LEGO VIP Weekend kicks off this Saturday and Sunday (21st and 22nd November) with double VIP points on purchases. Spending the minimum amount will bag you some exclusive gifts while stocks last. This is a pre-cursor to LEGO’s Black Friday sale next week, where you get to spend the earned points this week on more of your wanted sets next week.
Click to see the exclusive items offered this week
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 November 2020.
A raft of new sets are now available for purchase, just in time for the holidays! Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.
TBB NEWS & Reviews: This week we reviewed the new Dickens inspired gift with purchase, saw the reveal of a new Mandalorian set, new Marvel sets, new LEGO Mario expansion sets and more!
OTHER NEWS: There were quite a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:
Just a few days ago I wrote an article about a little cottage in the forest. Today I stumbled upon this creation by the Midwest Builders. A big cottage in the forest! Well, calling this a cottage might not do it justice. It is actually more of a house —- a Tudor style house, and I am a sucker for Tudor style houses. So let’s discuss all the yummie goodness this creation has to offer. First of all, the woodwork on the tudor style part of the house is really nicely done. I especially love the use of the 4×4 macaroni tile . The exposed bricks behind the woodwork also looks amazing. Then the shingles for the roof are just the right amount of crooked, giving this building great character.
One of the best things has to be the pentagon and half-ellipse-shaped windows. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the LEGO spider web part because it is so chunky and you have to attach it, which can sometimes be a bit tricky to do without the attachment parts being visible. Midwest Builders managed to hide the attachment spots, giving it a more organic feel. The purple trees, graveyard, and the crops with the scarecrow further add to the Halloween feel. Are they decorations or is this house just a bit creepy all year round? Last but not least, have you seen the cute cobblestone wall that has been crumbling down for ages and is now only three plates high?
Today we’re getting our first look at the second wave of LEGO Art sets, thanks to European toy retailer Van Der Meulen. Expected to debut in January 2021, the pair of new sets are 31201 Harry Potter Hogwarts Crests and 31202 Disney’s Mickey Mouse. The sets follow on the heels of the first wave of LEGO Art sets which were released in September featuring Star Wars, The Beatles, Andy Warhol, and Iron Man (which we reviewed). Like those sets, the two new mosaics include the pieces for multiple designs. The Harry Potter set has 4,249 pieces and can build each of the four Hogwarts house crests, though only one at a time. Brickset reports that four copies of the set can also be combined to create the Hogwarts crest, though we don’t have any images of that at this time. Similarly, the Mickey Mouse set has two options for either building Mickey or Minnie and we presume they can also be combined in some way. This set contains 2,658 pieces.
There’s no word on the price yet. The previous four sets each cost $120 USD and contained around 3,250 pieces, so we’ll have to see if the new sets keep the same price point with the Hogwarts one having considerably more pieces and the Disney one a lot fewer.
Don’t miss the other new sets for 2021:
Check out more details of the new mosaics below.
When it comes to LEGO space nostalgia, old Classic Space gets the lion’s share of the love. Now, I’m not saying that Benny and his gang don’t deserve the hype, but I was not even born yet by the time the visor made its debut. And the visored spacepersons had some awesome themes, like Blacktron (I and II), Space Police (I, II, and III, even), and the ever-iconic Ice Planet 2002; occasionally these guys get some love from the community, but not like the Classic Spacers do. But then LEGO started some new visorless themes in the mid-late 1990s, like Insectoids and UFOs. When was the last time you saw a custom creation from one of those themes? Well, Koen Zwanenburg is here to supply that lack, with this superb re-imagining of one of my all-time favorite sets, 6915 Warp Wing Fighter, making the crossover we all imagined when seeing it in 1997: an X-wing fighter from Star Wars.
This ship has it where it counts, from the giant curved hull panels to the transparent neon-greenish yellow canopy and accessories. More tiles and curved slopes give it an updated look, but it is still immediately recognizable as the old ship I loved so much, ever since finding it under the tree one Christmas morning.
Love Koen’s work? So do we here at The Brothers Brick, so check out our archives.
As a car nut, nothing makes my heart go pitter-patter more than a sweet custom hot rod. That’s why when I saw Sara Nelson’s LEGO classic custom Ford I paid extra-special attention, with the heart pittering and whatnot. With its removed fenders, lowered stance, ’34 Ford grille, and bold black and red color scheme, this is your quintessential car show favorite. Sara cites the work of Brothers Brick regular Letranger Absurde as her inspiration for the character and, now that she mentions it, I can see the influence there. There isn’t an archive to refer you to so this means Sara is new to our radar but someone we will certainly be on the lookout for in the future. In the meantime, buckle in and check out the archive of vehicles from other amazing builders.
