghost to cost $10 USD and be released sometime in the next month or two. The Ghost will be BrickHeadz number 83, and it includes 136 pieces.

Click to see more, including previews of 3 more upcoming LEGO BrickHeadz

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We’ve been to Hell and back on the river Styx

Hell has been on the minds of many a builder lately as evidenced by Ralf Langer’s stunning creation. For those not yet familiar with the nine circles of Hell, the river Styx features prominently in both Greek and Christian mythology, and the ferryman (Charon or Phlegyas) is said to transport souls into the underworld. Like most city buses, the ferryman demands exact fare, the waters are black and murky, the landscape foreboding and if all that is not hellish enough, Styx’s “Come Sail Away” is played on an eternal loop. (Come on, you had to have seen that joke coming!) All kidding aside, this is truly an inspiring layout.

Crossing the Styx

The irregular shape of the base, trees and rocky outcrops all lend to a visually pleasing albeit nightmarish aesthetic. My favorite element however is the reflections on the water’s surface, and Ralf tells us it is not photographic trickery but rather a result of using black bricks in a SNOT (studs not on top) configuration. Are you intrigued so far? Then be sure to click on Ralf’s photostream as this is merely the first entry in a larger hellish collaboration featuring the Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. This one, Ralf says, is the brightest and cheeriest of all the entries so…yeah…enjoy the journey.

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