About Alexander

Alexander Alekseev is an active member of the Russian LUG since 2007. Linguist by education, he believes that LEGO pieces are the most effective mean of self-expression and communication between people.

Posts by Alexander

LEGO Batman Movie 70913 Scarecrow Fearful Face-off [Review]

It’s been months since The LEGO Batman Movie hit screens to become one of the best pictures of the year. But the party isn’t over — five more LEGO sets are just out, bringing some of Batman’s most loveable enemies. The Brothers Brick has already covered the summer wave’s flagship, 70917 The Ultimate Batmobile, but the smaller boxes still hold some surprises. 70913 Scarecrow Fearful Face-off has 141 pieces, making it the third-smallest box among the LEGO Batman Movie sets, but its retail price of $14.99 makes it a perfect choice for Bat-fans looking to add to their collection.

It’s not the first time Batman has met Scarecrow in this line. In 70910 Scarecrow Special Delivery the villain tried to break into the Gotham energy plant disguised as a pizza delivery driver. This time the bad guy shows up piloting a helipcopter and bombarding the facility with fear gas bombs.

Click to read the rest of our review

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.

Summer 2017 LEGO City sets revealed [News]

Several months ago we’ve got the very first look at the summer City sets at New York Tor Fair 2017. Now, with the official product pictures published online we can finally get ready for new adventures in the jungle, at sea, and on at the beach.

60162 Jungle Air Drop Helicopter, piece count and price to be announced later

Click to see all the new sets

The forecast for tonight: A storm of creativity

Recovering from an exhausting round of Iron Builder may require some special treatment, but Eero Okkonen is doing just fine. His latest female character Cielan, a Goddess of weather, reminds me of his memorable Four Seasons series, but features some really bold building solutions. For instance, a massive chain of rainbow colors on Cielan’s back is made from over a dozen Bionicle Vahki crests.

A motorbike in emerald green is worth two in any other color

French builder Vince Toulouse has invented a Victorian era motorcycle using dark green elements from the legendary 10194 Emerald Night train set. But there is no better way to personalize a model than with a couple of bold touches. This time these are a pair of the biggest Technic shock absorbers, which still cannot drag all the attention from a masterfully devised and executed grill on the front of the bike’s body, made with a dozen golden 1×1 rings.

LEGO Star Wars summer 2017 wave official set images [News]

Finally, official images of the complete LEGO Star Wars line-up for the upcoming summer wave are available. We brought you the first look at these sets in person at Toy Fair New York back in February. The sets will illustrate a great number of scenes and spacecraft from Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, The Freemaker Adventures TV Series, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and even Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi featuring the highly anticipated buildable figure of a scout trooper on a large-scale speeder bike. The sets should be available in June. Here’s the full list of sets published:

75180 Rathtar Escape, 836 pcs, $79.99

Click to see all the new sets

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for May 6, 2017 [News]

The start of the month of May was pretty busy here at The Brothers Brick with the celebration of May 4th (aka Star Wars Day) and some other great announcements. We don’t want you to miss any of the world’s greatest LEGO models, news and building contests, so here’s your weekly Brick Report for the first week of May, 2017.

TBB NEWS, REVIEWS & INSTRUCTIONS: This week we are excited to see a new UCS Star Wars set become available in LEGO stores, along with some pleasant deals on sets.

Detention Block Rescue (Star Wars Celebration exclusive) [Review] — Our very special review of a limited Star Wars Celebration exclusive, raffled during the official Star Wars convention in Orlando, FL.
May the 4th 2017 sales & deals from the LEGO Shop [News] — Star Wars Day was marked with the release of the massive Ultimate Collector Series Snowspeeder 75144, and continued with a free R2-D2 mini-set on orders over $50 from the LEGO Shop. Catch up with the all the latest offers and sales as they are all valid till the end of Sunday, May 7th.
Summer 2017 Ragnarök LEGO sets revealed [News] — The first pictures of two LEGO Super Heroes Thor: Ragnarök sets appeared this week online, revealing the all-new designs of our favourite Marvel characters.
LEGO Nexo Knights 70349 Ruina’s Lock & Roller [Review] — Take a look at this bizarre Nexo Knights set, which turned our to be a fresh mix of rare colours and impressive minifigures.
Registration now open for Brick Fiesta 2017 [News] — The 8th annual Brick Fiesta LEGO convention is ready to welcome its guests in Dallas, TX. Sign up to see some mesmerizing Great Ball Contraptions and many more automated LEGO creations!
LEGO typography contest – design a new typeface [News] — Our partner blog New Elementary has announced one of the most unusual building contests of the year so far — a competition of brick-built fonts using some of the recently released round tiles.
Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 in Speed Champions scale [Instructions] — This brilliant 6-studs-wide vehicle would be an awesome addition to any LEGO Town diorama.
MEKA activated! Build your own LEGO Overwatch D.Va Mech [Instructions] — Our contributor and very talented mech builder Nick Jensen shares instructions to his latest Overwatch mech.

