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.

Super Mario Bricks

Rod Gillies was clearly a young whipper-snapper back in the early 1980s when Super Mario Bros was released as a video game. Mario and Luigi, the adventurous plumbers who explored Mushroom Kingdom, have evolved into Super Mario Bricks. They made dungarees cool again and gave some much needed resuscitation to the video game market.

If your Mario Bros knowledge is up to par, you will note that Rod definitely has an eye for detail. Mario was the shorter, more portly brother, while Luigi was taller with a smoother, more groomed moustache. The M and L initials on the caps is always a good fallback option to avoid confusion. I bet Rod was glad that brother Sergio didn’t make the cut — some letters are tougher than others in LEGO.

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Going Dutch

Some great Dutch architecture modelling here from Brickbink. This scene is a near-perfect recreation of an Amsterdam street; all it needs is a canal and it would be spot-on.

The color blocking of the buildings and the windows are excellent, and the brickwork around the gable-end roofs really catches the eye. As ever though, it’s the details which make a model pop, and there’s a feast of them on display here. The piano lifters are the obvious stars of the show, but I love the little basement windows at street level, and the crate of bric-a-brac is a nice touch. I’m assuming the build is set around Konigsdag – “King’s Day” – when the Dutch sell their second-hand goods out in the street in front of their homes.

LEGO Elves: 41176 The Secret Marketplace [Review]

As promised in our 2016 New York Toy Fair coverage, I’m happy to share our first dragon review from the LEGO Elves line! LEGO sent us a copy of 41176 The Secret Marketplace. You’ll be able to find this set beginning in March. It has 691 pieces, and we expect it to retail for $59.99.

Click for more dragons!

Turtle power!

Everyone knows Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but crude, and Michelangelo is a party dude. But would you guess the heroes in a half shell could look so phenomenal in brick? French builder 74louloute created this awesome forced perspective rooftop scene with LEGO’s fairly limited selection of olive green parts. In addition to the overall pizzazz of the turtles, there are several hidden gems in this shot including legs used as fingers, sweet brick-built weapons, and strangely, even the flux capacitor.

Surfin’ Safari checks out nicely

Sebastiaan Arts has built a cracker of a beach-bound pickup truck for the 100th Lugnuts Challenge. The tan and dark green color scheme has a beautiful 50s vibe to it, and the accompanying deck chair and surfboard are wonderful additions.

The truck features an opening hood, revealing the engine, and a detailed chequered interior. I’d highly recommend you take a look at all the images for loads of lovely little details.

LEGO at Toy Fair New York 2016: Wrap-up [News]

The 2016 New York Toy Fair continues through tomorrow, but with the LEGO preview event we attended on Saturday morning, we’re ready to summarize our coverage here at The Brothers Brick. Our friends over at From Bricks to Bothans have also provided excellent coverage of all the licensed themes, so be sure to head over there and check out comprehensive coverage from them (with the event limited to just two hours, we missed a few things while trying to cover everything). Similarly, Joe Meno has also posted photos on Flickr.

The biggest news from Toy Fair was the official unveiling of 75098 Assault on Hoth.

Let’s just say that the reaction from the LEGO Star Wars fan community was … mixed, as illustrated by this useful diagram that’s been circulating on Facebook (we’re trying to dig up the original source — give him or her a shout-out in the comments if you know).

One item we haven’t covered yet is our demo video of the new Ghostbusters 3 Ecto-1.

Click through to see the rest of our Toy Fair 2016 coverage

How to get featured on The Brothers Brick, 2016 edition [Editorial]

Back in 2009, I wrote a lengthy post titled How to get featured on The Brothers Brick, in 3 easy steps. A lot has changed in 7 years, for both TBB itself and on the web more generally, and it’s time we shared how we go about finding and selecting what to highlight here on The Brothers Brick in 2016.

The “three easy steps” I outlined back then are still 100% true:

Build something cool.
Take a few decent pictures.
Put them somewhere we’ll find them.

But it’s worth revisiting what we expect in terms of presentation and “findability.” I’ll also cover what we consider newsworthy, in case you have an event you’d like us to feature or a hot tip you’d like to share.

Click through to learn how to get your MOC, event, or news item featured!

LEGO District 9 Exosuit

I may be a bigger fan of District 9 when compared to most people. It’s partly because it’s set in my home country of South Africa, but mostly because it has one of the coolest mech scenes ever created.

The Exosuit / mech prawn / bio-suit is done great justice by Jonas and uses some clever tricks to get all the details in this relatively small build. My personal favourite is the heavy use of the minifig pirate hook hands for multiple elements.

Also check out another version of this mech by Brian Kescenovitz.

40 Wall St built with LEGO trumps the real thing

Following on from his recent adventures in London at the Houses of Parliament, Rocco Buttliere is back on the other side of the ‘pond’. Rocco’s latest build in his 1:650 Architecture series is 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan.

Rocco tells us that 40 Wall St is a 927ft, 70 storey skyscraper, completed in 1930. It held the title of World’s Tallest building for less than a month before the Chrysler Building took the title (albeit after a bit of arguing). The building was designed by lead architect H. Craig Severance in collaboration with associate architect, Yasuo Matsui.

The view of the other side of 40 Wall Street shows the number of setbacks required to form the building. Rocco tells us, “The dramatic massing due to the density of setbacks on the major block of 40 Wall St, is a result of the 1916 Zoning Resolution. This ordinance required the footprint mass of the building to diminish accordingly as the height of the building increased.” In other words, as the skyscraper goes up, it needs to get smaller – seems like a good idea to me too…

Apparently this creation had been on hold until LEGO Architecture Venice 21026 was released as it provided the sand green quadruple convex slope which tops the gabled roof. Did you spot the screwdriver at the top?

LEGO Angry Birds in action at Toy Fair 2016 in New York [News]

Although we’ve already seen official photos of the LEGO sets from the Angry Birds movie, we had a chance to see them in person and play with one of the larger sets while at Toy Fair in NYC yesterday. All of the sets are scheduled for release in April 2016.

75825 Piggy Pirate Ship includes 620 pieces and will retail for $59.99.

You can see it in action in this video:

Click through to see more photos of LEGO Angry Birds

You set my heart pumping

If a bunch of beautiful LEGO roses doesn’t set your heart aflutter, maybe you need some steampunk love instead? Jason Allemann continues to prove he’s the king of kinetic LEGO sculpture with this Valentine’s Day creation…

Naturally Jason’s latest build looks even better in action. Check out the video:

Deadpool, the most romantic gentleman in town

Hey girl, you turn my software into har—[We can’t say that. This blog doesn’t post that kind of stuff. -Ed].

Nothing says “I love you” like some violence, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Deadpool (and Chris McVeigh). Roses and blood are both red, right? Perfect.