Posts by Theo Spencer

LEGO Icons 10353 Williams FW14B & Nigel Mansell: “And colossally, that’s LEGO Mansell!” [Review & Exclusive Designer Insights]

Modern Formula One cars are fantastically complex beasts. And yet, if you ask hardcore F1 fans what the most technologically advanced car ever is, there’s a good chance they will plump for one from 1992. The Williams FW14B is famous for enjoying its technological superiority over its rivals, with traction control and active suspension among its many innovations. This icon of 1990s F1 is now getting an official LEGO set, alongside its most famous pilot, in the form of 10353 Williams Racing FW14B & Nigel Mansell. With an RRP of US $79.99 | CAN $99.99 | UK £69.99, this 799-piece kit can be pre-ordered now ahead of its general release on March 1st. (You might also see it on eBay or Amazon thereafter.)

Our editor-in-chief Andrew Becraft visited Billund last year to talk to LEGO Icons designer (and LEGO Masters Australia victor) Gus McLaren about this set ahead of its release. So you can expect to see some interesting bits of information sprinkled throughout this review. (A shout-out too to Nicole, AKA GirlBricksALot, for joining Andrew in the interview and backing him up with some specialist F1 knowledge!)

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click here to read our review of this legendary racer!

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.

LEGO Speed Champions 77242 – 77251 Formula One car collection: is this peak Speed Champions? [Review]

Next week, the Formula One teams will emerge from their bases and hit the track for the first time in almost three months, with pre-season testing preceding the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. What better time, then, for LEGO to launch not one, not two, not even three – but 10 (yes, count them, ten!) F1 cars than on March 1st? These form part of a wider tie-in between the Danish brick company and the world’s premier motorsport series. All ten current constructors are represented, and with part counts ranging between 242 and 275, they can be pre-ordered now with an RRP of US $26.99 | CAN $34.99 | UK £22.99 each. On the surface, they all appear very similar – but are they? Will one stand out to take the chequered flag ahead of all the others? Or will the racing margins be too tight to call a winner? Read on as we build all 10 to find out!

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click here to race through 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.

Sand-red is dead! Long live sand-red!

I really like obscure LEGO colours. That includes things like aqua, neon yellow and chrome (and once upon a time, teal, which is the best colour as we all know). But by virtue of their scarcity, they rarely pop up in custom creations. So when TBB Alum Carter Baldwin‘s sand-red mech came across my desk, I was sure it was a digital creation. Not so! This is a bona fide in-the-brick build, using parts that Carter slowly accumulated over the years – apparently, the parts you see here are almost his entire collection. On the one hand, that means we won’t see many more builds in this colour palette; but on the other, it makes this one that little bit more special!

Soviet T-177 Mobile Frame

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.

LEGO Architecture 21062 Trevi Fountain: No half (stud) measures [Review]

Can you believe LEGO’s Architecture theme has been going for 17 years now? That would make it old enough to get a driving license in the UK! It’s testament to the diversity of the theme that in all those years, you can count the number of buildings to receive repeat sets on one hand. We can add another finger to that hand now, as 21062 Trevi Fountain re-visits one of Rome’s most famous landmarks. The first iteration of this set – 21020 – included 731 parts, but that number has now ballooned to 1,880 pieces in the 2025 version. It will release March 1st, but you can pre-order it from LEGO’s website now for US $159.99 | CAN $209.99 | UK £139.99. You may also be able to pick it up from eBay or Amazon, once it has released.

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

When in Rome… Read our review to visit the Trevi Fountain!

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.

Where one journey ends, another starts – or are they one and the same?

Sometimes, there is beauty in simplicity. Torger Almaas‘ debut on TBB is a LEGO build that doesn’t feature much in the way of clever parts use or innovative building methods. But what it lacks in tricksy techniques, it more than makes up for as a work of art! Considering it’s all done just one brick high, the setting sun that draws the eye looks absolutely superb. It’s a great focal point to sell the forced perspective at use elsewhere in this creation, such as the mountains or the birds flying overhead. I find myself wondering what the story is behind this lonely warrior, though. To me it seems like they’re on the way home after a long, arduous conflict – perhaps walking slightly gingerly. But they could just as easily be setting off on a journey, and that sunset could just as easily be a sunrise. What story do you see in this build?

IMG_20250113_203751084

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.

Not even Finch Dallow can resist this LEGO Star Wars bomber

Seven years ago, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi hit theaters worldwide, and the world has never been the same since. Not because it’s a somewhat polarising film among the fanbase – but because it inspired LEGO starship phenom Tom Loftus (AKA Inthert) to create a model of the bulky Resistance Bomber from the opening sequence. And it’s only now that we finally get to see the fruits of that labour! It’s a fantastically detailed model, as per Tom’s usual sky-high standard. It’s some way bigger than the set LEGO made of it too, even though it uses some of the same printed turret dishes.

