Today LEGO is announcing that the iconic 10189 Taj Mahal will be re-released as Creator Expert 10256 Taj Mahal. Formerly the long-time record holder for Largest LEGO Set until being dethroned a few months ago by the new UCS Millennium Falcon, this set is still the second-largest LEGO set of all time with 5,923 pieces and will be available on November 27 (aka Cyber Monday) in LEGO stores and from the LEGO Shop Online for $369.99 USD.
Category Archives: LEGO
Padishah’s plush palace
LEGO builder Greg Dlx continues to explore large-scale recreations of exotic architecture. Following from last year’s desert fortress, here’s a beautiful Persian Palace. The white and gold domes grab all the immediate attention, but it’s the arches with their fabulous purple touches and the surrounding greenery which draw you in further. The vines snaking across the elaborate facade are well done, and there’s lots of nice tilework on the floors. The surrounding gardens look beautiful and Greg has filled the grounds with a veritable menagerie of animal life. However, it’s perhaps a shame there aren’t some appropriate minifigures lending a little more action to the scene.
LEGO Space builders take over the moon [Interview]
This year’s season of LEGO shows in the UK saw a massive collaborative moonbase display, from some of the UK’s best-known and most talented builders. The model was absolutely enormous, 2.5m square, featuring a huge tower and multiple compartments. It was built with more than 50,000 bricks…
The moonbase plays host to an impressive collection of landing pads, with Neo-Classic spaceships and rovers of all shapes and sizes…
But below the lunar surface, there is even more action going on, with dozens of cutaway compartments and corridors, stuffed with lighting effects, motorised elements, and cool building techniques…
Brothers Brick caught up with Jason Briscoe, one of the collaboration’s organisers, to find out more…
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TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for October 29, 2017 [News]
In addition to the best LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick also brings you the best of LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the last week of October 2017.
TBB NEWS: This is a week of winners and losers. On the winning side, some amazing Millennium Falcon builds, NASA and New York. In the losing corner? Lego Dimensions.
- Announcing winners of The Brothers Brick’s Millennium Falcon LEGO building contest — TBB’s building contest ended with more than 160 entries showing off the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Who walked away with the top prize, a UCS Millennium Falcon?
- Review of LEGO Ideas 21312 Women of NASA — The set includes four minifigures depicting women astronauts, scientists, and engineers from the US space program’s history.
- 2018 LEGO sets for DC Comics Super Heroes, Creator, City and Technic revealed — There are a couple of interesting sets in particular with 31081 Modular Skate House within the Creator theme and 42074 Racing Yacht from the Technic line-up.
- LEGO Dimensions is officially dead — LEGO Dimensions has officially been cancelled by LEGO and Warner Brothers, per the game’s official Twitter feed.
- LEGOLAND New York to open in 2020 — Merlin Entertainment will build a third LEGOLAND park in the United States, located in Goshen, New York.
- Instructions to build a waste container transporter — This garbage transporter will happily pick up any used and discarded LEGO bricks for disposal.
OTHER LEGO NEWS: Video reigned supreme this week in other LEGO news. Enjoy these clips!
- LEGO Mini Chocolate Machine, YouTube — This year for Halloween, JK Brickworks decided to build a Mindstorms chocolate dispenser to surprise trick-or-treaters.
- Fan-Made LEGO RICK AND MORTY Short Makes Us Want More, Nerdist — This video was a collaboration by two Redditors who combined their talents to bring the world of Rick and Morty to the world of LEGO style animation.
- Unikitty’s Halloween Sneak Peek premieres on Cartoon Network, YouTube — Unikitty is getting her very own TV show and this is the first preview, sans studs.
The secret weapon of Scuderia Ferrari
As Sebastian Vettel spectacularly claims his 50th pole position in the yesterday’s qualifying session of the Mexican Grand Prix, there is no better time to look back at the car that has won the very same race in 1970 — the legendary Ferrari 312B. A stunning 1:8 scale copy of the car by Greg998 captures all the glory of the machine that once was called “the secret weapon” of Ferrari and which brought the team 10 wins and more than 20 pole positions.
Of course, the part that deserves the most attention is the legendary flat-12 engine in the back of 312B. Bonus points are for shiny chrome round plates!
