Yearly Archives: 2020

LEGO Ninjago Legacy 71735 Tournament of Elements [Review]

Can you believe that Ninjago has been around for ten years? That’s a lot of Spinjitzu under the bridge. It’s enough to make one feel just a bit nostalgic.  Happily, the Ninjago Legacy theme lets fans revisit sets and events from previous seasons. LEGO Ninjago Legacy 71735 Tournament of Elements returns to season four with seven minifigures and an updated combat arena. This 283  piece set will be available starting January 1st for US $29.99 | CAN $39.99 | UK £27.99.  Is there enough here to be of interest the wider LEGO audience? Read on and judge for yourself!

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click to read the full hands-on review

The panic room of your childhood nightmares

Remember when your parents told you that there weren’t monsters under your bed, in your closet, or outside your window? Well, this LEGO build by Flickr user Brixe63 certainly paints a different picture. Not only are there monsters in this little brick-built room, but the room itself is also a monster!

Gefangen im Alptraum

The wallpaper for this room is built out of white and sand green plates and tiles. The monster window utilizes modified 1x1s and 1x2s with teeth pieces in white and red, depicting a bloody mouth fresh after a kill perhaps. Many dark green vine elements creep from the door or erupt through the walls and floor like tentacles looking for a fresh grab. There’s even a ghostly white minifigure hand reaching out from the little cabinet whose drawers are made out of brown bucket handles. The floor is made out of tiles laid on their sides not connecting to any studs, this is a good approach for this build as they can be arranged in a messier way in order to give the floor a lively appearance. This room is definitely a room out of a childhood nightmare, and I am glad I am not the poor minifigure lying in bed in terror.

Don’t let the name fool you, this termite is mighty

While big things often come in small packages, sometimes they come in big 2-person demolition mechs, like this hulking mass of de-construction by Zane Houston, which sports some very clever details. At first glance, many of the pieces look a lot like some smaller LEGO elements but are actually larger, brick built versions. For instance, check out the curved vents on each forearm that resemble the black spoiler element. Between the vice-like pincer hands, piston-driven cutters and the chain coiled around the base of the chassis, the Termite Demolition Mech is ready to break it down and break it down again.

Termite Demolition Mech

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the ruins?

Kayaking, canoeing, and boating of other types are pretty popular where I live. While Jesse van den Oetelaar’s LEGO model seems to portray a more medieval type scene, this build reminds me of a real life historic park not too far from me, where you can kayak on a creek amidst the ruins of an aqueduct.

Fractured Kingdoms

Jesse’s minifigure character William Renou paddles a brick-built sail boat which utilizes many small brown elements, notably many tiles of various sizes for the body of the boat while the sail mast utilizes multiple brown 1×1 round bricks. The water in this model is rendered with white trans-clear tiles, which is a bit different from most builds I have seen which tend to make use of trans-clear elements in various shades of blue. The white trans-clear elements are a good choice and they work well with the mostly grey color-scheme of the architecture.

The aqueduct ruins mostly make use of 1×2 brick elements, slopes, tiles, light green tree limb elements, and various other light grey pieces. I especially appreciate the cattails that are fashioned out of tan technic pins attached to brown sticks which were then stuck into the holes of tree limb elements. While the fantasy vibe is evident throughout this work, the vignette is still quite relatable in real and present moments as well.

LEGO Technic 42123 McLaren Senna GTR [Review]

McLaren Senna is one of the most advanced track vehicles designed and manufactured by McLaren so far. They say, only 75 copies of the car will be built, so if you missed a chance to get one, LEGO has something for you. The new LEGO Technic 42123 McLaren Senna GTR is yet another licensed LEGO Technic set, joining the winter wave of sets along with 42122 Jeep Wrangler and 42125 Ferrari 488 GTE. The 830-piece building set offers a 1:15 replica of the world-famous supercar. It will be available from January 1, 2021, for US $49.99 | CAN $69.99 | UK £44.99.

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The Coveted Mythosaur Skull Pendant

We all saw the child sporting a very fashionable Mythosaur skull necklace in season one of The Mandalorian (no season two spoilers here). If you can’t find one of these beauties online why not build one for yourself like Luis Peña García has out of LEGO elements?

