CHAPPiE is consciousness. CHAPPiE is alive. CHAPPiE is LEGO!

Hong Kong-based studio Three Zero creates incredibly detailed designer action figures for a premium price, like a deluxe version of CHAPPiE that would have set you back $230 if you’d ordered in time. Too rich for your blood? Then consider making your own from LEGO, like Wang Juan, a builder who only just debuted on socials. Wang’s character builds are incredibly detailed and articulated. For Chappie, the builder works mostly with System parts to recreate the Three Zero version of the character.

Wang’s account includes a mix of incredible character models – mostly renders – inspired by games and street art. We’ve reached out to the builder to learn more. For now, as a fan of Neill Blomkamp’s gritty South African mash up of Short Circuit and Robocop, let’s help Chappie live again.

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LEGO Star Wars 75414 The Force Burner Snowspeeder – Bringing chaos and cool to a galaxy far, far away [Review]

Brickbot_Studio is back again, and today we’re looking at one of the most chaotic ships I’ve ever seen in a Star Wars set. LEGO Star Wars 75414 The Force Burner Snowspeeder is a wild ride from start to finish, packed with vibrant colors, strangely delightful design choices, and a trio of absolutely fantastic minifigures. Whether you’re here for the builds, the figs, or the lightsaber nunchucks (yes, you read that right), this one definitely leaves an impression.

LEGO Star Wars 75414 The Force Burner Snowspeeder
349 Pieces
Available August 1
Buy for US $54.99 | CAN $64.99 | UK £44.99

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.

Let’s dive into this weird and wonderful speeder set.

SNOT Mosaics are nothing to sneeze at

Mosaics are an amazing entry point into LEGO creativity, but the sky’s the limit for how you can create beautiful patterns with bricks. Every week, dozens of new designs are shared as part of #MosaicsOnMonday. A few weeks back, I was struck by this design from the event’s co-host Dana (virginia_bricks) which uses SNOT bricks to add more depth and negative space.

Dana credits Onibabalego for leading her to the technique, and no wonder. The French builder has pioneered mesmerizing mosaics from SNOT bricks and unconventional pieces. Her kaleidoscopic builds are truly inspiring.

There’s a joy and a magic in finding surprising ways that LEGO elements can jigsaw together into tight patterns. What I love about onibabalego’s mosaics is how they incorporate gaps of negative space into the design. And the colors!

Building The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim’s open world in LEGO with BDD Builds [Interview]

Some LEGO fans gravitate to greebled fleets of spaceships, others to cunningly engineered trains and trucks, but it’s epic castle creations that will forever have my heart. Brett, who builds under the moniker BDD Builds, has been creating massive medieval scenes to share online and at conventions for several years now. After Brett revealed his most ambitious work to date, a recreation of Fort Dawnguard from The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, we reached out to learn more about the builder’s epic LEGO journey.

Our interview with BDD Builds and pics of Skyrim’s Fort Dawnguard follow

What in tarnation? Timofey Tkachev is back with a rootin’ tootin’ varmint shootin’ Yosemite Sam in LEGO

Back in the halcyon pre-COVID days, Timofey Tkachev was one of TBB’s most featured builders. With a catalog of works that includes massive spacecraft, modulars, props, cartoon characters, and mind-bending artistic sculptures, Timofey defies categorization. Back in 2023, Timofey’s prolific run seemed to come to an end as the builder stopped posting for a couple of years. Now he’s back with a rootin’ tootin’ take on Yosemite Sam the third Looney Tunes tribute from the builder. It’s a spot-on likeness of the trigger-happy toon, making good use of orange tiles in that magnificent moustache. The canted cacti are quite impressive too.

In honor of Timofey’s return, we’re reposting our interview with Timofey from 2017, which you can read below.

Continue to our interview with Timofey from 2017

Bounty Hunters, Troopers, and Droids – oh my! [Minifig Monday]

Wookiepedia catalogues thousands of characters from a galaxy far, far away, and yet the richness of Star Wars leaves ample space for anyone to imagine their own swarthy scoundrel, sinister Sith, or back-stabbing bounty hunter to roam the Outer Rim. This week on Minifig Monday we round up some recent builds from the custom minifig community that’ll have your lips buzzing with lightsaber hums and binary beeps.

brickmedude invented a trio of mercenaries called the Saber Hunters who hunt Jedi and Sith alike. This ghostly merc evokes General Grievous by way of the Sisters from Kubo and the Two Strings. brickmedude is always an amazing photographer, but especially adept at post-production on light sabers.

