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.

1 week left to win a 6,000-piece Hogwarts Castle in the TBB Microscale Magic contest [News]

There’s only 1 week remaining to build an entry for our Microscale Magic contest and have a chance to win the biggest Harry Potter set of them all, the massive 6,000-piece 71043 Hogwarts Castle! There are some great entries already, but we think our readers might have a few more excellent scenes up their sleeves, or maybe even still in your imaginations. So don’t delay, as the contest ends before the stroke of midnight Sept. 30.

We have two categories for you to enter with big or small creations, each with their own awesome prizes. And the person who builds best in both categories will get their very own 71043 Hogwarts Castle, the largest LEGO Harry Potter set ever.

BIG category award: 75954 Hogwarts Great Hall + 41615 HP BrickHeadz (prize worth $115 and donated by TBB)
SMALL category award: 75953 Hogwarts Whomping Willow + 41615 HP BrickHeadz (prize worth $85 and donated by TBB)
MASTER WIZARD award: 71043 Hogwarts Castle! (prize worth $400 and kindly donated by The LEGO Group)

Be sure to read the full contest rules, and put your entries in our flickr group here.

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A note from the maestro

LEGO builder bbchai brings a bit of old-school class to the scene, to the tune of a lovely violin and bow paired with a bust of the famous musician Mozart. This wonderful composition would look great on any music lover’s desk. The clips which make up the embroidery on Mozart’s jacket are a superbly simple technique that works perfectly, and the lightsaber handles for the wig’s white curls are similarly great.

The violin and bow are masterpieces as well, with the plate 1×2 with handle making for excellent F-holes. Of course, they have a nifty little stand to hold them with the care they deserve.

I happen to know a song about the ancient hero...

Kass, the Rito minstrel from Zelda: Breath of the Wild is captured perfectly in this neat LEGO bust by Markus Rollbühler. The model makes great use of dark turquoise amongst more regular LEGO colours to capture the character’s bright plumage, and it looks like there’s a complex structure underneath it all to deliver the shaping, with bricks and tiles facing in multiple directions. The printed eye tile is a perfect choice, rotated out of it’s usual “frown” position, to evoke Kass’ cheerful disposition. Surely the challenge now is for Markus to build the rest of the character, accordion and all. Come on Markus, don’t let us down!

How to build a Grumman E-1 Tracer early warning aircraft from LEGO: Part 3 [Feature]

This article is the third and final installment in a series. Read about the LEGO Grumman E-1 Tracer Part 1 and Part 2 here.

In the last four weeks, I have been building a LEGO scale model of a Grumman E-1 Tracer aircraft. Part 1 described how I planned the build, and part 2 dealt with how I built some of the difficult bits; in this, the third and final part, I explain how I built the last bits, and present the finished model.

For weeks this build seemed to progress really slowly. I know that for some builders September means building huge spaceships. It took me most of this month to build just the radome, the nose, the wings and the engine nacelles. When I started building the fuselage, however, it felt like I had reached the home stretch. All of a sudden things went really quickly. Building the final parts wasn’t necessarily easy, but certainly easier. It was great to see the collection of separate sections come together into something that looked like an aircraft. The anticipation of seeing the end result motivated me. So, here it is.
Continue reading →

Chugging away the day in a trio of steamers.

We recently featured some terrific turn-of-the-century LEGO steam cars by Krzysztof Pusz. He’s back again, this time with some excellent steampunk vehicles. My absolute favorite is the monowheel, which puts the otherwise bulky Ninjago Airjitzu Flyer propeller blades to excellent use. I love how the internal mechanics are visible within the blades, and the side-mounted periscope solves the problem of “driving blind.” I’m not sure what the significance of the baby bunny is, but I like it.

Krzysztof has supplemented his steampunk universe with two other delightful models, one of which is his plane named the Golden Arrow. Incorporating Bionicle elements into the front end of the body looks appropriate for the subject matter. It also looks like the pilot has a hamster friend….I’m starting to notice a theme here.

Last but not least is the Bulbulator. It’s bulky form almost reminds me of military transport, which is probably why we can’t find any cute animals with this one. The risk is far too great and the antithesis of all that is cute.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for September 23, 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 fourth week of September 2018.

TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: Christmas is coming early with a few holiday themed sets as well as other news, sales and some instructions.

Review of LEGO Creator 10263 Winter Village Fire Station – With 1,166 pieces for $99.99 USD, is this newest set going to be a new holiday tradition?
LEGO Christmas Holiday BrickHeadz revealed – Mr. and Mrs. Claus are coming to town in BrickHeadz form a few months before the holiday.
LEGO Cube revealed, the first ever open-world, sandbox LEGO game for mobile – Designed for mobile platforms, the game is in partnership with Chinese company Tencent.
Citizen Brick Day 5.5 brings short-run prototypes and other rare minifigs – A couple times a year, Citizen Brick opens their vault, so let’s see what sales are inside.
Instructions to build your own LEGO Fortnite Glider and Loot Llama – The Action Brick shares the love for Fortnite with two easy-to-follow minifigure-scale building guides.

