About Andrew Becraft (TBB Editor-in-Chief)

Andrew Becraft is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Brothers Brick. He's been building with LEGO for more than 40 years, and writing about LEGO here on TBB since 2005. He's also the co-author, together with TBB Senior Editor Chris Malloy, of the DK book Ultimate LEGO Star Wars. Andrew is an active member of the online LEGO community, as well as his local LEGO users group, SEALUG. Andrew is also a regular attendee of BrickCon, where he organizes a collaborative display for readers of The Brothes Brick nearly every year. You can check out Andrew's own LEGO creations on Flickr. Read Andrew's non-LEGO writing on his personal blog, Andrew-Becraft.com. Andrew lives in Seattle with his wife and dogs, and by day leads software design and planning teams.

Posts by Andrew Becraft (TBB Editor-in-Chief)

LEGO Shop sales & deals for June 2016 [News]

The LEGO Shop is also making room for the summer sets by discounting a number of great sets, with some cool promotions this month. VIP program members get free shipping on all orders over only $35 rather than the usual $75, with a cool LEGO City fountain on orders over $75

Lots of sets are on sale, though the highlight for many of our readers is probably the LEGO Ideas set The Big Bang Theory (in case you didn’t pick it up after our review last year).

If you haven’t joined the VIP program yet, you can earn an extra 100 points toward a future discount. Click the banner below to see all the details about this month’s promos.

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.

Enter to win the LEGO Star Wars Shuttle Tyderium from TBB [News]

Back in April, TBB gave away the Millennium Falcon to one lucky reader in Texas. We took a breather from our giveaways in May, but we’re diving back in now by giving away 75094 Imperial Shuttle Tydirium! It’s a lovely set with a great set of minifigs and some fantastic play features. Click here to enter!

If you want to see more giveaways like this, you can support TBB by buying your LEGO after clicking through from Brothers-Brick.com.

Fine print: In order to make a global contest manageable, TBB uses the Contests app on Facebook. As a result, this contest is limited to TBB readers with Facebook accounts. Yes, we still love if you you’re on G+. For winners in locations that are very expensive to ship to, TBB reserves the right to substitute a monetary value equivalent to the cost of the set in your country. We’ll send you a cool TBB T-shirt either way.

20%+ off over 150 LEGO sets from Amazon [News]

Amazon.com has put more than a hundred and fifty LEGO sets on sale, starting at 20% off. Check out the sale page for the full list, but here are some highlights.

The LEGO City 60052 Cargo Train set is 38% or $76 off, at $123.99 (down from $200).

Similarly, 60097 City Square is 36% or $67 off, at $122.42 (down from $190).

Although lots of City sets are on deep discount, it’s not the only theme getting some good discount love — Marvel, Technic, Creator, Friends, and even Architecture are on sale. Every purchase (not just LEGO) you make by clicking through from Brothers-Brick.com helps support the kinds of contests, giveaways, and event sponsorship that we do over the course of the year.

See more LEGO sales & deals

The Doctor visits a Victorian scrapyard

At LEGO World in Utrecht last autumn, Ruben Ras presented a large Doctor Who diorama titled “Daleks in the Bricktorian Era.” Ruben recently posted close-up pictures of some of the sections, including this excellent scrapyard with an enormous steam engine. The blue TARDIS and engine dominate the scene, but there are lots of great details, like the wooden details on the stone platform, the small crane, and the bird atop the tower.

A special delivery for a wonderful human being

While many hardcore builders like me cringe when we have to wade through atrociously cute photos of stormtroopers in unlikely situations while trying to get our LEGO fix on Flickr, there are photographers who take what is essentially LEGO product photography — just minifigs or out-of-the-box sets — to a whole new level. Vesa Lehtimäki has been posting stunning photos of LEGO Star Wars figs and sets for a few years, and has even released a book, LEGO Star Wars: Small Scenes from a Big Galaxy published by DK.

One of my favorite scenes from the book features an off-screen moment in which Boba Fett delivers a carbonite-encased Han Solo to Jabba the Hutt. With just a few minifigs and stellar lighting, Vesa brings the scene to life.

