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.

Here be alligators along the Shipwreck Island!

Ahoy mateys! LEGO builder Markus Aspacher has a little something that definitely hits us in the nostalgic feels. It is a remake of the official 6296 Shipwreck Island set from 1996. Like the set, it’s a shipwreck turned island complete with a small raft, pirate mast sail and alligator. But this modernized version utilizes newer pieces, cool build techniques, and a fancy-pants base that looks like a desolate location in the Caribbean. There’s a neat mix of solid-colored and transparent pieces that convey areas of depth and shallows in the water. It is way more engaging than the blue baseplate that the original set came with. This is not the first time this builder has wowed us with his swell build techniques. It turns out that awesome dioramas is kinda Markus’ thing.

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Robo Maid 2031 cleans up so you don’t have to

You know that guilty feeling you get when others are working hard while you’re doing jack nothing? It’s a guilt so deep you have to take your goofing off elsewhere lest someone ask you to get off your lazy keister and help. Do you know what I mean? No? Am I the only one? Anyway, Cecilie Fritzvold has built a LEGO robot maid programmed to clean up your crap so you don’t have to. You don’t even have to hide the fact that you’re surfing the net for hilarious youtube videos when this awesome bot toils away because apparently they have no feelings. According to youtube research I did just now you can even kick robots and they won’t even feel it. I’m pretty sure that will never backfire so give it a try next time you see a robot. That plant, feather duster and coffee table are all super fabulous! So are Cecilie’s other builds in our archives.

From the depths we will arise anew

From time to time we like to check in with an enigmatic LEGO builder who calls herself why.not?. Sometimes her subject matter is dark. Sometimes it’s real dark. But in every case she has us intrigued. Her latest offering is untitled. They’re all untitled. I mean, it’s not like she forgets to name them, she actually types in “untitled” for every creation she does. But this time we have what appears to be a beautiful, brightly lit angel emerging from an underground place. Black city buildings flank her on either side, even the ground is black. She uses red lighting to not only create patterns on the buildings but to denote the readable words “out” and perhaps “dream”. Could this represent our artist emerging from a dark funk? Is this a new chapter in her life or is it a phase? Either way, we remain to be intrigued. And why not?

Building a stacked deck

We’ve seen LEGO playing cards before, but I don’t recall ever seeing them built life-size before, like this set by Dan Ko. The cards are very simple as far as the build, but there’s a lot of cleverness going on with the selection of pieces. The Clubs made with two 1×1 round plates and a lever handle are perfect, as is the Jack’s initial made from an umbrella. I don’t recall seeing a lobster on the diamond suit before, but I can roll with it, especially when it’s surrounded by a nifty thin red diamond made of a stretched rubber band.

Dan built them for a contest where he had to use 101 pieces or fewer, and he’s provided this lovely knolled image showing he used precisely 100 pieces.

Exploring the Hundred Acre Woods: An interview with fan designer Ben Alder and the design team behind LEGO Ideas 21326 Winnie the Pooh [Feature]

One of the most adorable sets to be released this year is LEGO Ideas 21326 Winnie the Pooh (available now for US $99.99 | CAN $139.99 | UK £89.99 ) We did a lot of exploring in our hands-on review, but the Hundred Acre Wood is a big place. We recently had an opportunity to participate in a roundtable interview with both the fan creator Ben Alder and the LEGO design team who brought his idea to life. Come along as we learn insider info like the secrets behind Pooh’s balloon, the message hidden in the bee trails, and just where Christopher Robin got off to!

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Chemistry 101: I’m blinding me with science!

High school chemistry class sometimes had its appeal. A great experiment can have a whole class oohing and aahing over various liquids changing color, shattering objects, and sometimes even blowing stuff up. A failed experiment can lead to a would-be chemist losing eyebrows. Unless, of course, the loss of eyebrows was the intent of the experiment, then that would be considered a success. But either way, eye protection is a good idea. Thankfully, LEGO builder Jonas Kramm included eye protection with this build as well as a Bunsen burner and a test tube containing a chemical that may or may not singe off your eyebrows if treated improperly. The whole shebang (or she-BANG!) consists of only 101 LEGO pieces, making Chemistry 101 an inevitable part of this title. The rest was a line from Mystery Science Theater 3000. I don’t know about you, but I’m having a good reaction to this experiment. Here are the other times we were favorable to Jonas’ stuff.

