About Rod

Rod likes building stuff, particularly steampunk and microscale. He's built for a number of the Dorling Kindersley LEGO books, including LEGO Play and the Awesome Ideas book. When he's not building, he writes, and has published a trilogy of old-fashioned adventure stories. To pay the bills he works in innovation and marketing for one of the world's biggest brewers, inventing new beers and ciders. This is clearly the best job in the world.

Posts by Rod

The Brothers Brick Readers’ Survey 2019 – win 10266 Apollo Lunar Lander [News]

Tell us what you think about The Brothers Brick and you could win a 10266 Apollo Lunar Lander LEGO set! We always like to hear what you guys think about what we do — what you like and don’t like, and what you want to see from us in the future. Please take our short survey. It shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes to complete and it’ll help us build you a better TBB. Click here to take the survey.

The survey is open until Sunday 30th June.

The survey may only be completed once per participant. The free Lunar Lander set will be awarded to a survey respondent picked at random after the survey closes. The prizewinner must be over the age of 18. An email address is required to enter the prize draw. The email address will only be used to contact the prizewinner to arrange delivery. All email addresses will be deleted once delivery is arranged. In the event of the initial prizewinner not responding to contact within 3 days, a new prizewinner will be picked at random. TBB reserves the right to substitute some form of voucher of similar value in the event of shipping proving ridiculously expensive.

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.

Tiny oil spill is anything but crude

It might seem odd to describe a LEGO model displaying an environmental catastrophe as cute, but it feels like a fitting tag for Koala Yummies‘ microscale oil rig. The oil spill effect is suitably sinister, with thick black crude oozing out over the water, but it’s the rig itself which catches the eye. This model is packed with detail — don’t miss the helipad, the crane, the dangling orange lifeboats, and my favourite touch, the use of 1×2 grille tiles for the tiny windows in the accommodation block.

Even better, there’s a supply tender ship to go with the teeny-tiny oil rig. It too is perfectly proportioned, and nicely detailed for its diminutive size…

The apple of any Porsche fan’s eye

The Porsche 935 was the German car-maker’s factory racing version of the classic 911, and the K series saw this formidable machine further modified by Kremer Racing of Cologne. The K3 hit the track in 1979, winning that year’s 24 Hour Le Mans race. For his LEGO version, Simon Przepiorka has picked a period-appropriate livery, decking the model out in custom stickers for an Apple Computer sponsorship. Aside from the neat stickerwork, the building is pretty cool too — nicely shaped and capturing all the important Porsche angles and curves.

Despite its modest size, this is one of those LEGO models which deserves a look from multiple angles. The rear side of the car is almost as pretty as the front…

All the world’s a stage, and all the minifigures merely players

Many of the best LEGO creations are carefully composed scenes which tell a story. MorlornEmpire takes this thought one step further — building a delightful LEGO Castle scene which depicts a medieval theatre with a play in progress. The theatre walls are nicely chunky and use the classic technique of scattered dark grey tiles to simulate stonework, with an added splash of colour from the well-positioned climbing foliage.

However, appropriately enough, it’s the on-stage action which commands the attention — don’t miss the scenery flats of rolling countryside and hilltop castle, and the smart use of curved tiles to create an impression of a curtain backdrop for the sky. All this creation is missing is a rowdy audience of peasants chucking vegetables at the actors during boring sections of the play–a regular feature of theatrical performance until relatively recent times!

Astounding LEGO Super Chief train up for charity auction [News]

The Super Chief was the flagship of the Santa Fe Railway. During the 30s and 40s it earned the nickname “The Train of the Stars” by hauling Hollywood celebrities from Chicago to Los Angeles, and becoming almost as famous as its passengers. Tony Sava has put together a formidable LEGO version of this iconic train, and has decided to auction it off for charity at Brickworld 2019 in Chicago. The 8-wide locomotive is a beast, beautifully detailed, fitted with Power Functions motors, and features smart custom stickers to recreate the Santa Fe livery. It’s a lovely model, and a lovely gesture for it to be donated to a charity auction — I hope it raises a caboose-load of cash.

Bricks make for a great blocky robot

Inspired by the robotic mascot of MAKE Magazine, LEGO builder Omar Ovalle got down to some making of his own — resulting in a supercute retro-styled robot. The stripped-back colour scheme perfectly reflects the inspiration, with details added through judicious use of cut electrical tape. I love this thing’s chunky 50s-era blockiness. I want to see an army of these robots marching in synchronisation out of the airlock on a Soviet moonbase.