TBB CONTESTS & COLLABORATIONS: We are running a giveaway, collaboration and contest! Read these articles about how you can get involved.

Win tickets to the BrickCon 2018 Public Exhibition in Seattle – We are giving away tickets to the public exhibition where you can see some amazing LEGO creations on display.
There’s still time to build for TBB’s Ninjago City collaboration for BrickCon 2018 – With over 30 contributors signed up to participate, this collab will be massive!
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 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

The vegetable’s revenge

Angry Carrot is out for vengeance. It looks like Bunny is in a whole heap of trouble in this fun creation by Tyler Clites. The carrot is nicely shaped, and immediately recognisable with its burst of green leaves. Ball and socket Mixel joints give the mutant vegetable’s limbs some good poseability, but it’s the facial expressions which steal the show here. The half-strangled rabbit looks more than a little distressed with its protruding tongue and bulging eyes, and the carrot’s features are perfect — the curve of that eyebrow is the perfect addition to the asymmetrical eyes, creating a tonne of character with just a handful of pieces.

A fabulous frigate full of fantastic features

It really shows when a builder knows their subject, and that is absolutely the case here! According to Luis Peña his 1:200 scale LEGO model of a Type 23 frigate in Chilean Navy service was built with the aim of reproducing as many of its details and equipment as possible. Every aspect of the build, form the various surveillance and control radar to the ship’s 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun is a miniature replica of its real world counterpart.

My personal favourite features, though, have to be the microscale Cougar SH32 helicopter perched on its landing pad, and the Sea Wolf anti-air missiles’ vertical launching system, which Luis has built in epic mid-launch.

The One Ring to rule them all – the “spaceship” at Apple Park in LEGO

All devout Apple adherents must make a pilgrimage to the One Ring located at 1 Apple Park Way. In many ways the draw that the one ring had towards Bilbo and Frodo is quite similar to Apple loyalty and magnetic magic of desire when a new iPhone hits the stores. This LEGO model of the Apple Park may look quite simple, but it’s quite a feat in terms of scale and detail. Spencer R made references from early drone videos and whatever he could get his hands on.

See more photos and details of the Apple campus in LEGO

Steam around the block in style

Back in the early days of motor transportation, the internal combustion engine was far from the only option. For one, electric cars were roaming city streets a century before Tesla made it “cool.” There were also plenty of steam-powered options from the likes of Stanley, White, and the aptly named Locomobile. Inspired by this era, Krzysztof Pusz built a pair of princely-looking LEGO steam cars. My personal favorite is this dark green coal-hauling machine. Clear 1×2 plates look surprisingly nice as smoke, and the wood-grain tiles are used to great effect in forming the truck’s tilted bed. Another nice touch is the absence of a steering wheel in favor of a tiller mechanism. A lot of early cars featured tillers, which were levers used for steering.

A second variation on the steam theme is Krzysztof’s appropriately named U.BER. If you were having an Edwardian night on the town and had a bit too much to drink, you’d better call an U.BER! The use of a bladed claw minifigure element for hood louvers is particularly noteworthy and makes for a “steamtastic” job well done.

The lurker in the murky depths

Erstwhile LEGO gearhead guru Lino Martins is mixing it up, bringing us a big vignette of a haunting brackish backwater with a dark secret. This collection of treehouses forms a small bayou village, whose residents are sworn to placate a fearsome beast with blood sacrifices, often in the form of giant alligators lowered into the creature’s tentacled arms by means of a rickety contraption. The smooth dark green bricks make excellent ponds of stale water, with a smooth finish of algae broken only by a few small ripples as the monster’s arms raise.

What with the swamp being infested by an otherworldly horror, it’s best not to disturb that calm water, or indeed get anywhere near more than is absolutely necessary. That, plus the lack of land in the middle of swamp, means the townsfolk of Mangrove Swamp have all the necessities built on raised platforms, from farming to swine raising. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Bilbo and Frodo! It’s Hobbit’s Day!

Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born 78 years apart, but with exactly the same birthday, on the 22nd of September. It is their birthday today and thus they make a mark on our Gregorian calendar – declared as Hobbit Day! And to commemorate the festivities, builder Thorsten Bonsch gifts us with a vignette that’s worthy of a weary hobbit to rest and unwind with a warm and cozy corner of home tucked in a corner of the Shire. Thorston’s clever techniques with 1×1 plates for the arc of the fireplace and a tessellated centrepiece for the floor using an assortment of cheese slopes in a variety of colors, all lit with perfect lighting, makes this a breathtaking and picturesque scene.