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.

The new 4000026 LEGO House Tree of Creativity set is yet another reason to visit Billund [News]

Tomorrow marks 5 months since the day the LEGO House opened its doors for all LEGO fans and their families. Back in September this amazing venue surprised us with the biggest LEGO creation is the world – a gigantic Tree of Creativity built of 6.3 million LEGO Bricks. Now you can get your own small scale Tree with 4000026 LEGO House Tree of Creativity set announced today. The 837-piece set will be available exclusively to the visitors of the LEGO Store in LEGO House in Billund. The set will retail for 599 DKK ($99 USD) on March, 1st. But hurry up! Only 10.000 copies of the set will be produced!

Learn more about the new Billund exclusive 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.

Even LEGO Garfield hates Mondays

Garfield was actually created by Jim Davies back in 1978, so he’s not doing too badly for a 40-year old cat. I imagine his love of lasagna, hatred of Mondays, general lazy nature and obsession with eating have not necessarily aided his longevity. This instantly recognisable LEGO version was built by Vlad Efremkin and captures Garfield’s reluctance to get up out of his cat bed in the morning. Those heavy eyelids are a particularly effective use of Commander Cody or Poe Dameron’s shoulder armour.

It’s still hip to be square

The latest trend for castle creations have focused on organic and colorful shapes, showcasing complex building techniques and intensive parts usage. A leading pioneer of this style is Derfel Cadarn, who created a guide in 2011 showcasing some detailed techniques that many builders have referenced. Before then castles used to be square, which you can see in examples from prolific builders from the previous decade such as Rocko, Darkspawn, and even hachi from the early 2000’s.

This brings me to the latest creation by Brother Steven, which purposely features simpler building techniques reminiscent of the old style of castles. The white walls and the staggered towers are strikingly solid features, an effect that is best achieved with the bread and butter technique of stacking one brick on top of another.

65,000 bricks at 88 miles per hour: The world’s biggest LEGO DeLorean from Back to the Future

While this LEGO recreation of the famous Back to the Future DeLorean time machine may not be the scientific breakthrough a real time machine would be, it most definitely is a great artistic feat. After being granted rights by NBC Universal, Ryan McNaught assembled a team to build this near-perfect version of the DeLorean from the first film out of 65,143 bricks.

Continue reading →

Take a 12 foot high ride on the Worlds largest Lego Ferris Wheel [Video]

While LEGO’s own official Ferris Wheel set stands at a measly 23 inches (60cm) high, this World record holding LEGO Ferris Wheel is a whopping 12 feet (365cm) high. Built by Tomáš Kašpařík, the same builder as brought us the amazing wooden-style LEGO rollercoaster, this creation contains over 40,000 parts and took around 300 hours to build. Amazingly, the ferris wheel is powered by 2 small LEGO Power Functions motors.

Click here to see a video of this huge ferris wheel in action

I love it when a van comes together

If I squeeze my brain juices and try to think hard of famous pop-culture vans that stand out, only two that come to mind — Scooby Doo’s The Mystery Machine and the GMC van from the A-Team TV Series. While they both have their official LEGO versions, nothing beats a great custom-built version. This GMC by Adam Grabowski (whose day job is as a LEGO set designer in Billund) pretty much nails it as a minifigure-scale build.

I can almost hear John “Hannibal” Smith’s very own voice calling out, “I love it when a van comes together.”

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for February 24, 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 fourth week of February 2018.

TBB NEWS & INSTRUCTIONS: After last week’s thirty news articles during New York Toy Fair, this week was pretty calm and all about cars.

Review of LEGO Speed Champions 75884 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback – This dark green car includes 183 pieces and will retail for $15.99.
Review of LEGO Speed Champions 75886 Ferrari 488 GT3 “Scuderia Corsa” – LEGO’s love affair with Ferrari continues with this red racecar, also $15.99, built from 179 pieces and lots of stickers.
LEGO Speed Champions 2018: More images to whet your appetite – More images of upcoming cars with detailed product info have been revealed ahead of their release in March.
Instructions to build your own vintage Bugatti – You can now build your very own vintage racecar thanks to instructions from Norton74.
Instructions to build your own LEGO Mario – It’s me, LEGO Mario! Create your own brick-built plumber with these free instructions from hachiroku24.
When Life Imitates LEGO – The Octan Gas Company – Did you know there are real-life Octan gasoline stations in Russia? We investigate this intriguing development.

