Kylo Ren is my new favorite villain. He clomps around menacingly, has an eerie, almost mechanical, baritone voice, and just the right amount of that famous Skywalker immaturity. Though we recently also featured torokimasa’s chibi Kylo Ren here on TBB, Kevin Ryhal‘s brick-built Kylo was too good to pass up. Kevin perfectly captured Kylo’s distinctive flowing robes (no easy feat with brick) and the unstable blade of his vented lightsaber. Also, the battle-stance pose is spot on.
At least, he will try. Just imagine torokimasa‘s adorable LEGO Kylo Ren throwing a tantrum and vandalizing First Order equipment! While the technique the builder used for the lightsaber blades would have been lazy for any other lightsaber, I think it works great to emulate the unstable blade effect on Ren’s crossguard saber.
I was determined to stay away from the Star Wars stuff for a while following the glut of excellent models prompted by the release of The Force Awakens. Yet these figures from Luc Byard are simply too cool not to post…
Immediately recognizable, the Princess and her beau have never looked cuter. The shaping is excellent, avoiding some of the blockiness which can come with chibi builds, and the attention to detail is impressive whilst staying with the chibi-aesthetic – those blasters in particular are spot-on.
Luc has also had a crack at Darth Vader in this building style. It’s good, but for me it hasn’t quite hit the sweet spot between recognisable, fun, and cute which really set the Han and Leia figures apart. I hope Luc keeps going though, more figures in this style would make me very happy indeed.
Inspired by the blade construction in the recently featured replica of Darth Vader’s lightsaber, and by my three viewings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I constructed a LEGO prop replica of Kylo Ren’s crossguard lightsaber. Measuring 41″ long (30″ blade), and built in four days (4-5 hours building time), the LEGO saber can be swung and slashed around without breaking.
The unstable, crackling blade effect was important for me to capture, as it is a unique detail to Kylo Ren’s lightsaber as much as the haphazard hilt construction and the crossguard. The best way I thought to achieve the blade effect was the texture of 1×2 grill tiles in translucent red.
Ren’s lightsaber would make a fine addition to my collection!
It’s the first day of the new year, which means that the January 2016 assortment of LEGO sets is now officially available. Highlights include more LEGO Star Wars sets from The Force Awakens, the brand new NEXO Knights theme, new Creator sets, and more.
75139 Battle on Takodana includes 5 minifigs and 409 pieces at $59.99. We’ll have a review of this new Force Awakens set shortly.
75827 Firehouse Headquarters includes 9 minifigs and 4634 pieces at $349.99. Read our in-depth review of the new LEGO Ghostbusters Firehouse Headquarters here on The Brothers Brick.
Click through to see more January 2016 LEGO sets
Did you know that a new Star Wars movie came out in 2015, with accompanying LEGO sets? If you’ve been living in your basement working on your LEGO masterpiece and weren’t aware, one glance at TBB’s top LEGO news stories would provide a clear picture of just how much excitement has preceded what turned out to be a rather excellent movie. Like our round-up of most popular LEGO models of 2015, LEGO Star Wars stories have dominated news coverage this year — especially since the sets were first revealed in September.
The actual Top 10 list is heavily dominated by set announcements, so hit the jump to check it out.
But some interesting and important news doesn’t necessarily show up in this top 10 list. Back in July, TBB celebrated its tenth anniversary, and I reflected on what it’s been like running a LEGO blog for 10 years. I promised we would be making some changes to improve the experience for our readers, and we’ve done exactly that. After BrickCon in October, we added eight new contributors, who’ve all helped us improve our coverage of both LEGO models and LEGO news. We’ve significantly broadened our geographic diversity, with two new contributors from the UK (both Scottish, coincidentally) and one each from Russia and South Africa — adding to our existing team from the US, Canada, and the Netherlands. Our new contributors have helped to free up our editorial staff to focus more on time-consuming content like LEGO set reviews.
In other news, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s LEGO project generated some interesting discussion in the comments, and several of our contributors participated in the annual Creations for Charity event.
