About Lino

Lino is an artist, humorist, and occasional responsible adult. He is the co-founder of a challenge-based LEGO car club called LUGNuts which boasts over 1100 members worldwide. He proposed automotive building challenges every month for ten years (120 challenges!) which he and the other members built accordingly. LUGNuts has retired its challenges on its 10th anniversary but still remains a cornerstone for LEGO automotive builders. Between his artistic work and LEGO builds, Lino has been published in several books, including Beautiful LEGO, Beautiful LEGO: Dark, and Beautiful LEGO: Wild. He lives in Washington with his girlfriend and dogs.

Posts by Lino

Elbow macaroni leads to brainworms [Building Techniques]

A certain recently confirmed political official had us Googling brainworms a bit more than usual lately. Perhaps this has been the case with Djokson who has presented his own brainworm. We have a slew of the 2×2 round bricks with 45 degree elbows in both white and trans-dark pink. You’d have to stockpile at least a couple of the DreamZzz Never Witch’s Nightmare Creatures sets to obtain those tasty trans-pink ones. Maybe this is just the brainworms talking here but I am clueless as to what that brain piece is from. While it shares some family resemblance, it is most certainly NOT this piece. Let us know in the comments what that neat brain part might be because I am truly braindead on the matter.

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In a Twilight world of Team Jacob or Team Edward, be Team Bella’s Truck

Twihards may already be aware that the official LEGO 21354 Cullen’s Home set is coming out soon. It certainly got onto the radar of Sseven Bricks but not necessarily for reasons of buff, shirtless werewolves or brooding, sparkly vampires. While both factions aren’t without their charms, Sseven took special notice of one feature included in the set: Bella’s 1963 Chevy C10 Pickup. Not only that, but Sseven saw the unmistakable fingerprint of LEGO Designer Adam Grabowski and decided to preemptively build their own version of the pickup before the set came out and without instructions. Being a car guy and a fan of Adam, I would have done the same — all the while reveling in the truck’s classic design and also reveling in the fact that I’m a Jacob Girl all the way. You heard me, glittery vampires; get your sparkly asses the hell off my lawn!

This charming snake denotes wisdom and transformation

2025 is the Year of the Snake according to Chinese tradition, which symbolizes wisdom and transformation. So naturally, LEGO phenom Ian Hou has built this tantalizing cobra to denote the celebration of the Chinese New Year. I’m enamored over how the repetition of curving LEGO pieces adorning the snake’s front can seem like scales. The hood of the cobra, the snake’s stance, even the base are expertly crafted. Whether you feel that snakes are fascinating or they give you the heebie-jeebies, you have to admire the excellent build techniques at play here. I’m in the camp of snake fascination and I think that Ian agrees. You know how I know? Well, I hope that Google Lens didn’t lead me too far astray here but the large characters to the left state that all snakes are fine. Indeed, Ian.

Swim or float? That is the question. [Building Techniques]

These clever LEGO build techniques are brought to you by a ton of minifig heads. Cab ~ utilizes the aforementioned minifig heads as the yellow buoys denoting the lanes in the pool and also the floaties on that one swimmer’s (or floater’s) arms. Repetitive use of 1×2 trans-blue tiles comprizes the pool water nicely. They’re not bricked directly onto the pool floor but rather suspended above it to give the illusion of depth. As for the swim or float question, for me, it’s floaties all the way. I’ll also take some washboard abs to help offset the embarrassment of using floaties.

This tree is off the chain! [Building Techniques]

With LEGO, you can turn something as industrial and gray as chains into something organic like a tree. Fedde Barendrecht shows us how, and I believe it involved clicking chain parts together end-to-end, connecting each unclicked end to the barrel-made tree trunk, then twisting the chain into a roughly a tree-shaped mass. Top it off with a wiley raven and you have the makings for an epic neighborhood showdown. Raven:1, Lino:0.

A dragon GBC among the clouds

So what’s a GBC, then? It stands for Great Ball Contraption and, despite the cringe-worthy connotations that name implies, GBC is often a crowd pleaser at LEGO conventions. It’s a mechanical means of moving one or many balls from one location to another. This particular GBC by Andreas Lenander is a feat of engineering with an artful approach. The charming dragon makes a wave pattern as orange balls move through the clouds.

