Category Archives: LEGO

You’d probably expect a lot of the posts on a LEGO website like The Brothers Brick to be about LEGO, and you’d be right. If you’re browsing this page, you might want to consider narrowing what you’re looking for by checking out categories like “Space” and “Castle.” We’re sure there’s something here that’ll fascinate and amaze you.

A picture-perfect portrait parody

If you were going to take set 31213 Mona Lisa and turn it into anything else, what better subject than the artist known for taking someone else’s art and turning it into something else? And that’s what Trevor Pearson-Jones has done with this fabulous rendering of the king of parodies, “Weird Al” Yankovic. Trevor has made fantastic use of tiles and wedges to capture Al’s trademark curly locks and wardrobe. And he’s set a few piano keys into the frame as a nod to Al’s musical career. Not to mention that two accordions flying over Al’s shoulders, one with angel’s wings and one with a demon’s. I imagine the angel accordion is all, “Make this song about food” and the demon accordion is like, “No, make this song about reality TV.”

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The Ridgeback Racer is ready to launch!

LEGO phenom David Roberts has mastered the art of building oddball little spaceships, each with baffling complex shapes and striking color schemes. That this Ridgeback, for example. The adjustable stand makes it clear you can launch this ship in a bevy of angles from straight up over the moon to right through your neighbor’s window.

The craft is hard to define from just one angle but this rear view image makes it clear it’s sort of a three-pronged shuttlecock. (Tee hee!) The engine and greebling is pretty sweet.

This short video of the builder disassembling this model is way more captivating than I thought it would be. Hidden deep within the ship’s core is a cockpit. Or should I say -shuttlecockpit? Sorry, I’ll just see myself out. In the meantime, watch the video and check out our David Roberts archives.

Bio-Cup 2025: The stuff dreams and nightmares are made of [Feature]

You may recall our recently featured Tooth Fairy and the brilliant Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep LEGO creations. It’s all part of this year’s Bio-Cup in the theme of Dreams. I liked them so much, I wanted to conjure up a few more entries here. So wake up, shake the dreams from your hair and gather round while I help bring these creations to the forefront of your waking mind. Starting with a doozie, sometimes dreams make your skin crawl and you’d rather just tear yourself out of them. That’s the vibe I get with loafbuilds and their newest creation called Sleepless Cathedral of Flesh and Dream.

TBB’s own Jake Forbes takes inspiration from Slumberland and tells us that There is no surer way to reach Slumberland than atop a Slumberland Dreamwalker, a living bed with legs that bend like Eldritch snakes to cross the nightmare wastes.

Delve deeper into the dreamworld of Biocup 2025

Take me home, country roads

No stranger to The Brothers Brick, Andrew Tate showcases this terrific LEGO build of an old-timey truck with a vignette that is the very picture of rural life. While I don’t believe this is meant to be any specific make or model, Andrew’s use of the 2×6 train windscreen element is an absolutely perfect choice for capturing the character of a truck of this vintage. For me, the whole scene is reminiscent of the nostalgic mid-century pre-war “when and where is this exactly?” idealized look of a Studio Ghibli film, and I’m really digging it. I’d love to get a behind the scenes look at a couple areas of this build, especially the supports of those beautifully spaced fence pickets, and those lovely wheel hubs.

Picture Perfect – Life in LEGO Polaroids (Guest Feature)

This started as a quick contest entry. Just one little diorama for the LEGO Ideas “Picture Perfect Memories” challenge. I thought I’d build a single model—frame it up like a Polaroid, submit it, and move on with my life.

Instead, I made six.

And who among us hasn’t gotten carried away and spent the whole night building? For me, there was something satisfying about having small ideas in my head that I could actually finish. Each one took a couple of hours. Nothing sprawling. Just compact moments, built quickly and intentionally.

I like building small. It forces you to be economical, which I think can be more impressive than going big. It also lets you focus on what really matters—telling a story.

Each of these builds is based on something that happened in my life, or something close to it. They’re impressions. Memories, simplified and captured in plastic. And in sharing them, I hoped to set a kind of template—something other people might follow to build their own.

Take a look at the story behind each of the six Polaroid vignettes and maybe be inspired to make your own

Sixties cool meets serious horsepower with LEGO Icons 10357 Shelby Cobra 427 S/C [News]

Has there ever been a more effortlessly cool roadster than the Shelby Cobra? Combining cheeky British body design with a beast of an American engine, the AC Shelby Cobra remains one of the most sought-after classic cars among driving enthusiasts, and this July, it becomes slightly more affordable as the latest LEGO Icons car model. LEGO Icons 10357 Shelby Cobra 427 S/C promises a sophisticated build that captures the legendary car’s signature curves while packing in enough details to please the pickiest Top Gear critic. Racing into stores on July 1 for Insiders (July 4th for all), the Shelby Cobra is built from 1,241 pieces and can be pre-ordered now for US $159.99 | CAN $199.99 | UK £139.99.

The full gallery and set details follow after the break!

You want the tooth? You can’t handle the tooth!

