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)

Announcing the winner of TBB’s Stranger Things “Darker Hawkins” building contest [News]

To celebrate the launch of the third season of Netflix’s sci-fi drama Stranger Things, TBB kicked off a contest on the Fourth of July, challenging our readers to build other locations from Hawkins, Indiana not featured in the LEGO Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down. The challenge was actually quite simple — the LEGO creation needed to feature both the normal world and its “Upside Down” counterpart location, as we showed in our own free instructions to build a LEGO Castle Byers. It’s been great to see builders interpret this design brief in so many different ways, through the contest entries on Flickr. Today, we’re happy to announce the clear winner of our contest — “Barb’s Disappearing” by talented German builder Jonas Kramm.

See more of Jonas’ winning creation along with honorable mentions

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.

LEGO Ideas 21319 Friends Central Perk – could it BE any more 90’s? [Review]

For those of us who watched Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler, and Joey live out their lives on TV as the show Friends aired between 1994 and 2004, there’s much more nostalgia attached to this television series than to something like The Big Bang Theory. But for those of us who don’t necessarily consider ourselves life-long, hardcore Friends super-fans — I personally do not own an officially licensed Central Perk coffee mug — it hasn’t been clear what we had to look forward to with the new LEGO Ideas 21319 Central Perk set released today ($59.99 US | $89.99 CAN | £64.99 UK), which includes 1,070 pieces and 7 minifigures. Let’s dig in and find out.

Read our complete hands-on review of LEGO Ideas 21319 Friends Central Perk

LEGO Stranger Things Castle Byers event build & Comic-Con exclusive Barb minifigure [Review & Editorial]

LEGO has gone all out to promote the new LEGO Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down set released earlier this summer, with a hilarious retro designer video, and a contest on LEGO Ideas (don’t miss TBB’s own Darker Hawkins LEGO contest). These are all things that every LEGO builder can enjoy together, but LEGO has also released two items to much more limited audiences — Will’s fort Castle Byers (a small build given away only to attendees of launch events in London and New York City) and fan-favorite Barb (a unique minifigure only available at San Diego Comic-Con). Both of these are now only available at exorbitant prices on the secondary market. The Brothers Brick picked up each of these so we could bring you a hands-on review.

Read our hands-on review of these unique LEGO exclusives from Stranger Things

LEGO Harry Potter faces the Dementors in 75945 Expecto Patronum [Review]

It’s another summer of Harry Potter, and we’re continuing our reviews of the new sets available now, following our review of 75948 Hogwarts Clock Tower. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry faces the evil jailers known as Dementors, against which only the “Expecto patronum!” spell is effective. 75945 Expecto Patronum captures the moment in the Forbidden Forest when Harry fends off hundreds of Dementors attacking Hermione Granger and Sirius Black. The set includes 4 minifigs and a stag Patronus with 121 pieces and retails for US $19.99 | CAN $24.99 | UK £19.99.

Read our complete review of LEGO Harry Potter 75945 Expecto Patronum

LEGO Star Wars fan builds animated Death Star trench run & Death Star II destruction scenes with 50,000 LEGO pieces [Video]

LEGO Star Wars builder Anthony Ducre recently shared a massive diorama featuring scenes from both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. Built from over 50,000 LEGO bricks, the diorama includes Darth Vader chasing Luke Skywalker down the trench of the first Death Star, animated by placing the starfighters on classic LEGO 9-volt train tracks.

Watch videos of this huge LEGO Star Wars diorama after the jump

Win the 24 Hours of Le Mans with this 1968 Ford GT40 Mk1 in gorgeous Gulf livery

As much as the LEGO Speed Champions 1966 Ford GT40 remains one of my favorites of the theme, it’s always been disappointing that LEGO has not been able to release one in the iconic Gulf Oil livery, for the very reasonable reason that LEGO does not have a licensing deal with Gulf Oil. But LEGO fans like Jonathan Elliott have stepped into the light blue and orange void with beautiful cars like this one, at about Speed Champions scale. Jonathan’s version uses plates and tiles wedged at all different angles to achieve the unique curves and angles of the original car, structured completely differently from the 1966 GT40 in the official set.

If you like Jonathan’s GT40 in Gulf livery, you’ll also love Joachim Klang’s Ford GT40 in Gulf livery.