Resistance Bomber

That LEGO set (75188 Resistance Bomber, if you’re curious) is infamous among enthusiast circles for the late addition of a character named Finch Dallow – a name that strikes terror into the hearts of minifigure collectors. (You can read why here.) And sure enough, he’s present in this model too! He and his crew get a fully decked-out interior. Even the structural elements of the fuselage look to be accurate to the movie. That’s 7 years of hard work well spent, if you ask me!

Resistance Bomber Interior (2)

It’s not like Tom has only been working on this since 2018, though. You can see what else he’s been up to in our Inthert archives.

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.

Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers rendered in LEGO as newly unveiled Art set [News]

Three years ago, one of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings was turned into a LEGO set in the form of 21333 The Starry Night – part of the LEGO Ideas theme. Today, another brick-built depiction of the Dutch impressionist’s work is unveiled, but this time as part of the popular LEGO Art line: 31215 Vincent Van Gogh – Sunflowers. This new display piece depicts the fourth and perhaps most well-known painting in Van Gogh’s sunflower series. Or more specifically, a repetition thereof, created in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where the real painting is housed. Consisting of 2,615 pieces, you can hang your very own copy on the walls starting from March 1st. You can also pre-order it now at an RRP of US $199.99 | CAN $259.99 | UK £169.99. There are a host of events surrounding the product’s launch in Europe, too, so be sure to read the press release below for all the details!

More painting pictures and LEGO’s press release after the jump!

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.

AT-AT Driver becomes latest entry in LEGO Star Wars’ helmets line [News]

LEGO launched the Helmet Collection as part of their Star Wars line some five years ago, and many of the early sets depicted Imperial designs. Since then, we’ve seen Mandalorians, clones, bounty hunters and Rebel Alliance pilots. Now, we’re coming full circle to the Empire again: 75429 AT-AT Driver has today been announced as the latest entry into the Star Wars Helmet Collection. The massive four-legged walkers they drove undoubtedly left an impression when they appeared in The Empire Strikes Back, and from this March 1st you can add the AT-AT Driver helmet to your collection. With 730 pieces, it will retail for US $69.99 | CAN $89.99 | UK £69.99.

Click here to see more pictures of the AT-AT Driver!

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.

New LEGO Restaurants of the World line debuts with 10362 French Café [News]

LEGO is no stranger to depicting buildings from around the world, as evidenced by the long-standing Architecture line, among other things. But today, a new LEGO Icons set is unveiled that adds culinary flair to architectural extravagance. 10362 French Café depicts a coffee shop that you might find on a typical street corner in France. The set also features the subtitle “Restaurants of the World”, so we can speculate that it may form part of a new sub-theme of the Icons brand. With 1,101 pieces, 10362 French Café is set to hit shelves this coming March 1st, 2025 with an RRP of US $79.99 | CAN $99.99 | UK £69.99.

Check out more pictures after the jump!

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.

LEGO Creator 3-in-1 set Cute Bunny, I choose you! [Instructions]

We really like LEGO’s Creator 3-in-1 sets; our archives are full of glowing set reviews for this theme. But did you know that, once upon a time, Creator sets featured instructions for as many as 8 or 9 individual models? Flickr-based builder Jan Willem has invoked the spirit of these heady, more-than-3-in-1 days by creating a fourth build for the 31162 Cute Bunny set. In case you don’t recognise it, this is Rowlet, the grass (and, if you ask me, best) starter from the 7th generation of Pokémon games. It sure is cute! Jan has done a great job of recreating its rotund shape, especially considering he only used about three-quarters of the pieces!

ROWLET

If you fancy building your own Rowlet, Jan has made the instructions available for free download over on Rebrickable. But we’re still missing Litten and Poplio… Who fancies having a go at making alt-builds for those two?

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.

Bringing the LEGO Endurance to life: an interview with photographer Benedek Lampert [Feature]

If you ask us, one of the prettiest sets to come out last year was LEGO Icons 10335 The Endurance. But we’re not the only ones to think that! Benedek Lampert is a toy photographer with a particular affinity for LEGO. In fact, as well as conducting official photoshoots, he even appeared on the LEGO Masters TV show! But when he came across the brick-built model of Ernest Shackleton’s famous ship, his next photography project immediately became clear. And the results are stunning, fully immersing us in the Antarctic and bringing new life to this exceptional set.

But how did he go about photographing it? How did expedition snapper Frank Hurley’s famous pictures help inspire him? And how did he get involved in photography in the first place? Well, you can watch a short video below on Benedek’s setup – but we also had a chance to quiz him about this latest project! Be sure to click the link below to see more photos, behind-the-scenes, and read our interview with him!

Step this way to read our interview with Benedek!

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.

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.