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.

Idea to actual: How we made some Wonder Woman LEGO Art [Feature]

Once a year, my long-distance partner Alyse Middleton and I, Chris Doyle, try to take a week of vacation together. With the realities of life in the USA in 2020 limiting the potential destinations, this time we opted for a “Quarencation” at my place. Kind of a bummer, but staying here kept us within easy reach of my LEGO workspace…and that paid out some nifty results. We were able to take an idea we had been kicking around all the way from concept to physical model. Working in the style of the new LEGO Art sets, we created a mosaic of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman.

Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman - LEGO Art Style

I’d built a number of mosaics in the past, so I had a few ideas on how we could approach making a new one. And while that experience was helpful, we ended up taking a very different route to reach our goal. Come along with us on our journey of highs, lows, seemingly endless moments of “I guess we’re starting over again“, and, yes, eventual triumph.

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LEGO World Builder platform for story development launched together with partner Tongal [News]

Today, LEGO has announced a new platform for idea incubation called LEGO World Builder. The platform, powered by content-creation brand Tongal, is intended to generate broad concepts which the LEGO Company can then scout and potentially purchase. Creative artists can work alone or leverage each other’s strengths by calling for input from other talent in the community, as the platform promises to bring together contributors across geographic boundaries with a formalized system to enable collaboration.

Click to read full details about LEGO World Builder

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

These Gauls are crazy!

European readers will recognise these busts of two big-nosed cartoon characters named Asterix and Obelix. These Gaulish warriors are from a French comic series with the same name, following their fantastic adventures and fight against the Roman Empire. They sometimes get temporary superhuman strength by drinking a magic potion brewed by their village druid. George Panteleon built the perfect portraits of the titular heroes, each instantly recognisable by their characteristics. Asterix is the small but strong warrior with his signature winged helmet. Obelix is his sidekick, overweight with permanent superhuman strength because he fell into the cauldron of magic potion as a baby. Obelix’s double chin and broad shoulders set him apart from Asterix, all with the clever usage of rounded bricks. Smaller quarter-dome bricks give the shape of the noses, cheeks, and helmets of these cute but fierce characters.

Asterix & Obelix

See more of George Panteleon‘s wonderful builds, including his impressive Joker bust.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

The natural wonders of the raised baseplate

I think we can all agree, raised baseplates can be a pain to deal with. Not only are they large and clunky, but these baseplates also come with all sorts of odd features, typically as a result of special molds designed to function best in their original LEGO sets. Bram tackles a raised baseplate from the 1998 Adventurers Sphinx Secret Surprise set featuring a pre-fabricated ramp, off-set staircases, and heavy printing on all sides of its raised platforms. But in Bram’s Ara’Hith Estate, this baseplate virtually disappears into the architecture and seamless landscaping. The baseplate’s wide printed stone ramp transforms into a grand entrance into a shaded portico, and its irregular stud configurations have been cleverly filled in with palm trees and flower beds. Bram has worked around every tricky aspect of this challenge and the result is fantastic. We’re looking at a major NPU right here!

The Ara'Hith Estate

Click here to see more views of this stunning baseplate build

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Not your grandma’s lace tablecloth

LEGO builder and co-fan-designer for the Ideas Pop-Up Book set, Grant Davis is on a roll lately. As in, one of the best runs of excellent builds in a short time I’ve ever seen. In this latest project, the candlestick holder and rose are lovely. But the real hero of the display is the “lace” tablecloth. Made up of 16 white nets and adorned with both older and new flower elements, it’s certainly convincing. Anyone who has worked with nets in this way knows how tricky and fiddly they can be, but these are expertly held together with carefully hidden connections. There are even white tusks/tails clipped to octagonal parabolic rings for the more intricate center. LEGO has never looked so delicate.

Candlelight

To see the rest of this excellent series of builds, check out Grant’s giant playing card, gingerbread house, renaissance man, and sheep.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Virtual BrickCon 2020 seeks to blaze new trails by extending a global invite, and more [News]

Long before the Covid19 pandemic rocked the world, the BrickCon staff chose to playfully name this year’s theme “Hindsight”. The idea was based on the old expression, “hindsight is 20/20,” referring to past events and decisions being clearer in the present. It was hoped that the theme would spark creations that poked fun at the past. Unfortunately, most of us around the world could not have seen this coming, nor prevented it if we did. The irony has been palpable and even painful for millions of people across the globe. There’s no denying it’s been a tough year – for everyone. But one part of “hindsight” that benefits BrickCon, is the fact that it’s one of the last conventions of the year, and thus, they’ve had a chance to learn from all the rest. This con promises to be different than the others. Read on to learn how, and in what ways you can help.

