Tag Archives: 1990s

Oh you know, the Megazords are at it again in the city

The Power Rangers were a staple of any 90s childhood, but I believe the television show is a cross generational piece of children’s culture with many different version of the series popping up over the years. One recurring aspect of the show was battles in the city between Megazords and monsters of some type, because you know such an event is just part of city life. Will Galbraith’s LEGO model brings back these familiar scenes.

Untitled

The city featured in Galbraith’s build is Tokyo, which is shaped out of many small elements including 1×1 plates, 1×1 slope 45s, cheese slopes, and technic gears. Galbraith’s Megazords similarly utilize a menagerie of small pieces also including slopes, tiles, ingots and round 2×2 bricks among many other elements. Overall this build certainly encapsulates the nostalgia of a very beloved show.

The legendary big three – the ’96 Chicago Bulls

If you were growing up as a kid in the 90’s, without a doubt you had to be a fan of the Chicago Bulls, at least I felt that way during the time. Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, and Scottie Pippen weren’t just great basketball players, they were icons of the sport and the era. Takamichi Irie brings back some of the vibes of those days through his figural LEGO builds of the dream team.

The BULLs

Irie shapes the bodies of the big three completely out of bricks, with musculature utilizing sloped pieces. Smooth pieces such as tiling, slopes, and 2×2 round bottom plates also help in rendering the legs and arms of the figures while articulation is provided by 1×1 modified plates with clips. The Nike swoosh on a couple of the players’ shoes are portrayed by claw pieces. The heads of the players are given some definition with 1×1 tiles and cheese slope pieces. While the bodies are blocky, human figures are extraordinarily difficult to render using bricks, especially at this scale. I believe Irie’s combination and configuration of elements really produced the closest one can get to recreating these figures in LEGO at such a size. Looking at the build as a whole, I remember the glory days of the Bulls’ past, but I am also reminded that I need to check out the Netflix docuseries on the Chi-town bulls – The Last Dance, which may have inspired these awesome models

Bugs bunny welcomes you to the space jam

Space Jam was a staple film of any 90s childhood; which kid back in the day wouldn’t have enjoyed the movie? It had everything kids wanted – Michael Jordan, basketball, great music, and of course, the Looney Toons. Ian Hou brings his best 90s game to the world of LEGO bricks in this awesome brick-built Space Jam model.

nEO_IMG_DOGOD_Space Dunk_01

“Look at our facilities! We’ve got weights! We’ve got hoops! We’ve got balls!” well, Hou’s build doesn’t have any weights, but certainly, there’s a brick-built orange basketball in Bugs Bunny’s hand, and this basketball court fashioned by way of the SNOT (studs not on top) technique features a basketball hoop element from the LEGO sports sets dating from the 2000s. Bugs bunny is also brick-built himself; his build utilizes slopes, tiles, bricks, and some technic elements along with hinge pieces granting his figure some articulation. As a 90s kid, this build brings absolute joy to my heart; seeing a happy and expertly fashioned brick-built bugs bunny shooting hoops in his basketball garb is a very welcome sight.

The first time LEGO returned to visorless spacepersons

When it comes to LEGO space nostalgia, old Classic Space gets the lion’s share of the love. Now, I’m not saying that Benny and his gang don’t deserve the hype, but I was not even born yet by the time the visor made its debut. And the visored spacepersons had some awesome themes, like Blacktron (I and II), Space Police (I, II, and III, even), and the ever-iconic Ice Planet 2002; occasionally these guys get some love from the community, but not like the Classic Spacers do. But then LEGO started some new visorless themes in the mid-late 1990s, like Insectoids and UFOs. When was the last time you saw a custom creation from one of those themes? Well, Koen Zwanenburg is here to supply that lack, with this superb re-imagining of one of my all-time favorite sets, 6915 Warp Wing Fighter, making the crossover we all imagined when seeing it in 1997: an X-wing fighter from Star Wars.

Warp Wing Fighter

This ship has it where it counts, from the giant curved hull panels to the transparent neon-greenish yellow canopy and accessories. More tiles and curved slopes give it an updated look, but it is still immediately recognizable as the old ship I loved so much, ever since finding it under the tree one Christmas morning.

Love Koen’s work? So do we here at The Brothers Brick, so check out our archives.

Can you hear me now? I said, can you hear me now!

Entering a new decade has left me feeling nostalgic for my youth and, since I group up in the ’90s, I was amused when I saw Qian Yj’s LEGO version of an early cellphone. Back then, such phones were such phones were nicknamed bricks due to their tremendous size. This particular model is about as close to a 1:1 replica as you can get, as illustrated by this image of Qian Yj holding the brick in-hand. His replica looks spot-on, from the numbered buttons to the thick antenna protruding from the top. Lime green tiles form the screen and are a perfect choice given the then-state-of-the-art LCD technology.

Cell phones in the 1990s