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.

Steam on!

“In a world of floating islands, Elias . . . knew every lever, every pipe, and every sound it made. But his eyes often wandered atop the workshop, where his air balloon stood, waiting to lift off.” That’s how Gus (aka Faëbricks) begins the tale surrounding this tall vignette called “Sogno di Volare,” and personally, he had me at “floating islands.” The model has clear industrial, steampunk vibes from the brick foundation to the moored airship—and speaking of that airship, how cute is that thing? It’s a compact, one-seater model perfect for gallivanting around those floating islands.

As Gus continues: “One day, he promised himself, he’d set his balloon free, leaving the steam and noise behind, and float into the wide, open sky.” Here’s hoping our little engineer gets his chance.

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LEGO seen through a glass, darkly

The artful LEGO creations of Mattia Careddu are more than they first appear to be. Two forms stand on opposite sites of a mirror – an elegant robot and a black fantasy monstrosity. Which is truth and which an illusion? Mattia’s build is striking, both as three separate models and as an evocatively staged tableau. I love the retro robot with a slight tip to its head. The mirror frame is simple but effective, especially at this large scale. But it’s that shocking red background contrasting with the sand green and inky black that turns the scene into dreamy technicolor phantasmagoria.

Warning! Dungeons & Dragons can be habit(at) forming

For many LEGO fans, each new series of Collectible Minifigures is a creativity prompt to assemble minifig habitats to house each character, and one of the most prolific and inspired of these builders is ABrickDreamer. The latest Dungeons and Dragons series of minifigs is arguably the hottest set to date, with each character bringing deep lore and delightful accessories to inspire habitat builders. Let’s take a look at ABrickDreamer’s take with 12 fantastic habitats!

The Dragonborn Paladin lead the pack housed in an elegant castle courtyard with a lovely double archway. The Dwarf Barbarian camps atop a mountain pass, joined by a goat to match her gruff demeanor. The Mind Flayer and its Intellect Devourers suck life from a deep dungeon. Minifig habitats follow a few basic rules – the base should be 8×8 studs,and the walls 8 bricks high, offset halfway by a stud to help them interlock. Often the best habitats, like those of ABrickDreamer, bend the rules with elements that spill outside the rigid form, as we see with the Dragonborn’s tower and the Dwarf’s rocky terrain. My favorite technique of this trio is the repurposing of the printed baseplates on the wall behind the Mind Flayer.

Next up: a trio of named villains. Witch queen Tasha laughs hideously in her workshop. Strahd poors a glass of “I don’t drink wine” while chilling on his throne, while next door Szazz Tam performs a ritual with whatever it is Strahd is drinking. Szazz’s habitat is the standout here, with blood that refuses to be contained by the 8×8 grid, and once again printed base-paints serve as a backdrop, in this case the starry ones from the Series 26 Space collection.

Delve deeper for a peek at the other 6 D&D habitats!

Beaker the Muppet – the squeaker of the puppets

Muppets builder extraordinaire Jon-Paul Hansen has made another addition to his LEGO collection of the fuzzy puppets. This time, it’s one of my favourite characters – the appropriately-named lab assistant, Beaker! There’s some great parts use here to capture the squeaky puppet’s features. A couple of aeroplane tail fins sit either side of a dark green windscreen – first introduced in the Botanicals Poinsettia – to make for an excellent labcoat and tie, respectively. As for the fuzzy fire-red hair, that’s superbly recreated with a bunch of red bushes. And speaking of fire – I can practically hear Beaker’s frantic “mi-mi-mi-mi-mi!!”s through the screen!

“Gila” mobile mining mech is a monster of LEGO engineering

Do your off-world ambitions require taming unforgiving alien terrain? Then Iron Builder Industries has you covered with the Gila Mobile Mining Mech! Designed by chief engineer Duncan Lindbo, the Gila is built for Logistical Excavation & Geoengineering Operations (“LEGO” for short). The excavator buckets are made of virtually indestructible keetorange from the far end of the Unikitty system. Not convinced this mech can get the job done? See the excavator in action!

The rain in France falls mainly on the track!

It’s said it always rains for Le Mans, and this LEGO build by Sybrin doesn’t disappoint! Each car – with a swoosh and a roar of the engine – kicks up a huge spray of trans-clear plates and 2×2 arches behind it as it tears down the track. My favorite part of this is that the natural shininess of the LEGO tiles in the road makes it look like the raceway is rain-slicked and shiny! Sybrin also did a great job with those custom-made Speed Champions style race cars too; the closest one is a Ferrari AF Corsa #50 , and the far car is Toyota Gazoo’s #7. So of Corsa we were going to make a big hulla-gazoo about this!

