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.

2,000-brick LEGO version of Edinburgh Castle and gardens

Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, famous for its castle atop a volcanic plug of rock, and the Princes Street Gardens, a public park lying between the city’s Old and New Towns. It’s my home, so I’m obviously biased, but it’s widely regarded as one of the most beautiful and dramatic city centres in the world. The challenge of recreating my home city in the brick has haunted me for years, and I finally decided to take a proper crack at it. After 18 months of off-and-on building, multiple orders of bricks, and a great deal of cursing and starting over, this 2,000(ish) brick model was the result.

The model is 75cm by 40cm and captures the upper stretch of the famous Royal Mile, the Castle Rock, and the whole of the gardens — including the train tracks, the Scott Monument, the art galleries on The Mound, and the various churches which are dotted across this slice of the city.

Over a total of a year and a half, I was probably building this for three months or so, with flurries of activity punctuated with periods when I couldn’t bring myself to even look at it! Google Maps was a constant companion throughout the project, allowing me to zoom in on individual buildings to capture detail, or zoom out to understand general scale and comparative distances. It’s amazing how much you learn when you look in this level of detail at somewhere you think you know well.

Once the model was completed, I wanted to get some images against a real sky. The photo below captures one of my favourite views of the city — looking out from Waverley Bridge across the Eastern section of the Gardens, the National Gallery and Royal Academy buildings ahead, and the Castle looming over everything in the background. As happens often in real life, one of the city’s many double-decker buses has managed to get into the shot…

Whilst I’m pleased with how the final model turned out, at the moment I’m saying I’m never attempting such a project ever again! However, I’ve already caught myself looking at maps of the city and idly wondering in which direction I should extend the diorama. I think it’s only a matter of time before I’m engrossed in mini city-building all over again.

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LEGO Speed Champions reissues the classic 911 with 75895 1974 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0 [News]

Today, LEGO is taking the wraps off the sole entry to the Speed Champions fall 2019 lineup, 75895 1974 Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0. Although we previously got a small glimpse of the model in the 2019 catalog, we’ve now got all the official details and photos for the set. Retailing for $14.99, the set will have 180 pieces and is slated to be available Aug. 1.

Click to see all the pictures and read the press release

No, really. Space is curved.

When you hear the term “LEGO brick” your mind is drawn to an image of just that…a brick. Rectangular. Boxy. Brick Spirou shows us the alternative with the Space Police Interceptor. Decked out in classic Space Police I colors, this single-pilot ship is all about the curves. The wings feature the repetition of double-curved slopes in a design that reminds me of the air turbines you might see in a strictly atmospheric craft. The front forks have triple curved wedges that add even more smooth lines to the look.

The rear of the craft also has some nice shaping. An aircraft fuselage section leads your eyes to the just-textured-enough engines. My favorite detail, though, is the Hero Factory Spine placed just in front of the tail fin.

Space Police interceptors have been all the rage here at The Brothers Brick lately. Be sure to also check out the Galactic Interceptor we reviewed recently!

The wendigo is scary indeed...

The 2019 Bionicle-building challenge Biocup is on and LEGO Bionicle enthusiast chubbybots has jumped into the ring swinging. The first round’s theme is scary monsters, which I definitely think this wendigo fits into. Intimidation and furious brutality are the words that spring to mind. The Hero Factory Hand Armor as the top of its head was an excellent choice that brings those stark white teeth to the foreground on that monstrous underbite. Those rubber tyres on the arms and ankles remind me of the tufts of hair on a minotaur. I wonder it played some role as a muse while chubbybots started to piece this guy together? My favourite piece use on this terrifying vision would have to be a tie between the four eyes made from small red lever bases and the shadow trap, creating what looks like the end of a gnarly set of gauntlets.

Be sure to stop by and check out some of the other contenders in this year’s Biocup!

B.B. Kong – King of the concrete jungle

Marco De Bon has graced our pages with his LEGO mech’s many times but with his new Mecha Beast “B.B. Kong”, he’s approached them from a whole new slant. Most, if not all of his mechs, are completely armored, meaning all mechanisms are hidden. B.B. Kong, on the other hand, is full of exposed piping and other greebly goodness.

Click to check out more of this Mecha Beast

How I designed a motorized Lego chromosomal model to represent a genetic disease [Guest Feature]

Today we’re pleased to welcome Caleb Watson as a guest contributor to give a special introduction to his latest creation. We’ve featured some of his amazing models in the past such as the iconic ‘I am your Father’ Scene and the opening temple from Raiders of the Lost Ark. His newest model is starkly different from his past works being a chromosomal model designed for a project in his 11th-grade genetics class. He worked on this several-thousand-piece model for about two months and he explains his processes for designing it along with the scientific background behind the project.

The Building of an NF1 Chromosomal Model

By Caleb Watson

It’s no surprise that school is one of the biggest factors in my life that dictates how much time I’m able to build my LEGO models (along with friends, family, and running). As a result of this, I’m always looking for opportunities to integrate LEGO into what I need to do for school, which is how I came to build this model.

