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 Art of LEGO Design book review

The Art of LEGO Design is a book written by Jordan Schwartz about ways to approach creative building. This book is the first of its kind focused on building tips. It is now available on Amazon. Below is my review of the book.

Pros:

Features interviews with builders who have iconic building styles
Thorough depiction of Jordan’s own building style
Content includes specific examples as well as general concepts

Cons:

Specific topics such as Fabuland and cloth accessories nudge out broader themes like train, military, Technic, Bionicle

Jordan has covered a lot of ground and touched on most major themes in Lego creations. This is a huge task for just one author and Jordan handled it pretty well. This book can be interesting to both novice and experienced builders because it offers the in-depth perspective of the author who is a jack of all trades builder along with that of about a dozen builders known for excelling in particular themes. Outside the builder interviews, the book is entirely focused on Jordan’s own views on Lego design and most models featured are his own. This is relevant if you want to look through the lens of one builder and learn the specifics of that person’s approach. It is not meant to be a reference for how to build in every major theme, but for new fans this book can be a nice springboard into making your own creations.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Boba Fret performing his guitar Solo

Individually, Star Wars, chibi-fication, rock music and dark humor will make everything 20% cooler. Scientific fact. But combine all these things together and that’s, er… Ok, well math is not my strong point. But it’s clear what Kevin Ryhal‘s strong point is:

Life’s A Beach in Lego World

At least, it is for the residents of Miro Dudas’ (miro78) Lego world. His beach side fruit stand captures a nice tropical flavor. The small scene is packed with little details that take one to the islands. I think my favorite is the inclusion of a scooter, which brings me plenty of beach associations.

I need a vacation.

Turtle Insanity

The LEGO Group and Eurobricks have teamed up to help celebrate the release of Pete Reid’s Exo Suit with a Turtle building contest.

I decided to take my own stab at building some turtles, creating an adorable little turtle facing off with turtle inspired Exo-Suit.

Hopefully we will see a whole lot more fun Turtle creations this month.

Lego plus Pulp Fiction equals awesome

I really don’t care whether movie critics consider Pulp Fiction to be one of the defining movies of the New-noir genre, whether it is a prime example of post-modernist film or whether it is empty-headed camp.

I think it was a hugely entertaining movie and this black-and-white mosaic of Jules and Vincent by Joris Blok is awesome. Full stop.

Pay your tithes at the Bank of the Prophet

About a year ago, we featured a beautifully rendered LEGO Songbird from Bioshock Infinite by the talented Imagine Rigney. At BrickWorld last month, he exhibited a complete scene that recreates the entrance to the Financial District in the game.

Imagine has included a rail system and various enemies for a full-scale battle, including Booker using Shock Jockey on a Handyman and some Founders.

Columbia looks hauntingly gorgeous at night.

Check out Imagine’s full photoset on Flickr to see more detailed photos of this massive build.

Gotta catch ’em all with Combee

Like many guys born in the seventies and eighties, as a child, I spent many Saturday mornings watching cartoons on TV. I used to watch classics such as Transformers, M.A.S.K. and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and build them out of LEGO. By the time Pokémon came along, I had lost interest in cartoons (other than Ren & Stimpy). Pokémon struck me as an obvious ploy to get children to spend their pocket money on what were obviously rubbish toys. Gotta catch ’em all, right? Not at all like the cartoons I used to watch.

I have, of course, come to realise that my favourite cartoons were as much about selling toys as Pokémon, but I still think that much of the TV series was a bit rubbish. That said, I also realise that, to many people, Ash & Pikachu are no less iconic than Scott Tracker and T-Bob, or (dare I say it) Bumblebee and Spike Witwicky. This and the quality of the models, means that I cannot overlook these great figures built by Combee!. Pikachu looks particularly cute.

Thanks to Niels Huyzer, who suggested this to me several weeks ago.

Robot Can Build a LEGO Tower All the Way to Space!

Well, OK, just in theory. But this amazing NXT-controlled LEGO robot by Hknssn can build its own tower, and since the robot rides up the tower with each new piece it places, there’s theoretically no limit to how high it can build as long as it continues to be fed pieces.

Friday Night Fights – Concept Art Ships

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another round of Friday Night Fights. Tonight we dive into the world of Concept Art turned into LEGO. A lot of builders will use reference photos of cars and buildings to build their models. There’s a small subset of sci-fi builders which will use Concept Art as a basis of their creations. Let’s go to the tale of the tape.

In the white corner, we have Alexander (Malydilnar) who used this concept as inspiration for his Talon fighter:

In the blue corner, we have Jake who used used this concept as inspiration for his ship:

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding, by way of comment, which ship is a cooler Concept Art turned LEGO. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, Exo Suits, Ilya won a close 3-2 with his BAR Exo Suit. Tune in next week for another action packed edition of Friday Night Fights!

Invasion of the clone brands

The Adult Swim channel on YouTube posted a hilarious stop-motion video depicting what would happen if clone brands invaded the Lego world with a plot inspired by World War Z.

LEGO Steampunk Star Wars AT-ST

Behold the mighty Steampunk chicken walker, a foe to be reckoned with – unless you’re a monocled Ewok in a top hat, I’m guessing. Crossing Star Wars with Steampunk is nothing new, but I like Don Solo’s take on this classic vehicle, which being spindly and awkward, was perfectly primed for an old-fashioned makeover. Don built this in anticipation of FBTB’s LEGO Star Wars Steam Wars Returns contest, which is currently ongoing.

Cooking up a storm

The Italian LEGO Users Group (ItLUG) recently held a kitchen-themed building contest, the prize for which was (appropriately) a copy of the Parisian Restaurant set. The contest had various rules, including one that each entry had to occupy no more than a 16 x 16 stud footprint.

Although not the ultimate winner, my personal favorite was Bye Bye Potato by Devid VII:

But victory went to Fabio Maiorana for this darkly humorous (and possibly rule-bending!) vignette entitled L’Apparenza Inganna (“Appearances Can Be Deceptive”):