About Chris

Chris Malloy (porschecm2) has been a LEGO fan nearly all his life, having started with System bricks at age 3. He is the co-author of Ultimate LEGO Star Wars, and his creations have been featured in several books and The LEGO Movie. He also helped develop the first LEGO Minecraft set, 21102 Minecraft Micro World: The Forest, which has gone on to inspire a whole theme of sets. He's been active in the online community since 2002, and regularly attends LEGO fan conventions such as BrickCon and BrickCan. He enjoys building in a wide range of themes, but keeps returning to Castle, Space, and Pirates. Check out his LEGO creations and photography here.

Posts by Chris

LEGO to stop using black backgrounds in instructions [News]

As reported by our friends over at Brickset, LEGO appears to be making plans to transition away from the use of black backgrounds in instruction manuals. Earlier today, LEGO customer Sam Walker posted an image in a Facebook group of a response he received from LEGO customer service, in which the company states “we’ve been listening to feedback about the background colour in our building instructions. We’ve done lots of testing already and have plans to move away from the black backgrounds entirely.”

The dark backgrounds have been part of the theming for 18+ sets in LEGO’s newly rebranded adult product portfolio that began rolling out last summer. The black manuals have been the source of much frustration for builders, as the low contrast has made it very difficult to discern darker-colored elements, with some disappearing entirely, as we noticed in our review of 10275 Elf Clubhouse.

LEGO has been trying a variety of things to combat the issue, including adding more outlines to elements. Some recent sets, such as 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo & 911 Targa, shipped with black backgrounds in the instruction manual, but the version available for download from LEGO’s website has been updated to include traditional light backgrounds. Other recent 18+ sets, such as 21325 Medieval Blacksmith, included light backgrounds in the printed manual that shipped with the set, though it’s unclear if this is a result of the change already being put into action, or because that set is part of the Ideas product line rather than Creator Expert.

In the response to Sam Walker, LEGO also says that it is working with LEGO designers with color impairment in creating revised manuals.

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LEGO Gift with Purchase 40450 Amelia Earhart Tribute [Review]

LEGO has been exploring a new trend with gift-with-purchase sets in the form of models celebrating influential personalities from history, and the latest set is 40450 Amelia Earhart Tribute. Amelia Earhart is best known for her disappearance in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe by airplane, but she was a pioneer in the field of aviation in many other ways as well, including helping found the Ninety-Nines, an organization for women pilots. In 1932 she was the first woman to make a non-stop solo transatlantic flight, a mere five years after Lindbergh. LEGO’s new gift-with-purchase set celebrating her achievements contains 203 pieces and is available now in Australia and will be available globally soon. Although the precise timing and purchase requirements are yet to be officially revealed, it is rumored to be available March 6 to 14 with a US $100 | CAN $100 | UK £100 purchase from LEGO.

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

Click to read the full hands-on review

That’s a big cat, in small form

Building great-looking LEGO cars at minifigure scale is always a challenge, but it’s made at least a little easier by choosing a vehicle with fairly straight lines. Of course, that doesn’t mean that builder Jonathan Elliott has been slacking off with this 1968 Mercury Cougar, as there are tons of great details here. One of the best is the side mirrors, made with grey lever bases stuck onto 1×2 panels. Plus we can’t overlook the fact that Jonathan attempted the whole thing in teal, which, while it’s seeing a recent resurgance in official sets, is still a very limiting color.

Woman Yelling at a Cat, but in LEGO

Is it really even a meme until TBB alumn Iain Heath has immortalized in LEGO form? I think there’s a strong case to be made that it’s not. And so, another meme enters the hallowed company as the poor cat being yelled at by Taylor Armstrong and Kyle Richards from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills gets the brick makeover. Now you can express your feelings of helpless confusion as a cat being yelled at for absolutely no reason whatsoever, but in LEGO!

A flower is worth a thousand bricks

LEGO may have released an official Flower Bouquet set now, but that doesn’t mean they’ve got a monopoly on great-looking life-sized flowers made out of plastic bricks. This beautiful orchid by James Zhan shows that there are a lot more possibilities waiting to be explored. This one comes in a lovely 2×2 brick vase (something the official set lacked) and isn’t just cut flowers but instead the whole orchid plant. Look closely and you’ll even spot some bamboo stakes that help hold the flowers aloft. And my favorite detail is the succulent planted at the base, a common accompaniment to potted orchids.

The LEGO Universe soundtrack has been remastered, released for its 10th anniversary [News]

To mark the 10th anniversary of LEGO Universe, LEGO is releasing the game’s soundtrack for the first time. Composed by Brian Tyler (who is also known for scoring much of the Fast & Furious franchise and films like Avengers: Age of Ultron), the Massively Multiplayer Online game’s soundtrack has never before been available apart from the game. The new remastered version will be accompanied by several episodes of LEGO’s Bricks N’ Bits podcast focusing on the game, including interviews with Brian, the game’s producer Richard Dekkard, and Sir Patrick Stewart, who provided voiceover work for the game.

