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

Bigger, bolder, rougher, and stripier

It’s always good when LEGO fans build bigger and better versions of their favourite sets. Here, Tim Goddard shows off his latest version of 6973 Deep Freeze Defender. This is Space building at its absolute finest — great shaping, functional-looking greeble details, and beautiful colour blocking. The white stripes around the predominantly blue body make this model pop off the screen — a fantastic effect, and much harder to build than it looks!

One of Tim’s previous versions of this spacecraft features in Ice Titan — the free-to-download LEGO-illustrated sci-fi adventure.

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And she’s building a stairway to heaven

Where’s she running off to? Be careful on those stairs! This 3D “picture” in LEGO bricks by Cab~ is a treat — a nice idea, executed well. The elephant trunk pieces make for a great stair carpet, and the striped wallpaper is excellent, offering a smart visual contrast to the plainer wall above. That wall could have been done with being built level — I think the angled bricks distract from the rest of the scene. However that’s nitpicking at an otherwise lovely piece of work. Well played.

Set sail — for adventure

Always nice to see a LEGO Fantasy/Castle creation which isn’t land-based. I like this little ship by Eggy Pop — it’s a relatively simple model, but it’s a lovely clean build. I particularly like the curved bricks creating the sense of a gathered sail. This is one of those creations where you can’t help but invent a story to go along with the scene: Where is our hero heading? On what noble quest is he engaged?

I’d like to see this diorama in real life, and take a closer look at the “waterscaping”. Check out this close-up of the nice brickwork which makes up the froth and surf as the waves wash against the rocks…

In the blink of an eye

Travel through space in speedy style with WormHole Inc. This unusual LEGO spacecraft from Sheo brings the far-future of space travel to life — wormholes opened by “portal ships” allowing instantaneous travel between distant regions of the galaxy. The detail and texture built into the ship’s central ring is beautiful, adding a real sense of scale to the creation.

The close-up shot with the arriving craft is excellent, but I also loved the image of the portal ship in orbit around an alien world.

Revving up for a retro match-up

Who doesn’t love an old-school LEGO racing car? With this sweet Brabham vs Ferrari action scene, Pixel Junkie recreates the days when the top tiers of motor racing looked a bit like Mario Kart. Both cars are well-shaped and nicely detailed, right down to all the suspensions and shocks — impressive work at this scale. I like the setting, but I wish the builder had used a photo of their own model for the billboard rather than an image of another toy — the differences between the two are distracting me!

My favourite of the two cars is the Brabham, mostly because of the classic British Racing Green colour scheme. But check out this view of the rear and the engine — nice work with the touches of chrome, and that robotic fist piece underneath…

Put down on the ice for essential maintenance

Most LEGO builders would look at the snowflakes printed across the Christmas Ornament piece and think “useless part”. Not Tammo S. who took inspiration from the snow-spattered dome and turned it into a vehicle windscreen in this appropriately chilly scene. The red-to-yellow colour gradient on this baby really makes it pop against the backdrop.

I like the curve of the vehicle’s nose, and the iceberg setting is nicely-done, but it’s the use of the two red canoes at the rear which caught my eye. Never seen that before. It lends a cool 50s car vibe to the model — there’s more than a little Greased Lightning going on here.

And don’t miss the cockpit. Always nice to see this level of attention to detail…

London’s Portobello Road in LEGO

London’s Portobello Road is home to the world’s largest antiques market. Weekends see visitors and bargain hunters descend upon the area in their droves to browse the collectables (and junk) on display. Ben Spector has created an impressive LEGO diorama of the neighbourhood…

The attention to detail is fantastic, I particularly liked the mural on the side of the Nautical Shop, and the Victorian-era painted wall advertisement in the background…

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Grandma gets comfy whilst the mechanic tunes her bike

LEGO’s Collectable Minifigures lines have brought us all manner of fantasy and sci-fi creatures, but some of the most useful for builders have been the new “regular folks”. Cecilie Fritzvold has built a lovely little vignette for the Grandma figure from Series 11. She looks very comfortable in her reclining chair, and the little sitting room is packed with sweet details — the flower basket on the shelf, the biscuits in the bowl, and the nicely-striped wallpaper.

Cecilie has been building a range of these vignettes, each for a different Collectable Minifig character. I particularly liked the scene for the Mechanic from Series 10. The walls and racked tools look great, and that brick-built bike is a fine piece of work. I couldn’t help but imagine the bike belongs to Grandma, and she’s taking a load off whilst the Mechanic checks it over for her.

Vroom vroom chugaboom

We’ve covered our fair share of LEGO hot rods, but here’s a refreshing steampunk take on the style from Martin Redfern. The scale used allows Martin to pack loads of smart touches into this delightful dark red automobile. I particularly like the front grille, the horn, and the driver himself — his pith helmet and monocle fixed firmly in place.

The vehicle’s engine is an obvious highlight, so I was delighted at this view which allows us to take a closer look at all the details Martin has lavished on the model…

Anything but junk

With the forthcoming LEGO Ninjago Movie and it’s accompanying sets, we’re fully expecting a wave of fabulous Eastern-themed creations. Ming Jin gets in on the action early with this lovely little fishing boat. The brick-built hull is well-shaped, and the black awning lends this an obvious Oriental flavour. But my favourite touches are hanging lantern and the trailing net — subtle additions which create a sense of a working boat.

I, for one, welcome our robotic lemur overlords

We have a complicated relationship with lemurs here at Brothers Brick. On one hand, they’re cute, cuddly, and good at fishing LEGO bricks from down the back of the couch. But on the other hand, they’re messy, nibble on our server power cables, and smell a bit. Maybe we should look to replace our lemur with one of Mitsuru Nikaido‘s mechanical versions?

This is a great model — natural curves and shaping, with lots of cool functional-looking robotic greeble stuff going on under the smooth plating. Nice use of a hot air balloon plate piece as the lemur’s back — a lovely sinuous curve. And that tail — magic.

Who wouldn’t want to live in this LEGO house?

Despite all the different “genres” in LEGO building, there’s something deeply satisfying when our beloved bricks are used to build a really nice house. This creation by betweenbrickwalls is stunning — a stylish contemporary home, with a hint of Modernism about the design. You might imagine a predominantly dark grey and tan colour scheme would look drab, but here it lends the model a smart contrast, and offsets the surrounding autumnal tones. I particularly like some of the details of the structure — those four brick fin-like pillars, and the raised section over the stream.

Don’t miss the detailed interior, including a beautiful spiral staircase…

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