Review: Birds from Bricks
Posted by Huw,
Birds from Bricks is a new book by Tom Poulsom, creator of the LEGO Ideas project that led to the release of the excellent 21301 Birds set last year.
It provides instructions to construct fifteen avian species of all sizes, from robins to albatrosses. I received a copy from the publisher last week and over the weekend I had fun building four of them.
In summary, it's a great book which, if you liked Ideas Birds and other brick-built creatures, you will love.
The 144-page 22 x 26cm paperback is published by Quarry Books. I believe it's their first LEGO title. It has a high-quality glossy cover and is printed on good paper stock.
The bulk of the book is set aside for instructions for building the birds which are organised by continent: north/central America, Eurasia, Africa and so on.
Each bird has a page showing the finished model along with some facts about the species.
Then, a page or two shows the parts required. These are clear and concise but the order seems a bit random: presumably there is an order but not one that seems logical. I would have preferred all orange pieces to be grouped together, for example in the page below, to make it easier to gather the parts.
One other minor problem is that it's not evident from the picture below whether the grey 1x2 brick is the one with studs on one side, or on both. Of course looking up the part number will tell you, as will looking to see how the part is used in the model, but it could have been made clearer.
Instructions are laid out clearly, if a little small in places, and are generally easy to follow. This page from the Scarlet Macaw illustrates a couple of minor problems. There's a lot of initial 'lay 10 plates on the table side-by-side' before step 2 connects them with another layer. It's not an issue for experienced builders but you wouldn't see that in official instructions.
Also, I found it difficult at times to make out the outlines of the individual parts, particularly red ones. Often it was a case of gathering the parts needed for the step then putting them on the model by trial and error. Of course, it could just be my eyesight and room lighting...
Many of the birds' bodies are constructed using a Lowell Sphere method, as you can see above, so are hollow and relatively lightweight and light on bricks.
You can view more pages from the book at the publisher's website.
Enough about the book, let's move on to the birds themselves. It's rare for me to receive a book of building instructions and want to start building straight away, but I couldn't wait to get started this time, so over the weekend I built four of them: Northern Cardinal, Scarlet Macaw, Red-Capped Robin-Chat and a European Blue Tit.
My choice was partly based on the parts I had to hand: although nothing particularly rare is used, a few of them utilise wedge and wing plates in colours that are not that common and in a few cases I didn't have them in the quantity required.
Apart from the minor issues noted above about gathering parts and discerning outlines in the instructions, they were all easy to build and I found no errors.
Some models use very interesting building techniques: of particular note is head of the Northern Cardinal which is very cleverly constructed and mounted on the body. Others use borderline-illegal techniques involving loose plate stacking to create splayed wings, such as the Canary on the front cover. That's not necessarily a problem, of course, unless you're a purist!
Northern Cardinal
Blue Tit
Red-Capped Robin-Chat
Scarlet Macaw
This is a delightfully presented book which will particularly appeal to fans of the Ideas Birds set who want to build more in the same vein. The instructions are set out clearly and concisely and while there are a few minor issues, none are show-stoppers or prevent the models from being constructed.
Here's a list of the species covered:
- Northern Cardinal
- Common Grackle
- Painted Bunting
- Andean Cock-of-the-Rock
- Scarlet Macaw
- Rockhopper Penguin
- Red-Capped Robin-Chat
- Eurasian Blue Tit
- Canary
- Northern Lapwing
- Common Kingfisher
- Albatross
- Pink Robin
- Kakapo
- Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
I really enjoyed building the ones I have and will almost certainly build more. If I do I'll post images just before the book comes out.
It's published in April and can be pre-ordered from Amazon: USA ($17) | UK (£14) | Canada
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15 comments on this article
Both the book and models themselves look fantastic to me. I wonder, did you try to use 1x1 round tiles printed with eyes pattern instead of simple 1x1 round plates?
No -- I thought they might make them look a bit cartoonish, but I'll give it a go and report back.
Only $17? I might have to buy this. It looks totally awesome.
I really enjoyed the Lego Ideas set of birds so may consider this as well. Thanks for the review!
Definitely getting this. Only shame is that Tiago the Toco Toucan isn't included.
I'm also definitely getting this. Loved the ideas set and this book looks fantastic! Thanks for reviewing it.
I love birds and I loved the set. If only it came with some of the rarer pieces required to build them...
Great looking book. Happy that I can now build a Cardinal which I would have liked in the Ideas set I purchased. My favorite bird.
That scarlet macaw looks particularly good, as does the northern cardinal!
Oh, wow. I did indeed love the ideas set (probably the first set I bought for myself, and did not allow my children to help me with! It was definitely all mine :) By comparison, I have let my son (only 3) help me build a UCS R2D2, so that may give you an indicator as to my feelings on th birds set!).
I will so have to buy this when it come out. Could we have a heads up as to the rarer parts which might be needed, so I can start sorting and gathering?
Does it contain instructions for all the birds in that list? If so, I may pick it up. I enjoyed the ideas set.
^ It does.
^^ I'll ask Tom if parts lists are available online.
I doubt I'd build all of them, but there are several I'd like to making the purchase worthwhile. The cardinal and penguin really grab me of the ones shown.
Definitely interested in this. A parts list in Bricklink XML, brickstock format or csv would be great ahead of time. Would love to start adding parts to my other orders to get some of these ready.
Huw, you misspelled Bruce's name in the link. It's Lowell, not Lowrell.