You know LEGO’s 10315 Tranquil Garden? What if it was a bit more… Other-worldly? Might it look something like this Crescent Moon Garden by Nannan Zhang? I would say so! Nannan – formerly of these pastures, of course – was inspired by a real-world garden sculpture hybrid for this, and I love his take on it. I have to imagine it’s set on some distant world with floating rocks, giant trees, and a grumpy hermit who built a whole temple just so he could get some peace and quiet away from the world. Well, sorry, grumpy hermit, but I want to come and visit! The post The man in the Moon isn’t taking visitors today appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Theo Spencer

Hot off the heels of featuring in many of our end-of-year lists, Maxx Davidson gets off to a cracking start with his first LEGO build of 2024. Or should that be a… Croaking start? With the latest Iron Forge seed part, he’s crafted one of the cutest amphibians out there: the red-eyed tree frog. Said seed part is the minifigure helmet, and there are actually two variants used here. Both designs have been around for a long time, albeit in decidedly modern colours! The classic spaceman helmet in orange makes up the frog’s toes. Meanwhile, the flowers use a colour variation that’s barely a couple of years old – the ‘newer’ crash helmet in coral pink. I say newer – that part is now 30 years old! (Holy heck, that part is 30 years old?! Where does the time go…) The post Twice the helmets for double the NPU appeared first...

Traveling the yellow brick road from the savannah to the windowsill, we arrive at a home for some flowers and winged creatures. Today we take a look at LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31149 Flowers in Watering Can. This set caused us to sit back and reflect a bit on the nature of 3-in-1 sets and if more thought is going in to the secondary models than used to – and if so, is it working? Here’s our review of this 420-piece set, which is available now from LEGO.com for US $29.99 | CAN $39.99 | UK £24.99. Unboxing the parts, instructions, and sticker sheet As usual, the thumb-punch box shows small pictures of the alternate models alongside a large picture of the namesake build on the front. It’s very yellow! On the back, larger pictures show different angles of all three builds, slightly marred by removing the sticker marking this as a...

What happens when you’re restricted to the bricks of a certain LEGO era? Builder Ids de Jong thrives with such limitations, bringing us a castle that looks at home in modern-day Castle themes. Without access to modern plant parts, we still have an excellent-looking birch. Lacking today’s complement of bricks made for SNOT construction (Studs Not On Top), Ids throws together some exquisite cross-windows with the help of minifigure legs. And despite no masonry profile bricks from back in the 90’s, the old school approach of layering standard 1×2 plates to recreate the masonry texture works just fine instead. This makes me wonder what other themes could be revisited with only 1995 parts. The post The LEGO bricks of 1995 are not to be underestimated appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Kyle Keller

Man, I really brought the room down with that title! But sometimes good art has to make you feel a bit down in the dumps. Take this new LEGO creation by Toni A, for example. It’s a tentacled creature called St. Abholos. It’s all part of a larger campaign to totally squig you the heck out, and I think it’s working. It’s more of a Cosmic Horror dread, which is much deeper than the sorrow you feel when you lose a comb. While you ponder your own insignificance in this universe, why not take a gander at some other like-minded Lovecraftian Horrors all hellbent on squelching your good time. The post Bile and tears overflow, drowning everything in sorrow appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Lino

Nowadays, flying economy class isn’t much fun. In the early seventies though, during the golden age of air travel, things were decidedly more luxurious. Case in point, the American Airlines DC-10 “Luxury Liner” built by BigPlanes. His model, built using roughly 20,000 Lego parts, represents one of the first of the type to enter service, in 1971. Back then, American Airlines aircraft were mostly silver and so is the model, which is pretty amazing given the limited number of LEGO parts in that color. It also has a motorized retractable undercarriage and a full interior in funky seventies colors. It includes an in-flight lounge for the coach class passengers! Such on-board luxury did not last long, though. By the end of the decade airliners started cramming as many seats into their planes as possible and the golden era of air travel was over. The post The golden age of air travel...

We here at The Brothers Brick have poured through the list of LEGO builders we’ve featured on the site for 2023. With so many excellent creations blogged by us in those 365 days, it’s always tough to find the singular builder who went above and beyond in that time – who not only rose above their peers, but also improved upon their work from past years. And when we specifically looked for someone who seriously stepped up their game in the year 2023, it was clear who fit the bill. The Brothers Brick is thrilled to announce that Dicken Liu is our TBB LEGO Builder of the Year for 2023. We featured Dicken Liu’s work on the site a whopping nine times over the course of the last year, each one an absolute banger of a creation. And we still didn’t cover all the blog-worthy creations he came up with! His...

As a whole, the LEGO community’s original works of 2023 were absolutely astounding! Over those 52 weeks, we covered so many beautiful works of art, trying to highlight the very best created by builders all over the world. And with our shortlist in hand, we’re ready to identify our favorite of the bunch. The days of 2023 were marked with massive collaborative work, giant themes and creations that brought us together after pandemic isolation over the prior two years. And in that vein, we selected the excellent collaboration between Joshua Morris, Rod Fiford, Gavin Rich, and Handoko Setyawan. The Brothers Brick LEGO Creation of the Year 2023 is Cerulean Straits. When trying to take account of all the great builds of the past year, it can be difficult comparing the work of one individual against the work of a group. While some collaborators can absolutely bring it with an exceptional contribution...

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders all over the world, The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the first week of 2024! TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS Happy new year, dear readers! Get caught up last week’s final Brick Report of 2023 then read along here as we fill you in on new set availability, set reviews, and recap some of our favorite featured MOCs and Articles of yesteryear! [NEWS] New LEGO sets for January 2024 now available for purchase — What will you buy first?[REVIEW] LEGO Marvel 76281 X-Men X-Jet; is it too X-Pensive? — Norm enrolls at Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youth. Will you be joining him?[REVIEW] LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31150 Wild Safari Animals — The new year brings a new round of Creator creatures! Chuck helps you decide if the adventure is worth taking![FEATURE]...

While he’s certainly no Radagast the Brown, this nature-loving LEGO wizard by greenarj is clearly best friends with all the birds and beasts of the land. I adore all the plant pieces integrated into the enchanter’s cloak and hat, sporting nearly every color of green in the brick palette. His gnarled dark gray staff is an exceptional conglomeration of tubing, bars, clips, and minifig utensils. But let’s not forget all the effort put into this verdant vagabond’s entourage. The owl, bird, squirrel, fox, and bunny are all wonderful pieces on their own. The sheer number of ingenious connections and part uses among these five tiny beasties is astounding, but my favorite has got to be the tuft of fur on the fox’s chest made from Master Wu’s beard. The post Meet the emerald enchanter that’s a defender of all LEGO fauna appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Kyle...