Yearly Archives: 2022

Shortlist announced for The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2022 [News]

The end of the year is one very special time for The Brothers Brick staff, and we get to recall all of our most favourite builds of the year. This year’s shortlist turned out to be a fascinating showcase of LEGO fans’ insane talent. It was insanely hard to limit it to somewhat fathomable about of builds, but we did our best and pulled together our selection of the best LEGO creations of 2022 for our sevenths annual LEGO Creation of the Year award.

Take a look at the fantastic models we’ve shortlisted, and stay tuned for the announcement of our LEGO Creation of the Year 2022 on New Year’s Eve!

Be sure to check out the LEGO Creation of the Year 2021, LEGO Creation of the Year 2020, LEGO Creation of the Year 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 to see what honourable company this year’s nominations are keeping.

Click to see all of 2022’s nominees

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.

A build that delivers on two counts

It’s sometimes easy to spot where the inspiration for a particular Pokemon comes from. It’s safe to say that Delibird – “the Delivery Pokemon” – is one such case. ‘Tis the season, then, for this super facsimile of Delibird from Woomy World! Much like the “real-world” bird, this build really does deliver. The spiky white feathers are superbly recreated using loads of similarly spiky pieces. The use of feathery wings for the ears and face adds some texture that is only implied in the original 2D sprite, but looks great nonetheless. The eyes and beak are also fantastic. So full of life!

LEGO Avatar 75579 – Payakan the Tulkun & Crabsuit [Review]

With the recent theatrical release of Avatar: The Way of Water, fans of the franchise are returning to Pandora. And with the recently announced wave of sets from the sequel, LEGO fans can return to Pandora as well, but in brick form. The LEGO Avatar sets are full of colorful plant and animal parts, as well as plenty of new molds for the creature heads. It’s a perfect blend of sci-fi and fantasy. The biggest creature set of the wave is LEGO Avatar 75579: Payakan the Tulkun & Crabsuit, which features a whale-like creature and a very cool crab-inspired submersible. The set includes 761 pieces and will be available on January 1, 2023 for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99

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.

Read on for our full review

Strike while the plastic is yellow, orange, or red

Texture is the name of the game in this blacksmith scene by LEGO Master Andreas Lenander. We can see the worn stone of the walls of the smithy, the rough grain of the wood beams holding up the room’s roof, and a floor cobbled with round tiles of various sizes. Small details like the chains hanging from the ceiling and the tools leaning up against the walls add to the vignette. But Tashk’il is the star of the show, slowly manipulating hot steel with his smithing hammer. The work on the figure is impressive, relying heavily on the 1×2 ingot tile and the 1×1 plate with bar to properly express the muscle and concentration being applied to that sword.

The only way to warmonger across the frozen steppe is by mammoth

War elephants are cool and all, but up here in the frozen Nordics, they wouldn’t stand a chance. BardJaskier has envisaged how warriors might have moved around in the last Ice Age with this imposing LEGO war mammoth. The brick-built beast looks great, featuring a neat use of a walnut-print tile for the eye. There are plenty of spikes to ward off attackers, although they’d have to be pretty brave – or foolish – to go near this thing. For one thing, they’d have to make it through the throng of angry Northmen at its side. Along with the surrounding frozen landscape, they’re a great complement to a fantastic build.

OK, Jack – let’s get this baby off the ground

It was only a matter of time before the space baby from Series 24 of the Collectible Minifigure line cropped up in a LEGO creation. Albert Lee is first through the gate with this cute lunar outpost. It’s a classic example of classic space, but the slightly odd scale brings its own challenges for parts choice. What parts might have passed for tiny greebled details before now have to be used more judiciously. Ditto for the signature yellow canopies. The ones used here may have been too small for some minifigure scale ships, even the control tower viewport. But with the babies, they suddenly become huge windows into space. Fascinating! I’m sure this won’t be the last we see of these babies, and it’s certainly not the first time seeing their civilian counterparts either. Perhaps we should make baby-scale its own thing!

