Japanese builder (and TBB regular) nobu_tary joins the Halloween celebration with this adorable pair of costumed kids. I like how Nobu has differentiated the Frankenstein’s Monster costume from the kid himself, but it’s the awesome expressions on both kids’ faces that I love. Clearly, the little girl has a long night of dealing with her brother’s sugar highs ahead of her!
This delightful harbour scene by Simply Bricking It is the perfect antidote to some of the more ghoulish and macabre Halloween builds we’ve been showcasing.
There are awesome little details in this scene with the buoy, the railing around the base of the lighthouse and the harbour paraphernalia. I particularly love the textured walls of the lighthouse itself and the curved harbour wall.
Of course, leaving the best until last, we have the kite which brings the scene to life. It’s worth taking a closer look at this build to see the details…
It’s hard to imagine that one of the most beloved LEGO themes, Adventurers, is already seventeen years old. Time flies quickly, apparently. But luckily with LEGO, there’s always the possibility to literally rebuild the past – but better! That’s what Joshua has done – rebuilt the Adventurers set 5935 ‘Island Hopper’ with new modern parts and building techniques.
Not only does Joshua’s build provide the classic Adventurers nostalgic feel, but it also greatly improves upon the original. This new Island Hopper really goes to show how much LEGO itself has evolved over the years too.
Our Halloween-themed Week of Wonders continues and takes a sinister turn as Paddy Bricksplitter shares his build based on the psychological thriller The Ring.
The movie tells the story of an urban legend where a videotape filled with nightmarish images leads to a phone call foretelling the viewer’s death in exactly seven days. Paddy has managed to capture the eerie atmosphere with his intricate static television screen and blue tinted LED lighting. While his antagonist is called ‘Brickmara’ rather than Samara, her bony fingers and dishevelled hair are perfectly creepy.
Just remember not to answer the phone if it rings now you have seen this build…
When Luke Hutchinson burst on the scene, he seemed to single-handedly reinvent how LEGO Castle should look. His creations introduced a level of detail, weathering effects, and off-the-grid angling unlike anyone else’s builds. I was lucky enough to see some of Luke’s stuff “in the brick” at the Great Western Brick Show in the UK a couple of years ago — it’s even better in real life than in pictures.
The style has rapidly become something of a standard for Castle, and for me, it now takes something special to catch my eye. This lovely build by Jacob Nion did exactly that. Jacob brings us a furrier’s yard – the latest in a great model series of Skaventown, a fantasy town with a mixed population of humans and the Skaven, Warhammer gaming’s rat people.
Aside from the obvious fun usage of hair, hats and capes as furs, what I like here is the feel of actual work being underway. All too often Castle scenes look over-posed and artificial, the figures little more than dressing for the buildings. As for Jacob’s buildings, the roofing and woodwork are excellent, and are set atop walls which actually look like weathered stone, rather than an emptying out of the builder’s brick bins.
Too often a desire for texture and detail can end in a messy creation, the eye pulled this way and that by unnecessary clutter. It’s a tricky balance, but I reckon Jacob has nailed it. What do you think?
We’ve featured quite a few Pokémon on The Brothers Brick before, but Digimon hasn’t gotten a lot of love (which is par for the course). To bring back a bit of the Digital World, nobu_tary brings us a fantastic rendition of WarGreymon, one of the most iconic Digimon of all time.
Will this Halloween Week of Wonders never cease? Apparently not! There’s more than meets the eye with these awesome little studs-out Halloween figurines by accomplished young LEGO sculptor Will Ho. Each one has a different mechanical “reveal” – click to watch the video demonstrations. I particularly like the design of the Invisible Man – very clever indeed!
This incredible scene by derjoe is instantly recognizable as the abandoned streets of New York City from the movie I Am Legend. If the minifig representing Robert Neville (Will Smith) and his German Shepherd Sam don’t give it away, then the vampire-proofed Ford Expedition certainly does.
Those gorgeous garage doors are my favorite detail. Check out all of derjoe’s awesome builds here.
The video game Destiny brought us quite a number of smooth and polished starfighters. Without copying any particular spaceship David Steeves did a great job of capturing all the main distinctive features of those fighters, complementing them with a couple of nice building techniques. I love how neat and solid his Disruptor XC2 looks, not to mention a not so ordinary choice of color for the cockpit windscreen.
Disappointing news today for LEGO fans hoping to get their models turned into official sets, or looking forward to purchasing interesting new models. This morning LEGO announced that they have finished examining all 13 projects which passed the 10,000 vote mark on LEGO Ideas during the first quarter of 2015, and that none of the projects will be moving forward to become official sets. The potential projects included intellectual properties such as Legend of Zelda, Discworld, The International Space Station, a miniature version of Nathan Sawaya’s famous Yellow LEGO sculpture, and the Golden Girls, as well as a brick-built Tyrannosaurus Rex, a model of the Titanic, and a castle-themed market, among others.
LEGO says that each of the models either rely upon IPs whose owners cannot come to an agreement with LEGO, or the models are too closely related to current or future LEGO products, or they would be too difficult to turn into an official LEGO set.
In the one glimmer of hope given, LEGO says they are still considering the previous round’s F7A Star Hornet from the forthcoming crowd-funded video game Star Citizen, though with the caveat that LEGO may still choose to deny this project as well.
Finally, here are the candidates for the next review round, the results of which are set to be announced in early 2016.
I have a house rule that I can’t sort new minifigs into their bins until I’ve used them in at least one build. As a result, the Banshee from Minifigures Series 14 has been collecting dust on my desk for almost two months. But thanks to Halloween, her wait is finally over! With this build, I wanted to capture some of the eeriness of Halloween and there’s no place eerier than a graveyard at night.
You can see the color version of this photo here.
I hadn’t seen Disney’s animated superhero movie Big Hero 6 until this past weekend. By pure coincidence, I ran across a LEGO version of protagonist Hiro Hamada’s workshop by Jonas just as I was watching the movie. While I could argue that the scene might be more lively with a Hiro minifig or a brick-built Baymax, the absence of characters doesn’t detract from the amazing detail Jonas has worked into the setting — especially those drawers built from 1×2 bricks and bucket handles.
