Yearly Archives: 2020

Outfitted for an expedition

When you’re exploring an alien wilderness, prospecting for valuable materials, you don’t want to get caught underprepared. This LEGO figure, built by the talented Marko Petrušić (Cezium) is suited up and ready. I love how smooth the midsection is, and how solid the whole figure looks. Many aspects of the base, rifle, and body are cool, but what really sells it is that jacket. You can’t help but feel warm just looking at the “fuzzy” fringe made from gears and Minifigure hair.

Marko built this as a birthday present for Buttloaf_Builds and claims to have been inspired by his incredible recreation of the Nigerian trickster, Eshu. But Marko is exceptional in his own right, with several other builds featured on here on The Brothers Brick.

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This clock tower looks like a giant clock

This LEGO clocktower made by Jaap Bijl, looks just like a giant grandfather clock. The shape of the build made me chuckle but that is not the only reason this creation is aesthetically pleasing. The cobblestone base is constructed very well using bars and half round tiles mixed with regular 1×1 and 1×2 tiles. Giving it a bit of a weathered look. There even is a small pendulum hanging between the two base pillars of the build, On top of that we have a Tudor style house with the Big Ben clock dish to represent the clock. It is always nice to see a part that is so tied to a particular set being used in a fan creation. The roof of the building is purple with some golden details. Adding a pop of colour to a roof of a build always makes it pop. The little turrets made of lanterns and splat gear add so much character to the little building. To top it off the build is set on an irregular base composed of all different kinds of earth tones and is adorned with birch trees, which are in fashion with LEGO right now.

Delicate hues and enchanting views

You don’t see light aqua slopes used in LEGO builds very often. But boy do they look nice on this cottage, built by Azurekingfisher. I love how the plate offset gives it texture. The steep roof sections join together seamlessly and act as the perfect canvas for those detailed dormer windows. The ornamental fence elements and window arches really shine here.

Of course, we can’t overlook the beautiful vines and pastel colors carried throughout. The Friends cupcakes make for excellent flowers. While we’ve seen that application before, this palette doesn’t seem like it could be any more perfect. It’s even carried inside to the detailed tile floors.

Azurekingfisher is really talented with striking color palettes and intricate designs. Just take a look at what they’ve done with plant leaves.

Home, home on the range

Ah, farms. One hundred percent of us humans eat, but in the United States, less than six percent of the population is involved in growing it. Now, I’m not a farmer, but I did enjoy some tomatoes and peppers from my backyard garden this year, so I feel downright rustic as I type this article on a state-of-the-art laptop with high-speed wifi. But having grown up in the upper Midwest, part of America’s Breadbasket, I feel kinship with this rural LEGO scene by John Snyder. Do I own a tractor? No, but I kind of wish I did. Do I keep chickens? No, but my wife has been insisting that we should. Goats, too, though I don’t think city ordinances would allow them. Maybe someday I’ll have a barn and an awesome windmill to draw up water from the well. Mine probably won’t be made of LEGO shields, though.

Do you like farms and barns and livestock, too? Then check out our TBB farm archives! And don’t forget to look up John Snyder, too, and you’ll see why he’s competing for the title of Iron Builder.

More than your usual rubber-stamp build

Ah, bureaucracy. Nothing is quite like the teeth-grinding angst of shuffling papers and getting the right permits. There’s also nothing quite like this creation by Inthert. Making use of an unusual 2×3 modified LEGO plate as a basis, they’ve managed to stamp out something new. There are a lot of great techniques in play, from the white rubber band around the pen clip to the layered wall panels that make up the pages of the book. But the skill used in inverting the rubber stamp’s pattern onto the page is the real treat for me.

This build is part of the latest Iron Builder challenge. Check out our archives for more great creations from that competition.

A new Spider-verse crossover?

Rumors are flying about all the live-action Spider-folk who could appear in the next Spider-Man movies, but what about LEGO versions? This brick-built web-head by Build Better Bricks seems like another quality addition. The shaping of Spidey’s mask is well done, with the eyes being particularly nifty. The figure has some great articulation, too, although that did lead to a small trade-off: those Mixel ball joint connectors currently only come in light grey. Still, that’s the price you sometimes pay for a physical model over a digital flight of fancy.

