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.

Brickmania Black Friday / Small Business Saturday sales [News]

Another great LEGO-centered small business we love to support here at TBB is Brickmania, led by talented designer and all-around great guy Dan Siskind.

Dan and his team in Minneapolis have posted daily deals all week this week, leading up to the massively discounted Fokker Dr.1 — The iconic Red Baron’s tri-plane from from World War I. It’s discounted from $195 to $95 starting at midnight tonight.

Brickmania has been releasing a new custom kit at the rate of about one a week for months now, and I’ve been eyeing this gorgeous M3A1 Scout Car for the last few weeks.

Like other BrickArms resellers (including Citizen Brick and GI Brick), Brickmania is also a great place to stock up on the types of custom accessories that LEGO will likely never produce.

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Citizen Brick deals for Black Friday / Small Business Saturday [News]

Our good friends over at Citizen Brick have just announced their Black Friday deals, centered on a batch of new custom minifig packs and a pretty sweet “Xmas Fun-Pak” you can get by spending $75 or more.

Joe and his team are releasing a number of new products on Friday, starting with this three-pack cleverly titled “Bowling Buddies.”

And don’t miss “Pity Enthusiast.”

I’ve never regretted a single purchase I’ve ever made from Citizen Brick, and the CB team are some of the nicest people in the LEGO vendor community I’ve had the pleasure to meet. While you load up on all those discounted bricks on Black Friday, consider spending some of your LEGO budget to help support this innovative, boundary-pushing small business as well.

Supplies are limited (I’ve missed some pretty awesome new items myself in the past), so take a nap after that turkey dinner and set an alarm for midnight Central Time so you can get shopping!

Deathshead’s war machine of the new order

Wolfenstein: The New Order was one of my favorite games of 2014, with its crazy yet immersive alternate World War II timeline. SHARPSPEED built one of antagonist Deathshead’s dog-like war machines, the Panzerhund. The LEGO version looks just as vicious and armored as the mechanized hounds roaming an alternate 1960s Berlin.

It’s a mech dinosaur in classic space – What else do you need?

The only thing cooler than a mech is a dinosaur mech, and the only thing cooler than that is a dinosaur mech in space. Christopher Bassett may have struck gold with this. It’s called the “T-Rex JumpJet in classic space colors”, and as far as names go that’s exactly what it is. There’s also another version of this that isn’t in space colors, but I think the simple additions here really add a lot.

(Also notice the little blaster in the right hand. Awwwwwww.)

Creations for Charity live stream happening this Friday-Saturday, 11/27-11/28

The annual Creations for Charity 24-hour live stream presented by Beyond the Brick is taking place starting this Friday at 5pm EST. This is an event where Lego fans from all over the world can join the hosts from Beyond the Brick on air and participate in a variety of Lego-related activities, all in support of Creations for Charity. Whether you want to watch the live stream, participate on air, or pledge a donation, there’s ways for everyone to get involved. Head on over to creationsforcharity.org for more details and to sign up.

The Ruins of St Paul’s: glorious rather than ruinous

This impressive creation depicting the Ruins of St Paul’s by Alex Hui was built for the Macau X LEGO Exhibition. The model is deceptively large at nearly four feet tall.

The Ruins of St. Paul’s, located in Macao, refer to the façade of what was originally the Church of Mater Dei built in 1602-1640 and the ruins of St. Paul’s College, which stood adjacent to the Church — both destroyed by fire in 1835. The sculptured motifs of the façade include biblical images, mythological representations, Chinese characters, Japanese chrysanthemums, a Portuguese ship, several nautical motifs, Chinese lions, bronze statues and other elements that integrate influences from Europe, China and other parts of Asia.

Alex chose to build in a sufficiently grand scale to allow the carvings and sculptures to be accurately depicted in LEGO and took 6 months to complete the build. The model is approximately 1.2m high and is constructed solely in light gray and dark grey. The use of dark grey is very effective for highlighting the depth of the central sculpture and really captures so many of the fine details from the original. My own favourite part is the winged ‘Holy Spirit’ in the triangular pediment at the top, which symbolizes the ultimate state of divine ascension as seen in the zoomed image below.

Her Majesty’s Theater is the place for your LEGO West End productions

There are LEGO creations, and then there is Janet VanD’s recreation of Her Majesty’s Theater in Westminster, England. The real-life theater is a cornerstone of West End theater, hosting some of the best and brightest musicals and theater productions. Janet’s recreation painstakingly replicates the exsqusite detail and the theater-going experience of its brick-and-mortar counterpart beautifully.

Her 57,992 piece build features gorgeous detail and took nearly 11 months to complete. The main entrance treats LEGO minifigure theater patrons to posters advertising the production currently on stage: Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera, one of the longest-running productions in Broadway history.

Those lucky enough to hold seats are greeted to the stunning auditorium and plush seats, with the musical’s title moment on-stage, with The Phantom and Christine on the boat, making their way to the Phantom’s lair below the Opera Populare.

For those lucky enough to be in London December 11 – 13, 2015, Her Majesty’s Theater will be on display for you to see in all its detail at Brick2015. For tickets and more information, click here.

The year is 2000

Some people might accuse me of posting too many selfishly nostalgic LEGO creations. Like that time last month, remember that? Ah man, those were some good times. Good times. Anyway, time to repeat the sin with this rather splendid mining scale recreation of a favorite toy from my childhood, the Raider Command from Matchbox’s 1978 line of futuristic Adventure 2000 vehicles.

Due to a limited selection of parts in olive green, French builder Eric Druon actually had to recreate this in tan (and then apply a little harmless Photoshop magic). I was lucky enough to own a few of these beauties back in the day. And I am embarrassed to say that – thanks to the power of eBay – I have been able to enjoy them all over again, albeit “mint in box”!

LEGO “Freewheelin” album cover is as heartwarming as the original

Right at the time when cold winter months are coming, umamen favours us with an incredibly touching and warming brick-built version of the artwork for Bob Dylan’s 2nd album “Freewheelin”. I have no idea how he managed to enliven this handful of pieces, but the way Suze Rotolo’s figure clinges to Bob’s makes my heart melt every single time. The background is something that takes a moment to notice, but contributes to the whole.

Move over Tumbler, Arkham Knight is here

When you have to get around town to beat up costumed criminals, it’s important to do so with style. And technique. And size. All of these can be found in the latest creation by Hansan Kabalak, who has painstakingly recreated in epic scale the unique vehicle from the latest Batman game, Batman: Arkham Knight.

Larger than Lego’s own USC Tumbler, this Batmobile features functionality and loads of complex angles. Hansan went all out: adding his own custom decals, colored parts, and even a few custom pieces to his creation to make it as faithful to the game as possible. Best of all, Hansan even took the time to design his Batmobile with its signature feature: attack mode.

Just a goblin next door

Watcha workin’ on there, neighbor? This friendly guy comes from the mind of Letranger Absurde and is chock full of what LEGO fans call “NPUs” or Nice Part Usages. In this case the clever parts are, among others, the Jabba the Hutt bodies for the upper facial features and the dewback for the nose. Even though this creation doesn’t use many parts, it’s imbued with a lot of personality — and that’s what makes a good brick-built creature really shine.

USG Ishimura from Dead Space

Fans of the Dead Space video game will no doubt recognize this iconic mining vessel and its horror-infested corridors. This microscale replica by Rat Dude captures the ship’s iconic ribbed hull and has the right amount of details reflected in its greebled areas.