LEGO Lambo is even rarer than the real thing

If you don’t have a spare $1.9m lying around then chances are you missed out on picking up a Lamborghini Centenario back in 2017. Can’t live without this stunning vehicle? Well, take a leaf out of Lennart C‘s book and build your own LEGO version. Although Lamborghini only manufactured forty of the Centenario, this model has the advantage of being even rarer, yet considerably cheaper. The build has all the trappings of the real thing, with its smart grey paint job offset by bright yellow flashes, and those wonderful doors. And just like the real thing, the ground clearance on this bad boy is rubbish — so watch out for any speed bumps!

A downtown tour of the seedier side of Coruscant

The Phantom Menace, released 20 years ago this month, is a polarising movie. Many Star Wars fans (particularly older fans raised on the Original Trilogy) would say it’s their least favourite in the series of films. However, despite its flaws, Episode 1 brought some amazing new things to the Star Wars universe — kick-ass lightsaber battles, Pod Racing, and the planet of Coruscant amongst them. The capital world of both Galactic Republic then Empire is another classic “single environment planet” in the grand Star Wars tradition, but rather than a desert, forest, or ice world, Coruscant is home to a massive planet-spanning city. The movie gave us plenty of the city’s towering buildings and penthouse suites, but here we get a closer look at the seedier underbelly of the metropolis in Dayton‘s impressive LEGO diorama.

This trip into the lower levels of Coruscant is impressively detailed, and carries a Blade Runner-esque cyberpunk vibe along with its Star Wars inspiration. The Imperial Patrol works its way through the alleys, through crowds of shady-looking characters enjoying street food and drinks. The presentation is excellent, nicely-lit, with the custom advertising billboards and smatterings of Aurebesh text a smart touch. And don’t miss the use of laser shooter pieces to provide the pattern on the circular sliding door — it’s a little detail, but it’s this sort of thing that helps create layers of texture to pull the viewer’s eye into the image.

The Emperor’s light guides his fire

“I want your boots, your clothes, and your motorcycle…” Oh. Sorry. Wrong Terminator.
Paddy Bricksplitter brings us an excellent LEGO version of the other Terminator — one of the fearsome Space Marines from the Warhammer 40k universe. The details on this are excellent — the hanging skulls and holy books, the belt, the neat circular base, and that Imperial crest across the chest. A Bionicle face makes a good match for the Marine helmet, and those signature shoulder pads create an immediately recognisable outline. In the grim darkness of the far future, there may well only be war, but judging by this model’s gleaming white colour, there may also be soap powder.

Sports cars for everyone

It’s always impressive when a LEGO builder packs lots of details into a small-scale vehicle, doubly-so if the model also features interior detailing and an engine. So it must be “triply-impressive” when that interior provides a chassis for modular designs to be popped on top. That’s what Angka Utama has done with this latest LEGO creation, putting together a backbone under-chassis which — with a few minor modifications — can take a variety of shells on the top, radically altering the external styling.

For a tiny “seven wide” model this is pretty smart, with smooth curves and opening doors on the external shell, and a chunky engine and sweet bucket seats for the interior. But the star of show here has to be the modularity — here’s the same internal chassis, slightly tweaked to take a brash yellow Italian supercar look…

And a-roving, a-roving, a-roving I’ll go

See Mars the scenic way! Take a ride in Guido Brandis‘ fabulous All-Terrain Mobile Laboratory Rover. Its big fat wheels will stop you sinking into the dust, and its large solar panels should provide more than enough power for your journey plus any little experiments you might want to complete on the way. For a one-colour model, this manages to have remarkable visual impact, and that’s down to the density of the detail applied to every surface. This thing is greeble-tastic, with functional-looking elements applied everywhere — piping, antennae, comms dishes, and paneling. The presentation of the model is also excellent (nice work on the shadows in particular), making the vehicle look properly embedded in its environment. I’d love to hit Valles Marineris in this bad boy–those Martians, they see me rollin’ and they be hatin’.

Idyllic Imperial island fortress

The evergreen popularity of the LEGO Pirates theme has seen many a pirate’s hideaway constructed, but we’ve not often seen as impressive an Imperial fortress as this beauty from Greg Dlx. The fort is beautifully detailed, with grey accents around the windows providing some lovely texture against the white walls. The domed roofs for the towers add an unusual design feature which creates a sense of the exotic, a feeling enhanced by the dense jungle foliage which surrounds the buildings. There’s a couple of different techniques used for trees, and I love that their leaves play host to a colony of parrots.

Look closely and you’ll spot the killer detail in this scene — the half-plate height increase between the dark and light sand along the shore. It’s a tiny difference, but it adds immensely to the feel of wave-washed sands — an example of the attention to detail you see in the best LEGO creations.

About Rod

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