Yearly Archives: 2021

Orange juice served in a steel cup

LEGO builder Marco Marozzi serves up a tall glass of orange juice, but watch out! It’s probably deadly. Stomping towards you is the Orangehead-III Mech, created for an unknown purpose. Carrying heavy pumpkins? Pulling carrots out of the ground? Squeezing oranges into a slurry pulp? Whatever it does, it looks like it’ll do a killer job at it.

Marco’s model is fantastic. From the pistol fingers to the tire shoulders, it’s the use of unorthodox pieces to provide details that really makes this a solid mech. Can you spot other unique parts, such as the car hood (bonnet, for you folks across the Atlantic) used at the base of the torso?

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Maybe it’s a Donut Shop franchise.

I think it’s cool when LEGO builders are inspired to take elements of existing sets and spin them into their own creations. Alex Eylar began by surgically removing the Donut Shop from the 10278 Police Station, striving to keep the modular aspects intact. They then added an adorable bookstore to make the place even more inviting. It feels like the perfect corner to spend a chilly autumn morning exploring. Even if the replication of the Donut Shop suggests it’s more of a chain than a mom-and-pop operation.

The interior of the bookshop is worth a closer look, too. Can you almost smell the scent of used books mingling with the baking from next door? I know I can.

I was amused to find we had a tag for “donut” already – why not take a moment and check out how to make a donut from LEGO bricks? (Probably not how you’re thinking.)

Teeny tiny Titanic

With the release of LEGO’s massive 9,000-piece 10294 Titanic set, the century-old fated ocean liner has seen a lot of renewed interest. We’ve already seen one tiny Titanic model made for a more modest budget, but this one by Corvus Auriac just hit all the right notes for me with its clean design. The use of the tiny ball joint on the end of the Harry Potter wands to made the ship’s masts properly tilted is a lovely bit of detail. It’s a digital build but Corvus says it can be built in real life if you’ve got the parts.

A Roman border tower keeps an eye on them goats

Whether it be the great natural color scheme, fantastic textures or intricate shapes, there’s a lot to love about this Roman border tower built by Ben Tritschler. But the star of the show, to me anyway, has to be those goats. Clearly I’m not the only TBB contributor thrilled by goats. However, I do seem to be the most vocal about it. What can I say? Goats are pretty much the formula for success around here. Even when they’re scary as hell. I may consider also going gaga for those sheep. They are not without their charm. As a LEGO builder, Ben is also not without his charm. Check out our archives to see what I mean.

Ice Penguin Mechs are go!

LEGO builder Chris Perron has delivered precisely what the world needs now. That being four Ice Planet mechs piloted by penguins that take inspiration by Dungeons and Dragons roles. Do I need to repeat that? Four Ice Planet mechs. Piloted by penguins. Inspired by D&D. What part of that don’t you understand? Our first offering totally rocks out on an icy guitar.

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The Halo ring world has us all running in circles

Sometimes one good idea spawns another. My case in point, this LEGO Halo ring world built by Ralf Langer. It is chock full of great tricky techniques to build this ring and I could get lost in all the details and the landmasses. We’d be impressed enough if this occurred as a creative anomoly but in the very capable hands of Ralf this is not the case. Back in June we featured a seascape on a curved horizon. In March of 2020 we see Ralf employing the same techniques with a scene from Fallout that made the social media cover image for that month. Both, it would seem, were mere practice runs for this stunning Halo ring. If you have a hankering for all things Halo you may want to click the little blue link. And be sure not to miss another builder’s prior Halo ring world featured way back in 2012.

Visiting a Venice-like Vacation

LEGO builder Ayrlego has stunned us with this incredible Venitian-style vintage building and dock.

What’s not to like about this build? The windows caught my eyes first, as their simple design carries so much implied detail. It’s impressive that Ayrlego was able to replicate the window design not once, not twice, but seven times. Harder to spot is the stair railing, which is made up of cheese slopes and eyeglass pieces. So simple, yet the paired brick choice is flawless for how well it works here. I love the pattern of the rounded and square tiles scattered throughout the build as well.

Ayrlego has been featured on The Brother’s Brick several times before. Check out his builds here.

