A little over a month ago, I talked about a collaborative LEGO project debuting at BrickCon 2023: a massive modular Dungeons & Dragons dungeon. I was lucky enough to be invited to take part, contributing the 3-wide module with glowing green eyes I talked about in September. But now, having passed the History check, I’m able to give some further details behind this amazing, fantasy-themed project.
Head deeper into the dungeon below!
LEGO builder extraordinaire Anu Pehrson joins us to give an inside perspective on how she built this enormous 200,000-piece minifigure-scale diorama of the Wall from Game of Thrones. If you’re not familiar with Anu, she likes to build big. If you happen to be in Denmark soon, check out her huge model of the Greyjoy Stronghold, which has been showcased in the LEGO House for the past year. She previously gave us a behind-the-scenes look at her 20,000-piece rice plantation diorama from The LEGO Ninjago Movie, but now she’s gone ten times bigger. So read on as Anu walks us through the entire process of building the Wall from early concepts to finished model.
As builders, most of us are inspired by things we encounter in our everyday lives, travels, and other interests such as books, music, etc. I immensely enjoyed reading Game of Thrones and was inspired with several ideas for building. The Wall was an obvious choice but a very daunting task and would require me to get several tens of thousands of white parts. I started the process of collecting parts specifically for this project in 2012. Nine years later, I finally started building in 2021, and it has taken me over two years to finish it. The model is 5 x 5 feet and approximately 4.5 feet tall, and in the end, I used close to 200,000 pieces.
My thought process here was that the Wall would be the central grounding factor, with several structures added to both the south side of the Wall and the area beyond the wall to the north as described in the books/show.
Click to read the full article
A couple of weeks ago, LEGO unveiled 10318 Concorde as the next Icons set. I’ve always admired Concorde, so I’m really excited about this one. In part because it looks gorgeous, but also because it falls into a nice small category of LEGO sets: those based on real planes! Aircraft have of course featured hundreds of times in LEGO sets of varying sizes. But the number based on actual, real-world aircraft is much smaller, which makes it more manageable for things like feature articles on LEGO fan blogs. So, with the help of TBB’s resident expert plane modeller Ralph Savelsberg, let’s take a look at LEGO’s affiliation with planes!
The article really takes off below!
This past Saturday marked the 500th day since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Last year, I wrote about why I personally choose to actively support Ukraine and its defenders. Remembering my WW2 vet grandfather, my first group of minifigures highlighted the work of combat medics and other women contributing to Ukraine’s defense. Many people asked me to create minifigs depicting the defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, all of whom by then were being held in Russian captivity. These two groups of minifigures were then featured on Ukrainian TV, leading to messages from the wives of POWs, including the wife of the Azovstal garrison’s commander, Denys Prokopenko. But in addition to the families of these prominent officers, I heard from the wives of less-famous soldiers still held in captivity, asking if I’d create LEGO versions of their husbands, sometimes even sharing photos taken inside the Azovstal steel plant.
Unfortunately, sourcing unusual LEGO parts (including custom-printed pieces) ended up being a months-long process, and many of the figures were only completed quite recently. Over the months, some of the Ukrainian POWs have been exchanged, and I began chatting directly with the released soldiers. A young soldier with the call sign “Tayvaz” defended Azovstal until the last, and lost several of his brothers-in-arms during the battle. Before his exchange after nearly a year of captivity, his wife shared photos of her husband along with heartbreaking photos of the men who hadn’t made it out. On the day I was taking photographs of my minifigs depicting Tayvaz and his brothers, I’d been chatting with him to make sure I’d gotten the details correct. I love filtered natural light, and I was outside on our front lawn. The trees behind me shifted in the wind, and a sunbeam broke through and illuminated the minifigs of the three lost soldiers (photo above). I burst into tears, sent Tayvaz the photo, and we shared a moment of sorrow — my own emotions a mere shadow of his enormous loss — across the distance between Seattle and Kyiv.
Read more about how these minifigs are making their way to Ukraine
Over the course of the last six months, we’ve featured literally hundreds of excellent LEGO creations. While all of them are already the best we’ve found, there are a handful that stand out above the rest. Usually these creations feature the coolest techniques and exceptional NPU (Nice Parts Usage), and have us talking about them more than the average build behind the scenes. We’ve seen everything, but occasionally we’re extra impressed by something new and unique. Although we do feature our overall favorite builds (using several criteria) in the running for the TBB Creation of the Year in December, we’ve decided it would be fun to honor some ace parts usage right here, right now. Join us as we count down the best of the first half of 2023!