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:

LEGO Group earns no. 6 spot on list of Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Consumer Electronics, Fast Company – The iconic toy brand made the list for boosting children’s coding skills and bridging the divide between physical and digital play.
LEGO builds foundations in China classrooms as old markets slow, Japan News –LEGO is hoping to build a following with Chinese parents by working with state schools to get kids playing with LEGO as a way to boost motor skills, creativity and attention spans.

Get a taste of Italy with the new LEGO Speed Champions 75886 Ferrari 488 GT3 “Scuderia Corsa” [Review]

With a dash of American muscle out of our system with the 75884 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback, we continue our look at the upcoming 2018 LEGO Speed Champions sets today with 75886 Ferrari 488 GT3 “Scuderia Corsa”. LEGO sent us an early copy of the set, which includes 179 pieces and will retail for $15.99 beginning on March 1st.

The Ferrari 488 GT3 is the latest endurance racecar variant of the 488 series, which builds on the legacy of the 458 produced between 2009 and 2015. The 488 is currently in production, and the GT3 has raced at Daytona and Le Mans. 75886 Ferrari 488 GT3 features the same model of current Ferrari racecar as 75889 Speed Champions Ferrari Ultimate Garage, allowing builders and collectors to pick up this contemporary racecar in two liveries at two different price points.

Read our complete, hands-on review of LEGO Speed Champions 75886 Ferrari 488 GT3 Scuderia Corsa

When Life Imitates LEGO – The Octan Gas Company [Feature]

Every city needs fuel to run, and prior to 1992, real-life oil companies like Shell, Esso, and Exxon provided the energy to keep brick-built LEGO cities running. Then, a new competitor entered the market — a Danish oil company that went by the name Octan. Soon, all the other players couldn’t keep up with Octan and that led to the dominance of a single supplier monopolizing the brick fuel market. Octan were not satisfied with just the ABS market, and it seems like the fictional gas company grew into a real-life company supplying gasoline to real-world vehicles… (HOLD ON RIGHT THERE!) Yes, you read that right… How did a fictional company become real?

Well, we’re not going to give you false hopes that we know exactly how a fictional oil brand came to exist in real life, but we just wanted to share a mysterious incident that popped up on the web. A screen capture appearing to show an Octan-branded gas station in the real world went viral within the LEGO fan community recently, and we decided to find out what we could. We may not have all the answers, at least for now, but we do hope that someone will step forward to give us some background and context.

Click here to read more about our investigation into the real life Octan oil company

Build your own LEGO Mario [Instructions]

If you have been dreaming about having your own poseable LEGO Mario figure, then dream no more! hachiroku24 has created a LEGO version of the world’s most famous plumber and had kindly provided instructions to allow others to build their own Mario. He can be posed in a variety of ways thanks to the use of Mixel joints.

Click here to see the parts and instruction video

Fabulous superspeeder hops into spring

While it is generally accepted that cheetahs are the fasted land animal, you may not know that the fastest ‘air’ animal is Bonnie Bunny in her superspeeder. Yes Bonnie Bunny may have enjoyed camping in her caravan and playing in the playground in official LEGO sets, but her true adrenaline-junkie nature has been exposed by Pico van Grootveld. The adorable speeder is fits Bonnie Bunny perfectly with some cheery spring yellow parts and nice sticker application.

The Fabuland creatures always scream cuteness but there’s nothing better than crossing Fabuland and some of the other LEGO themes. If you liked this Fauland/Star Wars hybrid then you will also enjoy a Fabuland-themed Millenium Falcon or this fabby Tie Fighter.

A different kind of office

This scene might have a table and chair, paper and writing utensils, but it’s still different from the stereotypical view of a modern office. This architect’s office by Anthony SÉJOURNÉ is equipped with everything a master draftsman needs, and more — it really is what every architect needs for their planning and design.

The table is simple, but really well built, with gray pieces added to dark tan with structural as well as aesthetic benefits. I love the carefully cluttered snack cupboard and the chair, which has more details than it reveals at first sight. Overall, the creation benefits greatly from the slightly larger than minifig scale, at which brick thicknesses and all minifig utensils become less disproportionate than they are in a regular minifigure’s hands.