Posts by Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

LEGO Icons How to Train Your Dragon: Toothless flies in July 1, 2025

This summer, DreamWorks gets into the live-action remake game with a version of How to Train Your Dragon featuring (we assume) actual flesh-and-blood firebreathers. Right on the heels of the new film, LEGO is releasing an adorable brick-built take on Toothless, the Night Fury dragon who stole everyone’s hearts. It’s a bit surprising we haven’t seen How to Train Your Dragon LEGO sets before, as the large cast of characters – Viking and dragon – playset friendly settings, and a steady decade of new movies and TV shows would have made an ideal theme. DreamWorks and LEGO previously partnered on multiple waves of Trolls sets, so the relationship was there. In any case, HTTYD debuts with a single Icons set, marketed for builders 18+. The designers opted for a stylized design for Toothless with puppy-like proportions. LEGO Icons 10375 How to Train Your Dragon: Toothless contains 784 pieces and will be available July 1, 2025. You can pre-order now for US $69.99 | CAN $89.99 | UK £59.99.

How to see more pictures of this dragon? Click here!

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LEGO Botanicals 10349 Happy Plants – Smiles in bloom [Review]

The LEGO Botanical collection keeps on growing every year, with a selection of sets that vary in sizes and prices. We’ve seen tiny plants before, but the newest addition to the line tries something new with a potted pair engineered to deliver extra smiles to green thumb builders. LEGO Botanicals 10349 Happy Plants doesn’t just bring cute pots in fun colors, but it’s a playful foundation for creative repotting. Let’s have a look at the set and let’s see if it will make you as happy as the plants on the package.

LEGO Botanicals 10349 Happy Plants contains 217 pieces and is available from June 1 for US $22.99 | CAN $24.99 | UK £17.99.

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

It’s time to repot these smiling sprouts. Read on for our review!

DORA and friends explore the post-apocalyptic wastelands

At last year’s Bricks Cascade expo, Martin Hulth shared a post-apoc behemoth on treads cheekily named D.O.R.A. the Explorer (DORA as in Deep Outpost Research and Armament.) This year, with encouragement and collaboration from Mark Cruickshank, Martin returned to Cascade with two new vehicles that expand on this emerging world that rests somewhere between Mad Max and the Mortal Engines. Leading the new pack is BIG BERTHA here. It’s a kid’s dream of a mobile base fused with a monster truck, backed with sophisticated techniques. You might call it a spiritual successor to the Rock Raiders theme. And the use of color, with bold yellow and red paired with muted sand green and blue, is striking.

Explore the wasteland with us and see more of Martin’s epic builds

LEGO + Nike = a Slam Dunk?

LEGO has always been an ideal hobby for indoor kids, one best experienced at a desk or maybe a bedroom floor, with minimal fitness requirements until you level up to UCS sets or convention collabs (don’t skip leg day, buddy). But in a new partnership with Nike, LEGO makes the bold claim that play can be both creative and active. From a corporate synergy perspective, this marks the toymaker’s biggest foray yet into the sports space, with global “activations” around play at LEGOLAND parks and beyond. LEGO has previously collaborated with the NBA, NHL, Football clubs, and most recently, Formula-1, a physically demanding sport for literally dozens of drivers. At this time, there is only one LEGO set announced with the Nike partnership, the 1,180 piece Nike Dunk set, releasing on July 1 for US $99.99 | CAN $TBD | UK £89.99. The set comes 4 years to the day after LEGO’s sneaker partnership with Adidas, but whereas that sneakerhead set was marketed to 18+, Nike Dunk is rated a kid-friendly 10+ and includes an exclusive B’Ball Head minifigure. Additional sets are promised for September.

The Nike Dunk set looks like a lot of fun, and is a surprisingly good value, with many elements in rare colors, like spring yellowish green, so even if you’re not keen to add another logo to your shelf alongside Star Wars and Marvel, it could be a good parts pack if you’re up for flexing those creative muscles.
Nothing but net and all the details from LEGO are after the fold

LEGO Botanicals 10348 Japanese Red Maple Bonsai Tree – A return to roots [Review]

In recent years, the LEGO Botanicals collection has blossomed in popularity with adult fans of LEGO. When the theme debuted in 2021, one of the first sets to sprout up was 10281 Bonsai Tree. The newest addition, LEGO Botanicals 10348 Japanese Red Maple Bonsai Tree, feels like a return to those roots, with another miniature tree potted for display in your collection, only this time with a different color scheme and an array of elements new to the LEGO parts portfolio. Let’s pull out the pruning shears and see if this might be the next Botanical kit to add to your garden of bricks.

LEGO Botanicals 10348 Japanese Red Maple Bonsai Tree contains 474 pieces and is available from June 1 for US $59.99 | CAN $79.99 | UK £54.99

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Read on for our in-depth review and analysis

Feeling book nook sticker shock? Take a page from Joe Lam’s itty bitty Balrog

LEGO’s Balrog Book Nook set has many Lord of the Rings fans (including our reviewer) feeling as conflicted as Smeagol, simultaneously coveting the brick-built Bane of Durin while gagging (*GOL-LUM!*) at the price. Joe Lam solved this riddle by building a Book Nook small enough for a Took, and readers, we are shook. The itty bitty Balrog’s grimspawn body towers over trophy Gandalf. Joe’s version even folds up like the real deal and is sized perfectly to rest between your matchbooks. If you like Joe’s “The one I can afford” take on the Balrog, his spin on the Luxo Jr. lamp is even more budget-friendly.