When bam.bricks_customs goes Star Wars, he goes hard. This Nikto bounty hunter showcases incredible handling of cloth, with layers of fabric skirt and capes paired with a molded scarf and satchel. He looks like a Hasbro Black Series action figure in miniature. The reprogrammed Battle Droid has the makings of the perfect SW sidekick. Batter up, roger, roger.

The Outer Rim Ruffian round-up continues!

LEGO Batman 76304 Batman Forever Batmobile – Bricks love the car [Review]

Since Batman’s LEGO debut in 2006,we’ve had Batmobiles inspired by the classic ’60s TV show, the Animated Series, LEGO Batman, Burton’s Batman, Nolan’s Batman, and the most recent The Batman. This August, the Dark Knight’s Schumacher era gets its due with LEGO Batman 76304 Batman Forever Batmobile, just in time for the film’s 30th anniversary, and we had the opportunity to build it early. Capturing the car’s ostentatious lines in LEGO was no small challenge, but set designer Mark Stafford makes it work, but not without some compromises.

Releasing on August 1, LEGO 76304 Batman Forever Batmobile contains 909 pieces and can be pre-ordered now for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99.

Read on to experience the power, the pleasure, the pain of the latest LEGO Batmobile

There’s nothing fishy about this fantastic undersea LEGO palace (except for the fish)

Jakab Kovács doesn’t color inside the lines when it comes to castles. Sure, he built a traditional tribute to the Black Falcon fortress that was hosted at LEGO House, but he’s also made a purple castle, cloud castle, and, for his latest project, an undersea castle.

Jakab eschews the typical Atlantis or mermaid tropes, finding a look that draws on an almost Czech Baroque style with its pointed domes. I love the subtle angle of the castle wings, the orange and yellow accent colors, the undersea garden plots and their fences, and the minifig faction with the wispy bodies and white hair. I wonder what a full series set in this world would look like? Are there manta ray mounts and pet eels? Do these folk trade with surface dwellers? I’d happily spend more time in this undersea haven, but alas, it’s time to come up for air.

LEGO midi-scale U-Wing takes flight, and looks great

In my opinion, the U-Wing, introduced in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, is easily one of the most interesting fighters since the X-Wing. So I was excited to see this model by Matt showing this iconic fighter at a smaller scale, but in no way skimping on details. Taking a closer look at the front wing assembly, you can see a very interesting combination of modified plates with upward brackets to form the wing along two building angles. The choce of the modiefied slope with the cut-outs is the perfect canopy as well.

Oh, and in case you were wondering if the wings swing back for atmospheric flight mode… Yes they do.

LEGO Designer Carter Baldwin gives the Exo-Force drones a military sci-fi upgrade

Before joining LEGO as a set designer, TBB alum Carter Baldwin was an influential AFOL in the military sci-fi theme who fused elements of Aliens, anime, Mechwarrior and the occasional LEGO throwback theme. Recently Carter has been revisiting the Exo-Force theme with a serious upgrade to the line’s iconic robots.

Introducing the Constructobots….

The Sentries…

See all of Carter’s Exo-Force upgrades and lore

Nothing says summer like a trip to the Grand Canyon

Minifigure habitats are fun, but I prefer microscale vignettes like this minimalist scene by Nannan Zhang. Here, the Grand Canyon is depicted in a three-dimensional scene that feels like a Polaroid picture extruded by a 3D printer. The sky background, combining plates and bricks in stripes, reminds me of the fantastic LEGO set Visions from the Space Age.

Seen from the top, the striations of the rock faces are made by stacking wedge plates of a variety of sizes and shapes. And the wandering river along the bottom, made from light azure tiles, really pops.

A build with real horsepower

You can practically hear the hoof beats emanating from this amazing build by Jan Woźnica. Jan has captured a sense of speed and power in a surprisingly compact, minifigure-scaled steed. The horse’s organic shapes, and even the posing of its mid-gallop legs, are perfectly recreated with just a few pieces that a lot of builders would consider table scrap. Why, there’s even a pair of brick-built legs for the minifigure rider astride the animal, adding to the realism of the scene. Giddy up!