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)

Ringing up some nostalgia on this Japanese pay phone

Bright green pay phones that supported the new prepaid phone cards began replacing the old pink rotary pay phones in Japan just as my family left for the States in the late 80’s. With public telephones a rare sight today in the US, I was shocked to see that the same phones were still everywhere when I finally went home to visit last summer. nobu_tary has captured the shapes and colors of the real thing perfectly in LEGO, with a detailed black face — complete with digital readout screen and card slot — and iconic lime green body. The black panel incorporates three ammunition pouches from the Rogue One Death Trooper buildable figure, which Tary did not use in his larger, more detailed LEGO Death Trooper figure a few years ago.

Japanese Pay Phone

A bit of trivia on why pay phones are still everywhere in Japan: When a disaster such as an earthquake or typhoon strikes that affects cell phone coverage, all pay phones can be activated for free use so that people can call emergency services or even just to contact loved ones.

This lovely little green box doesn’t just take me back to my last few years in Japan, it also takes me back a year to what may be my last international trip in a long time…

TBB’s next recruiting effort for Contributors & Social Media Manager focuses on diversity, inclusion & representation [News]

Although The Brothers Brick has always been committed to diversity and inclusion in both the LEGO builders we feature and our own team members, ranging from the builders in Asia that we specifically featured on Pan-Pacific Bricks or our longstanding commitment to including LGBTQ+ staff on our team, we know that we can do better. During our interview with Ekow Nimako last month, we recommitted to ensuring that our own team better represents the real diversity of the LEGO community we’re a part of. The specific roles we’re looking to fill from members of the community are Contributor (Writer) and Social Media Manager.

TBB social media & contributor applications

Read more about what we’re looking for in a TBB contributor

All aboard at Dunedin Railway Station

During my two trips to New Zealand for work, I never left the North Island, and the beautiful cities and countryside of the South Island have eluded me, so I’m always grateful when I get to travel somewhere new via LEGO bricks. Peter Dennison lives in the lovely city of Dunedin, and has spent the past 5 years building a huge diorama featuring the historic railway station on Anzac Square.

See more of this iconic New Zealand train station

LEGO mask of Tutankhamun is a life-size wonder built from 16,000 bricks

Despite a lifelong fascination with archaeology and ancient history — and even a trip through Sinai, Cairo, and Karnak at age 19 — I must admit that Egyptology has never been particularly interesting to me, obsessed as its public portrayal is with glittering treasures and kingship. Nevertheless, I’m reading the excellent The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson right now, in which I find the chaotic Intermediate periods especially fascinating. Koen Zwanenburg is also fascinated with ancient history, and has built this amazing life-sized version of the boy king Tutankhamun’s mask from 16,000 LEGO bricks.

Tutankhamun

See more of this life-size ancient Egyptian wonder!

Drilling beneath the waves, where LEGO comes from

It’s no secret that most LEGO is made from dinosaurs and carboniferous forests. But you have to drill hundreds or even thousands of meters beneath the surface of the earth to pump out that crude pre-LEGO material, often from platforms way out at sea. General Tensai takes bricks back to their source with this incredibly detailed, colorful oil rig that uses countless LEGO pieces in surprising ways. The overall effect is one of large-scale industrial activity full of pipes and conduits, a helipad with brick-built lettering, numerous towers, cranes, and gantries — and even a multi-colored oil slick on the ocean’s surface. But clicking through to the builder’s full-size photo rewards careful examination, from the Technic pump behind the red and white crane to the single minifig leg and yellow parrot projecting below the helipad.

RTT: Oil Rig

Praise Tlāloc! Lord of clouds, god of waters, bringer of fertility to the parched land...

The annual BioCup competition is producing a wonderful range of LEGO Bionicle creations in many themes, but my favorite so far is Latin American mythology, with fantastical gods like the Aztec god of death Mictlantecuhtli by Tino Poutiainen. But my favorite so far is the Aztec rain god Tlāloc by Vlad Lisin. Tlāloc has characteristic round eyes and fangs, and wears a verdant crown with clouds encircling his waist. I love how Vlad uses click-joints for Tlāloc’s necklace, and the Bionicle mask at the top of the water flowing from the barrel is a brilliant use of parts.

LEGO Bionicle Tlaloc by Vlad Lisin on Flickr

Way back in 2006, I built the Aztec pantheon as minifigures — strange enough to go mildly viral through the “blogosphere” in the era before social media — but these latest figures show the power of large-scale builds using organic pieces from Bionicle and Hero Factory.

This crocodile corners like it’s on rails

Although I admit to watching “Japan Rail Journal” on NHK World (doesn’t everyone want to learn about the last sleeper car rolling stock on the Sunrise Izumo line?), I’m not really much of a train aficionado, except as a convenient mode of transport that the United States lags far behind the rest of the world in. So, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what a crocodile locomotive was until LEGO recently announced the upcoming set 10277 Crocodile Locomotive. This newfound knowledge allows me to appreciate the hilarity this crocodile-themed crocodile locomotive driven by a crocodilian engineer, built by Stuart Crawshaw. Stuart’s locomotive features teeth on its forward and rear sections, while the train as a whole sports reptilian livery in shades of green. The presentation is completed by the locomotive displayed on a rail line through a swamp.