Some LEGO creations are just so representative of their subject material, it’s eerie. If you put this picture of Koala Yummies’ creation next to a calendar of the year 2020, I wouldn’t be able to point out which is which. In a year in which so much is going wrong, many people are finding LEGO to be a great way to keep distracted from the bad news and stay sane. This creation uses a technique that is easy to attempt, but in my opinion difficult to do well: dumping piles of loose bricks everywhere. Even when the world is falling apart around you and you’re waist-deep in LEGO bricks to sort, you can still pause with a warm beverage and tell yourself “This is fine”.
Here in the US, we are quite used to being the best at everything. Our job numbers look tremendous and our COVID numbers are tops in the world, way higher than Canada’s. With this much winning sometimes a fella just wants to shout it from the mountain tops (or another carefully chosen location). This is why we were moved to tears when Brothers Brick alumni Iain Heath created a LEGO version of one of our proudest moments. (No, seriously, I checked in with the other staff here at The Brothers Brick and we’re all pretty much in tears at the state of our winning.) It depicts our beloved presidential attorney and star of Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm bringing his -we’ll never give up, can-do attitude- to the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. Not the posh downtown hotel but rather The Four Seasons Total Landscaping establishment conveniently located between a crematorium and a sex shop. You know the place.
To be clear, this is not a real LEGO set. However, I’m certain we can use our power and influence to phone up LEGO or Rupert Murdoch or somebody to create a reality more in line with our own wants and needs. Iain is a true American patriot! But somehow he has a funny accent, like the kind you hear on one of those stuffier news stations. Maybe he was born while on vacation or something? Anyway, whether before, after, or during his tenure here at Brothers Brick, Iain is no stranger to our archives. He’s also quite used to getting his LEGO art out there and becoming a viral sensation. If it hasn’t happened already, I’m sure this newest piece will be covered on…wait for it…ALL THE NETWORKS! We’re thrilled with the amount of winning we’re doing around here. How about you?
Starwars.com revealed on their YouTube channel earlier today a new Star Wars Mandalorian LEGO set featuring a scene titled Trouble on Tatooine with two vehicles and three figures. The weekly segment for the channel that covers all things Star Wars updates including merchandise and toys and games. The set will be available January 1st, 2021 for US $29.99 | CAN $39.99 | UK £27.99.
Don’t miss the other new sets for 2021:
Check out the new Trouble on Tatooine set below
Forget the folklore from the Slavic steppes, this walking house comes straight from the bayou. Built by Letranger Absurde, the shanty is piloted by two women and decked out with all sorts of odds and ends that they’ve picked up in their travels. Giving off a distinct sense of post-apocalyptic salvage, the four-legged mech looks like it was cobbled together from the remains of an industrial platform and an old shed. And as good as the mech is, the base it sits on is also worth noting, with a great layered effect from the trans light blue tiles placed over what’s probably lime green or yellow plates, interspersed with olive and medium nougat for the muddy land.
Marvel fever is back again in 2021 and we get a first look at upcoming sets revealing the Avengers and Spider-Man. Buildable Mechs are a theme while the smaller playsets feature an assortment of vehicles. A set featuring Spider-Man’s liar is the largest set in this lineup. This wave of Marvel will be on sale on January 1st 2021.
Don’t miss the other new sets for 2021:
Check out all the new Marvel sets below.
Click for a closer look at the new lineup
One of the best things about LEGO is the online community, which appears to be ever-growing. I really like discovering new online accounts of fans of LEGO. Yesterday I discovered a new (to me) creator and I would like to share their latest creation with you. Titled “Little cottage in the forest,” it was made by Alex Bromfield, and I have so many nice things to say about it. I like the irregularly shaped base and the use of all the headgear for the cobblestone path. And the cobblestone path isn’t even the only way Alex incorporates headgear. He also uses it to create a bird’s nest and a small bush. On the walls of the Tudor-style house, he used a mix of white, tan, and dark tan bricks to give it a more weathered look, which is further continued by adding tiles, slopes and cheese slopes to the roof. Can you believe that this creator is only 13 years old? I am telling you, this is one to keep an eye on!
