I’d always imagined that a Stormtrooper’s lot was a hard one. Endless patrols beyond the Dune Sea hunting down pesky Rebels; and for what thanks! These LEGO Sandtroopers by LEGO 7 go some way to humanising the Empire’s faceless heavies. Built with dirty and distressed body armour and posed reminiscently of soldiers from real-world conflicts, I absolutely buy into their battle-weary plight. It’s a genuinely touching human tribute to one of Star War’s most recognisable bad guys.
When I saw this dental chair built by Luis Peña, I was uncomfortably impressed. On one hand, it triggered anxiety about needing to schedule a dental appointment. At the same time, Luis’ attention to detail brought my teeth out of hiding with a beaming smile. The entire scene feels authentic, with a tilting chair, folding overhead lamp, and a drill. “Yikes!” Luis presented this lovely model to his sister-in-law, who is celebrating her 30th anniversary working as a dentist.
There are a few cars from the 60’s that are instantly recognizable in any form they take, and the Mini is definitely one of them. Originally produced from 1959-2000 by the English-based British Motor Corporation and its successors, it became an icon for British popular culture. This LEGO model by Pixeljunkie captures the iconic vehicle quite nicely. The custom chrome elements and racing stripes give the tiny car so much character, and the use of a minifigure roller skate for the door handle is pure genius. I also love the gold ingot piece as the headrest on the driver seat.
Oh, and in case you are wondering… it does fit a minifigure driver.
YouTuber The Action Brick shares the love for Fortnite and his LEGO knowledge with a couple easy-to-follow minifigure-scale building guides. Gather your materials and drop into these instructional videos showing how to build a glider and Loot Llama from the wildly popular battle royale! These mini builds were featured in his vignette of the Fatal Fields region.
First, we have the default glider. After following these instructions, all you will need is a minifigure avatar to fly it!
Second, we have the cute little Loot Llama! Will its contents lead to a victory royale?
The wizarding world is back with a new Fantastic Beasts movie this fall, and with it comes a whole bunch of new LEGO, such as Newt’s Case of Magical Creatures. Over the years we’ve featured a lot of great custom Wizarding World LEGO creations here on TBB, but these vignettes by Thorsten Bonsch are among my personal favorites, capturing some iconic scenes from the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which was released to theaters in 2016.
The collection opens with Newt on the deck of the ship that will deliver him to New York. One of my favorite parts is the black robot arm that makes the armrest on the bench, which gives it a great wrought-iron look.
Next, there is the scene at the New York Customs station, where Newt disguises his mysterious case as an ordinary collection of mundane possessions. All of the other mini-figures in the scene are well suited to the time period. Also, this scene has some of the best floor textures I have seen in a while, including a simple 1×1 plate set upside down. Continue reading
Markus Rollbühler whipped up some wholesome LEGO goodness in the form of this fabulous classic bakery. Markus put a lot of thought into the ingredients that went into his build, with an excellent use of parts throughout the model. Both parts of the LEGO treasure chest are used to form portions of wooden beams, book binding elements are used to form windowsills, and the sprue from the new minifig wand accessory is cleverly used to form the body of a candelabra. Keeping up with the bakery theme, Markus even managed to use pretzels for windows and the honey-laced beehive to form the top of the conical shaped roof. There are plenty of other awesome details to spot. What are some of your favorite techniques on display here?
Today LEGO has announced LEGO Cube, the first fruits of their partnership with developer Tencent Games, part of the massive Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent. The new video game is an open-world, sandbox game and is designed for mobile platforms. LEGO expects the game to be publicly available before the end of the year, though they’re not yet ready to announce specifics yet, such as whether it will work on both Android and iOS, and how much players can expect to pay, including whether or not it will feature micro-transactions.
The initial launch appears to be focused on the Chinese market, but LEGO is calling the Chinese release a “preview” indicating that there may be plans for a wider release down the road. The game joins several other new properties developed in partnership with Tencent, including The LEGO Video Zone, an online safe harbor for children’s digital entertainment and featured on Tencent Video.
It remains to be seen exactly how this game will differ from LEGO’s current open-world, sandbox game, LEGO Worlds, or whether Cube is simply a mobile port of that existing game. Watch the Chinese trailer here, and you can read the full press release below.
If you thought the famous train from Harry Potter, the Hogwarts Express, couldn’t be built any smaller than the delightful model by David Zambito that we featured a few weeks ago, you’d be wrong. As proven by this even smaller model by Letranger Absurde, the build uses skeleton arms and a curvy horn as the smoke, and roller skates for wheels. One of the best parts usage, though, would have to be the white and dark gray rocky sloped parts used to form snow-covered peaks. Now I have to wonder if we’ll see an even smaller version any time soon.
This LEGO model was built as an entry for TBB’s Microscale Magic contest. Coverage on TBB of an entry will not be taken into consideration during judging, and will have no effect on its ability to win, either positively or negatively.
BrickCon 2018 in Seattle is about two weeks away, and we are giving away tickets to the public exhibition! Come see the amazing LEGO creations that builders from all around the world have brought to BrickCon. (You may even see some of your favorite writers from The Brothers Brick roaming around in our bright green shirts or hanging around the massive Ninjago City we are building!)
The BrickCon 2018 Public Exhibition is open Saturday Oct. 6 and Sunday Oct. 7 from 10am to 4pm, located at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. You can get your tickets online now, but they will sell out soon.
The Brothers Brick is giving away three family packs of four tickets each, good for entry on either Saturday or Sunday at any time. The contest runs from today for a week until 11:59 pm on Wednesday, Sep. 26. Leave a comment below about what you are most excited to see at BrickCon 2018 to enter.
We’ll randomly select three entries Thursday morning and then notify the winners. Winners will be able to pick up their tickets at the will call window at the BrickCon Exhibition Hall beginning Saturday morning when the exhibition opens to the public.
The Brothers Brick is an official sponsor of BrickCon.
Personally, I find it a bit of a sad testament to where hip-hop music is heading compared to it’s original socially conscious roots. But whether hip-hop fans love it or hate it, the bizarre video for the latest collaboration between Kanye West and Lil Pump is already being widely hailed as “meme gold”. And it’s easy to see why from the costumes donned by the two rappers in this Spike Jonze production – costumes that are almost as over-the-top as the song’s lyrics. With many people comparing the look to characters from the ersatz-Minecraft game Roblox, a LEGO interpretation seemed like the next logical step. So I made one. You’re welcome!
In February 2018, an impressive test launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket was conducted with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as the payload. For SHIPtember each year, LEGO builders challenge each other to build a LEGO spaceship (in which “SHIP” means “Significantly Huge Investment in Parts”) at least one hundred studs long. Adrian Drake took up the challenge to construct an impressive LEGO model of Musk’s roadster and its dummy pilot “Starman.” Whether it counts as a spacecraft for SHIPtember is debatable (we believe it does count!), but it hits the 100-stud-long mark (about 31.5 inches) and is shaped and sculpted rather well at this scale.
The fully detailed cabin interior is worth a closer look.
See more photos of Adrian’s Tesla Roadster and Starman on Flickr.
This neat microscale creation by Lennart Cort absolutely nails its subject, literally reducing Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble to bricks and studs. Building at this scale requires that rare ability to see the archetypical aspects of its theme in individual elements, and who would have thought a 1×1 orange and a 1×1 brown brick would represent these Stone Age buddies so well. The foot-powered car similarly convinces in its use of cylinders for rock wheels. Here at TBB we are dazzled by so many amazing piece uses in the models we see, so it’s always good to be reminded that sometimes the base elements of the LEGO system are all that’s needed to have a yabba-dabba-doo time!
