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.

BrickMagic LEGO festival coming to Raleigh, NC May 8-9, 2010 [News]

BrickJournal and their publishers TwoMorrows are hosting a LEGO event May 8-9, 2010 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Here’s the event’s description:

Meet professional LEGO builder NATHAN SAWAYA, and help him assemble an incredible LEGO structure!

See a huge hall filled with custom LEGO creations by top AFOLs (“Adult Fans of LEGO”) from around the country!

Participate in workshops on building techniques and making custom minifigures!

View animated LEGO films running continuously both days!

Watch a robotics competition by First® LEGO® League teams from area schools!

Build a special LEGO Mother’s Day rose for your mom!

Cheer for the Great LEGO Boat Race, and see presentations on Mindstorms, creating LEGO Mosaics, and more!

For exact times and prices, check out the BrickMagic website.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Bricks Adventure 2010 happening right now in Hong Kong [News]

With sincerest apologies for the belated post to our thousands of our readers in Hong Kong, Bricks Adventure 2010 has been happening on the University of Hong Kong campus, January 27 through February 12.

ArzLan, Antony Tam, John Ho, and many other talented builders are there, along with America’s own Dan Siskind.

Photo by Erikmok

Check out all the photos in the Bricks Adventure 2010 photo pool on Flickr.

Printed Twi’lek minifig parts now available from Arealight Customs [News]

You don’t have to travel to Ryloth to get your hands on a lovely Twi’lek dancer, jedi, personal assistant, or sith minifig. Arealight Custom Work now sells printed versions of the custom accessories we reviewed last year, as well as new curved torsos.

The heads are 5.00 USD each and the torsos 4.00 USD. Check out more photos on Flickr.

As someone too untalented to try designing, printing, and applying waterslide decals myself, I just ordered a full set and can’t wait to make them dance around on my coffee table. ♫ Jabba’s Theme ♩ as Pugsly observes approvingly…

Colossal Castle Contest Winners Announced! [News]

The Classic-Castle Admins have finished the judging and announced the results! Check out the winners. There are some excellent castle creations there. If you need more Castle goodness, take a peek at all the entries. While there were less entries this year, the quality seems to continue to rise. I can tell you, it was hard to judging this year.

LEGO releases its internal color palette [News]

The Design Lab at LEGO has finally agreed to share the company’s internal color scheme with the public. In the chart below, you can see the official LEGO color names with their corresponding color numbers.

Of course, there are differences between the names that LEGO gives to their colors and what we fans call them. Nevertheless, this is still very useful information, especially to improve communication with The LEGO Group regarding the LUGBULK Program.

You can download a high-res version (25 KB Adobe Reader PDF) as well.

Announcing “Big in Japan” – collaborative display for TBB readers at BrickCon 2010

A LEGO zombie apocalypse is so last year (and the year before that). We’re pleased to announce that the collaborative display that The Brothers Brick will be coordinating this fall at BrickCon in Seattle will be inspired by the rich history and culture of Japan.

Like these wonderful characters from Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro by Iain Heath (Ochre Jelly) — elements of the “Miyazakitopia” section Iain is planning for the display — we’ll welcome creations spanning many different eras and building styles. Part of the fun of a collaborative display is figuring out how to fit it all together once all the builders and their creations arrive at the convention!

From the epic Battle of Sekigahara to Godzilla battling Mothra in retro-future Tokyo, both reality and fiction from the Land of the Rising Sun provide plenty of inspiration for great LEGO creations.

Many of my earliest posted LEGO creations were inspired by the legends and history of land where I was born, and I’m personally looking forward to building again from that cultural heritage.

This is the earliest we’ve announced a collaborative display — for good reason. We hope that Big in Japan will inspire some truly different LEGO creations (like Proudlove‘s dekotora), alongside the iconic samurai and mecha we expect. From sketching designs to buying the parts you need on Bricklink, planning substantial contributions to the display may take the next eight or nine months.

As in years past, we’ll have prizes and giveaways, though we’re still working out the details about what those might be. In the meantime, break out those Kurosawa DVDs, crack open some Natsume Soseki novels, and start building!

LEGOLAND Florida scheduled to open in 2011 [News]

In slightly belated news (but for the sake of completeness), LEGOLAND operators Merlin Entertainment last week announced LEGOLAND Florida, scheduled to open in 2011.

The new park is replacing the defunct Cypress Gardens, located in Winter Haven, about an hour south of Orlando.

Here’s the official word:

Merlin has purchased the historical Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven Florida from property investment company Land South Group and will open LEGOLAND Florida on the site at the end of 2011. The deal to buy the 145-acre site includes the freehold on the current theme park and waterpark as well as an operating lease in perpetuity on the historic botanical gardens. Merlin plans a significant multi-million dollar investment over a number of years, up to and beyond opening, in what will be the biggest LEGOLAND to date. In line with the group’s “resort” strategy for its theme parks this is likely to include both accommodation and the addition of further branded attractions from the Merlin portfolio. This will build on the $100m invested over the last few years in improved infrastructure on the site.

Read the full press release on the Merlin site.

And don’t miss Thanel’s review of LEGOLAND California for adult visitors.

Registration now open for Bricks by the Bay 2010 [News]

The San Francisco Bay area in California is hosting a new LEGO convention later this spring called Bricks by the Bay. The event will be held in Fremont on April 9-11, 2010.

You can now register for Bricks by the Bay on their website.

LEGO 8683 Collectible minifigures coming June 2010 [News]

Brickset has high resolution images of the 16 upcoming collectible minifigs in June 2010. All of these figures feature unique printed parts and accessories that are already making fans go nuts. Currently there’s word that each pack contains one random figure for $2, which makes each purchase a surprise (or a disaster on your wallet if you’re on a scavenger hunt for your favorites).

Judging by the “series 1” label in the image below, we can expect more to come in the future.

Upcoming Atlantis content [News]

The official Finnish LEGO Atlantis website has pictures of some upcoming Atlantis vehicles, guardians, and characters in their interactive database. You can see them from Pate-keetongu on Flickr.

Via The Application Trend

Hero Factory replaces Bionicle in August 2010 [News]

News from Wizard World Magazine reveal pictures of successors of Bionicle: Hero Factory. The plot of the new line describes certain Heroes who fight evil across space and time, which pretty much sets the stage for an infinite possibility of expansions. At a decent price of $7.99, you can purchase your Hero when they arrive in August of this year.

Via Eurobricks

LEGO Prince of Persia available for pre-order on Amazon [News]

The upcoming LEGO Prince of Persia sets in April 2010 are available for pre-order at Amazon. More importantly, this also means that high-res images of the set are now available. Click on each image to open up the pre-order page, which also includes additional pictures of the set.

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Despite the fact that The Brothers Brick posted these images in good faith based on their public availability on Amazon.com, the LEGO Group has threatened legal action against The Brothers Brick if we do not remove them. Even though solving the LEGO Group’s information security issues is not the responsibility of a news site such as The Brothers Brick, and even though our use of images revealed elsewhere, for the purposes of discussion and review here, falls under the Fair Use clause of United States copyright law, we don’t have the resources to pick a fight with a multi-billion-dollar international corporation such as the LEGO Group, so images have been removed at their request. -ed
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Via FBTB