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.

The ultimate ride with a tiny horsepower

This is a little unusual, but I’d like to poll our readers out there on this little vehicle. Is this type of bike familiar to you? During my travels, I find that this is a very popular choice of vehicle in many parts of Asia, but not very prominent to almost non-existent, especially in the United States. Perhaps its a very affordable and economical option for shorter distances and developing countries, but seeing something so staple like this is pretty amazing, triggering memories as a child. This stunning bike built by Vietnamese builder Khang Huynh built this Honda Cub that’s in abundance and a main mode of transportation in the country.

It’s used for almost everything you can think of transporting, and he’s even added a sample of a modded vehicle which actually happens a lot on the roads, in this case, to transport a little greenery of pots and plants.

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Building Hands built by building hands

For a medium that’s based around the core idea of “you can make anything you want,” LEGO builders just love to impose limitations on their creations. Things like “use only one color of brick” or “it has to be symmetrical,” or even the tricky “you can’t have any exposed studs.” Once again drawing inspiration from the drawings of M.C. Escher, Simon Liu takes that particular set of challenges and overcomes them. (Again.) Escher’s Drawing Hands transforms from flat art into a sculpture of hands creating themselves out of LEGO. Building Hands adds just the right touch of meta-level humor to a great build.

I particularly like how Simon found a clever way around the “no exposed studs” limit. By replicating the studs out of 1×1 round tiles, they both flaunted and followed the rules. Sure, the use of red lights may annoy the “monochromatic purists” among us, but I have a feeling they’re in the minority. No one said anything about limiting the light sources, after all. Or if they did, I didn’t hear about it.

The art and science of LEGO tensegrity builds

The recent trend in the LEGO-sphere community has all been about magical floating compression structures, better known as a tensegrity – a portmanteau of “tensional integrity”. The fad started with a very rudimentary build on a Reddit and soon spawned many more creative iterations. We pick a few of the more outstanding ones that we’ve seen that has impressed us. A couple of them come with build videos and instruction guides for you to build your very own.

Click to see some of the best we’ve spotted around

Star Wars: This place is the pits

Ever wonder what happened after Boba Fett and others fell into the Sarlacc Pit? Jabba sort of hinted there would be a thousand years of slow digestion but according to Cube Brick these LEGO denizens of the pit are having the time of their lives.

Below the sand and the menacing toothy pit lies a lively cantina scene. Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes belts out the only tune they know while a Gungan serves up hard drinks (or blue milk) for the less inebriated. A Twi’lek tantalizes patrons with a pole dance floor show.

And just when a thousand years of slow digestion seems like it couldn’t get any more enticing, the whole shebang shifts to accommodate mood lighting. Now everyone looks totally swanky! Bottoms up, weirdos!

How do you get down from a Bantha? Keep reading and find out!

Ah, the bantha. In Star Wars lore, these giant horned beasts serve as steeds and companions to the bandage-fetishist Tusken Raiders. In the film, they were portrayed by an elephant named Mardji in a giant costume. Not sure why I bring that up, other than to mention that wow, that’s a lot of hair. In related news, Andrew Miller has created a LEGO version of a bantha that somehow transforms plastic elements into the best representation of matted fur that I’ve ever seen.

The effect is created by a skillful combination of curved slope, claws, horns, and even modified plate rock. The legs get their textured look thanks to the inclusion of ridged 2×2 round brick. The use of all the various shades of brown in the LEGO color palete also helps to sell the effect.

But despite the apparent need for a bath, this minifigure scaled beast is still just adorable. I’d love to see this level of detail show up the next time LEGO includes a bantha in a released set.

Oh. And how do you get down from a bantha? You don’t. You get down from a goose. Silly of you to even ask.

