The LEGO Company was founded in 1932, and this year LEGO is celebrating its 90th anniversary. Graham Hancock, editor of Blocks magazine, has been delving into the company’s history for the magazine’s own 90th edition. Graham is here today to give us a brief look at the LEGO company’s founding family and their involvement with the development of our favorite bricks.
Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, son of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen.
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The problem with having a Grand Army of the Republic is that you need somewhere equally grand to store it. Even a TX-130 Sabre Tank would probably not fit in your average Joe or Josephine’s garage. Tim Goddard has the solution: make them tiny! Tim is a pro when it comes to small-scale Star Wars building, and those skills are evident here. Efficient parts choice is everything when it comes to microscale to ensure the builds remain recognisable. The minifigure socket wrenches are inspired choices for the side cannons, and the subtle angle of the pontoons is also accurate to the source material. The angular cockpit is represented by a single sloped brick with a jumper plate. These might be simple parts, but they are the perfect solution in this scenario!
As I’m sure you’ve read in other posts on here recently, we are smack-dab in the middle of another round of Iron Builder. Here is one more entry featuring the red canopy seed part from LEGO builder Jake Hansen. What really stands out to me in this build, besides its Crash Bandicoot-inspired color scheme, is all Jake’s interesting parts usage. The use of upside-down green baseball caps for leaves is genius, as is sticking those 1×1 curves onto the ends of roller skates at the base of the altar. I’m an absolute sucker for a design that connects parts in atypical ways. I also love the texture change in the base of the model, from the rolling curves of the jungle vegetation to the blocky stone of the path leading up to the altar. And as for that tree in the background, I’m definitely not not stealing the tube-filled trunk design for my own builds. The Iron Builder gods will be pleased!
Right out of 1940’s Disney animation comes this LEGO rendition of José Carioca by Koen Zwanenburg. This dapper parrot looks wonderful in brick form and is full of great part uses! The hands use minifigure legs as fingers, elbows, and shoulders. Green cloud plates make up part of the fluffy feathers on his legs. My personal favorites include the stack of shell parts as the lower part of his beak and the white snake part used as wafting smoke! His trusty top hat and umbrella are faithfully recreated here as well!
Meet The Moon Rocks, the grooviest and most rockin’ band this side of Alpha Centauri! Composed by Julius von Brunk, this LEGO build will knock your socks off with the hard rock jamming coming from this moon base. Check out the station they’re playing at — there are a lot of cool details making up the workings of the space base. The cool bendy tubing on the walls and the rocky foundation are awesome, but take a look at the mosaics. They possess fantastic details despite some plate color limitations. On the left, a window looks at Earth, no doubt experiencing some serious FOMO for the party happening on the moon! On the right is a huge jumbotron screen showcasing the band’s lead singer as they push the speakers to the max.
For a giant, bottom-feeding sea bug, these bright red crustaceans sure make for a tasty meal. Then again, a lot of things taste delicious covered in melted butter. Builder Joe of jnj_bricks takes us out for a nice lobster dinner but he’ll probably never call us again. Dated as an Anchorman reference may be, it seems apt given the shirtless Woody getting cozy in the bed of parsley. That’s some definite Ron Burgundy energy. Joe found quite a few uses for the red hexagonal plates with hinges that make up most of the crimson carapace. Beyond the boiled ocean insect, Joe built some delicious lemons for garnish as well as a nice slate serving plate, clever clamps, and a checkered napkin to clean up with during dinner. You might miss it if you don’t look carefully but there are couple actual Lobster pieces used near its mouth for a clever bit of added realism.
I can’t help but wonder if Joe wasn’t trying to make a surf and turf joke with this build. The lobster is on point but Woody is a bit of a stretch. I’ll give it to him since this was clearly a feat of clever organic building.
Presented in a glorious turquoise colour scheme, this racer primarily uses parts from the Jungle Dragon Ninjago set. Marco De Bon has provided the build with an insect-like appearance which is conveyed by the front wings looking similar to mandibles and the spear guns on the back being comparable to antennae. Pentagonal tiles are used to great effect in forming the splayed-out protrusions at the back and there are also orange flippers underneath representing engine grill details. It appears to be a tight squeeze to get into the cockpit which makes sense as the vehicle is designed to be compact, allowing for nifty maneuvers around a race circuit.
As a child of the late 80’s, Power Rangers was my jam in elementary school. I spent countless afternoons building up spaceships and castles with LEGO while Jason and his team took on the baddies of Rita Repulsa in the background. Ergo, my nostalgia is cranked all the way up to 11 with this excellent Megazord build by naota5552000. While the sculpting and posability of this mech are well thought-out, I’m drawn to the excellent techniques used to make the Zord’s head. The intricate use of clips, bars, and plate corners really gets the job done on a two-stud square base!
More from the best of Angel Grove below
In this LEGO build, Ayrlego takes us back in time with this Colonial scene of patrolling troops passing a white-washed villa. I enjoy learning from other people’s builds, and there’s some nice take-aways in the composition of this scene. We’re treated to some lush vegetation framing the building, and the palms are really well-executed, bookending the build. In addition to the palms, the undergrowth to the front and sides are great examples of adding fauna to any scene.
There are some really nice touches to be found in the building itself too — some I’m sure to use myself in the future! I’m particularly fond of the aged white bricks used amongst the newer white pieces with other subtle details such as the white profile brick. The Micro Figure nestled into the wall, suggestive of a shrine, and the logs that serve to hold the upper level really elevate this whole scene. I think you’ll agree that Ayrlego has done his homework in constructing this one.
In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the first week of April 2022.
TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS If you like dinosaurs, than this last week of news was for you. We left no rock unturned in our reviews of the latest wave of Jurrasic Park/World sets, including an homage to the film that started it all. The week’s news is rounded out with an announcement of another wave in the Harry Potter wizarding world theme. If you are looking for more news and reviews from your favorite themes, check out last week’s Brick Report.
This soba noodle bowl looks so good it’s hard to believe it’s made of LEGO! This creation comes from builder John Snyder for the annual LEGO contest RogueOlympics hosted by Roguebricks. John started with an idea for how to build the radish slices, and the rest came together from there. Bicycle wheels inserted into inverted radar dishes comprise the bright radish slices. Arm pieces from the LEGO Friends toy line make up soba noodles, which is a pretty cool use of parts I haven’t seen before. Even the chopsticks are brick-built! Of course, part of what makes well-crafted food look so good is the plating, and John doesn’t disappoint. The color balancing stands out, allowing the eye to pass over each part of the soup in a wonderful flowing movement. I don’t know about you, but now I’m hungry!
When deputies arrived at the scene after responding to a call from a local alfalfa farmer about a strange creature outside his window in the middle of the night, they noticed an unusual sight at the edge of the man’s land, which seemed to be a weather balloon or a new-fangled washing machine. The strange object was stamped with “manufactured by Versteinert“. After setting up a cordon around the site, a black vehicle arrived on the scene, and two well-dressed gentlemen stepped out wearing dark sunglasses and holding up a small penlight…
