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.

Wide-eyed warrior princesses

Would you like to know what happens if a prince strolls into an all-princess party? Yep, you guessed it! Princesses Moana, Mulan and Merida all stand glazed and wide eyed, armed and ready to battle each other for his hand in marriage! While I may tease YOS Bricks about one attention grabbing feature of these models, he’s been at this theme for quite a while now — since we last featured his versions of Elsa and Anna — and there is certain charming consistency about them that appeals.

The builder’s Flickr stream is definitely worth checking out to see similar takes on Jasmine, Belle, Tiana, Cinderella and Ariel. As an added treat, many of the princesses are also shown wearing multiple outfits. But in each case, the brick-built recreations of their costumes and hair styles are almost perfect.

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A haven of sea stacks to call home

Sea stacks are amazing vertical rock formations that stand in the sea, formed entirely by wind and water as the forces of nature break up part of the headland over time. There are some famous stacks around the world, for example, the Twelve Apostles in Australia or the Old Man of Hoy off the coast of Orkney in Scotland. Tirrell Brown has created a beautiful scene with sea stacks, just off the coast of the imaginary land of Mitgardia. The castle is centrally located upon one of the larger stacks, jutting out the sea with it’s small wooden pier. Tirrell’s sea is very striking, with the combination of dark blue and medium blue depths and transparent waves crashing against the craggy rock faces of the sea stacks.

LEGO designers offer an in-depth look at 70620 NINJAGO City [News]

As if the forthcoming NINJAGO Movie wasn’t already exciting enough, LEGO has been blowing us away with all the related sets and minifigs — none more so than the completely jaw-dropping 4867-piece 70620 NINJAGO City. Well now LEGO has released a video in which the set’s designers give us an in-depth, bottom-up, overview of this amazing modular set and its many, many, many, many cool little details!

The set is available September 1st and will retail for USD$299 / £259.99. And look out for a thorough review of it right here on The Brothers Brick in the very near future!

Welcome to 17th Century Port Woodhouse

You may recall last month we ventured back to Meso-America 7,000 B.C. with Ayrlego‘s beautiful jungle scene. Now we leap through time and space to the Golden age of Piracy with two wonderful buildings from the fictional Port Woodhouse. First, we have the piratically themed Infantry Barracks where the Captain inspects the troops’ custom carbines. I love how each of the soldiers has a unique face and expression – a couple of those guys in the front row look like a lot of trouble or a lot of fun, depending on your perspective. The use of older ‘yellowed’ white bricks and un-clutched roof tiles (including one with a broken corner) also lend the build an antique feel.

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Beware the might of my labelled sword: Brandenburger Tor!

Slicing and dicing with a sword bearing the name Brandenburger Tor, this mech by
zi zy looks ready to fight (and win) against anything that crosses its path. I like the character that the builder has managed to incorporate into this build. Its stout appendages, flat head that’s barely there, and aggressive stance give the mech a threatening appearance.

I particularly appreciate the use of a single lime part (a round stud) as the “eyes” of the mech, as it completes the appearance of the mech with a small drop of color.

If the sky could dream, it would be of dragons

Taiwanese builder LEGO 7 is at it again with another incredible dynamic build. This time, a White Dragon Mech is ripping off the starboard propeller of the Sky Pirates’ flying ship. Lightning ripples out from the dark thundery clouds as the pirates scramble on deck. I love the colors and design of the boat, and the gold railing trim looks great. Have you noticed Monkey Wrench throwing a spanner in the works from atop the crow’s nest? Will Lloyd continue to evade the dragon’s clutches and save the day? Or will the flying clipper plummet earthward and suffer the dreadful fate of rapid deceleration syndrome?

