Yearly Archives: 2020

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for June 5, 2020

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 first week of June 2020.

A Black Lives Matter mosaic by Dave Kaleta served as a good opportunity to provide our thoughts on racial inquality in this editorial penned by TBB Editor in Chief Andrew Becraft. Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.

TBB NEWS: This week we took a hard look at equality within the LEGO community, learned a bit about LEGO photography, checked out all the new summer wave LEGO sets and more.

LEGO stands against racism and inequality by donating $4 million – LEGO will donate $4 million in support of the black community and racial equality in response to current events.
George Floyd was human, just like us – Pedro Sequeira (@sir_pierres) has built a bust of George Floyd as a fitting reminder that he was human, just like all of us.
Black lives matter, even among privileged LEGO builders [Editorial] – Dave Kaleta refuses to remain silent. So we want to know, how has your privilege or heritage affected your participation in the LEGO hobby?

TBB FEATURES:

Picturing LEGO: Using LEGO bricks to tell a story through photography [Feature] – We feature Jonah Schultz, a guest writer with a unique viewpoint and analysis of the art of LEGO and Photography.
LEGO provides instructions for your daily life activities [Feature] – LEGO expands into creating instructions beyond the brick and guiding you in your daily life.
Behind the scenes of Brick Sketches: An interview with LEGO designer Chris McVeigh [Feature] – The Brothers Brick interviewed new LEGO designer Chris McVeigh about Brick Sketches.

MORE TBB NEWS:

Your guide to the 130 new LEGO sets now available for June 2020 including the Technic Lamborghini and more – We have your complete guide to the 125+ new LEGO sets now available for June. Happy summer!
LEGO 71703 Ninjago Legacy: Storm Fighter Battle [Review] – The Ninjago “Legacy” sets are a fun way to revisit and re-issue older sets. But then LEGO went and got recursive.
The iconic Wooden Duck is the next LEGO House exclusive set – The new LEGO House exclusive is coming, the iconic Wooden Duck! But you can build one today using the building guide available online.
LEGO adds to Super Mario theme, revealing four new Power-Up expansion packs – LEGO Super Mario is coming this summer, and LEGO just revealed four new Power-Up Packs to give Mario new outfits!
Three new Powered Up Technic hubs and motors will be available from LEGO in June – You will no longer have to buy big LEGO sets to get Powered Up motors and hubs because they will be available individually starting June 1st.

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:

The Very First Harry Potter Game Was A Weird LEGO Joint, Kotaku – Today we unearth the very first Harry Potter video game.
LEGO House Live Tours – A new Initiative, LAN Network – LEGO is opening up the History Collection in the basement of LEGO House and giving free virtual tours!
How Shameless’ Emmy Rossum Used LEGO To Figure Out Certain Scenes, Cinema Blend – Rossum has revealed how she used LEGO to figure out how to direct certain scenes of Shameless.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

It’s a good thing robots don’t have feelings

If you ever felt like just a cog in the machine, take heart. At least you aren’t a disposable worker-bot spending your short and miserable life testing deadly trap/puzzles for Aperature Science, and suffering endless verbal abuse from GLaDOS, like P-Body here, built by M. Squid and featuring a skillfully constructed frame combined with an outer shell that is very accurate to the source material. You can do it, P-Body! [CRASH!] well, better luck next time.

The answers you seek lie within the bricks [Video]

Like Zoltar, ask this guy a question or make a wish, and you’ll actually receive answers. Well, maybe not the best answers, but how many fortunes lay it out straight? You won’t be able to fault Teun de Wijs once you watch the video of this extraordinary LEGO build. This mechanical fortune teller doesn’t just move his arms and bend over the crystal ball. Oh, no, my friends, this guy is the real deal. Inside his box is an ingenious mechanical randomizer. You heard that right, folks. An internal block with four answers will spin and be stopped at random, like a coin flip. It’s up to the powers of the universe to provide an answer to your question. Like a Magic 8 Ball, they may not be the most helpful answers, but beggars can be choosers. Don’t question the man with the epic batarang mustache, he’s just the messenger. And careful what you wish for, because we all know how that turned out in the Tom Hanks movie, Big.

