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.

Saturn up close and personal with the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft

We are discovering new things about Saturn regularly thanks to the NASA-ESA collaboration, Cassini-Huygens. And thanks to Stefan Schindler, we can view his gorgeous model of the spacecraft whenever we’d like. The model uses a few custom-gold pieces to emulate the craft’s special thermal shielding. The spacecraft is made up of the Cassini orbiter, named for Italian-French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, and the Huygens prob, named for Dutch astronomer, mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens.

Cassini has contributed to many scientific discoveries and regularly sends back some of the most stunning imagery of Saturn, its rings, and its moons. Its mission started upon launch on October 15, 1997, and is still going strong nearly 20 years later.

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Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque has been among the most important landmarks in Istanbul ever since it was built in the 17th century. Turkish builder Artizan skillfully captures the details of the mosque in microscale. The mosque’s many domes and semi-domes are smoothly crafted into LEGO form. The balconies and spires on the minarets are also perfectly represented.

Artizan also built the Hagia Sophia and you can see both buildings side by side on his Flickr stream. Also check out his digital rendering of the Ortaköy Mosque!

To be highly organized is, I should fancy, the object of man’s existence: 5 tips for keeping your LEGO collection sorted [Essay]

The quote above is from The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and it’s the epigraph for The Ideal Order, a recently published novel written by Christoph Bartneck. (You can find my review of this book on Goodreads.) The story is centered around the life of a troubled AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) named Rob, who, like all builders before him, eventually realizes that his LEGO collection is virtually useless when stored in one big cardboard box and thus sets out on a quest to find (you guessed it) “the ideal order” for sorting his LEGO collection. (Spoiler alert! No such order truly exists.) I sympathize with Rob’s predicament, because I’ve been there. There’s nothing worse than trying to build an old set by fishing pieces out of the rainbow-colored abyss of plastic that is an unsorted box of LEGO. So we sort.

The possibilities are endless when deciding how to sort a LEGO collection and what’s right for one person is not going to be right for another. However, there are certainly some agreed upon standards that most builders share when sorting. For example, sorting by color alone just doesn’t cut it. On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to have a separate space for each unique piece. So what is the best method?

Click through to read about LEGO sorting tips

Autobiography in LEGO

Dave Kaleta has been using LEGO to illustrate moments in his life, in a series of autobiographical builds. The latest addition is Winter, Harper Avenue:

The scale is somewhat deceiving; it took me a moment to realize just how large these actually are. The sculpting and the amount of life and story present in each one of these is just wonderful.

Stunning LEGO Porsche 962 Le Mans car

Large-scale LEGO car builders never cease to amaze with their dedication to realism. Greg_998 specializes in Porsche racecars, and his Le Mans Porsche 962 is breathtaking. Not simply a plastic shell, the well-sculpted bodywork hides a host of details below, such as a fully detailed engine compartment and a fittingly spartan interior.

Not content with just the 1980s’ 962, Greg has built a several generations of Porsche racing.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Baltan!

Not surprisingly, the moment you mention a hero like Ultraman, a giant space monster shows up to destroy your nice little cardboard city–it’s just the natural order of things. Filling in said order is the latest creation by nobu_tary: the deadly Alien Baltan. With the powers of flight, laser beam claws, furry looking legs, and presumably the ability to gain more abilities as dictated by the plot, Baltan is sure to give Ultraman a run for his money. At least until the third act requires his loss after an oh-so-close victory.

Sandwood Town Shootout

I’m not really sure if this ruined town of Sandwood has anything valuable in the bank, but Deadeye Bill and his gang wants to give it a “shot” anyway. General Magma masterfully creates this action scene with smoking guns and also includes a little story on the side. Facial expressions of the figures are very carefully selected and body movements are just perfectly arranged. Blood splatter on the sheriff and the collapsed wall on the left building turn out to be nice finishing touches.

