About Bart Willen

Bart Willen (badboytje88) has been a fan of LEGO for as long as he can remember. When he hit puberty and slowly but surely started losing interest in the brick, LEGO released their first line of Harry Potter sets. Keeping Bart from slipping to a Dark Age. He is a fan of a quite broad range of themes, from Star Wars to Johny Thunder and from Elves to City. But somehow he always navigates back to the magical world of Harry Potter. He attends LEGO World in the Jaarbuurs in Utrecht on a yearly basis where he enjoys meeting other fans and seeing some of their creations 'in the brick'. You can check out his own creations here.

Posts by Bart Willen

That little alien critter almost was Monorover roadkill

Sometimes LEGO releases parts that are so big, they seem challenging to use in a build of your own because they are so noticeable. Frost isn’t afraid of a challenge and is actually quite well known for using odd big pieces in their builds, just take a look at their gallery. The windshield of the Pop-Up Party Bus is such a piece. It is huge, it is trans purple and it only has been used for this one set. Frost used it in their Monorover. The build features only one wheel, hence the name Monorover. But that one wheel is massive! Which goes along great with the big purple windshield.

If you peek through the windshield you’ll notice a really nice angled display using the 1×2 round plate and the angled bar with stud. The colour scheme of this rover also is to die for. The teal compliments the purple and the trans purple wonderfully and the grey gives it that Classic Space feel we all know and love. Frost also proved that, even though LEGO Vidiyo didn’t last long, they produced some stellar minifigures.

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.

Atlantean jetbikes and umbrellean jellyfish

Whenever Steven Erickson and Mark Erickson get together you know it is going to be LEGO magic—underwater magic, in this case. But maybe that’s my undying urge to live my life as the mermaid I know that I am—or at least was in a past life. Or maybe it’s the amazing underwater creatures that these builders created.

Using the jellyfish mask for a jellyfish isn’t groundbreaking, but it is nice to see these odd parts pop up in creations. The true brilliance is the use of the trans pink umbrella to create an even bigger jellyfish. The leaf parts work great representing the tentacles. The Bionicle Olmak mask works great as an underwater vehicle. The only thing I am not sure about is the faucet used as a steering wheel.

The Birchwood Baron

We all know that Steven Erickson is capable of great things. I was very pleased to see his latest LEGO creation based on his and his brother’s winning model from the finale of LEGO Masters US S2. This revamp of Warden of the Woods is named the Birch Baron. It is about a quarter of the size of the Warden of the Woods, which makes it way more compatible with LEGO minifigures. I love how the wood pattern is integrated in this figure and there are just enough black lines to make it read birch wood. Too much would have made it look like a zebra. The bright yellow and light orange add a wonderful contrast to white central figure.

There is so much eye for detail in this build. If you were to zoom in on the staff, you’ll notice purple half circle tiles used to represent, what I think are, shelf fungus. In the Netherlands we call those elf benches, which sounds way more romantic and in the theme of this creation. Steven made several small bases to go along with the Birch Baron and each one depicts a different theme. I like the fallen leaves on the ground and the use of the old school flower to represent the mushroom stalk and gills of the mushrooms. If you’ll excuse me now, I feel like going on a walk in nature.

You can take the leftovers home in a BYGGLEK box

Can you spot the LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK box in this creation by lego_nuts? Neither could I until I watched their video on youtube. The storage box is used as the base of this wonderful creation. All lego-nuts had to do was create four walls to hide the box properly. My mind is completely blown. This technique could be used to create mountains without them getting too heavy and parts-consuming. I didn’t know I needed the storage containers, but now I am sure that I do.

I love to see people make creations inspired by Chinese Architecture using LEGO Monkie Kid aesthetics. For one of the buildings in the background curved train rail is used for the rooftop. Which is brilliant if you ask me. The Monkie Kid crew is having Chinese hot pot during their Reunion Dinner to celebrate the Lunar New Year and I would just love to join them in this lovely setting.

Spring 2022 LEGO Ninjago sets revealed, including a lot of Spinjitzu training [News]

We’re now getting our first look at the Spring 2022 wave of LEGO Ninjago thanks to German retailer JB Spielwaren. This new, small lineup includes a lot of Spinjitzu going on in the Ninjago universe. The sets are slated to be available March 1.

