Category Archives: LEGO

You’d probably expect a lot of the posts on a LEGO website like The Brothers Brick to be about LEGO, and you’d be right. If you’re browsing this page, you might want to consider narrowing what you’re looking for by checking out categories like “Space” and “Castle.” We’re sure there’s something here that’ll fascinate and amaze you.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for February 26, 2017 [News]

The Brothers Brick publishes so many stories that we’re giving you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our Weekly Brick Report for the last week of February.

TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: The week was light on news, but after such frantic last week, we don’t mind. We still have some reviews, an interview and a guest post for your reading pleasure.

2017 Toy Fair New York roundup and inside look at LEGO’s booth – TBB’s own Chris Malloy reflects on the New York Toy Fair and shares some hands-on insight on what’s to come.
First look at LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 17 at Toy Fair – Get your first look at the box for the next series of Collectible Minifigures (CMF) from the New York Toy Fair.
Review of LEGO Technic 42063 BMW R 1200 GS Adventure – This 603-piece BMW beauty is the first licensed Technic motorcycle ever released and is a bargain.
Review of LEGO Speed Champions 2016 Ford GT & 1966 Ford GT40 – These are truly stellar cars, with a new part and a great selection of other parts at a low price-per-parts ratio.
Interview with builder Anu Pehrson about Architecture and Al Pacino – We talk with Anu about her beautiful architectural builds and getting involved in the LEGO community.
LEGO on display at Emerald City Comicon 2017 in Seattle next week – Come see TBB’s display and many more pop culture-themed creations at Emerald City Comicon.
LEGO 3.18 mm connection analysis by New Elementary – Here’s an in-depth article about unique 3.18 mm connections from Tim Johnson originally appeared at New Elementary.
Amazon sales on Ninjago’s Temple of Airjitzu, Star Wars, Technic, Elves and More – This week there are several deals on Amazon worth knowing about.

OTHER NEWS: There was a little LEGO news from other places around the web this week. Here are a few items we noticed and thought you might enjoy.

Watch a LEGO genius build a machine that makes paper airplanes, BGR – Brazilian designer Arthur Sacek builds a robot capable of folding and launching a paper airplane.
How LEGO built brand trust, brick by brick, AdWeek via Huffington Post – LEGO has built a multi-dimensional brand that communicates this is something you can trust in.
21-year-old man cremated in giant LEGO brick, AOL – Losing a loved one is never easy, but a family of a deceased LEGO fan honored his life in a unique way.
How Warner Bros. and LEGO sold a comedy about a humorless vigilante, Ad Age – Batman is typically dark, so how is one of the best comedies of the year based on him?

That’s your Brick Report for the week. See you next month!

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.

Start getting emotional with the Inside Out family

With LEGO’s introduction of BrickHeadz, we’re starting to see fan builders apply their creativity to featuring their favourite characters in this new form. Mark Gotidoc captures the essence of these five Pixar characters’ emotions cleverly with just the right tones and elements, but with one difference from LEGO sets: no printed body parts. The only parts which are printed are the eyes, which truly convey the expressions of each individual. The rest are cleverly fashioned in minimal parts but with maximum effect.

I particularly like how some of the fists are fashioned with “lamp holder” pieces, instead of the expected plate holders (which to me look like hooks more than anything else).

LEGO Technic 42063 BMW R 1200 GS Adventure [Review]

Unlike many of my childhood friends, I’ve never been fond of motorcycles. Well, some of them look cool and I heard some of them are really fast but while all of my mates spent hours drooling over pictures of bikes in auto magazines I was pretty content with a huge yellow pneumatic tractor from LEGO Technic on a table in my room. And now, 15 years later, here I am, feasting my eyes on the new LEGO Technic 42063 BMW R 1200 GS Adventure on my table, thinking that I’ve been missing something in my life till this very moment. Although there have been plenty of LEGO Technic motorcycles before it, this 603-piece beauty is the first licensed motorcycle released, and the retail price of $59.99 / 49.99€ makes this BMW a solid bargain among all the licensed LEGO Technic sets.

Reviewing a BMW R 1200 GS set gives a lot of opportunity for reflection upon the licensed models in the Technic theme, as well as comparing them to the old Model Team sets, and this is what I’d planned to base my review on until I got my hands on the set. The problem is this BMW doesn’t need to be compared to other bikes, cars, or cranes. It stands out against every other 2017 Technic set. Its announcement was highlighted by several official press releases, emphasizing that this bike is a self-contained and stand alone model. It’s not a primarily meant as toy, nor is it merely a sophisticated mechanism or a dodgy Technic machine by Billund’s designers. Rather, it’s a decent, scaled copy of a BMW motorcycle made of Technic pieces — and this is what makes it genuinely beautiful.

