Category Archives: News

Stay current on the latest news and information about LEGO, from sales & deals to new set announcements. We also cover LEGO events and conventions all over the world.

New and upcoming LEGO books for Jul-Oct 2013

It seems like there are new books about LEGO coming out constantly, both from famously “LEGO-friendly” publishing houses like No Starch Press and from many other publishers.

We haven’t been able to feature or review all of them, so here’s a quick roundup of the many LEGO books published so far in 2013, along with links to pre-order a number of future books.

The Big Unofficial Lego Builder’s Book: Build Your Own City by Joachim Klang and Oliver Albrecht
Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO by Warren Elsmore
LEGO Minifigures: Character Encyclopedia from DK, with an exclusive toy soldier minifig
The BrickGun Book: Build the World’s Most Realistic LEGO Handguns by Jeff Boen
Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry by David Robertson with Bill Breen
Lego: Build Your Own Vehicles by Joachim Klang
The LEGO Build-It Book, Vol. 1: Amazing Vehicles by Nathanaël Kuipers and Mattia Zamboni, due out July 29
Beautiful LEGO by Mike Doyle, due out September 10
The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 2: Spaceships, Pirates, Dragons & More! by Megan Rothrock, due out September 22
The LEGO Build-It Book, Vol. 2: More Amazing Vehicles by Nathanaël Kuipers and Mattia Zamboni, due out September 22
LEGO Galaxy: Build Your Own Universe by Joe Klang, Oliver Albrecht, and Lutz Uhlmann, due out October 16
LEGO Space: Building the Future by Peter Reid and Tim Goddard, due out October 22

I’m particularly excited about LEGO Space by perennial TBB favorites Pete Reid and Tim Goddard. Though we don’t have too many details about what’s inside, the cover alone hints at Neo-Classic Space greatness.

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Win a Nerdly from the BrickNerd himself!

Our good friend, Tommy Williamson has started his own blog and has announced the opportunity to win an exclusive model. Leave a comment on Flickr, follow the BrickNerd on Twitter or “like” him on Facebook. Three chances to win and help a cool guy get his blog off the ground too. Blog on, Tommy!

July TBB Cover Photo Winners

This month I had the honour of selecting the cover photos for The Brothers Brick Twitter and Facebook accounts. Pictures for this need to meet somewhat different criteria than the stuff we usually blog. An attractive picture is much more important than the model itself.

That said, the model was what first attracted me to my choice for Facebook, the ATV-4 “Albert Einstein” by Stefan Schindler (Brainbikerider). I may not be into science-fiction models, but I do like real-world spacecraft. I have previously blogged the commercially developed Dragon, which serves as a resupply vessel for the International Space Station. The ATV-4 is its European counterpart, developed by the European Space Agency.

So, the model itself is interesting and already blogworthy in my book. What makes this a great picture for the Facebook banner is that it has the Earth as a backdrop. Even when cropped to fit the aspect ratio for the Facebook banner, it seems to have depth.

On Twitter, the photo has a lot of superimposed text and a TBB logo in the middle. Therefore, our choice should have a fairly large area in the middle where the text can go without getting lost against the background, and there should be interesting stuff towards the edges of the photograph. A nice picture of a model against a white background, which is fairly normal on this blog, simply does not hack it. By themselves, the models in the winning picture, by ROOK, would not have made TBB. They’re Brand Ribbon Sets built by members of ToroLUG for the Yorkdale Mall Lego Store Grand Opening in Toronto. The way they are arranged and their bright colours against the dark background, however, caught my eye and make it a great cover photo.

The ones chosen by Dan for June were a hard act to follow, but I think you’ll agree they look pretty. If you’re interested in the possibility of having your photo featured in same manner, upload it to our Flickr group.

Brickfête July 13th & 14th, 2013 [News]

Janey Gunning asked me to share this announcement about the fast approaching Canadian LEGO convention. I wish Canada wasn’t so big, as I would be there in a heartbeat if not for the distance. But I do hope my fellow Canadian LEGO maniacs all have a splendid time!

Ladies and Gentleman, LEGO fans of all ages…
Don’t miss a great LEGO festival in Toronto, Canada.
July 13th & 14th, 2013
10am until 3pm
www.brickfete.com

The public is invited to view the awesome LEGO Creations on display and we can not wait to show you what we have built. You can see things like a huge Serenity ship, large working amusement park ride, massive train/monorail layouts, classic space layout with working lights, funky art sculptures and mosaics, classic city, castle, pirate and viking creations, elaborate war dioramas, various scaled pieces of architecture, working robots and more!!! You will not believe your eyes when you see what our exhibitors can make from LEGO. There is even a brick building area for the kids and you never know when a special character might show up, from Darth Vader to Billy Blue Brick.

