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.

Crusading through the Vaygr Reaches

The asymmetrical ships and bold colors of Homeworld continue to inspire LEGO builders year after year, and Tim Schwalfenberg is no exception. Tim is working on another large fleet for BrickWorld Chicago in a couple of weeks, but teased us with this Corvette from the Vaygr faction (duplicated on a cool deep space backdrop). While I certainly love seeing (and building) large fleets of microscale spaceships, it’s often easy to overlook the great building techniques that go into the smaller vessels, overshadowed as they often are by the large capital ship at the center of the fleet. Despite their relatively small size, the Corvette is packed full of detail, from the greebly sensors to the cannon.

Tim says he included a number of custom pieces that he 3D-printed himself. Can you spot them? What do you think about 3D printing pieces to include in LEGO creations?

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Go forth and conquer

Otto Blees built a follow-up to his LRV3 Javelin with Birth of History, another Guardian jumpship from Destiny. His LEGO rendition of this chunky craft looks fantastic and accurate to the in-game ship, but with a more vibrant color scheme. The subtle angles on the fuselage and detailing inside and outside of the massive thrusters are the standout features to me here.

Raining adorable death from above

Whether it’s from dropping pesky Spiny Eggs to slow your progress on World 4-1, fishing your kart out of the water on Banshee Boardwalk, or carrying the third-person camera though Peach’s Castle, Super Mario Bros players will recognize this LEGO Lakitu built by Cecilie Fritzvold. Some clever use of parts make Cecilie’s Lakitu come to life, like the mudguard piece for the cloud’s smile and a rubber band around Lakitu’s eyes for his goggles.

Pop into the Top Slice Bakery for a delicious pastry

There’s a longstanding tradition — especially here on the West Coast of the U.S. — of novelty architecture that often reflects the specific purpose of the building, from teapots to root beer barrels. Andrew Tate has built a lovely bakery in the shape of a toaster, complete with slices of bread popping up. And the coffee stand next door is, naturally, in the shape of a coffee mug. Andrew makes great use of rounded bricks and slopes throughout his scene, which even includes a brick-built street.

Captain America & Red Skull race around on their speeders

What if Captain America and Red Skull were characters in Star Wars instead of the Marvel universe? Hey, it’s not inconceivable… And what vehicles would they ride? tankm answers these questions with a great pair of speeders. The Cap sits astride what would be more properly called a “swoop,” while Red Skull scoots around in an utterly fantastic retro-futuristic air speeder. As much as I love Captain America (or at least I did…), I’m rooting for Red Skull today due to the sheer awesomeness of his ride.

Incidentally, our friends over at FBTB are hosting a Themed Speeder Bikes contest, which runs through the end of the day tomorrow. Given how small speeder bikes are, there’s still time to enter.

The Brothers Brick visits LEGO headquarters in Billund, Denmark

LEGO recently invited The Brothers Brick to their headquarters in Billund, Denmark, along with various other fan-run online groups, websites, and print media about LEGO. I was the lucky guy who got to on behalf of the Brothers Brick.

In our lives we all play a variety of roles, often without thinking. A list of mine would include (mad) physicist, prematurely grey and pasty white Dutchman, university lecturer and, of course, one of The Brothers Brick and Adult Fan Of LEGO. In the last few days, at least two new roles were added: reporter and interviewer. This is one of those occasions were being European, or more precisely, in Europe was an advantage. I’d been to Denmark once before, on a beer-fuelled student trip to Copenhagen 20 years ago, but this was going to be very different and, dare I say it, even more fun.

I arrived in Billund early in the evening on Wednesday and quickly realized that everything in this town revolves around LEGO. I passed the entrance to LEGOLAND on the way to my hotel, which was next to the LEGOLAND Village and, according to a sign on the door, was guarded by LEGO Security. No, really! After some dinner (no LEGO in that, fortunately) I took a stroll to see where I was expected the next morning, past the LEGOLAnD hotel to reach the LEGO Systems’ headquarters. Billund is very quiet, green, leafy, tidy and pleasant and it’s considered completely normal to walk around with a LEGO logo on your outfit.

