One of my favorite parts about January is new LEGO sets coming into stores. I love seeing all the awesome new pieces and new sets. Picking one out is often the hardest part! To help with that, we’re bringing you reviews of some of the new 2017 sets so you can make decisions for your own collection, and last week we looked at 31065 Park Street Townhouse. Today we’re turning our gaze to 70261 The Vermillion Attack, which has 83 pieces and retails for $9.99 USD.
Take to the skies in style with Ted Andes‘ latest LEGO creation. This single-seater aircraft has a dieselpunk feel, with an impressive level of detail for such a small creation — much of it down to the intelligent repurposing of Bionicle armor pieces. The brick-built clouds around the plane give the whole image a wonderful cartoonish sky effect, but the highlight of the model for me is that slight downward angle on the nose turbine — a lovely touch.
Tiny Turbos were a series of 4-wide vehicles LEGO released between 2005 and 2011, but they have lived on as a popular style of custom LEGO creation. Jonas Obermaier has been building some great custom Tiny Turbos, and this latest showcases some great details, from the overpowered engine to the large machine gun and spiky rear wheels — a perfect vehicle to raid the Bullet Farm. The presentation is also excellent, with stunted sticks surrounding a warning sign on an otherwise blank tan base.
If you like Jonas’s post-apocalyptic truck, we expect you’ll love his LEGO Red Rocket truck stop from Fallout 4.
If you walk along Front West Street in downtown Toronto, Ontario you will see the impressive Fairmont Royal York Hotel. On June 11, 1929, the hotel officially opened. The Royal York changed names and ownership a few times since its humble beginnings as the Ontario Terrace, which consisted of four brick houses, in 1843. Jeff Van Winden has captured the architectural essence of the hotel in LEGO microscale. The sense of scale is emphasised with the busting street below with adorable little microscale vehicles.
I particular like Jeff’s clever solution to the intricate arched windows on the three main blocks at the front with this upturned minifigure basketball stand. Just be sure to book early if the Royal Family are in town, Queen Elizabeth usually has an entire floor reserved for her and her entourage and occupies the Royal Suite herself.
Apparently Batman drives a Chevrolet, as LEGO and Chevrolet have teamed up to build a life-sized version of 70905 The Batmobile complete with Chevy bowtie emblem, and it is exactly as awesomely black (and very dark grey) as the Dark Knight might hope.
This huge “Speedwagon” from upcoming The LEGO Batman Movie was unveiled today at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It was built as a life-sized, 1-1 scale replica of the LEGO Batmobile, much like the Star Wars X-wing from a few years ago.
LEGO’s latest set in the Creator theme is 31065 Park Street Townhouse, which was recently released in both the UK and the US. This set contains 566 pieces and retails at UK: £44.99 / US: $49.99 / EU: €49.99. The main build is the townhouse, but there are alternative instructions for a city café and a suburban home. The set comes with 2 minifigures, a moped, and the parts to build a little blue bird and a white dog. This type of Creator set is often called a “mini modular” and interestingly one of the images at the back of the first instruction booklet shows this set linked with 31050 Corner Deli to form a mini street scene. Other examples of so-called mini modulars include 31026 Bike Shop & Café or 31036 Toy and Grocery Shop, both of which are now retired.
Read the full review of 31065 Park Street Townhouse
As we announced just a few weeks ago, The Brothers Brick is giving away one copy of the massive LEGO Star Wars set 75159 Death Star. Enter to win from this link, or by clicking the Contests section on our Facebook page. The winner will also receive an awesome TBB logo T-shirt, stickers, and some really sweet A. Lemur buttons.
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 second week of January.
TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: This week we took a deep dive into the minds of some amazing builders (Batman and Bionicle!) and even shared some instructions for a cute bug.
OTHER NEWS: There was a massive amount of LEGO news from other places around the web this week. Here are a few items we noticed and thought you might enjoy.
That’s your Brick Report. See you next week!
Designer BenFifteenTheChicken puts together the playset that every Batman fan not only needs but deserves. At first glance, the setting of this LEGO creation looks similar to the 76001 The Bat vs. Bane™: Tumbler Chase, but the huge difference is not just that the models have the right bat-colored theme, but also that the builder has upgraded and redesigned each vehicle so that they have the proper look of the machines featured on the big screen.
My favourite bit is actually the miniature Bat-Pod built with minimal elements, but with maximum impact — with a secret feature! It actually is part of the Tumbler, secretly hidden and tucked within the front wheel layout!
If sci-fi robots are your thing, then Pete Reid is your man. He builds LEGO robots that are so detailed and full of greebles they wouldn’t look out of place in a Boston Dynamics demonstration video. I love his latest creation — the Digital Ombudsman. It’s got a wonderful poise and balance, making great use of lots of different connections and parts you wouldn’t expect. A quick glance reveals pirate hooks, spanners, ingots, ray guns, and handlebars all making their appearance to create the complex mechanical look. On top of all the detail, the robot’s green eye is fantastic.
This was built as part of a feature looking at potential uses for the new bar-and-towball piece over at New Elementary. Check it out here.
My Adidas — or more correctly Jimmy Fortel‘s Adidas — the classic Superstar 3-stripe trainer, built in LEGO. The overall shaping here is excellent, with a nice mixture of curved, sloped, and tiled bricks to capture a shape that doesn’t immediately lend itself to brick construction. The best bit? The way Jimmy has used angled sections to create the iconic white stripes. Excellent work.
Jimmy’s on something of an 80s kick at the moment — don’t miss his wonderful LEGO 80s boombox which we covered recently.
I’ve never been in a workshop as clean as this one by ForlornEmpire. I expect to see some oil, spilled coffee, or some sort of mess surrounding that giant engine — can’t say I’d lay below it, either. The scene has a ton of great detail, from the simple and effective fluorescent lights to the tool drawers, which I absolutely love. They look just like they should, at a good scale, and it’s a fantastic use of a bucket handle!
