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.

The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 [News]

As a whole, the LEGO community’s original works of 2023 were absolutely astounding! Over those 52 weeks, we covered so many beautiful works of art, trying to highlight the very best created by builders all over the world. And with our shortlist in hand, we’re ready to identify our favorite of the bunch. The days of 2023 were marked with massive collaborative work, giant themes and creations that brought us together after pandemic isolation over the prior two years. And in that vein, we selected the excellent collaboration between Joshua Morris, Rod Fiford, Gavin Rich, and Handoko Setyawan. The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 is Cerulean Straits.

More coverage of our newly-crowned winners below!

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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for January 6th, 2024 [News]

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the first week of 2024!

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS Happy new year, dear readers! Get caught up last week’s final Brick Report of 2023 then read along here as we fill you in on new set availability, set reviews, and recap some of our favorite featured MOCs and Articles of yesteryear!

[NEWS] New LEGO sets for January 2024 now available for purchase — What will you buy first?
[REVIEW] LEGO Marvel 76281 X-Men X-Jet; is it too X-Pensive? — Norm enrolls at Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youth. Will you be joining him?
[REVIEW] LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31150 Wild Safari Animals — The new year brings a new round of Creator creatures! Chuck helps you decide if the adventure is worth taking!
[FEATURE] Shortlist announced for The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 — Is your favorite custom creation of the year on the list?
[FEATURE] The Top 10 TBB Articles of 2023 — In 2023 we wrote a lot of words about a lot of LEGO models, sets, and fans. These are the cream of the crop.

Meet the emerald enchanter that’s a defender of all LEGO fauna

While he’s certainly no Radagast the Brown, this nature-loving LEGO wizard by greenarj is clearly best friends with all the birds and beasts of the land. I adore all the plant pieces integrated into the enchanter’s cloak and hat, sporting nearly every color of green in the brick palette. His gnarled dark gray staff is an exceptional conglomeration of tubing, bars, clips, and minifig utensils. But let’s not forget all the effort put into this verdant vagabond’s entourage. The owl, bird, squirrel, fox, and bunny are all wonderful pieces on their own. The sheer number of ingenious connections and part uses among these five tiny beasties is astounding, but my favorite has got to be the tuft of fur on the fox’s chest made from Master Wu’s beard.

“Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?”

Ah, the Well of Souls. A location so synonymous with Indiana Jones, it’s one of the few that has been represented more than once in an official LEGO set. OK, it’ only been twice so far, but still, they were both neat. Unfortunately, they’ve both been outdone somewhat by Cube Brick‘s brilliant cross-sectional diorama! They’ve raided their collection of snakes to immortalise one of the most iconic scenes in the franchise.

There is more to see from this diorama – click here to take a closer look!

A different kind of alley in LEGO city.

Bowling is one of the great underappreciated sports – if I can’t drink a coke and eat a basket of cheese sticks between my turns, it’s not a sport I want to play. That’s why I love this tribute to the game by Andrew Tate. The blend of earth tones and bright blues captures a mid-20th Century feel, during what was probably bowling’s heyday. And, speaking of cheese, Andrew has made incredible use of cheese wedges throughout. Obviously, the designs built into the wall and floor are strike-worthy. But stacking the slopes on the shelves for a quick and clever rental shoe display is perfection.

But every alley needs an iconic retro logo to go with it. Check out what Andrew came up with to advertise his lanes. I can smell the rental shoes already!

New year, new LEGO blocks

So, how’s everyone feeling about 2024 so far? We’re still writing threes instead of fours by mistake – not helped by all the 2023 recapping we’re doing. But while we’re deciding our Creations of the Year or looking back at our most popular articles, Kristel Whitaker has seen in the new year in a big way! She’s built some big LEGO blocks out of, er, smaller LEGO blocks. We could use some of these in TBB Towers to remind us what year it actually is. Although it won’t help us work out how much longer before we stop saying “Happy New Year” to everyone. New year, same problems!

