Anyone who’s enjoyed the movie Scarface would instantly recognize this climactic scene made by Alex Eylar. For those who prefer the overall view, you’re not being left out.
Tag Archives: Movies
King Candy Cy-Bug
Bruce Lowell brings the fun with his most recent build…the King Candy Cy-Bug from Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph. Again Bruce shows that he is a master at creating builds with a tonne of character. But where is Ralph when ya need him?
A Pirate’s Life For Me
From Polish builder Lukasz Wiktorowicz (LL) comes a scene of daring men following in the footsteps of the great Trojan warriors of yore, slipping in under the enemy’s watchful eyes in disguise. Ok, well, actually, it’s just Pintel and Ragetti from Pirates of the Caribbean masquerading as women, but it makes a smashing good LEGO scene, brought to life with clever parts usages and some great forced perspective.
There’s something strange in the neighborhood
Lately I have been updating some of my older models, but seeing Ghostbusters for the umpteenth time last week inspired me to build something new for a change: Ecto-1. It had been on my to-do list for months.
It’s not the first Ecto-1 blogged here: a minifig scale version by misterzumbi and both minifig and large scale versions by Orion Pax have been featured here before, but I wanted my own version.
I decided to build a largish model, so that I could have working features such as steering and opening doors, which is the main thing that sets my model apart from the others. Ecto-1 in the movie was a converted ambulance built on a ’59 Cadillac commercial chassis. My starting point was a pink ’59 Cadillac convertible I built several years ago. That vehicle has a considerably shorter wheelbase and no roof, obviously, but the front end and the iconic tailfins are the same.
A drawback of the larger scale is that it isn’t suited for minifigs, which is why I opted for brick-built figures. Ecto-1 wouldn’t be complete without the Ghostbusters themselves and a “focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm, or a Class Five full roaming vapor”. You’ve got to love (s)lime green!
You Can See This Scout Ship Coming
According to Jacob (Maedhros1980), this ship is a Scouting and Surveillance ship for the Rebel Alliance in the Star Wars Universe, and that certainly explains the family resemblance to the ill-fated Tantive IV. But I’m not ashamed to admit that the reason I was drawn to it was its Ice-Planet-esque color-scheme.
Fake LEGO DUPLO Pulp Fiction set includes Royale with Cheese
We don’t feature a whole lot of DUPLO models here on The Brothers Brick, but these custom DUPLO figs by Bob Uyttendaele are too hilariously inappropriate to pass up.
Bob’s DUPLO figs of Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction look perfect enough to be official, but they most assuredly are not.
Lone Ranger 79109: Colby City Showdown [Review]
Review of 79109 Colby City Showdown
Colby City Showdown is the medium sized-set from the new Lone Ranger line, which is releasing tomorrow in North America and spans seven sets–a very large release for a new IP. Colby City is a small western town play-set, and the location of a dramatic action montage, judging by the play features. $49.99 USD may seem like a lot for two buildings, but with 587 pieces, it comes in well below that vaunted 10 cents-per-piece ratio that fans like to talk about. In fact, even without considering this is a licensed set, (which traditionally cost more per-piece than non-licensed sets) this set is a remarkably good deal.
The box contains four numbered bags, two booklet instruction manuals, a sticker sheet, and a loose 8×16 tan plate. The bags were packed pretty tightly into the box, and I applaud LEGO for their attempts to save 
cardboard with new, smaller box sizes. However, this only serves to highlight the necessity of packing the stickers with a stiff piece of cardboard, because again mine were a little worse for the wear. Ultimately, though, I decided not to even apply the stickers in this set, because I didn’t see myself re-using those pieces in my own creations with the stickers applied.
