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.

Keith Goldman and Brickforge get podcasted

Once again James Wadsworth from LAML has done a fabulous job in releasing two more great podcast interviews. Listen to the talk with master diorama builder Keith Goldman, who recently stirred up some action both at NWBC and in hosting a contest. Here’s his interview. As for plugging in a photo of my hero Keith, this smug portrait is the best one I found.

Also, check out the interview with Kyle Peterson (aka armothe), who’s known for his amazing customized minifigs and the popular customs minifig accessory store Brickforge.

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Hippotam revealed!

As a great builder and the creator of one of my favorite LEGO blogs (Klocki Lego dla dorosłych), I can’t imagine the LEGO online community without the man we knew previously only as Hippotam.

To honor the selection of his “Armadillo” (on the left above) as the “MOC of the Month” on Portuguese LEGO fan site Fórum 0937, the site featured an interview. Now, we’re lucky enough to have an English version on Klocki.

So, nice to meet you, Marcin Danielak! :-D

Clancy’s Farm

Well, folks, I’m on a roll! Here is my first entry for the CCCV:

Just your basic farm, owned by troll. His name is Clancy and he’s a pacifist. Most trolls enjoy mucking about, destroying things, bashing people on the head, that sort of thing. Clancy likes peace and tranquility. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t enjoy a good ham sandwich now and then!

Classic Volkswagen Beetle set from LEGO in late 2008 [News]

And speaking of cars… A Volkswagen fan site has a press release from LEGO announcing that the classic Beetle will be released as a set in mid-2008:

Now, there’s some history to this set, as you can see by reading the press release. Here’s a rundown of previous coverage here on The Brothers Brick:

Back in October 2006, the LEGO Ambassadors asked fans what cars we’d like to see as sets. You can read the discussion in comments on the old blog. Note that the VW Beetle was a common request.
In January of 2007, LEGO showed off three prototype cars at a fan event in Frechen, Germany, and fans could vote on which of the three they wanted as a set. One of the cars was the VW Beetle.

Thanks for the link, Matt Wagner!

Please welcome Nannan Z to The Brothers Brick!

Regular readers of The Brothers Brick should recognize Nannan’s name from all the weird and wonderful creations of his that we’ve featured here.

So it’s a pleasure and an honor to welcome Nannan as a contributor to The Brothers Brick! Looking through his Brickshelf gallery (where you may know him as “a-tree”) and Flickr photostream, you’ll see that we’ve missed far too many of his excellent creations. Since we encourage our contributors to blog their own builds, problem solved!

Nannan is a builder who isn’t afraid to use a little bley, and his surreal creations are like nobody else’s:

A cool bonus of the fact that Nannan has been featured in BrickJournal (in Issue 9) is that we also know what he looks like! Here he is with one of his signature alien beasties:

Welcome to the team, Nannan!

And we’re back (again)!

I was a bit shocked myself when I opened the browser this morning and saw this, as many of you probably saw too:

Of course, I knew we were at 97% of our 10 GB/month bandwidth limit on Monday, but I was just being cheap and hoping we’d squeek by through the end of the month. I guess the downtime is actually my fault. Sorry! Anyway, I’ve upgraded our hosting plan, so we now have plenty of room to grow.

Colossal Castle Contest V has been announced!

Hey all you castle-lovers out there!

Classic-Castle has announced their fifth annual Colossal Castle Contest! Let me tell you, these are a blast. I’ve entered every year and they just keep getting better and better.

Check out the prizes and the rules, then get building!

Have The Brothers Brick sold out?!

No, but hosting a site that gets nearly 2 million hits a month isn’t free, so we’ve added a way for our loyal readers to help us out. ;-) The next time you buy LEGO from the LEGO Store online, please consider clicking through from Brothers-Brick.com first. If you do that, we get a (very small) percentage of the sale, which will help to cover costs like Web hosting.

So, if you appreciate what we do and want to show your support by helping us out, please consider buying some LEGO!

Q: The links don’t actually go to LEGO.com. What’s with this LinkSynergy.com business? Is this safe?

A: Yes, this is safe. The LEGO Store Affiliate Program uses a service from LinkShare.com to give participants like us credit for our referrals. Once the service registers your click, you’ll be immediately redirected to LEGO.com.

Q: Does Brothers-Brick.com share my personal information with LEGO or LinkShare?

A: No, in accordance with the Brothers-Brick.com Privacy Policy, we will never share your name, e-mail address, or other personal information with third parties.

Breaking News: TOR Omicron is no more!

You all remember Omicron Weekend by KeithLUG, right? I hope you do. Because its gone. Like, forever. Like giant, robot, Mecha-Godzilla gone…

Check out the carnage….

The Brothers Brick would like to extend our condolences to Mike, Ryan, and Keith (and, of course, the Monkey).

The Empire of LEGO Town: 10184 Town Plan [News]

Cafe Corner. Market Street. Cement Mixer. Recycle Truck. No longer is the Town theme reserved for endlessly repeated police stations, firehouses and construction vehicles. 2007 has been a truly awesome year for LEGO Town, and it only gets better. Feast your eyes on this set that can only be as a masterpiece:

10184 Town Plan

Check out the Classic-Castle thread for more discussion and pictures.

EDIT: More, high-quality pictures are now available on BrickJournal.com, including pictures of the interior (some pictured below).

For anyone who didn’t know, the man pictured is Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, grandson of Ole Kirk Christiansen, the inventor of LEGO. 10184 Town Plan is a remake of 248 Town Plan Board. The boy seen in the original set is, in fact, Kjeld.

News: BrickJournal Issue 9 out now, and in print next February

Editor Joe Meno has announced that the latest issue of BrickJournal (issue 9) is now available for download.

Joe says that this will be the last free issue, and that the journal will be available in printed form starting next February. Read more about this change in his announcement on LUGNET, where you’ll find the link to the download site.

First look at new BrickArms weapons [News]

Those of us who attended BrickCon 2007 last weekend learned that Will Chapman of BrickArms is working on some new weapons. Will generously gave me some early prototypes to show off to everyone out there interested in custom accessories for their minifigs.

The first two weapons should be familiar to fans of a certain trilogy of popular video games:

Will is also working on some real-world weapons, including the M1 Garand rifle:

In a session on Sunday morning, Will also described his development process, including how he uses test molds to create small batches of prototypes before committing to a final design. I thought the test molds were really cool, so he lent me an early version he used to design the M1 Garand:

Will asked me to remind everyone that he’s just experimenting at this point, and he can’t guarantee that any of these will make it into production. I personally think these are very cool, and can’t wait to see the final versions.