Posts by Daniel

LEGO Despicable Me 4 75581 Minions’ Music Party Bus [REVIEW]

If you’ve seen any of the Despicable Me movies you know that those chattery little Minions get up to all sorts of shenanigans when left unsupervised. Well, now they can do it in style with this fully loaded party bus. Did the Anti-Villain League approve of this excursion, or did someone leave the key box unlocked? LEGO Despicable Me 4 75581 Minions’ Music Party Bus includes 379 pieces and will be available on May 1st for US $39.99 | CAN $49.99 | UK £34.99

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

Read on for our full review

LEGO Despicable Me 4 75580 Minions and Banana Car [REVIEW]

Minions and bananas go together like peanut butter and jelly, like coffee and doughnuts. So it can be no surprise that the latest wave of sets from the Despicable Me franchise includes this obvious combination. This banana car set comes with four minions and a bunch of accessories, basically a Minions battle pack. LEGO Despicable Me 4 75580 Minions and Banana Car includes 136 pieces and will be available on May 1st for US $24.99 | CAN $32.99 | UK £19.99

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

Read on for our full review

LEGO Despicable Me 4 75583 Minions and Gru’s Family Mansion [REVIEW]

The Despicable Me franchise, which includes 3 movies and a fourth coming out this July, as well as 2 spin-off films focusing on the yellow banana-loving minions, has been hugely successful, with each film landing in the top 5 grossing films for the year they came out. Hence, it’s no surprise to see another batch of LEGO sets as part of the summer wave. The first set we’re covering is LEGO Despicable Me 4 75583 Minions and Gru’s Family Mansion, which includes 868 pieces, comes with 9 characters, and will be available on May 1st for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99

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

Find out if the set is as much fun as a banana

LEGO Despicable Me 4 75582 Brick-Built Gru and Minions [REVIEW]

Recently there have been several LEGO sets building characters outside of the usual minifigure scale, like the buildable LEGO Star Wars 75371 Chewbacca and LEGO Super Mario 71411 The Mighty Bowser. These sets straddle the line between play sets and display scenes, offering options for collectors similar to the BrickHeadz theme, and sub-themes like the Star Wars helmets and starship collections. One such set is from the Despicable Me 4 wave, a brick-built Gru surrounded by 5 minions on a rotating base. LEGO Despicable Me 4 75582 Brick-Built Gru & Minions comes with 839 pieces and will be available on May 1st for US $54.99 | CAN $69.99 | UK £49.99

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

Find out if this display set is worth picking up

LEGO AT-RT walker is the perfect scale for a clone trooper

Sometimes, official LEGO sets end up feeling just a tad off when it comes to proportions for minifigures, but this custom model by Gubi0222 looks pretty much perfect compared to the on-screen walkers seen in both the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated show as well as the very brief glimpse of the walker on Kashyyyk in Revenge of the Sith. The small wheel rims make the perfect hip joint, and I do love a good roller skate used for details.

Antolus 1 - Imperial AT-RT walker

Here’s a shot from the side to better appreciate the ball joints holding the walker’s legs in place, as well as the wonderful shaping of its nose armor.

Antolus 1 - Imperial AT-RT walker

A quaint LEGO village in the clouds

It takes a hearty fellow to live so high up among the clouds with so few safety railings, but this idyllic scene by Roanoke Handybuck and Carter Witz makes me feel just a bit braver than normal. Each structure in this village in the clouds has a unique shape, and some include just a touch of weather-worn details. The slender supports and stacked dwellings give the scene a charming, if not slightly precarious feeling. But the citizens certainly don’t seem to mind.

Cloud Life

LEGO Star Wars 40686 Trade Federation Troop Carrier – GWP [REVIEW]

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and there have already been a few LEGO sets announced, like the Podracer diorama and the Droideka. But one of the most iconic characters introduced in that movie, aside from Darth Maul, is the B1 Battle droid. Providing comedic scenes of dialog and utter destruction at the hands of Jedi Qui-gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and young Anakin. The latest Gift with Purchase from the LEGO Star Wars theme is a redesign of the battle droid carrier that helped deliver battle droids in the battle of Naboo, in case you don’t already have too many of these clumsy cannon fodder. LEGO Star Wars 40686 Trade Federation Troop Carrier will be available from May 1st through May 5th for a minimum purchase of  US $160 | CAN $TBD | UK £145 from the Star Wars theme.

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

Read on for our full review

Beware of vendors selling ice cream in the forest.

What could be more refreshing after a day of knighting around in full armor in the forest than a sweet ice cream treat? But take a closer look at this LEGO scene by Jérôme Barchietto and you will see that all is not as it seems. Is that the Falcon queen disguised as an innocent shopkeeper? And while our good and loyal Lion knights are distracted by dripping soft serve and brain freeze, a group of Falcon knights are slowly closing in for a delicious ambush.

The textured roof with plenty of thatch pieces and the real-world mossy setting combine to make this scene stand out. Also, with so many joyous faces on those Lion Knights, I almost feel sorry for them. What a cold trick to play.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for April 6th, 2024

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the first week of April, 2024.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS This weeks news includes Dispicable Me 4 sets, and a companion adventure for the LEGO Ideas Dungeons & Dragons set. Goth fans are weeping over our April Fools fake news, and LEGO announced initiatives to support neurodivergent individuals in their stores.

LEGO Batman 76271 Gotham City [REVIEW]

What would you get if you combined the LEGO Architecture theme with LEGO DC and threw in a splash of LEGO Art? A massive Gotham City skyline from the 90’s hit television series, Batman: The Animated Series that can either hang on your wall (if you have a stud finder) or display on your shelf. The animated show from Warner Brothers Studio aired from 1992-1995. The visual style was dark and gritty, taking much inspiration from the Art Deco movement with sharp angles for both the architecture and the characters, and a muted and dark color palette. Combined with a stellar original musical score and great storytelling, the show was instantly popular with audiences young and old, and introduced some of the franchise’ most-loved villains like The Joker, voiced by Mark Hamill, and his Psychiatrist/lover/henchwoman Harley Quinn. LEGO Batman 76271 Gotham City comes with 4,210 pieces including 4 minifigures and will be available on April 1st for LEGO Insiders members and on April 4th for everyone else for US $299.99 | CAN $389.99 | UK £259.99

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

Read on!

Tasty little LEGO Star Wars fighters leave you wanting more

LEGO Star Wars advent calendars have some pretty neat microscale ships, but it’s hard to get many good details at such a small size. Tim Goddard has no such trouble with these four microscale fighters, packing these pint-sized ships with a ton of great details and ace part usage, like screwdrivers for cannons. The iconic Y-wing and A-wing are fantastic, but the angled noses of the X-Wing and E-Wing are simple but especially effective.

Micro Star Wars

Tiny LEGO trailer is some prime real estate

LEGO has given us many great profile bricks perfect for building architecture, but sometimes the best results come from using basic parts like tiles to create the look of construction materials like wood and metal. This charming trailer house by Daniel Barwegen is a perfect example. The trailer arms in front are very realistic, and the simple tile exterior combined with a bunch of black rail plates gives the appearance of panels made from corrugated metal. The narrow row of windows along the top would let in some welcome natural light. I imagine the inside would be quite cozy.

Tiny House Trailer