“Deadeye Bill and his gang were at it again. The most notorious gang known to Sandwood Town came to snatch up a couple of sacks o’ gold at the local bank, as usual. ‘Not if I got somethin’ to say bout that’, Sheriff Dave must’ve said, before gettin’ shot down by Leroy “the Gambler”, one of Bill’s fellow outlaws. Cold as a wagon tire. And the other one, Dynamite Juan “the Mexican”, was just shootin’ away at it. This robbery committed by three dodgasted chuckleheads soon became one of the bloodiest shootouts ever seen by this rottin’ little town…”

LUGNuts contest winners: a lot of class and a touch of gas [News]

In early February we announced that LUGNuts, which is the online group for LEGO car lovers, was celebrating its 100th monthly challenge by organising a car building contest. Prizes were sponsored by TBB, among others. The cars to be built were randomly assigned to the contestants from a list compiled by LUGNuts admin Lino Martins. He has announced the winners to the group’s members and it is my pleasure to present them here to you.

In first place: Firas Abu-Jaber with the very classy Rolls Royce Springfield Silver Ghost Playboy Roadster.

Thanks to a certain magazine, its name may not sound particularly classy nowadays, but it’s a beautiful car that is well built and very well presented. If you think you’ve seen it before, this may very well be because it was featured in a post by Elspeth little more than a week ago.

The entry that won the second prize is a bit gassy rather than classy: “El Laxante” by Andy Baumgart (D-Town Cracka). His assignment was to build a Chevrolet El Camino, which he brought to another level by putting it on tracks, among other things. It’s crazy, over the top and in real life would probably be smelly and very loud, but it’s fantastic.

Showing a degree of prescience, Elspeth’s earlier post also included the 3rd prize winner: Martien Nijdam (Pino) with his rendition of a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. It’s another classy classic car.

These winners were decided by combining top five lists of each of the five group admins and moderators.
The contest got an impressive 77 eligible entries and there were a lot of great models to chose from.

Other entries that were on several of the judges’ lists, but that didn’t quite gain enough points to end up among the prize winners, were the Volksrods by _Tiler, the Chrysler Town and Country woody by Velocites and the studly Ford F100 by TechnicNick. On behalf of TBB and LUGNuts, I’d like to congratulate the winners and thank everybody who participated for making this the best LUGNuts challenge to date.

Zen and the art of Tachikoma maintenance

I want to go skateboard after I make a few deliveries on my motorcycle. But first I’ve got to polish a cute blue robot with this eye-catching red towel. Good thing I’ve got plenty of tools and a lovely fluorescent light fixture. There’s a lot of detail in this small space, but it doesn’t feel cluttered or claustrophobic. Room to breathe, room to work, room to drop things down the grating in the floor. This mechanic diorama from Ted Andes is part of a month-long theme of four-legged robots who probably just barely fit through the sliding door.

Does this girl ring a bell for you?

I’m not sure what is delayice‘s secret, but ordinary bricks and slopes in his hands assume some extreme degree of cuteness. And even that creepy girl from the horror classic The Ring is crawling just to give you a hug and cuddle with you. Amazingly enough, the structure of the model is so simple and clear that anyone can repeat it by examining the picture. Thus, it’s another beautiful example of how great combinations of just a handful of pieces can be the best illustration of a builder’s talent.

Also be sure to check out this larger-scale version of The Ring girl we featured last Halloween.

Futuron walker tank inbound

Christopher Bassett‘s walker tank/rover looks to suit the needs of Futuron explorers. I enjoy treaded quadrupeds, especially this one where the exposed mechanical bits in the treads complement the slick cabin and body. While I myself am not nostalgic for many space themes pre-Exploriens, as they were before my time, Christopher’s rover is a great build to carry the Futuron colors.

Christopher has many more fascinating sci-fi builds (including more walker tanks!) on his Flickr.

ABS APC is A-OK

If you’re feeling the need for some chunky near-future military hardware, Carter Baldwin has you covered. A delicious blend of dangerous angles, muddy colors, and isolated studs for texture give this Armored Personnel Carrier a real sense of grunt. I can just imagine this thing’s engine noise.

The APC is roomy enough to carry a full squad of troops. These guys look serious…