Of all the awesome and hilarious mashups LEGO builders have brought us over the years, my favorite just might be the Fabuland/Star Wars mashup by Terovision, whose Fabuland Millennium Falcon we featured last year. In this latest scene, police bulldog flies a blue and yellow TIE fighter Inspektor Dogge chases down Clive Crocodile, who looks to be making a worthy escape on a jet-powered hover-board of some sort. The icing on the cake of this brightly hued treat is the hand-drawn backdrop.
As every schoolchild knows, Maria Skłodowska-Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only person to win one in two different fields (Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911). Sadly, this Polish-French luminary of science died young due to her work understanding the nature of radiation. Polish builder Crises_CRS has captured Madame Curie in her laboratory, surrounded by the equipment she used to discover Polonium and Radium.
The Polish LEGO club Zbudujmy is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Poland’s independence this year with a series of LEGO creations. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what’s in store from this very talented community of builders.
2018 is the Year of the Dog, so I’ve been enjoying all the extra LEGO creations inspired by our canine best friends. There are even couple new dog-themed LEGO sets, like 30542 Cute Pug and the upcoming 40235 Year of the Dog, which seems to depict a Shiba Inu. Taiwanese builder ZiO Chao has captured the quirky personality of the miniature dachshund with this black and tan beauty.
ZiO has built an unmodified male dachshund, as this view of his business end illustrates. That tail looks ready for the show ring!
(Title shamelessly borrowed from one of my favorite new T-shirts, courtesy artist Gemma Correll.)
As part of an ongoing mini-tour to support our Ultimate LEGO Star Wars book from DK, Chris Malloy and I will be guests at the Powell’s Books location in Beaverton, Oregon next Saturday, Jan 20th at 2:00 PM. We’ll be doing a panel discussion moderated by one of our LEGO friends from PortLUG, a Q&A, and book signing.
Andrew at Powell’s City of Books in downtown Portland. Andrew and Chris really need to get a photo taken together…
Powell’s Books is the world’s largest independent bookstore, and I’ve been buying books from Powell’s in Portland my whole life. It’s a little surreal to be doing an author event with Chris there now! You can read all of the Beaverton event details on Powells.com, including a pre-order of a signed copy.
For LEGO Star Wars fans closer to our home base here in Seattle, Chris and I also be doing author events at two Third Place Books locations in Seattle (Ravenna and Seward Park) in February, so stay tuned for more details.
It’s rare that a LEGO set on its own serves as a major spoiler for a movie. From the now-classic Indiana Jones sets to Jurassic World sets more recently, LEGO sets provide characters, vehicles, and locations without revealing much more than a character’s name. But 75201 First Order AT-ST reveals several fundamental plot points of a major scene late in the movie. The set includes 370 pieces with 4 minifigures. Beyond just our usual criteria of design and value, is the set worth the spoilers?
We’d normally add a SPOILERS! warning here before the jump to the full review, but hey, LEGO has already spoiled several key plot points by releasing the set, so let’s just dig in.
Read our full review of LEGO Star Wars 75201 First Order AT-ST
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out in theaters for nearly a month, so we’re circling back to some of the LEGO sets released to support the movie. 75200 Ahch-To Island Training retails for $29.99 (US) with 241 pieces and features Luke Skywalker, Rey, and a porg.
We hope you’ve had an opportunity to see the movie, but fair warning that we’ll be discussing the movie’s plot freely, so consider this your standard SPOILERS! warning.
Read our full review of LEGO Star Wars 75200 Ahch-To Island Training from The Last Jedi
LEGO has officially unveiled the final design for the next LEGO Ideas set, 21313 Ship in a Bottle. Designed by LEGO fan Jacob Sadovich, the set will include 962 pieces and retail for $69.99 (US) beginning on February 1, 2018.
See more photos and details of LEGO Ideas 21313 Ship in a Bottle
In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the first week of January 2018.
TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: A new year brings a new wave of LEGO sets, as well as the first LEGO events of the year.
TBB INSTRUCTIONS: Creative builders around the world share how they’ve designed their custom LEGO models, and LEGO provides a way to build sets even without buying them.
OTHER NEWS: There’s always plenty of other news about LEGO from around the web, even if we’re not able to cover every story here on The Brothers Brick.
Note: Like many of you, we’ve also seen the leaked images of LEGO sets from the upcoming Han Solo movie and rumored set lists from a resurrected Harry Potter line. We’ll be sure to bring our readers all the details about those sets once we have better-quality information from more-reliable sources. As always, TBB is committed to bringing our readers trustworthy news rather than just rumors and speculation.
KHOU.com
Dutch builder Pico van Grootveld has been building a series of “Raptor” powersuits over the past few weeks, but his latest is definitely my favorite. The mobile crane variant looks great in yellow with the red crane boom, complemented by warning labels and a whole bunch of gears and other exposed machinery.
See more of Pico’s great powersuits in classic LEGO themes
Each January, LEGO releases a new Creator Expert modular building. Last year’s 10255 Assembly Square looked to the past and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the line, beginning with 10182 Café Corner. With 10 years full of European-style architecture, replete with curlicues and fluted columns, the line heads in a new direction this year with 10260 Downtown Diner, taking obvious inspiration from the American West of the 1930’s through 1950’s rather than pre-crash Paris or London (or even New York or Boston). 10260 Downtown Diner includes 2,480 pieces with six minifigs and retails for $169.99 in the US (with the usual regional price differences elsewhere).
What does this change in direction bode for the theme, and what do we think of the new design aesthetic?
Read our hands-on review of 10260 Downtown Diner
We feature a lot of amazing LEGO fan creations here at The Brothers Brick, lovingly constructed by builders from all over the world. As 2017 comes to a close, we have been taking a look back over the past year with our Top 10 LEGO set reviews, Top 10 Custom LEGO Build Instructions and our shortlist for The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2017 . Now it’s time to look back and reminisce once more, as we count down the top 10 most popular LEGO creations featured on The Brothers Brick.
Click to see our top 10 most popular creations
LEGO has just announced that 75192 Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon is available again in “limited quantities” at local LEGO stores. Expect the set to be gone quickly. Unsure whether you want to drop $800 on a LEGO set with 7,500 pieces? Check out our hands-on review of the new UCS Falcon.
[Update] 75192 Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon is now available for purchase online. You must be logged into an account with a VIP card in order to purchase it. This is also the last chance to get a special black Star Wars-themed VIP card, which comes free with the purchase of the Falcon. LEGO says the card will have special offers through the coming year, though there’s no word yet on what they will be.
