For years, LEGO has offered a wealth of options to delight space enthusiasts. This year has seen a resurgence in space-themed LEGO sets, and today, LEGO introduces two new additions in this vein: The 10341 Artemis Space Launch System, joining the LEGO Icons collection, and the 31212 The Milky Way Galaxy, expanding the LEGO Art line of products. These sets will be available on LEGO’s website on May 15th for LEGO Insiders (May 18th for everyone else).
Minions and bananas go together like peanut butter and jelly, like coffee and doughnuts. So it can be no surprise that the latest wave of sets from the Despicable Me franchise includes this obvious combination. This banana car set comes with four minions and a bunch of accessories, basically a Minions battle pack. LEGO Despicable Me 4 75580 Minions and Banana Car includes 136 pieces and will be available on May 1st for US $24.99 | CAN $32.99 | UK £19.99
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.
Crafted by LEGO builder Cecilie Fritzvold, the ‘Baby Mario Kart’ build stands as a testament to imaginative construction and clever design. Inspired by the beloved video game franchise, this creation showcases remarkable attention to detail and inventive techniques. One striking feature of this build is its unconventional base construction. Rather than being built upright, the entire scene is cleverly crafted on its side, adding a dynamic element to the display. Each kart within the scene is meticulously designed, employing unique building techniques to convey a sense of action and motion, even when at rest. The ‘Baby Mario Kart’ build is a testament to Fritzvold’s creative prowess and technical skill within the realm of LEGO construction. With each new creation, she continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with these iconic bricks, leaving fans eagerly anticipating her next innovative masterpiece. Have a look at some of her creations in the Cecilie Fritzvold archives.
Should you find yourself in the 1920s and need to get from Munich to Nuremberg in record time, then you’ll want an express ticket to ride behind the Bavarian S3/6. This majestic steam locomotive is meticulously recreated in LEGO by Bricks_n_Trucks. At 10 studs wide, the engine is comparable in scale to the Hogwarts Express Collector’s Edition, but unlike LEGO’s largest steam engine model, this train is fully motorized with a BuWizz engine (see the video below the fold!). The version you see here is an update to the builder’s first iteration, and spotting the differences highlights how much thought went into the smallest details.
But what’s a Bavarian steam engine without luxurious cars to pull?
Like a regular guy who dutifully appears at family reunions only to get shown up by his neurosurgeon cousin, the Acclamator-class assault ship tends to get overshadowed by its more famous descendants. But this humble Acclamator (by FlyInSpace) looks amazing enough in LEGO to have us forgetting about mighty Star Destroyers for a few parsecs. Executed with nary a stud in sight, it uses SNOT bricks to simulate the smooth-yet-textured hull plating to great effect.
Here’s an aft view. That dark bluish-gray greebling is just superb.
But wait! There’s more!
The Despicable Me franchise, which includes 3 movies and a fourth coming out this July, as well as 2 spin-off films focusing on the yellow banana-loving minions, has been hugely successful, with each film landing in the top 5 grossing films for the year they came out. Hence, it’s no surprise to see another batch of LEGO sets as part of the summer wave. The first set we’re covering is LEGO Despicable Me 4 75583 Minions and Gru’s Family Mansion, which includes 868 pieces, comes with 9 characters, and will be available on May 1st for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99
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.
Recently there have been several LEGO sets building characters outside of the usual minifigure scale, like the buildable LEGO Star Wars 75371 Chewbacca and LEGO Super Mario 71411 The Mighty Bowser. These sets straddle the line between play sets and display scenes, offering options for collectors similar to the BrickHeadz theme, and sub-themes like the Star Wars helmets and starship collections. One such set is from the Despicable Me 4 wave, a brick-built Gru surrounded by 5 minions on a rotating base. LEGO Despicable Me 4 75582 Brick-Built Gru & Minions comes with 839 pieces and will be available on May 1st for US $54.99 | CAN $69.99 | UK £49.99
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.
