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.

LEGO partners with Unity for LEGO Microgame, a platform for designing your own game with virtual bricks [News]

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, LEGO Games is partnering with Unity, the world’s leading 3D content development platform, to bring us a new videogame known as LEGO Microgame. Unity offers guided experiences designed to make game development less intimidating for new users, and starting October 26, you will be able to build your very own LEGO game, brick by virtual brick.

LEGO touts the new Microgame as being created with adult fans of LEGO in mind. It is targeted at people who are taking their first steps into the world of videogame creation and the company says it is designed to make this a fun and welcoming experience. You can even import your own creations built in Bricklink Studio as well as share the games you design on the Unity platform. At the time of writing, there’s not a huge amount we know about the gameplay itself yet, but you can check out a trailer for the game and read the official press release below.

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Battle of the brick bots

The robots are taking over, and who doesn’t love a good mech when they see one? Adam Dodge‘s LEGO war mech looks to be a pretty unique take on the archetype — it really looks like Wall-E on steroids.

The caterpillar tread and slightly boxy aesthetic of this build are what are reminiscent of Wall-E, but of course all of the added brick-built artillery and armaments make this bot look quite a bit less than friendly. Certainly the weaponry of this build is where the great parts-usage happens. The gatling gun which is also the right arm of the bot is comprised of technic pieces. Some white 1×1 cones serve as unveiled missiles on the shoulder of the machine. The body/cockpit is constructed from mostly bricks and slopes with some tiling serving as accents. Overall this is one mean looking bot, perhaps an unfortunately fitting image for the rather dystopian times we are in currently.

A pastoral post office makes postal work pleasant

The work of the postmaster is never done, especially in troubled times like those we find ourselves living through today. If anyone deserves a quiet place to sit and rest after a long day’s work, it would be the fellow delivering your mail. Ayrlego has built a very pleasant home and office for this public servant. I love the clean and simple walls and the terra cotta tiled roof. Also, the use of the wand elements from LEGO’s Wizarding World theme still attached to their sprues make the perfect finely carved wooden railing on the balcony. Speaking of the balcony, that vine trellis is another great detail.

If this postal paradise pleases you, you’ll probably enjoy another post office we recently featured by Ayrlego.

Sunday best, Sunday bricks

Saxon churches are surely a familiar site in England, but this is also true of the United States as well. This LEGO church built by Pieter Dennison certainly reminds me of some churches I have seen in New England.

Pieter utilizes a pretty simple color palette in this build – two shades of grey for the structure itself and then browns for the ground and what would be wooden components of the building. Much of the ground the building rests on is constructed using the SNOT (studs not on top) technique. The church itself is composed mainly of the usual bricks, slopes, and tiles – this is perfect as these churches were pretty simple brick structures. Some medieval minifigures oversee the reconstruction efforts of the church in this scene, which is fitting as this particular style of church was constructed between 597 AD – 1066 AD. Dennison’s build makes me imagine what “Sunday Best” would look like back in the Middle Ages.

LEGO room for your LEGO minifigure

Most LEGO fans are constantly upgrading their LEGO spaces. Some fans have a desk, nook, shelf, or corner of their home dedicated to LEGO, and some have whole rooms decked out with all kinds of storage and display furniture. But why shouldn’t our minifigures or “signature figures” (sigfigs) not have these same luxuries? Instagrammer Brickdesigned sets up minifigure-kind with some LEGO room essential mini-builds.

With these cute mini-builds, we’ve got shelves, tables, mobile storage, and plenty of references to real LEGO products. My favorite reference has to be the storage containers shaped like minifigure heads; Brickdesigned uses the same minifigure heads the containers are based on in his storage build. I also spy with my little eye a few LEGO sets referenced including the architecture line Statue of Liberty as well as the LEGO Ideas ship in a bottle. Brickdesigned really manages to scale down and capture the quintessential LEGO workspace’s essence – a colorful and creative space with all of our favorites.

What a charming charmed tent!

One of the things in the Harry Potter universe that always caught my attention was the charmed tents. Nothing as magical as 3 people entering a really small tent to discover that it is very spacious on the inside. Caleb Schilling takes this setting and gives us the Quidditch World Cup scene where the Weasley family camps in a borrowed charmed tent during the sport event. The tent is made of fabric, which is really hard to create with a hard plastic construction toy. However, Caleb managed to make the flowing fabric feel come across quite beautifully thanks to the round wall, patterns on all the walls, and the curtains hanging from the ceiling. The tent has everything a family needs to camp in comfort: beds, couches, chairs, tables, a heating stove, and even a rug with fringe!

