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.

Working telescope built from LEGO

LEGO is truly beautiful in the way that it allows people to recreate real-world objects with both form and function. LEGO themselves have made working models of a grand piano and a Nintendo Entertainment System. Builder Victor continues the trend by creating a working telescope in the same style, though slightly smaller than life-size. Needless to say, it is welcome to see such objects completely remade from LEGO bricks, especially ones that function.

This model telescope works the same way as a real life one – peeking through the eyepiece lets one see the stars and planets, though not the real ones. Victor solves this problem with pictures printed on small window pieces backlit by a light brick. This imitates LEGO’s light projection techniques in their official sets like the Stranger Things: Upside Down and the Haunted House. Victor also provides four separate interchangeable prints, one of them being an easter egg reference to LEGO’s own Bionicle theme.

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A vintage racer from automobile history

Back in the 1920s and ’30s, when Ferdinand Porsche and Enzo Ferrari were not heads of exotic sports car companies but mere racecar drivers, Mercedes-Benz pushed the limits of racing using supercharger technology developed from airplane engines. One sports car that utilized this enhancement was the Mercedes-Benz SSKL of 1931, which LEGO Technic and Model Team expert Pawel Kmieć (Sariel) faithfully replicated. This old roadster jumps out from black and white photographs with a clean white livery, custom-chromed parts and the laurel wreath of champions.

Pawel is a master of building accurate vehicles that are also packed with functions. He includes everything an essential large-scale LEGO vehicle needs: suspension and steering. In addition, he often crams the body of these vehicles full of LEGO electric motors, allowing remote control. This display model becomes a real-life racer, pushing a top speed of 5mph. Watch Pawel’s in-depth video of the build process, and the speedy drive outdoors.

Check out more builds depicting LEGO Mercedes-Benz vehicles!

LEGO Ideas 21326 Winnie the Pooh: building the Hundred Acre Wood [Review]

In the writings of A. A. Milne, the Hundred Acre Wood is home to many beloved characters. LEGO invites us all to visit these childhood friends in LEGO Ideas 21326 Winnie the Pooh. Based on an idea submitted by fan Ben Alder in March of 2019, this set will be available to LEGO VIP members starting March 18, with general availability following on April 1st. For US $99.99 | CAN $139.99 | UK £89.99 you’ll get Pooh’s home and five exclusive minifigures. Read along as we look for honey-dipped surprises, keeping a watchful eye out for any stray Heffalumps. (Spoiler alert: There are no Heffalumps in this set.)

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.

Click to read the full hands-on review

LEGO launches Future Builders ad campaign for International Women’s Day 2021 [News]

Ever wanted to see your kid on that famous LEGO ad from 1981? Now you can, says the company, thanks to a new ad campaign. This coming Monday, March 8, is International Women’s Day, and to mark the occasion The LEGO Company is launching a new ad campaign focusing on young female builders. Based on LEGO’s iconic “What it is is beautiful” advertisement from 1981 featuring a young girl proudly holding her creation, the new campaign will let fans see themselves in a similar advertisement. While the campaign website isn’t live at the time of writing, LEGO says it will allow parents to submit images of their children holding their designs, along with a few keywords, and the website will then generate a unique poster based on the image that will be emailed back.

Click to read the full press release and see more example posters

The unknown horror

Sometimes you don’t have to understand exactly what you’re looking at to appreciate how awesome it is, and how well-built it is. This LEGO creation by Bart De Dobbelaer is called the Glarburg Horror, and I think it fits into that category. Bart’s written a short story on this Lovecraftian monstrosity, but I’m afraid I’m still no closer to figuring it out. Nevertheless, I like the repetitious use of elements on the “creature” to create an unnerving texture. Meanwhile, the broken stone columns have an almost technological feeling, while the whole scene is subtly overgrown with sickly black shoots made mostly of connected droid arms.

Keep out Inky and Blinky

One of the things I love about writing for The Brothers Brick is that I learn something new with every article. For instance, I never knew the ghosts from the arcade game Pac-Man had names. Apparently, they do. In this creation by Mikael Montelius Inky and Blinky are featured. Inky is the blue one, Blinky the red one. Somehow LEGO is a great medium to make 2D Arcade Games come to life. One of the things that always amazes me is how perfectly the 2×2 curved slopes fit together to make a (half) circle. These pieces are used to create not only Inky and Blinky, but also our beloved hero Pac-Man. I’m also a fan of the use of dark blue and black tiles to create the maze on the floor of this creation.

LEGO Ideas reveals 21326 Winnie the Pooh 1,200-piece set, bringing Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and more [News]

Today LEGO has revealed the latest set from its Ideas crowd-sourcing platform. 21326 Winnie the Pooh will feature the popular characters from A. A. Milne’s book series along with Pooh’s home under the tree in the Hundred Acre Wood, as interpreted by Disney. The set will include five characters: Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, and Eeyore. The 1,265-piece set is slated to be available for LEGO VIP members starting March 18 with general availability on April 1. It will retail for US $99.99 | CAN $139.99 | UK £89.99. Be sure to check back for our full, hands-on review of this set, which will be coming very soon.

The Winnie the Pooh project was created by fan Ben Alder in March of 2019, and hit the requisite 10,000 votes in July of that year. It was approved by LEGO in February of last year, joining the Medieval Blacksmith as the two projects from the first 2019 LEGO Ideas review to be turned into official sets.

