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.

News: Brickshelf gone for good (UPDATE 7/15 PM)

UPDATE (AB) (7/16 AM Pacific): Images hosted on Brickshelf seem to be working again. What this means I don’t know. More info as we find out.

UPDATE (LB) (7/16 AM Pacific): Keith Goldman pointed out that MOCpages is now offering free hosting for lego images. A note on the front page states that this service may not be free in the future – I suspect it depends on how much it will cost to keep such a service up and running. The old galleries don’t work since they simply linked to the pictures on Brickshelf before this transition, but it’s still a very kind gesture by Sean Kenney, owner of the site.

UPDATE (NW) (7/15 10:50 PM Pacific): Troy Cefaratti has released similar posts on Classic-Castle.com as well. Take a deep breath guys, not all is lost. Remember, it’s only been less than 24 hours. Give it time.

UPDATE (AB) (7/15 3:30 PM): Troy Cefaratti (aka “Mnementh” on BrickLink and Classic-Castle) seems to know something we don’t.

(And my apologies to those of you got a page not found error when you clicked through from somewhere else today. I updated the timstamp and title for this post, and that seems to have changed its Web address. My bad.)

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Whether you host your own images there or not, Brickshelf is one of the cornerstones of the online LEGO community. As many of you visiting this blog will have noticed, none of the images hosted on Brickshelf are currently working, and if you’ve been to Brickshelf.com in the last few hours, you will have seen the following text — and nothing else — on the home page:

“Brickshelf has discontinued operation. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

I’m furiously reading discussion threads, e-mailing, and chatting with my sources, but I don’t have any information about this issue right now. Unfortunately, given the wording of the message, this doesn’t seem to be “scheduled maintenance”.

Discussions are popping up on LEGO forums all over the Internet:

LUGNET
Classic-Castle: Thread 1 (locked), Thread 2 (now also locked) Additional threads, most of them also locked because of needless panic and namecalling, can be found.
Classic-Space
Eurobricks: Thread 1, Thread 2
FBTB Forums
Bricklink Forums: Thread 1, Thread 2
Forum 0937
Brickfilms.com
Transformer World 2005
Minifig Customization Network
Saber Scorpion’s Lair Forums

Blog reactions:

Despite the magic of RSS, I won’t be able to monitor the entire online LEGO community for updates about this, so if you learn something definitive, please leave a comment on this post (I’ll see it in my e-mail) or use the Contact Us page to send a private message.

EDIT: (NW) Added discussion topic link to Brickfilms.com. Also, Ecto pointed out in the comments section that https://www.brickshelf.com/ works. Remember to put the ‘s’ after ‘http’. I urge everyone who doesn’t have a backup of their stuff to back it up now, and not upload anything new. It’s not known how long this version will last.

EDIT: (AB) And now the SSL (https) site isn’t working either. Still no word from Brickshelf management as to what’s going on.

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News: 10178 Motorized Walking AT-AT?!

As usual, the source is Eurobricks:

News: Photo of LEGO Indiana Jones Minifig

I suspect this will put to rest any debate that the rendered images we’ve seen of Indy so far weren’t “real”:

Source, via Klocki.

News: Early Picture of 7036 Dwarves’ Mine

Standard disclaimer: LEGO hasn’t confirmed that this is “real,” and this could be an early prototype (bear in mind how different the Viking sets were between prototype pictures and their final production versions).

From what I can see, this set has a lot of new parts:

A troll
New swords
Mining carts
Bronze or gold axe blades
Red or orange beards
Black or brown beards
Winged helmets

And since I looked it up:

The plural form dwarfs has been traced to the 17th century. The alternate plural dwarves has been recorded in the early 18th century, but was not generally accepted until used by Philologist J.R.R. Tolkien in his fantasy novel The Hobbit. Neither is the historical plural: dwarf was pluralized dwarrow in Anglo-Saxon.

EDIT: And the Exo-Force set — “7721 Bad Guy Vehicle”:

UPDATE: 7036 Dwarves’ Mine was released in October 2007, and returned to the LEGO Shop in June 2008:

Contests happening all over the place!

Given the potential for loot, I thought I’d pass on a couple of contests going on right now.

Klocki and zczuba.pl are hosting a sports-themed contest. Head on over to Klocki to read the details and see examples, but here’s some inspiration:

(News via VignetteBricks; “Red Card” by Nelson Yrizarry, currently going through brick-withdrawal. We feel your pain.)

Also via VignetteBricks, LEGO Europe just concluded a raffle for the gold-chrome C-3PO minifig otherwise only available randomly in sets here in the United States. The contest deadline was June 25, but you can see all of the entries on 1000steine.de. In my personal favorite, a rather enhanced R2-D2 steals the scene — as usual:

The final due date for the Classic-Space.com Moon Rover Contest is this Saturday, June 30th. You can see a list of all the great entries so far in this thread. Many of the entries feature wonderfully inventive wheels:

I know there are more contests out there, so leave a comment if I’ve missed something.

Vote for The Brothers Brick in the Blogger’s Choice Awards!