Tickets sold online here.
Parking & venue information here.

See you on the second weekend of July,
The Brickfête Team

“A festival run by fans, made by the fans, for the fans.”

10237 Tower of Orthanc out now, plus free hotdog stand in July [News]

The new LEGO Lord of the Rings set 10237 The Tower of Orthanc is now available to everyone from the LEGO Shop online.

The set has been available early to LEGO VIP program members for the last couple of weeks. And speaking of the VIP Program, members can get a free hotdog stand with any order over $75 in July.

Link for US readers:

Link for Canadian readers:

Toys & Games on Amazon.ca

And speaking of Canada, Amazon.ca now sells toys and games, including a fair bit of LEGO. As we’ve reminded our US readers, you don’t have to buy LEGO from Amazon to support The Brothers Brick — a percentage of every purchase, from books to video games, goes to help TBB, at no extra cost to you.

TR will be bringing you updates about sales and deals he sees on Amazon.ca.

BrickCon 2013 registration now open [News]

BrickCon 2013 is now open for registration! As we’ve said before, BrickCon is our favorite LEGO convention in the increasingly busy North American LEGO convention circuit.

The official theme for BrickCon 2013 is “Pigs vs. Cows” (as I’m sure everyone gathered from the Kickstarter project we highlighted earlier this year). What does that craziness mean? Well, that’s really up to you — LEGO is, after all, a creative medium. I’m not sure how town and train builders will manifest the theme in their layout, or whether we can expect cows storming the pig-defended beaches of a LEGO Normandy, but I do know that the castle builders have something spectacular planned.

Speaking of collaborations, watch this space for more info on the various themes that will give you the opportunity to contribute to a group build.

If you haven’t been to BrickCon before, check out BrickCon photos on Flickr and our own BrickCon coverage here on The Brothers Brick.

Be sure to go to BrickCon.org/Builders/ to register for the full, four-day private convention.

Warner Bros debuts The LEGO Movie trailer [News]

Warner Bros have released the first official trailer for the upcoming LEGO Movie. I guess they knew everyone would refer to it as “that LEGO movie” anyway, so they made life simpler for all of us by actually calling it that. Anyway, despite some initial trepidation about the quality of the film, the trailer heartens me. It’s usually a mess for old fans when a big company tries to break into a new market, but LEGO and Warner Bros seem to be hitting a lot of the right notes here. Aside from the terrific cast, the world looks well constructed, and there are lots of humorous nods to adult fans. I hope the final film will be as amusing. The film is tentatively slated for a February 2014 release.

Brickworld 2013 Wrap-Up

This past weekend was Brickworld 2013 in Schaumberg, Illinois, and Chris and I attended. I attended for the first time; it was fun being a “newbie” for once, despite this being my 11th LEGO convention. This was my first event outside of the Pacific Northwest! Though really, Chicago, the tornados were a bit much. Really. No need for that.

All weather and terrible airline travel aside, the event was a blast. This was the first year in the new location and by all accounts, it was a fabulous decision to move and improved the convention-going experience greatly. Unlike last year, all the creations this year were housed in the same MASSIVE space.

Over the next few days, pictures of some of the amazing creations will pop online. I want to highlight a few of my favorites:

Smaug by Sharon Vance

The Marquis, by Peter Mowry

Area 51 by Brian Williams

This was really fantastic. We’ve blogged the warehouse previously; now he’s added the shooting location for the Moon Landing, a Stargate, and a number of other fantastic references!

Product announcements

There were two bits of news which we already reported: the reveal of 10234 Sydney Opera House and announcing the Curiosity Rover.

For me, the value of any convention comes from the memories; I attend just as much, if not more, for the people as I do the brick. I saw people I haven’t seen in years, met new friends, and made enough memories and paper planes to last a lifetime. Or at least until BrickCon.

LEGO approves Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover CUUSOO project [News]

Stephen Pakbaz‘s MSL Curiosity Rover project on LEGO CUUSOO hit 10,000 supporters 10 months ago, but today LEGO is announcing that Curiosity will become the next new LEGO set through the CUUSOO program.

LEGO CUUSOO Curiosity Rover

(This is Stephen’s project photo. I expect the final product may be slightly different. We’ll share the official product photos when we get them.)

