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.

Porco Rosso’s racing plane takes to the skies

We’ve featured half a dozen or so Savoia S.21 flying boat from Porco Rosso over the years, but it remains one of my favorite LEGO aircraft whenever I run across a new version. This latest incarnation of the racing plane from the 1992 Hayao Miyazaki film is brought to us by Volker Brodkorb. The airplane’s huge engine mounted forward of the cockpit makes this plane instantly recognizable, as do the striping on the angled wings.

Volker uses curved slopes attached studs out to achieve the sloping shape of the boat-plane’s hull, and the pop of yellow on the front of the propeller is a lovely touch.

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Beware the brunt of a grunt

I seriously don’t know what this is, but it definitely looks like a grunt that you’d want to stay away from. Builder Leonid An must have had an inspiring day to be able to dream up of this one – someone must have made him quite cross indeed. I did notice Grunt has a great choice of clothing! I wonder where he does his shopping or did Mrs. Grunt go for sewing lessons?

Click to see Grunt show off a few more poses

Great Plains grazing

What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo. Okay, terrible jokes aside, here’s an excellent pair of LEGO bison put-together by Jens Ohrndorf. The shaping is excellent, as is the restrained colour scheme, and the mix of smooth and studded pieces used creates an effective simulation of the bison’s patchy shaggy coat.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen bison models by Jens. Check out this cute pair of tiny LEGO bison and a mammoth we featured a couple of years ago.

Build your very own working Nerf dart gun with LEGO [Instructions]

Yes, boys and girls, if you really want to stand out amongst the crowd when all your friends have regular dart guns, here’s one that’s guaranteed to make them go green with envy. Astonishing Studios built a fully working Nerf Dart gun using LEGO.

Well, the only caveat is you’ve still got to purchase the foam darts, which is going to still put a hole in your pocket.

Click to find out how to build your own

A brick-built home is always in fashion

When it comes to LEGO houses, Sarah Beyer builds some of the best. We’ve taken a look at her jungle holiday home previously, and whilst this house might be less exotic in its setting, it’s no less accomplished in its construction and fit-out. The tan walls with their black detailing offer a sharp contrast to the feature wall, letting its striping really stand out. The landscaping and planting around the house create a sense of a cared-for property situated in a pleasant urban neighbourhood.

As ever, Sarah has included a detailed interior, including this stylish upstairs bedroom with its floor-to-ceiling windows. However, all that natural light comes at a cost — I notice there are no curtains, so the privacy may be somewhat lacking.

Click here to see more photos of this lovely model

Fifty shades of green

This microscale LEGO landscape by Emil Lidé offers a picturesque insight into the expansion of the LEGO colour palette — particularly in green. The model’s colour scheme effortlessly recreates a realistic forest feel, and the variety of colours is supported by the variety of construction techniques used amongst the trees. Beyond the forestry, there are some lovely touches — don’t miss the tan Technic pins used to create the wheat field, and the fence built from brown minifigure hands. The only thing I’m unconvinced by is the elaborate border on the diorama’s base — I think it distracts from the central build and would have been better as a plain construction. However, that’s a minor quibble with an otherwise excellent creation.

Final Solo: A Star Wars Story LEGO set photos just in time for the latest trailer [News]

The LEGO Group have sent us the final LEGO Star Wars set photos for Solo: A Star Wars Story just as the final official trailer has hit the Internet. With the complete set of photos now in hand, this is the perfect occasion to take another look at the sets and compare them to the ships and machines as seen in the trailer. While some of the sets are already in stores, the rest go on sale this Friday, April 13th.

75210 Moloch’s Landspeeder – 464 pieces, $39.99

Review by The Brothers Brick

Since The Brothers Brick never misses a chance to bring you the very first look at the new models, you can also explore links to our early reviews right after the jump. Stay tuned to The Brothers Brick for full coverage of the remaining sets over the coming weeks.