The first two bags build the sheriff’s office, and Tonto, the Lone Ranger, the outlaw Frank, and a shrubbery. I remember my brother having the old Sheriff’s Lock-Up set from the mid-90’s Western theme, and I was pleased to find many of the same fun features in the new Colby City version. The break-apart jail cell was a bit disappointing to me, though. The Sheriff’s Lock-Up cell had a cool little feature where you could insert 
the dynamite (a printed 1×2 tile) into a crack, and it would pop the back of the cell wall off. The new jail cell has a similar feature, but it’s simply lever activated, and you just clip the dynamite (now a molded piece) to the side of the building. On the other hand, the pop-down facade on the roof with a hidden cannon was definitely something the old set didn’t have. I’m not too certain I’d trust a rickety old timber-and-adobe building as an artillery platform, but you have to admit it makes a cool ambush. Like most LEGO buildings, both the sheriff’s office and the bank are facades, open in the back to allow easy access to the interior for play. The sheriff’s office comes equipped with two small tables, a chair, and a rifle rack, that oddly also holds a pair of handcuffs. Oh well, it’s LEGO.
The last two bags build Colby City’s bank, Sheriff Dan Reid, and Ray. This is a really fantastic little building. It’s built on a three-part base connected with hinges, and the design used some clever LEGO math to get the hinges to lock in place. This gives the building a lot more depth than a mere flat facade. The construction of the building reminds me of a miniature, budget version of one of the big modular sets, using lots of small pieces to create detailed walls, instead of resorting to larger prefabricated wall pieces. The interior space is small, of course, but it still manages to fit a teller station, so you can reenact a thrilling hold-up. Sadly, the set doesn’t include a frightened bank teller. I suppose a teller is somewhat unnecessary, though, since the Bank of Colby City has good faith in the local citizens, and therefore places the bank safe out in the lobby so it’s easily accessible to all. It’s a huge safe, too, definitely large enough to fit a minifigure. If walking 
inside the bank to access the safe proves too much effort, though, there’s a handy chunk of the outside wall that blows off directly behind the safe. There’s even a hand-cart included to truck away all your ill-gotten loot, which consists of two bars of silver and three $100 bills, as well as some green pieces to bulk out the stacks of cash.
I think a trade-off was made on this set, between having more buildings, or making the buildings more detailed. While I would have loved to have a longer boardwalk, maybe with a general store or a saloon, I think LEGO 
made the right decision paring this set down to the essential two structures, then spending more pieces bulking them up. The set as a whole has a good selection of pieces, with lots of dark green and brown/tan pieces. The five minifigures are terrific. Tonto and the Lone Ranger aren’t unique to this set in anyway, but the other three characters are. These figures have been very well designed, and all of them having printing on the front, rear, and legs, while avoiding using any flesh colored patches around the collar, meaning the translate well to use in yellow-minifigure land. There are three of the new pistols in the set, with two in pearl grey for the Lone Ranger, and another in dark pearl grey for Ray, plus I got an extra of each. If you get the entire line of Lone Ranger sets, you’ll be awash in the new pistols in no time. The new design of the cowboy hat for the Lone Ranger comes in black and white here. 
Really the only other piece here that’s new is Tonto’s hatchet. It’s a single mold piece with a two-tone injection, so it’s not painted. The head is slightly rubberized. It reminds me of the tools in the Collectible Minifigure line, and I’m not at all surprised to see that it’s in the series 10 collection.
All in all, it’s a very solid set. It doesn’t strike my fancy as much as the delightfully-oversized Stagecoach Escape did, but this is definitely not a filler set, and it looks ripe for customization by adding your own buildings to make a complete boardwalk. Be sure to read my review of the Stagecoach Escape from last week, if you missed it.
79109 Colby City Showdown
Lone Ranger 79108: Stagecoach Escape [Review]
Review of 79108 Stagecoach Escape
The Lone Ranger sets are finally about to ride out to stores in a few weeks, so we’re bringing you a few reviews of them so you’ll have a keen eye when they appear. The first set up is 79108: Stagecoach Escape. It’s a complete action set, comprised entirely of a large stagecoach and a separate horse and rider. Despite having a retail price of $30 USD for what amounts to fancy wagon, it actually feels like quite a good value.