A reader in Brazil has been kind enough to nominate The Brothers Brick for a Blogger’s Choice Award in the “Best Photography Blog” category!

We don’t know if it’s a “real” award, and perhaps “Best Hobby Blog” or “Best Geek Blog” might have been better categories, but hey, we’ll take it!

If you like what we do, please vote for us. If you love what we do, maybe you might even go so far as to nominate us in a couple more categories (hints provided above) and then vote for us in all of them! :-D

I’m off to nominate or vote for all my own favorites…

BrickWorld 2007

BrickWorld 2007 is being held in Chicago this weekend (well, June 21-24). Photos are starting to show up on the ‘net, including the dedicated Flickr group and a large photoset from attendee Captain Redstorm.

As always at events, there are more pictures than we could possibly show here. Here’s a semi-random shot of a mecha:

The world-famous Mos Eisley diorama is at BrickWorld:

I’ll update this post with links to more coverage as I run across it.

First update: Mark Larson has a Brickshelf gallery full of photos from BrickWorld, including the latest products from BrickForge:

Second update: David Pagano has day-by-day coverage. Day 1 Day 2

Third update: Joe Meno is also attending BrickWorld. Thursday (part 1) Thursday (part 2) Friday (part 1) Friday (part 2) Saturday

LEGO Universe Trailer over at Kotaku

Our friends over at Kotaku have an exclusive first look at a LEGO Universe trailer. Head on over and check it out!

(I’ll embed a copy here when I find one.)

Indy Fig

Brickshelf user Tilius has posted an CGI image of the new Indiana Jones minifigure.

New whip, new hat, possibly even some sort of new bag/pouch? Plus, of course, new head, torso and leg designs? I like. A lot.

EDIT (AB): ThrowMetheIdol.com seems to have been the first to post this picture, and the MTV Movies Blog posted a higher-resolution version the next day. Oh, and don’t miss the rather hilarious discussion of this photo on Flickr.

EDIT 2 (AB): Tilius seems to have moved or deleted the image, so I’m replacing it with the high-res version from the MTV Movies Blog.

News: LEGO Castle Chess Set

The rumored LEGO Castle Chess Set (852001) is already available in the LEGO Store online:

EDIT: And the artwork on the front is by Mike Rayhawk. Nice work, Mike!

News: Olly the Octopus Plays with DUPLO

Check this out:

Lego bricks were introduced to Olly the Octopus’s tank on Thursday to stop him getting bored at the Sea Life Park in Weymouth, Dorset….”He seems to be having lots of fun with his new Duplo.”

Thanks for the awesome octo-tip, Nelson! :-D

EDIT (6/19): NOT LEGO!!!. Hey Australia, get that octopus some real LEGO!

News: Indiana Jones LEGO Confirmed

Nope, not a rumor after all. Here’s the press release:

LEGO Group Secures Exclusive Construction Category Rights to Indiana Jones(TM) Property
NEW YORK, June 18 /PRNewswire/ — LEGO Group, the world’s leading construction toy manufacturer, today announces a partnership with Lucasfilm Ltd. to produce building sets based on the Indiana Jones franchise — one of the most globally successful movie series ever made.

Three worldwide blockbuster films, and the highly anticipated May 2008 premiere of the new Indiana Jones movie, will provide inspiration for a series of highly iconic and action-packed build-and-play adventures of the rogue archaeologist and hero.

“There is such a natural synergy between Lucasfilm and LEGO enthusiasts of all ages that makes combining our stories with the LEGO play pattern an easy decision,” said Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing. “We are thrilled to have a chance to share the history and success of LEGO Star Wars with another Lucas franchise.”

Four playsets based on the classic trilogy are slated to launch in January 2008. Three sets based on iconic scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark include: Temple Escape ($49.99 USD) which brings the legendary rolling boulder scene to life in LEGO form as Indy faces spiders and poisoned darts in his search for the Golden Idol of Fertility. With Race for the Stolen Treasure ($29.99 USD), kids build two desert vehicles and recreate Indy’s truck-hopping fight to save the treasure. Indiana Jones and the Lost Tomb ($19.99 USD) recreates the eye-popping suspense of Indy rescuing Marion from slithering snakes in an Egyptian tomb. And based on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade action, Motorcycle Chase ($9.99 USD) depicts the scene where Indy and his father escape with the map to the hidden temple.

Four more constructible playsets based on the fourth movie will launch in May 2008, with suggested retail prices ranging from $9.99 to $79.99 USD.

“We are thrilled to be bringing yet another blockbuster Lucasfilm property to life for LEGO kids and adult enthusiasts,” said Jill Wilfert, vice president, partnership and alliance management for the LEGO Group. “The marriage of strong story, well-known characters, dynamic vehicles and action-oriented movie scenes with the classic LEGO play pattern is a proven winner, and Indiana Jones lends itself perfectly to the build-and-play world of LEGO building.”

For more than 25 years, audiences have been enraptured by the exploits of Indiana Jones. The film trilogy — Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — garnered 14 Academy Award nominations, won 7 Oscars, and grossed over $1,182,000,000 at the box office. The films are among the most popular movies ever made and have become a legendary part of film history.