Korra unleashes the Avatar in bricks

When the Red Lotus captured Korra, they thought they could end the Avatar cycle once and for all. Too bad for them, Korra wasn’t about to go down without an epic fight. The season 3 finale of The Legend of Korra was a series high, and builder Dan O’Connor renders it beautifully in LEGO. The mosaic mandala is wonderfully crafted from dark green tiles

Dan pairs the minifig scene with a Minilander build as the Red Lotus venom brings out Korra’s Avatar state. The larger scale captures the fiery intensity of the Avatar

Pixel-perfect Sonic tribute brings Green Hill Zone to life with 30,000 LEGO bricks

Over the last three years, builder and video creator Jason (JustBeardy) has been working on a massive motorized LEGO tribute to Sonic the Hedgehog’s Green Hill Zone. Built from roughly 30,000 bricks, the diorama draws on specific gameplay elements of the iconic level, all lovingly rendered in the 16-bit style of the classic SEGA Genesis game.

While the front view of the level is slick and studless with every pixel in its place, a look behind the Technic scaffolding reveals how much mechanical wizardry went into making the scene come alive. Jason would have been done sooner, but needed a new drive train to power so many motorized elements.

Of course, a project like this is meant to be seen in motion, so it’s best to watch the reveal video to appreciate Jason’s most ambitious work to date. And if you’re interested in how the builder solved all the elaborate mechanical functions, there’s a series of 34 behind-the-scenes videos showing the build process from the beginning. Feeling nostalgic for classic Sonic? Jason shares free instructions for Dr. Robotnik’s Egg Wrecker as seen in the diorama.

LEGO summons Flame of Udûn – You shall not pass up this Balrog Book Nook!

After a long slumber, Lord of the Rings LEGO sets are back with a fiery vengeance, stirred from the shadows like a sleeping demon awoken by a Took’s tomfoolery. Just two months after The Shire had us celebrating, LEGO Icons 10367 The Lord of the Rings: Balrog Book Nook takes us back to Middle Earth. The set marks the debut of the fan-favorite Balrog in LEGO form and joins the growing list of brick-built book nooks, alongside Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter. While you can fold it closed to slip between ancient tomes on your shelves, the set seems designed to display opened up to better appreciate the Balrog with its wings spread, flanked by Morgoth’s flames. LEGO Icons 10367 The Lord of the Rings: Balrog Book Nook contains 1,201 pieces and will be available on June 1 for
US $129.99 | CAN $TBD | UK £109.99. Will you be adding the Balrog to your shelves?

Fly you fools for the full reveal of the Balrog Book Nook

Beware of brick Clickers in Boston in LEGO Last of Us tribute

HBO’s The Last of Us just wrapped season 2, but if you’re not ready to let go of a run-down world filled with murderous mushroom zombies, Greg the Gungan has your back. In this towering diorama, Greg returns to the first game/season with Joel and Ellie traversing a crumbling Boston. Greg finds the perfect balance between urban decay and nature taking root, creating a world that is so beautiful that you might risk a cordyceps bite to take it all in. True to the source, the decrepit office building hides many dangers that Greg also built in bricks.

Crafty AFOLs leave their minifigs (and us) in stitches [Minfig Monday]

Since we started spotlighting minifig creations again on Minifig Mondays, we’ve been introduced to so many talented AFOLs. After covering desert sands and dieselpunk in our last installments, maybe it’s time to welcome some cozier fig creations into the mix? Grab your knitting needles and garden shears, as we’re going to explore DIY minifig fashions! The fist time the brothers brick featured minifigs wearing crocheted clothes was back in 2006! Sadly, that was the only time. Let’s fix this with a Minifig Monday dedicated to minfigs dressed in knitted and floral clothing! Because hobbies are better when you let them mingle.

Kim Schol is a LEGO photographer from the Netherlands who sets her minifig subjects in dioramas that blend LEGO with nature and crafts. Kim dresses her minifig in a fantastically elegant skirt made of real flower petals. This fairy tale scene is one of my favorites in the way that LEGO foliage mixes with seed tufts and moss to create a magical space. Here’s a glimpse of how the mix of materials came together to make a scene.

Flowers and crochet and minifigs, oh my! The tour continues after the fold

The finest Rabbit-Cat-Creature-Spirit-Thingy ever created in LEGO

We see a lot of LEGO rabbits and LEGO cats, and more LEGO creatures than you can shake a stick at, but one thing we don’t often come across are rabbit-cat-creature-spirit-thingies. Thankfully, builder Steve Edwards corrects this oversight with a delightful and oh-so colorful take on this beloved beast. Steve pulls in so many playful elements, from CMF Harpy wings on the tufts of the ears to the car wash scrubbers in the tail to a knit cap nose. The thingy poses atop an upscaled boom box. With ears that evoke speakers, the whole model has a very EDM vibe. This fella’s definitely going on my playlist!