Felt cute, might bring down a Super Star Destroyer later

I love it when LEGO builders use unexpected pieces in their creations. There’s even contests revolving around using a seed part in a variety of builds. After all, LEGO is all about creativity, and thinking outside the box. I (Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman) grew up with Technic and Bionicle, which both contain strange LEGO parts that you don’t see mixed with the usual building system. However, I am a firm believer that even the most unconventional LEGO parts can fit perfectly with the common ones. That was partly my inspiration in building a perfectly minifigure-scale RZ-1 A-wing Starfighter from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Find out about the build process and the weird parts Waffles used to build his A-wing!

LEGO Star Wars 40451 Tatooine Homestead: GWP for 2021 May the Fourth weekend [Review]

May the Fourth, the annual Star Wars Day, is almost here, and as usual LEGO is releasing some special goodies to celebrate. This year brings another freebie Gift with Purchase (GWP) set in the line of Star Wars microscale dioramas that LEGO’s been exploring since 2019. 40451 Tatooine Homestead lets you finally recreate Uncle Owen haggling over droids with the Jawa junk dealers outside the Lars family underground home. Maybe you can even get those units in the south range repaired by midday. The set includes 218 pieces and will be available from LEGO.com and in LEGO stores May 1 through May 5, free with a minimum purchase of US $85 | CAN $85 | UK £85 of LEGO Star Wars products.

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.

Click to read the full review

LEGO Star Wars reveals 75308 R2-D2, a 2,300-piece UCS-style model to celebrate Lucasfilm’s 50th [News]

To celebrate Lucasfilm’s 50th Anniversary in 2021, LEGO Star Wars is taking the wraps off the long-anticipated Ultimate Collector Series-style droid with 75308 R2-D2. The large model of one of Star Wars’ most beloved characters stands 12.5 in tall (31cm) and uses 2,314 pieces. The set will include the large model of R2-D2, a UCS-style info placard, a minifigure-scale R2-D2, and a brick printed with the Lucasfilm 50th Anniversary logo. It will retail for US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £179.99 when it’s available starting May 1, meaning it will be available just in time for this year’s May the Fourth Star Wars Day sales. R2-D2 will be an exclusive limited to LEGO stores and the LEGO website.

Click to read the full press release

Getting a leg up on the enemy

LEGO builder Marius Herrmann has been on a quest to design what he calls “Fashion Robots,” that is, cool LEGO mechs and robots that employ some of LEGO’s most unusual elements, the cloth apparel items that show up from time to time in official sets, most prominently the Scala and Belville themes from the 90s and early 2000s. We’ve covered quite a few of these excellent Fashion Robots already, and this one marks Marius’ ninth with a cool dark tan color scheme. It employs Scala pants as the coverings for its four legs, but it’s actually the rest of the design that has me interested.

The silver ingots make great durable armor cladding on the legs, while the molded-in speakers from the boomboxes are perfect grilled covers for a missile launcher. A variety of dark tan curved slopes and arches make an interesting body, while the mech is topped with a three-barrel Gatling that’s strapped together with stretched rubber tires and a set of Tauntaun reins.

Bounty hunting is a dangerous profession

While Mos Eisley may be the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy, there are plenty of contenders for runner-up when it comes to rough and tumble locations where you would be wise to have someone to watch your back. Darth Bjørn shines a light on one such location on Devaron, the homeworld of the devil-like beings first glimpsed on the famous Mos Eisley cantina. The rock work at the base forms a solid foundation for this shady outpost, which sports a number of non-specific vents, domes, and other mechanical details. The weather-worn walls are built using plates of various colors stacked vertically, which provides an unexpected texture.

The chase is on! It’s speeder bike versus speeder bike!

What’s better than one speeder bike? Two speeder bikes so that they can race against each other! -Disty- built a dynamic duo of hovering bikes with distinct styles and colours to match their pilots. They may be vengeful arch-enemies hellbent on destroying each other or just racing rivals here for the thrill of the chase. With the opposing styles and colour schemes, these two speeder bikes remind me of the old Technic battle bots from the late 90s.

The tropical-themed Shinrai Technologies ‘Orca’ is a green mean speed machine piloted by a surfer dude. I love its lime green paint job that compliments azure waters and bright sands it flies above. Disty uses very clever parts usage with Hero Factory armour plates and robot minifigure legs as the secondary booster engines. I particularly like the usage of the transparent blue Bionicle eye/brain stalk as the headlight. It reminds me of the wheels of Legends of Chima Speedorz and even some Roboriders.

The black and red Rascal Motors ‘DBL 790’ rules the night with furious speed. Despite the large Hero Factory spikes jutting out at all angles, this speeder bike retains aerodynamics to brave even the most congested cyberpunk air traffic. I love its angled look and greebly details; it looks like some creepy-crawly monster of the dark.