“Lummy! It’s the rozzers! We’ve been rumbled.” Or at least that’s the 60s-era British vernacular that springs to mind when you take a look at Calin‘s retro police car. This is a fabulous little model, perfectly-styled for the British Copper collectable minifig — the front grille, those rear-view mirrors, that blue light perched on the top: all spot-on. I can just imagine this vehicle screeching around the corner in a seedy part of London’s Soho, its old-school siren wailing.
A couple weeks ago we featured an adorable LEGO miniature dachshund, whose, uh, accurately brick-built posterior attracted some rather surprised comments. It’s wonderful to see that the Year of the Dog is inspiring builders to create realistic LEGO depictions of man’s best friend. Leading the pack thus far has been ZiO Chao (of recent wiener dog fame), with another trio of wonderful creatures.
Unsurprisingly, this chubby little pug is my favorite of the bunch, reminding me of TBB’s unofficial mascot, Oliver Twist the pug. He has a lovely corkscrew tail and floppy little ears.
It makes a nice change to see a Norse god depicted in LEGO and for it not to be a version taken from the Marvel pantheon. However, Loki himself might not agree, as Pacurar Andrei‘s latest vignette shows the trickster god trapped in his eternal punishment — chained in the entrails of his own sons, with his faithful wife Sigyn shielding him from dripping snake venom. The legends had it that when Sigyn was forced to take periods of rest from holding the bowl, the venom would strike Loki’s face, causing him to shake and struggle, causing earthquakes. Nice. As for the model, the rockwork on display is very smartly-done (and reddish brown makes a pleasant change from the usual grey), and the colour gradient on the lava is lovely. All-in-all it’s a sweet little scene depicting an anything-but-sweet story.
Sometimes the visions of the future put forth by LEGO builders can be a little grim — bleak technologically-dystopian vistas, often rendered in shades of dark grey. Here’s an altogether brighter view of the future from Tammo S. — one where we’ll be zipping around the skies in pastel-coloured hovercars. The shaping on this thing is great — all retro curves and smoothness. But it’s the colour scheme which really makes it pop — the white and light blue is distinctive and striking, and the isolated golden highlights add a touch of class.
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 February 2018.
TBB NEWS & REVIEWS: From supercars to ships, we have your LEGO news for the week, including a few reviews and instructions.
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:
The Budas Brick’s own Iain Heath obviously seems to kno da wey, while simultaneously eating Tide pods and inapropriately reacting to a serious topic. If you are not sure what I am talking about, Iain has built a mashup of some of the dankest memes of January 2018. Agree with it or not, dank memes are the humour of the present day.
Iain is known for his excellent character builds and always keeping up to date with the hottest trends – from popular media to memes. The Ugandan Knuckles figure is as close to a low-resolution 3D model as a LEGO build can be and the hat is instantly recognizable as well. While the Tide pods are built only out of a few pieces each, they are very obvious when seen accompanied by other January 2018 memes. Now that February has started though, the former memes are officially stale. And now, it is time for CPP memes to take over the internet!
For a couple of years now, LEGO has been re-issuing some of the more popular minifigure characters as separate custom box sets. This began with the re-issue of the Chicken Suit Guy from Collectible Minifigure Series 9 and we later had the Gingerbread Man from Series 11 for Christmas. The most recent characters are a somewhat off-season Cave Man and Cave Woman similar to those from Series 1 and Series 5, respectively.
This year we get something a little different and unique altogether: 5005249 Easter Bunny Hut with a new character similar to the Bunny Suit Guy from Series 7. Make no mistake, the original Bunny Suit Guy is still one very hot collectible and sought after figure, so it’s quite interesting to see that this re-issue takes a different direction with new prints but keeping the same head accessory.
Click here for a closer look at the Easter Bunny
The classics are always a favourite of mine and they never go out of style. Star Wars fan Miro Dudas takes a pick of some of the famous characters from various scenes of the original trilogy to build medium scaled versions of their minifigure constructs. We’ve got the whole family together, and then some, from Lord Vader, to the twins Luke and Leia, and the dynamic duo Han and Chewie. My favourite of the lot is controversial scene of Han Solo and Greedo showdown, what’s yours?
Click here to see the rest of the characters!
It’s nice to see another Lego enthusiast acknowledging a bigger movement in the technology world. This penguin or referred to as Tux is the mascot for the Linux operating system. The image of a slightly fat penguin after having a fulfilling meal was the part of the inspiration by the ‘father’ of Linux, Linus Torvalds. Timofey Tkachev does a beautiful rendition of Tux with only 60 pieces. I really need one of this on my desktop at work!
The introduction of new roller coaster parts in 70922 Joker Manor was a source of great excitement, even more so when we managed to power the roller coaster. These roller coaster endeavours pale in significance when compared to this enormous wooden-style coaster build by Chairudo. It uses nearly 90,000 LEGO pieces and took Chairudo over 800 hours to build. It’s 6.5 meters long, 1.2 meters wide, 1.4 meters tall, and has a track length of 26 meters.
We actually highlighted this amazing wooden LEGO rollercoaster last year, but since then it has found a well-deserved home in Hamleys in Prague. There are two new videos now available, the first is an introduction and overview of the rollercoaster, while the second gives you a seat at the front of the ride to maximise the experience.
Click here to enjoy a passenger view of the ride and see more images of this monster rollercoaster
The month of February has already brought to Moscow, Russia about 10 inches of snow — and it doesn’t seem to stop snowing! Talented Moscow-based toy photographer brickexplorer captures the mood of the frosty night just perfectly; the whole scene in the picture looks extremely cozy in the warm light of the old tram’s headlights. According to the description of the photo the snow piles are made of baking soda, which is a perfect tip for any LEGO toy photographer.
Making LEGO furniture that meets the needs of your minifigures usually means utilising some of the smaller, more fiddly LEGO parts. Sarah Beyer has created some beautiful LEGO homes, each furnished for the most discerning of minifigures. There are instructions for three different chairs that feature in Cocoa Jungle Cottage and House on Striped Pillars. So take a relaxing seat in a comfy looking armchair…once you have built it of course!
Click here to see the instructions for two more chairs