Click here to see all Solo: A Star Wars Story sets…

A little aquarium comes to life as these LEGO fish really move [Video]

Brick-built aquariums are often extremely cool, but how many can say their LEGO sea-creatures actually move? My guess is not too many. But one clever builder, Mark Smiley, has managed to create an adorable little “LEGO Clockwork Aquarium” that does just that! With the turn of a crank, the fish move in a circle along the tank perimeter. There’s also a crab that hops up and down, and a starfish that spins! If you look closely, you can even see a little Easter Island head in the corner, and a shrimp in the helmet. The whole thing is modular and customizable. But just wait until you see it in action!

Click to watch the video of the tank coming to life!

An ace Sky-Fi fighter

When it comes to the “Sky-Fi” Dieselpulp style of LEGO building, one man is the undisputed master of the air: Jon Hall. He strikes again with his latest retro-flavoured aircraft — the P-98 Nemesis. The shaping of the hefty triple-fuselage structure is excellent, and there are loads of lovely touches on display — the strong colour-blocking, the raked exhausts peeking from beneath the engine cowls, and the racks of ordnance slung under the wings.

Packed full of Jon’s trademark attention to detail, the model includes custom stickers, a folding undercarriage, and a detailed cockpit interior. Check out this view of the seat and the instrumentation panel with its trio of joysticks. And don’t miss the spanner mounted up-front as a gun sight — great stuff.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for April 8, 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 April 2018.

TBB NEWS, REVIEWS, & INSTRUCTIONS: LEGO announced a new UCS set, and we take a look at several sets from the upcoming Star Wars film, along with a peek at what’s coming for Harry Potter.

- Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series 75181 Y-Wing announced – LEGO took the wrappings off this new UCS set, bringing the venerable starfighter to large scale for the second time.
- Harry Potter teaser site revealed on LEGO.com – LEGO is preparing for the long-awaited return of the Harry Potter theme, and we’re getting another early look.
- Review of Star Wars 41608 Han Solo & 41609 Chewbacca – These lovable smugglers are back in BrickHeadz form, as the first two sets to be released from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
- Review of Star Wars 75207 Imperial Patrol Battle Pack – Is this as-yet-unreleased set from Solo: A Star Wars Story really great, or just a way to get some minifigures? We find out in this hands-on review.
- Donald Trump (unofficial) BrickHeadz instructions – Want to build your own copy of our April Fool’s Donald Trump figure? Check out these instructions, which uses mostly parts from the new Go Brick Me set.

See what else happened in the world of LEGO this week

Scorch is the final LEGO Titan

Shortly before the release of Titanfall 2 in October 2016, talented builder Marius Herrmann uploaded his first Titan build of Ronin. After that he went on to recreate the rest of the mechs from the game, but stopped short of Scorch. But now Scorch has been completed, and it may be the best of the bunch.

Like the other Titans, Scorch was done in his base colour, which translated into mostly light tan. But the amount of added detail from black, dark tan and a few printed pieces make this far from boring. The overall shaping is just about perfect but it’s the small details that make this build so incredible. This continues around the back of the build and you can spend a long time staring at this and pointing out all the great parts usage. The only thing that’s really missing is the thermite launcher, but that’s more than forgiven here.

Incredible self-driving LEGO train system shuffles balls around endlessly [Video]

This railway contraption by Akiyuki seems to have a single objective: mesmerizing viewers with an incredible orchestration of moving trains while appearing to be doing something relatively productive.

Its only function is a closed looped system that transports LEGO balls. This type of machine is commonly known by LEGO fans as a Great Ball Contraption. Here, the machine consists of a circuit of tracks and seems to perform a crucial task, and that appearance is itself quite a major feat of design and ingenuity. For me, I’d prefer to call it out as an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) machine—which is a fancy way of saying it gives me the shivers—and it makes me want to stare at it continuously.

Consisting of several modules and utilising four carriages to transport the balls from section to section, let’s take a look at the various modules that make this thingamajig tick.

Click to see the modules in detail