Inside the box are three numbered bags, the instruction manual, and a sticker sheet. Sadly, the notion of putting the sticker sheets and instructions in a bag with a piece of stiff cardboard for protection seems to have been a short-lived improvement. No such accommodations were made here, and 
the sticker sheet was distinctly worse for the wear, having been banged around between the bags a few too many times. All three bags build various sections of the coach, with the first giving the chassis, the other two making up the cabin. Obviously, almost all of the 279 pieces are in the coach itself, which is ludicrously out of scale with the minifigs. Of course, this is nothing new for LEGO vehicles, and it’s rarely a problem. This set takes advantage of the large scale to do some really good shaping on the coach, and still have a fully functioning interior. So despite being a solid 18 feet high (in minifig terms) it’s a really terrific looking stagecoach. The chassis is quite nifty, being a bit more advanced than the standard wagon wheel attachment. It cleverly uses struts to give some degree of suspension to the rear axle of the coach. The front axle also turns to provide a small 
amount of steering. Oddly, when it came time to attach the reigns to the horses, I noticed that my string had a knot tied in it. It seems a very intentional knot, but I can’t figure out why it’s there, as it’s not called for in the manual. Another weird thing I found was the base of the cabin, which calls for a brown 1×2 plate on each side, placed onto the boat hull piece that makes up the floor. A tan 4×4 plate is placed over this, but they don’t actually connect, which makes the tan plate a bit wobbly. I can only assume this is a mistake, though fortunately it’s an easily remedied one.
The completed stagecoach cuts a fine figure, and is plenty fun to play with. Each side of the cabin features two opening doors, and the 
roof pops off for easy access to the interior. The roof is also home to a mail bag, and a removable opening bank safe, with a solitary bar of silver. The silver, much to my chagrin, is painted silver and not chromed, since LEGO has almost entirely phased out chrome now. The rear luggage compartment has some sort of catapult to fling luggage at unsuspecting pursuers. This catapult doesn’t seem to work very well, but at least it’s not more flick-fire missiles.
The Stagecoach Escape comes with five minifigs and three horses, a very respectable number for a set of this size. All the horses are, of course, the new posable style, and it’s terrific to get two black and one brown horse with very generic tack in a single affordable set. The five minifigs are the Lone Ranger, Tonto, femme fatale Red Harrington, and then two characters named Jesus and Barret. It should be no surprise to anyone that all the figures are immaculately detailed, with front and rear prints all around. Only Tonto and Red have double sided heads, though, mostly likely because the revealing cowboy hats of the other three would make this unnerving. One cool feature is that Barret is given two cowboy hats, a black Lone Ranger-style 
for his good-guy persona, and a brown Indiana Jones-style for his outlaw mug. And speaking of the hats, the Lone Ranger hat is a marvelous addition to Western headgear. It’s generic enough to look great in colors besides the Lone Ranger’s distinctive white, and it has that classic Stetson curve. This line has really stepped up to the plate with Tonto and Red’s hairpieces. Recall, if you will, the hair-and-hat combos from the Pirates of the Caribbean line, which were molded as a single unit, and consequently pretty useless outside their original context. Not so, here. Both Tonto’s bird and Red’s hat are separate pieces from the hair, attaching with a mini-pin, just like the Friends dolls accessories. Tonto’s bird is a pretty sweet new piece, and I can’t wait to incorporate it into a creation. I’ve already got some ideas. Next there is the new pistol design. They look great for the scale, though I can’t help but be a bit saddened that they’ve given up some usefulness as construction elements in the pursuit of accuracy. There are three of the new pistols in pearl silver, and two in dark pearl silver, counting the “extras.” The classic western rifle looks out of place with the new pistol now, though. The old pistol and the rifle were a matched set, sharing the same styling cues, but now the difference is jarring.
The Stagecoach Escape is a great set, and it’s destined to be one of my favorites of any of the Western themes. Despite the oversized scale, the coach looks awesome, and it’s highly playable. The minifigs are great, and easily recycled into more generic Western characters, and there are some good parts to boot. You can’t go wrong with this set.
79108 Stagecoach Escape
E.T. Phone Home
I’m guessing you recognize this iconic scene from an essential 80s film, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. There are few images that can make you feel nostalgic quite like a bright moon and a boy on his bike. Noah McClung (Glory_Forever) has rendered it beautifully in brick.
