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

Avengers: Infinity War LEGO BrickHeadz: Iron Man, Thanos, Star-Lord, & Gamora [Review]

By now, nearly everyone is familiar with BrickHeadz: the chubby cubic caricatures of various pop culture franchise icons. Introduced in 2016 with four limited edition sets, BrickHeadz didn’t become widely available until last year, but in just that short time the theme has spawned 40 different characters. All BrickHeadz are numbered in the same sequence, regardless of the franchise they belong to, and the lastest lineup of superheroes hail from Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War and are numbered 35-38, slotting in right before Han Solo and Chewbacca that we recently reviewed. The four sets have part counts ranging from 101 to 136, and each retails for $9.99 USD.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these superhero (and supervillain) characters. Although these characters are from Avengers: Infinity War, this review will be spoiler free.

Click to read the full review

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I say, I think you’ve spilled some Guardians of the Galaxy in my Star Wars!

Builder aido k says he just liked the colors on this wonderful LEGO rendition of a Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-2400, but I like to think this is what the Guardians of the Galaxy’s Milano would look like if they lived in a different galaxy.

Kingfisher YT-2400

The YT-2400’s design may look familiar, as it’s a cousin to the YT-1300, whose most famous example is the Millennium Falcon. In fact, Aido was inspired by the recent UCS Millennium Falcon, and has even whipped up a lovely information plaque to accompany the ship. Although the model is still just a digitally rendered version, Aido has plans to build the model with real bricks, and it looks as if he’s been careful to use only part/color combinations that exist. Now where’s our Jedi Groot?

Kingfisher Angles

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Incredible minifigure-scale LEGO model of Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced is probably the most accurate ever

LEGO builder Jarek is pretty much the undisputed king of Star Wars ships, routinely making the most accurate and gorgeously intricate vehicles from a galaxy far, far away ever to be built of bricks. He’s been on a roll lately with the Imperial Navy, starting with a TIE Fighter and TIE Interceptor, then upgrading to the heavy TIE Bomber. But now Jarek’s moved up the chain even further, to Darth Vader’s personal spacecraft, the prototype TIE Advanced.

Darth Vader's TIE/x1 Advanced

Click to see more of this incredible TIE Advanced

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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for April 29, 2018 [News]

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the final week of April 2018.


TBB NEWS: It’s a week of summer fun for LEGO fans, with not one but two brand new roller coaster sets revealed, along with several other new sets such as the long-awaited City Hospital and an outdoor-themed people pack.


TBB REVIEWS: We close out our reviews of the new LEGO Star Wars sets from Solo: A Star Wars Story and look ahead to Star Wars Day on May 4th.


OTHER LEGO NEWS: There were a few other LEGO news articles from varying places around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:

Read the rest of LEGO news from around the web

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LEGO Jurassic Park 25th anniversary set 75932 Jurassic Park Velociraptor Chase [Review]

Despite what your 12-year-old neighbor thinks, movies about theme parks set in artificial dinosaur habitats didn’t start in 2015 with Jurassic World starring Chris Pratt. They started back in 1993 with the Steven Spielberg classic Jurassic Park, based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. And as part of this year’s wave of LEGO sets tying into the latest sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, LEGO isn’t missing the opportunity to celebrate Jurassic Park’s 25th anniversary by taking us back to Isla Nublar. 75932 Jurassic Park Velociraptor Chase includes 360 pieces, and is available beginning April 16 for $39.99 USD from the LEGO Shop Online.

Read our full review of 75932 Jurassic Park Velociraptor Chase

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

How I built a 20,000-piece LEGO rice plantation inspired by The LEGO Ninjago Movie [Guest Feature]

Today we’re pleased to welcome Anu Pehrson as a guest contributor to give a special introduction to her latest creation. We spoke with Anu last year about her amazing models, which range from a monastery in Bhutan to the Iron Islands from A Game of Thrones. Her newest model, Master Wu’s Rice Plantation, is just as amazing. She worked on the 20,000-piece model over 3 months, and she’s documented for us the process of how a creation like this goes from idea to completion.

The diorama is enormous, at nearly four feet on each side, and includes multiple buildings, a river, beautiful trees, and lots of incredible landscaping up the staggered terraces of rice paddies.

