Tag Archives: Ideas

LEGO Ideas 21332 The Globe: Cartography done right [Review]

The last time that LEGO crossed paths with cartography was with Art 31203: World Map. That huge set (11,695 pieces, the highest part count to date) met with a lot of divided reviews from the fan community. While it was clearly “art” was it really a “map”? Well, fans of geography can rest a little easier now, as 21332 The Globe has arrived. Or rather, it will arrive on February 1st for US $199.99 | CAN $269.99 | UK £174.99 | €199.99. This 2585 piece set is the latest in the LEGO Ideas theme, based on the concept submitted by fan designer Guillaume Roussel. All the necessary details are  there to call it a map…but the retro styling has us asking “but is this also art?” Read along as we take an early look at this set and see what you think!

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click to read the full hands-on review

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 Ideas 21330 Home Alone House: The largest Ideas set ever is packed with movie references [Review]

Just in time for the holidays, LEGO has unveiled a set based on the classic Christmas-time film, Home Alone. 21330 Home Alone House is the 38th entry in the Ideas theme, and will be available November 1st for US $249.99 | CAN $349.99 | UK £229.99. At a whopping 3957 pieces, it even beats out the massive 21323 Grand Piano in terms of part count, becoming the largest Ideas set to date. In addition to the titular home, the are also five exclusive minifigures and plenty of other extras. Come along as we find out just how many movie references you can cram into a single set. (Spoiler alert: It’s a lot.)

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click to read the full hands-on review

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.

Minifigures from LEGO Ideas 21319 Central Perk set are now available as keychains [News]

Brand new LEGO keychains with minifigures from LEGO Ideas 21319 Central Perk set are available from LEGO.com right now. There are six keychains listed online meaning that each of the main characters got their own keychain, except for Gunther. The keychains look identical to the minifigures that can be found in the Ideas set, and retail for US $5.99 | CAN $6.99 | UK £3.99 each.

Click here to take a closer look

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.

First look at the upcoming LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith set [News]

The first official picture of the soon-to-be-released LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith set can be found right now on the Amazon.co.uk page. Although the set has not been unveiled yet, the online retailer used a rendered image of the set as the title one for the Ideas theme.

Continue reading →

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 Ideas 21323 Grand Piano makes music starting Aug. 1st [News]

LEGO Ideas has revealed its biggest set yet, 21323 Grand Piano. The massive musical model comes with 3,662 pieces that make up the 25-key keyboard, sleek black lid and body, working internal hammers, and even an original composition. The set will retail for US $349.99 | CA $449.99 | UK £319.99 beginning August 1st (becoming the most expensive LEGO Ideas set ever).

The Grand Piano comes with a motor, smart hub, and sensor used to connect to the LEGO Powered Up app which creates the sound. The piano can be played in either a “self-play” toy piano mode where hitting any key produces the next note in a selected song, or in an “auto-play” mode where the piano moves randomized keys while the app produces music like a player piano.

The Brothers Brick got an early preview of the Grand Piano from the LEGO Ideas design team, so we have included some interesting facts and quotes about the set throughout the article below.

Take a closer look at the LEGO Ideas Grand Piano.

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.

Epic triple-decker pinball wizardry [Video]

We recently featured a pinball machine with a modular play field. I’m not sure why there is a sudden uptick in pinball builds, but I am totally on board! Bring them on, pin-wizards! I have to say, you may have a tough time competing with this one, created by Nachapon Lego. I’ve seen a few multi-tiered LEGO machines, but this is probably executed the best. The physics behind pinball can be complicated. The size of the field coupled with the size and weight of the ball, plus the angles of the obstacles, all make for a tricky design process. Then you bring LEGO into the mix and the constraints take on another level of difficulty.

*INSANE* LEGO Pinball Machine!! Please vote at Lego ideas website.

The Star Wars theme will be popular for many of you, but if that’s not your thing, the builder made a sister-table. The obstacles are the same, but this one has a creative and colorful adventure motif as a tribute to the vast possibilities of LEGO. The game-play video below will have you wishing you could have a go at it yourself! I particularly like the ball-saving that can be done by kicking it back to the main level once it drains.

If you haven’t already, definitely take a peak at some of our other featured pinball articles! You’ll find my own Classic Space pinball machine, along with a few others that will get you excited about making one too!

