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.

It’s a bird! It’s a drone! It’s 100% real LEGO!

You heard that right. Everything in this SU-N8 “Iridosornis” Reconnaissance Drone by Marius Hermann is made of real, unaltered LEGO. Even the pants (from Scala.) Even those large wings with engines (from Galidor.) And yes, all of those are real, genuine LEGO products that existed. Marius has made a name for himself by mixing these unconventional elements into his sci-fi builds, and he does it so well. Whereas prefabricated elements like the Galidor wings might not fit into a build such as this, it works well here and wouldn’t look as good without it. They provide a good contrast and balance between the smooth blues and the greebly greys.

Despite the angry voices of distant fanatics that gatekeep LEGO to only the brick-built system and minifigures, I find that real creativity is thinking outside the box and using unconventional elements. I have a soft spot for builders who use these weird parts and mix them with “normal” LEGO. Because at the end of the day, if it wasn’t real LEGO, then I wouldn’t be writing about it!

Check out more creations using parts from Galidor and Scala!

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This car was meant to be built

There are not that many iconic cars that look great in LEGO bright light yellow color. Obviously, Fiat 500 is one of them, but can you think of another? Firas Abu-Jaber knows one, and it’s the legendary Shelby Cobra. And guess what? This one in the picture below is built with just pieces available in the Creator Expert Fiat 500 set!

This is definitely one of the sweetest alternative builds I’ve ever seen. Not only does the shape looks great and recognizable, but it also looks like Firas didn’t have to compromise when working on the exterior. Sure, a couple of points would look better with a different choice of pieces, but the proportions are spot-on.

Peach Blossom Lake

When it comes to building with LEGO our creations tend to 3D most of the time. Toltomeja chose to go for a 2D approach with their latest creation. My knowledge about Chinese culture and art is not that strong, so if I use the wrong wording, please excuse me. Toltomeja made a scroll with a decorative landscape painting in Chinese calligraphy style. The artwork is filled with little details and parts used in a very smart way. For instance, there are sausages, horns, a sextant and a t-bar used in Chinese characters.

The horns also get used as a part of the clouds and to represent the flying birds. Which is really simple, yet really clever. There are bananas disguised as a small waterfall. There are also bananas incorporated in the clouds. I do not know why but apparently, frogs are the latest fashion when it comes to foliage. Towards the bottom of the scroll, this creation slowly goes from 2D to 3D. The clouds make this ‘painting’ look very calm jet a bit mystical. And the cracks in the rock give the mountains an amazing amount of depth.

A stroll along ancient streets

Many a great LEGO model has been inspired by a real life place and builder Qian Yj‘s latest build is definitely among them. This beautiful scene is based on the real life Yuehe Street, a popular tourist destination in Jiaxing, China. The small greebling work on the walls in a limited color palette is lovely and really captures the crumbling look of many of the street’s buildings. I love the decorative touches and window treatments utilizing grills and 2×2 turntable bases on the building’s faces and the small cafe on the side. I’m also particularly enamored with the sweeping white supports between buildings. A perfect street to while away the afternoon, sipping tea at the waterside as the boats float by.

I’ll take mine on the rocks, please

There are some LEGO builders that I would just love to hate, since they seem to be living the perfect LEGO life, and Markus Rollbühler would be at the top of my list; he’s one of the most talented builders out there with about a billion social followers, he has an enormous and perfectly organized collection, and he even works as a set designer for LEGO, the (pipe) dream job of every aspiring LEGO talent. But Markus is impossible to hate, because he is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, super humble, always offering advice and help when asked, and available to even the most rookie builder. How could I hate a guy like that? I can’t. Instead, I admit that he’s one of my personal favorite builders, regardless of what genre he tries his hand at. In this case, it is a delightful little lighthouse.

Markus shows of his skills by building a compactly small round tower out of tiles, pairing that with a ramshackle hut with a teal roof (got to love teal, right?). Markus is famous for his cheese slope roofs, and really his ability to make a roof out of virtually any piece (see Ninjago City Gardens, a set he designed, if you doubt the truth of the statement). He is also well known for his foliage, and this tree made from yellow feathers does not disappoint. The color scheme is just about perfect, as is the composition, and the building techniques are on point…in short, it’s enough to make one green (or even teal) with envy, except that the builder is just too darn nice.

