Back in August, we shared a first look at the Luke Skywalker with Blue Milk minifigure that comes with the purchase of the LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Deluxe Edition game. While the game has been delayed to next spring, pre-orders are now available on Amazon US. Today we’re getting a closer look at the polybag packaging and artwork thanks to retailer gameresource.nl.
It is only fitting to think about the Halo Gregorian chant as I look upon this amazing brick-built Covenant energy sword – a holy weapon wielded by the noble class of the Sangheili species, crafted by Nick Jensen.
According to Nick’s specs, the sword is comprised of a whopping six pounds of LEGO bricks and is 41.5″ long. No adhesives such as tape or glue were used – talk about clutch power!
The inner portion of the blade of the energy sword is mostly comprised of clear-colored and light blue 1×2 trans-clear plates and 1×1 round tiles while the outer portion is made of trans-clear bricks and slopes in light blue, clear, and pink.
The handle is crafted out of a menagerie of bricks, tiles, dome-tops, and slopes in mostly blacks and greys with some trans-clear parts. Nick also smartly constructed a couple of stands to display this amazing work. It definitely must feel pretty empowering to hold this sword – even if it is only a model made of bricks. It looks almost exactly as I remember it from the games. The Master Chief’s weapons have got nothing on this beauty.
I can almost hear the collective eye-roll of Nintendo fans everywhere when they read this title. While there can be no argument about who came first, Legolas is not the only blonde elf archer with a big fan base. This model by Brixter Productions shows Link, the daring hero of The Legend of Zelda video game franchise first released in 1986, stands ready to defend the Princess Zelda.
This version of Link is from 2017 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and he’s fully armed and ready for anything. The tunic is very well-crafted with a minimum of parts, and his wind-blown hair is a nice touch.
For the past several years, my friend Steve Witt has been collecting the necessary LEGO bricks and fiddling with his design to produce a 7-foot-long (2.1 meter) recreation of a Paris-class UNSC heavy frigate from the Halo video game universe that he’s dubbed the Katara. After following his work-in-progress photos on Facebook and Flickr for five years, I’m very pleased to share this closer look at the finished ship, exclusive to The Brothers Brick.
We’ll take a closer look at the details and share some of the build’s history in a moment, but let’s pause and take in just how massive a LEGO ship 7 feet long really is, with this photo of the builder working on it.
See detailed photos and learn more about this massive Halo ship
With new iterations of the Xbox and PlayStation announced for release at the end of this year and the LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System already on store shelves, 2020 is shaping up to be quite the year for gaming console hype. Jaap Bijl encases this momentum in his LEGO Xbox build.
Bijl’s rendition of this fun-machine visually pops with its complementary black and pink color scheme. The 4×4 flower with petals element is expertly used as both lettering and the D-pad on the controller. Additional detailing on the controller is done with 1×1 half-circle tiles used for buttons and round-bottom 2x2s for joysticks. The machine as a whole is expertly brick-built using pretty standard build techniques. Great timing on Bijl’s part for such subject matter as video game imagery seems to be pretty popular with the brand this year, a build like this would look great displayed with the aforementioned NES or even with some of this year’s gamer inspired Ninjago sets.
Street Fighter II in an arcade cabinet is the ultimate trap. Once you get your hands on it, you’re hooked. Now, Capcom’s iconic fighter video game from 1991, known for attracting crowds from pizzerias to amusement parks, now exists in miniature LEGO form thanks to _pixeljunkie_. The cabinet looks close to the height of the 8-bit mini arcades by Basic Fun, but _pixeljunkie_ recreated Street Fighter II‘s key gameplay through minifigures of Ryu and Ken.
As we count down the days ‘til the release of the LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System (it’s tomorrow!), a LEGO Game Boy creation is just what we’ll need to add to our museum of buildable retro gaming consoles. Author of Tips for Kids: Transformers: Cool Projects for your Lego Bricks, and LEGO builder of many everyday items, Joachim Klang was inspired to build the green pocket-sized classic after finding an actual Game Boy Color at a flea market. Seeing the clean rounded edges and the cartridge built into the back are convincing details that it might power on. Klang’s recent creation is an upgrade from his previous lineup of Game Boy Color builds from 2017. Still, my all-time favorite is the see-through version with purple tint. LEGO x Nintendo = you’re playing with power, clutch power!
Also check out these other LEGO Game Boy creations!
Now that LEGO has released a line of Super Mario sets, I’m sure we’re not far from a massive uptick in the number of Mario-related custom builds. Anticipating them is Koen Zwanenburg, who has designed a series of cuddly characters from the games. I’m a bad child of the ’80s and don’t know all of them, but I can recognize Mario and Luigi, as well as Peach, Bowser, and Yoshi. Aficionados can no doubt name them all at just a glance since Koen has done an excellent job of capturing the essence of each with just a few parts. I love the jumper plates for mustaches on the brothers, but my favorite detail is the plates with teeth as Bowser’s toes. But they’re all great. Or should I say super?
This is not the first set of cute and cuddly creations by Koen; check out some adorable animals and delightful Christmas characters!
These days any distraction is a good distraction, and Cecilie Fritzvold brings us a very good distraction, indeed. This awesome LEGO arcade features games that incorporate the dynamite bundle element. There are three of them in the video game, and several in the claw machine–most notably as part of the claw assembly itself. I also want to call out the quality setting for these arcade classics: the flooring has just the right “cheap linoleum” look, and the printed 2×2 tiles on the wall make for excellent posters. And that strawberry malt is just too cute. Man, I really want to try to win something out of that claw machine. It’s probably rigged, though.
If you love claw machines as much as I do, you’ll also want to check out this fully functional human-scale LEGO claw machine.
My wife and I played and replayed Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation, grinding character levels and farming materia so we could survive the insane boss battles like the Ruby Weapon. It’s incredibly disappointing that Square isn’t releasing Final Fantasy VII Remake on any platform but the PS4 any time soon. Nostalgia and minor rant aside, I love this chocobo and carriage by Kevin Waner (Brick Ninja), depicting the scene in which Cloud rescues Tifa Lockhart from Don Corneo, the mafioso of Wall Market. The detailed chocobo and colorful carriage take center stage in the scene, with Cloud and Aeris simply providing a bit of narrative context on the side — Cloud is of course instantly recognizable from his enormous Buster Sword.
As we learned on the first US season of LEGO Masters earlier this year, LEGO creations are best when they tell a story that is easily understood. Keith Reed has been setting up a story through his series of apocalyptic modular buildings, and the plot has become very clear with his latest scene. Here you see a family trying to escape their own impending doom, their car broken down, taking refuge in the back of a Nuka Cola truck.
They figured they’d be safe there for the night, but unbeknownst to them, they’d almost made it to the shelter. Turns out they didn’t make it. Whatever they were running from caught up with them that night, and they died right there, baby in arms.
Earlier this year, back when we could still gather in groups, this model was on display at Bricks Cascade. Keith was standing proudly beside his creation engaging with the public. A twelve year old kid came up and described the scene to his dad. Keith was floored at how well the intended story came across — I thought he might cry.
Taking on an iconic character can be an intimidating prospect; it’s all too easy for people to spot when something isn’t quite right. But no such worries here, as Marin Stipkovic nails this LEGO version of Pac-Man. The shaping on display here on both figure and cherries is fantastic, especially for such small models. Pac-Man’s expression is wonderful, and accurate right down to the nicks out of the eyes. But my favourite part has to be the gloves — a spot-on recreation from the original using only a “handful” of parts (do you see what I did there?)
