Posts by Theo Spencer

A Colibri of the highest calibre

I do sometimes wonder where Andreas Lenander gets his inspiration for some of his more fantastical LEGO creations. Part of the fun is taking a guess, and for this one, I’m somehow getting a vibe of mythical Mesoamerican deities. It looks like some form of bird, but equally, it also looks like… Not quite a bird? The strange foliage and dragonfly-esque creature next to it certainly evoke somewhere exotic. Perhaps it’s a cousin of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. As a matter of fact, Andreas has named this piece ‘Kolibri’, and Wikipedia tells me that Colibri is a genus of birds with brightly-coloured plumage from Central and South America. Hey, maybe my hunch isn’t that far off after all!

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.

‘M’ is for Marvelous Magnetic Mech

What’s your favourite LEGO space theme? I think mine would have to be M:Tron. The colours! The vehicles! The magnets! Over on Flickr, user legomess ticks off all three with this modern take on the theme. They’ve done a great job of blending classic parts (like the magnet holders and neon-green windscreen) with newer ones. The overall design is neat, too. I like how such a big, bulky walker wanders around on its tiptoes!

Naturally, it wouldn’t be M:Tron without a bit of magnetic play action. The ‘M’ in M:Tron may have stood for ‘magnet’, but in this case it’s equally apt for it to mean ‘massive’, ‘mecha’, or simply ‘magnificent’!

We need to go bigger with our digger!

When it comes to enormous LEGO machinery, there are few modelers out there better than Dennis Bosman. So when he turns his hand to an excavator that’s already pretty hefty by industrial plant standards, you know it’s going to be great. And when he combines it with a truck that was impressive enough to be featured on its own a few months ago, that results are downright spectacular. Not to mention enormous – this whole thing is some 1.75m (5’10) long. On a good day, that’s almost as long as I am tall!

When we first featured the lorry, it had a skip on the back rather than a flatbed trailer. But make no mistake, this whole convoy was designed as a unit! Dennis tells us that the trailer is used by H.C. Wilson – which is a real company – in the UK. So it’s feasible that this could be seen trundling up and down the motorways and highways, transporting the Liebherr 964 to its next big job. Speaking of which – here’s a closer look at it! If you want a clue as to how big this colossus is, that guard on the windscreen is a 9×13 lattice piece. Yeah, this is big!

Taking the micro out of microscale

This here is a microscale LEGO CN Tower, as built by Flickr user q_159. Now microscale builds are usually small, right? It is in the name after all. And this is built to a miniscule 1:400 scale, which makes the cars at its base barely two studs long. But the thing you need to remember about the CN Tower is that it’s really frickin’ tall – over half a kilometre. And as a result, this tiny LEGO model is not that tiny at all, clocking in at 3,000 pieces and nearly 1.4 m (four-and-a-half feet)! Small but mighty, indeed.

LEGO announces initiatives to support neurodivergent individuals in stores [News]

The LEGO Group has today announced that they will be implementing a series of measures to make life easier for autistic and neurodivergent children and adults in their brick-and-mortar stores. Work is being carried out with KultureCity, a charity whose aim is to facilitate the implementation of such measures. This is actually not the first time the two firms have worked together; the LEGO House, in Billund, Denmark, has already received KultureCity’s stamp of approval for sensory inclusivity. The aim is for all stores in the USA and Canada to get the same certification this April, with more locations worldwide to follow later in the year.

The LEGO Life Magazine will also receive some minor updates to make it more accessible for everyone. And the LEGO Foundation has also announced five new partners in their Play for All Accelerator program:

Social Cipher: a video game platform focused on social and emotional learning for the neurodivergent.
Kokoro Kids: A platform in Spanish, Portuguese, and English dedicated to using play for developing emotional skills early on in kids.
Mom’s Belief: an Indian-based organization (the largest in the country) approaching the education of neurodivergent children in a holistic manner.
onebillion: a software publisher dedicated to publishing reading and math resources designed to help those children in most need.
Little Journey: Using technology to bring a sense of ease to families with children amid the healthcare process.

Read the LEGO Group’s press release on these initiatives after the bump

Fight or flight? This pteranodon has chosen both!

Sure, you might be cool. But are you chasing-conquistadors-on-a-pteranodon-through-the-jungle cool? Oh, you’re the guy who bulit this – Mihał Ch (BardJaskier). Then yes, you certainly are! Those Imperial soldiers probably didn’t sign up for fighting flying dinosaurs. I’d say they want to watch where they’re running, though. Mihał’s jungle is well-built and dense with vegetation. If it can conceal a creature that’s supposedly been dead for millions of years in its canopy, I dread to think what’s lurking in the river that they’re running straight towards…

Smile for the tachi-camera!

