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.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for September 16, 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 second week of September 2018.

TBB NEWS: This week was relatively quiet for news, seeing only two large sets becoming available for purchase, and the announcement of Bricklink’s new design program.

75222 Betrayal at Cloud City and 10263 Winter Village Fire Station available – Whether you’re already prepping for Christmas or just want to see Han Solo dunked in a vat of Carbonite, LEGO’s two newest sets are ready for you this week.
Bricklink announces AFOL Designer Program – LEGO partners with Bricklink for the latest way for LEGO fans to have a chance at their designs becoming official sets.

TBB Reviews & Features: This week’s reviews were all about Star Wars, and we reviewed two sets from their respective trilogy’s middle movies, The Empire Strikes Back and The Last Jedi.

Review of LEGO Star Wars 75222 Betrayal at Cloud City – We do a deep-dive in this hands-on review, examining every aspect of the first-ever LEGO Star Wars Master Builder Series set.
Review of LEGO Star Wars 75230 Porg – We’re taking a look at LEGO’s first-ever life-size creature from Star Wars, the cute Porg.

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Melt the hearts of thy enemy — or then again, there’s always the laser blaster

Star Wars never looked so good as with this LEGO Friends-themed makeover. This B-Wing is a fully custom build by Tyler Sky and reimagined for a more colourful Rebel vs Imperial universe. If the peaceful and friendly lasses can’t melt the heart of their enemies, my advice is to just lock, load and fire the ion cannons away! What makes this even slicker is the lack of visible LEGO studs (save for a couple around the sides of the cockpit). And if you really like this, read our earlier article on Tyler’s similar take on the Y-Wing

Aiwan Ting Pavilion is eye-pleasing, both inside and out

When it comes to building historic Chinese architecture from LEGO bricks, it can prove challenging to capture the sweeping curves of rooftops and ornate details. While we’ve seen builders employ a variety of techniques for this, with his model of the Aiwan Ting Pavilion, Chinese builder Smoker Nie has managed to pull off both the shape and the details in an especially eye-pleasing manner. Aiwan Pavilion is located on Mount Yuelu in the Chinese province of Hunan.

Smoker’s building is an excellent likeness, both inside and out. According to the builder, 12350 LEGO bricks were used in its construction.

Click to see more of this LEGO Aiwan Pavilion

How to build a Grumman E-1 Tracer early warning aircraft from LEGO: Part 2 [Feature]

This article is Part 2 of an ongoing series. Read about the LEGO Grumman E-1 Tracer Part 1 here.

About two weeks ago, I started building a new aircraft model: a Grumman E-1 Tracer. Because some of you might like to know how one might build such a LEGO scale model, I am documenting my process in a short series. In the first part I described why I decided to build such an oddball aircraft in the first place and how I plan a build like this. I also explained that I usually start by building the difficult bits. A few of those are the subject of this article.

The Tracer’s wings are not quite perpendicular to the fuselage. This wouldn’t be much of an issue if the engine pods and the main undercarriage weren’t attached to them. I have built angled wings before, including some rather large ones. In practice, however, it is almost impossible to mount the wings using hinges and also have them carry much of the model’s weight. Furthermore, if I were to build the wings at some weird angle, I would then have to figure out how to align the engines attached to still be parallel with the fuselage. My solution is to attach both engines directly to each other and also to the fuselage using a bridge structure. I built this bridge perpendicular to the fuselage using plates. I then put the actual wings on top of it. By combining 2×3 and 2×4 wedge plates I filled in the gaps where the tops of the engines join the wing. Getting everything to fit nicely involved a lot of trial-and-error, but it works.

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LEGO Cloud Strife and his Chocobo ride into the sunset.

When Final Fantasy 7 came out for the PlayStation console in 1997, I spent many, many hours playing it, and one of the most pleasurable aspects, aside from kicking the pixels out of a multi-stage boss in epic 45-minute battles, was riding all over the world on my trusty Chocobo, searching for the elusive Giant Cactuar. This creation by Vincent Kiew captures the game’s protagonist, Cloud Strife, astride his Chocobo in large scale.

Vincent managed to make the Chocobo look very light on his feet, which is exactly how they looked and felt in the game. Also, Cloud is very accurate to his on-screen inspiration, down to the large clunky hands, his giant sword slung across his back, and that signature spiky anime hair.

Building a filthy habit

LEGO building is cool. Smoking is not. Everyone clear on that? Excellent. Having got that public service announcement out of the way, we can get on with featuring Andreas Lenander‘s excellent LEGO ashtray. This is a brilliant bit of work — a nicely-executed cigarette and cigar, a snake for a twist of smoke, a pile of grey bricks for ash, and a little trans-orange lurking within as an ember’s glow. Add in a brick-built tablecloth with a retro 70s feel and some appropriately gloomy photography and you’ve got a cracking little creation.

