About Mansur Soeleman

Mansur Soeleman, nicknamed "Waffles," is our resident lover of the LEGO colour teal, and all things greebly. An art school grad, he is more of a builder than artist, and a new one at that. While he has just started building seriously a few years ago, he has risen to be among the ranks of talented LEGO builders, and has recently become a part of the fan community. Currently residing in Edinburgh, he has lived in Amsterdam, Budapest, London, and Chicago. Besides procrastinating on LEGO projects, Mansur likes waffles, lots of coffee, riding his bicycle everywhere, any music with trumpets, and did we mention teal and greebling? His LEGO creations can be found on his Instagram and Flickr.

Posts by Mansur Soeleman

The chase is on! It’s speeder bike versus speeder bike!

What’s better than one speeder bike? Two speeder bikes so that they can race against each other! -Disty- built a dynamic duo of hovering bikes with distinct styles and colours to match their pilots. They may be vengeful arch-enemies hellbent on destroying each other or just racing rivals here for the thrill of the chase. With the opposing styles and colour schemes, these two speeder bikes remind me of the old Technic battle bots from the late 90s.

Shinrai Technologies 'Orca' - Sport Bike

The tropical-themed Shinrai Technologies ‘Orca’ is a green mean speed machine piloted by a surfer dude. I love its lime green paint job that compliments azure waters and bright sands it flies above. Disty uses very clever parts usage with Hero Factory armour plates and robot minifigure legs as the secondary booster engines. I particularly like the usage of the transparent blue Bionicle eye/brain stalk as the headlight. It reminds me of the wheels of Legends of Chima Speedorz and even some Roboriders.

Rascal Motors 'DBL 790' - Urban Cruiser

The black and red Rascal Motors ‘DBL 790’ rules the night with furious speed. Despite the large Hero Factory spikes jutting out at all angles, this speeder bike retains aerodynamics to brave even the most congested cyberpunk air traffic. I love its angled look and greebly details; it looks like some creepy-crawly monster of the dark.

Nimble Nimbus V-wing Fighter

Star Wars is notorious for its level of detail and worldbuilding that we barely notice at times. Things like a background character or a vehicle that appears for a split second have extensive Wookieepedia articles. Many of these elements receive backstories from writers of the extended universe. And many of them return to the forefront of newer Star Wars media due to popular demand. For example, the Alpha-3 Nimbus-class V-wing starfighter – as built by Pande (Malen Garek) appears at the end of Revenge of the Sith for a few seconds. Yet, its striking unique silhouette piqued the interest of many vehicle-oriented fans. Many LEGO builders built their own version of this starfighter despite not being very well known.

Alpha-3 Nimbus-class Imperial V-wing

You could say that the V-wing is essentially an evolutionary step between the Delta-7 Jedi Starfighter and the TIE Fighter. Its sleek arrowhead shape and bladelike wings are tough to get right considering looks and structure. You either make it too skinny and it falls apart, or you make it too thick. Pande found the balance between the two in a beautiful clean finish and sharp angles. I particularly like the usage of tall slopes to make the front wedges and throwing in a little dark grey for greyscale colour variation.

Fast and Furious: Eastern Bloc

Growing up in Hungary in the early 2000s, we would make fun of old Soviet cars, relics of a bygone era. They weren’t so common in my childhood, but our parents and grandparents have seen them plenty. They were the first small, affordable family cars in a time where automobiles were barely making their way to the Eastern Bloc. One such car was the Polski Fiat 126p, which builder Legostalgie faithfully replicated in LEGO Creator Expert scale. Despite the distance from real 100% Italian Fiats, this appears as the uglier relative of the more iconic Fiat 500.

Polski Fiat 126p

Legostalgie, being an expert in Eastern Bloc vehicles, really nailed the angular, boxy shape of the Polski Fiat. It’s a simple car, but with a strange angle in the black, and Legostalgie worked that out with SNOT. I’m particularly fond of the 2-cylinder engine in the rear. I remember my family owning such a car, and we had to get the engine started by poking it with a stick!