We’ve spotlighted some other creations from this team before. Check them out here!

After all this time? Always.

In this fast-changing world, certainty and peace can be so hard to find. However, the key to happiness is closer than one may think — ask a LEGO fan! Basic System bricks haven’t changed a bit over the last 60 years, so Emma Widmark takes a look into the future and predicts that even 40 years later, the answer to any worry will still look the same. It’s such a wholesome build; I can’t stop smiling, spying a ton of cute references. I’m sure you’ve recognized Ideas 21318 Treehouse on the table and 75957 The Knight Bus. But looking at that massive AT-AT on the top of the drawers, I will be very disappointed if they don’t release a UCS version by 2060!

What’s all the buzz about?

The Buzz Droid was first introduced in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith as insidious saboteurs that could wreak havoc on unsuspecting starfighters. We’ve seen them before in LEGO but I don’t think anyone has done one with a UCS (Ultimate Collector Series) level of detail. Along comes Instagrammer pennydrop.works and now we’ve seen everything. I particularly like that even with a monochrome color palette, this builder brings out each detail nicely. The domes are made from Death Star halves, which is rather fitting, actually.

Want to see what this LEGO Star Wars UCS stuff is all about? Well, click the link and get ready to have your minds blown!

Space salvage done with style

Based on the iconic salvage tug from the computer video game Star Citizen, this model of the Drake Industries Vulture by Volker Brodkorb is a stunningly detailed replica of its on-screen inspiration. From the rotating engine modules to the forward prongs, loaded with juicy greebly bits, and an assortment of stickers.

This impressive model, built to minifig scale, even boasts some great interiors.

An ideal spot for a picnic lunch

At first glance, this idyllic riverside scene may seem simple, but the more you look, the more amazing details you can see. Eli Willsea makes some great choices to create a landscape filled with interesting part usage. Starting with the trees, made with fishing poles and steer horns. The frothy waterfall uses croissants, and I love the upside-down leaf fronds stuck into the underside of bricks for the vegetation around the edge of the water. The combination of curved and angled slopes for the rockwork is also quite lovely.

Gamorrean smackdown – no place for a child.

First off to start, this LEGO vignette from the hit series The Mandalorian built by Kevin is a spoiler-free scene since it appeared in the promotional trailer for the second season. Unsurprisingly the show is continuing to crank out inspiration for LEGO builders and vignette creators.

A WWE or UFC inspired setting with two Gamorreans duking it out to presumably the death is shown both on the screen and in Kevin’s model. Long poles connected to 1×1 jumpers secure the ring, comprised of tiling and bricks laid on top of more tiling and plate pieces of varying shapes and sizes. Above the ring are some flags utilizing many different elements such as clip pieces, slopes, and tiles. Of course, this vignette is minifigure heavy. It showcases Kevin’s wonderful collection of Star Wars alien species minifigures, including the fighting Gamorreans, a Twi-lek, a Gran, a Mon Calamari, and an Ithorian, to name a few. As a whole, Kevin’s scene certainly captures this moment in the streaming series very well with its sense of crowdedness and recreation of event lighting.

A different kind of LEGO mosaic

Sure, 1×1 studs or square plates certainly can get a mosaic job done, the fairly recent LEGO Art sets are case in point, but there is always more than one approach to an art form. In this recent LEGO model built by Andreas Lenander, he admittedly takes a crack at a different way to mosaic with some inspiration from Katie Walker.

The approach here is primarily utilizing the 1×1 cheese slope in the creation of the mosaic. Lenander not only does a beautiful floor with this process of mosaic-work, but he also creates an amazing brick-built wall that has the aesthetic of a stained glass window using translucent clear 1×1 cheese slopes in popping complimentary colors. Of course, the structures formed by this technique are not stable as there aren’t any stud connections made here, but as long nobody is turning this model upside-down or giving it a good shake, we have an amazing build to look at. Pictured below is a closer look at the painstaking process.