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.

This build’s a barn burner!

If you’re ever in need of a emergency rescue, look no further than LEGO City’s finest as built here by Jordan Parmegiani! This firetruck is extremely well outfitted, with hatches containing a wide array of firefighting and rescue tools. Those hatches themselves are interesting. The large hatches were released in 1994 (making them just older than me) and were still in production in 2023, while the smaller hatches are originally from train sets released in 1991. Jordan has also made excellent use of official LEGO stickers in this build! The fire badge on the roof of the truck is lifted from a firetruck from 2013, and the large number 4 designation is from one from 2019. Even though this truck is called #4, I think it’s number 1 in our hearts!

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Microscale LEGO Mount Olympus is fit for the miniature gods

When I imagine the mythical land of Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods, I picture dazzling gold and expansive vistas. But Joe seems to have a bit more of a down-to-earth vision in this microscale vignette. There is still a fair amount of gold details among the roofs and statues, but the dominant palette is tans and terra cotta nougat. The use of large curved slopes attached sideways creates some great rockwork with a grand scale while many small smooth tiles and slopes gives the landscape a weathered look you would expect high among the clouds.

A LEGO castle where dreams take flight

Three years before Disneyland transported American families to fantasy worlds, Efteling park in the Netherlands brought fairy tales to life with European flare. Dutch builder Lucas Firestone makes his debut with a LEGO tribute to that theme park’s signature dark ride, Droomvlucht (Dream Flight), with his interpretation of the castle. Lucas does a great job capturing the castle’s dreamlike dimensions, with towers that jut out at gravity defying angles. Binoculars make for wonderful parapets. As much as we love the Disney Castle, it’s great to see other theme park landmarks in LEGO.

This murder scene will have you seeing red

The Film Noir Detective from LEGO Collectible Minifig Series 25 appeared in shades of gray, but he came with a colorful accessory: an actual red herring. This clever vignette by ABrickDreamer makes masterful use of the same two-color motif to create an arresting crime scene (no pun intended). Each splash of red is dramatic and eye-catching, like the mysterious red-handed man watching through the window, the woman in the flowing red gown fleeing the scene, and the blood tricking into the river. But whodunnit? The answer to that question is a little less stark: Is it the man with the blood-red hands? Is it the fleeing woman? Are they accomplices? Or was it the snake all along? Hopefully, our intrepid detective can get to the bottom of it soon.

Middle Eastern megacity is a triumph of LEGO collaboration and creativity

Every day we see incredible LEGO creations built from one person’s imagination and collection of bricks. When builders come together for collaborative LEGO builds, not only are we blessed with scenes of incredible scale, but the mix of builder styles harmonize to create to create something truly special. One such collaborative project debuted at BrickFair 2024. Organized by George Hawes and Michael Willhoit, the “Medinat Al Musawrah” collaboration depicts a fictional Middle Eastern walled megacity. The other contributers are Brian O’Leary, Intense Potato, Detroitika, Evan M, Renobricks, Ryan K, Skooby C, and Zach Bean.

This impressive scene captures the sort of 80s urban sprawl that inspired sci-fi works like Blade Runner. (Fittingly, many of the collaborators also participated in last year’s truly epic New Hashima cyberpunk collab at BrickWorld Chicago). But it’s real-world cities, like Cairo, Algiers, and Kowloon that inspire the grounded sense of place.

Continue on our tour of this epic Middle Eastern megacity collab.!

A(nother) peacock’s plume in bloom – this time dressed all in white

You may recall that this time last year, we featured a colourful LEGO peacock courtesy of Joe Lam. Since then, said peacock has gone on to be displayed at the LEGO House in Denmark – leaving poor Joe peacock-less. The solution? Build another! And it’s just as pretty as the first one. It uses a similar technique for the tail, being made up of leaf and foliage parts. But the monochromatic colour choice of white gives it an altogether different feel. This time, the colours are confined to the base, creating a lovely contrast, and drawing the eye towards this bird’s sole bit of colour: its eye. Hopefully we will get to see the two side-by-side before long!

SHIPtember comes around sooner every year... In, er, August?!