LEGO Technic 42121 Heavy-Duty Excavator [Review]

There’s no such thing as a boring outside activity; there are only boring machines that make things dull and tedious. And for proper digging, you need a proper excavator, preferably a heavy-duty one. It’s been a while since we got a great LEGO Technic excavator set, but here comes the new 42121 Heavy-Duty Excavator. This 569-piece set brings back mini-scaled construction machines and uses a bunch of newly-introduced pieces for its neat design. The set is available for US $39.99 | CAN $49.99 | UK £34.99.

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

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The puddle jumper

I have a fondness for tiny LEGO spaceships that have every piece neatly in place, and this micro “space-catamaran” by Christopher Hoffmann fits the bill perfectly. Christopher says he built it several years ago but is just now getting around to photographing it (a delay I empathize with on a deep level) but I’m glad he’s decided to show it off now. While he says the design focused around the then-new X-wing canopy, the part that sticks out to me the most are the large white Technic panels that form the wings, which are a cool-shaped piece that’s surprisingly difficult to integrate into minifigure-scale ships, though it blends in smoothly here.

Stop, hammerhead shark time?

Certainly, if anyone saw a real hammerhead shark, they would stop whatever they were doing out of fear, but imagine seeing this guy? Dylan Mievis’s hammerhead shark figural LEGO build is surely fear and nightmare-inducing.

Mievis mainly utilizes LEGO Technic elements from the Bionicle, Hero Factory, and Star Wars buildable figure lines to shape this muscular anthropomorphic hammerhead shark. Ball and joint elements allow for articulation, while various armor pieces including the shoulder plate serving as the shark’s midriff create a heavily shielded aesthetic. Some small elements more commonly found, such as claw pieces and the printed voodoo ball elements used for the eyes, are also featured in this build. Shark week isn’t for a while, but this model gives us enough of a scare to hold us over.

A medieval winter wonder-castle

Winter wonderlands are a fairly common theme with LEGO builders, and not just houses and villages, but castles as well, like this cozy castle by W. Navarre. I hope they have plenty of tiny logs to burn in their tiny fireplaces. The model features a nice mix of newer and older gray parts for the perfect weathered look and speaking of weather, the scene includes several patches of snow on the roofs and the surrounding grounds. One of my favorite details is the little tower near the left side, which is attached using 1×1 rounded tiles on their side, stuck into the underside of the larger 2×2 rounded plate.

The month is March and Easter is among us

I haven’t actually played the popular game Among Us, but the little people in colorful spacesuits featured in the game sure are iconic. While those guys may not be the inspiration behind this lovely Astro-bunny LEGO build by Joffre Zheng, it certainly looks like a cute mashup to my little eye.

This silly rabbit’s carrot-colored spacesuit is crafted out of orange bricks, slopes, tiles, cones, and cylinder pieces in various sizes. A trans-clear hinged half dome serves as the visor of the helmet, which protects the furry little critter from the space elements. Small light grey pieces such as cheese slopes, round-bottomed 2x2s, tiles, and bricks make up the face, whose eyes are rendered with the signature 1×1 round tiles featured in BrickHeadz sets. This bunny sure is ready for Easter and beyond!

A rustic cottage just in time for spring

We’ve had a couple of warm days here in New York already, which means the time for long drives on scenic country routes is here. Eero Okkonen’s LEGO cottage model is just the type of home one would encounter on such excursions.

What I love most about this brick-built dwelling is its imagined silo incorporated into the home’s build; you can find such a design in the real world. Okkonen utilizes many 1×2 plates in the formation of the dome topping his silo, while the house as a whole utilizes various bricks and differing slope pieces in varying configurations. The stone foundation of the home is rendered with ingots, slopes, bricks, and round-bottomed 2x2s in light grey, which complement the popping green evergreen trees Okkonen primarily fashions out of flower stem elements. Overall this is a timely model for the shifting of seasons.

I am the robot walrus

When I first heard about Mitsuru Nikaido‘s LEGO mecha walrus, I pictured a cyberpunk Beatles nightmare. But when I looked at how well-built and detailed it was, I was only impressed.

What really sells this as a mecha walrus are the green eyes. They give off a ghostly computer-like glow that is creepy and makes the rest of the build look metallic. The tubing also helps, but without the eyes, I would have thought it was just a LEGO Technic-style sea mammal.

The skin even looks like armor plating! Well done, Mitsuru!