The Building of Master Wu’s Rice Plantation

By Anu Pehrson

I wanted to build something in the Japanese architectural style, perhaps some smaller cottages where I could try different building techniques for the windows, wall patterns, roofs, and porch railings. I thought a village-like setting for these cottages would be the ideal layout. The second thing I was interested in trying was terraced agricultural fields, and rounded terraces that are used for rice farming in East Asia seemed like an interesting challenge. So bringing these two ideas together formed the basis of this MOC (My Own Creation). I also wanted to build a working gondola from a lower level to a higher level (but that hasn’t happened yet).

The LEGO Ninjago Movie was just being released as I was building this MOC, therefore, it seemed like perfect timing for to create a place for Master Wu to teach and practice with his disciples.

The starting point was a body of water. For any MOC with landscaping, I think a water body adds color and texture. The important part is to make the water interesting. There are a great many methods of doing this, but I began with using blue in the center and different shades of blue on the edges. At this point, I didn’t know how I was going to add to it, but I later added transparent 1×1 plates in a few shades over top of the blue plates.

The next step was to build stone curved walls for the terraced rice fields. However, it turned out that curved walls were very difficult to build upon as terraces.
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The Ma.K. mech with no neck

Maschinen Krieger-style mecha are a common theme among LEGO builders, but this one by Marco Marozzi has a particularly grotesque look that sets it apart from the crowd. With no neck and a large canon where you’d expect a head, the Carabinieri NSA support Mecha – Ma.k 8 looks like the sort of grisly machine you’d see patroling around District 9. Marco has made great use of multiple sand green elements from the short-lived Ben 10 theme’s Swampfire, and dotted it all over with repurposed minifigure tools.

Carabinieri NSA support Mecha – Ma.k 8

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for April 8, 2018 [News]

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the second week of April 2018.

TBB NEWS, REVIEWS, & INSTRUCTIONS: LEGO announced a new UCS set, and we take a look at several sets from the upcoming Star Wars film, along with a peek at what’s coming for Harry Potter.

See what else happened in the world of LEGO this week

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Tripping the light fantastic with this Tron cycle

Hot on the heels of the official duo of cycles from Tron: LegacyFictitious Pasta brings us this epic microscale version of the bike from the original Tron film. The simple setting with scattered rocks and a gleaming light streak is perfect for the digital frontier. And in a twist that seems particularly appropriate, this model exists only in digital form, as the scene is an excellent CGI render.

........I got In

This model may be tiny, but don’t miss the excellent large-scale version of the same vintage Tron bike we also featured recently.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

M-Tron sifts the desert sands from this huge new mining facility

M-Tron is known throughout the galaxy for its abundant use of magnets, even deriving their name from the self-attracting rocks. But where do all those rocks come from? A giant metallic asteroid? No, intrepid M-Tron miners harvest the magnetic grains from the desert sands of alien worlds. This mining outpost was a collaboration between Wami Delthorn and Tim Goddard, with a few additional models by Jeremy Williams and Alec Hole.

Dig

Don’t be deceived, it’s much larger than it looks at first glance, as this night shot of the whole base shows.

Moston Substation B

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LEGO BrickHeadz from Solo: A Star Wars Story — 41608 & 41609 Han Solo & Chewbacca [Review]

Adorably cute or cringingly ugly—no matter your position on LEGO’s BrickHeadz characters, there’s no denying they’ve struck a chord with a great many fans. Since the first BrickHeadz characters a few years ago, LEGO has rapidly expanded the cast of blocky brick-built figures. They’ve even just released a kit allowing you to fully customize your own—41597 Go Brick Me. But like nearly all the previous sets, the latest lineup mostly features characters from major franchises. And although Star Wars is arguably the biggest franchise of them all, the characters we’re looking at today hail from an offshoot: Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opens May 25. 41608 Han Solo and 41609 Chewbacca have 141 and 149 pieces respectively, and each retails for $9.99 USD, and are available now.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO 71021 Collectible Minifigures Series 18 Feel Guide [Review]

Collectible Minifigures Series 18 are officially available now, and this series will be among the most popular ever. We brought you a thorough review of the whole set of party-themed characters a few weeks ago to help you decide which characters you want, and now it’s time to help you find them. Whether you want all 17 characters or just that one awesome minifigure, you’ll have a few options.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.