Category Archives: News

Stay current on the latest news and information about LEGO, from sales & deals to new set announcements. We also cover LEGO events and conventions all over the world.

Exclusive review of LEGO Ideas Wall•E set designed by Angus MacLane [Review]

Last July, the LEGO Wall-E designed by Pixar director/animator Angus MacLane achieved 10,000 votes on LEGO Ideas, and its approval as an upcoming official set was announced in February. LEGO officially unveiled the set just yesterday, but thanks to the good people of Billund, we already have a copy of the set for a hands on review!

Spoiler alert: Wall•E is a a fantastic model with some great building techniques, lots of parts in an unusual color, and quite a good value for the money. I expect strong popularity from the subject matter alone, so I strongly recommend you pick up your LEGO Wall•E while supplies last.

Read the full review after the jump!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

First official images of Star Wars: The Force Awakens LEGO sets! [News]

Here’s your first look at the lineup of sets for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. No word yet on precisely when these will hit stores, but you can probably look for them in the next month or two. See the full list below the jump (mild spoilers possible).

75101 First Order Special Forces TIE fighter ($69.99): Available from Amazon.com & LEGO Shop Online

75099 Rey’s Speeder ($19.99): Available from Amazon.com & LEGO Shop Online

75100 First Order Snowspeeder ($39.99): Available from Amazon.com & LEGO Shop Online

75102 Poe’s X-Wing Fighter ($79.99): Available from Amazon.com & LEGO Shop Online

75103 First Order Transporter ($89.99): Available from Amazon.com & LEGO Shop Online

75104 Kylo Ren’s Command Shuttle ($119.99): Available from Amazon.com & LEGO Shop Online

75105 Millennium Falcon ($149.99): Available from Amazon.com & LEGO Shop Online

LEGO official Wall•E set finally revealed [News]

LEGO has raised the curtain on its latest set, 21303 Wall•E. This is our first official glimpse of the finished product since an official Wall•E set was announced over a year ago, and we’re excited to bring our readers a full hands-on review of this set tomorrow!

LEGO Ideas member MacLane is an animator and director at Pixar Animation Studios, and built his original WALL•E model around the same time the character was being built digitally at Pixar in late 2005. Since then, Angus has refined his model, most recently by collaborating with LEGO Designer Steen Sig Andersen and WALL•E director Andrew Stanton to bring the official LEGO Ideas version to life.
You’ll be able to purchase your own WALL•E starting September 1, for a recommended retail price of $49.99 / EUR 49,99.

You can read the rest of the press release over at the LEGO Ideas blog.

Ask A Lemur – Art, History, and the Dark Ages

Hello, everyone!

This week has been so great! Andrew forgot to yell at me, and even asked me to grab him coffee. And you know what’s amazing? I didn’t mess it up! Josh was so proud. He decided I’d be allowed to “help” with the “Battle of Bricksburg” display for BrickCon! He says I’m not allowed to chew on any bricks though. I’m not sure how much I’m going to like that.

My minion training seems to be going well. Caylin just hits her face with her palm and sighs really loud, and tells me to do it again. She says if I don’t get it soon, then I’ll have to help Ralph clean up his lab. I’d rather not, cause the last time I did that I ended up with an extra tail. It was red! Simon joked about shipping me to BrickNerd.

Okay, time for this week’s questions!

Continue reading →

Ghostbusters coming to LEGO Dimensions! [News]

Ghostbusters will be joining a host of other franchises in the upcoming LEGO Dimensions, a multi-character collectible-figurine action game similar to the popular Skylanders and Disney Infinity games.

Players will purchase the base game, and then character expansion packs to add more playable characters to the game world. Today at Gamescon in Germany, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, the publisher for Dimensions, announced the latest character pack, Ghostbusters. The game will be developed by Traveler’s Tales Games, makers of many other much-loved LEGO games such as LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones. No word yet on when these will be available for pre-order, though the base game and many other character packs can be pre-ordered now! The base game will be available on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and Wii U.

Today’s announcement included 3 character packs for LEGO Dimensions, as well as a few images of the characters being used in-game. So far confirmed packs include:
• Simpsons
• Portal
• Back to the Future
• Doctor Who
• Ghostbusters
• Multiple DC characters including Wonderwoman, Superman and Batman
• Scooby Doo
• Jurassic World
• LEGO Ninjago
• The LEGO Movie
• The Wizard of Oz
• The Lord of the Rings
• LEGO Chima

Click through to see the rest! Continue reading →

Reminder: “Battle of Bricksburg” American Civil War display at BrickCon 2015

Each year except 2013 (we needed a break!), The Brothers Brick organizes a collaborative display at BrickCon in Seattle, the first weekend in October. We’ve mentioned this a few times and set up the official group on Flickr a while back, but with just under two months left until BrickCon, it’s time to share more details!

“Picket’s Charge” by Sean Edmison

After zombie outbreaks, space colonization, and time-traveling dinosaurs, “The Battle of Bricksburg” will be TBB’s first historically themed collaborative display. All TBB readers who attend BrickCon are welcome to participate. (Please note that we cannot accept drop-offs during the public hours on Saturday and Sunday.)

Following the custom sonic screwdrivers he made for ChronoCon last year, we’re incredibly grateful to Will Chapman from BrickArms for collaborating with us on a number of specially designed custom accessories for our display. Planned accessories (pending finalization) include:

Stackable cannonballs
Caplock musket
Cavalry saber

To start getting your minifigs properly equipped, you can pick up the BrickArms Caplock Musket from Brickmania (where you can also buy a really excellent M1857 cannon used by both sides during the war). Both US and Confederate flags are available from our friend Dave Ingraham over at Cape Madness (along with other cloth accessories, like great coats).

