In celebration of Mothers Day and the many AFOLs who became mothers or mothers who discovered LEGO through their children, we present this guest post from our own Kimberly Giffen.
The day arrives when the oldest child receives her first LEGO set, and the time for endless hours of building with your children has come. As a family with an AFOL mother and four kids, so many hours have been spent on building. We build together, they move on to something else, and I continue building.
LEGO’s Art line has proven a popular way to engage with iconic artwork, with sets that translate brushstrokes into bricks that you can hang on your wall. The newest addition to the line, LEGO Art 31216 Keith Haring – Dancing Figures, shakes up the formula with a playful interpretation of the pop artist’s work that invites sharing the build experience with others. And instead of one finished work, you get 5 pieces that you can display your own way. For this review, I’ll be taking LEGO’s suggestion and inviting my family to join in for a social build experience. If you have others to share the build with, I recommend that you try this as well. As Keith Haring famously said, “art is for everybody.” But is this set for you? Let’s dig in!
Keith Haring – Dancing Figures will hit shelves and walls this May 15th for US $119.99 | CAN $149.99 | UK £104.99.
The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
From Byzantine icons to Michelangelo murals to swords-and-sandals epics, the New Testament gospels have been a source of artistic inspiration for nearly 2000 years. During the lead up to Easter, RebelLUG members Kevin Wanner, Eli Willsea, Chris Roberts, and James Libby collaborated on a series of 8 builds corresponding with Holy Week. Regardless of one’s faith, the series is an inspiring use of LEGO as a storytelling medium and a showcase of amazing talent in the community.
Kevin contributes the first entry, an immersive scene that depicts Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, the origins of Palm Sunday.
Read on for the full holy week collaboration
Do you know what greebling is? I’ll tell you: it’s a mish-mash of tiny mechanical details that serve little-to-no purpose other than making something look suitably futuristic. It’s a favourite technique of LEGO sci-fi builders, particularly in Star Wars-adjacent or -inspired builds. And these mechanical mounts from Red Impala and Zakarion are masterclasses in the technique! First, we have K-Drak and his steed Zeet, as built by Red Impala. You may have seen his work before – he’s a frequent fixture in our Minifigure Monday round-ups. The figure here is suitably attired, which, together with its ostrich-looking mount, really drives home the fact these guys live in the desert.
As for Zak, he made Oros and Gazelle here – and this thing seems to be made almost entirely of greebles! I’m a sucker for sand-red, so that’s what I’m drawn to here. Of course it would be a sand-based colour, being a desert mount. It also appears to draw inspiration from birds like ostriches or emus, but it’s interesting to see how two different builders can take the concept in wildly different directions!
The Brothers Brick started as a minfig-focused site, so with our 20th anniversary fast approaching, it’s high time we bring back the celebration of custom minifigure creations. A lot has changed in the minifig scene since TBB founder Andrew shared his first fig. Collectible Minifigure lines and ever-expanding licenses have exploded the range of minifig elements and accessories, and social media has led to more channels to share creations and get inspired by the community. Minifig Mondays is a new feature where we choose a theme and showcase recent creations from the custom Minifig community. This week’s theme is Androids – humanoid robots.
Our first figs are a collaboration between Red Impala and Bambus Bricks Customs. These three are members of Onyx Talon, a faction of freedom-fighting androids in a post-apocalyptic future. Ferret the infiltrator, Hare the scout, and Beetle the reconnaissance drone provide intel and overwatch for the team. I love the digitigrade leg designs, especially Hare’s with the hotdog feet. In case you’re wondering where Hare’s eerie face is from, it’s from Star Wars: Solo character Enfys Nest.
Read on for more amazing custom minifigs and microbuilds
March 10th is MAR10 Day, and by now, we all know what May the 4th signifies, but did you know that March 9th is Miku Day? It’s the day when fans celebrate Hatsune Miku, the vocaloid virtual diva who has taken the world by storm since her debut in 2007, spawning concerts, anime, manga, games, and especially fan works. To celebrate the day, big names in the LEGO Bionicle and character building community came together for a synchronized drop of Miku tributes. Aside from the signature blue hair, the builds couldn’t be more different in style. Each model is inspired by a song featuring Miku’s vocaloid singing. Together they show why Miku has endured as a chameleon-like idol, open to interpretation by fans.
First up is “World is Mine” Miku from alex_mocs. For Miku’s azure hair, Alex blends curvy tubes with ninjago swords. What sets this build apart is the incredible staging on that impressive stack of speakers, evoking a futuristic platform on which the holographic singer can shine.
Keep reading for more vocaloid visions in LEGO
It’s a well-known fact that two of the best things in the universe are Star Wars ships and LEGO teal. What do you get when you blend the two? Teal Squadron, the long-running collaboration between some of the top builders in the community that imagines a brighter look for the Rebellion. Last week, Teal Squadron saw its biggest display ever at the Bricktastic convention. Joining the lineup was a new fighter from LEGO set designer Wes Talbott: the Phthalo Phantom. There’s no letter in the alphabet to match these striking and unconventional wings (4xV-wing, maybe?). Wes based the design off the StarViper from the X-Wing tabletop game.
To match the collaborative display’s aquatic setting, Wes poses the ship over an aquamarine patch of sea with lovely spray kicked up in its wake. The rear view also offers a better look at those impressive engines, which cleverly employ LEGO shovels to focus the thrusters.