A problem I sometimes have when building with LEGO is that I think too much. Not about life in general – I have a slot in my schedule for existential crises about the struggles of modern life already. What I mean is when I started building something for Marchikoma (the LEGO think tank-themed month), I was thinking about the practicalities of what I was going to build. Will it be armed? Should the legs be armoured? How many will it have, for that matter? And what will I do for the head? Well, for that last one, I came across some smiley faces from a Dots expansion pack. And suddenly, my only criteria became ‘smiley face and big gun’ – which was much more enjoyable to make. Sometimes, it’s better to turn down the brain and let a silly idea lead the way!

LEGO Space Collectible Minifigure series revealed [News]

Thanks to UK LEGO retailer The Minifigure Store, we’ve been treated to our first look at the next Collectible Minifigure (CMF) series. 71046 Minifigures Space Series 26 is the latest LEGO offering to bear the ‘Space’ banner, and as you might have guessed, the series is fully Space-themed. There’s a mixture of new designs and references to classic LEGO Space themes, such as M-Tron or Ice Planet 2002. Availability starts from May 1st, and while there is no official word on RRP, we expect it will follow the usual CMF pricing of US $4.99 | CAN $5.99 | UK £3.49.

We don’t have individual pictures of the figures yet, either – but you can see them in more detail after the jump.

Continue reading →

Miniature architecture for the discerning multi-millionaire

Are you the owner of a successful tech conglomerate looking for somewhere to live? Do you have a penchant for being a superhero in your spare time? And are you barely more than a LEGO plate in height? Then ABrickDreamer has just built exactly what you may be looking for! It’s a stylish architectural piece, featuring excellent use of flex cables to accentuate the Avengers’ tower’s curves. Everything the discerning millionaire – nay, billionaire – superhero could need is there, from city views from the penthouse to parking for your tiny Quinjet. And all it costs is a few LEGO pieces!

Prefer something a little less ‘only-exists-in-comic-books’? Then lucky you, this builder has you sorted there too! This is a microscale rendition of the Interlace condo in Singapore. Check out those trees! I doff my cap to you, ABrickDreamer, and then I can put it on one of your trees.

Can you best this chest in your tabletop battles?

It’s a good time to be a fan of LEGO, Dungeons, and Dragons (not necessarily in that order). Partly, that’s down to the release of the epic LEGO Ideas 21348 Dungeons and Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale, as recently reviewed by our resident Dungeon Master Kyle. But equally, its release inspires talented builders like Dicken Liu to build their own creatures of fantasy! The humble mimic is a staple of D&D campaigns, and this one seems a little more dangerous than most. Normally you just need to watch your hands when diving in for treasure – but with its hatchet and shield, you’ll have a hard enough time just getting near this particular chest!

LEGO unveils Dungeons & Dragons set and announces upcoming minifigure series [News]

Back in 2022, LEGO ran a contest on their Ideas platform asking fans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of tabletop RPG Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). The winner was announced last year, and today, we can see the final product. LEGO has unveiled 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale, a 3,745-piece set that will retail for US $359.99 | CAN $469.99 | UK £314.99 starting from April 1st for LEGO Insiders (April 4th for everyone else). Additionally: if you order your copy of this set before April 7th, you can get your hands on a free LEGO Dungeons & Dragons Mimic Dice Box. A special D&D adventure book will also be available from D&D Beyond and for LEGO Insiders, either as a free digital download or a paperback book for 2,700 Insiders points.

A D&D LEGO Minifigure series has also been announced, with a launch date of September 2024. To celebrate all this, fan designer Lucas Bolt and LEGO Designer Jordan Scott met up with famous D&D players Anjali Bhimani, Luis Carazo and Ginny Di to record an adventure of their own. This will go live at 9:00 PDT/12:00 EDT/17:00 BST on the 6th of April at LEGO.com/DnD. All the details are in the press release, which you can find – along with more pictures of the new LEGO Ideas set – after the jump.

Read LEGO’s press release and see more pictures here

There’s not much LEG(O)room on Flight 714 to Sydney

A new LEGO builder on Flickr, by the name of Aero Explorer, is living up to their name with a neat model of a fantastical plane. Fantastical? Yes! Although it may look like real enough, this is a prototype private jet that appeared in one of the weirder Tintin comics: Flight 714 to Sydney. The parachute on the back is the biggest clue to its fanciful design. Even I know that when planes have parachutes, they’re normally kept on the inside. Anyway, this is a cracker of a model. I really like the way the fuselage tapers towards the nose…

… And we get a bit of a clue as to how the shaping was achieved here. You can also see that there’s just about enough space for an interior. It sleek profile is only a few studs wide, so it’s impressive that minifigures can sit in it at all, never mind with this level of detail! It might be a bit cramped, though. I can say from experience that flying to Sydney with minimal legroom is not much fun… Hopefully the minifigure Tintin is a bit more resilient than me!