Udine, Italy’s Piazza San Giacomo in LEGO

Luca Di Lazzaro and the Italian LEGO club ItLUG have built a minifig-scale model of San Giacomo square in Udine, in northeastern Italy. Featuring over a dozen buildings surrounding the square and populated by numerous minifigs, the model even includes a row of Italian supercars for the minifigs to drive away in.

The model was on display in Udine at an event last month, where the mayor of Udine posed with Luca and the LEGO version of their home town.

Click to see more photos

LEGO Star Wars sales & deals for May the 4th 2016 [News]

The LEGO Shop online has just kicked off their annual “May the 4th” Star Wars celebration.

LEGO is offering the following deals and freebies:

Free shipping on all orders (not just over $75)
Double VIP points on all LEGO Star Wars purchases
Free First Order Stormtrooper minifig polybag
Free The Force Awakens poster (shown above) with all LEGO Star Wars purchases

LEGO sent me the stormtrooper and the poster last week, and both are lovely. The stormtrooper has a unique torso print (which you can see in the image below) with a bracket for the back, to which the printed 1×1 tile from the jetpack stormtrooper is attached (with an extra 1×1 tile in the polybag).

The new 75098 Assault on Hoth was released this week, and a bunch of LEGO Star Wars sets are also on sale, including the lovely 75094 Shuttle Tyderium and the 75140 Resistance Troop Transporter I reviewed before the movie came out.

As always, when you click through from Brothers-Brick.com, a portion of each sale goes to support The Brothers Brick (at no additional cost to you).

Reminder: Days left to win 75105 Millennium Falcon from TBB!

A couple weeks ago I watched The Force Awakens again after a gap of several months, and I loved it all over again. While it’s not a “perfect” movie, it’s certainly a true Star Wars movie in ways that I still say the Prequel Trilogy movies were not. And Rey has leapfrogged many classic Star Wars characters to become one of my favorite characters — right up there with Han. In case you missed it, we’re celebrating the release of the move on home video this month by giving away 75105 Millennium Falcon.

To enter, check out our Facebook page and click the Contests link in the left-hand navigation area.

And yes, we realize there are social media sites other than Facebook out there — check out our presence on all of them in the header above. What kinds of contests or giveaways would you like to see on our other sites?

A belated dragon dance for Chinese New Year

Finnish builder Eero Okkonen admits that he’s not sure why he built this Chinese dragon dance scene (several months after the Lunar New Year), but I for one am very glad he did. With stellar use of transparent Bionicle flame pieces and a Ninjago “Dragon God” banner tile, I can almost hear the firecrackers and smell the smoke.

You can read more from the builder himself on his blog, Cyclopic Bricks.

Summer 2016 LEGO Star Wars, Spider-Man, Batman, City, & Friends photos revealed [News]

A LEGO store in the Netherlands has released high-res photos of a bunch of sets scheduled for release later this year, including sets from Star Wars, Marvel, DC, the new Volcano Explorers sub-theme from LEGO City, and Friends. (Via Brickset.)

75157 Captain Rex’s AT-TE from Star Wars: Rebels appears to include the ever-popular clone trooper in retirement.

Spider-Man may be joining the Avengers with Captain America: Civil War, but he still gets his own, separate line of LEGO sets. The largest is 76057 Web Warriors Ultimate Bridge Battle.

Click through to see more summer 2016 LEGO set photos

Instructions for Laputa: Castle in the Sky LEGO music box now available [Instructions]

Korean builder Hwang Byeong Jun has released step-by-step instructions for the amazing Laputa: Castle in the Sky music box that we featured last month, complete with details on how to integrate the music box into your LEGO build.

You can see each step in the instructions in the builder’s photoset on Flickr, and you can download a PDF as well.

“I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up!”

Moby Dick is one of those novels that requires real commitment to get through, with its lengthy diversions and deep symbolism, but rewards careful reading and sticks with you for decades afterward. It also makes for great LEGO inspiration, as Ryan Rubino’s white whale battling a giant squid from back in 2009 certainly proves. Letranger Absurde enters the fray with Captain Ahab entangled by the line from his own harpoon, hauled to his doom in the dark deeps of the sea. The sperm whale itself steals the spotlight in this build, with what appears to be a surfboard for a tongue, but don’t miss the excellent sea floor, complete with conch shell, brain coral, and even a treasure chest.

About Andrew Becraft (TBB Editor-in-Chief)

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