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.

Cloud dragon rules the skies

Dragons are the quintessential fantastical creature, common in myths from cultures around the globe, and a muse for artists and sculptors for centuries. LEGO builders are no exception — and here it’s John Cheng who has succumbed to the dragon’s call. This striking dragon bust is lovingly assembled from a well-chosen selection of curved and sloped parts, creating a great impression of musculature beneath scaled skin. Further, the blue and purple colour scheme is bold without being garish, and allows the lightning-flavoured horns on the dragon’s head to really pop from the image. The cloud-styled base of the model works nicely too.

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TIE’d for first place

The iconic Star Wars TIE Fighter is a frequent subject for LEGO creations — both in official sets and fan-built models. Each iteration and interpretation is unique, but this TIE by Jerac may be one of the most detailed renditions I’ve seen. Familiar with the craft from countless hours of enjoying Star Wars films and games, it appears to me that no detail on Jerac’s model is out of place. Even little touches weren’t overlooked, such as the red dots and hexagonal hole in the rear of the cockpit.

Jerac also presents an equally stunning, screen-accurate model of the TIE Interceptor…

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for January 7, 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 first week of January 2018.

TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: A new year brings a new wave of LEGO sets, as well as the first LEGO events of the year.

10260 Downtown Diner brings 1950’s flair to Creator Expert Modular Buildings – The latest Modular Building heads in a new design direction and resurrects the color teal. What do we think about this new LEGO set?
853663 LEGO Iconic Holiday Magnet – The 2017 holiday magnet set is on sale at the end of the season. Is it worth picking up?
Bricks LA, Southern California’s premier LEGO convention, happening this weekend – See LEGO creations from builders all over the world at the Pasadena Convention Center right now.
Happy 2018 + the best LEGO of 2017 – Check out our roundup of roundups to see what we thought of 2017 as we rang in 2018.
2018 LEGO sets available now, including Downtown Diner, Shanghai and more – The January assortment of LEGO sets has hit stores, including the new Modular Building 10260 Downtown Diner, LEGO Star Wars sets, City, and more.

TBB INSTRUCTIONS: Creative builders around the world share how they’ve designed their custom LEGO models, and LEGO provides a way to build sets even without buying them.

Build your own LEGO cuckoo bird – While you’ll have to engineer your own working LEGO cuckoo clock, Sven Franic has provided instructions for his lovely LEGO bird.
Instruction Guide for the Promotional 60th Anniversary Special (40290) now available from LEGO – LEGO has released instructions for the forthcoming 60th anniversary promotional set so you can build it ahead of its release.

OTHER NEWS: There’s always plenty of other news about LEGO from around the web, even if we’re not able to cover every story here on The Brothers Brick.

Note: Like many of you, we’ve also seen the leaked images of LEGO sets from the upcoming Han Solo movie and rumored set lists from a resurrected Harry Potter line. We’ll be sure to bring our readers all the details about those sets once we have better-quality information from more-reliable sources. As always, TBB is committed to bringing our readers trustworthy news rather than just rumors and speculation.

Bricks (and mortar) to help make everything awesome for Lego in Hong Kong, South China Morning Post – LEGO is opening a retail store in Hong Kong, which has the largest LEGO fan community per capita in the world.
Lego’s just the job for Dan, Keighley News – A home for special needs people in the UK is collaborating with a local LEGO shop to provide valuable experience for its residents.
Houston artist makes Jose Altuve portrait with LEGO, KHOU.com – Houston, Texas resident Joseph Kraham spent about 200 hours building a portrait of Houston Astros baseball player Jose Altuve from nearly 44,000 LEGO bricks.

KHOU.com

Little church perfect for your little ant friends

LEGO builders can sometimes overcomplicate things, perhaps ignoring simple techniques because they feel obvious, regardless of how effective they might be. However, this microscale Lego church by Jens Ohrndorf goes to show you don’t need a thousand pieces and complex techniques to create something excellent. We’ve seen it before, but the minifigure hairpieces make for perfect treetops, and then there’s the use of the 1×2 brick with groove as the side windows — a simple yet effective parts choice.