A whopping 26 projects qualify for the first 2020 LEGO Ideas review [News]

It totally looks like the LEGO Ideas review committee will be swamped with work for the next several months. For the first time in the history of the LEGO Ideas platform, a smashing selection of twenty-six new projects enters the review stage. Among the most noticeable ideas are the well-know Tesla Cybertruck, an adorable vignette portraying the most mischievous goose of 2019, and even a Technic snow-groomer, which is the first LEGO Technic Ideas project to accumulate 10,000 votes. The selection also includes a bunch of projects based on movies and cartoons, as well as several models based on human-made spaceships. You can read the full announcement on the blog.

According to the LEGO Ideas program rules, a project must gain 10,000 votes to enter the review stage. With three qualifying periods each year, there are about 30 projects qualifying for the review stage each year, or roughly 10 projects per period. With 26 new projects qualified already, a new record of reviewed projects is to be set during 2020. Nevertheless, it does not guarantee that we will see more official LEGO Ideas sets than usual.

The real treasure was the LEGO pieces we collected along the way

Caleb Saw digs deep into LEGO lore with Johnny Thunder’s mansion which is filled with more treasure than you can believe. The complete scene is a roomy, comfortable construction filled with custom warm lighting and a literal treasure trove of LEGO mementos and easter eggs from the old Adventurers line and beyond.

Click through to see a list of all Johnny Thunder’s treasures. Can you spot them all?

Catching Scoobies on the Shutoko

As much as I like building LEGO cars, I never quite got into building contemporary car models. On a small scale it will never be possible to capture all the details. So, to make a LEGO car model recognisable, it helps for the real car to look distinctive. You can mess up a lot when building a Hummer or a Volkswagen Beetle and they will still be identifiable. Unfortunately, a lot of modern cars kind of look the same. Perhaps none more so than Japanese cars.

Last year I went to Japan BrickFest. If the COVID-19 pandemic won’t prevent it, I hope to go again next year. With that in mind, I’ve been building more and more Japanese cars. So far I’ve managed to build a fair few recognisable ones, including an ambulance and a rather wacky-looking courier van. I’m still looking for more distinctive examples, though. My most recent Japanese cars are the Toyota Crown and a Subaru Impreza WRX.

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Minifig springs from the original LEGO brick

In the beginning, there was Brick, and it was good. It was smooth, perfect, and devoid of all color. Then one day, a great rumbling was heard deep within the brick and a wonderous sloshing sound. With a mighty crack, golden yellow life burst forth from the brick and spilled color into the universe. So goes the legend of the first Minifig, captured in all its glory by Andreas Lenander

Batman, Batman, BATMAN!

Who doesn’t love a good mash-up? And when it comes to LEGO mash-ups, Classic Space is one of the more common themes that builders love to mash. Even LEGO Batman, who usually only builds in black, has joined in the fun, in this dynamic duo of vehicles by Stu Pace, which covers two Batmobiles from opposite ends of the modern Batman franchise. Both vehicles combine the classic space color scheme and iconic details of the source material very well.

Did someone order a bowl of ramen?

A frequent staple of the Brothers Brick, LEGO Designer Markus Rollbühler knows his way around the LEGO kitchen. He’s dished up a hearty broth containing soft flex hose noodles, minifig leg mushrooms, some yolky eggs, and a white and pink spiraled narutomaki. Gotta say the photography really helps the model shine as well. I’d order this in a restaurant.

Hungry for more? We’ve got you covered for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why not have some dessert while you’re at it?

Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor!

Shake it, shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture. When the song Hey Ya came out the Polaroid Company issued a statement advising against shaking their instant photos and that the preferred method for developing is to leave it face down on a hard surface for 20-40 minutes. Had Outkast actually taken their advice my guess is that the song would have been far less engaging when encouraging listeners to shake their thang on the dancefloor. I’m not sure if Vainaut shakes his thang on the dancefloor but he has built a stunning LEGO Polaroid camera. The details in silver are inspired and I particularly like the lenses and flashbulb. Here’s some other stuff we liked by the same builder.