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.

This is what you call a pop-up

One of the themes I wish LEGO would pick up is the cyberpunk theme. The visibility of segregation between rich and poor is something that always strikes my interest. The same goes for this latest build by Swestar. We can see a clear separation between the poor and the rich. The world is filled with neon signs. These have been made with an assortment of tiles to create LEGO letters. The result is stunning. We get references to Tron and Atari and a lot of other references that are lost on me because I am not much of a gamer.

The best thing about this beautiful build is the fact that the triangular sign which features retro game characters can actually spin. Check out the video.

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Intergalactic villainy has never looked so stylish.

LEGO fans will often borrow from each other’s work, but builder Redverse has taken that to a whole new level with this tribute to fellow builder Patrick Biggs. As a Secret Santa gift to Patrick, Redverse has created P.B. Vader, an avatar for Patrick dressed in a stylish suit and trench coat ensemble, with a matching Darth Vader helmet. To drive home the relation to Patrick, P.B. Vader is holding a microscale version of one of Patrick’s own creations, The Branching Elk.

Art Nouveau book covers

LEGO has been into books as of lately. We got the LEGO Ideas 21315 Pop-Up Book, the Hogwarts Moments books, the Disney Storybooks, the 40410 Charles Dickens Tribute, and more. So as a LEGO fan, why not hop on the trend? That is exactly what Ted Andes must have thought. They created a series of lovely hardcover books with Art Nouveau-inspired cover art to go along with the Wasp-wing Table Lamp we featured a while back.

The blue book looks quite elaborately embellished with golden details which make the satin white jewels pop. The green book uses Spider-Man’s web as a very artistic cloud and the minifigure butterfly wings are used to represent a magical transparent butterfly. Most of all this is a very ingenious way to display minifigures you like and it can be translated to any theme.

LEGO Gift with Purchase 40528 LEGO Brand Retail Store – Take the whole store as a trophy [Review]

For ten years, LEGO has celebrated grand opening events with delightful models of LEGO brand stores for lucky customers with qualifying purchases. While the last few versions have been minifigure scale, the original from 2012 was a stylish microscale model. This year’s update seems to be celebrating the anniversary of this concept by revisiting the design of the original. Qualifying customers at new store celebrations will receive the 40528 LEGO Brand Retail Store as a gift with purchases over US $125 | UK £125. No word on the limit for our Canadian friends yet but this should be available for new store openings in select locations worldwide after January 1st, 2022. Still, this 402-piece modern design features a larger floor plan than its predecessor and plenty of sets to catch your eye within a tiny package. Let’s take a tour around the building, shall we?

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

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Smaug the brick-built dragon

We’ve seen LEGO Tudor-style buildings before, and quite often the building is the main focus of the creation. We’ve also seen LEGO brick-built dragons before, and just like the Tudor-style buildings, they too tend to be the main focus of the creation. Not so for KitKat1414, however. They built an amazing Tudor-style house to represent one of the houses of Lake Town and it is lit! No literally, it is on fire!

For the woodwork on the house, Kitkat1414 used window frames and filled those in with bars to represent the wooden beams. In other places, the window frames were filled in with cheese slopes representing stained glass windows. Often these types of buildings can be very earth-toned, and while that’s mostly the case for this one, if you look closely you can spot quite a few colours being used. There is a lot of sand blue and even some lavender hidden in the roof, and the house gets a dark green door which complements the dark red Smaug in a lovely way. The dragon itself is a true work of art and there are multiple parts used in very clever ways. One that really deserves a quick mention is the use of the Bionicle minifigure legs for the dragon’s nose bridge and eye sockets. The last part that deserves a little highlight is the angled bar with stud used to represent icicles. And naturally, there are quite a few Tolkien references hidden in this wonderful build. Can you spot them all?

I’m sorry, did I break your concentration?

The last thing battle droids want to perceive with their photoreceptors is Mace Windu. Once that lavender-hued lightsaber ignites, it’s over for them. Noah (H2brick) built a diorama of an iconic Mace Windu moment from the final season of The Clone Wars, where he swoops in to captures the shipyards of Anaxes.