Here’s the official announcement:

Results of the Fall 2012 LEGO® Review

We’re excited to share the results of the Fall LEGO® Review. In September, three LEGO CUUSOO projects entered the second quarterly review period for projects that successfully reach 10,000 supporters. These three projects — the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, UCS Sandcrawler™, and Thinking with Portals!™ — have been being considered for production by the LEGO Review Board.

21104 Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover – pending final name confirmation

It is with great pleasure we reveal that the next LEGO CUUSOO set will be the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, based upon the LEGO CUUSOO project by Perijove.

This project rose to popularity in late summer 2012, when the real Mars Curiosity Rover approached and landed on the planet Mars in its historic mission. The model designer, LEGO CUUSOO user Perijove is a Mechanical Engineer who worked on the actual Curiosity rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Perijove writes that he built and submitted the rover to further the educational outreach of the Mars Curiosity rover’s incredible mission, and to encourage greater public support for space exploration.

The final product is still in development. Exact pricing and availability is still being determined, so stay tuned for an update on when you can buy your own Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover in the coming months.

Tim Courtney shares the news in this video:

Personally, I couldn’t be more excited. This is easily my favorite LEGO CUUSOO project from the past 18 months, and is one of the best projects that reflects the spirit of CUUSOO. I know many of you out there will be disappointed that the Star Wars and Portal projects weren’t approved, but I hope you can join me in giving Stephen Pakbaz some well-deserved congratulations!

Update: Caylin and Chris are there at BrickWorld, and Caylin got this shot of the model they used to make the announcement there in Chicago:

It looks essentially identical to the one Stephen used for the project itself, so that’s a good sign, though I also expect that it’s still going through the redesign project with LEGO.

New LEGO set 10234 Sydney Opera House unveiled at BrickWorld [News]

UPDATE: 10234 Sydney Opera House is out now for LEGO VIP Program members, and will be available to everybody on September 1st.

The big LEGO set being revealed this evening at BrickWorld in Chicago is 10234 Sydney Opera House. Designed by Jamie Berard, this new LEGO set recreates the architectural masterpiece that overlooks Sydney Harbor in Australia. Due out in September 2013, 10234 Sydney Opera House will include nearly 3,000 pieces and cost $320 in the US.

Here are all the official details from LEGO:

10234 Sydney Opera House™

Ages 16+. 2,989 pieces.
Recreate Australia’s architectural masterpiece!
US $319.99 CA $379.99 DE 279.99€ UK 249.99 £ DK 2499.00 DKK

Recreate one of the 20th century’s most distinctive buildings with the Sydney Opera House™ model. Build the unmistakable shell roofline, waterfront forecourt and more with this authentic representation of Australia’s most iconic building. Employ a variety of new and advancedbuilding techniques to recreate the complex forms, angled walls and subtle detailing of the real thing! Collect lots of dark tan LEGO® bricks including the rare 1x1x2/3 stud and 1x2x2/3 stud slopes, as well as a 48×48 stud baseplate in blue for the very first time!

Build this model of a UNESCO World Heritage Site!

Includes hard-to-find dark tan LEGO® bricks, tiles and sloped bricks!

Collect the 48×48 stud baseplate, available in blue for the very first time!

Sturdy construction allows the model to be handled and moved!

Features advanced building techniques for complex forms, angled walls and subtle detailing!

Measures over 11″ high, 25″ wide and 15″ deep!

Available for sale directly through LEGO® beginning September 2013

Here’s a video of designer Jamie Berard talking about his new set:

Don’t miss the other big announcement of the night: LEGO approves Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover CUUSOO project

TRIBUTE NNENN – July 2013

With the success of the R-Type Build Challenge we have continued with a new challenge for this month. But I am here to talk about what will be going down next month. The month of July is all going to be about nnenn, a builder whom is probably one of the most influential ever to have graced the interwebs. Sadly it has been just over 3 years since he passed away. But despite that fact, his work continues to inspire new builders to this day. So we thought it would be fitting to pay tribute with our 10th monthly build challenge…

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to select any of nnenn’s countless starfighers and build a tribute fighter based on the design. Whether you want to build a copy with a fresh paint job or a redux with your own personal twist is entirely up to you.

Rules will be simple:
-Running July 2013
-Build a tribute fighter based on/inspired by one of nnenn’s models
-Post a link to the source fighter in your description
-Of course, cut, modified, and clone parts of all shapes and sizes are acceptable, if not encouraged
-Don’t be afraid to use colour…nnenn certainly never was!
-As always we will allow renders, but I strongly encourage you to build with actual bricks for this challenge

So for next couple of weeks I want you all to pour over nnenn’s photostream and get inspired, because we need to make this the greatest monthly build challenge yet! (Of course be sure to set aside enough time to build your Thunder Force fighters too…)

BrickLink.com sold, will be getting security upgrade & facelift [News]

The long-term future of the online LEGO sales site BrickLink.com has been uncertain ever since its founder Daniel Jezek passed away two and a half years ago. Today, Daniel’s family announced that they have sold BrickLink.com to a company that promises to upgrade and maintain the site.

