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.

New BrickHeadz from The LEGO Ninjago Movie now available [News]

Unsurprisingly, LEGO is going all out promoting The LEGO Ninjago Movie, which made $20.4 million in its first weekend (compare to $53 million for The LEGO Batman Movie earlier this year or the original LEGO Movie at $69 million). Following quickly on the heels of the newly revealed Ninjago Movie wave 2 set images, LEGO has released a pair of BrickHeadz characters from the movie, 41487 Lloyd and 41487 Master Wu. Both sets, which will only be available through the end of 2017, retail for $9.99 US/$12.99 CAD and are available in LEGO Stores and online already.

Master Wu is built from 89 pieces, and features his straw hat, kimono, and walking stick. Master Wu’s eyes and cloak toggles are printed.

Lloyd includes 102 pieces, with printed elements for his eyes, headband, and ninja gi.

Click through to see the box art for these sets

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LEGO House Exclusive Pick-A-Model Instructions [News]

Last week, The Brothers Brick attended the preview opening event at the LEGO House, the new LEGO experience centrally located at the home of the brick in Billund, Denmark. Two of the exclusive Pick-A-Model sets available at the LEGO Store within LEGO House are mini fish tanks. These will provide a memory of the day as one of the awesome attractions is a huge selection of bricks available to build your own fish, scan it and then watch as it happily starts to explore the digital underwater world around you.

The instructions are for two different Fish Tank pick-a-model builds, 3850060 and 3850061, with 33 and 34 parts respectively. Each set comes in a blister pack with parts and a instruction booklet but they are simple builds that can be made with similar parts you have at home.

See the step-by-step instructions for these two fishy models after the jump

Great moments are born from great opportunity

When most people today hear the name Tesla, you probably think of those snazzy electric cars. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla, with or without credit, influenced our modern world in ways that perhaps no man ever has. the_jetboy knows this, creating a fantastic kinetic magnetic tribute to the great inventor. If you include designing the first hydroelectric power plant, advocating Alternating Current, and inventing electric motors, robotics, new ways of harnessing and distributing light – including lasers and X-rays, radio (sorry Marconi), and wireless communication (including TV remotes), then there’s not a lot he hasn’t contributed to today’s modern world.

Inspired by Sensei Yoshihito Isogawa, the builder has also created a video showing this beautiful, magnet-bearing kinetic sculpture in action. One final tantilising piece of Tesla trivia: Teslas are a unit used to measure the strength of magnetic fields.

A final quote from the genius madman inventor himself:

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

What do you get when you combine Star Wars, a weird black blob thing, some creatures, and lava?

The answer: You get a Hag Titan, or more precisely, this spacecraft by Shannon Sproule. Built for the annual SHIPtember building challenge, it just goes to show you don’t need thousands of pieces to make an interesting SHIP (Significantly Huge Investment in Parts). I love the way it looks like a half-mechanical, yet half-alive alien creature.

Early in the build process, Shannon made a neat collage showing some of his inspiration sources for the ship, including a Star Wars Trade Federation transport and a weird black blob with tendrils that is likely some kind of parasite (a shark’s egg case, actually), various creatures, and various lava fortresses. It is interesting to try and spot how each inspiration had small effects on the final build.

I’m gonna pick up the pieces and build a LEGO house

“Calmwater Cliff House” is a beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired multistoried LEGO house nuzzled into a rocky cliff by a sandy beach. Created using black, dark tan, light tan, and reddish brown — or, as betweenbrickwalls puts it, “the colours of the 20th century” — this is a modern home integrated into the landscape to suit a 21st-century lifestyle.

See more of this Wright-inspired LEGO architectural masterpiece

LEGO House opens its doors to the playing public [News]

LEGO House is the newly built LEGO Experience family attraction in the very centre of Billund, Denmark. We reported from LEGO House back in June when the exhibits were still being installed and there was still a lot of work to be done to the interior and exterior. LEGO House is now completely finished, the last bricks have been placed and tomorrow, 28 September doors will be opened to the public.

Among the speakers at the opening ceremony will be 3rd generation LEGO Group owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, LEGO House architect Bjarke Ingels, and HRH The Crown Princess Mary. After the ceremony, specific parts of LEGO House will be open to public, including the Square, the LEGO store and the coloured outdoor terraces but the Experience Zones, which require a ticket, are not available until 29 September. Livestream of highlights from the upcoming event will be available on Facebook.

