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.

Winter in the Shire

“In a hole in the snow there lived a Hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell… No, this hole was warm and snug, a cozy place in which Bilbo could thaw his toes after a wintery walk.” Patrick B. has created the perfect little winter scene from the Shire, with a hobbit hole covered in snow. The sledge is nice little creation, as is the snow-clad tree atop the mound, but be sure to zoom in on the hobbit dwelling’s frontage — the windows are lovely, and I particularly like the reversed plates used for the door, a surprising but effective choice.

Winter in the Shire

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2019 LEGO Advent Calendars, Day 1

It’s that time of year again! Break out the hot cocoa and stoke the fire, because The Brothers Brick is counting down to Christmas the only way we know how: with LEGO Advent Calendars! Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Friends, and LEGO City 2019 advent calendars along with crazy commentary from our team.

If you’re opening one (or more) of these advent calendars along with us, we’ve made sure the pictures and commentary on each day’s models will be behind a jump so we don’t accidentally ruin the surprise. So without further ado, here we go!

Click to reveal today’s LEGO advent calendar builds!

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 December 1, 2019 [News]

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 November 2019.

The biggest fish in the pond just got bigger, and the classic 1989 Batmobile got smaller. Read on for all the LEGO news that’s fit to brick.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS: This was an action-packed week for LEGO news, with LEGO announcing a new Speed Champions set along with their recent acquisition of Bricklink. We also reviewed the new 1989 Batmobile and some custom minifigures from Citizen Brick.

https://youtu.be/6Z3XURVsnAc

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.

December 1st deals on LEGO online store with 30% discounts including Star Wars Betrayal at Cloud City and Hulkbuster [News]

LEGO Black Friday deals carry on over the weekend featuring new sets that go on deep discounts of 30%. Note that the UK store has different offers compared to those on the US and Canadian stores. For the UK Store, these include the Master Builder Series 75222 Star Wars Betrayal at Cloud City and favourites from Harry Potter featuring the 75948 Hogwarts™ Clock Tower. Even the largest Hidden Side set from the series 70425 Newbury Haunted High School is listed. On the US/CAN store, the Carousell and Hulkbuster Ultron Edition have been on the shelves for quite a while and potentially to be the end of shelf life soon.  It’s a good time to pick up these deals on the LEGO Store to celebrate the end year festivities as Christmas gifts to make that loved one elated. Scroll further below for the US and Canada offers.

UK Offers

75222 Betrayal at Cloud City™ | Read our Review 
Retail Price: GBP £299.99 | Sale Price GBP £209.99

Click to see more of the 30% deals

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 BrickHeadz 75232 Kylo Ren & Sith Trooper now available for purchase [News]

Although these have been seen in retail stores for a while now, the Brickheadz Kylo Ren and Sith Trooper are now available on LEGO Online stores (Dec 1st). Featuring Kylo’s signature Lightsaber and helmet, and the Sith Trooper’s weapon and unique red armour. These two characters will be appearing in the upcoming movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hitting the big screen on December 20th, 2019.

Get them now at LEGO Online Stores US $19.99 | UK £17.99 | CAN $24.00 and add these to your Star Wars BrickHeadz collection.

Click to see more closeup images of the Star Wars BrickHeadz

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.

Catch the Pokemon Magnemite before your TV goes on the fritz [Instructions]

Is your radio going all static-y? Are your lights flickering? Do you feel a slight tingling in your dental fillings? Are your pets acting all weird, I mean weirder than usual? Paranormal enthusiasts will say that you have ghosts, astrologers will tell you that we’re going into Mercury Retrograde but Pokemon Go players may cite that a disturbance in the electro-magnetic flux just might be the presence of a Magnemite, and you’d better catch it quick before it wreaks havoc on your fridge magnets. Builder Poke Bricks is totally into Pokemon (no, seriously, it’s true!) and we just might see a lot more brick-built Pokemon creatures in their photostream soon.

LEGO Pokémon Magnemite

Want a Magnemite of your own? Then follow this step-by-step video to make it happen.

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.

Call it Leviathan

Many LEGO fans talk about hunting for their white whale – that one set they’ve been searching for all their lives. This is, of course, an allusion to Captain Ahab’s ultimately fatal obsession with finding an actual white whale in Moby Dick (do 168 year old books need spoiler warnings?). It would seem that that fairy tale whale is still out there hunting ships, as Oliver Becker demonstrates.

