Posts by Kyle Keller

The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 [News]

As a whole, the LEGO community’s original works of 2023 were absolutely astounding! Over those 52 weeks, we covered so many beautiful works of art, trying to highlight the very best created by builders all over the world. And with our shortlist in hand, we’re ready to identify our favorite of the bunch. The days of 2023 were marked with massive collaborative work, giant themes and creations that brought us together after pandemic isolation over the prior two years. And in that vein, we selected the excellent collaboration between Joshua Morris, Rod Fiford, Gavin Rich, and Handoko Setyawan. The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 is Cerulean Straits.

More coverage of our newly-crowned winners below!

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Meet the emerald enchanter that’s a defender of all LEGO fauna

While he’s certainly no Radagast the Brown, this nature-loving LEGO wizard by greenarj is clearly best friends with all the birds and beasts of the land. I adore all the plant pieces integrated into the enchanter’s cloak and hat, sporting nearly every color of green in the brick palette. His gnarled dark gray staff is an exceptional conglomeration of tubing, bars, clips, and minifig utensils. But let’s not forget all the effort put into this verdant vagabond’s entourage. The owl, bird, squirrel, fox, and bunny are all wonderful pieces on their own. The sheer number of ingenious connections and part uses among these five tiny beasties is astounding, but my favorite has got to be the tuft of fur on the fox’s chest made from Master Wu’s beard.

Shortlist announced for The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 [News]

The year 2023 has passed us by, and it was chock-full of exceptional LEGO creations. As is always the case, it’s a mammoth task to pour over 365 days of posts to find the most outstanding one in that span of time. But we narrowed the field down to these five finalists in the running for our 8th annual TBB LEGO Creation of the Year award.

We’ve got our top 5 picks listed below (in no particular order), and we’ll be announce the winner of TBB’s LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 later this week.

Also, be sure to check out the LEGO Creation of the Year announcements for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 for all of our past winners.

Click to see all of 2023’s nominees

New LEGO sets for January 2024 now available for purchase [News]

The east coast of the US is celebrating the calendar change over to 2024, and LEGO fans are celebrating the release of new sets at the beginning of another month. And with about 150 new sets hitting virtual store shelves, there’s certainly plenty to celebrate. This latest wave of new sets includes an interesting concept: a space-based cross-theme concept showing up in Technic, City, Creator, and Friends. Of course we won’t be able to cover everything, but check out a smattering of the highlights on this New Year’s Release Day below. And if you want to see everything in the new catalog, head on over to the LEGO website (US | CAN | UK).

Check out our favorite sets in the January wave below!

Fresh from the oven, it’s the ginger-brick man

We’re all familiar with the loveable LEGO minifigure, right? And some recent sets and creations have also brought us the big-fig, whether from Harry Potter, Castle, or even a generic theme. But what about the minifigure representation on a medium scale? Donny Chen introduces us to a fresh-baked midi-scale LEGO figure with his delicious gingerbread man. In these post-holiday times, I must admit there’s such a thing as too much sugar. So thanks, Donny, for tempering the size of this cookie-fied fig to something more diet-friendly.

Life-size LEGO Ghostbusters gear is ready to take on Gozer the Gozerian

In case you were wondering, this collection of ghostbusting gear is actually made of LEGO, and not the movie props they appear to be. Centuri Chan has done one heck of a job recreating the Ghostbusters logo, ECTO-1 license plate, proton pack, and ghost trap out of our favorite plastic bricks. This smorgasbord of paranormal paraphernalia was on display earlier this year at the Christchurch Brick Show back in July, but was only recently uploaded to Flickr for all of us not able to make the trip to New Zealand. Now we know exactly who we’re going to call…

Check out more pictures below, but don’t cross the streams…

LEGO offering many sets for up to 40% off in end of year sale [News]

From now until January 4th, LEGO is offering many sets for sale on their website. While there are too many to list out, some of the highlights include sets from Disney, Harry Potter, Monkie Kid, Avatar, Star Wars, and Marvel. Of note in that last theme, the massive 76210 Iron Man Hulkbuster and 71039 LEGO® Minifigures Marvel Series 2 both get a price reduction for this period. These discounts range from 20% to 40% off the normal price, and include sets released as recently as this summer. For the full list, check out everything on LEGO’s Offers and Sales page for the US, Canada, and UK.