Released in 2010, LEGO Universe was the company’s first foray into MMO games. It was met with a lukewarm reception, and the game was shuttered in January 2012, just 15 months after it debuted.

The newly remastered soundtrack will be available for purchase or streaming on all the usual platforms. LEGO also says it will be available on the official LEGO Gaming Youtube channel.

Click to read the full press release from LEGO

The icy halls of the frozen north

If there’s one word that encapsulates Jeff Friesen‘s LEGO models more than any other for me, it’s “clean.” His builds always seem to have every single piece precisely where it ought to be. And his latest one looks like it’s from a picture book of the ideal Viking winter world (unlike hellish purgatory of Valheim that’s all the rage right now). This microscale creation doesn’t have any obviously new or even unusually innovative techniques, and yet it’s absolutely splendid from the snowcapped peaks to the tiny longships. The village spreading across the slopes with their tiny mounds of snow on top, and the two giant waterwheels give this settlement a fairytale aspect that I can’t get enough of.

Jeff was the winner of The Brothers Brick 2017 Creation of the Year and it’s well worth checking out the other builds we featured in our archives: Jeff Friesen LEGO creations.

LEGO 40450 Amelia Earheart Tribute gift with purchase set revealed [News]

Today we’re getting our first official, high-quality images of LEGO’s next tribute set, 40450 Amelia Earhart Tribute, by way of the Australian LEGO certified store. According to the Australian LEGO store, the set will be a free Gift with Purchase for customers who spend at least $199.99 AUD starting tomorrow, Feb. 22, until supplies are exhausted. There’s no word yet on the promotion details in other parts of the world. It follows on two previous tribute sets, 40291 Creative Personalities featuring Hans Christian Andersen, and 40410 Charles Dickens Tribute.

Among the most famous aviation pioneers, Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937 on her trip to circumnavigate the globe flying a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra. However, the red aircraft portrayed in the LEGO set is the Lockheed Vega 5B that she flew solo across the Atlantic in 1932 and is now on display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this courier

OK, so I know that title is the motto for the USPS, and I suspect this mail truck is meant to be from another service, but I can’t help but be reminded of the ceaseless work that mail carriers do wherever they are. This beautiful LEGO truck by Łukasz Libuszewski is just about perfect, from the little door handle made with a roller skate, to the brick-built MAIL lettering on the side. The color scheme of black, brown, and dark orange really sums it out for me, though, and gives the postal truck a vintage look beyond its stylings.

LEGO cancels VIP promotion for Creator Expert 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo & 911 Targa in North America [News]

LEGO has canceled the VIP promotion for the North American market for its upcoming Creator Expert vehicle, 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo & 911 Targa. The company says the change is due to shipping issues. The set goes on sale for LEGO VIP members this Tuesday, Feb. 16, before its wider release March 1, retailing for US $149.99 | CAN $199.99 | UK £119.99.

The new Porsche 911 kit was originally slated to ship with a “Porsche Owners Pack” for customers who purchased the set during the early VIP window. The Gift With Purchase would include a special pack of promotional materials, including a LEGO Porsche card wallet, four art prints, and a “Certificate of Awesomeness.” It appears the promotion will still be available in other markets, but it will not be offered to North American customers, leaving customers in North America to turn to resellers if they want these exclusive goodies.

Read our hands-on review of the set: TBB Review of 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo & 911 Targa
Read the original press release: LEGO announces 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo & 911 Targa

This model’s the bomb (squad)

When the bomb squad has to get up close and personal with an explosive device, the technicians will don an explosive ordnance disposal suit (AKA, a bomb suit), which is a highly reinforced set of body armor. LEGO builder Djokson has crafted a high-tech version using a variety of odd LEGO parts. The black bits are mostly rubber tires turned inside out, while the top of the helmet and the chest are opposing sides of an X-pod canister from 2004. One particularly clever bit is the knob on the chest, which is a LEGO magnet held on purely by magnetism, thanks to another magnet inside the suit.

I generally pride myself on being a parts guys and can generally recognize most LEGO elements quickly. But there’s one that’s throwing me for a loop here, so I’m going to crowdsource the answer from all of you. The green ring for the neck has me at a loss. It looks very familiar but I can’t quite put my finger on it enough to locate it on a resource like Brickset or Bricklink. So leave your guesses in the comments!

LEGO Creator Expert 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo & 911 Targa: German engineering meets Danish [Review]

As with LEGO’s Modular Buildings Collection, it’s become a yearly tradition for LEGO to add a new large-scale vehicle to the Creator Expert theme. The vehicles have ranged across a variety of car market segments, but one thing they all have in common is that they’re extremely iconic. And so it’s no surprise that this year’s entry is one of the most iconic sports cars of all time, instantly recognizable no matter your level of car knowledge. 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo & 911 Targa was revealed just two weeks ago and brings us not one but two versions of the classic sports car. With 1,458 pieces, it contains the parts to build either the performance Turbo version or the suave Targa with removable top. It will retail for US $149.99 | CAN $199.99 | UK £119.99 and will be first available to LEGO VIP members starting Feb. 16, with regular retail availability starting March 1.

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.

Click to read the full review