Tough Competition
I couldn’t decide which I liked better. I really couldn’t. The heat is on between Andrew Lee and Simon Liu with this most recent Iron Builder. I (along with many other girls my age) really find Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine easy on the eyes, so there’s a point there. But the GRID is just so stunning.
Andrew’s Wolverine:
Simon’s GRID:
I don’t envy the judges.
76006: Iron Man 3: Extremis Sea Port Battle [Review]
76006 Extremis Sea Port Battle is the last of the Iron Man 3 sets I’ll be reviewing. Be sure to also read my reviews of the Malibu Mansion Attack and the Ultimate Showdown sets, if you’ve missed them. The Extremis Sea Port Battle consists of an Extremis speedboat driven by badman Aldrich Killian, and Iron Man and War Machine to fight him. This set is what you’d expect from an MSRP $19.99 USD set: one large vehicle, and three minifigures, for a total of 195 pieces. The box contains two numbered bags, the instructions, a sticker sheet, and the same LEGO-style comic as the other two Iron Man 3 sets. The first bag builds the minifigs, and the bottom half of the boat, and the second finishes the boat and adds the buoy.
The boat is fairly large at almost 27 studs long, and looks pretty snazzy with its dark green and yellow color-scheme. It’s one of the cooler LEGO speedboats I’ve seen in a while, and I really appreciated the little touches the designer added like the swept-back windshield. I do always find it odd when a LEGO model calls for numerous plates where a single larger one would do. In this case, the bottom deck of the boat is held together with a row of four tan 1×10 plates. Perhaps that’s to make it look 
more like planking, or perhaps a 4×10 plate would have put the set over-budget. Either way, there are no complaints from me; I’d rather have the smaller plates. There are two flick-fire missiles in the aft compartment of the boat. Unlike most flick-fire missiles which I find cumbersome to flick with your finger and ineffective for range, these fire via a small lever mechanism which works remarkably well, and blends in well with the design of the boat. The foredeck also pops off, allowing for a minifig to hide in there. Really, though, a sleek speedboat is its own play-feature in my book, and you don’t need too many gizmos added to it to make it fun. The bottom of the boat is, of course, covered in boat-tiles to make carpet-sailing an easy adventure. Next up is the buoy, which explodes when you press one side. It’s built sort of like a minifig-flinger, but I’m not certain it’s meant to be used like that. Spare parts were slightly nicer than usual, with an extra light-grey lightsabre handle, and some other typical pieces.
The Iron Man minifig here is in the same Mark 42 Armor that’s in the Malibu Mansion Attack set. War Machine is definitely the coolest of the minifigs in this lot, especially since we haven’t yet had a version of him, despite his role in Iron Man 2. Naturally, the helmet is the same as Iron Man’s, just with a different color scheme, and the shoulder cannon looks nice, even if a little simple. Despite being covered by the neck-bracket for the shoulder cannon most of the time, War Machine does have a detailed printing on the back of the torso. The two-tone silver printing on this minifig really looks gorgeous. Aldrich Killian is sporting a simple tan suit with front and rear prints, and the two-sided glow-in-the-dark head is almost, but not quite, identical to that of the Extremis Soldier in the Malibu Mansion Attack set.
All in all, this is a solid set. There’s nothing outstanding here, except for the exclusive War Machine minifig, but the speedboat is a satisfying build and looks good when it’s done. For those not wild about keeping the set built, here’s a look at the inventory pages. I’d say the set is a pretty fair source of pieces, with lots of easily useable pieces, and an abundance of slopes of all sizes.
Finally, since some of you seemed particularly interested in what’s happening with Iron Man on the box art of the Malibu Mansion Attack set, I’ve scanned part of the comic that’s included in all three sets, which expounds on that scene a little more. Here there be spoilers.
That is one dazzling smile you’ve got there
Perhaps there is a hint of minty-freshness? Regardless of your opinion of Shrek (or the second one…or the third one…did they make a fourth?) the sculpting on this lady dragon by gtahelper is simply lovely. The coloring’s fabulous. I want to see a scaled Donkey to go with!
The builder included a helping of adorable little donkey-dragon babies, and they’re pretty adorable,too. Check em out!
via The Living Brick