Not many people have mastered the LEGOLAND building style, outside of the master builders of LEGOLAND themselves. But for several years now, teen builder Joshua Christenson has been employing this technique to create convincing sculptures far smaller than those you’d typically see in the theme parks, as illustrated by this beautiful swan…
My fellow ‘Murrricans! We at The Brothers Brick hope you have all been enjoying a relaxing and safe Independence Day. As you digest your fine barbequed meats and drink some approximation to beer in preparation for the Final Detonation, let’s take look at some of the better holiday-themed LEGO creations that appeared today. America is known for its rich cultural diversity and freedom of speech, and today’s builds certainly reflect that…
On this day, some like to take a more serious stance, and look back at our nation’s founding:
Tyler Clites (legohaulic)
While some prefer to look a little less far back, and go the more popular route:
Chris McVeigh (powerpig)
While others decide to just be brutally honest:
Brailey (That WWII Guy)
And as an immigrant to this fine nation of ours, let me just close by saying: “God bless America, and oh crap I can’t understand your language and everything here scares me!”
If my local comic book store is any indicator, comic fans are often action figure fans too. So I’d imagine followers of DC’s Green Arrow would just love to get their hands on this LEGO version by French builder Nicolas “icare” Picot. Standing 50cm tall, it has 44 points of articulation, which qualifies it as ready for action in my book!
The LEGO company seems to be onto a good thing putting out sets based on iconic cars from classic movies such as Back to the Future and Ghostbusters. So I think they should make this a series! In which case, they can begin by studying this amazingly accurate Interceptor from the movies Mad Max and The Road Warrior by Marcus Paul…
And after that, they can get to work on an Aston Martin ;-)
Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada (in the New World) for another round of Friday Night Fights. Tonight we swab the decks and splice the mainbraces as we prepare to do bloody battle on the high seas. But do not let me here you cry “Aargh” you scurvy dogs, for these be not pirate ships, these be the Navy’s finest!
Off our port bow, we spy an oldie but a goodie – it’s Dirk Delorme‘s recreation of Nelson’s flagship the HMS Victory, which resurfaced at a recent German LEGO exhibition:
While off our starboard bow, brand spanking new from the shipyards of sebeus, comes the lighter faster Corvette Beatrix:
As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding, by way of comment, which of these vessels is seaworthy, and which is destined for a trip to Davy Jones’ locker. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, Micro Castles, Barton’s Helm’s Deep crushed Kristi’s classic keep in an 8-to-2 victory!
Regular readers may have concluded long ago that The Brothers Brick are just a bunch of old farts who are obsessed with Miami Vice, Ataris, and Hammer pants. And you’d be right. So I’m gonna worsen that stereotype and take you back to an even older, fartier era when men were men and computers were, well, absolutely enormous:
LegoJalex‘s recreation of a vintage NCR Century Series mainframe reminds us of an era when computers had to be kept in specially cooled rooms, and one IBM executive famously predicted “there is a world market for maybe five computers”. Extra points (and a tube of Prep H) to anyone that can correctly identify any of the components represented in the scene above!
And to round off our little 70’s nostalgia trip, here’s a BONUS ITEM from the same builder: an adorable microscale version of the classic LEGO set 381 Police Headquarters. Ah, it’s like my 5th birthday all over again!
…can you dig it?
(…ok, ok, that’s the last time I’ll use that joke in my post titles, I promise!)
So at first glance this may just look like a couple of 70’s era space figs in a particularly greebly version of the classic LL928 Galaxy Explorer set. But take a closer look…
That’s right, those are GIANT mini-figs and one HUGE spaceship! Well actually they are LEGO spaceman LED flashlights and this crazy scene is brought to you by our very own Simon Liu, who was given the flashlights as gifts and figured this was the most logical thing to do with them.
Of course, the blue spaceman has been magically transformed into Benny from The LEGO Movie. And with the addition of Simon’s giant Unikitty, the scene now makes total sense… It’s obviously from the sequel, and this is our hero’s plan to deal with the giant monsters from Planet Duplo!
I was fortunate enough to drool all over marvel this at Brickworld Chicago a few weeks back, where Simon’s creation won the award for BEST SPACESHIP. Congratulations, Brother Si-MOCs! All that bribery and blackmail clearly paid off.
There’ll be no living with him now… :-)
Whether it’s the demise of small nursery rhyme characters or even the occasional case of poultricide, British builder Barney Main has always had a flair for creating darkly humorous LEGO scenes that read like cartoon panels (often with fully brick-built backgrounds). So who better to interpret that classic animal-centric cartoon series The Far Side in LEGO than Barney?
Here’s a fiendishly clever little concept from Angus MacLane, the guy that made character building more accessible by dreaming up CubeDudes. And like CubeDudes, I suspect this pattern is destined to be widely imitated – with or without the couches. Each vignette features a brick-built superhero or screen character kicking back after a long day’s superheroing (…or in some cases, chestbursting).
Angus hopes to continue the series over the coming months, with even more examples of superhuman relaxation. And if Destro’s demeanor is any indication, I suspect the villains will turn out to be having a worse day than the heroes!
Some say that he’s terrified of ducks. And that he cannot understand the concept of Tuesday. All that members of the Brickish Association know is he’s called Carl Greatrix, avid locomotive builder and model designer for official LEGO videogames. And apparently a massive petrolhead judging by his rendition of the Caterham Super 7:
Carl’s choice of vehicle seems somehow fitting, given that Caterhams are kit cars. Yes, in Britain there are maniacs who like to order their cars in bits and build them at home! In fact, those cheeky chappies over at Top Gear even built one as a speed challenge.
All the exterior details and styling are perfectly captured here, as you might expect if you’ve seen any of Carl’s trains:
But the real treat (for me at least) is the inclusion of interior details such as the dashboard and engine:
Probably one of the most accurate car builds I’ve ever seen. Kinda makes you wish the LEGO Creator car sets looked like this, doesn’t it? Maybe Carl needs to show this off to some of his counterparts over the water!
Julius von Brunk (Baron von Brunk) is such a massive console gaming fan, he decided that the last thing he should see at night should be the Spiritual Stones from Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. So he built this working lamp containing a transparent mosaic of each stone, all harmoniously capped off by a Triforce…
Set in the collaborative fantasy LEGO world of Guilds of Historica, this ancient lighthouse with middle-eastern features was created by Gideon_83. I like the inclusion of fire and smoke in this build, which is further enhanced by the use of lighting bricks. It looked very nice at Brickworld last week during the traditional “Festival of Lights”!
