As a Star Wars fan, I’m quite ashamed to say that I only recently learnt that TIE is actually an acronym of “Twin Ion Engine”. In my defense, there are some things that one never thinks to question. Nevertheless, I’ve always loved this standout spacecraft. And speaking of standouts, this version by Jussi Koskinen is one of the best I’ve seen.
I bet you’re taking a second, or even a third, close look at this magical floating castle to analyse how it all holds up. LEGO wizard jaapxaap must have dreamt of this one night and woke up to make it a reality. The colour choices of white and gold, plus the bright blue of the domes and trimming helps provide an additional subconscious cue, elevating it into the skies above the clouds. A brilliant idea turned into reality with the execution of beautiful engineering.
2018 has officially arrived worldwide, and this lovely monument by Pasq67 is here to help us celebrate. While we’ve seen the great technique of using 1×1 quarter circle tiles for lettering before, we hadn’t seen this super cool font made of macaroni pieces. And no matter what your favorite theme is, you’re covered here as a multitude of characters stroll through the park.
Not quite ready for 2017 to be done yet? Take a look at the best of 2017:
Plus also check out our favorite LEGO Star Wars creations of the year with:
The University of Colorado Boulder has an ongoing project to construct a LEGO version of its campus, built by a team of LEGO builders. Imagine Rigney has just finished building a LEGO version of the Macky Auditorium Concert Hall, where dozens of major College of Music performances take place each season. The auditorium is over a century old, and its Neo-Gothic architecture style has been nicely captured in LEGO bricks
Click to see the inside of the concert hall
This lovely fairy sculpture by Mike Nieves was apparently a gift for a friend. I hope Mike’s friend appreciates it because it’s truly magical. The figure is beautifully posed, looking like she’s about to touch softly down from the air. The wings are fabulous, and the shaping of the skirt is particularly well-done. When a character is this well put-together I think we can forgive the non-LEGO stand!
Every day the team here at The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO models from the global community of LEGO builders. Their creations amuse, inspire, and excite us on a daily basis. However, each year there are a handful of builders who take things to new heights, able to turn their hands to a wide variety of building styles, and wow us with their mastery of building techniques and parts.
Brothers Brick is delighted to name Jonas Kramm as our LEGO Builder of the Year 2017.
Jonas has had an astonishing year of building — multiple models, many of them featured here, across a range of building styles, not to mention an excellent performance in Iron Builder (the highest-profile and most stressful LEGO community building competition out there). We’ve loved seeing everything he’s put together during 2017, and we hope you’ll enjoy this retrospective look at his last twelve months…
Click to see some of Jonas’ models from 2017
Developing a shortlist of the best LEGO creations of 2017 was a tricky task, but narrowing it down to a single “best creation” proved even worse! However, after much discussion, some arguing, and a few tears, the Brothers Brick is delighted to highlight Jeff Friesen‘s Cityscapes as our LEGO Creation of the Year for 2017.
Jeff’s microscale cityscapes are simply beautiful. They don’t rely on access to a vast collection of LEGO parts, nor on a handful of particularly esoteric or rare pieces. They are great examples of how incredible things can be built from LEGO with “regular” bricks and plates, in common colours.
Although Jeff’s models are fantastical, and undoubtedly evoke a sci-fi feel, they also display an appreciation and understanding of key elements of differing architectural styles. The Miami-Art-Deco-Meets-The-Jetsons styling of the city in the main image above is a mash-up of 30s and 50s futurism, with a dash of what feels like Disney’s Tomorrowland. Whereas the cityscape below offers a different flavour of retro-futuristic architecture — New-York-Meets-Gotham-City with more than a whiff of Steampunk about it. It also showcases Jeff’s attention to detail and sense of fun — don’t miss the little trains in their subway beneath the streets…
We felt these models represented something genuinely exciting and new on the LEGO scene, executed brilliantly, and with a scale and selection of parts that we felt would inspire LEGO builders of all levels. That’s why Jeff Friesen‘s Cityscapes are our LEGO Creation of the Year for 2017.
Heading into 2018, LEGO’s city skyline series is growing again, with LEGO Architecture 21039 Shanghai available on January 1st from the LEGO Shop Online (and available now in some local LEGO stores). The set features many iconic buildings on the Huangpu River, including the Chenghuang Miao Temple, Longhua Temple and Pagoda, HSBC Building, the Customs House, Radisson Blu Hotel, Oriental Pearl Tower, World Financial Center and the Shanghai Tower. The Shanghai skyline contains 597 pieces and retails at $59.99.
While the set is technically the second largest Architecture skyline set by piece count (one less than 21028 New York City), Shanghai is largest by any other measure, ranking as the tallest, widest, deepest and heaviest of the skyline series so far.
Click to read our full review of the Shanghai skyline.
This amazingly cute little fish is a perfect showcase for how to exploit the natural shapes of LEGO bricks to form imaginative creatures. Builder gonkius uses two curved slopes meeting each other to form a perfect fish mouth, and a curved fender element suddenly looks as if it were always made to be fish fins.
However, this adorable little fish is also a perfect example of complex engineering that looks deceptively simple. Think you’re pretty good with LEGO? Maybe you can even reverse engineer some of the builds we highlight. But how many parts does it take before a model is too complex? This fish has only 39 pieces. See if you can reverse engineer this guy using only the image above.
We’ve got the instructions below if you want to skip straight to the solution and build one yourself! Let us know in the comments if you think you figured it out without the instructions.
Marius Herrmann shows his mastery in constructing machinery from video games with this Corruptor from Horizon: Zero Dawn. His intricate use of Bionicle pieces, minifigure utensils, and string throughout add to the intimidating appearance. However, it’s the techniques to create the tail claw that is most outstanding to me.
If you enjoyed Marius’s Corruptor, you may also like his colossal Thunderjaw, or try your own hand at constructing Wayne de Beer’s Tallneck.
Black gold, some call it. This striking piece by timofey_tkachev shows how humanity has drunk this precious resource at an astonishing rate since we discovered its multitude of uses, and with each new miracle we welcomed, an array of troubles followed. From the blazing infernos of uncapped wells to the broken pipelines polluting the ground, Timofey paints a picture of the horror of human technology run amok.
The face of an unknown abomination drenched in black oil springs from the ground beneath the hellish landscape. In the foreground, a streak of oil seeps toward a lighter, inching closer to Armageddon.
Yoshi is a fictional dinosaur who first appeared in Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as Mario and Luigi’s sidekick. In the game, Yoshi can grab objects with his tongue, swallow the object and then produce a distinctive spotted egg to throw. Well thanks to Mr Kevin Hinkle, you can now build your own LEGO Yoshi, complete with Yoshi eggs and Baby Mario.
Click here for video instructions to build your own Yoshi