First launched in 2007, the LEGO Indiana Jones theme has brought us many fun scenes from all four movies, and as we prepare to rejoin our favorite professor/archeologist/adventurer in the upcoming 5th movie, LEGO has revived the theme with a wave of three new sets releasing in April. The largest set from this wave is the 18+ branded 77015 Temple of the Golden Idol, a 3-part diorama similar to smaller scenes from Harrison Ford’s other blockbuster franchise, Star Wars. The diorama set is based on the opening sequence of the movie Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which Indiana braves a dark and foreboding tomb in an attempt to recover an idol. Many key moments from this sequence are including, from the spiked trap that impales the unwary, the deep pit Indian swings across with his trusty bullwhip, a row of faces that shoot poison darts, and ending (or beginning) with a large boulder that rolls down a slope to block the exit, trapping anyone who isn’t fast enough to outrun it. The set includes a number of Technic elements that allow the play features to be operated simply by twisting dials mounted on the front. LEGO Indiana Jones 77014 The Temple of the Golden Idol contains 1,545 pieces and will be available on April 1 for US $149.99 | CAN $199.99 | UK £129.99
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.
LEGO fans are extremely passionate and look into details of any slight changes that the LEGO Group introduces in all aspects. The latest visual change on the instruction booklets has led a few fans delighted and curious, especially on identifying when these first started to show up.
While we don’t know exactly when the first mass produced set it was introduced in, most fans agree that it started to appear in instruction booklets for most sets produced in 2022. The simpler design of the progress bar is LEGO round stud on a thick line that extends from edge to edge at the bottom of the printed page. The more fun looking ones are represented by Minifigures sliding across the timeline from one page turn to another.
Click to learn more about the progress bar in instruction booklets
Ninjago has produced more mechs than any other LEGO theme over the last decade. And while the Monkie Kid theme is a relative newcomer, having premiered in 2020, there have been many mechs and mech-like models released so far. This includes a bigfig scale Demon Bull King, and a mini-mech for the new Yellow Tusk elephant from the January 2023 wave of sets. But which theme makes better mechs? I decided to compare two mechs from each theme (at a similar price and part count) in an attempt to answer that question.
Find out which mech is the winner!
LEGO brings Bionicle back! Or, sort of. The new 40581 Tahu and Takua GWP (gift with purchase) set is coming to LEGO’s online shop on January 27th, and will be available with any purchase of the US $100, £90, or €100. And even if you are not a fan of the theme, we bet you’ve noticed that the new edition of arguably LEGO’s most iconic characters doesn’t look exactly how we remember them from 20 years ago. To help all the fans understand the new designs better, the set designers Nick Vás and George Gilliatt share on Twitter some pretty cool details and pictures right from their work desk.
Click here to learn about how the set was born…
The 10 most popular LEGO set reviews of 2022 If you imagined that any particular theme was the most popular with our readers, you might be surprised. The most popular set reviews of 2022 run the gambit from Classic Space and Classic Castle to Creator 3-in-1, Architecture, Ideas, Icons, and more.
The 11 most popular LEGO News of 2022 When it comes to LEGO news, TBB covers a wide spectrum of news on LEGO themes and more, so it is no surprise that some of our most popular news articles of 2022 were announcements of new sets from some of LEGO’s most popular themes like Ninjago, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. 2022 was the 90th anniversary of LEGO so there were a few reveals for sets paying tribute to classic themes like space and castles. Pop culture franchises like Jurrasic World and Back to the Future also made the list.
The end of the year is one very special time for The Brothers Brick staff, and we get to recall all of our most favourite builds of the year. This year’s shortlist turned out to be a fascinating showcase of LEGO fans’ insane talent. It was insanely hard to limit it to somewhat fathomable about of builds, but we did our best and pulled together our selection of the best LEGO creations of 2022 for our sevenths annual LEGO Creation of the Year award.
Take a look at the fantastic models we’ve shortlisted, and stay tuned for the announcement of our LEGO Creation of the Year 2022 on New Year’s Eve!
Be sure to check out the LEGO Creation of the Year 2021, LEGO Creation of the Year 2020, LEGO Creation of the Year 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 to see what honourable company this year’s nominations are keeping.
Click to see all of 2022’s nominees