Now see here, ktorrek. We’ve seen your latest Seriously Huge Investment in Parts (SHIP), and we’re seriously impressed. Even more so to hear that it’s your 17th (!) such LEGO build; heck, we even featured one of the first ones some 11 years ago. But your calendar is a month out! SHIPtember – the annual build-a-spaceship-longer-than-100-studs challenge – doesn’t start for another week and a half yet. We were still mentally preparing ourselves for brick-built behemoth season! TBB Towers has been thrown into disarray by that clean colour-blocking and those awesome triple fins! Let’s file this one under SHIPtember: Early Access…

In all seriousness, we always look forward to SHIP season here at TBB – and ktorrek’s build is a great way to start. If you’re looking forward to it too, why not see what we’ve featured from previous editions of SHIPtember?

Magnificent painted owl springs to life

It’s the rare creation that can make you forget you’re looking at LEGO bricks while also making you love the LEGO medium even more. I know that the stunning “One Fell Swoop” from TBB alum Nannan Zhang is a LEGO model, but all I can see is a vibrant painting of an owl coming alive, so perfectly is the concept realized. The explosive creativity can literally not be contained!

Looking closer at the technique on display, the owl’s feathers are the flashiest. Chima wings in earth blue, mech swords in gold, surfboards in minifig and mindoll scale in vibrant coral make for a striking mix of plumage, and the dark red ruff of chima armor plates is magic. I love the shape of the eyebrows and especially the addition of boomerangs for extra dimension. The pale yellow eyes are a fun connection to the painting theme, sourced as they are from the Van Gogh Starry Night set.

Perhaps my favorite technique is the subtle gradient peeking through grille plates. That, as well as the tube of yellow paint and the unpainted moon, sell the illusion of a painting in progress. Hot dogs and cables used for motion lines further play with the mix of flat images and dynamic sculpture. It all adds up to a masterpiece that makes the most of LEGO form, colors, and connections.

This wandering LEGO amphibious vehicle is the ultimate in renewable energy transportation

Electric and hybrid vehicles are all the rage at the moment, but frequent TBB builder LEGO 7 has something else in mind. This whimsical crab-boat fuels itself as it wanders the sea and shore. The crab portion of the build is full of great details, and the boat is simple but immediately recognizable. My favorite part, however, is the old fisherman. With so many small details like the hat, beard, and the little pink element used for the mouth. There is even a small rubber duck next to him. He reminds me of Ivar’s character from the restaurant chain where I used to get fish and chips with my family when I was a kid.

Cruisin’ for a bruisin

TBB alum Mansur Soeleman is back with a heavy-duty LEGO cruiser that can dish it out with the best of them! Using only one technic plate, a slope, and two plates with bars, Mansur has built a gun turret that he’s peppered across the ship. I count seven visible, can you find more? Be sureake in all of the fascinating greebling between the armor panels on ship. And speaking of armor, gander at the tiny rounded indent just below the command deck, to the right of that turret. Mansur has added some extra texture using a pair of finger hinge pieces from yesteryear, likely to reverse the stud direction in the span of a plate. But, the star of the armor show is the 8x1x3 slope. Mansur has used six of them just on this half of the ship to create the angular and geometric paneling. With all of that done, all that’s left to say is “punch it”!

Nocturnal ninja life takes its toll

Atop the bell tower, a solitary warrior confesses her sins to the moon. This striking scene from Clockwork Bricks is a master class in contrast and perspective in LEGO. The foreground elements are dimly lit so as to appear all black against a night sky lit by the pink moon. Pagoda tile rooftops are a popular theme in LEGO architecture, but Clockwork Bricks manages to innovate here, incorporating tires into the tiles and a dragon’s wing for extra flare. Larger tires make up the bell. Brick-built clouds and micro builds of distant mountains sell the forced perspective.

Clockwork Bricks built this evocative scene for the 2024 Summer Joust competition, where it won top prize in the “Pick Your Poison” category.

A pair of builds that hit just the right note

The LEGO 21334 Jazz Quartet is a great set, but what happens if the musicians need to swap out instruments? PaulvilleMOCs has their back, designing these amazing instruments as a supplement to the official set. Both the sax and the trumpet fully capture the intricacy of the real-world instruments, achieved with a few simple parts in the case of the trumpet. The saxophone uses a bigger assortment of pearl gold parts to suggest the instrument’s various tubes and valves, along with a black mouthpiece. The pads (the little round things that lift up to produce different sounds) are represented with well-placed round 1×1 rounded tiles. Both instruments are accurate enough to give me vivid flashbacks of junior high band class.