This new LEGO retro robot from Shannon Sproule fills me with joy as I remember childhood cartoons. He takes us to a time when, thanks to relaxed regulations, every cartoon was a 30 minute advertisement for some toy or another. Us kids in the 70’s and 80’s were brainwashed consumer minions and we liked it, by golly! Some deep diving into Diaclone stuff has Shannon in the mood to build some blocky mega robots in all their primary-colored glory. We’re here for it, Shannon! King Oberon here triggers some happy memories of imported Japanese cartoons like Battle of the Planets or G-Force: Guardians of Space fill the ol’ reptile brain. Who cares if the plots didn’t make any sense. So what if the titles were kinda clunky and ill-translated. So long as parents had jobs and there were birthdays and Christmas, we were getting some cool giant robot toys. The post...

With the exception of Notre Dame, LEGO has shied away from depicting places of worship in official sets, leaving AFOLs to provide religious buildings for minifig believers. Church mocs are quite common, as evidenced by our extensive archive, and lately we’ve been seeing a lot more mosques as well, but synagogues are rarely seen in brick. Builder Matthew Sklar provides a rare look inside a LEGO synagogue from the medieval era, based on the Talmudic Academies of circa 10th Century Babylonia. The Torah ark, framed in blue tiles, is beautifully constructed, but it’s the stained glass windows that shine brightest – fitting as Matthew created this model for the Colossal Castle competition’s stained glass category, as well as Brickscalibur’s Arabian Knights theme. The post Talmudic Academy in LEGO celebrates stained glass and tradition appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) isn’t the usual venue for LEGO to break big news – techies love displaying LEGO, but the bricks themselves aren’t your typical cutting-edge gadgets. That’s about to change with the announcement of the Smart Play system. Smart Bricks communicate with Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags that integrate sensors and spatial awareness into your builds, thanks to microchips smaller than a single stud. You can read about LEGO’s design process for the Smart Brick here. As rumored, the new system debuts with the Star Wars theme with three all-in-one sets coming this March. Each of these will include a Smart Brick, charger, and at least one Smart Minifigure and Yag. The all-in-one sets include: 75421 Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter (69,99 EUR / 69,99 USD / 59,99 GBP), 75423 Luke’s Red Five X-wing (89,99 EUR / 99,99 USD / 79,99 GBP), and 75427 Throne Room Duel & A-wing...

Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 recently arrived on the Nintendo Switch, and Sakiya Watanabe (N.A.B.E_mocs) has already marked the occasion with a new build featuring one of our favorite enemies from these games. The Dino Piranha is a piranha plant variation that resembles Petey Piranha (first introduced in Super Mario Sunshine), but the difference is that these guys hatch from eggs and have dinosaur features – because of course they do. The Super Mario Galaxy games were revolutionary for the franchise and took every enemy, world, and gameplay element to the next level, and Sakiya has done the same with this build. The 2×2 round brick tube (part 65473) has proven to be the most essential piece for Super Mario builds, and is predominantly featured on sets like The Mighty Bowser, the Spiny Shell, and the Piranha Plant. Sakiya used the same part here in different colors to capture the...

We don’t talk about new LEGO sets much at BrickNerd—there are lots of other great sites that do that. However to help us keep the quality up and ads down, we need your help. If you are going to purchase any new LEGO sets and want to help out BrickNerd simultaneously, we ask that you use our affiliate link for LEGO.com. It is a great way to support community-focused journalism without costing you more than you already spend on LEGO. You can support BrickNerd at the same time you get your Stranger Things Creel House, midi-scale Star Wars ships and AT-AT, new Botanicals, Technic rocket, Speed Champions DeLorean, new minifigures, and even the new Shopping Street modular! Even if you only get a keychain using our link, we appreciate the help. You can see all the new sets available at LEGO using the following links: US | CAN | UK |...