Scratching your head trying to figure out what I’m talking about? Click below to watch the video of the automaton in action!

See the video of how it works!

Make no bones about it

LEGO builder Mitsuru Nikaido is back with another one of his animal mechs and this time he’s left off the protective exoskeleton. Instead, you have a fish that has a…regular skeleton. This fishy mech follows the same white and gray color scheme that his other animal mechs have so it makes for a great new addition to the line. As always, Mitsuru has demonstrated some very nice parts usage. I’m particularly fond of the repeated use of these handlebars along its backbone. I advise you clear your schedule, settle in, and check out these mechs by Mitsuru and others.

Here’s a story...

Today’s tough times have a lot of us thinking that the past was a soooo much nicer place to live in. That’s probably true in some cases. But things were tough in ye olden days of the early 1970s, too. I mean, what if you were a couple of single parents who found themselves facing complex family dynamics? Like where are you supposed to fit six kids and a maid in a small California home? Yes, dear reader, I’m talking about the troubles faced by the The Brady Bunch. Aaron Newman has built a super-accurate rendition of the famous TV dwelling out of LEGO brick, and brought all those sitcom troubles back into the forefront of my mind.

But first, let’s take a moment to admire this LEGO recreation. The layout and shaping are painstakingly accurate to the house as it appeared on the show. I like the use of angled plates and tiles to minimize the seams between the three segments of the roof. The choice of mixing in just a few exposed studs adds a nice bit of texture there without overpowering the eye. The real highlights for me, though, are plants and trees that decorate the lot. The three palm trees on the right are particularly nice, using clip-ended bar holders to allow for a gentle sway away from rigid angles. I also want to call out the spiky pant base in dark orange in the shrubbery.

If you want more information about the build, including a look at the back yard, I suggest swinging by Aaron’s own write up of the build. And if you want to learn more about Aaron? Well, then you can check out the relevant Brothers Brick builder spotlight. But let me also leave you with one thought to ponder. The dad on the show, Mike Brady, was an architect, right? That job pulls down pretty decent pay. Why the heck didn’t he just buy a bigger house? I guess that really does show times were tough back then, too.

Aragog, the king of arachnids

In my opinion, one of the most terrifyingly fantastic beasts in the Harry Potter series was found in Aragog. Although he was friendly to Harry and his friends, he was still a giant spider and that’s just all sorts of freaky. LEGO builder CheeseyStudios brings us a small vignette of the entrance to Aragog’s lair, making me wish any of the several official LEGO sets had looked half this good. The massive toppled tree has the heft it should, with lighter color wood exposed where it cracked. And Aragog himself feels more spindly and spider-like than his official counterparts, But the best detail, in my opinion, is the little mushrooms sprouted from the log. They’re a simple design combining a radar dish and a beveled gear, but together they make the smooth top and fluted undersides perfectly. Combined with a black sausage for a curving stem, and you couldn’t ask for a better LEGO fungus.

Epic triple-decker pinball wizardry [Video]

We recently featured a pinball machine with a modular play field. I’m not sure why there is a sudden uptick in pinball builds, but I am totally on board! Bring them on, pin-wizards! I have to say, you may have a tough time competing with this one, created by Nachapon Lego. I’ve seen a few multi-tiered LEGO machines, but this is probably executed the best. The physics behind pinball can be complicated. The size of the field coupled with the size and weight of the ball, plus the angles of the obstacles, all make for a tricky design process. Then you bring LEGO into the mix and the constraints take on another level of difficulty.

The Star Wars theme will be popular for many of you, but if that’s not your thing, the builder made a sister-table. The obstacles are the same, but this one has a creative and colorful adventure motif as a tribute to the vast possibilities of LEGO. The game-play video below will have you wishing you could have a go at it yourself! I particularly like the ball-saving that can be done by kicking it back to the main level once it drains.

