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

Bricks LA, Southern California’s premier LEGO convention, happening this weekend [News]

Southern California’s premier LEGO convention, Bricks LA, will be open to the public this weekend, January 6-7. Beginning Saturday, builders from around the country will gather at the Pasadena Convention Center to showcase more than 13,000 square feet of amazing creations to eager LEGO fans of all ages, and vendors will be selling vintage LEGO sets, LEGO-themed jewelry, custom gifts, and more. Tickets are only $5, with kids under 5 free, and are available online.

The show hours are 9-5 on Saturday, and 9-4 on Sunday.

The Brothers Brick is proud to be a sponsor of Bricks LA.

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.

Happy 2018 + the best LEGO of 2017 [News]

2018 has officially arrived worldwide, and this lovely monument by Pasq67 is here to help us celebrate. While we’ve seen the great technique of using 1×1 quarter circle tiles for lettering before, we hadn’t seen this super cool font made of macaroni pieces. And no matter what your favorite theme is, you’re covered here as a multitude of characters stroll through the park.

Not quite ready for 2017 to be done yet? Take a look at the best of 2017:

Builder awards:

Shortlist for Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2017

Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2017

Brothers Brick LEGO Builder of the Year 2017

Top 10 roundups:

LEGO news articles of 2017

LEGO set reviews of 2017

LEGO creations of 2017

LEGO Star Wars sets of 2017

Custom LEGO instructions of 2017

Plus also check out our favorite LEGO Star Wars creations of the year with:

16 of the best custom LEGO Star Wars creations of 2017

Build your own super cute orange LEGO fish [Instructions]

This amazingly cute little fish is a perfect showcase for how to exploit the natural shapes of LEGO bricks to form imaginative creatures. Builder gonkius uses two curved slopes meeting each other to form a perfect fish mouth, and a curved fender element suddenly looks as if it were always made to be fish fins.

However, this adorable little fish is also a perfect example of complex engineering that looks deceptively simple. Think you’re pretty good with LEGO? Maybe you can even reverse engineer some of the builds we highlight. But how many parts does it take before a model is too complex? This fish has only 39 pieces. See if you can reverse engineer this guy using only the image above.

We’ve got the instructions below if you want to skip straight to the solution and build one yourself! Let us know in the comments if you think you figured it out without the instructions.

Click to see the instructions

Oil is the lifeblood of the earth

Black gold, some call it. This striking piece by timofey_tkachev shows how humanity has drunk this precious resource at an astonishing rate since we discovered its multitude of uses, and with each new miracle we welcomed, an array of troubles followed. From the blazing infernos of uncapped wells to the broken pipelines polluting the ground, Timofey paints a picture of the horror of human technology run amok.

The face of an unknown abomination drenched in black oil springs from the ground beneath the hellish landscape. In the foreground, a streak of oil seeps toward a lighter, inching closer to Armageddon.

Only 10 days to Bricks LA, Southern California’s premier LEGO convention, Jan 6-7 [News]

Bricks LA is Southern California’s premier LEGO convention, open to the public January 6-7. Builders from around the country will gather at the Pasadena Convention Center to showcase more than 13,000 square feet of amazing creations to eager LEGO fans of all ages. Vendors will be selling vintage LEGO sets, LEGO-themed jewelry, custom gifts, and more. Tickets are only $5, with kids under 5 free, and are available online.

Bricks LA also offers a special experience for adult LEGO fans, beginning January 5. Participants will enjoy LEGO-related games, panels, prizes, and more, as well as be able to display their custom creations for the public. For more information, click here.

The Brothers Brick is proud to be a sponsor of Bricks LA.

LEGO Star Wars 75205 Mos Eisley Cantina: How does the 2018 version stack up? [Review]

As it begins to arrive, the January wave of LEGO Star Wars sets brings old familiar scenes as well as new ones. Along with numerous vehicles and locations from The Last Jedi, this wave also returns all the way back to 1977 with a new version of the Mos Eisley Cantina. Set 75205 Mos Eisley Cantina includes 378 pieces and comes with a sticker price of $39.99. It’s also the third LEGO version of the watering hole in the galaxy’s most wretched hive of scum and villainy, so we’ll see how it stacks up, both on its own and in comparison to previous versions.

Continue reading →

LEGO 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T is ready to knock your socks off

Nothing says good old American muscle like an eye-popping color finished with some matte black stripes draped over an aggressive stance. This incredible 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T by Dave Slater is loaded with the goods, featuring a full interior and engine.

Click here to see more of the Dodge Challenger

LEGO Star Wars: The Last Jedi – 75202 Defense of Crait [Review]

Although the Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi has only just arrived in theaters, LEGO is already preparing to release its second wave of sets for the film. The largest of these is 75202 Defense of Crait, which has 746 pieces and retails for $84.99, and it will officially arrive in stores January 1. This review will contain only mild spoilers for the movie, but consider yourself warned.

Read our full review of 75202 Defense of Crait

Top 10 unbelievably life-like objects made out of LEGO

We’re all used to seeing boats, spaceships, and beautiful buildings made of LEGO, but what about the everyday mundane objects of our lives? A few incredible builders can make even ordinary objects look extraordinary, forcing you to look twice lest you be fooled into thinking it’s the real thing. Here at The Brothers Brick we love stuff like this, so we’ve rounded up 10 of the best real-life objects that we’ve featured in 2017.

This Ice Cream Sandwich and Orange Creamsicle by Carl Merriam, Niek, and Milan CMadge look so good that we already feel like it’s summer.

See more unbelievably realistic LEGO creations below

We’re going to need a bigger boat

After writing our review of the giant shark-mech 70656 garmadon, Garmadon, GARMADON! from The LEGO Ninjago Movie, Elspeth De Montes was inspired to transform the shark into the most famous one of all. I mean, of course, the great white from Jaws, and Garmadon’s shark seems well suited to the role once the un-shark-like feet are removed. Add in the the back half of the Orca and some waves, and this vignette already has me humming duuuun dun…. duuuun dun…. duuuun dun….

Incredible RC LEGO Jeep is motorized, loaded with details and ready for the perfect weekend getaway

There’s nothing as great as turning your wheels off the asphalt, finding a high trail that’s little more than a path, and then driving all the way to the peak for a breathtaking view. This incredible LEGO Jeep Rubicon by Scott is so perfect it leaves me yearning for some true offroading and alpine adventure. One of the most complex models I’ve seen in a long time, this RC offroader features insane details like functioning door locks and a working glove box, plus it’s loaded to the gills with trail gear.

Check out a video of this Jeep in action below, along with more pictures. Continue reading →

Riding the rails with a LEGO WWII Army supply train

An army marches on its stomach, and it’s hard to feed a soldier without an appropriate supply route. Cutting off an enemy’s supply routes is a quick path to victory, so it’s imperative to adequately guard your own routes. Enter the armored train, ready to defend itself. Builder tablizm brings us an amazing demo model of a US Army military train, showing off a variety of cars from different eras.

Let’s take a closer look at the individual cars below.

Continue reading →