Luxurious travel for the art-deco arthropod

It’s always a treat when Vince Toulouse graces us with another LEGO build. He has developed a very unique style, and we’re big fans of his insect-inspired retro-futuristic sci-fi builds! That may be a mouthful, but it gets the point across. What should we call this, Insectpunk? Anyway, we featured something called a Myriapod way back in March 2020, and Vince has revisited the concept with this gorgeous red and gold consist! It’s only fitting that an insect-inspired train would use a bunch of legs from the Insectoids line. There is surely no more stylish way for bugs to get around!

Ring in the new year with a funny Joke(r)

Some people ring in the new year with a party, some good libations, and a kiss from their significant other or a willing and inebriated stranger. Others uphold a tradition of falling asleep on the goddamned sofa just minutes before the stroke of midnight. However you celebrated the new year, let’s hope it brought a smile to your face, kinda like this big LEGO Joker figure built by Pascal Hetzel. Whether it be hatching some elaborate scheme to turn the citizens of Gotham into maniacal minions or leaving a flaming bag of poo on Batman’s doorstep, The Joker always has something to smile about. That’s because, according to some interpretations, Joker’s smile was permanently etched into his face with toxic chemicals or via a razor blade giving him the ol’ “Glasgow Smile”. Geez, that escalated fast! Let’s hope the smile on your face is not for any of those reasons.

Incidentally, this is not Pascal’s first big Joker. We featured his prior one back in 2020 but here is a shot of his newer one next to the old one. This proves the new one is not quite a “Maxifig” but something else. Whatever you call it, it is admittedly quite fun.

I’m a deep-sea girl, in a deep-sea world

Duncan Lindbo has really hit the nostalgia button for me on this one. This ocean-bed scout mech is reminiscent of some underwater LEGO themes of days gone by – think Aqua Raiders or Aquazone. I’m pretty sure it was a rule to have “Aqua” in the name of any deep-sea sci-fi (sea-fi?) theme back then. Big fans of that Barbie Girl song in Billund, I guess. I’ll settle for being a big fan of this walker, with its bubbly limbs and viewport borrowed from 21335 Motorized Lighthouse.

Shortlist announced for The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 [News]

The year 2023 has passed us by, and it was chock-full of exceptional LEGO creations. As is always the case, it’s a mammoth task to pour over 365 days of posts to find the most outstanding one in that span of time. But we narrowed the field down to these five finalists in the running for our 8th annual TBB LEGO Creation of the Year award.

We’ve got our top 5 picks listed below (in no particular order), and we’ll be announce the winner of TBB’s LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 later this week.

Also, be sure to check out the LEGO Creation of the Year announcements for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 for all of our past winners.

Click to see all of 2023’s nominees

The Top 10 TBB Articles of 2023 [Feature]

We’ve gathered our top-10 articles of 2023 based on clicks and views. Opinions may vary but keep in mind we’ve crunched the raw data and this is how it all shakes out.

Continue reading →

LEGO Marvel 76281 X-Men X-Jet; is it too X-Pensive? [Review]

Let’s just deal with the major issue right away. When the official reveal for set 76281 hit, you could practically hear the collective gasp from LEGO fans around the world. An average of ten cents per piece tends to be the benchmark for judging the value of a set, but the X-Men’s aerial transport clocks in at nearly twenty-five cents per piece. I saw a lot of comments online from people writing the set off because of the price alone. So, exactly what is it that’s commanding such a lofty price tag? Back in the 90s, superhero cartoons were all the rage, and one of the most popular was X-Men. And Disney+ is about to debut a new animated series called X-Men ’97, a direct sequel to that previous animated adventure. And a new series means new merchandise, including a LEGO tie-in set featuring four of the most popular mutants as well as the X-Men’s main mode of transportation, the X-Jet (aka The Blackbird). We got our hands on a copy and we’re determined to give it a fair shake. So, for now, put thoughts of price out of your head and let’s find out if the X-Jet can soar or if a crash landing is inevitable. 76281 X-Men X-Jet comes with 359 pieces and will be available on January 1st for US $84.99 | CAN $109.99 | UK £74.99

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Read on for our full review