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A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist

There are few things that stand the test of time and still find relevance in pop culture. K.I.T.T, short for Knight Industries Two Thousand, is the talking trans-am that captured the TV dreams of many an 80’s kid, including builder Rob Damiano. While the character of Michael Knight was the official hero of this show, it always seemed to be K.I.T.T. that saved the day by coming to his rescue or using some new technological trick. Rob has recreated the four-wheeled star of Knight Rider at a scale that perfectly matches the LEGO Dimensions David Hasselhoff minifigure, and presented it in a style that looks lifted straight from the show:

It’s a (bear) trap!

A good steak is hard for any carnivore to resist – no matter how rare it is – so I would probably take my chances to snag this one, and hopefully not get snagged myself in this menacing LEGO bear trap by Cecilie Fritzvold. This particular creation is part of the ongoing Iron Builder contest between Cecilie and Chris Maddison. Essentially they’re trapped (and constricted) to creatively using these Nexo Knights shields to showcase their building skills.

Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain!

Marvel has been churning out one hit movie hit after another, and Dr Strange was another winner. Their refresh of timeless superheroes also inspires LEGO builders like Letranger Absurde to recreate these iconic characters in bricks. Geared up in his Cloak of Levitation and equipped with the Eye of Agamotto, there’s little that Dormammu, the supervillan on the big screen can do to outwit the brilliant Doctor. My favourite part of the build is actually how the nose cone elements in yellow are used to construct the gloved hands, and the white streaks of hair represented by radiator grille parts.

Travel through time in style with a DeLorean

If there were ever a vehicle that deserved the UCS (Ultimate Collector Series) treatment, the DeLorean from Back to the Future is the one I think fans would be rooting for. As Doc Brown said, if you’re going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style? Korean builder 지현주 (Ji Hyun Ju) holds nothing back and puts in all the bells and whistles, from detailing on the dashboards and interior to a pair of working gull wing doors. The only question I have is who do I need to bribe in Billund to get one of these in released in a 4000 piece count set?

See more of this LEGO DeLorean

LEGO 3.18 mm connection analysis by New Elementary [Guest Post]

Ready to build something awesome this weekend? To inspire you with some new building techniques you may not have thought of on your own, here’s an in-depth article about the unique 3.18 mm connections available throughout the LEGO System of play. This article by Tim Johnson originally appeared on New Elementary.

Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano su Old Bricks

I am sure that many people, upon seeing these models, would cite them as proof that LEGO® have lost their way “since I was a kid, when it was just bricks“. Whilst these are indeed new parts, the fact is that the changes that brought them into the LEGO System occurred in the 1970s.

Read the full article after the jump

Dutch students present prototype satellite design built from LEGO to the European Space Agency

Students at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, including LEGO builder Rinse, had an opportunity to present a prototype satellite design to the European Space Agency (ESA) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. With a LEGO builder among them, the student team used bricks as their design medium for constructing their 3D prototype. The LEGO model has a hexagonal shape, and the solar arrays don’t require any additional support to remain extended horizontally.

I once built an 11th century Romanesque castle from LEGO for a university humanities course. How have you used LEGO in your own higher education?

Some times a road block is the preferred option

In her ongoing Iron Builder challenge, Cecilie Fritzvold has built a crumbling bridge. I always enjoy seeing decay built in LEGO, whether it’s fast like this one or a more tranquil style, which we often see in post-apocalyptic creations. What I also love is bridges, so Cecilie delivers on two of my soft spots at the same time.There are loads of details to be explored in this creation, like the great cracking effect or the subtle use of Nexo-Knights shield piece as the edge of the sidewalk.

If you want to see more great use of the Nexo Knights shield pentagonal tile (the “seed part” in their current challenge), be sure to check Cecilie‘s and Chris Maddison‘s Flickr pages.

RAF Hawker Typhoon swooshes into enemy airspace

The Hawker Typhoon, known by the RAF as Tiffy for short, was a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft during World War II. Einon‘s LEGO version of the Typhoon features a fully retractable landing gear and carries eight rockets under the wings and two bombs. The real life bomber had a few design issues but Einon has managed to iron out some of these in his minifigure-scale version. The brick-built propeller is a good solution for sizing on this model but the invasion stripes on the upper wing surfaces and fuselage seal this as an accurate wartime Typhoon.

Einon has made a short video that not only shares more details about the Typoon, but also demonstrates his version’s retractable landing gear and how swooshable this LEGO bomber can be.

This monster has its eyes on you... all eleven of them

Mitch is not only seeing how much lime green can be put into one build, but also how many eyes. This bounty hunter, named Marq, has eleven of them cleverly created with the frying pan piece and circular 1X1 plates with a hole through the middle. Looking past all that lime green, I really like the use of the tread and linkage pieces to create some semblance of clothing.