OTHER LEGO NEWS: Besides a couple of noticeable pieces of news, this week was pretty uneventful in the LEGO themed part of the web.

Cars 3: LEGO does Lightning McQueen and crew in new sets, Yahoo Movies — An exclusive look at the new LEGO Juniors sets available in May.
Cassini: The grand finale — No historic event goes unnoticed by LEGO fans, and the conclusion of the Cassini spacecraft mission is no exception. Don’t miss this beautiful brick-built tribute to the seven year journey to the distant world of Saturn and its rings, built by a reader from Chile.

They’re good builds, Brent

Let’s face facts: cats no longer rule the Internet. Nowadays the web belongs to the man’s best friend, dogs. And Korean builder Amida Na presents us with this digitally constructed pack of LEGO woofers big enough that anybody can find the perfect companion. Personally, I would totally go with the goofy Samoyed, whose tail is incredibly fluffy despite being built with just a handful of inverted slopes and plates.

Audi R8 is the car of the future that is here today

Each top-notch sports car has its own unique face and design, and while some of them are timeless, others are way ahead of their time. For instance, such a gem as the Audi R8 won’t look obsolete even in the year 2117. Marius Herrmann masterfully captures the shapes of the vehicle in a scale slightly smaller than a regular minifigure. And thanks to the new 1×2 curved slopes Marius created an amazingly smooth front part of the car’s body, which in my opinion is the best part of the model. Crowned with a tiny Audi logo, this little beauty is as charming as any other huge detailed copy of a car.

Pushing the limits of interplanetery design with COSMO Engineering

Volker Brodkorb uses some of the finest techniques for a proper presentation of a new LEGO creation. Not only did he publish some eye-catching pictures of the spacecraft, but also called it a prototype and furnished illustrations with a pretty captivating background story about the COSMO Engineering Corporation and their latest spacecraft. Now I’m simply irritated I can’t read more about COSMO and see more of their vessels! But at least we have this beautiful HyperStar runner featuring some fairly simple, yet so smooth curves.

Do you want to build some BrickHeadz...?

Disney’s Frozen left us with a couple of heavy earworms still playing in the very background of our minds, but CK HO doesn’t let our favourite winter characters go. Recreated in the style of BrickHeadz, Elsa and Anna (featuring Olaf and Swen) do not look as excited as the versions by YOS Lego we featured previously, but this time they include not only bananas, but also some croissants.

Looking for a private spacecraft? Hokkien jumper is your best choice

There is a certain type of LEGO builder who never runs out of ideas and concepts. Adrian Florea is one of them. When you’ve seen hundreds, thousands of brick-built starships and nothing excites you anymore, you visit Adrian’s photostream and — surprise! — here’s a new one, even more bizarre and alien than any other. And the longer you stare at the picture, the less sure you are about how this pretty ugly thing grabbed all of your attention. The only thing that bothers me right now — where can I sign up for a ride?

Nine chapels of St. Basil’s Cathedral are a marvelous example of LEGO microscale architecture

Markus Rollbühler is a LEGO product designer based in Billund, Denmark. Despite spending his weekdays working with LEGO pieces, Markus challenges himself to build microscale versions of the world’s most famous cathedrals in his spare time. His very special series of architectural masterpieces featuring Frauenkirche Dresden and Santa Maria della Salute is now joined by a marvelous copy of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, Russia.

St. Basil’s Cathedral is famous for its nine chapels of vibrant colors. Markus did an amazing job recreating each of them in a unique building style using bricks, hoses, slopes, and tiles of over a dozen different colors. However, the most genius trick of the build is nine sonic screwdrivers right from Doctor Who sets used as crosses on top of the chapels.

And, of course, the cathedral is totally worth checking out from all angles — make sure you visit Markus’ photosream for more high-res pictures!