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.

LEGO Star Wars 40288 BB-8 May the Fourth free promo set [Review and Mod Instructions]

May the Fourth or “Star Wars Day” is right around the corner, and LEGO has sent us an early copy of the free promotional set, 40288 BB-8. The set will be available May 4th through 6th (or until supplies run out) with LEGO Star Wars purchases over $75. We’ll bring you more details on the May the Fourth sales and deals later this week, so check back soon for more updates.

This buildable character joins the large-scale 75187 BB-8 released in 2017, and is about the same size as last year’s buildable R2-D2, so let’s dig in and see how this new droid compares.

Read our full review of the buildable BB-8 promo set

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

This little dude has all the doodads you are looking for

We all love Star Wars, but why should only the spaceships and battle scenes get all the love? How about some Jawas? This is what I imagine could have gone through Jacob Sadovich‘s mind when starting this build. This Jawa is so realistic, I just want to sell all my scrap copper to it!

What I really like about this build is that it is 100% LEGO, including the cloth. We have seen large Jawa figures in LEGO before, even life-sized ones, but most of them cheated at least a little. There is more to Jacob’s interpretation than just the robes, of course. The eyes light up and the belts with pouches are ironicaly made out of pouches with belts. The ion gun the little guy is holding in his hand also adds a lot to the character, as does the Technic-lined base.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

At the far end of Bagshot Row at number 10 is the house of Fredregar “Fatty” Bolger, the son of Odovacar Bolger and Rosamunda Took. Patrick B. has captured Fatty with his wife and a furry friend outside his beautiful house at Bag End — another Shire creation for his “ExploringTheShire” project he started a year ago.

Like many a member of the online LEGO community, Patrick has credited fellow builders in the comments on Flickr to acknowledge where he has “borrowed” Jonas Kramm’s cobble design and appropriated the watering can design from Simon NH. I love how the online LEGO community reminds me very much of Hobbiton in more than a few regards.

Exploring personalization with LEGO BrickHeadz 41597 Go Brick Me [Review]

In case it wasn’t obvious from previous features, we here at TBB love BrickHeadz, and the recent release of 41597 Go Brick Me has fueled the fire even more. Since we already published a full review of Go Brick Me, I decided to take an alternate approach with my own early copy and focus on putting the versatility of the included parts to the test. As mentioned in the full review, the most amazing aspect of this set is the ability to personalize your BrickHeadz character to truly reflect your own unique appearance and personality.

So, let’s jump right in.

Transformation from a classic Beetle to an Off-road adventure

Larger LEGO sets always have enough pieces to make a decent alternate build — after all, that’s what LEGO bricks are meant to be, an unlimited configuration for limitless creations. This offroad vehicle was made by Nathanael Kuipers from the 10252 Volkswagen Beetle, and the colour scheme likely gave it away at the very first glance.

I find it pretty interesting how the Round Corner 5 x 5 x 1 without Studs element usually reserved for the shaping of the wheels is now used for the shaping of the engine hood compartment. And of course, no vehicle can run without an engine block — the only mystery is that we just don’t know what the brick power is that keeps it running. My guess is a single H-block engine 4 studs wide!

A Miniature Mediterranean Masterpiece

One of the joys of building in microscale is the challenge of doing more with less. In “The Bull Girls,” flickr user Letranger Absurde has proven adept in the art of micro-building. The entire scene has a Mediterranean flair to it. In particular, the microfigure with the red dress reminds me of a Spanish flamenco dancer. You can even find a piece of a flamenco dancer in the thatched-roof building…literally! The curtain over the entrance is actually the dress from the Series 6 collectible minifigures flamenco dancer.

It’s amazing what one specific part can do bring a little LEGO creation to life, and this model is packed full of fun details. The use of the black wizard beard for hair is brilliant, and I’m a big fan of the roller skates & cupcake holders that make up the microfigures’ dresses. The curved tree trunk also adds a lot of character.

My favorite part is the bull, which uses brown frogs for legs, minifig arm for a tail, “gorilla fist” for a head, and white cattle horns that first appeared in the 1994 Pirates Islanders theme. It’s a truly inspired design!