If you haven’t already, definitely take a peak at some of our other featured pinball articles! You’ll find my own Classic Space pinball machine, along with a few others that will get you excited about making one too!

No Pain, no Gain! Feel the burn!

LEGO builder Patrick Biggs presents us with two demons; their names are Pain and Gain. No one knows which is which but they always work together. Their dumbells were cleverly constructed using tires and rims and their clenched teeth are emulated using bevel gears. These are popular demons that are frequently summoned by every meathead dropping their weights and exhaling the ancient spell: “No Pain, no Gain”. Incidentally, the same can be said after eating an entire gallon of ice cream in one sitting. Despite building the very personification of the “no pain, no gain” motto, Patrick tells us he didn’t spend his time wisely and had no winning plans for building this duo. That right there is why he wins the internet today. Here are several other instances where Patrick has totally won the internet.

Getting ready for some historic driving

Like most hobbies, once you start to learn about LEGO you find that there can be a shocking amount of complexity behind just about every aspect. Sure, you can just sit back and enjoy the great photography and clever building that Faber Mandragore accomplished with Roadster Hot Rod. But let’s dig a little and peer into those murky depths. We can start out easy; the air filter in the car is a neck ruffle. An unusual choice, in that the element originated in the Collectible minifigure theme. Those sure look like steering wheels repurposed as the front wheel rims, inside tires introduced in 1959 and not produced since 1977. And is that a bucket handle forming the steering wheel? Each of these parts has a history in other sets and contexts that’s there if you want to go looking for it.

But the deepest cut of LEGO history? Those exposed orange-ish bricks in the background are Modulex. Those are tiny architectural planning bricks that LEGO spun off as a side line back in the 1960s. Incorporating them into a standard LEGO creation is never easy, but it’s done here in a seamless fashion. Well, neglecting that the seams between the bricks are what helps unify the whole wall, anyway. *sigh* You know what I mean.

LEGO stands against racism and inequality by donating $4 million [News]

In response to the growing protests about racial inequality centered in the US, LEGO announced that they stand with the black community and will donate $4 million to several organizations working to both support and educate children about racial equality. The donation is one of the largest by a corporation announced so far, similar in scale to the $5 million donation announced by Disney.

LEGO’s support of the Black Lives Matter movement and their sizeable donation is a notable response to the tragic events unfolding throughout the US, especially considering their own flagship store in New York was looted earlier this week. These pictures from Twitter users @aaronwhite and @SteveKornacki show the Flatiron District LEGO Store’s windows smashed and shelves wiped clean, with only a broken Star Destroyer and a few permanent displays remaining.

LEGO’s core values state that the company will strive to “make a positive difference in the lives of children… not because we have to – but because it feels right and because we care.” LEGO has also asked retailers and affiliates to pause advertising a variety of products including City sets featuring police officers and firefighters as well as the new LEGO Architecture White House.

pic.twitter.com/gpWKJ8pr7V

— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) June 3, 2020

A peaceful oasis in troubled times

While lighthouses used to serve a very valuable purpose, with all the advances in technology it seems like these days they are more likely closed and abandoned. But in this pastoral scene by Anthony Wilson, four friends are enjoying the peace and quiet to do a bit of fishing, and to gaze out to sea. There are lots of great details from the curvy whitecapped made from a variety of unique parts to the old truck and the weathered boat. But my favorite part is the rocky shore, which uses some long sloped parts more often used in spaceships.

Modular pinball for all [Video]

Some of you may already know I’m a little obsessed with pinball. I just can’t help being enthralled with the awesome engineering that lies within a pinball machine. It’s like an obstacle course for your mind, but tangible. And nothing makes me more giddy than one made from LEGO. This little machine, built by Dawid Marasek, may look simple, but it has a great asset: it’s modular.

Click to watch the video of how it works!