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.

79110 Silver Mine Shootout [Review]

79110 Silver Mine Shootout is the second-largest set from the newly released LEGO Lone Ranger theme. It contains 644 pieces and costs $69.99.

Here is my summary of the highlights of the set, which are elaborated in the review video below.

Pros:

Includes lots of tan and dark tan bricks and slopes useful for landscape builders.
Notable unique and rare elements include dark tan BURPs, boulder, transparent clear 1×4 tiles, transparent green bottle, and a cattle skull.
A surprisingly large number of play features (see video below)
All 5 minifigs are unique to the set.
Model has a non-rectangular footprint and thus has a more natural look.

Cons:

Price is a bit steep, but it could be worse.
Hardly any new part molds besides the cattle skull.
Standard building techniques with exception of the mine cart.

Overall the Silver Mine Shootout is a decent set worthy of addition to your collection. There’s hardly any sets out there with so many desert landscape elements, but even if you’re not ready to cannibalize the set for parts yet, there’s still display value in its natural appearance and fun to be had in all the play features. Buying this set at retail price is an ok deal, but finding it at a discount would be really worth it.

79110 Silver Mine Shootout is out on Amazon.com and the LEGO Shop online.

Check out our reviews of other LEGO Lone Ranger sets including 79108 Stagecoach Escape and 79109 Colby City Showdown.

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An old church in a quiet place

Kris_Kelvin loves dark red and textured walls, and his latest creation undoubtedly has both characteristics of his style. Check out this close-up view of the clock tower for a detailed look at the walls made out of plates.

Hear Me Roar

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I have not yet made it to the third installment of Mr. Martin’s epic tale. I cannot claim to have seen any of this season yet, either (which I assure you is very sad). I can, however, tell you that I’ve been flickr-stalking Dave Ware (Brickwares) since I caught a sneak-peak of this mosaic on facebook.

Clearly my flickr-stalking paid off. Because this is just stunning, and regardless of your opinion of the Lannister family (or any of their words), you can certainly take a moment to appreciate this mosaic.

Peter Dinklage did.

If you lean more towards the sci-fi end of the spectrum, Dave’s got something for you, too.

A Splash of Color

A. Yates (A. Yates Industrial) brings us a robot that helps prove that there’s no bad color in the Lego palette. Plenty of builders out there leave colors like pink only for deliberately “girly” creations, rather than making widespread use. Here, we can clearly see that pink has a place, beyond just ships and mecha with female minifigs at the controls.

Powerpig’s classic Polaroid Land Camera 1000 gives instant satisfaction

Back before digital cameras, if you wanted to see your pictures right away, you needed an instant camera like the ones made by Polaroid. Instagram today owes much of its pseudo-retro aesthetic to the slightly blurry, washed-out photos so many of us who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s took with our Polaroids. Master of real-world objects replicated in LEGO, Chris McVeigh (powerpig) brings us the Polaroid Land Camera 1000.

For even more instant gratification, here’s an animated GIF showing off the excellent functionality that Chris built into his LEGO model:

LEGO Polaroid Land Camera 1000

If you love Chris’ Polaroid, don’t miss the LEGO Polaroid camera by the Arvo Brothers built back in 2007.

The Battle of Amroth

We’re fairly used to seeing large-scale collaborations between builders in the post-apocalyptic theme, as well as at events like BrickCon, but it’s fairly unusual to see a collaborative LEGO castle. This diorama by Finnish builders Panzy-boe and Finland Brick hits a lot of high points for me, including off-the-grid construction, water feature with landscaping, dynamic minifig action, and more. One of the things I like most about the main castle structure is that the top of the wall isn’t straight — it incorporates a rock outcrop in the upper-left corner that forces the castle wall to follow the terrain.

My only complaint is that there aren’t more pictures. A large LEGO build like this is an opportunity to create little scenes throughout the diorama. From the overview picture, it’s clear that the builders did so (I’m especially curious what’s going on in what appears to be a little cave in that rock), but without close-up photos, we can only admire this excellent scene from a distance.

This diorama was unveiled this past weekend at Model Expo 2013 in Helsinki.

Rubber Ducky

While my own eyes are pulled more to the tugboat, Schfio‘s “LEGO x Rubber Duck Project” is clearly all about the duck. And you can’t argue with Sesame Street.

Call THEO

When your brightly colored pointy spaceship breaks down on the side of the intergalactic superhighway and you’re not even sure where the gas-cap is, don’t panic, just call THEO. Brought to you by TBB newcomer Galaltek, the THEO series of space-tugs can get you out of a jam in no time flat. I really enjoyed the use of TIREs, which according to the builder, stands for “Totally Integrated Repulsion Emitters” for safe pushing of space freighters or barges. Enjoy this microscale delight.

“Go Ugly Early”

According to the Urban Dictionary, to “go ugly early” is to admit to oneself that you will not pull a good looking woman not matter how long you hang around the night club. You always end up taking the least attractive option anyway, so why not just “go ugly early” and get it over with. To a military aviator, however, there is a whole different meaning to the phrase. The saying has been associated with the A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) in reference to calling the durable plane in early to support troops in ground combat. The builder responsible for this slick rendition is Australian (JustOneMoreBrick), who also has a very cool model of an F/A-18F Super Hornet if you’re interested.

Doctor Who: The Unearthly Child

Thorsten Bonsch (Xenomurphy) returns with the 4th installment of his 50 years of Doctor Who tribute that will culminate in November with a large model that will no doubt be mind-blowing. This time the subject is the legendary first episode of the beloved series entitled “The Unearthly Child“. Thorsten gives a key scene the black and white treatment and the results are stunning.

In a thinly veiled attempt to generate comments, I will also offer that I just don’t understand the appeal of Doctor Who. While I can appreciate the skill of Thorsten’s model and presentation, I really don’t think the British should be allowed to produce filmed science fiction. Maybe Dr. Who would be better with puppets…or minifigs? I shall wait patiently in the comments area to be shanked with a sonic screwdriver.

“Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy”

Feast your blood-shot eyes on the Best in Show award winner from Sydney Brick Show which is about to wrap up on the 28th. Titled “Home Sweet Groan“, this ramshackle gem shows a newly-wed zombie bride and groom enjoying their marital digs. The builder is Jade Wisniewski (Taz-Maniac) who, according to his Flickr profile, is a self-styled “LEGO Pimp”. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I do know that Big Daddy Kane teaches us that “Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy” and there is nothing easy about this model.

The Final Duel

Built for a contest for LUGPol, Lego_fan puts in so much fabulous detail it’s just hard to pick any one thing. Every time I look at this I see something new. I’m not positive what the knight is fighting specifically, but it looks rather nightmarish.

Check out the rest of the shots on flickr!