We’ve previously featured Theo Bonner and Tim Goddard‘s contributions to this year’s Teal Squadron collaboration. Beyond the Brick captured the amazing display in motion.
If you’ve ever been to a LEGO fan event like BrickCon or Bricking Bavaria (and if you haven’t, do look for an event in your area!) one of the highlights is seeing collaborative builds where the parts, creativity, and passion of a team comes together to make something epic. 2024 saw some incredible collaborations, like Rogue Ronin or the latest incarnation of New Hashima. One of our favorite collabs of 2024 was “Medinat al Musawrah,” a fictional city inspired by the architecture of the Middle East and North Africa that is both modern and ancient. When we learned that the display would be returning in 2025 at BrickFair NoVa with new additions from Blake Foster and others, we reached out to the organizers to discuss the project’s inspiration, creation, and future.
A big thanks to Michael Willhoit, George Hawes, and Tobias Whelan for sharing their story.
TBB: First, can you talk about how the project came together? You had all just teamed up for the Old City district of New Hashima. What inspired this new collaboration?
Michael: The project was born from a few different factors. First, I wanted to move away from cubes. Having just completed New Hashima, some collaborators and friends of mine expressed interest in breaking away from using just a cube standard because of the constraints it had. It’s a tried and true technique but I wanted to devise a new system. More odd angles, pockets and alleys, density, and generally capturing the feeling of a city that’s been standing for centuries. Originally I modeled this off the iconic Kowloon Walled City, but that brings me to the next factor. We wanted to move out of the Eat Asian aesthetic sphere. I personally find a lot of inspiration in the Middle East, and I was lucky enough that I found people to share that. Looking in that area you can see similar insane density in cities like Cairo. There were initially 11 of us to test this. Everyone brought something unique to the display that I think really pushed it forward. George and Tobias shared in coordination roles, and George particularly contributed a massive modern pyramid structure to the build.
Tobias: I’ve been collaborating with George, Mike, or both of them since 2019. They’re some of my closest buddies and we can all unify a vision despite stylistic differences in building. Even with the massive scale of 2023’s New Hashima, George, Mike, and I all built for the Old City portion.
Our in-depth interview with Michael, George and Tobias continues
In the cyberpunk city of New Hashima, the rich live above the fray (as we’ve seen with this incredible tower) while the have-nots are left to eke out a living in the toxic world below. Brick Ready adds to the massive LEGO collaboration with this artificial island made from shipping containers that shows that there’s beauty even in the city’s slums. The builder brings an eye for detail to the towering creation, such as laundry hanging from windows, splintered wood supports, brick-built graffiti, and broken windows. The shipping container homes might not be luxurious but they feel cozier than many of the neon scenes in New Hashima’s more thriving districts. The transmission tower adds scale and a splash of color that makes the island a triumphant addition to the collaboration that grows more wonderful each year.
Each year the RogueBricks community, home to many of Europe’s most accomplished LEGO builders, comes together for a collaborative build. This year’s endeavor is an immersive recreation of the Japanese city of Kumamoto during the Edo Period built atop a whopping 170 base plates (that’s 2.5 x 4.3 meters!). The massive diorama depicts the coastal city in autumn and is packed with details of life during the Tokugawa shogunate, including scenes telling the story of the famous samurai Miyamoto Musashi.
Attendees were treated to motorized elements and integrated lighting, as well as informative plaques describing the history captured in bricks. As a bonus easter egg for young visitors, 10 Ninjago charaters were hidden in the build. Like 2023’s Rogue Odyssey collaboration, the project took home first prize for collaborations from both jury and audience. We’ve highlighted several contributions in recent weeks, but only now can we share the complete build thanks to Hannes Tscharner. Extended highlights and builder credits follow.
Read on for a full tour of this tour de force!
I’ve never visited Japan in winter, but it sure looks lovely in LEGO in this scene from BrickiboT. The Shinto shrine is entered via a gate in the rōmon style, which BrickiboT achieved in LEGO using 10 nets sandwiched between 1×1 red tiles on the bottom and 1×1 curves on top. (that’s over 3000 pieces just for the curved roof sections alone!) Inside the gate stand brick-built statues of Fuijin and Raijin, the gods of wind and storms.
A look at the full complex reveals more details of Shinto tradition, like the wooden ema tablets where wishes are written, strung up, and later burned.
BrickiboT created this scene as part of the Roguebricks LUG 2024 Rogue Ronin collaboration at Bricking Bavaria. We also loved these entries from Mark van der Maarel and felix-workshop.
Mainline Pokémon games are iconic RPGs with all of the stats, XP, and leveling up you expect from the genre, so fusing Pocket Monsters with D&D is a perfect fit! That’s just what builders Dan Ko and Gino Loshe teamed up to prove with this character collaboration called Dungeons & Pocket Monsters. Dan was responsible for giving Pikachu and Bulbasaur their mage makeovers, while Gino tackled Squirtle and Charmander. Created for the Brickscalibur competition “Elemental Emergency” category, each character wields a different flavor of magic matching their Pokémon type. Even more impressive, each sports a different type of wizard cap! Join them as they travel across the land seeking the power that’s inside.
