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

20% off select LEGO on Target [News]

Did you miss all the good sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Or maybe you did find some great bargains but are ready for round 2! Whatever the case may be, here’s another chance for you to grab a deal. Target is running a sale from now until Dec. 9 giving 20% off select LEGO, including some brand new sets such as the 75204 Sandspeeder from The Last Jedi, which we recently reviewed.

[Update] It appears the sale is on select sets only, and does not include the large, hard-to-find sets we originally featured below. We apologize for this confusion—we received this information directly from Target, but the actual sale seems to differ significantly from what Target communicated to us. We’ll be more cautious with info we receive from Target in the future.

Click the banner above to browse the LEGO selection on Target.

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.

Cyber Monday brings awesome deals on LEGO to Amazon, including discounts on SHIELD Helicarrier, Simpsons Kwik-E Mart, and more [News]

We’ve already alerted you to some great deals on Amazon that began on Black Friday (not to mention the new LEGO Taj Mahal coming out today), but Cyber Monday is primed to bring even more fantastic deals from a wide range of themes, including Super Heroes, Star Wars, Simpsons, Technic, and more. Follow this link to check out all the Cyber Monday LEGO deals on Amazon, or look below for the highlights. The sale runs only for today, Nov. 27, and as always, these sales likely have limited stock and vary by country. At the time of writing, all of these are active on Amazon.com in the USA, but you won’t want to delay.

While these deals are disappearing fast, don’t forget that Amazon has a lot of great LEGO sets on sale that aren’t part of the Cyber Monday blitz, including some more than 50% off. Click here to view the non-Cyber Monday sales.

First up is Marvel Super Heroes 76042 The SHIELD Helicarrier at $244.95, which is 30% off. With a set this large, that means a savings of over $105 off the regular $349.99 MSRP.

Click below to see the rest of the deals.

Continue reading →

LEGO celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2018 by getting back to its roots with these special sets [News]

LEGO will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the plastic brick in 2018, having come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1958. The iconic interlocking bricks have led LEGO to becoming the largest toy company in the world, and LEGO seems to be reaching back to its roots with a new line of classic Creator-style sets emblazoned with the words building bigger thinking. Each set focuses on a different aspect of imagination and features a special tile printed with the 60th Anniversary logo.

Click below to see all of the sets

Continue reading →

DC Justice League LEGO BrickHeadz announced, including Wonder Woman & The Flash [News]

To celebrate the Justice League movie opening in theaters today, LEGO has announced that four characters from the Justice League are joining Star Wars as the newest franchise in the popular BrickHeadz line of buildable figures. As with past BrickHeadz, each character will retail for $9.99 USD when they’re available beginning in January.

See each of the Justice League characters below

A truly tiny village in the mountains

Break out your magnifying glass for Patrick B‘s mountain village. This miniscule hamlet has a distinct architectural style, with black-clad longhouses of a faintly nordic design. From the palisade wall made of Technic pins to the longhouse butresses made of teeth and a crossbow, Patrick has put all manner of elements to good use.

While the pickaxe as a tiny footbridge is quite clever, and the scraggly wizard’s tower made of robot hands looks appropriately sinister, my favorite details are definitely the covered wagons made with half-round 1×1 tiles. The grooved edges of the tiles fit perfectly as wagon bows under the grey bonnet, and the tile’s hollow underside gives the illusion of an interior.

There’s always a bigger brick

After highlighting the instructions for Hoang Dang’s awesome air compressor, TBB Senior Contributor Elspeth De Montes was totally pumped up to create this visual gag using Modulex, System, and Duplo elements. We don’t usually post comics, but I guess we’ll let this one float; after all, she was just trying to expand her LEGO collection to keep up with the price of inflation.

By the dragon’s bones, this one’s a terror

Builder Jayfa is a Bionicle- and constraction-system whiz, and one of his latest technological terrors is this bone beast from the beyond. The skeleton dragon employs rows upon rows of tiny teeth for the vertebrae, and a marvelously sculpted head using largely classic System bricks perfectly incorporated into the constraction elements in the body. The aggressive pose helps bring the beast to life (or should that be undeath?), and Jayfa notes that it took a few revisions to get the creature to stand without supports, strengthening the legs and adjusting the balance.

