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.

Blacktron Scimitar XX-99 starfighter

Halfbeak has offered to ‘shop my Aldrin Mars Cycler onto a lovely spacey background, so it only seems fair that I highlight some of his great presentation work while I wait. He uses both a schematic and an edited background to showcase his latest LEGO model.

Blacktron Scimitar Schematic A

The model itself is a fun little build with lots of cool details (like the cockpit that splits open), but what really sets it apart is these two complementary presentations of the model.

Blacktron Patrol

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Mars Rovers Sojourner & Opportunity + Aldrin Mars Cycler

Having immersed myself quite deeply in both the recent news from Mars and as a judge of the Real World Starfighter Contest, I felt compelled to do a bit of building to scratch that space itch. I’d already built Stephen Pakbaz’s Curiosity, so just had to build Sojourner (landed 1997) and Opportunity (landed 2004 and still operational) in approximately the same scale.

Mars Rover Family Portrait

Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity   Mars Sojourner Rover

There’s nothing functional about my LEGO Sojourner, but Opportunity has working rocker-bogie suspension (which I struggled mightily to build, since the design is different from Curiosity’s, and I couldn’t simply scale down Stephen’s LEGO version). I plan to build the lander at some point, too.

After he landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong, astronaut Buzz Aldrin came up with an idea for a craft that would cycle back and forth between the Earth and Mars, providing significantly greater comfort for astronauts during the five-month journey. With the cancellation of the Constellation program, the dream of regular travel to and from the Moon and Mars seems even farther away. Nevertheless, I still find the idea inspiring, and built my own rendition of an “Aldrin Mars Cycler”.

Earth-Mars Cycler "Aldrin" (1)

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Real World Starfighter Contest winners announced

Those of you that have been around the community long enough, may remember a contest that ran many moons ago… :P

RWSC

Well after some very lengthy deliberation, we have finally narrowed down the entries to declare the 3 winners!

1st Place
Shannon Ocean’s Boeing C-15 "Strike Eagle" with a score of 175/200

2nd Place
Mainman’s Project HAVE SHIVER with a score of 169/200

3rd Place
Pierre E Fieschi’s 1973 ‘HERCULES’ Nuke Platform with a score of 168/200

We scored a total of 11 entries in our semi-finalist round. These were the other 8 semi-finalists:

4th- Halfbeak’s Moonrock 1 with 157/200
5th- Ted Andes’ Gladius with 156/200
6th- Fernald’s Solid Fuel Starfighter with 155/200
7th- xiei22’s Pilum with 153/200
8th Brainbikerider’s Chernobog with 152/200
9th Lego Junkie’s Soyuz 7-K12 with 150/200
10th madLEGOman’s Spaceghost with 149/200
11th bloei’s ISF Zodiac with 143/200

To say that the judges were impressed with both the quantity, but more importantly the QUALITY of the entries is an understatement. You didn’t make it easy on any of us to judge, but you also all made it extremely fun to watch!

So a huge CONGRATS to the winners, and also to all that participated! Also a giant thank you to all the judges, and especially Stijn and More Bricks for the prize sponsorship!

Peter and I have already talked about this becoming a recurring contest…it was just an absolute hoot to be a part of!

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.

Unconventional MOCs

The two latest creations by Sean and Steph (Siercon and Coral) feature completely ridiculous yet interesting methods of building (or unbuilding). The first is a sea-scape made out of only transparent bricks that are not connected in any way.

Avalon 'Connectionless'

The second is a medieval scene made from clone bricks and modified by real fire.

Sacrilege (watch video first)

There’s a video to prove it:

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The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious

…if it were so, it was a grievous fault. And brilliantly, James Pegrum built it.

The Globe theater is so iconic, as are the works of the bard, who watches from stage-left as his players bring his words to life. Shakespeare’s most famous fans watch from above as Caesar falls, his guards bursting on stage to witness the tragedy.

I’d highly suggest taking in the larger version, and just absorbing the details.

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.

Everyone needs a little more pirate in their life. Right?

