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.

Brickfête July 13th & 14th, 2013 [News]

Janey Gunning asked me to share this announcement about the fast approaching Canadian LEGO convention. I wish Canada wasn’t so big, as I would be there in a heartbeat if not for the distance. But I do hope my fellow Canadian LEGO maniacs all have a splendid time!

Ladies and Gentleman, LEGO fans of all ages…
Don’t miss a great LEGO festival in Toronto, Canada.
July 13th & 14th, 2013
10am until 3pm
www.brickfete.com

The public is invited to view the awesome LEGO Creations on display and we can not wait to show you what we have built. You can see things like a huge Serenity ship, large working amusement park ride, massive train/monorail layouts, classic space layout with working lights, funky art sculptures and mosaics, classic city, castle, pirate and viking creations, elaborate war dioramas, various scaled pieces of architecture, working robots and more!!! You will not believe your eyes when you see what our exhibitors can make from LEGO. There is even a brick building area for the kids and you never know when a special character might show up, from Darth Vader to Billy Blue Brick.

Tickets sold online here.
Parking & venue information here.

See you on the second weekend of July,
The Brickfête Team

“A festival run by fans, made by the fans, for the fans.”

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The green, green ships of home

It’s been nearly a month since we’ve posted any microspace, so it seems high time we correct that with this verdant pair of spaceships by Erik (Lemon_Boy).

The angled shapes are lovely, especially where sections of the ships connect to each other. As always, judicious use of Exo-Force stickers and small spots of color can really make a model pop. Erik says his ships were inspired by ones in Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

10237 Tower of Orthanc out now, plus free hotdog stand in July [News]

The new LEGO Lord of the Rings set 10237 The Tower of Orthanc is now available to everyone from the LEGO Shop online.

The set has been available early to LEGO VIP program members for the last couple of weeks. And speaking of the VIP Program, members can get a free hotdog stand with any order over $75 in July.

Link for US readers:

Link for Canadian readers:

Toys & Games on Amazon.ca

And speaking of Canada, Amazon.ca now sells toys and games, including a fair bit of LEGO. As we’ve reminded our US readers, you don’t have to buy LEGO from Amazon to support The Brothers Brick — a percentage of every purchase, from books to video games, goes to help TBB, at no extra cost to you.

TR will be bringing you updates about sales and deals he sees on Amazon.ca.

Incredible Steampunk Castle made from 20,000 LEGO pieces

This amazing “Steam Castle Falls” diorama was presented at the recent Fana’Briques expo in Rosheim, France, and represents the combined effort of three builders: Arnaud Besson (74louloute), Olivier Curto (oLaF LM) and Jimmy Fortel (6kyubi6). My complete absence of francais aside, I wish I could have been there to see it.

Weighing in at over 20,000 pieces, and taking each builder over four months to make, the diorama is clearly the result of a lot of effort. It is impressive that three builders managed to make something work together so cohesively, especially when you consider that the three live in different corners of France.

Furthermore, the major part of the diorama went on a 1000km trip, while another section took a long train trip. And unfortunately for everyone, the diorama could have been even bigger, had the originally planned fourth builder “Capt’n Spaulding” been able to participate.

With major inspiration from this picture, the diorama follows a loose interpretation of a medieval theme. Although I get a strong vibe of techwest anime cartoons as well. Regardless of what inspired it, it’s certainly an incredible work.

BrickCon 2013 registration now open [News]

BrickCon 2013 is now open for registration! As we’ve said before, BrickCon is our favorite LEGO convention in the increasingly busy North American LEGO convention circuit.

The official theme for BrickCon 2013 is “Pigs vs. Cows” (as I’m sure everyone gathered from the Kickstarter project we highlighted earlier this year). What does that craziness mean? Well, that’s really up to you — LEGO is, after all, a creative medium. I’m not sure how town and train builders will manifest the theme in their layout, or whether we can expect cows storming the pig-defended beaches of a LEGO Normandy, but I do know that the castle builders have something spectacular planned.

Speaking of collaborations, watch this space for more info on the various themes that will give you the opportunity to contribute to a group build.

If you haven’t been to BrickCon before, check out BrickCon photos on Flickr and our own BrickCon coverage here on The Brothers Brick.

Be sure to go to BrickCon.org/Builders/ to register for the full, four-day private convention.

Gorgeous bipedal PRISM mech

David Steeves (SuperHardcoreDave) is clearly working from the didn’t-look-like-LEGO-in-the-thumb playbook with his latest P.R.I.S.M. mech. And he clearly read it well. And it has spindly crotch arms. And I can even forgive the pointe feet.

Emergency Response Rescue Vessel Grampian Don

Arjan Oude Kotte (konajra) is one of those rare builders who only seem to build and post brilliant stuff and we have blogged most of it. His latest masterpiece is a minifig scale model (1/40) of an offshore support vessel, the ERRV Grampian Don, which is operated by the Craig Group based in Aberdeen, Scotland.

An ERRV is an Emergency Response Rescue Vessel, which is a type of ship that constantly patrols a zone around offshore installations, to ensure that other ships don’t stray into the zone, thereby preventing collisions, and in case of an emergency, to rescue platform crews and coordinate the response. Arjan started designing this model in November last year. It’s a proper SHIP, with a length of 125 cm (more than 4 ft) a height of 74 cm (more than 2 ft) and a width of 32 cm (about 1 ft). His ships seem to be getting more and more complicated. The wonderfully sculpted bulbous bow is a novelty and check out the angles on the bridge windows.

Unleash the Fuerza

I can’t remember the last time I blogged a Bionicle figure, but this one by Lord Oblivion stood out to me for two reasons. The head design is an ingenious combination of two halves of the spiked ball piece, complemented by a set of smoothly flowing body armor.

50 Shades of Bley: Iain Heath’s Mad LEGO Science

Resident mad genius and meme chaser Iain Heath has just put out a crazy video explaining how to dye your bricks. All you purists out there can put your pitchforks down and simply skip over this one, but for everyone else, it’s some pretty cool stuff whether you’re into LEGO mutilation or not. In this video Iain explains how he achieved the flesh tones used in his large-scale Gollum character. And for those of you who haven’t seen it, Iain’s previous video describing his design process for the accompanying Bilbo is also well worth a watch.

When I retire, I’d like to live in Everard Lodge

Mark of Falworth is currently one of the most prolific castle builders in the Lego community, known for his detailed landscapes as evident in this collaboration with his brother (Brother Steven). Their use of the colorful leaves from altBricks really brings out the autumn beauty of this diorama.

Alien dropship with hovertank

Raoul Baldwin built this alien dropship using train tracks as the backbone. It carries a tank attached via magnets. Perhaps more interesting are the decorated the bricks by watercolor crayons for an added texture.

Bad Hare Day

Galaktek makes great use of the part-separator in his recent model Bad Hare Day. According to the builder, “The Heartlake pets aren’t sure what this “war” thing is (can you eat it?), but they’re eager to help. Betsy Bunny has joined the Heartlake Air Force as an auxiliary in her Recon Skimmer, leaping past enemy lines to gather intelligence. Because of the open cockpit, Betsy has named her craft the Bad Hare Day. I can’t make this stuff up.

The time went too quickly, constant reader, and we find ourselves at the end of another weekend. Thanks for your continued support of Friday Night Fights and all the models posted over the last 72 hours, your comments make a difference, not only to the fighters but to all the builders whose work is featured on the Brother-Ship. See you next weekend.