So 2025 has been and gone, the dust has settled from the New Year’s celebrations, and the last of the champagne has just about left our systems. But we have one final bit of business to attend to from last year: the coronation of the Brothers Brick’s LEGO Builder of the Year! As a reminder, our shortlist is over here. And man, what a stacked list! How do we pick out a winner from that? Well, our builders of the year tend to cover a lot of bases, and often their achievements extend beyond merely making great LEGO models. Ultimately, it’s about consistency across the whole year.

And the key to determining this year’s Builder of the Year actually came while curating our Creations of the Year shortlist, as our victor had several builds that could’ve made the cut for the shortlist alone. The Brothers Brick are delighted to crown Seigo Aoki, who builds under the handle DeRa, as our Builder of the Year 2025!

One of DeRa’s calling cards has become their brick-built interpretations of zodiac creatures. 2025 was bookended by a snake in a bag…

And a bucking, posable horse. In between, we even got a revamped tiger that first appeared back in 2024.

There was plenty of animal action elsewhere too. My personal favourite of DeRa’s work this year was this stunning peacock, shared back in August. This shows off their knack for picking the perfect parts for a build. There is so much NPU here!

It’s not just real animals that got the DeRa treatment. Their Godzilla was a big hit, and was our pick of their builds to make it onto our Creations of the Year shortlist. (Hey, we had to have at least one!) This and the aforementioned tiger and peacock are all currently in Billund, having been selected for the prestigious Masterpiece Gallery at LEGO House.

Prefer your fictional Japanese titans a bit more mechanical? Got you covered – here’s their take on the venerable Gundam Mobile Suit. This shows off another of DeRa’s many talents: all that detail, and it’s still capable of pulling off poses like this!

And while it doesn’t articulate, we loved poring over the details of this miniature Weathercock House too.

So congratulations, DeRa, on entering the Brothers Brick hall of fame! What a privilege it has been to share your builds. We hope it has made you as happy as Arale Norimaki!

Congratulations also to the other nominees for this year’s award; we really cannot emphasise enough how tough the competition was this year! To see the illustrious company that DeRa now finds themselves in, check out our Builder of the Year archives for all the previous winners.