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.

Alien Project by The Arvo Brothers [Review]

The Arvo Brothers (Ramon & Amador Alfaro Marcilla) have recently released their second book called Alien Project. It costs €26 + shipping and can be purchased via the Arvo Brothers website. The main bulk of the book contains detailed instructions for building their fantastic Alien figure and its base. There are also chapters explaining the inspiration behind the project and a rare insight into the development of a model of this calibre. Below is my review of the book.

Click here to read the full review

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Astrid the Vanquisher conquers all

Talented Bionicle builder Djordje strikes again with another wonderful character, as always featuring unusual parts usage. For “Astrid the Vanquisher” Djordje has included an inside-out tent from the Lone Ranger sets as the Valkyrie’s skirt. Similarly, her shoulders are built from “big-fig” masks from the colorful Knights Kingdom series.

LEGO Warhammer 40K Imperial Knight

Warhammer and Warhammer 40K are a lot like LEGO in terms of getting its hooks into you and draining away your time and money. Spare a thought then for people like funnystuffs who are involved in both hobbies. Luckily for us, it usually leads to creations like this – an Imperial Knight with a cockpit that fits a minifig as well as articulated joints.

Check out the original, solid model version to judge how close this comes.

LEGO Teedo and Luggabeast from The Force Awakens

Though they got little screen time, the pair that tried to capture BB-8 in a net near the beginning of The Force Awakens has been faithfully recreated by teohongtzer. Teedo is given a name drop by Rey (for he’s no respect for anyone), his steed is not. If you dig a bit you’ll find out it’s called a “Luggabeast” and they are cyborg creatures used to find droids and salvage on Jakku.

I’m hopelessly in love with this build. Partly because I’m a Star Wars nerd, partly because I’m a Warhammer nerd and this looks like a Juggernaut, and mostly because it’s just done so well.

Interview with Hannes Tscharner, builder of 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon from The Force Awakens

When I first saw the amazingly detailed 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon the day after Christmas, I knew right away that it deserved worldwide attention. The model was built by someone who went by the screen name “Marshal Banana“, whom I recognized as the builder who’d created the wonderful 10,000-piece Jawa Sandcrawler back in 2011. Less than two days after I’d posted the Falcon, my prediction came true and the Falcon was everywhere, from “geek” sites like Kotaku and GeekWire to major news outlets like Time Magazine and USA Today. But we still knew almost nothing about this talented builder.

Now that he’s back from a well-deserved holiday, I’m pleased to bring our readers this in-depth interview with Hannes Tscharner, builder of both the Falcon and Sandcrawler.

Hannes shares a bit about himself, along with tips on photographing LEGO models and editing the photos for presentation. We also learn how he organizes his collection, what he uses to add lighting to his models, and more.

Click through for our interview with the builder of the 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon!

See the mice in their million hordes, from Ibiza to the Norfolk broads

Trying to summarize almost half a century of accomplishments and innovation in a couple of paragraphs would be futile, so I won’t even try. Yesterday a singular artist departed this particular plane of existence, leaving us with a body of work that will no doubt be remembered for another half century to come (including one final album, released just a few days ago).

Somehow we overlooked this gorgeous LEGO sculpture of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album cover, built by Gabriel Thomson as an entry for the 2014 MOCAthalon contest. So let’s fix that now.

RIP David Bowie (aka Ziggy Stardust, aka Major Tom, aka The Goblin King) 1947-2016.

Neo-Classic Micro Space goodness

Jeremy Williams brings us a beautiful microscale spaceship in Neo-Classic Space livery.

The level of detailing and “greebliness” of this build is amazing for such a small model. This is made possible by some nice parts usage with paint rollers, syringes and droid arms all making an appearance alongside textured and curved bricks.

And as if it couldn’t be any better, Jeremy’s also done some excellent boxart. I want to own an entire fleet of these…

Little LEGO starship is packed full of grunt

Gabe Umland says he’s been unable to build for a while as he’s at college and away from his brick collection. Well, the enforced break hasn’t done his building skills any harm judging by the excellent little starship he just posted…

I’m really enjoying the brutish shaping of this bad boy. It just looks chock-full of power and grunt. Gabe says he wanted to create the feel of an American muscle car in a spaceship and I think he’s done just that. The greebling is good, creating a feel of functionality and power, and I like the use of stickers. The color scheme is also interesting for a space build – olive green, dark grey and tan accents all going well together, and not looking as military as you might expect. The red canopy is a nice touch to offset the more drab body colors.

In Gabe’s world, owners of these spacecraft are always customising them, and he’s built a nice little spaceship hangar scene, full of chaotic detail, showing the customisation process in action. Check it out.

Medium azure never looked better!

And I thought we had already seen all the cool ships from last year… Turns out TBB favorite Tyler Clites has just posted his fabulous contribution to SHIPtember, last year’s month-long spaceship building challenge.

The builder says it took longer than a month to complete (not exactly ideal as it is only a month-long ordeal). But I think we can cut Tyler some slack with this one. Those curves are fantastic. The color choice is superb. Undoubtedly one of the most stunning spaceships I’ve ever seen!

Pretty in pink

Pink as a car colour is usually seen as either for girls or just as plain wrong. In the fifties, however, when bright colours were all the rage for American cars, pink was often a factory option. It’s particularly associated with Cadillacs, with Elvis Presley having owned several in that colour and Bruce Springsteen penning a song called Pink Cadillac. My latest model is a 1956 Ford, however.

I’ve been collecting bright pink parts for a while now, for a different project, but this weekend decided to use some of it for the fantastically named 1956 Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria Skyliner. It’s full of fifties chic: it has a two-tone paint job, a glass panorama roof over the front seats and a so-called continental kit on the back, with a spare wheel and extended bumper. Building in pink added to the fun, as this involved a fair bit of improvisation to account for the still limited parts palette.

It’s not how you build your car, it’s how you race your car

I can clearly remember the time when Fast & Furious 3 was released and how hyped up my friends and I were about drifting and stuff. And now Dmitry Verbilov brings back that thrill with literally just one picture of his newest Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX. The car itself is a neat model and looks great with the windscreen piece and mudguard parts from Speed Champions sets. Dmitry also managed to shape a nice-looking front part, not to mention some complicated patterns on the front doors. However, I’m mostly impressed by the usage of cotton wool pieces to imitate white smoke coming from burning rear tires. Even though it’s not a regular LEGO piece, it’s a brilliant trick to make a picture look dynamic and impressive.

One wondrous wyvern

Ever since LEGO’s General Grievous action figure set introduced a metric tonne of new pieces in tan, I’ve been waiting for a model that made good use of it. Blowing my expectations out of the water (or the sky) is this wyvern named Diablos from Ballom Nom Nom. Those familiar with the game Monster Hunter may recognize this creature. But to those in the dark (like me) it’s still an astounding display of what can be done with LEGO.