Read the full report after the break

This LEGO excavator is right on track

Sometimes LEGO construction workers need to move large amounts of soil and dirt during the early stages of a new project, but fear not, Devid VII has built a lovely yellow excavator to do the job. This tracked vehicle is well shaped and sized for it’s minifigure operators. I particularly like the fact that it is completely built in bricks rather than utilising one of the ‘scoop’ moulds from the LEGO construction sets.

Those strings and pulleys on the excavator arm are not just for show — Devid has made his excavator functional. It just needs to find some soil to excavate now.

The human element

No doubt, World War II has had an enormous impact on modern society and culture, from cinema, books, art and even LEGO creations. Behind dozens of amazingly precise scale models of aircraft, tanks and ships there still hide just a handful of touching scenes telling stories of ordinary people who had to fight for our freedom. One of them is this powerful work by Dmitriy and Anna.

Builder Olga Rodionova also contributes with her heartwarming scene of a young girl meeting her beloved as he is returning home from the war. I don’t think this scene needs any description; the poses created by Olga say more than any words can. Also, the birch in the background is something I have never seen before – such a brilliant texture!

WW2 B-25J Mitchell gunship of the Air Apaches

Along with the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-25 Mitchell with its iconic twin tail fins is one of my favorite World War II aircraft. As more and more LEGO elements have become available in dark green, nelsoma84 and Florida Shooter have been collaborating on a design for the venerable bomber.

Here’s nelsoma84’s Mitchell in its Pacific Theater gunship role with the “Air Apaches” of the 345th Bombardment Wing.

The builder says that the eagle-head nose — here with its ferocious complement of .50 caliber machine guns (there were 18 total on the airplane!) — is modular, and can be swapped out for a clear nose.

And here’s his collaborator’s version, the blue-nosed 499th Bomber Squadron version.

LEGO Overwatch characters Tracer and Zenyatta

It seems I can’t go a single day without either seeing an Overwatch commercial or hearing a friend gush about how it’s the only game I should be playing right now. So it shouldn’t be surprising that LEGO builds inspired by this first-person shooter are popping up like crazy. In addition to the massively, massive Rocket Hammer and D.Va’s hot pink Mech we’ve already highlighted, here are some fantastic LEGO Overwatch characters.

First up, Tim Schwalfenberg pieced together a LEGO Tracer, the female character who, according to the internet, can control the speed of her own passage through time. Pretty handy, that. I recognized Tim’s build right away as the English-accented character who says “The cavalry’s here” in those too-often shown Overwatch commercials.

Next up, Dead Frog inc. built a LEGO Zenyatta, the floating character with the power to heal others. While I didn’t recognize this character (Seriously, I promise to play the game at some point), I did appreciate this character’s clean lines and cross-legged pose. Both builders captured the game’s style and built highly-poseable figs resulting in two LEGO models that look like they were built as part of one set. I’m excited to see which other characters pop up online in the future.

Quick! Hide your chrome LEGO pieces from this curious magpie!

Birds have already become an independent genre of brick-built sculptures. And whether they’re redoubtable birds of prey or it’s a sly magpie — as built by Felix Jaensch here — they all look fascinating and wonderfully realistic.

The title picture of the model barely reveals its main peculiarity. Besides an astonishing, instantly recognizable shape for the bird, its color scheme is much more interesting than one may think. Dark green and dark blue pieces, which are clearly visible from another angle, create the same play of colors as real feathers.

Do seraphim come from heaven or from space?

Space mechs are always a sight to behold. I mean, what is the purpose of legs in space? You know what their purpose is? To look cool—and the MA-01C Powered Seraphim I by Caleb proves it.

This build certainly catches your eye with its incredible silhouette and the bold use of orange as highlights for the armor. The spacemen backing it up just serve to show a proper scale, especially considering it fits a minifig inside. It also comes in a flight-ready version sans armor plating.

Now it looks like it can cause some deep space damage.