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.

A landspeeder of a more manageable size

As the internet is going (appropriately) gaga for the new Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder set, builder Nicholas Goodman offers this lovely vignette highlighting a smaller alternative. The landspeeder here is a slightly modified version of the one designed by Fuku Saku, and has a great shape and color, with some lovely details on the engines utilizing the LEGO cauldron piece. And the design for the windscreen, while unorthodox, is an excellent way to form the appropriate shape at this scale. For the rest of the scene, the terrain is well formed and very Tatooine-esque. I particularly like Nicholas’s use studs to add texture to the desert sands. The minifigs are also well-posed, setting the scene for Luke and Obi-Wan’s first introduction.

Here’s an up-close shot of the back of the speeder to showcase all the detail that went into those engines. Nicholas’s mastery of angles is remarkable given the scale!

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Italian craftsmanship, German engineering, and Danish bricks

When thinking of the early development of the supercar in the 1980s, most people will probably think of the Lamborghini Countach or the Ferrari Testarossa as the poster boys of that era. One that sometimes gets overlooked — unfairly, if you ask me — is the BMW M1. It mixes the craziness of the Italian-born wedge-shape with some classic German refinement and engineering. LEGO builder Leo 1 has perfectly captured the first German supercar (I count the original Porsche 911 as a grand tourer, before you ask!) in all its orange glory. A pair of headlight bricks are the perfect choice for the BMW snout nose, as are the circular tiles for the rims.

The exquisite shaping continues around the rear of the car. Slopes and tiles at subtle angles abound to capture the sharp shape of this Bimmer, which is not easy in bright orange as the parts palette is still fairly limited. The little details, like the interior or wing mirrors, are the cherry on the cake. And we can all agree that twin-pipe exhausts just make a car look cooler, can’t we…?

Speeding to the scene of the crime

Builder Tim Goddardreturns with a LEGO speeder bike in this Space Police-inspired build.
I love speeder bikes, they’re an excellent quick build with table scraps and a fantastic way to practice just how useful those smallest LEGO pieces can be. This is seen from the very front of the bike where a Boomerang and Binocular are paired together to serve as steering vanes

What I particularly like is that the entire speeder bike is built around a bicycle frame. The frame serves as a great starting point to connect the wider build. The bike is made all the more striking by limiting the colours to those most familiar to Space Police fans, the recent Space Police Series 21 Collectible Minifigure is a perfect pilot for this one!

A scenic path to a forest retreat

Builder Salt_city_bricks gives us a lovely LEGO retreat in a peaceful forest. Two travelers make their way home after an adventurous walk through the forest. They cross a cute little bridge that uses headlight bricks, open studs, and flex tubing for its curvature. Vibrant trees and flowers surround the house on the hill and the babbling brook. There’s not a bit of space left unused on the forest floor! It’s full of plant life, even growing up the sides of the hill to wreath around the multi-story house. The color blocking breaks the scene up into smaller areas to explore.

Take a closer look at the trees and flowers

Check out this colourful cyber samurai

This is one to watch out for on the battlefield! Eero Okkonen has taken inspiration from the Monkie Kid sets with the vibrant colours featured in this build. Yellow curved tubes (AKA macaroni) form part of the character’s wide helmet with red claws portraying horns. The fingers are actually skeleton arms and the windscreens in dark turquoise are perfect for creating the samurai’s armour skirting. The futuristic design is completed by the use of trans red at the knees, arm shields and in the sword. It’s an eye-catching model where you can tell Eero has taken time to analyse parts from the Monkie Kid theme in order to apply the pieces in inventive ways.

Bobbo the Babbler built from bricks

One of the challenges of moving to Finland for me has been picking up the language – I am finding it rather difficult to get my head around it. One of the suggestions that has been put to me is to watch children’s TV shows, and after seeing this build by Mikael Montelius (Gonkius), I may have found one to do just that! This adorable character is called Bobbo, and is one of six characters in the educational show Babblarna (‘the Babblers’). It’s originally a Swedish show, but does apparently have versions in Finnish, as well as English, German and Norwegian. Bobbo here is a high-energy character with an occasionally fiery temper. He also likes to dance, and Mikael has captured him mid-boogie! The red windscreen pieces are the perfect choice to capture his circular shape, and the half-circle tile used for his tooth, along with the eye tiles, gives him oodles of character.