LEGO reveals Star Wars BrickHeadz exclusive for New York Comic Con [News]

LEGO is releasing another exclusive set for this year’s New York Comic Con, revealed today to be the first Star Wars BrickHeadz. Set 41498, Boba Fett & Han Solo in Carbonite, has 329 pieces and will be sold for $40, but is only available at the convention. There’s no word on how many sets will be available, but it’s likely to be a very small number.

Update: read our review of this set.

Continue reading about the Star Wars BrickHeadz

Like an angel hurtling through the heavens at mach 3

With its sleek fuselage and arrowhead profile, the Seraphim reconnaissance jet by Corvin Stichert seems to resemble the stepping stone between the SR-71 Blackbird and the SSV Normandy SR-1 from Mass Effect. Although the builder had more of the former in mind when building, surely it’s ultrafast aircraft like this that will eventually eliminate the boundary between sky and space. Corvin puts all the curved slopes and wedges to excellent use in shaping the body, resulting in a craft that seems primed for radar deflection rather than merely a little pixelated as a consequence of the bricks.

My favorite touch on this model is the realistic, working landing gear and ordnance bays on the underside.

Corvin has also created a full ground crew to accompany the aircraft. Now all it needs is an Area 51 hangar.

Cycling the Paris-Roubaix

The Paris-Roubaix is one of the oldest bicycle races in the world, having begun in 1896. Its famously rough cobblestone route is memorialized here by Luca Di Lazzaro as a large vignette, with carefully spaced tiles arranged to create the uneven pathway. The grim faces of the riders harken to the race’s nickname as The Hell of the North. The trees are a simple design, yet quite effective for adding a bit of greenery to the grueling route.

LEGO’s Force Friday sale drops prices on more than 30 Star Wars sets [News]

The last 24 hours have been chock full of LEGO Star Wars news, with the announcement of the new UCS Millennium Falcon and our own Millennium Falcon contest kicking off. However, that was just the prelude to Force Friday, where to celebrate the energy field that binds the galaxy together, LEGO is slashing prices across nearly the full LEGO Star Wars lineup, along with a sprinkling of other themes. Plus, LEGO is giving double VIP points during the sale and some other freebies for Star Wars purchases.

Lots of set prices are cut by 20 percent, which for some hard-to-find sets is a pretty great deal. A few dip even lower, such as the Stormtrooper Watch at 75 percent off, making it just $6.24. And even if you’ve already got some of these older sets, Star Wars: The Last Jedi LEGO sets are available beginning today, and qualify for all of the promotions.

The sale prices should be available from the LEGO Shop Online beginning at midnight Sept. 1, or shortly thereafter as LEGO’s servers update to reflect the sale. Although the sale should be active wherever the LEGO Shop Online sells, we believe this price list is only valid in the USA. Other regions should see similar price drops, though the selection may vary.

75105 Millennium Falcon, $149.99, now $119.99

Orders over $50 will get a free Scarif Trooper with a stand and placard. This is the second in a wave of new Star Wars characters with linkable stands, following R3-M2 earlier this year.

In addition, any and all Star Wars purchases will also get one of three limited edition LEGO Star Wars posters.

So just to recap: you’ll get 20% (or more) off older sets, a first go at The Last Jedi sets, a free exclusive minifigure, free exclusive poster, and double VIP points.

Click to see the full list of Force Friday sales

Star Wars: The Last Jedi LEGO sets officially revealed; available now [News]

The full range of LEGO sets for Star Wars: The Last Jedi will be available in stores and from the LEGO Shop Online beginning tomorrow, Sept. 1. We got a brief glimpse of the line back in July when a few retailers mistakenly published the images early, but now LEGO and Lucasfilm have officially taken the wraps off the theme. Today, LEGO also revealed their biggest set ever, the new Ultimate Collector Series Millennium Falcon.

75187 BB-8, 1,106 pcs, $99.99 USD, $129.99 CAD

Own your very own LEGO® BB-8! Turn the wheel to spin the head and turn another to open the hatch and see the welding torch pop out, just like it did in the movie! You can also sit BB-8 on the stand so you can show your friendly droid to all your friends when they come to visit!

Continue reading →