Imperial Star Destroyer over Jedha City

Swiss builder Hannes Tscharner has created a LEGO version of a scene from Star Wars: Rogue One depicting an Imperial Star Destroyer hovering menacingly over Jedha City like the proverbial Sword of Damoclese, and the result is truly breathtaking. The rockwork is simple yet quite effective, while the construction of the actual star destroyer is full of details including a docking bay, laser cannons represented by binocular parts, and tons of aesthetically pleasing greebles. Jedha City is instantly recognizable in the distance, with its single towering structure.

The rear shot (which is also beautifully edited) reveals full engine detail and wedge plates used to achieve some complex angles.

Don’t forget to check out the behind the scenes shot, which reveals the ingenuitive use of a computer monitor as a light source for the scene.

Niels Christiansen replaces Bali Padda as the company’s new CEO [News]

Niels B. Christiansen, 51, has been appointed as the new CEO of the LEGO Group effective October 1, 2017, the Compnay has announced today. Christiansen will replace Bali Padda, 61, who has served as the Company’s first non-Danish chief executive since January, 2017.

Niels B. Christiansen, FT.com

Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, the chairman of the LEGO Group, emphasizes that Padda’s age and “realisation he could only do the job for a few years at most” have brought about a change in the top management. Since October 2017 Padda will assume a special advisory role at the newly formed Lego Brand Group serving as “a wonderful ambassador for the LEGO brand”.

Bali Padda, LEGO.com

Niels B. Christiansen has spent the last 9 years as CEO of another family-owned, Danish-based group, Danfoss. He resigned in March, 2017, saying it was time for a new challenge. During his job at Danfoss he managed to increase the compoany’s revenues by 50 per cent, taking Danfoss from industrial technology to digital technology. Knudstorp describes Christiansen as “one of the strongest CEOs of his generation” and states that he is “confident that under Niels, the LEGO Group will continue to flourish and bring play experiences to more children around the world.”

Via Financial Times

Tranquil hilltop temple

This lovely little LEGO temple is exactly what you need at the end of a busy day — the perfect place to let your cares slip away with the passing clouds. John Cheng‘s landscaping is nicely-done — rugged and uneven enough to create a natural feel, with an obvious bamboo forest vibe. The temple itself is relatively simple, but neatly put together, with the black and gold providing a strong contrast to the surrounding greenery. The toro lantern is particularly good — whilst we’ve seen many of these before in LEGO creations, this might the first I’ve seen using the hollow-stud “Apollo” 1×1 round piece on the sides. It’s an effective texture which I’ll be stealing for my own Asia-inspired scenes.

Truck will make you (sand) green with envy

Designing a large-scale heavy truck in LEGO has never been an easy task, but hardcore builder Dirk Klijn challenged himself to build an FTF Roseboom from the late 1980s — and in relatively-rare sand green bricks no less. Normally you wouldn’t describe sand green as any kind of screaming color, but mixed with dark green and those bright red wheel rims it turns this truck into genuine eye candy.

Thanks to the model’s long wheelbase and bulky body, Dirk managed to pack the truck with a full set of motors controlled via an Sbrick. This gives the model full remote control while preserving the cockpit’s interior…

Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can...

Modelling human proportions and shapes in LEGO can be very challenging, but Umamen does a fantastic job with this brick-built Spiderman figure. The model captures Spiderman’s lean-yet-muscular build we have seen in comics since his creation. I particularly like the use of an actual LEGO spider as the logo on the chest. It just goes to show that sometimes NPU (“nice parts usage”) can mean using a spider as… well… a spider!

And don’t miss the model’s extreme poseability:

Chase on the Lothal Highway

Talented LEGO Star Wars builder Inthert has been dabbling with circular dioramas over the last few months, and his latest depicts a key scene in Star Wars Rebels when the crew of the Ghost speed out of town after stealing Imperial munitions. The base mixes vertically oriented cheese slopes with embedded 1×2 slopes, as well as a couple of different scales — a trio of microscale vehicles with a tiny but perfect “nano-scale” communications tower.

What I really love about this little diorama, though, is the amazing exploding TIE fighter.