The water effects in the diorama are entirely brick-built, from the raindrops splashing onto the pavement to the rooster tails behind the roaring hyper-cars.

I think this spaceship knows which way to go

You can play, read about, and make video games every day and still it’s impossible to keep up with everything coming out. Case in point, I had never heard of space flight sim Flight of Nova until seeing this LEGO version of the game’s CF2 shuttle from builder cixpack. In the game, the VTOL CF2 is simple to fly, but creating these angles in LEGO is no easy task! The ship design feels very NASA adjacent, resembling proposed space planes that could be bringing Astronauts home within our lifetimes. Somehow cixpack’s sci-fi builds have flown under our radars for years, but they’re definitely worthy of your attention.

You have OneShot to appreciate this LEGO Niko

You don’t have to have played the cult hit indie game OneShot to appreciate this LEGO tribute to starring cat Niko by Dylan Mievis. It’s a great character model with a flat face in the style of chibi builds, with great shaping of the cat-kid’s oversized coat and scarf. If you’ve played the game, then you’ll know that keeping Niko safe is the player’s near-impossible duty, and Dylan captures the character’s vulnerability perfectly in brick form. Those big eyes borrowed from the Nightmare Shark Ship definitely help.

Dylan is no stranger to indie gaming builds, having shared amzing tributes to Hollow Knight and Shovel Knight. And as a shameless plug: getting back into building, I recently paid tribute to my favorite indie game of the moment, Tactical Breach Wizards!

Rocket, yeah, satellite of LEGO

For Classic Space fans, 6950 Mobile Rocket Transport is up there with 497 Galaxy Explorer as one of the all time great LEGO sets. It packed in rockets, radar, chonky wheels, a unique trans yellow cockpit, and loads of play potential for aspiring astronauts. Jan Schönherr-Wacker (with the amazing handle Fiftyshadesofbley) makes their debut with a stellar reimagining of the classic set, putting as much care into preserving the set’s character as LEGO did with the Galaxy Explorer update.

Like the best Neo-Classic Space builds, Jan sticks to classic colors while drawing on a much deeper bench of parts and adding plenty of greebles. The upgraded wheels come from Chima/Ninjago sets. The radar dish is replaced with a trio of hexagonal flags that can bloom into place. The simple hinge lift of the original is redesigned using Technic parts to support the much heavier rocket. Jan tops off the build with a custom-printed 6950 brick to pay tribute to the original’s serial number. It’s a great debut and we’re excited to see what Jan builds next!

A stately villa for the Dragon Knights (and their goats)

During LEGO’s 2010 Castle revival, Kingdoms, the Dragon Knights got a whole new look with earth green tabards and a new crest. The faction was also framed as overtly villainous, focusing on prisons and siege weapons. Builder Tom Studs prefers to imagine that the Dragon Kingdom isn’t all about oppression and scheming and that their knights deserve a charming chateau. Tom’s seed part for the striking tower roof design was inspired by a previous Iron Builder challenge with the teal cylinder. The manor roof, made up of 1×1 round tiles, is gorgeous and apparently held in place by Majisto’s magic. Great castle techniques abound, from the round SNOT tower design to the lovely weathered brickwork to the clever lattice window made of interlocking brackets. Of course, the villa is also home to the pair of goats “liberated” during the Mill Village Raid.

Heavenly clockwork mech glistens in LEGO gold

Gold LEGO elements in LEGO aren’t nearly as rare as they used to be, but the mix of shapes available still makes it quite tricky to use it as the dominant color in a model. Builder Yakin Xipe, a member of the Mexico RLUG community, shares a mech in mostly gold that looks truly divine. The halo ring and feathered wings give seraphic vibes, but the red skull in the ring and the mech’s name, Sister Sorrow, suggest a fall from grace. Or perhaps she’s auditioning to be a boss in the next FromSoftware game.

Yakim is quite a prolific mech designer thanks to a custom frame used to scaffold most builds. I might have to try this techique myself!

A fictional LEGO space capsule with an amazing interior

Whenever we get the chance to feature Lech Kulina we get a clinic on fantastic LEGO building techniques. Lech has built amazing model of a fictional near-future space capsule, named for Sagittarius the centaur, that could transport astronauts around the inner solar system. With a build this detailed, you might have expected Lech to make good use of stickers, but he’s elected to use official LEGO bricks for everything. That means that all the red and black outlines around the hatch, viewports, and “4’s” are made from panels and brackets.

Click here to learn the secrets inside this space capsule!