Stand back or you’ll get burned

The creation of LEGO Mech models is in intricate process whose complexity is often under-appreciated. While most LEGO creations are static and fixed in place, a well-built mech often has multiple points of articulation, and requires sufficient balance along with flexible poseability. The play factor is something that you can’t really feel from a photo, but only appreciate its looks from a design perspective. I’ve been lucky enough to hold this creation by Benjamin Cheh in my own two hands, allowing me to see in detail how the parts provide maximum articulation of shoulders, arms, and wrists, and how it all fits into place in a modular fashion.

Hit more to have a closer look at this fire beast in detail

Livin’ in the wild

A LEGO creation doesn’t have to be themed around the post-apocalypse to feature individuals surviving in the wild using repurposed scrap and salvage. Travis Brickle presents a vignette featuring a makeshift shelter made from the hull of an old bus. There are outstanding details that rewards those who zoom in on the photo for a closer look. Can you find the custom built gramophone, easel, and rake? For a dwelling so removed from civilization, there’s certainly no shortage of household items to live comfortably!

A fireteam needs a Guardian to lead the pack

Destiny 2’s equal parts science fiction and fantasy allowed its artists to imagine some unique designs for its exotic gear. One such design is the sidearm Rat King, which has a relief of a pack of rats on the slide and a rat skull surrounding the hammer. Bryce Dempsey replicated this exotic pistol in LEGO, creating its slide and grip texture without sacrificing function.

Bryce’s Rat King features a moving slide, spring-loaded trigger, and removable magazine, all demonstrated in this video.

The empire strikes back to the 1980s

The Empire Strikes Back was released back in 1980 and is still one of the most popular Star Wars films to date. Josephine Monterosso has captured the likeness of two of the main characters from the movie, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, as BrickHeadz. Each character has some great little details to enjoy that are a step beyond the official Brickheadz style, but there are no rules when it comes to building your own characters. Luke’s flak vest with its tubing is a lovely touch and, along with the helmet and visor, really makes this character recognisable.

Han Solo’s fur-lined hood works well with simply some studs on show to give texture. I love the use of a palisade brick to give the clinched-in appearance to his parka waist — it really adds some flair.

See more 1980s movie characters built in this style

Al-Danah, a fortress above the clouds

John Snyder takes a fantasy spin on Islamic architecture with Al-Danah, a fantasy fortress. His fabled fortress is exceptional in several aspects: lovely choices of color, simplified cartoony textures, and a unique cloud technique that makes its elevated location convincing.

The Empire marches on

When The Empire Strikes Back first premiered in 1980, Star Wars fans of every age had their collective minds blown when the AT-AT first marched across the snowy battlefield of Hoth. Since that day, the AT-AT has surely become one of the most referenced vehicles in Star Wars, with the possible exception of the Millenium Falcon. Tim Goddard has put together a LEGO creation intended to show the AT-AT in relation to the new AT-M6 featured in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and in doing so, has achieved a highly detailed, accurate depiction that stands out very nicely. I especially like the use of tiles of many sizes to achieve a paneled look, including a few headlight bricks to pop some tiles out.

Looking at the underside and leg assembly shows a particular attention to detail and captures the complicated mechanical nature of this unique vehicle.

Check out these other awesome LEGO AT-ATs previously featured on The Brothers Brick:

Easily lift up to 10 tons with the Raptor Mobile Crane powersuit

Dutch builder Pico van Grootveld has been building a series of “Raptor” powersuits over the past few weeks, but his latest is definitely my favorite. The mobile crane variant looks great in yellow with the red crane boom, complemented by warning labels and a whole bunch of gears and other exposed machinery.

See more of Pico’s great powersuits in classic LEGO themes

A cuckoo clock so good it will drive you mad [Instructions]

If you’ve ever wanted for a masterfully crafted LEGO timepiece, Sven Franic has you covered with this immaculate cuckoo clock created for an exhibition contest. Sven will be displaying this in the LEGO House as part of the celebration of the 60th birthday of the LEGO brick. The hands point to the exact time when the patent for the LEGO brick was registered.

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