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.

The LEGO Batman Movie is a funny Batman movie built with bricks [Review]

The first words in my review of The LEGO Movie three years ago were “I’ll admit it: I had very low expectations for The LEGO Movie.” But as we’ve all discovered since then, everything was awesome! Nevertheless, I attended a press screening this evening of The LEGO Batman Movie with fairly moderate expectations, not expecting a miracle twice.

While I would be hard-pressed to call The LEGO Batman Movie miraculous, much of the movie does deliver on expectations set by its predecessor, from its constant stream of sight gags and totally unexpected cameos to the largely brick-built world that the minifigs inhabit.

Read the full review of The LEGO Batman Movie

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Breaking your way through the polar ice of Canada

For Canada’s 150th birthday, Adam Dodge built a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker diorama, and it’s surprisingly satisfying to look at. There’s a nice contrast between the clean surfaces of the ice and sea and the intense, broken up ice and the very industrial-looking ship. The icebreaker just pops out with its bright, high-visibility colour scheme. The whole diorama has a sense of motion about it, with the thick ice stacked up in the front and the broken-up ice at the back, which is achieved by carefully arranged translucent window panes and cheese slopes.

The first of the new Iron Lords wields the LEGO Destiny Young Wolf’s Howl

Canadian builder Nick Della Mora shows his love for Destiny with his life size LEGO replica of the Young Wolf’s Howl, an exotic tier sword first appearing in the Rise of Iron expansion. It would have been difficult to construct the engraved Iron Lords crest on the blade and still have the blade hold together when wielded, but it would also look inaccurate to skip that detail altogether. Nick’s choice to instead focus on the red-orange glow of the crest was a creative idea, and led to a neat light-up effect.

In the video below, Nick shows the light-up crest and the techniques used in the blade to maintain stability.

If you enjoy LEGO Destiny, you may also like Nick’s Cosmodrome diorama, or other exotic weapons such as the Khvostov 7G-0X and No Land Beyond.

LEGO sign language

Some hand gestures transcend spoken language. Most likely, the meaning behind these five LEGO hand gestures by Jimmy Fortel are fairly recognizable for most people. (Though different cultures around the world may attribute different meanings to a few of them).

The design of Jimmy’s LEGO hands is simple, yet masterful. The fingers curl gracefully. The palms and wrists are substantial enough to look real at first glance. And the accessory choices for these five hand signs are terrific. Each bracelet invokes a unique identity and accurately depicts the stereotypical person that would use these hand signs.

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

There’s no closer BFFs than Grizz, Panda and Ice Bear in Cartoon Network’s show We Bare Bears. They live together, eat together, and even navigate the human world together. They also enjoy all the things that we do like social media, giant burritos and tiger jean jackets – all while traveling together in one “bear stack”. Brandon Griffith has recreated this cuddly column of creatures perfectly in LEGO:

The LEGO Ninjago Movie trailer has arrived [News]

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for The LEGO Ninjago Movie, the next film in the LEGO movie franchise following The Lego Batman Movie (which is out this weekend). The film is adapted from both the Ninjago product line as well as the successful animated TV series.

The story focuses on teenage Lloyd a.k.a. the Green Ninja (Dave Franco), who must work with a team of ninja friends led by Master Wu (Jackie Chan) to defend their island home of Ninjago against the evil warlord Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux), all while dealing with the monsters and mundanities that come with high school. But the black-helmeted, four-armed supervillain Garmadon just happens to be Lloyd’s dad. Continue reading →

You really don’t want these neighbours to knock on your door

Neighbours can be a mixed bunch; some can be horrid if they play their music loudly at night, while others will mow your lawn while you’re on holiday. I think it is safe to say that the neighbours in this inspired microscale scene by Cecilie Fritzvold are more of the silent type. There are a few ingenious parts used in this scene, with a “sunken” technique used to give certain parts a new lease of life at this scale.