While this diorama depicts the interior of a grey warehouse, Noah took care to spice it up with as much colour as he could, as he feels most Star Wars LEGO builds are too grey. One of his goals was to make this scene vibrant with just enough colourful highlights to break up the grey. The bright yellowish-orange highlight draws the eye up from the battleground to the roof and gangway. So do the clone troopers dropping in from above, where we see a bit of Anaxes itself. The blue and purple behind the scaffolding elements make a good depiction of the forever dawn and dusk skies of the planet.

If you agree or disagree with Noah on Star Wars builds being all grey, check out some builds here and see for yourself. Check out some of Noah’s older builds, where he’s been spicing up grey landscapes with colour.
I personally think he’s taking shots at me for the big grey triangle I recently built…

This monstrous hermit crab is the stuff of legend.

The Recluse by Sebastian Arts is a beast that all seafarers need be wary of. This creature makes its home in the husks of old ships. And while it usually keeps to itself deep in the waters below, when it grows too big for its current “shell”, it’ll come looking for a new home. And your boat might be just what it’s looking for.

Click here to feel the wrath of the Recluse

TBB Cover Photo for January 2022: The king’s royal hangover

Why is the start of the new year in the middle of winter? It’s dark and cold out, everyone is tired. Even indoors can be dark and cold, just like this grand high-ceilinged throne room built by Andreas Lenander. After a night of celebrations within his keep, the noble king returns to his throne with a royal hangover to ponder the existential dilemma of ruling instead of partying. Or he may be wondering what’s taking his servant so long to fetch the breastplate stretcher…

We recently wrote about this grand royal hall, but we decided to use this immersive and atmospheric shot as the cover photo for our social media platforms. Despite my questionable interpretation of the scene (and one too many Bobby B references), the composition of this build and the photo speaks for itself as good storytelling. The king positioned on the white carpet draws the eye to the throne looming in the darkness, prompting the pondering of his situation. Does the darkness mean that his kingdom is in peril? Do the columns signify that the king is trapped in a risky position of power (and he’d rather be spending his life partying with peasant girls)? Ok, I’ll stop now.

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2021 was the year Nannan made Contact

2021 brought us problems we would have never fathomed a few years ago. It was a year of civil unrest and a slew of COVID variants that’ll probably have us covering our mask-holes in public indefinately. But 2021 had brought us some great things as well. Right at the tail end of that year, The Brothers Brick alumni Nannan Zhang built this piece he calls Contact. It was inspired by something Jan Woznica built a couple months ago that ended up becoming The Brothers Brick’s 2021 Creation of the Year. It’s a fine thing to be inspired by and Nannan recreates the style nicely with his verion. I’m loving the minty green elements and the simple yet striking composition. I find it exciting when one great builder pays homage to another.

Join the fight for the republic with this miniature walker from Star Wars

Tim Goddard has built this microscale model of an AT-TE vehicle from Star Wars. This walker sports the colours and logo of the 501st battalion, famed for being under the commander of Anakin Skywalker in the films. Turret cannons at the front and back use wands, from the Harry Potter theme, to represent thin gun barrels. Running alongside the walker is an AT-RT, which has the surprising detail of a screwdriver portraying its blaster cannon. The model also has some great shaping with strong sharp angles, created by the application of triangular tiles.

Take note of this impressive castle vignette.

Francis Wiemelt has delivered a 12×12 castle vignette featuring a medieval scribe, attending to his work in a room worth writing home about. From the slanted brickwork in the ceiling, to the well textured stone floor, there are loads of impressive details in this build. My favorite part is the scribe’s desk, which is made (appropriately enough) from books.

The Brothers Brick LEGO Builder of the Year 2021 [News]

Every day the team at The Brothers Brick showcases the best models put together by the global community of creative LEGO builders. However, amongst the thousands of talented builders around the world, there are always a few whose work offers inspiration to the rest of us — displaying mastery of technique and creativity across a variety of building styles.

The Brothers Brick is delighted to name Markus Rollbühler as our LEGO Builder of the Year 2021.

Click to see a selection of Markus’ models from 2021