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.

Cruise through the galaxy with style and practicality

Spaceships are definitely my bag, man. Massive dreadnoughts to humble escape pods, I love every model from the unwieldy to the swooshable. Classic Space sets are near and dear to many adult Lego fans, being the formative theme that roped them into playing with little plastic bricks for the rest of their lives. In recent years, the theme has been revived by fans with redesigns of their favorite classic sets or new creations of their own thanks to the LEGO Movie franchise and their lovable, spaceship-obsessed character, Benny the Spaceman. Here, builder LegoSpaceGuy gives us a ship of his own design, the Explorer Cruiser.

Click to see more classic Space goodness

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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for May 29, 2021

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 final week of May 2021.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS We learn more about the largest LEGO set ever released, hear from designer Matthew Ashton on the Everyone is Awesome set, and interview Daniel Konstanski, the author of the The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks book to be released in 2022.

LEGO Art 31203: World Map – We found out how the largest LEGO set ever stacks up with an in-depth review.
LEGO Art reveals 31203 World Map mosaic as biggest LEGO set of all time with 11,695 pieces – We answered the question of what is the largest LEGO set by parts count… the massive map of the world art set.
Everyone IS Awesome LEGO set designer Matthew Ashton talks about the importance of inclusivity and the LEGO 40516 Everyone is Awesome set.
LEGO deals on Amazon US with 20% discounts We covered some great LEGO deals on Amazon US for City, Technic, Star Wars, Jurrasic Park, and more.
LEGO bricks crushed under hydraulic press to create a donut Here’s a perfect treat for LEGO Homer Simpson, a massive (at Minifig scale) doughnut made from colorful bricks.
Writing The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks with Daniel Konstanski – Read our exclusive interview and learn more about the author behind the upcoming book.

Click through for more LEGO news from around the world

Well what would you know, another bakery

I have a soft spot for Tudor style buildings especially when it comes to bakeries. This little inviting bakery build by Hubba Blöoba is no exception to that rule. I really like all the different hues of blue used for the roof of the building. The Tudor style top part of the building looks weathered and the shading from tan to dark tan adds to the ‘old’ feel of the building. The stonework on the bottom half of the building looks like it is slowly but surely crumbling away. This build features some clever furniture design that’s not to be missed.

The small round table is cleverly constructed with the crown with 4 spikes LEGO element. It may be hard to spot but the rectangular table legs are made of minifigure hips. The sign of the bakery with the pretzel is a really nice touch. If you look close enough at the tree, you should be able to spot a monkey’s tail. Your guess is as good as mine if there’s an actual monkey hiding in the tree or if the tail is just a branch.

It was a lovely day in paradise, but it was about to go horribly wrong

If you live in the oasis city of Kaligem, safe behind the sturdy walls, nestled among white towers and golden spires you might count yourself fortunate. But your good fortune is coming to a swift end in this scene by Andreas Lenander which depicts the final moments of a city that has brought down the wrath of the gods in the form of a giant wall of sand that would give the Coriolis storms of Arrakis a run for its money.

Negative space (travel)

Two of the bigger challenges that a builder can face when creating a custom LEGO creation are angles and empty space. Blake Foster has done a great job of conquering both with his Procyon Planetary Research Hovercraft. I can only imagine the number of techniques at play in creating the craft’s hexagonal outer wall. Complicating the matter is all that empty space in the center, which gave Blake the opportunity to outfit the sides of the wall with some great greebling. But I think my favorite aspect of the whole build is one of the more subtle choices – the use of the 1×4 spring shooter launchers, added so that the notch of light bluish gray from the scaffolding cuts slightly into the dark bluish gray of the engines. It’s a great touch that helps keep anything on this craft from looking like a plain old square.

LEGO Masters Season 2: An interview with returning host, Will Arnett

2020’s breakout reality show hit, LEGO Masters is back for a second season beginning June 1st! Last week, The Brothers Brick sat down for a series of video chats with some of the show’s cast and crew including the series’ returning host, Will Arnett.

Funny and charming as always, Arnett answered an onslaught of questions from several news outlets and even some former LEGO Masters contestants, Boone Langston and Flynn De Marco (that’s me!). The interview covers a wide range of subjects from the differences between seasons to puppets and aliens, so let’s dive right in, shall we?

