Posts by Theo Spencer

Latest LEGO Ideas set 21354 Twilight: The Cullen House unveiled [News]

The next set in the LEGO Ideas line of fan-submitted creations has been unveiled today, and it’s one for movie and book fans alike! Based on the popular Twilight saga, 21354 Twilight: The Cullen House depicts the abode of protagonist and vampire Edward Cullen. Fan designer Nick Micheels’ original submission was one of the quickest ever to reach the required 10,000 votes, doing so in just 48 hours. Having been turned into an official LEGO set, it now consists of 2,001 pieces and counts Edward Cullen and Bella Swan among its 7 minifigures. General release is on February 4, but you can pre-order it right now for US $219.99 | CAN $279.99 | UK £189.99.

More pictures and LEGO’s press release are right here!

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.

A beautiful bird and a praise-worthy pun

As much as we like coming up with witty comments about the LEGO builds we feature on TBB, sometimes, the original title says it all. A tip of the hat to Mike Sinclair, who has conjured up a superb ornithological pun to go with this creation: “No Egrets.” But even referring to it just as a great blue heron – which bird this depicts – would have been accurate enough. It’s immediately recognisable as a heron, the blue plumage is wonderfully textured, and it does indeed look great! Impressively, the heron’s full weight is balanced on just one leg and a reed towards the back. Together the reeds, water, and a hidden dragonfly elevate this build from a brilliant bird to a terrific tableau of nature. Bravo, Mike!

No Egrets

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.

Hardsuits: the only hobby more expensive than LEGO

Some sci-fi builds would have us believe that future militaries are full of mechanized robots mass-produced by corporations. And looking at LEGO builder Devid VII‘s grey hardsuit here, you might be forgiven for thinking that’s where this machine comes from. But the forced-perspective backdrop and accessories in the foreground tell an altogether different story. This is no military production line! It’s just a hands-on young man tinkering away in his workshop. He just happens to build hardsuits in his spare time. Think Big Hero 6, but… Er, less cuddly.

Hunter Seven

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.

And you will know us (this LEGO build) by the trail of dust

Take it from me: there are few things as epic in life as seeing a rally car going full pelt over a jump. Mike Sinclair has added a LEGO freeze-frame to the gallery of big sends!  Mike says he studied a variety of rallies to come up with the layout, and I’m reminded of the famous Fafe jump at Rally de Portugal. And as jumps go, that’s probably the best of the lot! The highlight of the scene is the trail of dust that this particular car is leaving in its wake, but the details are just as realistic. The banner across the apex of the jump, the many cameras ready to capture the moment, and the distance markers for those crews looking for bragging rights. In fact, the only thing missing is… Er, the co-driver?! That’s some drive if it’s all been done without pacenotes!

Eat My Dust

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.

A terrifying tree (and a lesson in awful alliteration)

Its name might not be as catchy as Whomping Willow, but you still won’t want to get too close to talented Ukrainian LEGO builder Illia Zubashev (AKA Dwalin Forkbeard)’s “Mysterious Shrub”. Just ask the two soldiers in this scene! One is being dragged under by the tree’s roots, and I fear the other may not last much longer. Perhaps that’s why it hasn’t earned a catchy name – no-one lives long enough after meeting its gaze to give it one. Thankfully, Illia’s diorama is built at a safe distance, so we can ponder the question ourselves. The Swallowing Spruce? The Odious Oak? The Brutalising Birch? I would find out what type of tree it is, but I’m not about to ask it to find out…

The Mysterious shrub

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.

Heating up a LEGO House with the help of hardy Harald

Up here in the northern hemisphere, we’re properly in the depths of winter now, and this LEGO build from Jaka Kupina is here to remind us of the fact that it’s cold outside. Or is it? Certainly we’re in colder climes here: all that nicely clumped snow is a dead giveaway. But this is a house built for such weather, with a touch of Germanic or Scandinavian flair to last the winter. Its owner (that would be Harald) looks well-prepped, too – all that luscious black hair is sure to keep some heat in. Not that he might need it! He’s busy chopping firewood to warm up all those wintry nights. And that in itself will be enough to warm him up!

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.

