About Benjamin Stenlund

Benjamin started building he was three, when his father gave him a small Futuron set (6810), and has not stopped since then. Castle and space are nearest and dearest to his heart, but other themes occasionally get built, too; there are quite a few super heroes and Star Wars sets in his collection, at least. He builds as Henjin_Quilones on Flickr, and under the same name is the leader of one of the guilds on Eurobrick's Guilds of Historica role building game. When he is not building, he is busy being a stay-at-home dad to three kids and trophy househusband to one wife.

Posts by Benjamin Stenlund

Wheel need some bigger tires

I love vehicles with big, knobby tires. Just love ’em. My dream ride is a tricked out, super-lifted Jeep Rubicon, ready to crawl the ruggedest rocks on the planet. But that’s not all big wheels are good for. They are also useful for getting your massive military machine from point A to point B, through all weather and terrain. Brick Ninja demonstrates this ably with this LEGO artillery truck. The olive green looks appropriately military, and the splash of orange gives a nice pop of contrast, adding some sci-fi flair. It says, “Camouflage? We don’t need no stinking camouflage!” The greebles are not overdone, which makes sense since it is an armored vehicle (who would leave a bunch of important stuff on the outside to get blasted off?). And I love the crew, complementing the colors of the vehicle while giving life to the scene.

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 true inhabitant of the Perilous Realm

If you are anything like me and were raised watching plenty of Disney movies, your idea of what a fairy looks like is probably skewed towards Tinkerbell. That is, a relatively benign, miniaturized, and heavily sexualized female (big breasts, tiny waist, long legs, etc.) that hangs out in bushes or around flowers. Now, that’s all well and good, I suppose, for those who get their kicks that way, but it leaves out an enormous portion of the realm of Faerie. LEGO builder Alexey Tikhvinsky gets it. Eschewing the dainty feminine for something that reminds me of the Polynesian culture in Moana (I told you I’ve watched plenty of Disney movies), Alexey has created something with wings (like Tink), garbed in plants (also like Tink), and holding a spear (not like Tink). The stormy eyes paint a picture of something definitely not benign if the spear didn’t clue you in first. This is the real Faerie. Don’t mess with it. It isn’t called the Perilous Realm for nothing.

Santa Maria del Fiore – a Florentine cathedral to lift the spirit

When the master builders of the Renaissance were building things from bricks, they were not using ABS plastic like LEGO master builders do today. They were building with marble, constructing some of the most beautiful buildings ever built. The proportions, the balance, the arrangement of the different elements were intended to raise the hearts and spirits of those visiting to an experience of the supernatural. Scaled down and converted from marble to ABS, those same buildings remain awe-inspiring. Take this model of Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence, Italy. Perhaps bricksandtiles is not Arnolfo di Cambio or Filippo Brunelleschi, some of the men who designed various parts of it (the cathedral was under construction from 1296 until 1436, when the dome was completed and the church was consecrated, so lots had their hand on it), but nonetheless this LEGO version is spectacular in its own right.

The famed octagonal dome is built from countless rounded 1×2 plates, mimicking the tiled roof splendidly. Sand green grille tiles serve as green marble borders to the intricate multicolored inlays on the real thing. But there is a lot more inlaying of sand green with the white, brick built all over the place. With the tower and the baptistry, the whole structure is a massive LEGO build, worthy of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Of course, this is not the first version of the cathedral featured on The Brothers Brick; check out another LEGO Florence cathedral we featured last year.

The vacation rental market can be a real beach

February is gone, and March is beginning; soon the college basketball mania will start, and spring breaks will be taken at schools across the USA. That means hordes of high school and college kids descending upon such popular vacation spots as Cancun, Acapulco, and Miami. Copious amounts of alcohol will likely be consumed, and a fun time will be claimed by many. Not all will enjoy their vacations, however, because some will be staying at a rental like this LEGO one built by alego alego. Yes, it is a beach house, but that is about all it has going for it. According to the fine print (who reads that, anyway?) the beach is near the nuclear plant (that explains the dog, perhaps), the hot tub is only hot when the weather is, and the electricity doesn’t work. Among other things. But hey, it makes for a great story when you get back! If you get back, that is.

The little girl is cleverly done with the Beast’s micro body, and I love the bushes used as palm trees ripped in the hurricane winds. All the little bits pushed through here and there for weeds in the cracks are perfect, and the syringe by the outhouse and the dog poop in the yard give it just the right vibes. Next time, read the fine print on your Airbnb!

A cool rover for February

February is the least favorite month for many people, at least in the Northern Hemisphere; it’s often cold, still dreary, and all the magic of winter and Christmas is long forgotten. But not for me. It certainly helps that my birthday falls in this shortest of months, but there are many other positive features to recommend it. For example, it is the month to build LEGO rovers (Febrovery). I love rovers. And what better way to combine winter with rovers than a solid Ice Planet 2002-inspired rig like this one from the appropriately named Frost? It’s got giant wheels that are really erasers (perhaps it erases its own wheel marks from the snow?), the glorious trans-neon orange canopy, and the can’t miss blue-and-white color scheme. Some stickered pieces from the Galaxy Squad make some nice details, and I love white greebles. The coral highlights set it apart though, which is good because this is on Ice Planet 2003, not 2002.

There must have been something strange in the tea

My first thought upon seeing this LEGO build by Revan New was that it looked inspired by something from Alice in Wonderland, with a teapot on someone’s head like they had just finished a cup with the March Hare and Mad Hatter. But then I read the description the builder gave, and it turns out to be inspired by a different story, Over the Garden Wall. Of course, I have never heard of that show, uncultured swine that I am, but I did just read the Wikipedia entry on it, and it does sound a bit like the Alice stories. It involves a trip through a magical forest that may or may not be part of a delusional state, so on face value my first thought was close enough.