An exercise in loft poetics
You don’t need a lot of LEGO bricks to build something fascinating. Moreover, you only need a handful of plates and tiles to tell your viewers a (love) story. Nikita Lazarev explores modern spacious lofts, which seem to be so empty that every smallest detail becomes too important to be neglected. And once you’ve pictured the owners of the room, even that huge empty wall and a cold wide window suddenly become sweet and cozy.
A hell of a good character
Hellboy has long-been a favourite subject for builders. We’ve featured our fair of LEGO Hellboy creations in the past. But this version by LEGO 7 is an absolute cracker. Built at a premium action figure scale, this has poseability to match the fine sculpting. Hellboy’s horn stumps and massive right fist are perhaps the defining features of the character, but this model faithfully captures other elements of Mike Mignola’s creation — the coat with its long tails, the defined abs, and the Samaritan pistol. I particularly like the beard and sideburns, something hard to recreate at this scale. This is LEGO character building at its finest.
Jump up and get down
We like when LEGO builders take on the task of trying to recreate famous artworks, or reimagine the styles of well-known artists through the medium of brick. Grantmasters takes on Keith Haring’s iconic cartoon pop-art in this cool little creation. I had to take a closer look to scope out the selection of curved black pieces Grant used to provide the signature outline to the red character — nicely done. The stripped-back colour schemes of Haring’s work obviously lend themselves well to the LEGO palette, and the collection of black “motion marks” are perfectly-placed to echo Haring’s style.
The arrival of the Blue Comet
Fancy a train trip to New Jersey? Make sure you have your ticket booked as the iconic Blue Comet by Cale Leiphart is arriving! Its thoroughly designed body measures more than 40 studs in length and features a ton of the tiniest elements: valves, sand and steam domes, levers and regulators — all in blue, which makes this build a remarkable assembly of LEGO parts in regular blue color.
And it wouldn’t be a proper locomotive without a full set of carriages. As usual, Flick album has all the details of this impressive train.
LEGO Ideas 21312 Women of Nasa [Review]
LEGO recently unveiled its latest LEGO Ideas set, 21312 Women of Nasa. The set includes four minifigures depicting women astronauts, scientists, and engineers from throughout the US space program’s history. LEGO sent The Brothers Brick an early review copy of the set, which is due out on November 1st.
While the minifigures are certainly the heroes of the set, the set also includes three mini-builds, with 231 pieces. When released, the set will retail for $24.99. Given the science-oriented, minifig-centric nature of both LEGO Ideas sets, comparisons to 21110 Research Institute will be inevitable among LEGO fans, and we’ll do our best to compare and contrast them along the way.
Click through to read our full review of LEGO Ideas 21312 Women of Nasa
Learn from a LEGO master at the Royal Academy
There’s a whole medieval world created by LEGO fan builders as part of a role-playing game called Nine Kingdoms hosted by German-language site RogueBricks. Even RPGs need educational institutions and Markus Rollbühler has built the Royal Academy, a place for students to come and learn from the masters. There are lots of interesting LEGO techniques that we can also study at the Royal Academy with some fine LEGO construction and parts use on show. My eye was immediately drawn to the tree, with its foliage uniquely constructed using plumes of green feathers. I also love the bird’s nest sitting on the roof of the Academy, my ornithological knowledge is rather limited but it looks like a stork has made a home up there.
There are almost too many gems to mention, as the Academy itself has some lovely architectural details such as the beautifully shaped dormer windows. Can you spot the brown minifigure hockey sticks in the scene? There’s a lot to love in this creation and if you like this build, you will certainly enjoy spending a quiet summer evening at Markus’ windmill.
2018 LEGO set images for LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes, Creator, City and Technic revealed [News]
Official images of a selection of early 2018 LEGO sets have been released, including LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes, Creator, City and Technic sets due for release. The details include the set number and part count or pricing in some cases, but not all the information has been released as yet. There are a couple of interesting sets in particular with 31081 Modular Skate House within the Creator theme, and 42074 Racing Yacht from the Technic line-up.
Images for three sets from LEGO DC Comics Superheroes have been released.
76097 Lex Luthor Mech Takedown, $39.99
76098 Speed Force Freeze Pursuit, $29.99
76096 Superman & Krypto Team-Up, $19.99
The LEGO Creator Line up includes a fun looking mini-modular build 31081 Modular Skate House and a selection of vehicles including a stunt plane, racing car and a 4×4 outback explorer jeep-like vehicle.
31081 Modular Skate House, 422 pcs
See more of the first wave of 2018 LEGO sets