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.

Building the winds of change

This mini-windmill model, built in collaboration between Mark van der Maarel and his son, resonates with positive energy. It’s wonderful to see the pieced-together building style normally associated with post-apocalyptic creations being used to covey a green message. The salvaged sails and junkyard components of the windmill are offset by wonderful foliage and neat tulips formed from lever bases. Nature is thriving here, a theme that resonates with LEGO’s recent plants set made from sustainable plastics.

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Living around an ancient tree

We’ve seen a lot of LEGO castles built deep in forests, hidden among tall spreading trees. But John Klapheke takes an absolutely different approach to the idea of the landscape in and around his latest micro-castle. Instead of surprising us with enormous amount of greenery around the castle, he plants only one tree, but right behind the castle walls. I must admit I love how this scheme makes my imagination work: is it an old gigantic oak towering over the castle, or is it a regular forest tree occupied by a tribe of small mythical creatures? And it is simply stunning how a small sail boat leaving the pier adds a whole new storyline to this charming creation.

10 fan projects have qualified for the second 2018 LEGO Ideas Review [News]

The LEGO Ideas team has just announced that ten projects have achieved the required votes to qualify for the second 2018 LEGO Ideas Review. These ten sets reached the 10,000 supporter mark between May and September 2018, and as a result have made it into the next phase of the process, in which LEGO makes a decision about whether to select the design to become an official LEGO Ideas set.

Of course, there is no guarantee that LEGO will decide to produce any of these designs as an official set, but each fan-designed project deserves congratulations for reaching this important milestone.

See more about each qualified project

Half a kingdom, a tenth of the size

Microscale offers LEGO builders an opportunity to create epic layouts within a reasonable footprint and parts budget. Peter Ilmrud takes full advantage of these benefits to create a sizeable slice of a fantasy kingdom, complete with an impressive mountaintop city guarded by a dragon. The city itself is nicely done, with clever combination of bricks to make windows from the little gaps. Aside from the towers of the citadel, the scenery is packed full of all the fantasy details you’d expect — sprawling forests, riverfront villages, guard towers in the hills, and a cave entrance which doubtless leads into a dungeon complex overflowing with goblins.

I particularly like the river winding its way through the landscape, the banks smoothed with a nice selection of curved plates. It also offers a setting for some smart parts usage — check out that ship made from golden epaulettes mounted upside-down on a jumper plate. Sweet.

LEGO Exodus Black from Destiny 2 stands nearly 3 feet tall

It’s that time of year again for SHIPtember — one month to build a spacecraft over one hundred LEGO studs in length (approximately 31.5 inches). I haven’t participated successfully since 2014, when I built UNSC Savannah from Halo: Reach. 2018’s build worked out much better, so I present my LEGO model of Exodus Black, a colony ship from Destiny 2.

See more photos of Nick’s Exodus Black after the jump

All aboard the tiniest Hogwarts Express

Just in time to bring a fresh batch of students to LEGO’s new Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle, this excellent microscale train by David Zambito jets across the English countryside in fine fashion. While the bright red engine and cars are most eye-catching, there are lots of easy to miss details throughout the rest of the build, including the intricately detailed track, made of rods for rails and upended tiles for ties. It may be a fragile construction, but it looks spectacular. Of course, the smoke from the engine must be mentioned, too, as it’s made of white robot arms and looks perfectly wispy.

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.

Interview with Takamichi Irie, builder of LEGO House bugs and a motorized BB-8 [Feature]

A couple months ago, we had the opportunity to talk to one of our favorite builders, Takamichi Irie, about his work. He is most notably known for his use of minifigure parts to achieve life-like shapes in creations ranging from insects to household items. His excellent attention to detail gives his creatures character. Enough character, in fact, to have several of his bugs featured at the LEGO House in Denmark.

Takamichi’s builds have been featured several times on our site, such as his exceptional motorized BB-8, based on the character from the Star Wars franchise. After writing about his Dipodidae, we knew we needed to learn more about his creative process, and ask him about his life and inspiration.

Tell us a bit about yourself! What got you started with LEGO? Was there a dark age, and if so, what brought you back?

I’m a student who studies Architecture and Landscape Design in Japan. When I’m asked about my passion for LEGO, I always say that I’ve been building with LEGO or Duplo since I was born, because I have an older bother. In my childhood, I asked my parents for only LEGO as birthday presents every year. But I couldn’t buy much LEGO for myself with my small pocket money when I was in junior high school. I only bought some of the small Star Wars sets for their minifigs at that time. That moment was my darkest age, and after that I started building and uploading my own creations on the internet.

Read the full interview with Takamichi Irie

Steampunk LEGO chess set makes all the right moves

Board games have provided inspiration for a few creations, notably this impressive LEGO Settlers of Catan model from last year, but it’s always great when a builder takes on the challenge of putting together an entire chess set. Mishima has had a crack at a steampunk-themed set, and the whole thing has worked out brilliantly. The board is smoothly tiled with some nice clanky touches, but it’s the playing pieces which steal the show.

Click through to see more of this excellent steampunk creation

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!

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