About Chris Doyle

Chris has been involved in many parts of the LEGO community for over twenty years, and has been building most of his life. A love of transparent bricks and pop culture combine in most of his creations, which tend to be pretty large scale. His website, Reasonably Clever, featured one of the longest running brick-based webcomics, as well as one of the first LEGO-themed avatar creators. His photographs and creations have appeared in several books.

Posts by Chris Doyle

Minifigures, monster trucks, and Technic pins – LEGO’s 2021 Spider-Man sets are full of surprises [Review]

On January 1st, several new Spider-Man themed sets will be available from LEGO. Among them are three vehicle-centric offerings: 76174 Spider-Man’s Monster Truck vs. Mysterio (US $39.99 | CAN $49.99 | UK £44.99), 76173 Spider-Man and Ghost Rider vs. Carnage (US $19.99 | CAN $24.99 | UK ), and 76172 Spider-Man and Sandman Showdown (US $9.99 | CAN $13.99 | UK £8.99). Spider-man really isn’t known for his reliance on vehicles (much less monster trucks), but he does have some amazing friends, and as a result there are a lot of interesting minifigures to explore here. Not to mention a spectacular Technic discovery in that tiny Sandman set. Intrigued? Then read on and see what’s up!

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with early copies of these sets for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click to read the full hands-on review

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When you have to be separated over the holidays

The holiday season has been a tough one this year. The COVID situation in the US means that I can’t be with all the people I care about, and every wintery milestone goes by with a hefty helping of separation. But, thanks to Allyson Gail I can at least share a wry bit of LEGO creativity that makes a good pun out of the whole deal. She’s once again taken the hard-to-repurpose brick separator and turned it into something special. This time it’s a holiday wreath that could easily go toe-to-toe with LEGO’s own offering.

You’d be forgiven if you thought this was just a clever arrangement of parts on a flat surface. But, if you look closely, you can see that all of the separators are actually connected by a hinge plate. That means that this creation can even go on a wall (if you hang it from a standard over-the-door wreath hook). And let’s also take a moment to enjoy the construction on that bow! The smooth lines and curves really play well with the texture of the separators.

My own collection of green brick separators is too small to duplicate this build myself, but maybe I can find some other holiday creation to reverse engineer. I’ll have some time on my hands, after all…

This mosaic is just super, man.

Brothers Brick contributor Chris Doyle is back with another heroic attempt at a mosaic in the LEGO Art style. What’s his reasoning this time?

Thanks to the LEGO Art sets, I’ve been on a real mosaic building kick lately. My last two (Wonder Woman and Kinga Forrester) were collaborative builds, but for my next effort I wanted to do one that was just by me. For a subject I decided on Christopher Reeve’s unforgettable role as Superman. Why? Because this is the sort of superhero the world really needs these days. The total build is around 5,400 parts (5,376 1×1 plates/tiles in the 48×112 stud image).

Once again I made use of the LEGO Art Remix web site to generate several different sets of instructions. My first attempt was…well, let’s be charitable and just say “it didn’t quite work out as planned.” But once I settled on a better alternate image things went together pretty quickly. (It took the same time to build as it takes to watch Superman, Superman II, Superman II: The Donner Cut, and Superman III. I was worried it might stretch into Superman IV territory, but not quite.).
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Everything an aspiring LEGO photographer needs

We’ve featured a number of great LEGO recreations of cameras over the years, but Milan Sekiz went the extra mile by recreating all the essential accessories, too. Along with the Nikon D7100 camera, there’s a Nikon SB600 flash, Sherpa 200R tripod, and a Phottix remote. Some standout details include the excellent use of angled slope tile to create the camera body, as well as the tread on a LEGO tire standing in on the texture on the lens housing. (But the best detail has to be the tiny bit of chain link in the dial.) I also like the use of quarter-circle tile to create smooth lines on the flash.

Even better, the various builds can be combined just like the real thing. This rear view of the camera with the flash attached also shows off a cool extra – a LEGO camera strap!

Want more like this? Check out those other LEGO camera recreations we mentioned earlier.

Sounds good to me.

Stellar photography and LEGO construction collide in this amazing Green Arrow scene by Andrew Cookston. Andrew has made use of custom minifigures and accessories as well as traditional LEGO elements to bring this comic book panel to life. This battle with villain Onomatopoeia just speaks to us. Because, you know, onomatopoeia.

If this style of image appeals to you, check out the other immersive scenes we’ve featured!

Negative space is still space.