If you’re looking to take advantage of these end-of-year deals, please consider shopping via our affiliate links (like those above) on The Brothers Brick. By using those links, you help to support our efforts to highlight the best builds, news, and reviews in our LEGO community. We use the funds generated via links like these to cover server costs, event sponsorships, and other ways The Brothers Brick serves the LEGO hobbyist community. Thank you!

A LEGO build on-theme for the present holiday

Trying to recreate fabric using LEGO bricks has always been a difficult feat for me. So many ideas have been left on the backburner because I couldn’t figure out how to work out a cape on a character build. But when it came to making a bow, as in the bundle of ribbon topping a present, I knew there had to be a better way to achieve the look without resorting to specialized pieces with a reduction in scale or simple curved slopes with no volume. Last year, I cracked the code on the bow of my dreams. But it wasn’t until this Christmas season that I was able to fully realize my vision of a perfect present. It’s helped quite a bit to have increased availability of the 2×2 inverted curved slope, plus enough time to engineer a box with a half-plate of “ribbon” running down each side.

From everyone here at The Brothers Brick, we hope you have a merry and safe Christmas with plenty of LEGO sets under the tree!

TBB readers speak! Your favorite LEGO moments of 2023 [Feature]

When we asked what LEGO moments meant the most to our readers, you all answered with a plethora of LEGO moments covering the last 12 months. There were tales of set construction, attendance at conventions and shows, awards won, and one big collab that people can’t stop talking about! Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out the form. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to cover every submission we received in this write-up. But don’t let that stop you from talking about your favorite LEGO moments of the past year in the comments. Now, let’s unpack all these great responses!

Check out your LEGO highlights of 2023 below!

You can keep your LEGO minifigures. Just bring me Han Solo!

I am absolutely in love with this exquisite LEGO rendition of Hoth-version Han and his tauntaun by Mitch Phillips. Creating the look of fur can be quite challenging when using smooth bricks, and Mitch utilizes nearly every texture in the LEGO arsenal to make it happen, employing rocky pieces, tubes, Bionicle bits, and of course official cloth parts. They all come together to make quite the epic “horse” and rider combo from Empire Strikes Back, full of detail and character while also being highly poseable.

LEGO Ideas reveals their next set as 21345 Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera [News]

Hot on the heels of 21344 The Orient Express Train, LEGO Ideas has yet another offering for us, debuting in the new year. 21345 Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera marks the 53rd product in the Ideas line. The 516-piece model includes a viewfinder, dials, and a functioning shutter button that interacts with the included LEGO-themed “photos.” We haven’t seen many 1:1 scale sets from LEGO, with the most notable in this category being the LEGO Ideas 21327 Typewriter from 2021. For shutterbugs and LEGO enthusiasts looking to get their hands on the LEGO Ideas 21345 Polaroid OneStep SX-70 Camera, the set will be available from LEGO’s website on January 1, retailing for US $79.99 | CAN $99.99 | UK £69.99.

Take a better look at the camera below!

LEGO commemorates Ninjago/DreamZzz crossover episode with “Enter the Dreamers” poster [News]

With multiple animated LEGO series in the world right now, a crossover episode becomes almost an inevitability. And over a week ago, as fate would have it, the world of LEGO DreamZzz was visited by the cast of Ninjago. To mark this momentous occasion, LEGO has debuted a special poster depicting the entire “Dream Team.” Be sure to give the episode a watch to see how the ninjas and Dream Chasers fare against the Nightmare King and his Grimspawn. And if you’re new to the LEGO DreamZzz theme, you can read up on all the sets and lore in the TBB archives.