Here’s the full announcement from Eliska Jezkova, Daniel’s mother and until recently the CEO of BrickLink:

About a week ago I posted a special message to thank all of you for supporting us over the nearly three years since my son Dan died. I thank all those who sent personal messages to me about what BrickLink has meant to them. In my message, I mentioned some progress we made, and also the challenges we faced. Good news remaining is that, despite the challenges, business has been brisk and even impressive. When I took over the website in the name of my son, the representational visitor log (front page of BrickLink) was at about 50 million visitors. Today, it is at nearly 144 million visitors and counting. Nearly two-thirds of all those who visited BrickLink over the 13 years since its inception have arrived here in the short time we’ve run BrickLink.com. Also, we’ve partnered with security experts and have been able to make the website safer than it has ever been. I’m proud of these facts and I again thank all of you for your patience in sticking with us to this day.

But it’s a new era, and much needs to be done to bring BrickLink to a higher level and to become the site whose potential all of you see and we want to reach as well.

Thus, I am announcing that I am stepping down as CEO of BrickLink and have handed the website over to the committed and competent hands of a new owner, Jung-Ju “Jay” Kim, founder of Nexon, one of the world’s largest online game companies.

I completely endorse Jay to take the reins of BrickLink. He has the knowledge, resources and capabilities needed for the job. He has a passion, not just for all things LEGO, but also for BrickLink. Like most of you, he has been a member of the community for years. He has tremendous respect for what Dan accomplished while he was alive. He also has a compelling desire to carry forward Dan’s vision and his guiding principles that were laid down more than a decade ago. Jay and his team are ready to work toward “BrickLink 2.0”, as well as continuing hardware architecture and application upgrades.

It’s a bright future for BrickLink, and I intend to be a part of it along with the rest of the BrickLink Community. Larry and I will be staying on in an advisory-consulting role to the new owners. Eric Smith will be staying on as Admin to ensure a smooth, seamless transition with minimal interruption.

Part of that transition will include relocation of the BrickLink site to a different data center. Later today you will learn more about that server relocation and the migration schedule, which has been carefully designed to minimize downtime.

It’s been a great three years. I did my best and I am sorry that the hacking incidents waylaid us from doing more, earlier. I am proud of the amazing growth of BrickLink, thanks to all of you.

As hard as it was to give up our treasured BrickLink that Dan loved so much, I felt it was the right thing to do, not for me, but for the Community. And, as always, it is that worldwide community that matters to me most, just as it mattered to Dan. That is why I am passing the torch to new leadership. It is what Dan would have wanted me to do.

As I mentioned, I will remain on with BrickLink and will act as an ambassador and link to BrickLink’s lineal past. Please feel free to contact me any time at eliska@bricklink.com. I still want to hear from you.

Thank you and let’s all look forward to tomorrow.

Best regards,

Eliska Jezkova, former CEO of BrickLink.com

In addition, here’s the text of the message from Jung-Ju “Jay” Kim, founder of the online game company Nexon:

Dear BrickLink Community,

I am extremely pleased to be taking over the operations of BrickLink.com. I’ve been a LEGO fan for 40 years and an avid user of BrickLink.com for over a decade. My first plans are to upgrade the website, and do our best to make users happier and more prosperous, while staying true to the original vision of BrickLink.com founder, Daniel Jezek. We will work hard in order to ensure that BrickLink.com becomes stable, secure and as user-friendly as possible.

I want to sincerely thank the family of Daniel Jezek, especially his mother Eliska, as well as the BrickLink.com Community, for the opportunity to upgrade and operate such a beloved website as BrickLink.com. In order to expedite the process of renovating BrickLink.com, I and Bricklink Limited will be asking users to e-mail us with their ideas for the improved functionality of the site, as well as any current issues that need to be addressed in order to provide users with the best possible selling and buying experience. We’ll establish those lines of communication very soon.

Thank you for your continued patronage and support of BrickLink.com

Jung-Ju Kim, incoming owner of BrickLink.com

It remains to be seen what changes all of this will mean for those of us who use BrickLink regularly. Stay tuned to TBB for more details as we learn them.