Polski Fiat 126p

It is currently cowabunga hours

“The perimeter’s quiet.” “Yeah, a little TOO quiet.” It feels like we’ve all forgotten that there were actual Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sets some time ago. Unlike the lifespan of LEGO’s short-lived theme, LEGO fans will build Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo for generations to come. Alex Jones (Orion Pax), the builder of all things pop culture, recently designed some nifty large scale figures of the loveable pizza-consuming reptiles.

TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles

Not only is each Ninja Turtle recognisable by his coloured masks but also of their unique weapons. Alex also went out of his way to make each character a different shade of green. And it wouldn’t be possible without the Hulk arm pieces coming in those colours. I particularly like the use of minifig seats as the shells and minifig legs as the hands and feet.

Check out more builds by Alex here!

TBB cover photo for April 2021: The Sports Car of the Century

If you’ve seen gull-wing doors that open skyward, then you’ve seen the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Coupé from 1955. Tobias Munzert created a LEGO Creator Expert-scale replica of the most beautiful car in the world using mostly parts from the official 10262 Aston Martin DB5 set. In addition to the silver colour scheme, he captured the curves of this car in precise detail, down to the slight curve of the front intake. Tobias also included basic functions that all display models need: opening trunk and hood, and the opening gull-wing doors.

LEGO Mercedes-Benz 300SL "Gullwing" Coupé (1955)

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Everybody gangsta till the TIE Fighter’s wings fold up

Moff Gideon does not simply fly a boring TIE Fighter. Rather, he is a man of class and mysterious wealth and is special enough to have his own personal spacecraft. When he arrives at the scene flanked by his stormtrooper army, there is no escape for Rebel scum… Michał Kozłowski built the TIE variant seen in The Mandalorian, known as the Outland TIE Fighter flown by Moff Gideon.

Outland TIE Fighter MOC

While not completely bespoke to the cold and calculating Moff, this craft has a unique folding wings feature. As Michał demonstrates in his YouTube video, the wings fold easily but can also stay upright when in flight mode without wobble. He achieves this by having lightsaber blades inside several Technic pins to create the necessary friction to be stable.

Outland TIE Fighter MOC

Check out more TIE Fighter builds we’ve featured here on The Brothers Brick!

The world between worlds

Portals, parallel dimensions, time travel, etc. Those concepts sometimes spice up storytelling, like in Back to the Future, and Avengers: Endgame. And sometimes they fail, like in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the sequel fan-fiction that was canonised into a theatre production. Even Star Wars: Rebels tried to explore those concepts in an episode titled “The World Between Worlds”, which didn’t work at all. As for this small two-hour build by Luka (First Order Lego), it works very well.

“A world between worlds” - 2 hour build

Titled “A world between worlds,” but totally unrelated to Star Wars, Luka’s creation is a small microscale landscape build. A portal to another world dominates a lush valley with a small cute village built into the cliffside. A barren wasteland from beyond oozes something dark and dreary that pollutes the idyllic paradise. Overall, this has some great details for such a small build. I really enjoy some of the part choices for the greenery, like the green Hero Factory blades for evergreen trees. In addition, a half-hidden Knights Kingdom buildable figure helmet also adds texture to the hills.

Check out more of Luka’s builds!

Johnny Thunder takes on the highest peak

I’m a 90’s kid. Early 2000s LEGO shaped my childhood, with Bionicle, Racers, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. However, one theme was grounded enough to offer a haven from all the crazy. Orient Expedition was the short-lived sequel/reboot to the popular Adventurers theme from the late 1990s. The theme follows Johnny Thunder and his team of explorers in seeking the lost treasure of Marco Polo. Similarly, Lord Sam Sinister also sought the treasure, but chose to try and steal it instead finding it on his own. GunnBuilding reimagines the 7417 Temple of Mount Everest playset, where the heroes and villains have a showdown on top of the world’s tallest peak.

7417: Temple of Mount Everest

Click to see more of this homage to Orient Expedition

Shrink the Mustang, but horsepower remains the same

The 10265 Ford Mustang set is regarded as one of the best LEGO car models ever produced. It’s big and packed with details, and unfortunately doesn’t fit in your city layout. Not to worry, Thomas Gion built a small, minifigure-scale of the iconic 1967 Mustang. The shapes and curves capture the essence of the car better than an official LEGO Speed Champions playset of a very similar car model. This small Mustang is truly a feast for the eyes.

