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.

Lifestyles of the Brick and Famous (narrated by Robin Leach!) brought to you by BrickNerd

Today’s clearly a video-heavy day. Great way to break up the day. Who can say no to Iain‘s bricks of character coming to life? When it comes to characters, though, Tommy Williamson (GeekyTom) is certainly holding his own. He keeps making BrickNerd better and better every time.

This time, though, is very special.

On this episode, we take a look into the the Lifestyles of the Brick and Famous.

While you’re at it, check out Tommy’s contest (now through 9/30!) to Pimp your Nerdly. Instructions are available on his site!

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.

LEGO Gollum reminds us that there are only a few more days to register for BrickCon 2013!

BrickCon 2013 is less than a month away and registration will be closing in two weeks! If you are planning on attending the longest-running LEGO fan convention in North America, you had better get registered. There will be prizes, games, seminars, round-table talks, food, new friends and, of course, tons and tons of cool LEGO creations to drool over. This will be my eighth BrickCon and every one has been fun and unique. You definitely don’t want to miss the party! Iain Heath posted this video gem to remind all of us how precious registration really is…

If you plan to attend the whole convention, register through the BrickCon Builder’s site.

If you plan to only view the displays during the public hours, buy tickets in advance at the Public BrickCon sit.

Welcome to the brand new Brothers-Brick.com!

Those of you visiting The Brothers Brick today will notice some big changes to the site. We’ve just rolled out a brand new design that we hope you’ll like a lot.

Brothers-Brick.com 3.0

Key changes:

Optimized for whatever screen size you prefer — desktop browsers, tablets, and mobile devices.
Wider post area to highlight bigger photos and videos (with dynamic resizing for smaller screens).
Simpler navigation across the top of the page.

Everything you love about TBB is of course all still here, but now the site should load faster and work better no matter how you choose to access it. And it’s just a whole lot prettier.

Huge thanks to Alyse (half of the dynamic Bolt of Blue duo) for the new design!

Love it, hate it, bug reports — let us know what you think in the comments!

MiniMi – A new LEGO minifig app

I was invited to try out the new minifig app, MiniMi, while it was still in beta. It is a fun, novelty app and I actually spent quite a bit of time trying different comibinations of figures, making myself, my family members and what-not. My kids absolutely loved it. Overall, it is well made and pretty intuitive to use. It’s an entertaining app, in and of itself. Also it is free to download, which is nice. There are also expansion packs, such as Space and Castle (yay!), which cost 99 cents each.

However, I think this app has the potential to really shine as a customizing tool. How so? Because it has the only minifig face generator of which I am aware (feel free to correct me in the comments if I am wrong). Switching hair, hats, torsos and colors in the app is pretty straightforward but the face generator is something unique. You can choose from a selection of eyes, eyebrows, mouths, facial hair, glasses and so forth to create unique faces that don’t actually exist on official minifigs. Because the app has built in share functions, you can export your fig image…isolate the face…resize and print it on decal or sticker paper.

Currently the number of elements in the app is limited but the expansion “packs” remedy this somewhat and the team is planning more. If they expand the library of facial elements, I think this app could be something really special. I would also like to see a feature added to where the user could resize and/or change the colors of the various facial features but this may come with time.

Download it here.

Iain Heath twerks his way to LEGO Internet infamy

We all know that Iain Heath of The Living Brick is the master of capturing the latest moments in pop-culture history in LEGO. But I would posit that he has gone too far!

Apparently, there was some sort of awards show for motion-picture musicals or something recently. Proving that the event I had never heard of before was indeed supposed to be family-centric, the daughter (age 20) of “Achy Breaky Heart” singer Billy Ray Cyrus danced while the son (age 36) of the dad from Growing Pains sang a popular song. I’m told by multiple people on the Internet that the problem was that these two children of beloved celebrity parents did not act like the pure-hearted children that they should be!

I have not brought myself to watch any video footage of the atrocity inflicted on the world (on par with the worst things happening elsewhere on the planet), but I’m told that I should find the whole thing distasteful. I’m shocked and saddened that an upstanding member of the LEGO building community would stoop so low. After all, these are children’s toys. Think of the children, Iain! The children!

BrickNerdTV’s Fourth Episode is now live!

Our friend, Tommy Williamson, is doing great things over at BrickNerd, not the least of which are his News and Reviews Videos. Stop reading this and go watch the video…it’s good. Also there is the added bonus [SPOILER ALERT!] of hearing Iain Heath (Ochre_Jelly) recite Ewok poetry.