The grave stones are a mix of ingots, 1×1 plates with teeth, and blaster trigger mechanisms surrounded by a fence made from grille tiles. I love the nearby church whose structure includes a pair of 2×3 pentagonal tiles sitting at different heights to add depth. The white houses all have roofs made from minifigure laptops; so simple and yet so effective.

Building in microscale is a great way to utilise LEGO parts in different ways, even when a part may seem to have a very specific purpose when first encountered. For example, did you spot the minifigure rollerskates posing as microscale cars? And can you work out how Cecilie has made the trunk of the tree to the left of the church?

Fly above the blue yonder in this LEGO UH-2A Seasprite

Rotary-winged aircraft are probably not the first thing to come to mind when contemplating the excitement of naval aviation (who remembers seeing a helicopter in Top Gun?). But these whirlybirds are the unsung heros of navies across the globe. The UH-2 Seasprite is a perfect example, painstakingly detailed here in LEGO form by TBB’s own Ralph Savelsberg.

The Seasprite entered service with the United States Navy in the early 1960s and played a vital role rescuing downed pilots during the Vietnam War. This particular model, Ralph explains, is an early model UH-2A which served aboard the USS Forrestal in 1965. After a complete rebuild, this helicopter was delivered 50 years later to the Royal New Zealand Navy.

Ralph is no stranger to building military aircraft, particularly naval models — check out how he does it and his recent LEGO Sikorsky HH–60G Pave Hawk. His newest creation is no less accurate or well-built than his others. Every angle and shape of the Seasprite has been captured. The coloration and markings also help bring this beauty to life. In fact, it’s so realistic it looks late for an important mission. After all, naval planes may get the glory, but its naval helicopters which get the work orders.

Dark Knight training regime redefined for the LEGO Batman Movie

Builder David Liu redefines Batman training with this humorous scene. The story goes that Alfred was shocked to learn that Master Bruce accepted a role in a new LEGO movie. And since then, Batman has been doing some alternative training in his new secret “creativity” training room, supposedly building miniatures of his own vehicles and various other related themes.

What I appreciated about David’s build is actually the tiny representation of nano-sized vehicles and the tiny “The Bat” aircraft has got to be my favourite of them all.

If LEGO be the food of love, build on [Instructions]

I’ve been meaning to create a Brick-moji building guide for a while – the problem was deciding which one(s) to feature! After a couple of failed attempts and with Valentines Day looming, I finally settled on the “Smiling face with heart-shaped eyes”, an emoji that consistently ranks among the top ten most widely used across the web (…the original that is, not my model).

Now, you weren’t really going to just get roses and chocolates AGAIN were you?! Click here for an embiggened version of this guide, and build it for that special plastic-loving person in your life!

February is the month of love – for space rovers!

It’s February and that means one thing – no, not romance and chocolate, but space exploration rovers! Yes, it’s FebROVERy again and we’re seeing a ton of sweet entries into this annual event where builders focus on creating strange and fun little space exploration vehicles. First up, check out this awesome insectoid-style rover by F@bz.

See more awesome LEGO space rovers

The LEGO Batman Movie 70912 Arkham Asylum [Review]

As the days count down to the release of The LEGO Batman Movie on 10 Feb 17, we wanted to keep your interest piqued with our latest movie tie-in set review, 70912 Arkham Asylum. Containing 1628 pieces, this is the largest set in The LEGO Batman Movie theme at present with the associated largest price tag of £139.99 / $149.99 / 149.99€, which equates to a price per piece of 8.6p / 9.2c / 9.2c, respectively. This set is rated for ages 12-16.

This is the third LEGO incarnation of Arkham Asylum and the biggest, though only just. The first was back in 2008 with 7785 Arkham Asylum, which has 860 pieces, 7 minifigures and a £59.99 / $79.99 price tag. The second, 10937 Batman: Arkham Asylum Breakout, was a 2012 set with 1,619 pieces, 8 minifigures, and a £129.99 / $159.99 / 159.99€ price tag. Finally, we have this latest release which nudges into the lead with a part count of 1,628, but has no less than 12 minifigures (well 13 if one includes the statue minifigure).

Continue reading →