LEGO House has been built with creativity, play and learning in mind and with more than 25 million bricks there is no shortage of LEGO available to build with inside. This is not just a look and see gallery, but roughly 20,000 square feet of LEGO experience that will engage young and old alike. On entering, there is open access to the roof terraces, the LEGO Store (complete with Pick-A-Brick and Pick-A-Model) and the three eateries.

Tickets for the experience zones cost 199DKK/US$31/£23 each for adults and children (free for accompanied children under 2) and are purchased online in advance for an arrival time but you can stay as long as you wish until the House closes at 8 pm.

Sky-Pirates ahoy!

Airships are one of the hardest types of aircraft to model accurately in LEGO. As a result, a good steampunk dirigible is a creation to be treasured. This fabulous sky pirates model by Thomas van Urk is a classic — a collection of steampunk staples (chequered envelope, boat-styled gondola, unlikely cannon-based armament) that soars effortlessly, somehow avoiding the risk of being grounded by genre tropes.

Whilst a sepia-tinted image is de rigeur for a steampunk vessel, this baby looks excellent in new-fangled colour. That red and black gas envelope is a stunner — the result of careful shaping using Mixel ball-and-socket joints, according to Thomas. The integration of the boat-hull gondola and domed pilot’s station is really nice too.

Lastly, don’t miss the elaborate rigging which runs all over the model. It’s touches like this which really elevate (!) this creation above its peers…

GKR: Heavy Hitters smashes into the LEGO world

GKR: Heavy Hitters is an upcoming board game by Weta Studios, the folks who develop physical props for big movies like Ghost in the Shell and Power Rangers. As is the LEGO way, talented builders are already reproducing the eponymous Giant Killer Robots. This model recreates the “Thunderhappy Pharmaceuticals” mech. It’s a fantastic lookalike, especially at this scale. The only real part that’s missing is all the decals, but then perhaps builder Grantmasters is a purist like me?

Somewhere over Australia, rainbow birds fly

The Rainbow Lorikeet is a species of parrot found in Australia — unmistakable with its bright red beak and colourful plumage. Gabriel Thomson has built this fantastic LEGO rendition, complete with a tree branch to perch upon, and a little avian friend, a Superb Wren. I love the bright blue plumage of the Wren, a display of colour designed to attract the ladies in real life. Both birds have been well-shaped to give an accurate, natural appearance — no mean feat with plastic bricks instead of feathers.

If you want to see this model ‘in the brick’, it is on display in LEGO House — the new LEGO experience over in Billund, Denmark.

Voltron’s Black Lion gets a build all to itself

We’ll be getting an official LEGO Voltron set soon thanks to LEGO Ideas, but the designs of the individual lions may not be quite as detailed as you’d like — presumably to save on part-count and/or to allow them to fuse together. The creator of the original Ideas submission, Leandro Tayag offers this fantastically-detailed Black Lion in mitigation.

The shaping around the chest and head are my favourite parts of this near-perfect creation. There’s a lot of little details that deserve attention too, though. The claws, for example, are made with only two pieces, but still manage to look just perfect.

70922 The Joker Manor from The LEGO Batman Movie officially revealed [News]

Not content to have a certain ninja-themed movie steal the entire spotlight this week, LEGO has revealed 70922 The Joker Manor from The LEGO Batman Movie. Based on several scenes taking place in Wayne Manor both before and after the Joker invades, the set clocks in at a whopping 3,444 pieces (the fourth largest set of the year).

The Joker Manor includes 10 minifigures (including exclusive white disco variants!), a brand new system of elements for a working roller coaster, and a few other new elements such as a curving wall piece to create funhouse mirrors. The set will be available on Nov. 24 as part of LEGO’s Black Friday promotions and will retail for $269.99 USD.

Check out all the photos and details for this upcoming LEGO Batman set after the jump

The tunnels hold many secrets

These two adventurers seem to have come across quite an interesting structure – mysterious ancient catacombs. While in real life the dangers are limited to unstable ceilings and toxic mold, I expect a more fantastic fate to befall them if the builder, Forlorn Empire, continiues their story.

But for now, all that we know the catacombs contain are some amazing techniques and architectural details built from cheese slopes and masonry brick. The builder mixes different earth tones and careful lighting to create an immersive scene, and while the details and construction techniques definetely are the best part of the build, it is the composition in the photo that really brings it all together.