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The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Ice road dumper

When you’re an up-and-coming builder someone along the way makes it clear that you’re supposed to say and type it as “LEGO” and not “Legos”. It was a LEGO designer who initially made it clear to me. As a seasoned builder and writer for The Brothers Brick, I’m pretty much by now contractually obligated to use the word correctly. However, in a fit of rebellion, I’ll sometimes misuse it for humor’s sake. Legos! See, it’s funny, right? That’s why it’s so refreshing to discover an up-and-coming entity (debuting a few months ago) who goes by the name of LEGOZ ;). The winky face means that he (we think his name is Sean) gets the joke too and what an amazing builder he seems to be! To be clear, this WEGENER Mining Dump Truck is a render created with Bricklink Studio 2.0, and the image was enhanced and edited in Photoshop. However existing parts were used and, as far as I can tell, can be constructed legitimately. I am just enamored with this thing!

WEGENER mining Dump truck

Click to see more and to unveil an even bigger surprise!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

A shack in the woods might be all you need.

I generally don’t broadcast my vacation whereabouts to potentially millions of readers but since I’m back I can say I’ve just spent a week in a tiny home similar to this one. With nothing but my own amusing self to keep me company, I have a new appreciation for living minimally. Daniel Barwegen may know what I mean as evidenced by this LEGO shack. Multidirectional bricks, plates, and slopes make for some neat textures here. I really enjoy the barren trees here and the all-around rustic feel. In my tiny rental, I fancied myself as a rugged old hermit (gray beard and all) just like the minifigure here. He’s doing it right with solar panels. And just when I started to smell like a guy who lived in a shack in the woods, it was time to come back to civilization, car payments, Zoom-room meetings, mortgage, and all that. But would I do it again? Totally! In a heartbeat.

The Old Shack

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Rock, papercuts, scissors, wait...

The players of the game that settles it all can get a little carried away sometimes. In this cute LEGO vignette by Pedro Sequeira some of our favorite players; rock, paper, and scissors are brought to life in three dimensions and we can see the consequences of such rough play!

Each player – rock, paper, and scissors are made up of some pretty standard small elements such as slopes, tiles, and small bricks. The faces on the objects and their expressions are what make this scene both adorable and hilarious. The rock and paper characters feature woodoo balls with eye prints, while printed round 1×1 tiles with mischievous squinting eyes decorate the face of scissors. A stream of tears on poor cut-up paper’s face is cleverly rendered with a couple translucent clear dragon’s fire elements. I enjoy the lines on the paper created with grey plates to give it that loose-leaf paper aesthetic. Maybe rock can talk some sense into scissors while poor paper heals its wounds from battle. Sequeira does mention that this brick-built vignette is based off of an illustration which can be viewed here.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO 77906 Wonder Woman and the Cheetah now available for pre-orders [Sales]

The LEGO 77906 Wonder Woman and the Cheetah Fandom reveal earlier today is now available for pre-order on LEGO Online Store (US Only). It is priced at $39.99 USD and will ship on October 1st. The set comes with 3 minifigures and 255 pieces. We are also extremely proud to note that this is first LEGO set designed by former TBB Contributor Carter Baldwin in his new role as LEGO product designer.

Click here to pre-order the set now and read the full details of the reveal here

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for August 22, 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 third week of August 2020.

We create LEGO art with the new Iron Man mosaic set. Keep reading our Brick Report to get all the details.

TBB NEWS, REVIEWS AND INSTRUCTIONS: This week we got a backstage look at the Lego Instructions For Every Day Life series, saw the reveal of the new Harry Potter collectible minifigures, learned to make a tiny NES and more.

MORE TBB NEWS & FEATURES:

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:

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

LEGO 77906 Wonder Woman and the Cheetah revealed as DC Fandome Exclusive [News]

As the DC Fandome event is only hours away from opening its virtual doors, we get a peek at yet another exclusive – this time featuring  Wonder Woman, the Cheetah and Etta Candy. It comes with 3 minifigures made up of 255 pieces in total and a vignette of Cheetah wielding a sword in a mid-flight pounce attacking Wonder Woman.

Click for a closer look

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.