Cumulonimbus dead ahead! The “unsinkable” Skytantic

One of the most gorgeous airships to grace the skies has finally emerged from the distant clouds. This is the long-awaited Skytanic, built by Markus Ronge and alluded to in his equally epic-looking Maersk Pier, featured on The Brothers Brick last week. In Markus’ steampunk universe, the airship’s massive size was made possible thanks in part to the ultra-light steel used in its construction. When it comes to the characters involved in the ship’s construction, Markus once again gives them clever names. Hiram Lever is the designer behind Skytanic, which is in turn piloted by Captain Ulysses Wheeler.

From bow to stern, Skytantic looks phenomenal. The red, black and white hull is reminiscent of the ill-fated Titanic, while the gold trim helps give the finished model that steampunk vibe. According to Markus, the ship stands a whopping five stories tall, and each level looks distinct. The top level features a lively looking bar, and the royal cabin is directly below that. If you look carefully enough, you will also find what appears to be a tribute to the Jack and Rose “flying” scene from James Cameron’s hit film, Titanic (1997).

Click to see more of the Skytanic

LEGO Star Wars 75230 Porg – The Last Jedi’s cutest creature is now a life-size LEGO set [Review]

Love them or hate them, Porgs are one of the most iconic creatures from the new Star Wars sequel trilogy. Nearly universally loved for their cuteness, the tiny feathered creatures have featured prominently in promotional materials and scores of toys from The Last Jedi right from the beginning. The first minifigure-scale LEGO Porgs appeared in the 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon last year, but LEGO is now releasing a life-size sculpture of the fuzzy birds. 75230 Porg contains 811 pieces, and we believe it will retail for $70-$80 USD beginning in October, but LEGO has declined to confirm either the price or the availability date at the time of publishing.

Update Oct. 1: The set is now on sale from LEGO for $69.99 in the US ($89.99 in Canada | £59.99 in the UK).
Update Sept. 17: LEGO has confirmed that the official release date for 75230 Porg is Oct. 1, and it will retail for $69.99 USD.
Original update on Sept. 16: We have personally observed this set being sold in retail stores, where it’s priced at $69.99 USD. Obviously, that also means that it’s already available, at least in some markets.

Click to read our full, hands-on review

Per Ardua Ad Astra — LEGO Supermarine Spitfire takes flight over Britain

Per Ardua Ad Astra — “Through adversity to the stars” — the motto of the UK’s Royal Air Force, and what sprang to mind as Paul Nicholson‘s LEGO version of a Supermarine Spitfire thundered into view. For a small model, the shaping is pretty good, capturing the iconic elliptical wing shape well, and there’s a nice mix of colours to create a camouflage effect. And the use of 1×1 “cheese slopes” delivers the essential touch of the raked exhausts down the sides of the engine. I’m less of a fan of the forced-perspective base — I think the presentation would have benefitted from further separation of the plane from the ground, and perhaps a tighter depth of field pushing the background out of focus. However, despite those minor photography gripes the plane itself is a cracking model, immediately recognisable and eminently swooshable.

Red resilient rescuers ready to respond, react and recover

If you take your LEGO city build and public services seriously, these are the unsung city rescue heroes you need. Steven Asbury has some serious skills that bring these vehicles to life, consisting of a rescue boat that sits four minifigures towed by a truck, along with a proper fire truck ready to pump out some high-pressured H20 to show who’s the boss around here.

See more of these LEGO rescue vehicles

A sailor’s paradise

What better way to relive that perfect holiday than to recreate it in LEGO! Paul Trach has the right idea, building this stunning Dufour 520 Grand Large yacht bobbing on an azure Caribbean sea. The gradients of blue, created by layering trans-blue tiles over suitably selected black and grey plates, evoke the Antiguan paradise perfectly.

The yacth is a beauty too, sleek and elegant, and filled with accurate nautical details. Check out its beautifully laid timber deck, splendidly precise sail and rigging, and plate thin hull. All that’s left to do is kick back and enjoy the scene.

Motoring through the ages with Peter Blackert

When LEGO car builders come to mind, Peter Blackert is probably one of the most prolific. Over the past few years, Peter has churned out dozens of high-quality LEGO cars, and it isn’t unusual to see him share four or five new builds in a given week. Peter is well-qualified to be making brick-built cars because he works as an engineer for Ford Motor Company. Last year also witnessed the publication of his book, How to Build Brick Cars. Peter renders his digital models using POV-Ray, and his portfolio of LEGO cars is rich and diverse, consisting of a wide range of makes spanning over 100 years of production. Having looked through his models, we have decided to pick a car for each decade spanning the early 1900s through the 1960s. They look nice individually but, when grouped together, they help tell a story of the motor industry.

1900s – Curved Dash Oldsmobile:

At the turn of the Century, automotive design was still heavily influenced by horse-drawn transportation. This period also represented a mechanical gold rush, with tons of individuals and organizations attempting to make their mark on the industry. One of the most important contributions to the industry during this period was the assembly line, which allowed for cost-cutting mass production. Credit for this development is often given to Henry Ford and the Model T, but the Curved Dash Oldsmobile was America’s first mass production car. Peter’s version of the Curved Dash looks faithful to the original and looks wonderful with its top up or down.

See more of Peter’s amazing vintage automobiles