Meanwhile, TBB staff were also a strong presence at LEGO conventions such as Brickworld in Chicago and BrickCon in Seattle, where readers and contributors built a rather epic American Civil War display in LEGO, featuring help from a corps of volunteer dinosaur cavalry.
And in the UK at BRICK, Elspeth took on LEGO Wonder Woman.
Click through to see all of the top LEGO news stories of 2015!
Time for another list; the top ten of fan-built models, based on how popular they were on TBB’s Facebook page and right here on Brothers-Brick.com. We may write about news and set-reviews, but the custom creations from builders around the world are the bread and butter of this blog. If you are sick to death of Star Wars, it’s best for you to ignore this list, as it is rather heavy on models based on the movie franchise. In fact, perhaps you are better off ignoring this blog altogether for the next few weeks, as I suspect there will be many more Star Wars models to come.
It happens to be the newest model in our Top Ten, but the Millenium Falcon from The Force Awakens built by flickr user marshal banana shot to the top of the list even faster than it could make the Kessel run. It ticks multiple boxes: it’s from Star Wars, large, immaculately detailed and has working lights to boot. It was also nicely photographed and came out just after the movie. Well played Mr. Banana, well played. Look for an interview with the builder in the new year.
For more of the list, click through
I think we can all agree that BB-8 is pretty darn adorable and an excellent addition to the Star Wars universe. Don’t you just want to cuddle him? Marketing ploy or not, his fiery thumbs-up made me giggle. Everybody needs a little droid in their life, and Irwan Prabowo gives us the perfect pocket-sized LEGO version.
Brothers Brick daily covers cool fan-built models and LEGO news, but sometimes we get a chance to highlight a story from the human side of our favorite hobby. This touching story by the State Journal Register, an Illinois newspaper, shows how sometimes LEGO can be more than just a toy or a fun hobby. Sometimes it can be a means for healing.
After his wife, Tricia, died in the spring of 2011, Ray Hofman was having a hard, hard time. They had been married 39 years and, understandably, Ray felt lost.
“It was two years of long, long days,” he says.
The Christmas before Tricia died, Ray’s nephew, Jason Stokes, gave him a present. It was a replica of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater home, made out of Legos.
It is on such small things life sometimes turns.
“I didn’t know much about Legos,” Ray says. “When I grew up, it was Lincoln Logs.”
But something about that gift resonated with him.
Ray discovered the joy of receiving a LEGO set as a gift, and set out to bring that delight to others. First he built and donated a Taj Mahal to a cancer treatment center charity auction, but soon fell in love with the idea of building LEGO sets and giving them as gifts to everyone around him, including those who least expected it. His postman received sets for his grandchildren, and a local restaurant owner received a Space Shuttle because Hofman knew he was a space enthusiast. His favorite though, is giving gifts to children, and Hofman’s fridge is covered with heart-felt thank-you cards from children.
Hofman has spent the last two years building LEGO sets and giving them away to friends, family, and charities. “It filled a void,” he says.
Read the full story on the State Journal Register.
Apologies if you were hoping to avoid a Star Wars related post but there is a tenuous link to castles and towers, I promise. TBB regular Simply Bricking It, has built our favourite Star Wars droid, R2-D2.
The builder uses a mix of round and regular parts to allow a slight offset position, resulting in the curved shape. The use of alternate round and regular bricks is a technique that has been used frequently in the past for curved ‘tower’ structures (eg. castles, windmills, lighthouses and even spaceships). But I believe this is the first droid I have seen built using this particular technique.
I can’t finish this post without mentioning the vintage tap parts used for R2D2’s leg detailing — a ‘splash’ of inspiration there.
These Star Wars-themed minifig costumes by solscud are impressive. Most impressive. With just a handful of pieces, each “outfit” is packed with enough tiny details to produce an instantly recognizable Star Wars vehicle. I’ll admit I giggled when I first saw these. They are certainly cute enough to give the microfighters series a run for their money. I especially love that red sleeve on the First Order TIE Fighter. Solscud selected vehicles from all three original-trilogy films, Attack of the Clones, and The Force Awakens.
Check out even more of solscud’s costumes on Flickr.
