Jonas Obermaier has left milk and cookies out for Santa in his lovely little sign-off piece for the year. A nicely decorated warm fire place with plenty of logs stacked next to it, a beautifully decorated tree loaded with presents, a cozy living room with plenty of character. In Jonas’ words “I wish you all a merry christmas, happy holidays with your family and a happy new year :)”
And for anyone curious, yes that rug is a legitimate LEGO piece. It’s from the DUPLO set 5598 Dino Valley.
With global population growth is seems obvious that Santa Claus has had to introduce automated processes to the North Pole workshops. How else could he and his team cope with the sheer volume of gifts needing wrapped? However, at some point the Elves will surely begin to question the introduction of new machinery — it’s putting Elvish jobs at risk. What’s next in Santa’s never-ending quest for efficiency and cost-reduction? Outsourcing to cheap Penguin labour at the South Pole?
Every year I build a small LEGO display model as part of our decorations. This is 2016’s effort. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you have a very happy Christmas.
Merry Christmas, dear readers! Here at the Brothers Brick compound, all the little doors on our three LEGO Advent calendars have now been opened, their bricky contents sit resplendent upon the mantelpiece, while the empty boxes burn in the fireplace, creating a warm glow upon our faces …or maybe that’s just the eggnog.
Before the Lemur began distributing our Secret Santa gifts (they’re all socks, they’re always socks) he reminded us to vote on the 46 entries in our Create-a-calendar building contest. As always, we were blown away by your ingenuity and skill. But there can only be three winners, and here they are…
SECOND PLACE
Futurama by Sam Beattie
THIRD PLACE
Classic Space by Andreas Lenander
Thank you again to everyone who took part. And to the winners, congratulations! We’ll be sending you your holiday-themed prize sets soon. We’re just sorry they can’t be sitting there under your tree already. And happy holidays to you all. (…bah, humbug!)
I am not here to debate whether animals understand the concept of holidays, let alone christmas, but from the expression on this puppy’s face it appears this one does. James Zhan has used seemingly simple techniques in the body, building mostly with regular bricks, to give a very realistic impression of fur. On the other hand, the head is much more complex, but still similar in texture with its staggered slopes. My favourite part must be the sense of character presented by the cute little costume and expressive face wishing all who celebrate it, a verry merry Christmas.
Unless you’re just tragically unhip or have been living under a rock, on Mars, then you’ll no doubt have heard of the critically acclaimed, Emmy winning, noodly limbed, gender stereotype breaking, cult followed, totally mathematical, pop culture phenomenon that is Adventure Time.
It’s now been 10 years since the original pilot aired, and with almost 250 episodes under its belt (including a new 8-part special Islands coming next month) the show remains as popular as ever, thanks to its groundbreaking style, the diversity of its characters, and massive merchandising empire. And now it is finally a LEGO set, 21308 Adventure Time. Not bad for a cartoon inspired by D&D and videogames!
Read our full review of this set
SEBASTIAN-Z has created a series of vignettes inspired by Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and they are beautiful. Sadly missing the Ghost of Christmas Past, the builder says “I haven’t decided what to do for that one yet but wanted to upload these before Christmas”. The series starts with a glimpse into Scrooge’s office with it’s fine wooden furnishings, gold accented books and coins littering the floor:
Next, Marley’s ghost appears to Scrooge before whisking him away. The walls of the drawing room are cleverly constructed from LEGO wooden crates, giving them a lovely paneled effect:
Then we have Bob Cratchit’s family feast in his kitchen, shortly before Marley’s ghost tells Scrooge about Tiny Tim’s grave fate:
In the next image, we have Tiny Tim and the Cratchit’s with a clearer view of the kitchen. I like how the builder has created the wooden floors and mis-shapen walls:
Finally, we have The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showing Scrooge his own fate if he does not change his wicked ways. I was delighted when I stumbled upon this wonderful series. It reminds me of Dickens’ “Carol Philosophy”, and there is nothing like this story to remind me of the true nature of Christmas, and I look forward to the conclusion.
Samurai, geisha, bonsai and futons can only mean one thing: Japan. A fishmonger’s cart with a samurai’s house is the latest fantastic entry by jsnyder002 for the Traveling Salesman category of the Classic Castle Competition. A bit of a frequent flyer here at The Brothers Brick, two of his most recent contributions Birds of a Feather and Jewel are excellent.
People line up on the colorfully cobbled street for a sample of fresh fish from the small cart in front of the beautifully crafted samurai home with the bonsai-like tree. The black and white walls, the red and grey tiled roof and the beautiful accents of gold and black trim, including the lovely tessellated path, all add to the texture of this wonderful little scene.
No house would be complete without an interior, and this one is no exception: a sword rack, table, chairs and armor stand comprise the furniture downstairs, while upstairs is a simple futon.
These poofy corgiballs are brimming with cuteness. They were digitally rendered by Steven Reid based on a design by actioncharles. If only the bricks existed in these colors then I’d build one myself, or two, or a dozen…
I love trail-riding, offroading, rock-crawling and anything else that involves driving big trucks over impossibly-rugged terrain. So when I saw Chiho Kim’s LEGO version of a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, I instantly feel in love.
One of the world’s most popular trailriders, the Rubicon is a specially-outfitted Wrangler with enough offroad accessories to take the driver just about anywhere. I’m unsure if the builder incorporated the Rubicon’s signature electronic locking differentials, 4:1 transfer case and D44 axles, but this model does include many of the features that make the Rubicon such a capable and popular rig. Overall, the builder spared no details here (check out the light bar and washer fluid sprayers on the hood).
What I find most impressive is how the builder was able to perfectly recreate the Jeep’s classic hood design. The front bumper, rock sliders and cabin are all beautifully built as well. From a distance, this Rubicon looks just like the real thing. This Jeep may get you lost, but it will never get you stuck!
This festive microscale build all came from finding a white LEGO lever loose in a drawer and thinking the round end would make a nice bobble on a Santa hat. It snowballed from there, so to speak — once I got Mr Claus built he really needed some Elves. And then they needed some surrounding scenery. Next year, I think there might be a whole North Pole village at this scale…
This is obviously a stripped-back, simple build, but I think it’s interesting that it would have been impossible to do until relatively recently without cutting bricks. The white lever sits inside Santa’s hat, but it would be too long to dangle fully in there if it weren’t for the availability of the “Apollo stud” (1×1 round plates with holes) in yellow and white which make up Santa’s head.
Welcome to Day 24 of your digital LEGO Advent Calendar! All through December, we’ve brought you the daily models for the LEGO Friends, City, and Star Wars Advent Calendars. Today is the last day of Advent! Thanks for joining us and helping us celebrate the holiday season.
“Open” the day’s post to see the models by clicking below!
The Brothers Brick comes across so much LEGO-related news each week that we’ve decided to package up all the interesting stories we’ve written and the content that’s grabbed our attention into a Weekly Brick Report for your reading enjoyment. Some weeks there will be lots of links to share; other weeks there will be hardly any stories out there–that’s the fickle nature of the news. But these are some headlines worth sharing.
So without further adieu, here’s this week’s Brick Report:
REVIEWS: TBB’s hands got tired this week between building this massive modular and feeling out a full case of minifig bags.
TBB NEWS: We have the news you want (LEGO Gingerbread houses at the White House! Win a Death Star!) and the news you don’t (UK LEGO prices are going up, up, up!).