It’s been a great time for LEGO and Nintendo fans with the many official sets that were released recently to fulfill all your nostalgia needs. There’s the LEGO 71374 Nintendo NES system, then there’s the Super Mario Themed sets that has a never-ending list of expansion and power up packs to collect. What about some love for the console that has continuously set new records – the Nintendo Switch? It’s never a problem when talented builders like Tiago Catarino takes matters into his own hands.
There’s something just so mesmerizing just following a ball running through a continuous loop of cleverly constructed parts with LEGO. If you take a closer look, builder jazlecraz has put much more thought into this self-contained creation than meets the eye.
Click to see the full video of the design
The World Map mosaic released by the designers at LEGO was clearly a winner with the constant hits to our servers on our review of the set. Having said that there was quite a bit of chatter in the forums on the decision to go with a white continent while the oceans had topography details. What if it was reversed with a bit of creativity thrown in? Lysander’s Stud Studio took that very step and depicted the national flags of the country as best as possible and leaving the wide oceans a consistent blue.
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
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.
Click through for more LEGO news from around the world
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