The Brothers Brick favorites: Best LEGO products of 2022 [Feature]

Taking a look through all the LEGO sets released this year, it clearly has been a mammoth year of LEGO releases! At over 950 new products, this year’s lineup beats last year’s impressive back catalogue, with LEGO City taking the crown for the theme with most sets hitting store shelves this past year. In an attempt to figure out the best (and least impressive) LEGO products of the year, I asked the Brothers Brick team for their opinions. And here they are: all the LEGO sets that have piqued our interest in the Class of ’22…

Click here to learn our favorite (and not so favorite) sets of the year!

The only British cars that don’t rust are those made from LEGO

If you say ‘family saloon made in 1960s Britain’, chances are the car in question is not a very good one, even by the standards of the time. But if you say ‘LEGO car made by Chris Elliott‘, it’s almost a dead cert that it’s a bona fide classic. While they were by no means perfect, there is a certain charm about cars of this vintage, which Chris has captured wonderfully. The front grille – a custom-chromed Wolverine claw – is immediately recognisable as a hallmark of Wolseley cars, and indeed Chris says the Wolseley 1500 was the main source of inspiration. There’s a hint of Ford Cortina in there too, and maybe even something sporty like a Triumph TR4. The shaping is great, and along with the chrome parts really helps to sell this as a typical late-20th-century British classic. The only inauthentic thing is the build quality. It’s far too high for this to have come out of a Leyland or BMC factory!

The hippest holiday builds we’ve ever seen.

We’ve often praised Dan Ko for his inventive parts usage, but these two Christmas ornaments might just take the cake…or fruitcake, as it were. Starting with a set of legless minifigure hips as faces, Dan has crafted Santa and the traditional Christmas Nutcracker as ornaments suitable for hanging on any LEGO fan’s tree.

Santa’s got minifigure parts working overtime, as a single leg fills in for his beard. And I’m particularly impressed with the small space Dan was able to leave in the Nutcracker to denote his chompers. Make sure to check out more of our coverage of Dan’s impressive builds right here.

DUPLO 30327 My First Duck polybag – A change of pace for the overwhelmed builder in you [Review]

There’s no denying that LEGO can be a challenging hobby. Things have come a long way from the simple range of parts in the 1960’s – it seems every new set contains at least one new mold or color variation. Building techniques have expanded; you can’t open an instruction manual without being getting your fingers covered in SNOT. Then giant sets like the Icons 10307 Eiffel Tower empty your plastic-brick budget in seconds. It can all get to be a bit much. That’s why today we’re going to take a little bit of a breather. We’ll turn back the calendar to 2019 and visit a simple, inexpensive, and soothing model that makes the world a happier place. Yes, it’s time for us to retro-review DUPLO 30327 My First Duck polybag.

QUACK Click to read the full hands-on review QUACK

Something’s fishy about this holiday scene…

At first glance, this North Pole build by ForlonEmpire is as heartwarming as it is well constructed. A young penguin interrupts Santa’s fishing expedition to offer him a present. Santa himself is teeming with great parts usage, from the big-fig arms getting an upgrade as Santa’s upper arms, to the pair of bucket handles doing double-duty as his belt buckle. And the semi-circle tiles as bows are inspired. But the more you think about it, the more sinister this scene becomes. Why is there a sled full of presents in this remote location? The answer is obvious. Santa has laid-off his elf work force because penguin labor is so much cheaper. This penguin isn’t giving Santa a gift. He’s made the gift in exchange for a fish. Santa’s cornered the market on herring and if the penguins don’t work, they starve! Merry Christmas!

After a long night, Santa deserves a break!

Nothing beats a good sit in your favorite chair after a long shift at work. And in this yuletide LEGO build by Koen Zwanenburg, we see the man of the hour, Saint Nicholas himself, taking a break after his most logistically-challenging night of the year. And boy, does he deliver (Koen, that is) when it comes to the use of curved slopes. They’re adeptly used to shape Santa’s beard, boots, and belly, not to mention the dark red seat he sits in. The exposed studs to represent the white fur on the outfit is truly a gift, as is the gold filigree along the edges of the armchair. But my favorite bit has got to be the cute little bows on the packages. I’ve struggled this season to create ribbon in this blocky medium for my own builds, yet Koen achieves it so easily here with wedge plates, cheese slopes, and tiles. And with that, I should probably check and see if the big guy left anything under the tree for me. Fingers crossed it’s a LEGO Minecraft set. Have a very Merry Christmas!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!