History repeats across The Legend of Zelda games like a flat circle. In the groundbreaking entry Majora’s Mask, looping time becomes the key to saving the world when a cursed mask draws the moon down on a collision course with Hyrule. Majora’s Mask itself, brilliantly recreated in LEGO by Dylan Mievis, is a terrifying relic. With its bright colors and heart shape, who would guess the mask contains such evil? (Actually, the eyes are a tell — they’re super creepy!) The front of the mask shines with a mix of curved tiles, accented by carefully looped white strings. I’m in awe of the perfect stud-free curve that wraps from brow to chin (if I had to guess, each segment is clipped to a hidden hose? I’d love to get a peek behind the mask). The colorful spikes are the creepy icing on the cake. You don’t have to be a fan of the games to appreciate the craftsmanship on display in Dylan’s model.
Dylan is no stranger to video game LEGO builds. We’ve featued his delightful Deoxys from Pokémon and spectacular Shovel Knight, but he’s also tackled Hollow Knight, Minecraft, and Nier: Automata, among others. Game on, Dylan. Game on!
Batman has taken to the skies in various vehicles over the years, including 70916 The Batwing from the LEGO Batman Movie line, but among the most unusual has got to be the Bat, a vehicle so cool-looking they didn’t bother thinking of a cool name to match. Here, builder Lubeee . has replicated Batman’s aircraft of choice from The Dark Knight Rises in all its black-on-black glory: part helicopter, part hovercraft, all silent guardian.
The Fallout TV show just dropped its first radioactive season, and like many fans of the beloved gaming franchise, I was quick to binge the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine. Better than fine, actually. The show is pretty great! On The Taste of Bricks, Philipp shows pays tribute to the premier episode with a LEGO vignette of Vault dweller Lucy’s first steps into the post-apocalypse. The anchor of this scene is the iconic Vault door with the number 33 in its distinctive font, which Philipp painstakingly recreates with a clever SNOT jigsawing of bright light orange slopes and tiles amongst dark grey. The sparse patch of wasteland completes the scene with weeds, bones and an empty bottle of Nuka Cola. Despite living in an ultra-violent world of mutants and marauders, Fallout’s Vault dwellers maintain a chipper American space-age outlook on life, which Phillip makes sure to include in his model. Not even the trauma of recent events can wipe that optimistic grin off Lucy’s minifig face.
Philipp is quite talented at capturing iconic TV and movie scenes on a small (16×16) footprint, including LEGO tributes to The Last of Us, the last video game series to get the prestige TV treatment. I’d bet my last bottlecap we’ll be seeing more Fallout moments from Philipp (and the rest of the LEGO building community) soon.
Sometimes, official LEGO sets end up feeling just a tad off when it comes to proportions for minifigures, but this custom model by Gubi0222 looks pretty much perfect compared to the on-screen walkers seen in both the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated show as well as the very brief glimpse of the walker on Kashyyyk in Revenge of the Sith. The small wheel rims make the perfect hip joint, and I do love a good roller skate used for details.
Here’s a shot from the side to better appreciate the ball joints holding the walker’s legs in place, as well as the wonderful shaping of its nose armor.
BrickCon is returning for its 23rd year, as the longest-running fan-run LEGO convention and a newly-formed nonprofit. So it makes sense that this year’s theme is “Foundations,” reflecting its new charitable goals that revolve around STEM education. But also in keeping with that theme, this year’s show will boast a dedicated exhibit for those old sets that continue to inspire us today. The convention returns to the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, WA on September 5th through 8th, with public viewing days on the 7th and 8th. And as always, adult builder and fans can count on plenty of presentations, games, activities, roundtables, shopping opportunities, and of course displaying for the 12,000 LEGO fans that take in the hall full of builds. Registration is now open, so be sure to visit brickcon.org to get signed up ASAP.
More details on BrickCon 2024 below, including hotel information