The bluebird, named Beatrice, is lovingly depicted in bricks, with especial attention paid to the shaping of the feathers on the wings. Mixel eyes give great expressions to the characters, though in the tall one (Wirt) the pupils look too small and in the short, teapot-wearing one (Greg) they look too large. I suspect that has something to do with the characters rather than the builder, however. The forest is great, with excellent shaping on the trees, nicely dense undergrowth, and large fungi. All it is missing is a frog.

Depth is just an illusion

As I have undoubtedly said before in these pages, and will almost certainly say again, I love immersive LEGO scenes, the sort that fill every corner of the image with LEGO (or a neutral sky background, as often I’m not too fond of brick-built skies). There’s something magical about being able to step into a creation that way. But it takes a lot of bricks, usually, and some meticulous planning of angles to make it work. There is a more natural way, and master-builder Markus Rollbühler shows us how: build a fantastic vignette that fills the frame and then put an iPad behind it with the rest of the scenery.

Some simple techniques in the build go a long way, such as tiles pushed down only partway to create a weathered brick arch, loose bricks on their sides for cobblestones, and some of his signature bushes made of grass stalks and leaves. The perfect lighting, the minifig posing, and the iPad’s added depth all lend themselves to a delightful scene. And no fancy Photoshopping required!

More than meets the eye

As someone with a degree in Latin, I love seeing Latin words and phrases used out and about in the modern world. Car names in particular seem to be Latin-derived, like Maxima (greatest), Navigator (helmsman), and Optima (best). Speaking of the latter, there is also a well-known Autobot called Optimus Prime, which is roughly “Best First” in Latin (I say roughly, rather than exactly, since it ought to be Primus rather than Prime, but it is still based on the same word). He is the best Transformer, that much is clear, from the Prime family, which is the “first family” of the strange alien robots. Sam.C (S2 Toys Studio) brings us said Autobot with this stellar transforming LEGO build.

Optimus looks awesome with his massive guns and his blocky shape. I love the shaping on the head in particular. He looks so angry, like Megatron just stole the AllSpark. It brings me back to the toys I played with as a kid, with limited range of motion but big guns and broad shoulders.

Read on to see Optimus’ transformation

When evolution is devolution

From what I remember of evolutionary biology, the closest living relative to the unfortunately extinct Tyrannosaurus rex is the chicken. It’s admittedly disappointing. To go from a towering beast of muscle and razor-sharp 8-inch teeth to a small, rather stupid bird (with no teeth!) is a crushing downgrade. Surely the dinosaurs are rolling in their fossil graves somewhere in disgust. What would old grandpa Rex have to say about chicks these days? Timofey Tkachev brings us that moment of encounter in LEGO form, showing the T. rex confronting its pathetic descendant about its shortcomings.

Of course, as a build, the chicken has no shortcomings; it is the best LEGO chicken I’ve ever seen, from the head, with a Bionicle claw as a comb, minifig hands holding claws for a beak, and blankly staring eyes made with 1×1 round plates with a hole wrapped in a rubber band, all the way to the tail, and all the layered feathers in between. The dinosaur is equally impressive, with plates angled every which way and left studded to create a scaly, organic texture and lots and lots of teeth (though not quite 8-inch razor-sharp ones). The part I love best about the beast is the eye, with the 2×2 round boat slider in trans-yellow gleaming at me in a most lifelike way.

Like this build? Don’t miss other recent builds by Timofey, like Tom Waits and Iggy Pop talking or a sci-fi rover.

When will my LEGO life begin?

Lost somewhere in all the hysteria that is Frozen, Disney has put out several other surprisingly good animated movies within recent memory, such as Moana and Tangled. Sure, these aren’t the classics of my youth, or the gilded treasures of Disney past, but they are enjoyably watchable when I sit down with my kids. Tangled, in particular, stands out, if for no other reason than the absurdly long hair of the protagonist, Rapunzel. 1soko brings the tower that serves as the abducted princess’s prison to life beautifully in LEGO form.

Keep reading to get a closer look at the roof

The prelude to the robot apocalypse

Ah, robots. Despite not being alive, somehow they manage to capture our hearts. Try hating WALL-E or R2-D2. Try it, I dare you. I knew you couldn’t. I suspect they’re just trying to soften us up for the impending AI overthrow of humanity, but in the meantime, it’s fun to think about helpful and friendly sentient robots. Take this one by Grantmasters; it’s inspired by the movie Elysium, and is here helping this child who broke his leg. Adorable, right? See the trust in that kid’s eyes? Any moment now the robot will rip his face off with those pincer hands and stomp on him with those grille and roller skate feet. The greebles and textures look perfect, and the contrast between the body plates in white and the technical stuff underneath in black makes for a sharp image. Almost as sharp as those pincer hands.

She’s kinda cute, but the tentacles creep me out...

How do you make a giant red alien lady laugh? With ten tickles! Ha! Get it? Tentacles… Ok, in all seriousness, I’ve never been into Anime, but the images that come out of it can be awe-inspiring sometimes. The highly stylized art form has a strong visual presence, to say the least. And this LEGO build by Sheo. has a strong visual presence, too, with that red alien lady and a spaceship in the background. The ship is the Sidonia, from the Manga and Anime work called Knights of Sidonia. The red figure is Tsumugi, a genetic hybrid of human and alien, designed to fight off the bad aliens with her giant body and immense powers. I love the use of ten tickles, er, tentacles to create a ragged organic shape, and the pirate hats for breasts is inspired. The end result is something disturbingly close to human, but still very much alien. Does it match the source? I don’t really know, and don’t much care, because as a LEGO build, she’s awesome! As long as she keeps her distance.

About Benjamin Stenlund

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!