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.

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for February 11, 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 February 2018.

TBB NEWS & INSTRUCTIONS: It is the calm before the storm. Next weekend is the New York Toy Fair so brace yourself for a barrage of set announcements, but for now here is a contest and a few instructions for your building pleasure.

Enter Kill Teal (Volume 2) contest to win 10260 Downtown Diner – Our friends over at New Elementary are holding a contest in honor of the color teal.
Build you own Punisher’s Café Racer – BenFifteenTheChicken shares how he built the café racer owned by Marvel’s Punisher.
Instructions for a tiny helicopter – GolPlaysWithLego has built this great microscale helicopter out of just 30 parts.

OTHER NEWS: There were a few other LEGO news articles from varying places around the web this week. Here are the best of the rest:

Life-size LEGO safari on show in Mermaid Quay, Cardiff Bay, BBC News – The 12 models, which include a 2.5m high African elephant and a 3m long crocodile, have taken LEGO artists over 4,000 hours to build, and are made up of about 600,000 bricks.
LEGO for a child with a hole in his heart, New York Times – What does a LEGO set mean to a child, or to parents who can hardly afford it? This narrative tugs on the heartstrings.
Duplo Jeopardy: Sell or keep your LEGO collection?, Judge John Hodgman Podcast – Caleb brings the case against his friend, Ryan. Caleb is ready to get rid of his LEGO collection, but Ryan thinks he should keep it in storage. Ryan says that even though Caleb thinks he’s ready to let it go, he will later regret parting with these sets. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
A LEGO zombie horde is the most fun of zombie hordes, Nerdist – YouTuber Nixolas decided to take the zombie genre and add a bit more whimsy to it. Instead of giving a bunch of human actors some undead makeup, they made a zombie horde out of LEGO figures.

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Ascending from the plains into the foothills

Master microscale landscaper Full Plate brings us another lovely LEGO scene that captures the moment on a roadtrip when he finally reached rolling hills and winding roads instead of the boring plains he’d been driving on. I often feel the same way when returning to the green of western Washington State from the barren wastelands east of the Cascade Mountains. While many of the builder’s previous microscale masterpieces have featured a wide variety of trees, this build is at a smaller scale, and uses varying heights in the underlying terrain to add variety to the forest of evergreens.

LEGO Technic Mack Anthem 42078 in stock on US Amazon [News]

This year’s 42078 Mack Anthem is the 5th largest LEGO Technic set released of all time, and it’s definitely a beauty. At the moment, it is on back order from the LEGO Shop online, so If you need to grab one (or two) they’re now available in stock on Amazon US for $179.99 (RRP). You can pick up your copy by clicking the image below!

Huge LEGO Star Wars carbon-freezing chamber from The Empire Strikes Back

One of the most moving scenes in The Empire Strikes Back is when Darth Vader freezes Han Solo in carbonite and hands him over to Boba Fett. Leia tells Han, “I love you.” Han of course replies, “I know.” Joshua Morris has recreated this key scene in LEGO, at a monumental scale that dwarfs 75137 Carbon Freezing Chamber (which I thought was a rather terrible set anyway). The entire platform lights up, giving it a very atmospheric look.

The platform is surrounded by tanks and pipes, with a catwalk where stormtroopers can ensure the Rebel prisoners remain compliant. “He’s alive. And in perfect hibernation,” Lando reassures Vader.

Achieve new heights in comedy with the stair car from Arrested Development

” Watch out for bridges and hop-ons. You’re going to get some hop-ons.”

TBB’s own Ralph Savelsberg continues adding to his collection of iconic vehicles with the airport stair car from the TV series Arrested Development. Ralph’s vehicles, built at a larger scale than the minifig-scale we typically feature, has a distinctive style that doesn’t shy away from showing the studs that LEGO is so famous for. With the stair car owned by the dysfunctional Bluth family, Ralph incorporates brick-built stripes as well as custom signage.

