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.

Heroica kicked up a notch

LEGO’s fantasy RPG-lite board game series Heroica may not have seen all much success with adult gamers or builders, but I’d be willing to bet if the boards had looked more like this upgraded version by Kale Frost, there would have been a great deal more interest. With some lovely sculpting, Kale has created an interactive map that retains the checkerboard movement squares for the players, while adding fun micro-builds for the various locations. For details, the scattered trans light blue cheese slopes in the water add a nice bit of motion to the seas, while the robot arms make great bridge railings.

Kale notes that he’s planning to expand the game board to make an even bigger playing area, so we can’t wait to see else is in store for these tiny adventurers!

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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for September 2, 2018 [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 first week of September 2018.

TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: LEGO Technic proves that you can build anything you dream about, and the 2018 Advent Calendars are now on sale.

LEGO built a life-size Technic Bugatti Chiron that actually drives – The car is built from a million Technic elements, powered by 2,300 motors, and goes 20 mph.
LEGO reveals The Simpsons BrickHeadz including Homer and Krusty the Clown – The Simpsons is back in LEGO form, this time as a duo pack of BrickHeadz.
Review of LEGO Frozen BrickHeadz 41617: Elsa and 41618: Anna and Olaf – “Do you wanna build a snowman?” (Literally, do you want to build one?)
LEGO Advent Calendars and Hogwarts Castle now on sale – New sets now available include the Hogwarts Castle, LEGO Advent Calendars and Las Vegas Architecture set.

TBB FEATURES & INSTRUCTIONS: We have some sweet instructions for you along with two feature articles highlighting history in different forms.

- Instructions to build a LEGO Batmobile from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman Movie – Check out this guide to build the iconic sleek black Batmobile that you can fit a minifig inside.
- Feature: The minifigure turns 40: a colorful history of LEGO’s most beloved characters – Here at The Brothers Brick, we love minifigures and are excited to share the images and history behind the LEGO Group’s versatile and lovable characters.
- Feature: Brickfair Virginia Vietnam War collaboration – Fourteen builders from six countries collaborated to commemorate the Vietnam War through LEGO bricks.
- Enter Brothers Bricks’ LEGO Harry Potter microscale competition – Show off your stuff and you could win the massive new 71043 Hogwarts Castle.

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:
Check out the other LEGO news of the week

A divine monochrome Indian Mausoleum

Building in monochrome can often be a huge challenge, even if the source material is too. This lovely mausoleum by Jens Ohrndorf is a really great example of knocking that challenge out of the park. The Taj Mahal-esque creation puts some nice techniques to work, especially on the top. Also, the aged and yellowed bricks give it a feel reminiscent of being true-to-life.

This close-up photo really shows how neatly everything fits together. Overall, the perfect amount of detail is packed into a satisfyingly compact microscale build.

We have covered many of Jens’ awesome creations, and some of my personal favorites are his animals, including the mole, polar bear, rhino, and bison!

The last resort in building

Whatever happened to Fabuland – the 1980s animal-character driven play theme from LEGO – appears to be Dutch builder Sebastiaan Arts‘ raison d’être in creating his last habitat in the world. In one of the strangest takes on the post-apocalyptic theme, the various animal-headed Fabuland characters have holed up in the Last Resort, a towering orange residential complex.

See more of this LEGO Space / Fabuland mashup

Like an elephant, the trunk’s in the front of this Volkswagen Beetle

Lennart C is no stranger to the pages of The Brothers Brick and returns with another iconic vehicle, the Volkswagen Beetle Type 1! While the Beetle may have been knocked off the best-selling charts by the ubiquitous, evolving Toyota Corolla, the world’s longtime “Most Popular Automobile” can live on in our hearts with this stunning, slick black edition.

The model boasts some really great features for being such a compact creation, including working doors and engine lid, and teeny tiny foot pedals. Printed pieces from the official 10252 Beetle are smartly placed, and I’m pretty sure the seats have some degree of reclining action. Lennart is also already putting newer pieces to good use: the new 1×2 plate rounded with open studs is tucked away in the tail lights.

If you like this Beetle, check out more Volkswagen action in our archives!

TBB Cover Photo for September 2018: Bricktychon – The Wood Tryptichon

The TBB Cover Photo for September 2018 is this beautiful triptych (a fancy word for a picture or carving featuring three panels side by side), which shows the journey of wood during medieval times, from logging through cutting and use in a large building. The photo is a collaboration between three builders: Travis Brickle, who built the forest, Simon NH, who built the sawmill, and Ralph Langer, who built the medieval construction scene. While each of the builds is stunning in its own right, the builders did an excellent job coordinating their photography and build styles to create a trifecta of creations that tells a simple yet charming story.

Want to see your own LEGO creation featured across TBB social media for a month? Then read the submission guidelines and submit your photo today. Photos that do not meet the submission guidelines will not be considered, and will be removed from the group.