Even though we’re targeting a certain level of historical accuracy, the display isn’t trying to reproduce a specific battle or a specific location. To help make this a success for everyone, we’ve designed the layout so that it can be as large or as small as it needs to be, and can accommodate nearly whatever you build. Whether you bring just a few infantry, a squadron of cavalry, big hulking ironclads, houses for the town, or a full section of landscaping, we’ll do our best to incorporate your hard work.

Nevertheless, BrickCon organizers need to have a sense of how much space the display will need, so please register your MOC(s) — after you register yourself, of course! — and please also let us know in the Flickr group and/or here in the comments on this post.

Count down to SHIPtember

It’s almost time for one of the craziest build theme months: SHIPtember.

Starting September 1st, builders have exactly one month to build a S.H.I.P or Seriously Huge Investment in Parts (or Time for some of the people with larger collections). Each SHIP build must be 100 studs or more (in any orientation). Though for people with school or other ‘real life matters’ there’s PRE-SHIPtember which allows you to start earlier, but you’re bound to the same one month rule.

Last year there were over 100 SHIPs that were built:

So start clearing off your social calenders, clean up your build areas, make those bricklink orders (or don’t if you’re confident) and get ready for some SHIPs!

… Though in previous years, there’s quite the anxious bunch that want to get started and have to wait weeks before September rolls around … feel free to take a stab at the Brick Separator challenge:

Rules are simple, just build something with those pesky brick separators! I know that’ll keep me busy till SHIPtember….

Last chance to get in on the Crazy Arms Kickstarter [News]

Guy Himber’s Crazy Arms Kickstarter project hit funding over the weekend, and deliveries are expected by the end of the year. This one looks particularly useful. If you want in on the Kickstarter rewards yourself, you have about 12 more hours to support the project.

I’ve always enjoyed Guy’s various custom projects, and this particular one has the approval of Abraham Lincoln on a velociraptor (my war-like Honest Abe is using one of Guy’s older straight-arm prototypes, and is wearing one of his stovepipe hats).

Ask A Lemur – Monorail, MOCs, and Renders

Hi there!

I, uh, owe everyone an apology. You see, I got into some bit of trouble at the TBB compound. I found this room, right, and it was nice and warm and had the BEST multicolored vines. It turns out those were important? Andrew called them “cables.” Chris found me chewing on them for a snack. I had to go into hiding after that, cause Iain apparently missed something called Downton Abbey? I don’t know what that is, but apparently it’s extremely important.

I’ve been helpin’ around now that they’re less mad at me. I’ve been told that I will not be included in Ralph’s upcoming experiments, so that’s nice. I am not allowed to go anywhere near any of the vehicles, boats, planes, bicycles, or anything form of transportation. Simon said I was grounded.

Since it’s been so long since I’ve gotten to snack on some fanmail, I went a little overboard!

Continue reading →

Series 14 Monster Collectible Minifigures are almost here [News]

LEGO has finally released nice, high resolution images of the newest line of the highly-popular Collectible Minifigures, due out in September. They’re technically Series 14, though the LEGO Movie and Simpsons series were unnumbered, making this actually the 17th wave (not counting the rare Olympic series). This time around, the whole line is monster themed, with characters ranging from ghoulish to naughty, and should be widely available just in time for lots of great Halloween creations this year.

Zombie Pirate

“Yo ho ho and a barrel o’ brains!”
The Zombie Pirate was getting sick and tired of seeing all of these young whippersnapper pirates mess things up, so he’s come back to show them how things used to be done back in the good old days. Not surprisingly for a several-hundred-year-old sea dog, he’s kind of old-fashioned. He still prefers to strand his prisoners on deserted islands instead of making them walk the plank, and he only plunders gold, not fancy-pants modern treasures like silks and spices.
As a zombie, he isn’t particularly big on personal hygiene. His hook is rusty, his captain’s coat is falling apart, and his wooden leg has a bad case of termites. No one is entirely sure whether he has a beard, or just a particularly impressive collection of moss and lichens on his chin. In good news, he doesn’t smell much worse than the average pirate, and if he falls in the water, he’s more likely to bite the sharks than the other way around!

See the rest of the series after the jump, and click on the pictures for a full description of each character. Continue reading →

Parrot sings Everything is Awesome from the LEGO Movie

We’re having an animal-centric day here at The Brothers Brick (at least so far). A parrot named Princess Yellow Feather sings selections from Everything Is Awesome!!! from The LEGO Movie — need I say more?

In theaters and on demand now: A LEGO Brickumentary [News]

After much anticipation and waiting by LEGO fans, Daniel Junge and Kief Davidson’s film A LEGO Brickumentary finally hits select movie theaters in the US today. And for those of us not fortunate enough to live near one of those theaters, it’s also available on iTunes and on demand now!

We had the opportunity to see the documentary last year at the Seattle Film Festival, and you can read our own review. On the whole we loved it – apparently more than some movie critics who have recently described it as a 90-minute ad for the LEGO company. In its defense, the film was not paid for by LEGO, and spends more time outside the hallowed halls of Billund than it does inside them. We think any true LEGO fan will enjoy the breadth of topics it covers, the playful and heartwarming presentation, and excellent brick animation by our friends over at BrickNerd Studios.

And if you look pay attention, you may even spot a few of us in the film ;-)