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

Green and white to sail the ocean blue

What I love most about this gallant old tall ship by Sebeus I is that it’s still distinctly in the style of the classic LEGO Pirate ships I remember from the early 90s. Of course, this one is both much larger and much better detailed, but it still incorporates the large hull elements and distinctive flags along the sides for cannon ports. The custom paper sails add a great look, too.

Where this ship really shines, though, is in the stern, which is low and sleek and expertly sculpted. The ship manages to capture the deck’s curvature in a way the old sets never could. It looks just perfect to fetch some breadfruit plantings from the tropics.

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LEGO 71018 Collectible Minifigures Series 17 Feel Guide [Review]

Collectible Minifigures Series 17 are due for release May 1 at the standard price of $3.99 USD, but if previous series have been any indicator, lucky shoppers may begin finding them earlier. We’ve already some reports that they’re on sale in LEGOLAND Billund, so if you’re excited about this series, start keeping an eye out now. We brought you an early review of Collectible Minifigures Series 17 a few weeks ago, but now to help you prepare for hunting for your favorite figures, we’re providing a Feel Guide.

As is standard for the Minifigures line, 71018 Collectible Minifigures Series 17 are each packaged in a blind foil bag, preventing buyers from knowing which characters they’re purchasing. That is, unless you use your nimble fingers to prod and poke the bags into revealing their secrets. We’ve already sorted an entire case of Series 17, so we’re here to help you figure out what you’re feeling inside each bag.

Click to read the full Feel Guide

Keep your Mini running like new with this well-oiled shop

This fantastic service shop by _BrickBro_ will tune your official 10242 Mini Cooper to tip-top shape, with just a quick engine and transmission replacement. It’s got all the necessary tools and accessories to spruce up that evergreen hatchback, from replacement hubs to new steering wheels.

Based on the popular youtube series Mighty Car Mods, the shop features hosts Marty and Moog walking viewers through their top-to-bottom restoration of this cult classic car.

Click to see more of the shop

The road to Golgotha

With a minimalist microscale style, Andrew JN to evokes the worn road to Golgotha, where the Christ trod at the start of the Easter story. Andrew uses earth tones to sculpt the narrow way of this normally sleepy Jewish town. The tiny villagers and distinct Roman soldiers consist of only 3 or 4 elements each, but there’s no mistaking the angry mob surrounding a brown cross.

See the sights of Bespin in your very own Twin-Pod Cloud Car [Instructions]

Last week we brought you instructions on how to build a terrifically cute GONK droid, and this week we’re excited about the brand new trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, so we’re revisiting the Star Wars universe for one of the more unusual ships. Although only seen in a few quick shots in The Empire Strikes Back, the little Storm IV Twin-Pod “Cloud Car” struck a chord with fans, including LEGO builder hachiroku24, who’s built an awesome minifigure-scale version. LEGO produced a single minifigure-scale set of the tiny two-seater craft back in 2002, but not only was it the wrong color, it wasn’t particularly detailed. This version is much improved, adding cool details like the engine intake between the pods and smoother curves.

Best yet, the builder also gives us instructions for it in this handy video walkthrough, so you can build your own Bespin security ship.

Our browsers can’t repel cuteness of that magnitude!

Gial Ackbar is the Rebellion’s most famous admiral. Or as builder Djokson says, he’s the “screaming fish man from that one space movie”. Large aquatic eyes lend Ackbar an innate adorableness, and this version by does a fantastic job of rendering Ackbar’s stupified expression with the help of an upturned Hero Factory mask for the long forehead. I also love the simplicity of the uniform, which perfectly distils the Rebel coat using just a few elements.

LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector’s Series Snowspeeder 75144 [Review]

The T-47 airspeeder, adapted for cold weather use on Hoth, is the most memorable Rebel vehicle introduced in The Empire Strikes Back, and has been a staple of the LEGO Star Wars theme. Commonly called the Snowspeeder, this hardy little two-man craft first appeared in LEGO form in 1999, with more than a dozen variations since across a variety of scales. The latest iteration is also the largest, and the Ultimate Collector’s Series 75144 Snowspeeder packs a massive 1,703 pieces. As we announced last month, it costs $199.99 USD and is set to premiere on May the 4th (aka Star Wars Day).

Like other recent UCS sets, the Snowspeeder includes a stand, information placard, and two minifigure pilots. The displayed ship comes in at 16 inches long, 12″ wide, and 9″ tall (41 x 30 x 23 cm).

Let’s see how the Snowspeeder stacks up.

Click to read the full hands-on review

The biggest burgers in town

That hipster burger joint downtown doesn’t have anything on Big Belly Burger, where you just might have to cart your lunch back to the office on a dolly, because your 57-pound patty is too big to lift. This view of the chaotic lunch rush by Nick Sweetman gives us a quick glimpse of the biggest burger place in town. And they weren’t kidding when they said the burgers are char-broiled.

LEGO 71018 Collectible Minifigures Series 17 [Review]

With seventeen numbered series in, plus another 7 special series, LEGO Collectible Minifigures are just as popular as they were when they debuted 7 years ago. The wide cast of characters in each series, always sporting a variety of new elements, keeps fans coming over and over again. With such an open-ended theme, LEGO designers are nowhere close to running the well dry on popular and recognizable occupations for minifigures. 71018 Collectible Minifigures Series 17, which will be available beginning May 1, draws from this infinite well to add a host of interesting new characters, ranging from a Dance Instructor to a Gladiator. Aside from the box art revealed at the New York Toy Fair, we only got our first look at this series yesterday, so I was delighted to have my review case show up on my doorstep that same day. Let’s dig in, and see what Series 17 has to offer.

Click to read the full review

Official images of LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 17 revealed [News]

We got our first look at the new Series 17 figures at Toy Fair in February, but that was just the box art. Today, we get to see all the new figures displayed individually—well, all but one. LEGO is keeping one figure under close wraps, showing it as just a silhouette.
We’ll be bringing you an early, hands-on review of this series very soon, along with our usual Feel Guide to help you find the figures you want. Let us know in the comments below what character you’re looking forward to most, and if there’s anything special you’d like to see in our review. Click to see the rest of the images

First look at the LEGO Ideas Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket coming in June [News]

LEGO announced last summer that the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket would be among the future projects turned into an official set from the crowdsourcing platform LEGO Ideas, targeting a tentative release date of summer 2017. Today LEGO has released a teaser image of the Saturn V, giving us our first official look at the final model. They’ve also confirmed a June release for the set.

Although LEGO has given no indications yet on piece count or pricing, it’s clear the model will be massive, and significantly larger than the 2003 Saturn V Moon Mission set. Judging by the scale we can see in the photo above, the rocket will likely stand more than two feet tall, with the main rocket stage about 12 studs in diameter.

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The Ministry’s Floo Network makes commuting easy for Arthur Weasley

There’s nothing great about morning commutes, but they might a bit more tolerable if you have access to the Floo Network, like Ron Weasley’s father, Arthur. He uses it daily to commute to the Ministry, and this fantastic LEGO vignette of Arthur stepping out of the Network by Eero Okkonen is perfect.

The green flames licking Arthur’s legs are actually Duplo grass elements, a piece we’ve been seeing a lot of lately, as it’s the mandatory element in the latest round of Iron Builder. Yesterday we featured a lovely sitting room using the element, and we’ve previously seen it as a flying carpet, a hut’s roof, a cyborg dinosaur, and a very clever medical device.