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The dragon with a flare for fashion

Dripping with charm and dressed to impress, TBB regular Sheo has built this most stylish of dragons. Capturing the spirit of the dandy in the beast’s elegantly coiffured wings and debonair attire; a triangle tiled handkerchief poking out from his suit’s breast pocket. You have to question the sincerity in Sheo naming him a respectable dragon; there’s literally a twinkle in his eye, formed from a clever combination of ring, small cone and mudguard elements. I can’t help but imagine passing him in some shady back street, tipping his hat and grinning roguishly as he goes about his disreputable business.

Awaken your mind with the Goddess of Inspiration

I’m always thoroughly intrigued by the build process and parts when a LEGO build does not have its signature sharp edges and squared-off parts. This build by mocworld bears a lot of resemblance to the operatic performer Diva Plavalaguna from the sci-fi movie Fifth Element. I never knew there were so many translucent light blue or cyan pieces in the LEGO arsenal of parts. The few that stood out to me include the head construct and the dress piece of which both are Bionicle parts. What impressed me the most was the head, which is actually made up of two separate pieces to form the headpiece and the crown-like feature.

This survivor of the apocalypse is not clowning around

Creating a street scene with real character is all about the details – big and small. And when it comes to post-apocalyptic scenes, like this street scene by Jan T. the best details are in the destruction and erosion of man-made structures as nature re-claims what is hers. I’m not sure how I feel about the clown. Either it would freak the heck out of me if I were to encounter him on the street, or it would bring a smile to my face, and we would share a laugh as we scrounged for supplies.

There are so many great parts used in this scene and one of my favorites is the use of the twisty stem surrounding the large leaf plant part that most of us just throw away. You can find these used as vines flowing in and out of the buildings. Then there is the mini-fig back brackets used to create a lovely architectural detail above the door on the left building. The broken walls and windows are also quite nice.

In a fishing town, where the sharks go to practice their 8-ball

A couple months ago we featured a spectacular LEGO shipyard, built by Arjan Oude Kotte. Adding on to his harbor town, his most recent creation is this awesome billiards hall. The architecture of this building has its own sense of style, as it perfectly resembles what you might think of when you hear, “Hamilton’s Billiards”.

There are lots of great side-builds used to create the signage and siding of the structure, especially the lettering. The roof shingles look fantastic as well! And, as always, the billiards hall fits seamlessly with the rest of the town. Our only wish is that we could see what fun lies inside!

We’re really impressed by Arjan’s attention to detail, and the story that he tells with his work. For this reason we’ve requested an interview! Stay tuned for a chance to learn more about this awesome builder.

LEGO Advent Calendars and Hogwarts Castle now on sale [News]

September has arrived and so have new LEGO sets, from the Hogwarts Castle and 2018 LEGO Advent Calendars to the Las Vegas Architecture skyline set. These will likely sell out quickly, so make sure to get yours soon before they are out of stock.

Click to take a closer look at the new LEGO sets for September 2018

Brickfair Virginia: fourteen builders from six countries collaborate to commemorate the Vietnam War [Feature]

Last year, after Brickfair Virginia 2017, over a few drinks Magnus Lauglo, Aleksander Stein and I had a discussion on what to bring for 2018. The three of us have been attending BrickFair for years and have often admired the large collaborative displays at the event, with builders creating something together. Because of this we figured it would be nice for us to collaborate too rather than bringing our own stand-alone models. We soon agreed to build scenes from the Vietnam War.

I suspect that most ideas that come out of conversations in bars lead nowhere and that is probably a good thing. However, earlier this year we found that we were still pretty excited about this idea and we found that more people wanted to get involved. Ultimately, eleven more builders contributed (in no particular order): Peter Dornbach, Stijn van der Laan, Matt Hacker, Dean Roberts, Eínon, Evan Melick, Casey Mungle, Corvin, Yasser Mohran, Bret Harris and Brian Carter. Corvin, Aleksander and I are the only builders who don’t live in the US or Canada to regularly attend the Virginia event, but our Vietnam group turned out to be a pretty international crowd. We had builders who live in six different countries: the US, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Norway and the Netherlands.

We picked Vietnam as the subject because we all watched classic Vietnam War movies when growing up, it is largely novel for most of us and it is far less common for military builds than models from, say, WW2. We considered building a single collaborative battle diorama, but chose to build separate scenes instead. It is hard to find a single battle that is actually interesting to build, as there is usually just a lot of terrain involved and multiple copies of trees, bunkers or vehicles. Separate scenes have the advantage of allowing different builders to give the subject their own twist. I was excited to see what the other guys came up with. The Vietnam War offers a lot of scope for building interesting military hardware, but we could also show some of the history, including the aftermath. Given the wide range of different models on display, we nailed it.

See more details and a gallery of the builds