Check out more pictures of the sets below, and don’t miss the other new LEGO sets for Spring 2022:

Spring 2022 LEGO Dots sets revealed, including message boards and bag tags [News]

We’re getting our first look at the Spring 2022 wave of LEGO Dots thanks to LEGO and German retailer JB Spielwaren. This new lineup focuses on message boards and bag tags using the standard Dots system of various 1×1 tiles. The sets are slated to be available March 1.

Check out more pictures of the sets below, and don’t miss the other new LEGO sets for Spring 2022:

Oh no, a sand green chateau

One of the best parts of the LEGO hobby is the lovely LEGO online community that comes along with it. Some builders share their building process on instagram in their stories. Brian (St. Louis Brick Co.) is one of those people who takes their followers along on their building journey. Brian decided to build a castle in sand green and olive green. That’s a decision that might sound like a strange choice, but if you ask me, it works out wonderfully in the end. Not all castles need to be grey! Building in sand green also sounds like an immense challenge because you are quite limited in the bricks you can use, and I always admire builders who limit themselves as a challenge. I love the use of the brick with axle hole and the ornamental fence for windows is quite clever.

If you take a close look at some of the other pictures of this creation, you’ll notice that there is also a niche created for a sand green statue of a king, which is a very nice touch.

That is one pissed off ogre!

As a kid I always had a very vivid imagination. So vivid that I was able to scare myself to the point where I was too afraid to go to sleep. This LEGO ogre by Peter Revan would surely be enough to cost me a good night’s sleep. I can also totally identify with the wagon driver as he looks quite stressed out and a bit scared. Which of course isn’t that strange since he most likely is the one who pissed off the ogre. Things that make this creation stand out are the amount of angles used to create the wagon. Thanks to all the slanted walls it doesn’t look like a box on wheels. Speaking of the wheels, even those are placed at an angle making the wagon look like it is really heavy loaded. Perhapst this little wagon chauffeur loaded his wagon full with valuables which he stole from the ogre. I could totally see why that would piss you off! The ogre looks like it is completely poseable and the face is worth a closer look. The amount of detail used to create the facial expression is just superb.

Hotdog buns for toes

One of the first articles I got to write about LEGO for TBB featured a brick built owl. It is safe to say that from that point on, brick built owls have a spot in my heart. After seeing this little cutie by Eli Willsea, I knew I just had to feature it. This forest critter has eyes that stare right in the deepest of your soul with their pitch black pupils and the vibrant yellow irises made out of lever bases. The only feathery parts that are used are the LEGO Chima wings around the eyes. For the most part curved slopes are used to build this animals body and wings. I would however like to highlight one special feature of this amazing build and that are the owls feet and talons. These are made with hotdog buns and black sausages.

Vidiyo jealousy

Sometimes a LEGO theme just doesn’t spark your interest. For me, this happened with the Vidiyo theme. Sure I noticed a couple of nice minifigure parts, but for me it just wasn’t enough to hop on the Vidiyo express. Aurore however did not skip on the Vidiyo sets and they show this off in their latest creation. We can spot parts from the Dragon Guitarist and the Flying Unicorn Singer had to sacrifice its wings for a figure in this creation. Now that we are talking about Aurore, their minifigures are always spot on. I am convinced that they put at least the same amount of time and effort into putting the figures to go with a creation together as is spent on the creation itself. Check out their profile and see for yourself!

This is what you call a pop-up

One of the themes I wish LEGO would pick up is the cyberpunk theme. The visibility of segregation between rich and poor is something that always strikes my interest. The same goes for this latest build by Swestar. We can see a clear separation between the poor and the rich. The world is filled with neon signs. These have been made with an assortment of tiles to create LEGO letters. The result is stunning. We get references to Tron and Atari and a lot of other references that are lost on me because I am not much of a gamer.

The best thing about this beautiful build is the fact that the triangular sign which features retro game characters can actually spin. Check out the video.

Continue reading →

Art Nouveau book covers

LEGO has been into books as of lately. We got the LEGO Ideas 21315 Pop-Up Book, the Hogwarts Moments books, the Disney Storybooks, the 40410 Charles Dickens Tribute, and more. So as a LEGO fan, why not hop on the trend? That is exactly what Ted Andes must have thought. They created a series of lovely hardcover books with Art Nouveau-inspired cover art to go along with the Wasp-wing Table Lamp we featured a while back.

The blue book looks quite elaborately embellished with golden details which make the satin white jewels pop. The green book uses Spider-Man’s web as a very artistic cloud and the minifigure butterfly wings are used to represent a magical transparent butterfly. Most of all this is a very ingenious way to display minifigures you like and it can be translated to any theme.