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.

A distinctly British castle

As someone who likes to build castles out of LEGO, I know how tricky it can be to effectively construct round towers. It’s also a daunting challenge to find the perfect balance between too much detail in the build and not enough. Isaac Snyder posted this great example of how to achieve both of these delicate techniques earlier this week for the 13th Colossal Castle Contest.

I’m not familiar with all the castles they have over in Europe, but I’ve seen Bodiam Castle in Britain, in picture books and websites many times. I think it’s especially neat when someone goes the extra mile and builds a close-to-scale model of a real piece of architecture.

I also liked this shot of the very detailed back with the towers and doors going every which way.

The overall effect is very impressive.

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Want an Egyptian mummy of your own? Build it from LEGO!

We’ve come to appreciate the amazing brick-built animals created by AnActionfigure — each one has seemed more life-like than the last. But life would not be life without death, and so I was quite pleased to see the builder’s take on an Egyptian mummy. I’ve seen a number of mummies, not least of which the great Ramses II himself in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and AnActionFigure has captured the look of a mummy wonderfully, from desiccated flesh and exposed bone to the linen wrappings.

If that’s not creepy enough, the mummy’s eyes open and close with a switch at the back of its neck.

Tested video features “Best Castle Building” from BrickCon

Tested made a visit to BrickCon this year and interviewed David Frank about his award-winning Manor House, which we featured here a couple of weeks ago. Check it out for some great background on a wonderful build!

LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack $15 off, Wave 2 packs out now [News]

The LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack is currently 15% or $15 off from Amazon.com. I’m still working on completing the game as best I can without all of the expansion packs so I can write a review here for everybody, but the game crashed on save recently and took a month’s worth of save data with it.

While that’s not a ringing endorsement for the game, if you haven’t picked it up and you plan to, you can help support The Brothers Brick by buying video games like LEGO Dimensions by clicking through from here.

Also, the second wave of Level Packs, Team Packs, and Fun Packs were released this week, including the new Doctor Who Level Pack with the Twelfth Doctor and K-9.

You can see a complete list of the endless expansions available for the game on Amazon.com.

This car belongs to Bond... James Bond

The Aston Martin DB5 is famous for being the most recognised cinematic James Bond car, and builder Peter Blackert has released his latest creation, the DB5 Volante, from the garage just in time for the new Bond film.

The Aston Martin DB5 is a luxury grand tourer released in 1963, made by Aston Martin and designed by the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. The DB5 was first used as Bond’s car in Goldfinger in 1964 and was destroyed in Skyfall in 2012. I haven’t seen the new Bond film Spectre yet so I don’t know if Bond’s DB5 has recovered to make an appearance, though it is confirmed that Bond will drive a brand-new DB10 which was designed specifically for Agent 007 by Aston Martin.

At first sight Peter’s DB5 appears luxurious with chrome detailing, a soft tan leather interior and maroon bodywork. Look closely and you will see ingenious use of minifigure accessories such as ice-skates used as door handles and registration plate holder, or binoculars for the exhaust.

When building becomes time-consuming

Brick-built interior decorations are something for which I have a great weakness. Miro Dudas surprises us with an excellent cuckoo wall clock in the style of a traditional German timber-frame house. You may even think these two collectible minifigures were designed specially for this model – that’s how perfectly they fit in! (They’re actually from Series 8 and Series 11.) The clock-face might be an unrecognizable part, but that’s because Miro has built the clock around a spare working mechanism from a real clock. This makes it a beautiful example not just of a nice-looking model, but also a functional one.

Mercedes-Benz 180 Ponton – recreated down to the wheel jack

We’ve been featuring quite a few cars on The Brothers Brick lately; hot rods, mini hot rods, trucks and even… tire robots? Anyway, since so many great motors are being made, we want to show them off, and this Mercedes-Benz from nameless_member does the German car in excruciating detail. The model only gets better when you look inside and see a fully fleshed out interior, engine, and, yes, even the tools you need to fix the thing.