Naturally, the stairs actually extend, and the outriggers flip down to stabilize the vehicle.

The coziest hole you ever did see

Last month we featured Patrick B.‘s lovely version of Bag End, Bilbo’s house in the Hobbit and later Frodo’s in The Lord of the Rings. It turns out Patrick wasn’t done making cheery hobbit holes, though, as now he’s followed up with Samwise Gamgee’s home on Bagshot End, which is just as welcoming and snug.

It’s loaded with details, including lots of clever uses for unusual elements, such as the unusual Scala flower pot and vase paired together along with mini-doll Belle’s light yellow dress as large garden jars. Each section of this homely dwelling bears close scrutiny to tease out all the shrewd techniques. Continue reading →

Take to the skies in your own little helicopter [Instructions]

Perhaps this helicopter is actually a better size for ants rather than people, but it is definitely a fun little LEGO build. GolPlaysWithLego has built this great microscale helicopter out of 30 LEGO parts. The fuselage is built using some of the newer 1×2 curved slopes with notch and the tail rotor is a boomerang. Clever use of parts for a small build!

Click here for Instructions

A whimsical world with a waterfall

Whether in person or through the tubes and pipes of the internet, looking at a LEGO castle diorama has always been somewhat akin to viewing a renaissance painting in an art gallery for me. Like many great medieval artworks, there’s always so many things happening, and so many visually foreign and intriguing things occuring all at once — so much to take in. Brickwielder‘s latest build is filled to the brim with fun details and nifty building techniques. From the waterfall to the winding staircase, the bridge, or even all the foliage, there’s enough here to get lost.

To the moon and back again

Giving a fresh new twist on the classic LEGO grey-and-blue space theme, this shuttle by Horcik Designs is a perfect example of what fans like to call Neo-Classic Space. Despite its relatively small size, the shuttle seats two minifigures abreast in the trans-yellow clad cockpit, and the addition of lots of stickers adds a bit of extra flair that makes this spacecraft feel more industrial.

Continue reading →

One small step for man, one giant leap for pug-kind

I’m starting to get suspicious that LEGO builders are creating pug-themed creations because they know I’ll feature just about every single one. Well, keep it coming! This pug astronaut by 鄭仲恆 appears to be surprised by something he sees off in the distance above him. The space suit is well-constructed and realistic, with a bubble helmet to encompass the pug’s bubble head and bubble eyes.

Here at The Brothers Brick, we can’t help ourselves sometimes — we hope the talented builder doesn’t mind — and we took it upon ourselves to give this lovely space-pooch some adventures. Here he is landing on the moon. Or was he already there and he’s been surprised by the Apollo 11 crew landing next to him?

See more of this adventurous space pug’s adventures in space!

The speediest way to travel the future

It doesn’t take a big model or a lot of pieces to be clever with LEGO. In fact, one of the best ways is to take take a piece and find a use for it so good that it looks like the element was purpose-made for it. Case in point: the hood of the tiny speeder by F@bz, which was originally the barding (blanket) of a Friends horse. It’s also worth pointing out the background made of brick anti-studs and spaced plates, with a Mars Mission aero tube in the foreground.

Enter Kill Teal (Volume 2) contest to win 10260 Downtown Diner [News]

Our friends over at New Elementary are holding a contest in honour of the reintroduction of teal-coloured LEGO elements by LEGO. There are some great prizes to be won, including two Grand Prize winners receiving a copy of 10260 Downtown Diner. The competition is based on the ‘Mark Stafford Killed Teal’ story (if you do not know this story, it is explained on the competition page), and a previous build of mine that jokingly showed Mark Stafford killing Teal by sweeping it into a furnace.

Your entry should be a LEGO creation depicting the following: How might Mark Stafford kill teal again? The closing date is 22 February 2018, so there’s still time to get building and enter. All the details, rules and entry form can be found over on New Elementary’s contest page.