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 October 7, 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 October 2018.

TBB NEWS & FEATURES: New LEGO Ideas sets, a never-been-done Star Wars locale, Overwatch teases and MORE in this week’s News Roundup

LEGO Ideas First 2018 Review Results bring the names of the next LEGO Ideas sets – Surprise! The latest sets (yep, SETS) to make it through the Review Stage are revealed
LEGO Star Wars 75251 Darth Vader’s Castle is unveiled – The Dark Lord of the Sith’s summer home on Mustafar gets a first-ever release, exclusive to Amazon!
LEGO Overwatch building set teaser reveals Tracer minifigure – The official Overwatch set teases continue, now with our first look at heroine Tracer
Review: LEGO Star Wars BrickHeadz: 41627 Luke Skywalker and Yoda, 41628 Princess Leia, and 41629 Boba Fett– Read what we thought of the latest Star Wars Brickheadz, including a comparison between Boba Fetts

OTHER NEWS: There were a few other interesting LEGO news articles from around the (spider)web this week. Here are the best of the rest:
Check out the other LEGO news of the week

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Modern methods for ancient masonry

Despite LEGO bricks being bricks, sometimes building realistic walls is the hardest thing to do. Isaac Synder‘s latest Castle-themed creation does exactly that, employing a parts-intensive and fiddly technique to create a lovely brick texture with well-defined lines between the stonework. It creates the effect of weathered masonry, and adds real texture and character to the building. I also like the formal square base, and think the angle chosen for the photography coupled with the colour scheme make this look like something from one of the classic isometric realtime strategy games like Age Of Empires or The Settlers. Great stuff.

Even better, the building has an interior — a textile shop complete with rolls of fabric on display…

Futurama BrickHeadz: whoop, whoop, whoop!

Mixing Matt Groening’s unique animation style with the BrickHeadz formula was always going to be a winning formula. Husband and wife team Palixa and the Bricks have certainly seen the potential, hitting LEGO gold with their sequence of Futurama’s supporting cast.

Dr Zoidberg is a joy, demonstrating how simple piece selection can make a model — modified clip plates doubling as mouth tentacles…

Zapp Brannigan is another standout — the slicked hair and ingot belt buckle effortlessly capturing his character…

Dual cockpits on a jewel of a spaceship

Giant LEGO spaceships are often built in microscale, naturally limiting the level of greebly detailing that can be added. Julien Andries takes the more unusual route of building a huge spaceship at minifigure scale, enabling the model to be packed full of functional-looking touches — from support girders, through grilles, valves, and piping, to laser turrets and access hatches. The twin engine nacelles (at least that’s what I’m assuming they are) look lovely — smooth and shiny in comparison with the more heavily-textured rear section. And the double cockpits are a nice touch, one of the few areas where Julien has departed from the John Wallin Liberto concept art he used as inspiration. Beyond this, the model is remarkably faithful to the original art, although the various gauges and pipes perhaps introduce a little whiff of steampunk — and that works for me.

Julien has also shared a couple of photos of the work-in-progress which give some insight into the formidable building techniques employed in getting those large cylindrical sections to looks so good…

Conducting research on modular science

Everybody loves modular buildings! Whether it is original sets or fan creations, modulars just seem to connect with people, Łukasz Libuszewski included, judging by his recent build called Victor’s Lab. The building is made in a Victorian style that fits well with many official LEGO modular sets like the Parisian Restaurant 10243 on the right side and Łukasz’s older original creation on the — Old Town Pub.

I love the little “LODDI” logo above the door of a clothes shop and the angled wall in the corner, nicely finished off by slopes around the door. Elegant is the keyword here, with window ornaments and a steeply sloped roof that screams “classy!” If you want to see just how good Łukasz is, check out the concept art (which is beautiful in its own right) after which Victor’s Lab is modeled.

Teenage Mutant Ninja BrickHeadz

Four years have passed since LEGO last produced sets based on the Ninja Turtles TV series. If BrickHeadz had existed back in 2014, we would have likely seen sets featuring blocky versions of the turtles. Fortunately, Charles P has filled the void with seven charming BrickHeadz versions of characters from the classic franchise. All four of the turtles are here, complete with their appropriate weapons. Raphael’s tilted eyes perfectly capture his “rude” attitude from the original TV show’s opening song. Master Splinter, Shredder and even Krang have also received the BrickHeadz treatment, and they look just as whimsical and fun. Speaking of fun, I think singing the show’s opening song is the best way to introduce Charles’ models.