21103 Back to the Future DeLorean [Video Review]

To complement our previous DeLorean review by Andrew, I’m bringing you a video review of 21103 Back to the Future DeLorean. The set was released in August 2013 and retails at $34.99, with 401 pieces and 2 minifigs.

Here is my summary of the highlights of the set, which are elaborated in the review video below.

Pros:

2 new and popular minifigs
Nicer than usual packaging and bound instruction book
Includes extra parts for different versions of the DeLorean

Cons:

No new/rare parts used in the DeLorean besides the printed tiles
DeLorean hood design is not optimal
Car seats only 1 minifig

Overall, I would recommend this set more to fans of the movie and collectors than to builders. Even though the set has an above average price to parts ratio, buying this set for parts won’t add much to the diversity of your collection due to the lack of rare and new parts from this set. If you’re into collecting, then this set is a must-buy due to its novelty and popularity.

LEGO Star Wars 10236 Ewok Village [Review]

The highly anticipated new LEGO Star Wars set, 10236 Ewok Village, was just released in mid-August. It costs $249.99 for 1,990 parts and is the first Star Wars mega set that’s not a spacecraft. It is currently available in Lego stores and Lego Shop at Home for VIP members (free to sign up).

Here is my summary of the highlights of the set, which are elaborated in the review video below. For those interested in the parts content, you can check out the parts review video here.

Pros:

Lots of foliage and earth tones such as dark brown parts. This is a great set for landscape builders
Plenty of play features add play value on top of looks
The 3 main trees are also modular and can be easily switched around.
16 minifigs — exclusives include Princess Leia, Luke, Han Solo, Wicket, Ewok warrior, and Teebo.

Cons:

A bit on the pricey side. $200 would be an ideal price.
Tube railings are difficult to bend into shape.
Instructions hard to read when distinguishing brown from dark brown

If you can afford this set, then there’s no other major reason not to get it. This is a very unique set that’s as good for play as it is for display. The abundant earth tones and the foliage make it suitable for landscape builders, and not many sets have this high ratio of landscape parts. It is unlikely that the price will drop soon, and you’ll be lucky to see it at 10% off in 2013, so I recommend buying it now and start enjoying this wonderful build.

HispaBrick Magazine 017 out now [News]

The 17th issue of HispaBrick Magazine is out. As always, there’s lots of great content that covers both the thematic and international diversity of the Lego fan community, and download is free. Here’s a glimpse of what’s in the latest issue:

Features of builders including Luke Watkins Hutchinson, Simon Liu, Alice Finch, and Dennis Glaasker (Bricksonwheels).
Articles about Lego communities and events such as the large Lego fan base in Taiwan known as Pockyland and the worldwide Lego holiday fundraiser, Creations for Charity.
Info and articles on the upcoming Mindstorms EV3
Lots of set reviews and more!

LEGO 21103 BttF DeLorean now shipping

The LEGO and Back to the Future DeLorean set (21103) (reviewed here) is now shipping (at least in the US). So if you’re keen on this set and haven’t already noticed you can help us help you and buy it.

Buy it from Amazon
Also on the LEGO Shop online.

BrickFair Virginia 2013 this coming weekend

BrickCon may be the US convention that TBB is most closely affiliated with, but another big one is about to take place the coming weekend: BrickFair Virginia.

There are about a thousand builders registered, including a fair few people whose models you’ll have seen featured on this blog. Nannan had a great time there back in 2011 and BrickFair Va 2011 was the first US LEGO convention I attended. I had a blast. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it last year (or to any of the other US LEGO conventions so far), but I am back in Virginia for this year’s event. Dan will also be there. I am eagerly looking forward to seeing the models and to meeting their builders.

The convention takes place at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly Va (near Washington DC) and is open to the public on Saturday the 3rd and Sunday the 4th of August from 11am to 4pm. Online ticket sales end today. You can buy tickets at the venue, however, for the same price, but will probably have to wait in line for a while. If you are in the area, it will be a fantastic day out.

Get your Nerd on!

Our friend, Tommy Williamson has started a new blog, The Brick Nerd, as many of you are aware. He has recently began posting videos where he does set reviews, talks about recent LEGO-related news and highlights various creations. In his second episode, he covers San Diego Comic Con, reviews the Cuusoo Delorean and more!