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

The mighty walls of Carcassonne

For about the past decade, LEGO castle builders have trended towards what I like to call a ramshackle aesthetic, with precariously towering walls and gravity-defying roofs attached with a song and a prayer. It’s natural that builders would flex their chops in that manner, as that painterly style requires a great deal more skill than the simple, studs-up brick walls of classic castle sets and many early castle builders. However, equally difficult is building more traditional, real-world castles and avoiding the dreaded “grey wall syndrome” of thoroughly boring architecture. Isaac Snyder‘s walls of Carcassonne accomplishes this excellently, featuring a short segment of the French city’s fortifications. The walls and even roofs are no less detailed than any you’d find in the more ramshackle style, yet are thoroughly grounded in authentic style.

Perhaps next time Isaac can include a road though, as I’ve been needing a straight wall segment with a road to complete my city for ages!

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LEGO Speed Champions 2019 sets revealed; includes Mini Coopers and more [News]

The next wave of LEGO’s Speed Champions theme has been revealed on Amazon France. Though the products aren’t available to order yet, this is our first official look at the new lineup of cars, which spans the breadth of the automotive landscape from compacts and muscle cars to supercars. There’s no word on the precise price points for these sets yet, but they should be officially available January 1. However, we can expect to see them trickle into retailers in the final weeks of December. We’ll also be publishing reviews of these sets even earlier than that, so stay tuned in the coming weeks for our hands-on coverage.

75890 Ferrari F40 Competizione | 198 pieces | January 2019

Click to see the rest of the sets

Sculpting the sculptor

An artist’s work is never done, but even when the stone block is still half rough from the quarry, there’s room to marvel. Gabriel Thomson‘s rugged craftsman may be working with a harder medium than Gabriel himself, but it’s nonetheless a reflection of the skill involved in art, be it made of marble or LEGO. And speaking of skill, the horse head is fantastically sculpted, but no less so than the workman with his thick beard and toned arms.

No one builds like Gaston

We recently covered Mike Nieves‘ excellent Belle from Beauty and the Beast, but of course, she needs an antagonist. Now Mike is back to bring us everyone’s favorite Disney chump, Gaston. With ludicrously bulging muscles and a smarmy grin, this LEGO sculpt captures the essence of Gaston perfectly as he shows off for a disinterested Belle. The little bit of scenery ties it all together, with an excellent stump that even includes tree rings.

It’s time to get medieval

LEGO fansite Classic Castle’s annual Colossal Castle Contest is upon us yet again. Now in its 16th year, this long-running contest draws out scores of world-class builders. We’ve got our eyes on all the contenders, but the one that caught my eye today is Isaac Snyder with a pair of simple yet elegant medieval builds. While modest in both scale and intent, Isaac has crafted a wonderful slice of middle-age urbanism, with neatly designed houses crowding over a packed street. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Isaac has opted for a refreshingly clean aesthetic, eschewing the now-common jumbled style of bricks at crazy angles and roofs mere moments from collapse.

Next, Isaac moves to the countryside while retaining the same tidy style, bringing us a happy cottage on a streambank. The wattle and daub architecture is expertly accomplished, and the little touches like the chicken coop give life to the scene.

LEGO 10268 Vestas Wind Turbine is back as the newest Creator Expert set [Review]

Since its inception, the LEGO Creator Expert line has come to be recognized by its advanced building techniques and great value. However, as statistics teaches us, in every group there are bound to be outliers. Enter 10268 Vestas Wind Turbine, a set that sticks out from the crowd in every sense. A re-rerelease of set 4999 from 2008, which only saw limited release to Danish energy company Vestas’ employees, the new set has 826 pieces and is priced at $199.99. It will be available beginning on Black Friday (Nov. 23).

Click to read the full hands-on review of this set

How to tame your dragon

This LEGO dragon tamer by Jayfa may not be a reference to everyone’s favorite dragon-taming movies by Dreamworks (or the books that preceded them), but it’s nonetheless epic. The tamer himself is a mashup of claw- and tooth-shaped elements that somehow weave together into awesome armor, and there’s no denying that having greaves made of dragon skulls must give you an edge in intimidating the beasts.

But the real masterpiece here is the dragon with its vivid magenta highlights. From the exceptionally clever brick-built eye (made with a white rod element flanked by two yellow minifigure hands) to the armor plating down the neck made of robot arms and teeth, everything works together beautifully to give the creature grace and personality.

Metal Gear Solid V’s Pequod UTH-66 Blackfoot in LEGO

When you need to get somewhere fast in Metal Gear Solid V, you can always count on Pequod, the callsign for the Solid Snake’s chopper transport. Seen here in its sea-grey color-scheme, the fictional UTH-66 Blackfoot is a huge helicopter that draws heavily on real-world inspiration, and nowhere have we seen a better LEGO version than this one by Marius Herrmann. He’s has made sculpting the compound curves of the accurate minifigure-scale cockpit look easy.

Outfitted with multiple weapons and a long refueling probe, this LEGO chopper is one of the best pieces of realistic military machinery we’ve seen recently.

Bringing back monorail

It’s time to turn back the clocks, then turn them forward again, as we travel to a retro view of the future where flying cars totally exist and all mass transit is in stylish monorails like this sweet LEGO version by Tammo S. With nifty brick-built lettering adorning the sides and a crazy bit of fantastic retro aesthetic with a prop and fins on top, this monorail is ready to guide us to the future. While my favorite design element is the rounded corners of the passenger windows, don’t overlook the fact that the cockpit is built at a crazy angle, which is no mean feat.

It’s a long road ahead

Route 66 is the mother of all highways in the USA, cutting across the nation from coast to coast through small towns and scenic vistas. Though it’s since been eclipsed by the interstate highway system, it’s captured a special place in history for making the trans-American highway a reality. LEGO builder hachiroku24 brings us back to Route 66’s glory days with an awesome rendition of the highway marker sign, part mosaic and part sculpture. The excellent use of the 4×4 quarter-circle macaroni tiles lends both the numbers and shield outline just the perfect curves.

TBB Cover Photo for November 2018

This month’s cover photo is brought to us by Devid VII. The scene, which features a lone spaceman in a hangar bay. Devid’s shot was taken while he was still building the setting for his final presentation of the awesome maintenance mech we featured, but what drew us to this work-in-progress scene is how well it highlights Devid’s meticulous detailing on the background.

Want to see your own LEGO creation featured across TBB social media for a month? Then read the submission guidelines and send us your photo today. Photos that do not meet the submission guidelines will not be considered, and will be removed from the group.

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A spaceship that resonates with us

Space builder Nick Trotta is one of the undisputed masters of minifigure-scale LEGO spacecraft. A fastidious perfectionist, Nick builds and rebuilds each of his models, tweaking every detail before finally letting the world see the finished result. It’s always worth the wait, however, as this new spaceship evidences.

The simple geometric shapes belie the ridiculous amount of engineering needed to achieve them. The technique that always grabs my attention (Nick has used it before) is the use of panels to create the white leading edge on the wings, cleverly hiding any unsightly joints and gaps. Plus, there’s the awesomely retro color scheme, with my favorite detail being the “health” bar on the ship’s nose beneath the cockpit.