Right now, I’m wrapping up my junior year at Ballard High School in Seattle, and along with that, the final year of the three-year Biotechnology career pathway, a set of STEM-focused classes organized in a small cohort that takes biology, chemistry, and genetics. The first-semester project for genetics this year was to write a 9-page research paper covering everything about a genetic disease. I selected the disease Neurofibromatosis because it is quite common yet not well known, and has many interesting and unique attributes. For the second semester and capstone project of the Biotechnology Career Academy, we had to use the information we’d learned in our research papers to create a science project for the Student BioExpo at Shoreline Community College. Seeing the opportunity, I chose molecular modeling with the intent of building a LEGO model for my project. Continue reading →

LEGO City 60230 People Pack – Space Research And Development [Review]

Among LEGO universes, space exploration is the new Pirates. And the new Castle, too. Space is trending like never before. Quite uniquely, LEGO isn’t only revisiting historic moments, but also gives us a glimpse into the future of space traveling; this is what LEGO City summer 2019 sets are all about. The lineup consists of familiar concepts for ships and vehicle, but there’s one set that stands out from the rest, 60230 People Pack – Space Research And Development. The set brings a stunning assembly of 14 minifigures along with a bunch of accessories and equipment. It consists of 209 pieces and retails at US $39.99 | CAN $49.99 | UK £34.99.

Click here to continue reading…

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for June 23, 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 June.

TBB News and reviews:

Explore where paved road ends with the new LEGO Technic 42110 Land Rover Defender set– We brought you the latest Technic vehicle for rugged offroad adventure, LEGO style.
LEGO 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage, the biggest LEGO dino ever– We went beyond just a review of the new Jurrasic World set with excerpts from an exclusive TBB interview with the set designer Mark Stafford.

The Brothers Brick Readers’ Survey 2019 – win 10266 Apollo Lunar Lander– We’ve opened our latest reader poll, and we want to hear from you. And in case providing your valued opinions about how we can improve the TBB experience isn’t enough, we’re giving away a copy of the latest addition to the stellar LEGO space collection, 10266 Apollo Lunar Lander. The survey will be open until June 30th.
LEGO 77903 The Dark Knight of Gotham City revealed as San Diego Comic-con 2019 LEGO Exclusive– The second exclusive LEGO set for San Diego Comic-Con 2019 includes the Dark Detective, a couple of brooding gargoyles and a neat Gotham City skyline complete with bat-signal.
LEGO 77902 Captain Marvel and the Asis revealed as San Diego Comic-Con 2019 LEGO exclusive– The first exclusive LEGO set for San Diego Comic-Con includes Captain Marvel, a SHIELD jet, and the universe’s most terrifying feline.

Continue reading →

The heart is the soul, and sometimes the path to death

Biocup 2019 has kicked off this year with a preliminary theme of all things scary. Biocup is a fan friendly organised event where builders challenge themselves to use Lego Technic, Bionicle, CCBS (Creature and Character Building Systems) and Constraction with having little or no traditional LEGO System bricks involved. This particular round is themed on creations built on things that scare or put fear into your heart or send chills down your spine. Builder [VB]’s creation of a heart nailed right through is something to be afraid of. As much as the heart is one of the strongest muscle in the body, it’s also the one that can be the weakest or darkest in soul.

Nothing compares to the simple pleasures of riding a bicycle

Builder Mel Finelli is back on the saddle with another amazing bicycle creation, and this time it’s of a 1960s Schwinn Stingray. The construct itself looks like it defies all logic and gravity even up to the handlebars floating. I can attest they do all fit together and hold well, having seen her earlier creation of the LaFrance Super-Streamline in person. What enables this magic to happen is LEGO flex-tubes threaded through the colored parts. What may look simple in the end is the result of whole lot of patience and planning. It was definitely worth it.

Click to see more details of the build

Coastal Defence the East-German way

I live in a Dutch seaside town that lies mostly below sea level. So, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of coastal defences is the seawall visible at the end of the road. However, there’s an entirely different type of coastal defence of a less peaceful nature. The “Rubezh” coastal defence system looks like something straight out of a GI Joe cartoon, but it was a Soviet mobile anti-ship missile launcher. The version I built served with the East-German Navy, until German reunification at the end of the Cold War in 1990.

In early August, I’ll be at BrickFair Virginia, displaying LEGO models in a Cold War military collaboration. I’ve written about several of these in the last few months. I also intend to highlight some of the models by other builders who are participating. I’ve mostly built Western systems for the collaboration, so I wanted to build another Eastern block model. I specifically wanted it to be East-German because the division between East and West Germany was central to the Cold War.
Continue reading →

Tank Man immortalised in ABS

Singaporean LEGO builder Jeffrey Kong‘s latest composition is a simple yet moving piece marking the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Incident. Kong’s work, both with the brick and with the public, has inspired me many times, and this time its a combination of the two. The scale he’s chosen has brought out a well crafted yet ominous tank and unknown protester, with the large Chinese character 点, imposing its presence. Translated to “a small amount, a dot or a drop”, this character is censored annually on China’s internet. You can read more on Kong’s Instagram. Every part within this build is a common element, leaving a stark example that you don’t need countless complex combinations to achieve an elegant creation. I find the impressive compositions here relate more to the contrasting colour use and symbolism of what it represents. I do thoroughly enjoy the 2×2 round plate with Rounded Bottom that he’s employed inversely as the tank hatch though.