Build a darker Hawkins in TBB’s Upside Down building contest and win 75810 The Upside Down plus rare Castle Byers event set [News]

The third season of the Netflix series “Stranger Things” was released on July 4, and we have the perfect activity for you as you binge-watch the whole season. Build any location featured in any season of the show! But unlike some other contests inspired by the show recently, there’s a catch: You have to build both the real-world version of your favorite Hawkins locale and the Upside Down version, as seen in the official LEGO set LEGO Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down — one of our favorite LEGO sets of the year so far. The top builder of our contest, judged by TBB staff, will win this fantastic set, plus the super-rare Castle Byers mini-build set released only to attendees of the LEGO Stranger Things launch events in London and New York.

Learn how to enter the contest and read the fine print

Brickmania 1033 F-14 Tomcat Supersonic Air Superiority Interceptor custom kit + NAS Miramar Action Pack custom minifigures [Review]

Last November, we reviewed the Brickmania F-4C Phantom II Jet custom kit, and designer Cody Osell is back again with the massive 1033 F-14 Tomcat Supersonic Air Superiority Interceptor. The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is one of the most iconic Cold War jet fighters, featured in movies like Top Gun and The Final Countdown. The Brickmania kit includes 1,607 LEGO pieces and two custom-printed minifigures with accessories. We’ll also be taking a look at the NAS Miramar Action Pack add-on that includes four more custom minifigures.

Read our full review of the Brickmania F-14 Tomcat after the jump

Representatives at the Interstellar Conference of the 3rd Sun

Despite this website’s origins as a minifig blog way back in 2005, it’s not often that we highlight minifig-only LEGO creations — often frowned upon by more “serious” LEGO builders as mere “figbarfs.” But there is incredible joy in putting together pieces of LEGO in unique ways, no matter how small the resulting creation. And from time to time, something truly stellar emerges from the imagination of a builder, like these fantastical aliens by VolumeX.

There is so much ingenious use of “single-purpose” minifig parts here — like Queen Amidala’s hair for the face of the leftmost figure or Ahsoka Tano’s head-tails above a Mon Calamari head and octopus legs from the Atlantis theme on the middle figure. I could pore over these all day.

Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.

Steven Spielberg’s award-winning 1993 film Schindler’s List is not a movie that inspires frequent LEGO builds. Nevertheless, Austrian builder Patrick B. has hauntingly captured the typewriter that Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern use to list the names of people Schindler attempts to save from the Holocaust. Patrick’s LEGO build includes many of the key items Schindler has on his desktop, including pens, paper, a stapler, and a wonderfully symbolic candle. The melting wax and drop of ink dripping from the pen are particularly beautiful touches.

Exclusive interview with LEGO Star Wars head of design Jens Kronveld Frederiksen [Feature]

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of LEGO Star Wars, I recently sat down with Jens Kronveld Frederiksen, the Director of Design for the LEGO Star Wars line. Jens has been with LEGO for more than 20 years, and shares his insights on how he joined the company, what lessons he’s learned over the years, and how LEGO balances input from both kids and adults. Read through to the end to learn a really cool detail about the movie Millennium Falcon Jens saw during a visit to Pinewood Studios during the filming of The Force Awakens!

The Brothers Brick: Just about every LEGO builder’s dream is to become a set designer. How did your career as a designer begin?

Jens Kronveld Frederiksen: A little bit of a weird story and coincidence. LEGO has been a great part of my life for as long as I remember. I really, really loved LEGO but I was never thinking of it as a profession or a career to be honest. In 1998 I was participating in a model building exhibition. I have a hobby building plastic model kits, which mainly is of World War II stuff. At that event in Copenhagen, there were some LEGO people there, and they were looking to hire designers not for model builders but for making new prototypes for new elements, and well I was of course interested in that. And then before I started on that, I saw a job application for a permanent position as model builder and I got the job. That’s how I got into it.

Read our exclusive interview with LEGO’s head of design for Star Wars

Looking back on 20 years of LEGO Star Wars and the LEGO fan community [Editorial]

Back in April 1999, it would have been hard to imagine what LEGO Star Wars sets might look like in twenty years, but it would have been even harder to predict how the LEGO fan community would evolve over the next two decades. As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the LEGO Star Wars theme, I also wanted to take a moment to reflect on how LEGO Star Wars has affected my life, along with the lives of countless other LEGO fans all over the world.