Peña crafts his LEGO version of the pendant using a menagerie of light grey elements, small black plates in various sizes, and a couple pieces in flat silver. In order to give the skull form, Peña mainly utilizes the light grey slopes and tiles in various shapes and sizes while the black plates that the grey pieces are assembled on serve as the negative space creating eye and nose sockets. Peña most cleverly uses a few binocular pieces in grey for the teeth of the fictional creature. Overall this build is spot on in its depiction of the Mythosaur skull pendant, wear one of these babies and the Mandalorians will know that you are legit!

Tiny and tossed about

Here’s a little diorama that captures what it must have felt like to be a sailor during the Age of Exploration. Ferdinand Magellan’s ship Victoria was the first vessel to circumnavigate the globe, and it was a mere 69 feet long. No doubt rounding the horn in a ship that small must have felt a bit like aboard the ship in TonyFlow76‘s little kinetic sculpture.

Using trans-blue garage doors pieces to simulate the undulating sea, a tiny ship is held in place while it rides up and down the massive swells.

 

Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’. Keep them doggies rollin’.

Classic Space the Next Generation returns in the AT-TCC – All Terrain Troop and Cargo Crawler by Boba-1980. The color and shapes of this fan theme harken back to the days of Mars Mission, but the with all the upgrades you expect from a sequel. I really enjoy the utility of this vehicle – the tires and treads should take you just about anywhere you need to go. There’s room for six passengers, and there’s plenty of cargo space in the two removable pods. My favorite feature, though, is the clever nose design made from two 6×10 windscreens.

AT-TCC - All Terrain Troop and Cargo Crawler

Even if the orange and black of CS.NextGen isn’t for you, there’s a chance you’d be interested in the blue and yellow of Neo-Classic Space. There’s room for everyone out in the vastness of the universe, after all.

Will budget cutbacks lead to more small-scale warfare?

The governments of the world spend a lot of money on military hardware. Maybe they should look to Aaron Newman for ways to save some funds. I mean, LEGO is expensive, but it’s not THAT expensive. And these micro-machines look pretty capable to me. Aaron has shared three quality builds, each with clever scale reductions. Standout details include the guns on the battleship made from modified 1×1 round plate, the curved sand-green slopes on the wings of the plane, and the modified cone in the tank’s barrel. If you’d like to build your own, Aaron has made the instructions available for free.

Military Micros Series

LEGO may not produce official military sets, but that hasn’t stopped the fan community from building their own. Our military archives feature some great builds ranging from the historic to the fantastic. (As well as reviewing the sets that LEGO sort-of-but-not-quite let slip through the cracks.)

Back to the future, sort of.

Usually when LEGO fans think of Vic Vipers, they think of NoVVember – but this new design by The Brick Artisan shows that a good theme isn’t confined to a singe month. The LL-551 Viper is full of sweet sci-fi details like twin laser cannons and integrated shielding. On the building side of things, there are all sorts of clever choices like using minifigure metal detectors as part of the hull. There’s also a wealth of quality greebling and great details like using the gap between arched bricks to house some tubing. This is one sweet ride that can help carry us over until next November.

LL-551 Viper

The colors and logos also identify the LL-551 as part of the NeoClassic Space theme. Isn’t it nice when the future is clearly such a bright and shining place?

Take your pick, they’re all fantastic!

Sometimes you don’t need a metric heap-ton of LEGO bricks to build something truly fantastic. František Hajdekr is consistently quite good at achieving amazing detail with just a handful of parts. Here are four great vehicles that are just about the right size to compete with your favorite Hotwheels or Matchbox cars. I’m smitten. How about you?

My Micro Collection

The most adorable puppies in the world

Having a bad day?  Thoughts of a global pandemic got you down? Just stop right there and look at the pure joy that is Aaron Newman‘s LEGO creation.

Indigo & Harmony

OH MY GOODNESS. They’re adorable! The little noses and teeny eyes longingly looking into my soul makes me melt with happiness. How can you say no when one of them begs for a treat?

Ok, time to be serious. Aaron says he made the doggies as a commission project. He tried to build them on a 1:1 scale, but decided he could do better if the scale was 1:2. It took a long time to get the right look for the eyes, ears and collars, but he’s very proud of the final result.

So are we, Aaron! Thank you for sharing this incredibly heart-warming build with us.