The Iron Builder competition has already taken us on a LEGO tropical vacation. But Duncan Lindbo is upping the ante with a natural beach setting for this hermit crab build that uses 8 of the required red Technic Rotor Blades. But this crab isn’t content with your everyday shell. He’s making his home in a brick-built replica of the Rebel pilot helmet from Star Wars. Makes you wonder what’s on that note in the bottle. Perhaps the plans to a secret weapon the Empire is about to bring online?
When it comes to Star Wars droids, few are as instantly recognizable as the Imperial Viper probe droid. The multi-eyed, multi-armed profile still gives me chills thinking back to the first time we saw it unfolding above the white landscape of Hoth like a mechanical nightmare. Calin has captured the likeness in LEGO masterfully at such a small scale… using a variety of rounded black parts for the eyes, from a train wheel with a red bar in the center, to a tire, and even a helmet or two. The use of angled droid arms is the perfect choice for those spindly claw-tipped limbs. And a pair of fencing foils make for great antennae.
So the big-scale version of our favorite Star Wars youngster put out by LEGO was pretty darn adorable. But George Panteleon just had to go for bigger and Bambi-er with this Grogu figure that’s cute as all get out! I love the textures on his robes: the studs out fluff around the child’s neck and wrists contrast the sloping folds of the rest of the garment. But those big, entrancing black eyes giving you that mischievous stare. You just know he’s looking to steal that metal ball at the end of one of your flight controls.
I’m a big Star Wars: The Phantom Menace apologist. There, I said it! Come at me, readers. So too, it seems, is LEGO builder Alper Isler. Their photostream is peppered with Episode I builds, the latest of which is this fantastic Armoured Assault Tank (AAT). What good taste! I thought battle droids were really cool when they were first introduced. They’re basically the Galaxy’s most over-the-top collection of remote control toys. Sure, they were reduced to comic relief quite quickly, but cruising around in these things? You’d still better hope the droids run out of battery before they get to you.
Here at The Brothers Brick, we know that whenever we feature a LEGO creation by KevFett2011 the TBB headquarters hot tub bill gets paid. You just keyword Star Wars or The Mandalorian and suddenly we’re making it rain over here! Or something. I don’t know how the internet works, really. “Stick to the colorful metaphors, Lino, and let us worry about the rest”, they said. We’re all a bunch of Star Wars nerds, so we’d feature this stuff regardless of the nitty-gritty. For those not as nerd-core as we are, Paz Viszla was the big, stocky Mandalorian who seemed invincible but ultimately succumbed to the might of Moff Gideon’s Praetorian Guards. Kev captured that scene nicely with this diorama. Nerding out over fantastic Star Wars scenes is pretty much what Kev does. Check out our KevFett2011 archives to see what I mean. And for the love of god, someone please build us a MrBeast diorama. This ocelot fur coat isn’t going to pay for itself!
Say what you like about Darth Vader, but he sure has an eye for the dramatic. You’d expect nothing less from a guy who walks around in a cape. Remember when he stopped a laser bolt with his hand in The Empire Strikes Back? If you don’t, Nathan Smith is here to jog your memory with this superbly-framed scene. It makes you wonder how long Vader was waiting there. Was he waiting in that dramatic pose for hours before our heroes arrived? Maybe that’s why he was so sassy when they finally did show up. The Dark Lord of the Sith doesn’t take kindly to tardiness, it seems.
I can guarantee a spoiler-free take on this LEGO version of the antagonists from the new Ahsoka series on Disney+, mostly because I haven’t had time to watch it yet. So forgive me if I don’t yet know the significance of Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati yet, built here by Chi Hsin Wei. The capes on these two are brilliant, using curved slopes and technic panels to convey the proper cloth-like “flow.” Add to that their built-in poseability (made possible through tow ball joints, bars, and clips) and this duo is certainly ready for action! Perhaps we’ll be treated to the duo on the other side of this Force in a future build, and hopefully by then I’ll be all caught up on episodes.
My favourite LEGO theme these days is probably Star Wars, but when I were a nipper that dubious honour went to the mech theme, Exo-Force. Greg Dalink‘s bounty hunter mecha are therefore right up my street. Among others, we’ve had 4-LOM already, but he’s been missing his partner in crime, Zuckuss. Thankfully he is missing no longer! What I love about Greg’s mecha (and there have been a bunch) is how they all have their own individual style, each has something to set it apart. Zuckuss gets a four-legged ride that is a bit more insectoid in nature, and it really suits him. We’d be remiss not to draw attention to that head as well. With curved slopes and a wheel neatly surrounding a CCBS shoulder shell, it’s a real work of art!
It’s a good job – and a happy coincidence – that the Star Wars universe has such a good proficiency in English (or Basic, as it’s known). Otherwise, we’d end up having to learn things like Binary or Huttese to have any idea of what’s going on. Thankfully, if you’ve watched The Mandalorian, you’ll know how to pronounce the name of Simon Wild‘s epic LEGO starfighter. Bo-Katan calls it a Kom’rk-class fighter transport, otherwise known as the Gauntlet. Simon’s model features a shade under 3,000 pieces and is apparently faithful to minifigure scale, putting it firmly in Ultimate Collector Series (UCS)-scale territory. The SNOT and wedge plates used to create the pattern on the wings look great. It’s all the more impressive when you consider how structurally awkward this ship is, with everything connected at one end only. Building it must have been nearly as hard as learning Shyriiwook!
LEGO Star Wars sets have come a long way from the blocky X-wing and Tie Advance set that may or may not have brought a swift end to my dim age (I never had a true dark age, where adult LEGO builders stop buying or building LEGO sets). The new parts and the building techniques they unlocked, along with a wide variety of new set types which met with varying levels of success, like “buildable” planets, constraction figures, and the new helmet series have been excellent offerings from the theme. But LEGO continues to push the envelope to draw more and more Star Wars fans to LEGO, and LEGO Star Wars 75371: Chewbacca is another such set. Coming in at about 18 inches, it just might be one of the tallest Star Wars sets yet… And it is definitely one of the most unusual. LEGO Star Wars 75371: Chewbacca includes 2,319 pieces and will be available for sale starting on Sept. 1st for US $199.99 | CAN $259.99 | UK £179.99
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.
LEGO builder Hannes Tscharner (aka Marshal Banana) has reminded me of one of the hottest debates in sci-fi fandom, that being; what the heck is up with E.T.’s finger? I mean, seriously is it a Slim Jim with a lightbulb on the end or what? Also, having nothing to do with nerdy fanboys debating online is this awesome Star Wars replica of Han Solo’s blaster. The handsome DL-44 borrows design DNA from the Mauser C96 but added a scope and a bunch of other greebly bits including the “mystery disk”. What does the mystery disk do? It shoots mouthy Rodian bounty hunters right in the aedeagus, that’s what! This movie-accurate replica is 1:1 so you can hold it and practice your lovable scoundrel smile in the mirror. Isn’t that what we all do when not debating E.T.’s dubious finger?
It turns out, the formula for successfully getting featured on The Brothers Brick is Star Wars. Oh, and LEGO. That part is crucial. The dubiously-named Simulterious takes pretty much the only two pages of TBB’s Book of Winning the Entire Internet and combines Star Wars and LEGO. And now everyone is as pleased as punch. It doesn’t hurt that this crowd-pleasing Rebel workhorse is outfitted with some nifty details and build techniques. Thanks to this builder’s amazing work, this article was really not much effort on my part. You just type up a couple of stream-of-conscious quips, then sit back and watch the success roll in. Thanks, Simulterious !