Some of the best bots are built for hard work

When you design a mechanical marvel to do your heavy lifting, you might as well make it modular, so you can re-configure it to manage the heavy loads in whatever form they take. The Configurable Utility Bot Ecosystem, or CUBE, by Simon Liu is one of a squad of cube-shaped bots that have fully interchangeable legs, arms, and utility tools. The crane looks like it could handle almost any load.

In case you are hungry for more, here’s the mech from all sides. And if you look closely, you’ll see the pilot is not a mere human, but an adorable three-eyed alien. Who better to operate the claw?

Don’t miss the other CUBE bots from Simon Liu!

A new twist on an old windscreen

I don’t know that I have a favorite LEGO piece of all time, but my top five would have to include the long, faceted windscreen that debuted in 1989’s Space theme offerings. Something about that wedge’s multiple sloped angles inspired so many of my childhood builds. I used it to build cockpits, magical jewels, the jaws of various monsters…but I hadn’t given it much thought in the last decade or two. So I was delighted when I spotted the White Tiger Star Fighter by jnj_bricks. One of my favorite pieces had been given new life.

By twisting two of the windscreens sideways and building over the resulting bottom half, the White Tiger employs the existing slope angles to create a new cockpit shape that blends perfectly with the more modern pieces that make up the majority of the ship. It’s got me wanting to dig through my old bricks to see what inspiration might strike.

The sky pirates have returned in this epic mashup of Ninjago and Pirates

Ninjago has done a lot of settings over its decade-long run, but for me, by far the coolest wave was the Skybound storyline from 2016, which was basically a Ninjago mashup of steampunk and pirates. It’s the LEGO theme we never not from Disney’s Treasure Planet. So this fan redux of some of the sets by Markus Ronge just ticks all the right boxes for me. Markus has taken the already-fantastic idea from Ninjago of sky pirates and turned the dial up to eleven, with slightly more “realistic” designs (you can call a flying pirate ship realistic, right?). The color scheme is on point with the browns and oranges, and check out that bone dragon figurehead on the revised Misfortune’s Keep. I reviewed the original 70605 Misfortune’s Keep back in 2016, and as cool as I thought that set was, this would have blown me away.

But what really blows me away about Markus’ model is that it’s not just a redux of the Skybound sets, but it’s also a mashup with the LEGO Ideas 21322 Barracuda Bay Pirates set, another set I loved. The Misfortune’s Keep ship breaks down into a sky pirates wrecked base!

And let’s not overlook the splendidly simple yet beautifully stylized way Markus has chosen to display the models, with a simple graphic and brick-built stands.

Mysterio’s nightmare image is the build of my dreams.

One of the most gratifying parts of watching Spider-Man: Far From Home was how the movie depicted Mysterio’s illusions. I was a huge fan of the villain from the comics. And in the comics, Mysterio is certainly able to fool his enemies, sure. But his illusions so often went beyond just ordinary subterfuge. When a comic artist was allowed to really run wild with Mysterio, Spider-Man could find himself caught in a dreamlike, swirling mass of images. A place where up and down have no meaning and nothing is ever what it seems. That the movie was able to recreate — and justify — that same kind of illusion power was awesome. That’s why I’m so keen on this LEGO-based take on Mysterio’s power by builder Daniel Huang.

The recreation of the scene where — two-year-old spoiler alert — Spider-Man is confronted by a zombie Tony Stark is powerful on its own. The way the graveyard bends as if it’s crumbling around our hero gives the diorama a perfect sense of drama and motion. But to then have the moment watched over by two different Mysterios at varying scales is some top-tier comic illustration awesomeness. The duel use of trans-bright green Hero Factory joints as Mysterio’s energy signature and supports to hold up the giant brick-built villain is especially clever.

LEGO reveals first sets from Disney’s Encanto movie [News]

With no fanfare, LEGO revealed a pair of sets from the upcoming Disney animated movie Encanto on their website today. The two sets are in the style of the other Disney sets, with the larger of the pair featuring minidolls, and the smaller as part of the book playsets lineup with microdolls. Encanto is slated for release Nov. 24, while the LEGO sets will follow on Dec. 1. There are a few new pieces that are sure to interest builders, too, such as new 3×3 macaroni tiles and a 1×1 round tile with a new clock print.

Click to see all of the Disney Encanto sets