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 Ideas launches 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay marking the return of classic pirates [News]

LEGO Ideas has revealed its latest fan-inspired set, 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay. The impressive 2,545-piece set features a shipwreck island teeming with eight minifigure pirates. As an added bonus, the set can be re-built into a fully working pirate ship. It will sell for US $199.99 | CAN $259.99 | UK £179.99 starting April 1st.

We’ve already gotten a hands-on look in our review of Pirates of Barracuda Bay. Continue reading this article for all the official product images and press release.

Click to get a closer look at the official images of Pirates of Barracuda Bay

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.

Building “Pursuit of Flight” is still attainable [Instructions]

Nearly a year ago, we featured this exceptional kinetic sculpture by Jason Allemann. The “Pursuit of Flight” later went on to become a finalist in the recent LEGO Ideas review round. A week ago, LEGO announced which projects made it into the next production run, and unfortunately, Jason’s “Pursuit of Flight” was not one of those projects. But do not despair! He has made the full instructions available to anyone who is dying to build this wonderful piece of art.

Pursuit of Flight Instructions

For those big Star Wars fan out there, you can try your hand at a trench run variation of the original model.

As you may know, this is not the first time that Jason (also known as JK Brickworks) has been a LEGO Ideas finalist. He has actually previously won the coveted opportunity to have his build become an official set… twice. He’s responsible for 21305 Maze and 21315 Pop-Up Book (the latter in collaboration with Grant Davis).

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.

More than your average LEGO City garbage truck [Video]

What’s a city layout without the staple vehicles: police, fire, ambulance, bus, delivery, mail, garbage? You gotta have them all! LEGO has released a few generic garbage/recycling trucks, but none of them are this cool. At first glance this build by Scott Hasse looks a bit like an average set. But up close it’s pretty nifty. Rather than the typical manual dump action displayed in the City line, you get a truck that works much more like the ones you see on the street in real life.

LEGO Automated Side Loading Garbage Truck with minifigs

A simple turn of the knobs not only grabs and dumps the bins, but also compacts the refuse into the dump collection in the back. The whole thing is really smooth and works like a charm! An if you had a fleet, you could put tiles on the sides to indicate garbage vs. recycling or compost. Would anyone else besides me get hours of entertainment from playing with this thing? My next step would be to motorize it!

This could become a real set one day, you never know. But in the meantime, you can use some simple instructions to build your own little garbage truck.

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.

The top 10 best LEGO sets of 2018 [Review Feature]

LEGO released nearly 800 sets this year, and The Brothers Brick has so far reviewed over 120 of them — that’s more than two reviews a week over this past year. But now we’re winding down the year and looking back on 2018, with just one week left until the end of the year. LEGO’s free shipping offer ends tomorrow, so as you wrap up your holiday shopping, here are a few of our favorite LEGO sets released this year.

And for some extra goodness, don’t miss our list of the best LEGO sets of 2017 (many of which are still available).

Read our complete list of the best LEGO sets released in 2018

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 21311 Voltron now available [News]

The largest LEGO Ideas set to date, 21311 Voltron is now available. Long anticipated by fans nostalgic for the iconic giant robot from the 1980s TV series of the same name, Voltron stands over 15 inches tall and includes 2,321 pieces, and costs $179.99 USD. But most impressively, it’s actually assembled from the five lions, and transforms with remarkable ease. Voltron will be widely available beginning Aug. 1, but if you’re a VIP member you can go ahead and purchase the set now from the LEGO Shop Online. VIP membership is free.

Buy LEGO 21311 Voltron from the LEGO Shop Online [USA | UK | CAN]

If you’re still on the fence about Voltron, or just want to know before spending your hard-earned cash on a giant transforming robot, check out our review. We go in-depth in our text review of Voltron, and give a thorough breakdown of the transformation process in our video review below.

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’s largest-ever Ideas set, 21311 Voltron [Review + Video]

LEGO’s largest mech ever has landed, bringing with it a wave of 1980s nostalgia. Based on the cartoon TV series that began airing in 1984, Voltron: Defender of the Universe, this huge robot has taken a long, winding route through LEGO’s product development, arriving more than two years after the project surpassed the 10k-vote mark needed for LEGO to assess the project. With 2,321 pieces, 21311 Voltron is the largest Ideas set to date. It will be available to LEGO VIP members beginning July 23, with full availability Aug. 1, and it will be priced $179.99 USD.

Watch our video review here, and read the in-depth full review below:

Click to read the full review of 21311 Voltron!

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.