Capturing the queen in Novvember

We’re less than a week into Novvember and already flickr is awash with vic vipers. David Roberts has started the event off strong with this stunning viper. It’s packed full of interesting details while still maintaining an overall clean appearance. But the real standout features of this build are the dramatic blue and yellow checkerboard-patterned tail and wings which evoke the art of Chris Foss. (If you’re unfamiliar with Foss’s work, check it out here for a some inspiration while you’re working on your own vic vipers this month.)

And if you, like myself, are new to Novvember be sure to read the late nnenn’s instructions on how to build the standard vic viper.

First glimpse of new LEGO Ninjago sets [News]

Back when we were hearing rumors of the upcoming 2016 sets, it was hinted that the next place for the Ninjago theme to go was straight up with a floating-rock setting reminiscent of Bioschock Infinite.

Now we have an official taste of the upcoming change of setting, and it seems to be called “Ninjago Skybound.” It is accompanied by the text “Careful what you wish for”.

In the artwork we can see some new set(s) being shown off with two airships and a dragon-type creature. The overall feel looks very Steampunk, which we’re sure will make a lot of people happy. The most interesting aspect we can see is what looks to be a new bigfig that appears very similar to a Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who has been experimenting with steroids. Also, check out that monkey-wrench wielding monkey! Finally, the presence of a bad guy and the “Careful what you wish for” text makes us believe the new setting will tie into genie mythology.

Beautiful Blade Runner Spinner

Syd Mead, the designer of Blade Runner, is one of my heroes. Chances are, if you’re into sci-fi and LEGO then you’ll have tried to recreate one of his famous designs – The Sulaco from Aliens, the light-cycles from Tron, or this, the Police Spinner from Blade Runner.

Tyler (aka Legohaulic) has posted a fantastic image of his updated version of this iconic vehicle. The model is pure class, with just the right level of detail and sticker use, and some custom elements working nicely on the Deckard figure. Importantly, the car looks the right scale to sit two minifigs, something other LEGO versions of this often miss.

Aside from the build itself, this was worth blogging for the photography and editing. It’s such a sharp, crisp image I had to double-check it wasn’t a render, and the glow off the lights and the puddle reflection are lovely touches.

This is a welcome return from Tyler who’s been quiet on the building front recently. Good to have him back.

Watch this LEGO Star Wars AT-ST meet its doom by swinging logs

The folks over at WIRED seem to have found a niche in the LEGO community. While the tech site usually creates content around, well, tech, we assume someone convinced their boss to buy them LEGO for “work”. Then, with certain Star Wars sets, they do the unthinkable (for some people, at least) by building them up, and the destroying them. One of their most popular was a Super Star Destroyer meeting its end, all filmed at 100 frames per second. Now they’re back, and have gone to the forest moon of Endor to beat up an AT-ST walker.

Recreating that iconic scene from the movie when Ewoks crush the poor chicken walker between two logs, it’s quite expertly done and great fun:

Though, we’re going to have to deduct some points for not making the background and logs out of LEGO. 7/10.

Pimp Rey’s Speeder Contest

With the highly anticipated next chapter of the Star Wars saga almost upon us, we here at The Brothers Brick felt it’s time we had a Star Wars contest.

Your job is to pimp out Rey’s Speeder.

It’s all up to you to decide what would be coolest thing to impress Rey. Maybe give it a paint job? Add some chrome ? Maybe some spoilers? Racing stripes? The more creative the better!

You have until December 5th to get your entries in!

1st Prize:

2nd Prize:

3rd Prize:

Rey’s Speeder 75099

Not sure how to start? Thankfully Priovit70 provided us with this wonderful example of a Pimped out Speeder:

Rules:

No limit on number of Speeders you can enter.
No size restrictions.
No digital entries.
Must be new creations.
Entries should be posted in the TBB Pimp Rey’s Speeder Flickr Group.
Open to builders over the age of 18 worldwide.