I’m sure you do. We all do! TheBrickAvenger built this lovely little playset-esque creation, inspired after a Playmobile playset (gasp!). I’m quite sure I’m biased but this turned out just fantastic. The board roof, and that palm!

He’s got tons more stuff worth checking out on his Flickr stream. Enjoy!

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.

Free shipping, 10228 Haunted House out, & free Monster Fighters mini-set [News]

The LEGO Shop online kicks off September with free shipping in the US,icon UK,icon and Canadaicon on all orders over $75/£50, with a free Monster Fighters mini-set thrown in to sweeten the deal.

LEGO’s latest exclusive set, Monster Fighters 10228 Haunted House, has also just been released.

The set comes with six minifigs, over two thousand parts, and enough zombie heads to build a horde.

Here’s a look at the freebie, which actually looks like it has some pretty nice pieces in it (including another zombie):

Monster Fighters freebie set

As Ace over at FBTB rightly guessed, LEGO has also been kind enough to create a page for The Brothers Brick on the Shop@Home website. We’ll be filling it up with the sets we recommend shortly, but in the meantime you can click through from here to get your free shipping and free set:

Important: If you’d like to help support The Brothers Brick, we’d love it if you would bookmark this blog post and use it to click through to the US, UK, and Canadian Shop@Home websites. (Don’t bookmark the pages I linked to above. Oddly, LEGO’s systems won’t know where you came from and 3% of your purchase won’t go toward helping us pay the bills. Ah, software…)

FREE Shipping on all LEGO Shop orders of $75 or more!  Valid through 9.21.12

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.

Ralph’s B-52H Stratofortress is one gorgeous, Big Ugly Fat Fellow

Ralph Savelsberg (Mad physicist) takes his military aircraft in a massive direction with this gargantuan B-52 bomber. Ralph writes, “At 170 studs in length and with a span of approximately 196 studs this is the largest single model I have ever built.”

B-52H Stratofortress (1)

I’m headed back over to his photoset to finish looking at the pictures…

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.

Waggly waggly fishy fish

Fish

Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) has been fairly quiet lately (relatively speaking) so I was happy to notice this unusual fish sculpture in my photostream. I was then very excited to notice that it waggles. Too cool.

Waggly LEGO fish

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.

Can someone please get that goat off the road!

I think the reason that Maschinen Krieger is such a fantastic genre to build in, is the fact that it combines so many different styles within it’s design aesthetic. Many military builders out there will tell you that WWII era SAS & LRDG had some of the coolest kit. These guys had only themselves to rely on and as a result had to take everything but the kitchen sink with them. One Ma.K unit in particular that hearkens back to this style is the Sandstalker.

I have always been extremely envious of the amount of detail that actual Ma.K model builders can get in their models, so in an attempt to get a fraction of that amount of detail I decided to try my hand at a Sandstalker. I figured it was a perfect blank canvas to strap a bunch of junk to…

Sdh.224LR Sandstalker

Please feel free to check out the Photo Set

And for those interested…Ma.Ktoberfest is fast approaching, stay tuned for further details

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.

BrickForge releases accessories inspired by a distant galaxy

BrickForge has just released a batch of new custom accessories perfect for bounty hunters and scoundrels alike.

BrickForge accessories

They kindly sent me a batch of their latest custom accessories — a pleasant surprise in my mailbox this afternoon. I haven’t been doing too much minifig-building this past year, so I can’t necessarily promise a review before BrickCon (too busy building other stuff), but it’s obvious these are well-designed pieces that take BrickForge in an interesting new direction.

Check out the full line on BrickForge.com.

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.

Amazon.com discounts LEGO Lord of the Rings sets

Adding to the LEGO Star Wars sets that are 30% off, Amazon.com has just discounted most of the LEGO Lord of the Rings line as well.

Here’s the list:

Some of the discounts have dropped or ended since I got Amazon’s email this morning, so this one might not last as long as the Star Wars sets.

And unfortunately, these may only be available to our US readers. (We’ll have something cool for people in more places in a couple of days.)

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.