“When the evil Shredder attacks, these turtle boys don’t cut him no slack.”

See more TMNT BrickHeadz after the jump

All’s well that ends well

The annual LEGO build challenge SHIPtember is over, but we’d be failing our obligations to you our readers if we didn’t highlight Simon Liu‘s Frontline Artificial Intelligence Logistics Supervisor. This brutalist, monolithic behemoth has a great contrasting colour scheme of primarily dark grey, with subtle hints of vibrant yellow and brilliant orange. I love the juxtaposed angles that Simon has created with a variety of interesting techniques. The FAILS serves as the logistic hive centre of the SL Drone Fleet. Heavily armoured but completely unarmed, the SL FAILS depends on its fleet to be its defence.

Classic Space is all grown up

Neo Classic Space has existed for some time as a modern interpretation of the nostalgic grey and blue theme from the early official LEGO space sets of the late 70s into the 80s. But builder AFOL anon is stepping up the game with the sleek space cruiser. The SHIP (easily clocking in the 100-stud length for a SHIPtember entry) retains the styling of its smaller cousins, with an arrowhead shape, side-mounted blasters, and spoiler, while simultaneously smoothing out the hard edges.

I particularly love the shaping from the rear, where it gives off faint vibes of a Super Star Destroyer in classic space livery.

LEGO soot sprite from Spirited Away will warm your heart

If you’re a fan of Hayao Miyazaki films, then this LEGO creation inspired by the 2001 release Spirited Away by Chris Xenyo will be instantly recognizable. These little fuzzy-looking critters, known as soot sprites, or Susuwatari are formed from soot, and they can lift things much heavier than themselves. Without a job to keep them busy, they sometimes revert back to soot.

Even though the model is fairly simple, the attention to detail, from the spiny look (made from black levers) to the thin and spindly arms and legs (made from flexible tubing) is very accurate to its on-screen inspiration. Even the background which includes the tiny tunnels where the Susuwatari makes their homes, and the wooden platform that borders their path to the furnace, make this scene jump straight out of the movie.

Straight out of the ’70s, this classic wagon is “groovy.”

From 1972 through 1994, Ford marketed the Granada (not to be confused with the U.S. Granada, which is a different vehicle) as a an executive car for the British market. Mateusz Waldowski built this slick LEGO version of a 1977 Granada MK1 station wagon, and it looks well-suited for any minifigure family vacation. In terms of accuracy, Mateusz has done a great job of capturing the overall shape of the vehicle. The grille is spot-on, and the five-wide half-stud offset technique used for the upper half of the vehicle helps emulate the subtle slant of the window pillars.

Mateusz put a lot of effort into detailing his station wagon, and the end result is enjoyable. It sports windshield wipers, a top-mounted luggage rack, clever door handles, and even custom chrome trim (represented by strips of silver decals). Another enjoyable feature is the tilt to the front wheels, which helps create the impression of steering. I almost want to take this adorable wagon on an overnight camping trip!

An absolute unit of a mech

There are mechs designed to transport cargo, to build new worlds, to race against each other, to save lives… And then there’s the Thunderbolt — designed, well, to destroy. The builder of this titan, Japanese mecha master Moko, made sure every tiniest piece of the mech’s design forebodes its foe’s fast, yet painful death.

But, of course, it’s not the mech’s color that gave it its name. The real show starts once the yellow bracers come open and everything around is illuminated with stunning lightning effects. This is when you notice old LEGO Technic 9V wired connectors running along the mech’s forearms; what a brilliant example of functional elements doubling as decorations.

Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the first in its series to truly delve into darker themes and atmosphere. It seems this mysterious and gloomy tome is what inspired Simon Hundsbichler to build his latest creation, a microscale scene of the Durmstrang ship’s arrival at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry.

It seems Simon has a phobia for normal bricks, as there are hardly any throughout the build. There are a few used as the lake and some plates visible here and there, but everything else is built from “specialized” parts and more or less exotic tiles and slopes. Of course, the inner construction probably has a lot of basic bricks, but here the looks are probably the most important. The best details have to be the tower’s roof and the wings used as waves. It is not all just in the cool parts used and in the combinations of bricks most people would never think to put together; a big impact is made by the lighting, photography and the subtle background added in post-production. I can almost hear the wind howling and waves crashing!

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.