Coinciding with the release of The LEGO Batman Movie, which we reviewed recently, Amazon has discounted some of the movie tie-in sets. The following five sets are all at least 10% off.
Also check out our Star Wars sales post from last month, as all of those sets are still on sale, and don’t miss the free Disco Batman and Tears of Batman minifigures that are free with purchases $75 or more from the LEGO Shop Online.
Batcave Break-in is 12% off, on sale for $88.00. See our review of this set!
Dart Flyby by Jeremy Williams is a dream spaceship. It has neither huge laser barrels, nor a spacious cargo section, nor an annoying astromech. The best thing about this ship is that it has only one seat. Only you, a massive ion engine behind your back and the endless beauty of the universe before your eyes. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Jeremy’s Neo-Classic Space fighters are way too good to choose just one, so you’d better check out his photostream and enjoy each of his builds.
We loved what we saw when we got our first look at LEGO’s new BrickHeadz theme, but how do they stack up in the brick? The LEGO BrickHeadz will be available to LEGO VIP-card holders in LEGO stores and the LEGO Shop Online beginning Feb. 15, and they’ll retail for $9.99 USD each.
We’ve got our hands on all 10 of the characters that LEGO has announced so far, and we’re keen to show you what we think. We’re starting off with a look at the four DC characters, all from The LEGO Batman Movie. (Read our review of the movie here.) Continue reading
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
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.
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.
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.
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:
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
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?
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.
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.