Having a hard time keeping track of which LEGO Ideas projects are coming? The Winnie the Pooh set is the first to be revealed of the 8 approved projects we covered last month: Upcoming LEGO Ideas Projects.

Click to see more images and read the official press release

The Nettledrake hides in plain flight

Thank you for joining us again for another edition of The Brothers Brick’s nature documentary series, Planet Brick. Today we’ve spotted Joss Woodyard’s well-camouflaged Nettledrake. Made up of many LEGO pieces you’d traditionally think to use for plant life, this magnificent beast is naturally hidden. If you happen to come across one in the wild yourself, it’s best to observe from a distance and see it spread its wings and take flight. Don’t be drawn in by its pretty pink spots or tail. If you get too close, you might get stung by the vicious beast’s teeth or talons. Thanks for stopping by and discovering another beautiful creature inhabiting Planet Brick.

Building a tiltrotor aircraft using Circuit Cubes [Review]

We’ve occasionally reviewed non-LEGO products on The Brothers Brick, by BrickArms, BrickForge or Citizen Brick for instance; companies that provide accessories for LEGO builds. A new kid on the block is Circuit Cubes. Instead of (accessories for) minifigures they make LEGO-compatible building sets and components, such as electric motors, aimed at teaching STEM subjects to children. They got in touch with me after reading my article on building a remote-controlled vehicle with LEGO Power Functions. They sent me several of their products in return for providing them with feedback. The sets themselves don’t interest me all that much. However, I would like to know how the Circuit Cubes components can be used to enhance my LEGO models. And this may interest those of you who want to motorize your own models too. So, this is not a traditional set review. Instead, I’m going to tell you about Circuit Cubes and how I used them in my own custom LEGO model: an XV-15 tiltrotor aircraft.

A tiltrotor is an unusual flying machine, but the basic idea is simple: with its rotors facing up it can take off and land like a helicopter; with them rotated facing forward they serve as propellers, with the aircraft’s wings providing lift. So, unlike a normal fixed-wing aircraft, a tiltrotor can land in tight spots or on small ships, but in forward flight, it is faster and more efficient than a helicopter. In practice getting this concept to work was difficult, but the Bell XV-15 TiltRotor Research Aircraft first flew in the late seventies and demonstrated that a practical and controllable tiltrotor was viable.

The challenge when building my RC vehicle was hiding the LEGO motors, battery box, Power Functions IR receiver, and what seemed like 2 meters of wiring. I could only fit them inside by building a van with quite a lot of space inside. Because of this experience, two of the Circuit Cubes immediately caught my attention: the Bluetooth Cube and the Cubit. The former is a rechargeable battery pack and Bluetooth controller in one. It has three outputs, remotely controlled via an app (available for Apple and Android). It is rechargeable using a USB cable. The Cubit is an electric motor. What makes these parts interesting is their small size. The Bluetooth Cube has a 4 x 4 stud top and is only two bricks tall. The Cubit has a 2 x 4 stud top and is also two bricks tall. This is much smaller than anything similar made by LEGO, with the exception of old 9V Micromotors.
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From a sprig comes a delightful Bonsai Plum Tree

It’s not usually our thing to feature LEGO works in progress. But when ZiO Chao posted a sprig of plum blossom, we featured it. Who could blame us, really? The subject was expertly crafted and photographed with utmost care. The sprig alone was rather breathtaking, actually. So you can imagine our thrill to learn the sprig was a mere teaser for this entire Bonsai plum tree. The builder tells us that the plum blossom is one of the most beloved flowers in China and has been frequently depicted in Chinese art and poetry for centuries. They can bloom in the winter and have therefore come to symbolize perseverance and hope, as well as beauty and purity. In my opinion, the official Botanical Collection has been the best new idea LEGO has come up with in a while. They have been the inspiration for so many beautiful creations such as this.

The Star Wars Clone Wars unfold on a massive light-up Naboo diorama

Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels, Naboo is a planet that everyone agrees is beautiful. Inspired by its appearance in 2017’s Battlefront II videogame, Belgian LEGO Star Wars YouTuber Axidroid spent eight months building a Clone Wars battle scene in the streets of Theed. With 121 minifigures, with most of them being from the popular 501st Battlepack, there are also custom vehicles such as the Gunships, AAT tank, and AT-RT walker. While large Star Wars dioramas are not uncommon, the 140cm by 77cm size dwarfs the largest LEGO Star Wars set, the UCS Imperial Star Destroyer, which is 110cm by 66cm.

While the size of this build is impressive, the real kicker is at nighttime. Using Christmas LED lights inside the buildings and street lamps, Axidroid lights up the Theed plaza into a lovely atmospheric scene. The battle droids and clone troopers now look like they’re lined up for an evening festival, and bring the Mediterranean setting of Naboo even closer to home.

Axidroid even documented his 8-month long build process in a YouTube video series. In the finale below he shows off all the details in the expansive build.

Explore more builds of Naboo here.

LEGO BrickHeadz 40441 Pets Shorthair cat and Kitten [Review]

LEGO recently introduced a new sub-theme to the BrickHeadz line, Pets, and so far, there have been 4 sets released… A German Shepherd and puppy, A budgie and chick, and a pair of goldfish. Today we’re taking a look at the shorthair cat (number 120) and kitten (121), and they are available on lego.com and LEGO retail stores for $14.99 US (CAN $19.99 | UK £13.49),

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.

Read the full review