"Thar She Blows..."

Has the white whale grown to such an immense size to dwarf the ship? Or is she a regular-sized whale and it’s the ship that’s actually tiny? We’ll never know for sure, but we do know that there’s some excellent parts usage at play here. Dead center in the frame of the shot is a white lever base, expertly used as the whale’s eye. I really love the swords with jagged edges used to create a splash – those few parts convey the creature’s movement. And it’s a big splash, so maybe it really is a larger-than-life whale.

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.

Gringotts just got hit by a reducio spell

Building in microscale requires a special skill set. One must have an eye for simplification of textures along with a firm grasp of the essentials of whatever it is. Eli Willsea has that skill, as this tiny (yet still large) rendition of Gringotts bank from Harry Potter demonstrates. I am guessing it comes from the first film, as there is a recognizable Hagrid down in the vaults, alongside what I suppose to be Harry and a goblin. Everything one would need for Gringotts is there, from the columns to the large dome, along with the crazy tracks for the carts in the depths beneath. My one complaint is that the columns on the front-corner facade are too straight, lacking the signature tilts seen in the films.

Gringotts Vaults

The rock pillars beneath the street are impressive, built in sideways rings and then threaded onto Technic axles, allowing them to spin around into different configurations. This is great, because it means that you can build the same shape a bunch of times and have it look different depending on how it is angled. The cars down on the tracks are delightfully simple, consisting of droid arms and round 1×1 tiles with bar and pin holders. The cart up on the street above-ground is also inspired, making brilliant use of wands on sprue to give delicate texture to the rails. It’s also being pulled by something skeletal (a thestral, perhaps?). This was originally built for our own Harry Potter Microscale Magic competition, but Eli failed to complete the photography in time. While that is too bad, it is certainly better late than never!

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 Cybertruck and the collective gasp heard around the world

When Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Cybertruck recently the world let out a collective sigh of…what the hell were you thinking? Elon himself even uttered an unpublishable expletive when a shatter-proof test didn’t go as well as planned. While the electric pickup indeed boasts some rather impressive stats, (like winning a tug-of-war with a Ford F-150, ranging 250-500 miles without charging and doing 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds) the overall angular design resembles something out of a bad 80’s movie. Quickly the jokes and memes flourished with a common theme being a kid could have drawn it. I’m pretty sure ten year old me made quite a few concept drawings that were similar to it. No stranger to dreaming up concept automotive designs both in childhood and adulthood is Ford engineer and prolific LEGO car builder Peter Blackert. While he is also aware of the jokes, Peter is an opportunistic builder who sees the positive in a lot of things, even this Cybertruck.

Tesla CyberTruck - Media Launch 11-21-2019

As odd as it may be, Peter captures the shape very nicely as evidenced by this particular digital render.

Tesla CyberTruck - Media Launch 11-21-2019

Just for fun, Peter has also rendered a Classic Space version!

Telsa SpaceX CyberTruck

Admittedly, the Cybertruck is like nothing else Tesla has to offer. Elon and his companies specialize in shaping the future and, according to him anyway, the shape of the future is a throwback from the 80’s. After getting over the initial shock, some, including Peter, have warmed up to the design. Should we trust his instincts and follow suit? As an automotive engineer and a passionate, prolific LEGO car builder Peter surely knows a thing or two about automotive design and what the future may hold.

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 doorbusters carries onto the next day featuring more sets at 30% off [News]

The Black Friday doorbuster offers carry right into Saturday with the following going on 30% discounts. They are certainly good bargains indeed for you to consider if you haven’t picked them up just yet. The good stuff tends to run out fast, don’t hesitate if you’ve already made up your mind.

Click to see the offers

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 spider worth thrashing with

When you see a spider crawling around, is your first inclination to use the power of your shoes? What if I told you you could be snuffing out the next ace arachnid guitar player like Grayson M‘s Sid the Spider. He looks frighteningly awesome, right down to his studded jacket, sharp-looking shoes, and classic red and white guitar. He even has a golden ring on one of his left legs; that’s so eight-legged metal!

Sid the Spider

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.

Amazon 2019 Black Friday LEGO Sales [News]

It’s Black Friday on Amazon and here are some of the deals that are worth looking at. Featuring themes from Star Wars to the popular LEGO Ideas, these are great to have in any collection especially when some of these are priced at a 30% discount (or more)

Click to see the Black Friday deals on Amazon

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.