The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2024 [News]

Last week, we introduced our shortlist of 10 creations that were in the running to earn a coveted title: that of our favourite LEGO creation of the year. Narrowing it down to that list was hard enough – there is so much talent in the LEGO community! Over the past week, we’ve had the unenviable task of picking out a winner. In our round-up of the TBB readers’ (hey! That’s you!) favourite LEGO moments of 2024, we were struck by how many people had listed conventions as their highlight of the year. After all, that is the best place for community – and to see jaw-dropping builds in person. Our winner this year is one such build, one that made a real impression on us both in the brick and online. It’s epic in size and scale, being made up of nearly 7,000 pieces. It’s wonderfully sculpted, with an entirely brick-built inner frame. And all that in an incredibly limited colour palette: gold!

And after all, it is the year of the dragon. Donny Chen‘s Golden Dragon is The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2024!

Read what else impressed us about Donny’s dragon!

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.

The Brothers Brick LEGO Builder of the Year 2024 [News]

That weird period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve is coming to an end. Normally a stretch where time seems to disappear, here at TBB Towers we’ve used the intervening week to whittle down our LEGO Builder of the Year shortlist. Making that list was a heck of a job in and of itself! But while everyone was pitching their nominees, and we had our discussions, there was one name that kept on cropping up. A builder who demonstrated creative flair, made clever use of unusual parts, and did so to an exceptionally high standard. Most impressive of all, it was all done with remarkable consistency – we wrote about their creations a whopping 19 times across the year.

That builder, and The Brothers Brick LEGO Builder of the Year 2024, is Maxx Davidson!

Here are some of our favourites among Maxx’s many highlights…

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’s Top 10 LEGO set reviews of 2024 [Feature]

It’s that time when everyone – including us at the Brothers Brick – is doing a Year in Review. We’ve already done that to an extent: shortlists for our Creation of the Year and Builder of the Year awards, plus the 10 most popular creations to feature on our website. But what about our Year in Reviews, plural? Hundreds of LEGO sets were released this year, and our critical eye passed over 89 of them. Inevitably, some were more popular than others, both with our reviewing team and you, the readers! We’ve crunched the numbers, and these were our 10 most popular review articles from 2024. And if you missed any, check out our complete reviews archive for this year and beyond!

Continue reading →

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.

Beam me up, Master Chief!

Oh, have I mixed up my franchises again? Maybe I should lay off the eggnog during my Halo Infinite playing sessions. I immediately recognised Ben Brickson‘s superb LEGO beam emitter as being from that universe. It looks remarkably more peaceful than I’ve become accustomed to, though… Perhaps the Covenant are still on their Christmas vacation. Or they got accidentally beamed up by a passing USS Enterprise. I mean, it’s perfectly feasible that they would come across a Halo installation, right? They’re only separated by a few hundred years. Wait, maybe the phasers are where they got the idea for their plasma weapons! Or – OK, OK, I’m putting the eggnog down now…

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.

Being a cantankerous heckling Muppet really takes it out of you

What does Statler get up to after a hard day’s heckling? According to Jens Ohrndorf‘s LEGO build, having a nice quiet evening in. Slippers on, tea in the pot, cat ready to pounce on his lap when he’s done with the paper – it must make a nice change of pace to having Waldorf around. And he’s lucky to have such a nicely-built front room! The lamp is very nice, with a piece normally reserved for starship engines doubling as a shade. And the grandfather clock goes from four studs wide, to three, then two, then three, then two again – it looks fabulous!

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.

Shortlist announced for TBB Creation of the Year 2024 [News]

We cover loads of amazing LEGO builds over the course of a year on the Brothers Brick. In fact, over the course of the past 12 months, that’s over 700 individual creations! Now they’re all great, obviously – but every year, a handful really stand out to us, and we like to bestow upon one of them the Creation of the Year crown. It might be a creation that uses parts in a new and interesting way. Perhaps it’s a collaborative build, combining the talents of multiple builders to reach new heights (just like last year’s winners!). Maybe it’s so epic in scope and scale that we simply couldn’t stop thinking about it. One thing’s for sure: it will have taken our breath away! The TBB staff have trawled through their memory banks and our site archives to draw up a shortlist of 10 of our favourite builds. These won’t necessarily be the most popular – keep an eye out for that list in the coming days! – but we will announce the winner on New Year’s Eve. Read up on our nominees, and check out our previous winners in the archives!

Without further ado, let’s meet our nominees!

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.