1967 Ford Mustang (minifig scale set 10265)

Thomas’s small build retains the iconic dark blue and white colour scheme of the Creator Expert model. He also included some of its functions, like the adjustable rear suspension, and the additional supercharger, front splitter, side exhausts, and rear spoiler. Unfortunately, steering is the only function that didn’t make it to Thomas’s build, but at this scale it’s impossible. LEGO City and Speed-Champions-scale cars don’t need steering anyway.

1967 Ford Mustang (minifig scale set 10265)

Thomas submitted this wonderful creation to us on our Discord server. Head on over to join conversations with your fellow readers and builders!

Stacked terraced garden habitats

Are you aware of the phenomenon called Minifig Habitats? It’s essentially an 8x8x8 diagonal vignette that can be stacked and interlocked to form a pyramid display. However, there is a more popular habitat style that isn’t diagonal and has less open space. These habitats first appeared on Flickr in 2016 and were popularised by LEGO fan sites in the last few years. Since then, they became a nice way for people to show off LEGO Collectible Minifigures in a small dynamic display. Kristel Whitaker takes it to the next level by reimagining minifig habitats into a diorama of a pergola, a balcony, and a potting shed.

Spring Habitat Stack

The white structures provide a bright canvas for plants to grow on and make the diorama clean and minimalist. In addition, the nougat flooring brings a lovely warm contrast to the blue backdrop of Kristel’s photo. There’s plenty of other colours as well, from the yellows and pinks of the flowers to the blues and reds of the potting shed in the lower right habitat. All of these come together in a concise diorama that are clearly different parts of the same house.

Want to build your own minifig habitats? Here is the template.

TRON: this racer oozes NPU

Yup, that’s an acronym inside an acronym. And I’m pretty sure TRON isn’t an acronym, but I know a song* that makes it an acronym. This slick cyberpunk bike by expert sci-fi builder Oscar Cederwall looks like a TRON Light Cycle, but without the light show. Instead, it’s packed with LEGO parts and techniques so futuristic that boggles our stone-age minds. The more I look at it, the more things I notice, and I become more and more impressed.

Cyberpunk Bike

Starting with the front wheel, Oscar has developed a hubless design using all the handcuffs LEGO City has to offer. They fit snugly inside the large motorcycle wheel, surprising me with how two pieces I never thought would go well together actually go well together. Oscar also turned a train canopy upside down, continuing the shape of a futuristic motorbike. Around the seat, large Technic panels continue the curved shapes that are common on modern vehicles, and I’m especially impressed with a Slizers visor covering those pesky pin holes. Oscar continued the unconventional parts usage with leg armour from the Star Wars buildable figures. I never would have thought that part would make an excellent saddle. Lastly, a Duplo train track action insert holds the rear wheel, which is covered with a X-pod lid.

Cyberpunk Bike

Oscar outdid himself to the point where either you can’t tell which parts are used, or if it’s even LEGO. Check out more of his creations here!

*The song in question is They.Resurrect.Over.New. by Lupe Fiasco, for those who are interested

Mum says it’s my turn to fly the X-wing!

It seems that Star Wars is experiencing a baby fever. We’ve had enough of surprise fathers, sisters, and *tries not to throw up* grandfathers, so I welcome the new and unexpected. Recently a certain cute green gremlin took pop-culture by storm, and replaced Minions as the default for Facebook mom memes. It’s 2021 and I still see the words “chiccy nuggies” and “choccy milk” in the same sentence. But whatever, babies are cute. Andreas Lenander has caught the bug and built a babyfied X-wing and some baby rebels.

Baby X-wing pilots on Yavin IV

All jokes aside, I really like this babyfied idea for being a new unique take on Star Wars. Just a few weeks ago I wrote about a small build by my friend Ross, where baby Greedo confronts baby Han over a bottle of blue milk. And Andreas’s build is really well done. The walls of the Yavin base offer plenty of variety in detail to keep it from becoming bland and boring. Andreas keeps the X-wing as accurate to the source material as he can, despite the small size. It’s a really difficult ship to get right, even in larger sizes. So big applause to Andreas, he won me over with this build, and not because of the babies.

Caught the baby fever? There are some more baby creations to see…
Or had enough of babies? Check out Andreas’s other builds that we’ve featured. No babies in those, I promise!