It truly is a captivating work of art to behold. I wish there was some kind of way you can see it in motion. It turns out you can with this short video! Stay toward the end to see the inner workings that give this dragon its hypnotic wave motion.

Social greeting between two angels

The odd scenario before you is a new LEGO creation featuring seraphim and cherubim by Haoming Qiu called “Social greeting between two angels”. I imagine the dark one says “Howdy do! I’m all dark and brooding and stuff”. Meanwhile the other angel is like, “Sup, brah? As hideous as I am, I’m actually a biblically accurate angel”. Then the dark one is like “cool, brah!” At least that’s my interpretation of the story. The builder didn’t offer any other clues. Let us know in the comments if you have a different dialogue for this admittedly fantastic pair.

The final dragon from The Year of the Dragon

In the waning hours of 2024, Joss Ivanwood presented his final LEGO dragon for his Year of the Dragon project and it’s a doozy of a deer. Draconis Cervus takes inspiration from fallow and sika deer with their reddish nougat-colored fur and white underbellies. Joss tells us that the furry parts he has been using in this series are quickly becoming his favorite pieces but he takes particular pride with how the eyes turned out, which makes use of a Technic tow-ball inserted into a gray Mixel socket. What a lovely and satisfying end to an equally satisfying project! I look forward to whatever Joss will be doing in 2025. In the meantime, be sure to check out our Joss Ivanwood archives to discover highlights from the Year of the Dragon project and even older offerings from previous years.

TBB’s top 10 LEGO creations of 2024 [Feature]

Adult LEGO builders are an amazing and imaginative lot. While most who buy LEGO are happy with building sets as per the instructions and calling it a day, an elite bunch take it a step further when they create from scratch. While opinions may vary, we’ve crunched numbers, done some analytics stuff and came up with The Brothers Brick top 10 creations of 2024 based on views. Without further ado, here’s what you came for.

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The Christmas good, the bad, and the ...huh?

LEGO builder Kristel Whitaker presents a sweet little Christmas vignette of a reindeer barn. First we have the good, thich is getting to pet a baby reindeer. Very nice! Next is the bad, which is having to scoop the poopy. I wonder what that elf did to get on the naughty list. Finally we have the…ugly? The funny? The weird? We’re not too sure how to categorize this one but Santa is napping on the roof with what appears to be a liquor bottle and a pizza. There’s no judgements here. We’ve all been there, right?

This is sort of tangentially Christmas-related but here is another vignette that we noticed earlier this month of Mrs.Gingerbread baking some delicious heart cookies. Perhaps they’re laced with a little something extra, which could explain why Santa is napping on the roof.

Traveling tonics were once upon a time in a dream

Sometimes great ideas arise when you combine unrelated materials from diverse sources. That’s what is at play here with Isaac Wilder’s latest LEGO creation called Tabitha’s Traveling Tonics. He tells us his fiance was playing Fables III and within the game are these neat caravans. So naturally, he decided to try one of his own. He used the wise and diminutive Mrs. Castillo from the DreamZzz line, specifically the Turtle Van set as Tabitha. A reindeer and snow was added to his idea to create a rather dreamy wintery scene. Stir in a fanciful caravan wagon, a few unearthly light sources, and a dash of magic and you have yourselves a cure for foot fungus and a bevy of love potions; all delivered to you post haste!

All aboard the Parisian subway!

There’s a lot to love in this LEGO Parisian subway built by Renaud Petit. The “Miniland” and “LEGO Shop” signs tell me this is my stop and I should get out and explore a bit. I particularly like the extremely Parisian man with his typical French striped shirt, French neckerchief, French bread, French beret, and French bulldog. He’s looking disparagingly at a sleeping French hobo, which I believe is a clochard in French. I don’t know if this is a cultural thing or not but everyone in this composition seems a bit upset. Perhaps everyone needs a good French press coffee and a croissant to take the edge off?