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.

LEGO Masters of the Universe!

Alex Jones (Orion Pax) called on the Power of Grayskull and finished his custom series of Masters of the Universe creations. His updated Castle Grayskull is rock solid and packed with tons of details. The rock foundations and crumbling brickwork are excellent. He also built HE-MAN’s Power Sword and Axe in all of their full-scale glory. Alex says that the series is now complete and will be displayed at GRAYSKULL CON 2013. This has been quite an impressive series. Whether or not you are a MOTU fan, the builds have been superior and the customized figs are done nearly to perfection. Check out Alex’s website for more photographs and information!

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Plastic glory

Patrick Bosman has long been one of my favourite town LEGO builders. His dedication to period accuracy, and detailed street life put him well into my top five. This shot of his ever evolving Amsterdam diorama summarises everything I like about Patrick’s work. Between the action, the details and the technical skill he presents a snapshot of real life in plastic glory.

Can’t see the forest for the trains

Mike Pianta (scruffulous) posted this timber wagon while I was away for work, so that’s my excuse for posting it three weeks late. As with any flatbed wagon it’s essentially a long, flat surface with wheels and details. The lack of interesting shapes actually makes it harder to render well in LEGO as the devil truly is in the details. Mike shows why he’s one of the leading train builders by packing it full of details. See eg. the backside of the bracket and the robot arms on the bogies.

“How true, how true said the Sour Kangaroo”

We don’t feature nearly enough Kangaroo action here on TBB and Jeffrey Heuer (Norweasel) is here to rectify that situation.

Fun fact: If you lift a kangaroo’s tail off the ground, it can’t hop…but it might turn around and give you the beating of a lifetime.

“This is your brain on drugs”

New-age musical duo Siercon and Coral would like to interrupt your Sunday serenity with this kinetic number they like to call “Fruit Sniper“. In case you’re curious, oh skeptical purist, the non-traditional components are from an official LEGO brand Alpha Team pen. There, you can breathe easy.

D.I.Y. Sunday

If your creative well has run dry, TBB is here to help with a couple of projects to fill the hours before the factory whistle blows on Monday…or Tuesday if you live here in the States.

First up is the deceptively challenging How to build a K.E.W.B. by Jacob Unterreiner (4estFeller). The video is easy to follow, doesn’t require a Zhangian collection to build and it even has cool music that will make you feel like you’re in a hip clothing store. The only drawback is that Jacob doesn’t show you how to make his elegant stand to display your K.E.W.B., but we’ll let it slide.

For the advanced builder with LDD experience and a penchant for Sci-Fi, Chief Executive Overlord, Tanuki Corp. and wezra have you covered with a free instructional download of Red Spacecat’s USS Saratoga. I can assure you, constant reader, that the instructions are far easier to follow than my description.

To those of you who take the plunge, good luck! I have no doubt that the builders featured here would be happy to answer questions from you via Flickr if you get stuck. If you have your own D.I.Y. project to share with the readers, leave them in the comments.

Clad in gold

Yo-Sub Joo created a replica of the world’s tallest gold-cladded structure, the 63 Building in Seoul. Staying true to the appearance of the landmark, the builder used chrome gold colored tiles to coat what must have been an expensive creation.

MiniMi – A new LEGO minifig app

I was invited to try out the new minifig app, MiniMi, while it was still in beta. It is a fun, novelty app and I actually spent quite a bit of time trying different comibinations of figures, making myself, my family members and what-not. My kids absolutely loved it. Overall, it is well made and pretty intuitive to use. It’s an entertaining app, in and of itself. Also it is free to download, which is nice. There are also expansion packs, such as Space and Castle (yay!), which cost 99 cents each.

However, I think this app has the potential to really shine as a customizing tool. How so? Because it has the only minifig face generator of which I am aware (feel free to correct me in the comments if I am wrong). Switching hair, hats, torsos and colors in the app is pretty straightforward but the face generator is something unique. You can choose from a selection of eyes, eyebrows, mouths, facial hair, glasses and so forth to create unique faces that don’t actually exist on official minifigs. Because the app has built in share functions, you can export your fig image…isolate the face…resize and print it on decal or sticker paper.

Currently the number of elements in the app is limited but the expansion “packs” remedy this somewhat and the team is planning more. If they expand the library of facial elements, I think this app could be something really special. I would also like to see a feature added to where the user could resize and/or change the colors of the various facial features but this may come with time.

Download it here.

From the depth of the sea...

…comes this ferocious creature by LukeClarenceVan. Unlike many of the sea monsters made in Lego, this one doesn’t have tentacles and its head has features resembling a dragon. I like the scales and the touch of olive green.

Architectural double-shot

It’s time once again for a Saturday exploration into the always fascinating world of architecture. Both of today’s selections are from TBB neophyte Erwin te Kortschot (buildingmaster 1966), who has a very small but high quality stable of models on Flickr. We begin today’s ruminations with an 1898 Art Nouveau structure and National Heritage Site from Rotterdam, Netherlands called the “Witte Huis“. Designed by architect Willem Molenbroek, it is considered the first high-rise of Europe.

Don’t blink, because our tour ends as quickly as it began in Oxford, England, with the Radcliffe Camera designed by James Gibbs in the English Palladian style in 1749 to house the Radcliffe Science Library.

If you’re a fan of the genre don’t miss Erwin’s outstanding Aloha Tower from Honolulu Harbor in Hawaii.

“Compare your lives to mine and then kill yourselves!”

Riccardo Zangelmi would like to present the disembodied head of Bender Bending Rodríguez.

Feel free to leave your favorite Bender quotes in the comments.

The Battleship Iburi

Although the Battleship Iburi never actually existed, TBB rookie Eínon brings enough skill to the project that is easy to believe that it might have. According to the builder: “This model is the first ship of a new huge diorama that I´m working, with over 20 ships, representing the fictitious Second Naval Battle of Tsushima, between Japan and Russia.” If this model is any indication of the shape of things to come, I look forward to blogging Eínon’s further explorations into “alternative history“.