Infinitely small LEGO Avengers

Massive new Marvel movie coming out? What better way to celebrate than with a set of teeny-tiny LEGO Avengers? I couldn’t resist giving these guys a go in micro/nanoscale. There’s not that many characters you can reduce to this scale and still keep them immediately recognisable, but the distinctive colour schemes of comic book superheroes make it possible. The model is not quite purist — there was a little bit of cutting involved (HERESY!), and two sections are balanced on each other rather than stuck together. But I think it looks cool so I’m begging forgiveness. (Bonus points for any eagle-eyed commenters out there who can spot which piece I cut…)

Behind the Scenes – Getting into the mind of builder Eli Wilsea [Video]

This scene was built by Eli Willsea (also known as ForlornEmpire) for a recent brick challenge. Brick competitions usually consist of using a seed piece of which various builders have to find clever ways to use it in their creations. The seed piece for this build is the Silver Goblet. See if you can spot how they were used in the theme.

What’s great about this build is not only the level of detail it took to pull off this futuristic lab scene, but Eli took the time to share with The Brothers Brick an exclusive in-depth behind the scenes video on how it was built. He shares the thought process and analysis you won’t be able to grasp by just looking at a static photo. If you have aspirations towards doing a scene like this or even just want to enjoy hearing what goes on in a builders brainwave when constructing a complex scene, this is for you.

Did you enjoy the video? Would you like to share your creative build process with the world? We are always looking for interesting builds and videos to feature and discuss. Feel free let us know, and you could be the star of the next video!

Finally! A dewback worth talking about

Everybody’s favorite sand lizard has been featured in a few LEGO sets over the years, but they have not been much to get excited about. But this dewback and sand trooper scene by LEGO 7 is an amazing tribute to this Imperial beast of burden on the remote Outer Rim planet of Tatooine.

The dewback looks to be posable and features some impressive organic sculpting using a variety of curved and sloped parts. And that yellow lever base for eyes is genius. The sandtroopers also deserve close attention, and while a bit clunky, they do capture the likeness pretty well at this unique scale.

And speaking of scale, here is the official dewback and rider for comparison.

LEGO Star Wars 75211 Imperial TIE Fighter from Solo: A Star Wars Story [Review]

From 7146 TIE Fighter back in 2001 through 75101 First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter in 2015, the iconic Imperial starfighter has evolved significantly. The latest incarnation in nearly two decades is 75211 Imperial TIE Fighter released to support the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story in May. This latest TIE Fighter set includes 519 pieces and 4 minifigs, and retails for $69.99.

Let’s dig in to find out how this latest TIE stacks up against its predecessors — the 2015 LEGO TIE Fighter from The Force Awakens in particular. Minifigures may reveal SPOILERS ahead of the movie’s release, so you’ve been warned!

Read our complete review of 75211 Imperial TIE Fighter

The hottest and coolest guard post

What better place to stand guard during the winter than by a hot spring? The scenery in this diorama by Jaap Bijl truly is something to look at — in fact, perhaps it’s “scenery” that the dwarves are protecting!

The builder has used his signature sagging roof style lined with a bit of snow, along with some nice wood construction on the building. While the building uses some new ideas, the star of the show is the hot spring. It uses window pane pieces as the water to make the surface extremely smooth, giving it a great reflection and allowing the deep colours underneath to be seen. These colours continue outwards on the shore in a gentle gradient to the sulfuric yellow that ends under the snow.

B is for beauty, and B-Wing Starfighters too

B-Wing fighters are truly under-appreciated vehicles in the arsenal of the Rebel forces in Star Wars and similarly, in the LEGO world, I’ve yet to see a decent build until now. This stunning creation by Patrick Lacroix uses a colour scheme that stands out quite a bit with the red highlights and great use of the blue transparent base parts from the Dimension series which has those RFID tags inbuilt at the exhaust ports. It uses the same style of caterpillar tracks modelled from the LEGO 10227 UCS B-Wing release for the cockpit but in the more common black parts, and the best part that Patrick mentioned is, it rotates as it rightly should so as the main feature! While I wasn’t quite sold on getting a B-Wing to add to my collection, I believe this has changed my mind!

Click more to see the beauty of it all