I love it when builders take their creations in unique directions. That’s exactly what Théo has done with The Chord. The wings and twin forks of this craft are built from negative space and a very unusual LEGO element- string. Light grey and lime elements combine with the transparent neon-yellow canopy in perfect harmony. The result is music to my ears and a very different take on the whole Vic Viper concept. Who knew that was even possible in this day and age?

To see even more interesting variations on the Vic Viper theme, check out some other featured creations!

That’s when an evil woman trapped him on the dark side of the moon

The Brothers Brick contributor Chris Doyle once again builds something based on Mystery Science Theater 3000. What’s his excuse this time?

One of my favorite escapes from reality is Mystery Science Theater 3000. People riffing on bad movies just makes the world seem less bleak, somehow. The best part, though, is that my wife Jennifer is also a big fan. She’s usually more of a “build a LEGO set” person than a “make something new out of LEGO” person, but I was able to tempt her into collaborating on a LEGO Art style mosaic of the latest MST3k head-honcho: Kinga Forrester. (As portrayed by a Felicia Day.)

The techniques we used were very similar to the ones I helped develop for my Wonder Woman collaboration. We bought a couple of LEGO art sets (Beatles and Warhol this time.) We used the LEGO Art Remix site to create several prototype images. We threw away our first few attempts, and combined at least three different versions of instructions for the final image. And then hand-built all the fine details anyway.
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He just wants to axe you a question

LEGO builder Matt Goldberg is no stranger to creative part usage. Scalesquire B. A. Konstrictor, here, is a good example of that. A Legends of Chima flywheel fairing and CHI Cragger lower jaw are just two of the details that caught our eye. If you look closely you can spot minifigure-scale microphones and ice skate accessories incorporated into that stylish silver armor.

Matt’s builds sometimes raise more questions than they answer. In this case, does “B. A.” stand for “Bad Attitude“? One can only wonder.

A bug that keeps changing with the times

It’s always fun when LEGO builders… well… build on each other. CB Phase 4, Marin Stipkovic‘s latest entry for Mech Monday, is a new “final form” for the evolving Cobalt Bug concept created by Markus Rollbühler almost exactly a year ago. Times, they are a changin’. There are a lot of great details in this latest evolution to enjoy. Those basketball netting engine cowlings are a lot of fun, as are the ski pole feet. The orange spike proboscis is smile-worthy, too.

If you want even more juicy views of this mech, check out the 360 degree rotation Marin shared on Flickr. I can’t wait to see if we get a ultimate-final form version next year!

A huge step up from those stud shooter “play features” [Video]

Masters of LEGO Technic animations, builder duo Jason Allemann and Kristal (Collectively known as JK Brickworks) have unveiled an amazing animatronic archer. Styled after the Greek goddess of the hunt, Artemis, this charismatic sculpture features some lovely white drapery and an adorable deer in the background.

You’d be forgiven if you thought the archer would “just” pull back on her bow and then reset back to a “getting ready to fire” pose in an endless loop. But this statue goes well beyond those expectations by actually launching that arrow! Totally freaked me out the first time I saw it happen.

Want to know how it works? Check out the full video below to learn all about this creation and its construction!

If you like this creation, you’ll be equally amazed at the other builds from JK Brickworks that we’ve spotlighted!

Does this mech make my butt look big?

Intricate details are a hallmark of Marco Marozzi LEGO mech builds. This often leads to a feeling that the builds are super-huge in scale, even though they’re usually miracles of compact design. The MT3 Heavy Mech gives us a clue, though, with the quickly recognizable inclusion of a Star Wars 41st Elite Corps Trooper minifigure as the pilot. There are also hints if you happen to know how big those hockey masks are. Or maybe you spotted those minifigure hands for fingers.

From the rear, you can see more of the custom sticker work that set Marco’s builds apart from the crowd. There are also some alternate-brand part selections here and there. LEGO purists may complain about that, but you can’t argue that the results are really stunning.

This isn’t the first mech of Marco’s that we’ve spotlighted, and it’s unlikely to be the last. My hope is that others are inspired by these tiny(?) beauties, and we’ll see even more Mechs on the horizon.

A towering special delivery

One of the best things about the LEGO fandom is how we can all build off of each other. (Inadvertent LEGO pun is inadvertent, but worth keeping.) This mighty tower by SweStar, for example, was inspired by the techniques developed by Luke Watkins Hutchinson. But there’s more to this build than just the underlying structure. Check out those great vines and those equally impressive spindly trees. Although there are minimal other landscape details, you can’t help but be pulled into the scene. What’s up with the approaching skeletal rider? Friend? Foe? Part-time USPS worker? It’s up to the viewer to decide.

If you’re looking for more cool towers, I suggest a quick stroll through our archives!