Tag Archives: Collaboration

Remote Dantooine outposts make for an effective demonstration of LEGO craftsmanship

Dantooine is first mentioned in the very first Star Wars film, a throw-away bit of worldbuilding that made George Lucas’ galaxy feel so much more lived in. Since then the world has shown up in games and books, and now, thanks to builders Jonas G and WG Productions, we can explore the outer rim world in LEGO form. First up, Jonas shares an industrial farming outpost run by Republic sympathizers. Jonas absolutely aces the monolithic Imperial architecture with gorgeous curved corners, a thin window, pinstripes of red, and a mandatory dose of greebles. The massive Blba tree is just as impressive, insanely dense with leaves. Minifigs tell a story of resistance with Republic troops securing thermal detonators, while a Sith helm is used on a scarecrow.

Dantooine

While Jonas’ many Star Wars builds focus more on the galaxy’s heroic forces, WG Productions favors the Dark Side. Here we see the Sith troopers seizing a transport station for the Sith Empire. Using dozens of rollers skates for the rail is a brilliant technique. Both builders coordinated on the terrain to ensure consistency in the Dantooine ecosystem.

Dantooine seems like a lovely planet, whatever side you’re allied with. What a relief the planet was too remote for Grand Moff Tarkin to use as a demonstration for the Death Star’s power.

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.

Ben Brickson dreams of electronic greebles

One of the most exciting attractions at LEGO conventions over the past two years is the massive Cyberpunk collaboration of New Hashima. An array of builders contribute cubes or toppers to the modular megacity that keeps growing and evolving. Ben Brickson is one such collaborator and he recently shared a wonderfully detailed gallery of his residential Hex Home Block. Capsule homes slot into a honeycomb grid of girders like a high-rise hive.

New Hashima: Hex Home Block

Jack in and see Ben’s block up close

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.

Fire Breathing Fortress reforged in epic collab from LEGO pros

In their professional capacity as LEGO designers, Chris Perron and Wes Talbott have collaborated on some of the best fantasy sets ever released, including Rivendell and the Red Dragon’s Tale. So what do these friends get up to when they’re off the clock? How about an epic reimaging of a beloved ’90s castle with modern building techniques and design aesthetics? The massive build debuts at the upcoming Skærbæk Fan Weekend event, but for those who can’t make it to rural Denmark, the builders graciously offer a detailed tour of this house of the Dragon Masters.

Fire Breathing Fortress

Click to explore the reforged Fire Breathing Fortress!

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.

Middle Eastern megacity is a triumph of LEGO collaboration and creativity

Every day we see incredible LEGO creations built from one person’s imagination and collection of bricks. When builders come together for collaborative LEGO builds, not only are we blessed with scenes of incredible scale, but the mix of builder styles harmonize to create to create something truly special. One such collaborative project debuted at BrickFair 2024. Organized by George Hawes and Michael Willhoit, the “Medinat Al Musawrah” collaboration depicts a fictional Middle Eastern walled megacity.  The other contributers are Brian O’Leary, Intense Potato, Detroitika, Evan M, Renobricks, Ryan K, Skooby C, and Zach Bean.

Medinat Al Musawra - Overall

This impressive scene captures the sort of 80s urban sprawl that inspired sci-fi works like Blade Runner. (Fittingly, many of the collaborators also participated in last year’s truly epic New Hashima cyberpunk collab at BrickWorld Chicago). But it’s real-world cities, like Cairo, Algiers, and Kowloon that inspire the grounded sense of place.

Medinat Al Musawra - Backstreets

Continue on our tour of this epic Middle Eastern megacity collab.!

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.

Award winning builders are back with a champion LEGO diorama!

A team of elite historical LEGO builders have come together to create a sprawling diorama! Natelego_, Carson, Hunter E., Noah, Max, Matt, Hunter C., and Gary have taken on the Battle of Isted fought in 1850 between the Danish forces and rebels from the local provinces at the village of Isted. This build was displayed at BrickFair VA 2024 where it won Best Battle Scene! Take a look at the partially demolished church on the right side. While there’s one window still standing, the wall has collapsed leaving only the windowsill and part of the frame of the second window. And be sure to gander at the wider landscape too! Building hills and dips in the terrain one plate at a time must take a lot of patience. All of the lush vegetation really brings this scene to life, too.

Battle of Isted

Take a look at more closeups here!

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.

Bionicle Mask Makers reforged in darkness

While not all LEGO fans have embraced Bionicle, there’s no denying that for a generation of builders, Bionicle was a gateway to both a world of construction and deep lore. For a recent collaboration between top Bionicle builders in the community, participants re-imagined characters from Bionicle Generation 2 utilizing the latest constraction techniques. We were especially struck by the pair of Ekimu and Makuta, The Mask Makers, as designed by Toni A.

Ekimu and Makuta, The Mask Makers

Toni cites Dark Souls and H.R. Giger as influences, which might seem an aesthetic jump for Bionicle, but perfectly fits the lore of these bio-machine gods. Ekimu, wearing the Mask of Creation, is the culmination of 3 years of iteration from Toni and the effort shows with some of the most impressive dark fantasy sculpting I’ve ever seen in a character. Makuta, wearing the Mask of Control (inverted), came together quicker and perfectly compliments his brother with a devilish Victorian aesthetic.

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.

