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.

Aggretsuko: Twenty five, single, Scorpio, blood type A

Say hello to Aggretsuko (アグレッシブ烈子), the latest character from the creators of Hello Kitty. By day, this red panda is a gentle and kind accountant, doing the best she can in a job she loathes. But by night, she blows off steam by shedding the cutesy look for that of a raging death-metal karaoke enthusiast!

Originally aired as a series of shorts on Japanese television, the adventures of Retsuko have finally arrived on Western shores in the form of a Netflix original series. Taking inspiration from this unexpectedly kawaii take on the modern condition, I decided to try and capture Retsuko’s struggle using LEGO bricks:

Click here to see LEGO Retsuko with all her accompanying accessories

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LEGO Ninjago 70653 Firstbourne [Review]

Over the seven years that LEGO has been releasing sets from their very popular Ninjago theme, there have been a lot of dragons across a wide variety of sizes. The quality of design and play features has improved over the years, and I thought the recent 70612 Green Ninja Mech Dragon from The LEGO Ninjago Movie was about the coolest dragon so far. Until now. In our recent announcement of the summer wave of LEGO Ninjago sets there were two new dragons, and I got my hands on an early copy of 70653 Firstbourne, which is now my new favorite Ninjago dragon. The set includes 882 pieces and 6 minifigures, and it will be available in August for $69.99 USD, along with the rest of the new Ninjago wave and the Ninjago City Docks.

Click to read the full review

Seems like it’s a long way from home

Artist AdNorrel creates with his brick-strokes a unique composition of a surreal scene with a character making her way through the mountains. The texture of the bricks both below and above the ledge gives off a scary feeling of great heights to the path of this mysterious traveller. The placement of the distant mountains is a nice play with perspectives giving it a larger than life look. If this was my path home from work every day, I’m pretty much sure I wouldn’t get tired of this picturesque journey.

Updates to the Brothers-Brick.com Privacy Policy for the EU GDPR

You’ve probably seen dozens of emails and dozens of pop-ups about updated privacy policies from just about every website you’ve ever visited over the past few weeks, and Brothers-Brick.com is no different. Ever since our founding in 2005, The Brothers Brick has been committed to our readers’ online privacy and security. Like nearly all websites that share content for free, Brothers-Brick.com relies on advertising to cover the costs of server infrastructure, products for review, event travel, and so on. As a result, we have always relied on a variety of advertising partners and technologies to operate the website. TBB’s commitment to your privacy and security remains unchanged. Similarly, how The Brothers Brick uses your personally identifiable information is not changing as a result of the new Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that is coming into effect on May 25th, 2018.

LEGO City 60197 and 60198 will introduce the new LEGO Powered Up smart application [News]

The new City train sets have been revealed last week partially confirming the long-rumored updates of the Power Functions system. With only the pictures of the front of the boxes it was pretty hard to say whether the new system will support Bluetooth connection or not, but now, as pictures of the rear side have appeared online, the answer is “yes”; the new trains can be both controlled with a remote controller (included in each set) or with a smart phone.

Click here to read about the new Power Functions 2.0 system

LEGO Overwatch sets coming, Activision Blizzard announces [News]

Today at the Licensing Expo 2018 in Las Vegas, Activision Blizzard has announced they’ve reached a licensing agreement with LEGO for the blockbuster game Overwatch, according to Business Wire. Overwatch is a first-person shooter with a loose sci-fi setting, breaking new territory for LEGO in their licensing agreements, as they’ve traditionally steered clear of such properties. The announcement comes amidst a slew of other new license partners for Activision Blizzard, including UNIQLO, Nerf, and more.

There’s no word yet on specifically what sorts of sets we’ll see from LEGO, but with LEGO’s theme-crossing video game Dimensions finished, it’s certain this won’t simply be a small tie-in expansion pack. We hope they’ll be as cool as this yellow D.Va mech by TBB’s own Nick Jensen. And if you can’t wait to buy some official Overwatch sets, Nick has provided instructions for this mech in the link above.

Stunning AV-22 Sparrowhawk from Halo Wars

Video games are a great source of inspiration when it comes to building LEGO spaceships, especially the Halo franchise, with a wide variety of orbital, deep space, atmosphere, and ground vehicles from many space-faring species. Marius Herrmann, who has built models from Titanfall 2 and Horizon: Zero Dawn has built a stunning version of the AV-22 Sparrowhawk from Halo Wars.

While this might look like a digital render to some, the source for many of the unusual olive green elements is much more analog. The builder used a very careful application of spray paint to produce the needed parts for this wonderfully detailed craft, and the results speak for themselves, if you ask me. On the more traditional side of things, I especially like the propellers, made from a lattice radar dish plus mini-fig hands and hooks.

Here is even an added bonus, a depiction of the craft in action.

Hobbiton is more than just Bag End!

The excellent photography and advanced building techniques may be what drew my attention to this creation by Patrick B., but they are not the most interesting part to me. What is so unique about this creation is the accompanying description, crediting a handful of builders who inspired Patrick’s Sandyman’s Mill, either by building their own versions prior or as Patrick’s sources for some techniques used. It is normal for builders to both reuse previously discovered techniques and credit their sources, but I rarely see it like this particular example. It almost reads like a scientific publication!

Click to see and read more about the build!

Sebulba’s Podracer Revenge

I’ve been a fan of Podracers ever since they made their debut in The Phantom Menace. These strange vehicles have two bulky engines towing a cart that has very little protection if things go wrong. Jon & Catherine Stead take a spin on the iconic scene where Sebulba is defeated. However, unlike the movie, this time the Dug pilot has a souped-up, mean machine ready to take out any other future Jedi wannabes.

I guess one thing Sebulba didn’t quite learn is bigger may not necessarily mean better, as he opted for oversized engines yet again. Probably unseen and hidden are all those illegal mods to take out any other podracers that may be of threat. Continue reading for close-up shots of Subulba’s new podracer.

Sure to be smooth sailing, wind or no

The Esmeralda is an unusual LEGO ship for several reasons. First, it’s a steam corvette from the 1800s, a period when many ships were rigged with sails and outfitted with steam engine-powered screws. Despite the abundance of source material, not many LEGO builders have recreated these ships. And secondly, builder Luis Peña has chosen an interesting size, scaling the ship to the game microfigs.

The finished result looks excellent, with a ship that’s big enough to incorporate lots of details like the anchor pulleys, while still small enough to be manageable with a reasonable number of pieces. Other great details include the Technic panels as sails (a technique LEGO employed on the Sea Cow) and the excellent little Chilean flag.

The LEGO Movie 2 officially announced [News]

Today LEGO and Warner Animation Group have officially announced the sequel to their mega-hit film The LEGO Movie. Slated for release in theaters next February, exactly 5 years after the original, the new movie will be titled The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. We don’t yet have any word on the plot, but the movie has lined up the same all-star voice acting cast as the original, including Chris Pratt as Emmet, Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle, and Will Arnett as Batman.

Star World Wars II : Return of the Dogfights

Hardcore Star Wars fans would know that many of the scenes from the original trilogy were heavily inspired by World War II dogfight scenes, and even some of the ship designs were lifted from aviation bombers of that period. Builder Steve Peterson has reversed this inspiration and transposed the space vehicles back into what they could have looked like if World War II fighters were instead inspired by the vehicles from Star Wars. He took the fan favourites of the X-Wing, the Y-Wing and the TIE fighter and made them look very retro cool. It seemed like they stepped through a time transformation machine. If you’re familiar with the era, tell us what WWII aircraft you think inspired these builds!

Click to check out all 3 vehicles