The internet’s best Bionicle-based building bonanza, the Bio-Cup, got up and running last week with its preliminary rounds. Margit has busted out her LEGO constraction pieces and is getting in on the action, too, with a tooth fairy! I’m sure we can expect some bright colours, clever contouring with some armour elements, and… Oh. Well, I guess it’s true that no-one’s ever seen the tooth fairy, so who’s to say this isn’t what it looks like? I do like the Visorak leg skirt, and the tooth-filled wings are clever too, using inverted clear dishes to keep the illusion of transparent membranes. I still wouldn’t want it coming anywhere near my pillow though.

Don’t lose sleep trying to count these electronic sheep

If you thought Blade Runner was a visionary mind trip, it’s positively prosaic compared to the novel its based on: Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep by Philip K. Dick. Builder Pierthviv pays tribute to the master of consciousness-questioning sci-fi with a book cover built from a truly eclectic mix of LEGO elements. While not directly referencing any cover I’m aware of, Pierthviv draws on very Dickian iconography, from the eyes in the machine, to the syringes in the cyber background, to the lenses upon lenses of the Voigt-Kampff machine.

A wider angle lets us better appreciate the builder’s craft. The constraction-style figure seamlessly blends organic musculature with cybernetic elements in a way that feels straight out of and 70s pulp sci-fi art. The Dreamzzz brain, exposed as a robot claw lifts of the top of the skull, is especially chilling. The sheep in the monitor is the only source of color and escape in this dystopian vignette, matching the theme of the novel.

Pierthviv created this chilling model for the first round of the 2025 Bio-Cup with the theme “Dreams.”

Rock Raiders vs. Power Miners: Digging up the dirt on LEGO’s subterranean themes [Feature]

In 1999 we partied like it was-well, 1999- and also we were introduced to the LEGO Rock Raiders. In 2009, The Black Eyed Peas seemed unstoppable and we were all digging another subterranean LEGO theme called Power Miners. One featured chrome drill bits and a rugged, utilitarian brown and teal color scheme, while the other was all about heavy machinery in a lime green and orange livery. This article will take a deep dive into both themes and will showcase some of the best official LEGO sets and creations from builders around the globe. So sit back, mix yourself a Mudslide (on the rocks, of course) and enjoy this dynamite blast from the past.

Join us as we dish out the dirt on LEGO’s rockiest themes

Baba Yaga won’t be contained in a LEGO book nook!

Mixing LEGO and books is in vogue right now, but who says the bricks need to go between your volumes? Roman Shemis built this spellbinding witch’s hut emerging from the page of a brick-built book, which looks great stacked atop books of the paper variety. Based on the Cyrillic text, I can only assume that Baba Yaga herself lives inside the chicken-legged cottage. Technique-wise, it’s that tree trunk on the left I’m pining over! Roman only recently started sharing MOCs, but we’re already big fans of the builder’s skill and range. (Especially the technique Roman employs for this cobblestone street). I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more from Roman in the years to come!

If you want to add a bird-legged hut to your collection but don’t know where to start, the Never Witch’s Midnight Raven is one of my favorite sets in recent years.

Return of the Mon Calamari Cruiser

Once again, we find ourselves writing about an excellent LEGO diorama by swbuilds. And once again, it’s a Mon Calamari Cruiser full of life! After finishing the bridge, this build apparently followed close behind. But I’m not going to talk about Star Wars here. Instead I’m going to reference another space-faring LEGO theme: Life on Mars. For that is where all that glorious sand purple comes from! This is one of those colours with an extremely limited colour palette: only 18 designs, and six of those are minifigure parts. Fortunately, many of those other 12 parts were larger ones, so you can make them go a long way, as swbuilds does here. I’m particularly fond of the overturned pump from 7317 Aero Tube Hangar in the background!

Sakiya Watanabe’s quest for excellence as a LEGO creator [Interview]

The secret about overnight successes is that it takes years of hard work to get to that “overnight” success. Sakiya Watanabe, who builds under the handle n.a.b.e_mocs, does the work. In the six months since he started sharing his creations online, Sakiya’s MOCs have earned kudos on this site and from AFOLs and professional builders alike, even as the young builder studies Organic Chemisty at university. We sat down with Sakiya to learn about how he prepared for this “overnight success,” and what drives him as a builder.

TBB: Your work caught our attention from the very first MOC you shared, but you must have been building a lot before reaching that point. When did you first discover LEGO and what excited you about building?

Sakiya Watanabe: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. First of all, my parents gave me LEGO SpongeBob Krusty Krab set (3825) when I was around 6 years old. Also, at the time, I was obsessed with the Lord of the Rings, but LEGO didn’t sell Lord of the Rings sets yet, so instead, my parents often bought me sets of the LEGO Castle fantasy era. And I often reassembled them to create the world of Lord of the Rings. This may have been my first works.

TBB: It sounds like you were making your own creations from the start. When did you become aware of the creations of other builders?

SW: I got into LEGO Star Wars when I was about 9 years old, and started making my own creations(MOC) around that time. At the time, I was always watching speed builds of sets on YouTube, and I would create MOCs while referring to the techniques used in the sets. This is a picture when I was 10 years old.

Our interview with Sakiya Watanabe continues…