LEGO takes you back to childhood

When I think back on my childhood, spending time indoors with LEGO and video games figures prominently, but for those sunny days when mom wanted me out of the house, it was all about the playground. The more slides and things to climb on and hide in, the better! The Brothers Brick alum Nannan Zhang captures that nostalgia with a playground so familiar that, chances are, you probably played in one just like it at some point. It’s an elegant build, making the most of prefab rails, slides, and Harry Potter pavilion tops to recreate the modular and child-safe look of an authentic playground structure.

Playground

Nannan’s playground was created as part of OhioLUG’s collaborative summer camp display for the Columbus Metropolitan Library – the full gallery of the massive display is guaranteed to make you feel like a child again.

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.

Rebellions are built in teal

How can a scrappy Rebellion possibly stand up against an Empire with massive fleets of grey, dark grey, sometimes black, but mostly grey ships? By using the one thing the Empire, in all of their power, could never imagine bringing to battle: teal. Teal, the color of hope, beloved by LEGO fans across the galaxy (except of course for designer Mark Stafford)! A band of rebels in the LEGO community have been slowly expanding on the Teal Squadron theme, and the latest addition is this brilliantly-shaped Teal Tower from Tim Goddard. As Tim explains, Rebels often repurpose existing buildings for their bases, and this tower’s weathered exterior certainly suggests a long history, with just small details to let the crafty Rebels lie low. Dark orange weathering looks great amongst the white masonry, and perfectly contrasts with the vital teal. The greebling (or sci-fi texturing) along the sides, rooftop antennae, and the decidedly low-tech awning perfectly capture the Star Wars aesthetic. And Tim’s teal-accented droidekas are maybe the best minifig scale versions of the droids I’ve seen.

Teal tower

For more teal-infused Star Wars creations, Mansur Soeleman’s Cerulean Phoenix, Alec Hole’s Capital E-Wing, Inthert’s Teal-4 Skylark, and Wami Delthorn’s Cobalt Thorn.

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.

This year’s TBB sponsored collaboration at BrickCon 2024 is all about growth! [News]

Once again, The Brothers Brick is hosting a collaboration of LEGO builds at this year’s BrickCon convention in Seattle. But in order to do this, we’re going to need a little bit of a rebrand. For BrickCon 2024, “TBB” is going to stand for “The Brothers Botany” as we host a garden of botanical builds on the convention floor.

If you’re interested in participating, our tilled plot of table space will be open to botanical creations of any scale, though we’re especially interested in real-world scale plants like those found in the LEGO Botanical Collection. Any creation where the plants are the focal point is welcome to join in. We have awards and prizes planned for the collab, with some additional surprises planted in the garden as well. To help fertilize any budding ideas you may have, I’ve got a few early MOCs of my own that’ll be making an appearance in the display.

Flex those green thumbs, builders, and be sure to select the “TBB Collaboration” when registering the theme of your botanical MOCs. We’ll see you all at the Meydenbauer in September!

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.

A modular slice of Cyberpunk

Although only one facet of a larger collaborative build, Bart Marable’s first foray into LEGO cyberpunk provides much of the requisite detail to identify it’s overall theme. While most modular buildings have such a great facade, we are left wanting when viewing the sides and backs of the building. Bart, in a relatively small build, has provided 360-degree detail with images to prove his effort.

Let’s call the ‘Fan-side’ the facade. The use of both vivid and understated colors creates a facade that seems to have evolved and been enhanced over time fulfilling the goal of portraying a cyberpunk realm, in my opinion.

A Study in Cyberpunk

Let us have a look at the full effort here.

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.

This Hollow Knight collaboration bugs me quite a bit

I have a special place in my heart for LEGO collaborations; collabs, as the cool kids call them. We have a bevy of cool kids in this article collab-ing on characters from the Hollow Knight video game, so get out your pencils and take some notes. First up is the Watcher Knight, a blue beetle guy built by (I presume) the coolest kid of them all, Sandro Quattrini. I like his stance and there are surely some neat parts usage here. Truth be told, I needed the help of Wikipedia to clue me in on the Hollow Knight game but I’m well aware of its influences such as Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man X. Incidentally, the heyday of those games precisely mark the end of my coolness and my foray into being a middle-aged schlub and occasional public nuisance.

Watcher Knight

Click to see what the other cool kids are into

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.

30+ builders come together to create epic LEGO diorama of ancient Greece

You may have noticed a few LEGO creations featured here recently with a bit of a Greek flavour to them. It’s no coincidence that these photos popped up in our feeds within a few weeks of each other, as you’ll know if you attended Bricking Bavaria. There, you will have seen RogueBricks‘ enormous (and I must stress, it really is HUGE) ancient Greek collaborative display come together. Having seen a few bits and pieces here and there, we have finally been treated to a photo of the whole glorious thing. And isn’t it magnificent?!

Rogue Odyssey – A RogueBricks Collaboration

The logistical side of this is almost as impressive as the build itself. Co-ordinating this must have been a serious undertaking! Over 30 builders made contributions to the diorama. Among others, we featured builds by BrickiboT, Justus M., and Martin Gebert, but this spread gives you an idea of what everyone brought to the table. It’s hard to cover everyone here, but I encourage you to check out every one of these creators’ photostreams! You’ll find everything from everyday life to the mythology of Greek epics. At the show itself, there were placards to provide some context and education to visitors, taking home some top prizes in the process, so it’s not merely something to be looked at!

Rogue Odyssey – A RogueBricks Collaboration

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.