Crocodile locomotive

Raiding the last Redbox in a post-apocalyptic wasteland

With Hollywood shut down and most movie theaters closed worldwide due to COVID-19, new entertainment has been a little harder to come by lately. I’m not sure our current global pandemic was the inspiration behind Eli Willsea‘s scene, but we find the protagonist (played here by the Lucas minifig from the LEGO Stranger Things set) fishing for DVDs from what is apparently the very last Redbox to have survived an apocalypse that turned the water a toxic green.

The Last Redbox

Eli’s build features a slew of wonderful details, such as the rebar or conduits sticking out of the elevated roadway and electrical bits on the power pole built from pieces like a rollerskate (the new universal greeble piece). Eli makes good use of printed pieces on the Redbox machine, including old-school LEGO Space 1×1 button panels and window panes from the TARDIS in the LEGO Ideas Doctor Who set.

Final Fantasy VII scenes recreated in LEGO

My wife and I played and replayed Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation, grinding character levels and farming materia so we could survive the insane boss battles like the Ruby Weapon. It’s incredibly disappointing that Square isn’t releasing Final Fantasy VII Remake on any platform but the PS4 any time soon. Nostalgia and minor rant aside, I love this chocobo and carriage by Kevin Waner (Brick Ninja), depicting the scene in which Cloud rescues Tifa Lockhart from Don Corneo, the mafioso of Wall Market. The detailed chocobo and colorful carriage take center stage in the scene, with Cloud and Aeris simply providing a bit of narrative context on the side — Cloud is of course instantly recognizable from his enormous Buster Sword.

ティファを救出 (Rescuing Tifa)

See more Final Fantasy VII scenes recreated in LEGO

I’m digging this fully functional 1:13-scale LEGO Technic Kobelco SK210HLC excavator [Video]

Where most minifigure-scale LEGO builds lack the space to have functionality, many larger-scale LEGO Technic models emphasize visible functionality over aesthetics. It’s a rare LEGO creation that combines a high degree of functionality with a visually stunning look. With his Kobelco SK210HLC excavator, Polish builder Maciej Szymański manages to achieve this feat, in gorgeous dark turquoise, no less!

Maciej says that he spent more than a year and a half building this model, which integrates ten motors, eight pumps, LED lights, and pneumatic cylinders that he custom-built himself. The resulting excavator is fully operational, remote controlled with pneumatic actuators.

Read more about Maciej’s LEGO Technic excavator and watch it in action

Race, inclusion & LEGO: An interview with Ekow Nimako [Feature]

Due to the tragic murders of George Floyd, Manuel Ellis, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and far too many other African-Americans, racial injustices that Black people experience every day have come to the forefront of white consciousness once again. We’ve been examining how this very real-world issue affects the hobby we participate in, not just for a moment in time but on an ongoing basis. Earlier this week, we sat down with Canadian artist Ekow Nimako, whose LEGO work we’ve featured several times, including his stunning Flower Girl sculpture and wonderful Beasts from Bricks book.

Our conversation with Ekow covered his experience growing up playing with LEGO, interactions with the LEGO hobbyist community, the Afrocentric and Afrofuturist themes of his artwork, and how LEGO communities such as The Brothers Brick can operate more inclusively.

We ask you to watch the full video before reacting with comments. While the reaction from some quarters to recent statements we’ve made that Black Lives Matter has been dismissed as “political” and some reactions have been outright hateful, by and large the response from the LEGO hobbyist community has been empathetic and supportive. Nevertheless, there is much more to be done. A number of our readers have rightly pointed out The Brothers Brick’s own contributor list as one area where we can improve, asking us to work harder to recruit a more diverse team while highlighting more non-white builders and highlighting the LEGO creations of people of color. As I committed to during the video conversation with Ekow, one of our next steps will be to kick off a new round of contributor recruiting to improve our own diversity and better represent the community we are a part of.

Black lives matter, even among privileged LEGO builders [Editorial]

Here at The Brothers Brick, we’ve taken “political” stands on matters of peace and justice for as long as the LEGO building community has created LEGO art that communicates an important message, whether that message was in support of marriage equality way back in 2006 or freedom of discourse in response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015. Dave Kaleta joins a chorus of people around the world who choose not to remain silent in these excruciating, infuriating times.

Black Lives Matter

From a LEGO build perspective, Dave uses largely disconnected white slopes, tiles, and plates to surround solidly attached black bricks. Dave also leverages the new range of small curved tiles to create the lettering along the bottom of the mosaic. But the build and its techniques are hardly what grab my attention.

A few thoughts on the intersection of LEGO, art, politics, and privilege