Small autumn garden, or maybe not so small at all

Kris Kelvin calls this creation a small autumn garden and I have to disagree with him on the small part. However, it is a really nice build, and it makes me realize that I probably should attend to my garden a bit more as it looks nowhere near as maintained as this LEGO garden does. Over the years, LEGO has released lots of fruits and vegetables. We’ve got cherries, apples, carrots, bananas, and pumpkins. But what is more fun than building your own vegetable plants? Kris used lavender studs with 3 leaves to create red cabbage or is it lollo rosso lettuce. He also made cauliflower using the same leaves part in green and a white swirl brick. And then there is the egg used as a white eggplant. Last but not least there are a lot of minifigure hair parts used as lettuce or cabbage, something LEGO has been doing for a while now too. I might have it all wrong, but this is how I identify the vegetables in this garden. What vegetables do you recognize?

Next stop, Plymouth Rock

A moment of American history is frozen in time in James Pegrum‘s LEGO recreation of the Mayflower, the English ship that transported the first Pilgrims to New England. The story goes that indentured servant John Howland was swept overboard during a storm and held on until the crew hauled him back to safety. That splash is represented at the center of the build, carefully crafted out of rows of dark blue bricks and white curved slopes among the turbulent waves. The Mayflower flaunts some brick-built masts and beautiful blue accents on her sides. Plus, the rigging is all string and no prefabs — a solid choice for this level of realism.

It takes guts to build something like this

I have resorted to cheap puns to grab your attention with that title but now that you’re here, you’ve got to admit this is pretty cool. You’re looking at (or looking through) a new LEGO creation by Tino Poutianen called Glass Cerberus. The traditional guardian to the gates of hell is fearsome enough as a three-headed dog but the mythical creature has now seeped into nightmare territory. We’ve seen a lot of gutsy creations lately, what with it being close to Halloween and all. Now if only I could gain this hound’s favor perhaps we can find a favorable end to this post. Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good widdle boy? Just kidding! It all ends in unspeakable horror.

It’s a whole new world out there

When humanity finally makes it out into the farthest reaches of space and potentially finds extraterrestrial life, it’s doubtful it would look much like the lifeforms we know. And this alien world scene by LEGO builder Bart De Dobbelaer looks the part perfectly with a thick growth of…something. Plus, with its moody lighting, striking colors, and ominous planetary body in the background, the scene is highly atmospheric (so much so that the explorers don’t have their helmets on!). The large, scattered dark blue slopes make an interesting texture that’s reminiscent of broken shale. Look closely and you’ll spot lots of cool parts being used, but my favorites are the clear rings from Clickits on the alien growth.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for October 24, 2020

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the fourth week of October 2020.

With a little help help from LEGO we find out how to get to Sesame Street! Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS: This week we took a trip all the way to Sesame Street, checked out Citizen Brick’s new custom minifig parts, made some little Mindstorms robots via a gift with purchase and more!

LEGO Mindstorms 40413 Mini Robots Gift with Purchase set [Review] – LEGO’s latest freebie set builds these adorable mini versions of the new Mindstorms robots!
LEGO Ideas’ newest set 123 Sesame Street (21324) takes you back to your childhood – Sesame Street is coming your way with the latest LEGO Ideas set.
Citizen Brick’s custom LEGO minifigure elements for Halloween 2020 [Review] – Our friends at Citizen Brick (@citizenbrick) have been hard at work during quarantine, but it looks like there’s been an outbreak at the lab…
Come and Play! LEGO Ideas 123 Sesame Street (21324) [Review] – Who are the people in YOUR neighborhood? The Brothers Brick takes you on a walk along Sesame Street – the latest LEGO Ideas set.
This isn’t a spaceship, it’s a LEGO brain-teaser – It’s not often that we come across models that truly cause our jaws to drop, but spaceship guru Nick Trotta routinely does so with his mastery of brick geometry.

OTHER NEWS: There were quite a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:

A Dog Photobooth Made Out of Lego, Fstoppers – A cute dog, some Lego, and a camera… I can’t think of anything more perfectly made for the internet than this.
Adidas and The LEGO Group embark on a multi-year partnership, Brickset – LEGO and Adidas have announced a partnership that is set to last multiple years and continue through various different avenues.
Denmark is the most affordable country in Europe for Lego sets, CPH Post Online – Indeed, the Danes also rank second in the world with an average price for a Lego set ticking in at 101.04 US dollars

Case and Bunning! They’re hard-boiled cops! Or farm equipment.

As much as I would have loved to have written an edge-of-your-seat cop action drama, this will be about farm equipment. Still, you’ve got to appreciate the love and attention Michał Skorupka gives to these LEGO creations. The red tractor is the International Harvester Case 1455 XL while the blue thingamajigger is the Bunning Lowlander 105mk4. For those of us more versed in hard-boiled cop dramas than farm equipment, the Bunning Lowlander is…a manure spreader. I’m pretty sure I can still integrate that in with some hard-hitting, no-nonsense cop drama dialogue. “My partner Bunning here has a unique set of skills, see? You don’t want to know! So lemme ask ya one more time. You feeling lucky, punk?” In case you are feeling lucky and would like to stick around for a while, why not buckle in and check out our vehicle archives featuring farming vehicles, police vehicles and everything in between.