Gossipus Norvegicus

Apparently I have this thing for LEGO birds. Sometimes they tend to be really realistic, other times they look more cartoonized. These two little cuties by Lars Barstad are more on the cartoonized side of the spectrum They apparently are called Gossip Birds and they tend to come in pairs. Unlike turtle doves, these birds do not symbolise love and affection. These two represent the tittle-tattle, the rumors and the whispers. They are dishing the dirt, spilling the tea. Whatever you might call it, they are game for it! My guess is they are currently telling all the latest scandals about who used the Dr Strange cape as flower petals first.

LEGO Star Wars UCS 75341 Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder [Review]

One of the very first vehicles seen on screen in Star Wars is at long last coming to the LEGO Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) with 75341 Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder. This dilapidated two-seater civilian vehicle is nearly as iconic to Star Wars as the X-wing or Millennium Falcon and has appeared in minifigure scale numerous times, starting with a simple 49-piece version in the original LEGO Star Wars lineup in 1999. The new UCS version is considerably larger with 1,890 pieces and measuring nearly 20 inches long (50cm). It also includes a display stand and minifigures of Luke and C-3PO. The UCS Landspeeder will be available just in time for May the Fourth sales this year, with VIP access starting May 1 and general availability on May 4. It will retail for US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £174.99.

The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
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An elegant exercise in plating built with LEGO plates

There’s just something extra sweet about these amazing chocolate (well, LEGO) confections from Jaroslaw Walter. Minimalist in their builds, they instantly evoke a $50 a plate Michelin Star dessert course. Let’s start off with some musical highlights. The treble clefs used here first appeared in Trolls sets as minifigure accessories, and the stave (the lines from the sheet music) might be from the equally soothing 10281 Bonsai Tree.

Drizzled in dark chocolate round plate, decorated with white-chocolate dipped berries made from Lion Dance eyes, this tiny cake hints at a taste of lavender from its lilac minifigure washtub base.

Have room for just one more? Might we suggest these tiny slices of heaven served on red balloon panels? Don’t forget to taste the dark-blue vine garnish.

As much as we’d like to eat all of these…probably best to recognize that LEGO bricks aren’t digestible. So don’t eat your bricks, kiddos. You’ll just regret it. And probably run up some insane hospital bills, to boot.

A dragon that’s both sci-fi and fantasy

This blaster-wielding LEGO dragon by builder Sandro Quattrini is a glorious mix of D&D and cyberpunk. The sculpting on the figure is exquisite, as we’ve come to expect from Sandro. The visor design feels both like it belongs to Geordi La Forge and the Mouth of Sauron. I love the use of these 12-tooth gears for the dragon’s teeth. And the feather pieces making up his goatee are wonderful. Combine that grin with the attitude conveyed in the figure’s pose, and the message is clear: no one in sci-fi or fantasy tells this guy what to do!

And before I go, we’re just going to have to talk about that blaster! Much like the figure, the gun incorporates the mechanical and biological into a single design. The use of the red Dragon Masters horse helmet is particularly nice. Of particular note is how Sandro has used minifig hands here. While on the top of the weapon, they provide a natural flow indicating a dragon’s spine. However, on the underside of the barrel, they’re used in a rigid line, in keeping with the artificial aspects of the blaster. Two sides of the same part.

Merrily the hobbits roll along

Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and the newly joined Merry travel by ferry in this LEGO vignette by Thorsten Bonsch. This series from Thorsten follows the first part of The Fellowship of the Ring. Here, we see the four primary hobbits traveling across the Brandywine River into Buckland. The color palette of this build is outstanding, allowing each detail to stand on its own among the others. When it comes to the building techniques, the roofing tiles on the structure draw my eye. It’s a simple technique, but quite effective. It’s just tiles on plates, but the tiles aren’t pressed down on the raised end. The rest of the structure is cool too, with the disheveled layers and angled brown supports. This is one of those locations in a LEGO build that I would love to visit if it were a real place. I would listen to the sounds of the lapping water on the riverbank and the nocturnal sounds of nature around the river.

This scene you may recognize from the movie as well, with a Ringwraith bearing down on the hobbits. In the book, upon which this vignette is based, this scene had less pressure on it. The book takes a lot longer to get Frodo and company out of the Shire, but there’s only so long they can take with a movie runtime to consider. Either version, the wraith takes the long way over Brandywine Bridge. Silly Ringwraith, shortcuts are for hobbits!

This LEGO bloom turns a magical artifact upside down

Some new LEGO Botanical Collection sets are dropping just in time for Mother’s Day, and they seem to have planted the seeds of creativity in the larger LEGO community. Dawn Sloboda, from LEGO Masters Season 2, brings us this single bloom with a magical twist. Dr. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation gets put to use to make some of the best petals we’ve seen on any LEGO flower. Here’s hoping Dawn didn’t have to endure any multiversal dangers to get her hands on four cloaks.