Read on for the full interview

Transportation learning “Cargo Connect” is the FIRST LEGO League 2021/2022 theme for STEM based learning [News]

LEGO announced a new theme for this year’s FIRST LEGO League: Cargo Connect. The theme focuses on modern transportation and aims to teach children about how cargo is transported, sorted and delivered. Similar to previous years, there are three divisions: Discover (ages 4-6), Explore (ages 6-10), and Challenge (ages 9-16). The Discover division will work with LEGO Education DUPLO bricks, the Explore division will work with WeDo 2.0 kits and the Challenge division will work with the SPIKE Prime kits to solve real-world problems with creative thinking.

Continue reading →

I hear drums. Drums in space.

The blackness of space. Drums that become louder. Pan down, a massive angular spaceship hovers above a planet covered in city lights. These images and sounds make a very strong first impression of a movie. It sets the tone of Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, and many of us associate that opening shot to the angular Venator-class Star Destroyer. Martin Latta spent two years building a massive and accurate LEGO model of this beautiful ship. He painstakingly recreated every small detail he could find on the original studio miniature model, bringing his build to be over a meter long and consisting of 11103 pieces.

Not only did Martin nail the complex angles of this ship with clever layers of tiles and panels, he also threw used the shapes of LEGO pieces to create textures on an otherwise smooth hull. Dark red highlights break up the typical grey of this Star Wars vessel, and the brick-built Open Circle Fleet insignia brings a splash of an additional colour. What I consider the icing on the cake: the top red hull paneling splits open to reveal a hangar, from which Anakin and Obi-Wan’s starfighters take off to partake in the Battle of Coruscant.

Check out Martin’s Flickr album for more shots of this behemoth, as well as work in progress pictures!

Just keep swimming with this LEGO fish creation

This LEGO creation from Brickleas is deceptively simple and colorful, to say the least. The bright colors play off each other beautifully without taking over the scene, and the variety of underwater vegetation is well done, especially with the implied, yet peaceful, movement. This build was a submission for an Iron Builder contest, where the builder had to use this odd shield holder part, and Brickleas did a great job incorporating it into a well-textured fish.

Sometimes just a little bit of DUPLO is enough

I have a soft spot for Tudor-style buildings, brick-built trees, crumbling brick walls and interesting colour choices. This little medieval bakery by Danthefan ticks all the boxes for me. The Tudor style looks nice and simple. It even is used for the round tower, which isn’t an easy thing to do. The building has a little stone porch complete with stairs, and the stonework around the base of the house looks as if it has been there for a long time and has passed the test of time. You might notice that while the roof is bright green, the top of the roof of the tower is medium green. I had a hard time identifying the LEGO piece used for the top of the tower. Turns out, it is not LEGO System, it’s DUPLO! and it is brilliant. I currently do not have any DUPLO at hand but it appears the axle connector with four bars used as the base of a weathercock fits the open stud of the DUPLO part snugly. Last but not least, have you seen the spruce tree made of claws?

Egad! Egyptian stuff that’s historically colored, and not just tan

It is a common misconception that ancient Egyptian architecture was as blandly colored as the surrounding desert. Historians, and, it seems, LEGO builder Mihai Marius Mihu, believe otherwise. And if you ever played Assassin’s Creed: Origins (which was heavily inspired by historic research) you might have climbed up a temple much like this one, dedicated to Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the afterlife. There are so many wonderful splashes of color, from the tiny row of green, gold, red, and blue tiles along the roof-line, to the elaborately detailed carvings atop the rows of pillars on each side.

That’s definitely no moon...

If you’ve seen portions of this LEGO space station by Tim Goddard, then it may be because we wrote about it back when it was just Platform 7. As minifig-kind continues exploring the vastness of space, so grows Tim’s elegant outpost. I like to think that the oil rig-like Platform 7 was just the start of an expansive exploration colony. Tim built a hexagonal landing pad as the second module of the space station, and I eagerly await the next sections.

Looking at the aesthetics of this sci-fi playground, it has the usual colour scheme of realistic space stations, but Tim makes it interesting with a masterful balance of smooth whites and grey greebles that only he can achieve. While it is different from the retro feel of most Classic Space builds, this station conveys a futuristic look. This is all thanks to the new torsos provided by recent Creator sets and collectible minifigures. After all, space exploration can only move forwards.

Be sure to check out more space-y stuff by Tim Goddard, and if you want a fun story to his Classic Space builds, he also wrote LEGO Space: Building the Future with fellow builder and LEGO IDEAS Exo Suit designer Pete Reid.

Tim, Pete, if you’re reading this, please write a sequel!
xoxo, Mansur “Waffles”