Posts by Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

You’ve got chainmail!

LEGO Castle sets have offered plenty of armor options for your medieval knight minifigs, from pauldrons to full plate, but while mail has been available on printed toro, the company hasn’t figured out how to deliver the supple weave of a true chainmail experience. Hamilton Whitney solves the minifig chainmail problem by working with a really big head – one of the sorting bin variety! The effect is uncanny. This clever creation was built for the MOCtober challenge hosted by NOVA-LUG, an annual tradition asking builders to make a MOC a day based on a prompt. In this case – Armor! Hamilton excelled this year with some real lateral thinking around the prompts. Congratulations, Hamilton, on your 31 builds.

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Visit Kyoto’s Gion district in LEGO

Meredith Najewicz is no stranger to Japanese architecture, having created several incredible cubes and towers for the New Hashima collab. At this year’s Brickworld, Meredith traded cyberpunk for the Edo era with a miniland-scale scene of meiko in Gion, Kyoto’s geisha district. This larger scale allows for beautiful architectural detail and clever techniques, like the rooftops made from garage door panels, and wood texture from stacked spiral staircase axles.

The two meiko (apprentice geisha) feature beautiful kimonos with floral patterns of bright colors, and of course obi (the NYT Crossword puzze’s favorite 3 letter word). My favorite construction detail is the geta, sandals, bound by rubber bands, on which the women delicately balance.

This month, as part of the Creations for Charity fundraiser, Meredith created a standalone geisha vignette with a variation of her Bricksworld character. The golden folding screen behind the character is a beautiful design that makes excellent use of gold tiles. The model will go on sale shortly at the Creations for Charity store where MOCs from many of your favorite creators can be purchased to raise money to send LEGO to children in need. The fundraiser runs through November 30th.

LEGO sets phasers for stunning on Black Friday with 3,600 piece Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D

Star Trek, the final frontier of fandom, is coming at last to LEGO this month with the Black Friday release of LEGO Icons 10356 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The 3,600 piece set is designed by Hans B. Schlömer (no stranger to big ships, having also designed the Millennium Falcon and Endeavor) with graphic design by Crystal Marie Fontan, who wonderfully captures the look of the crew across the 9 included minifigures. The massive display set features one play feature – a removable saucer section. When the set goes on sale on Black Friday, November 28, it comes with a Gift With Purchase of the Shuttlepod Onizuka and exclusive minig Ensign Ro.

Photos of the set leaked months before today’s reveal, but what didn’t come across was how substantial the set is (see some of the lifestyle pictures below to better appreciate the scale). We’re also thrilled to see Star Trek minifigs at long last, with new molds for Worf and Guinans’ headpieces.

Click to boldly go where LEGO has never gone before

Celebrate 15 years of LEGO Ninjago with fantastic Four Weapons Blacksmith [News]

This coming January marks 15 years since LEGO introduced Ninjago, and to celebrate, LEGO is planning a year of surprises, starting with a set honoring the very beginning of the Ninjago story. We had the chance to go hands-on with 71858 Four Weapons Blacksmith in Billund, and it’s a remarkable set with broad appeal. For longtime Ninjago fans, the nostalgia factor is high as the set recreates the opening of the animated series’ pilot episode and features beloved characters as they first appeared. For fans of Asian architecture, it’s an attractive and detailed model that looks good from all angles. There’s a sophistication to the set that evokes the MOC in the way that few official sets do.

After a year of so many enormous sets with large space demands, it’s great to see LEGO starting out 2026 with sets like this one and the Iron Man Mark 3 that offer a beautiful build at a more modest ask. We’ll hold off on a final assessment until we build it for ourselves, the Four Weapons Blacksmith has us excited for a year of Ninjago celebration.

Click to get the Ninjago Anniversary party started!

Little Tykes for big dreamers

If you have memories of tooting around in a little red coupe with a yellow roof, and headlight eyes, you were one lucky kid! The Little Tykes Cozy Coupe was the ride of choice for the preschool set… at least until you were old enough to see Power Wheels commercials. Nikita Filatov pays tribute to the ubiquitous kiddie car scaled up for a grown-up minifig. Who hasn’t dreamed of driving around in that jolly little car? Just look at Bubba Blaster – he couldn’t be happier!

SEGA’s Sonic and Tails soar on this stunning Tornado MOC

SEGA mascot and Jim Carrey foil Sonic the Hedgehog has inspired a dashing run LEGO sets, enough that Sonic’s beloved biplane, the Tornado, has appeared twice – as part of a Dimensions level kit and in a playset for younger builders. What LEGO hasn’t offered is a version of the Tornado built with an aviation enthusiast’s eye for detail. Thankfully, vehicle builder and Genesis-era Sonic fan Sérgio Batista proved more than up to the challenge! Sérgio builds the biplane as it appears in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, outfitted with Tail’s turbo boosting rocket in lovely chrome.

The Tails logo is sourced from 76991 Tail’s Workshop and Tornado Plane set, and at first glance Sérgio’s version bears many similarities to that design, but the silhouette, livery, and details are greatly improved here. The wings are staggered as opposed to stacked. The Tails emblem is actually the least game-accurate, as the original design features a very USAF-inspired star.

As a bonus, Sergio photographs the Tornado with Super Sonic flying alongside inspired by the game’s intro. It’s a wonderful AFOL tribute to one of the best video games of the 90s.

Bringing back the Ma.K

Every year, it seems like we have more and more monthly themes and building challenges in the LEGO community. Febrovery, SHIPtember, Frogust, and the new NovHENber, to name a few. Sometimes it seems like a trend has always been around and always will be… until it’s not. Ma.Ktober used to be a huge event in the community and one that TBB would cover excitedly each year, but for the last decade, the Ma.K is an endangered species. Gone, but not quite forgotten thanks to builders like Redbirch, who is bringing Ma.K back with the Wanze Box, a recon and espionage walker. It’s an excellent throwback build to a beloved theme that captures the aesthetic perfectly.

If you’re not familiar with Ma.Ks, short for “Maschinen Krieger” and based on model kitbashing and worldbuilding by Kow Yokoyama, Ted Andes provides a great overview of the theme’s LEGO history over here on BrickNerd. you can also see many more builds in the theme in our Machinen Krieger archive.

Living the Highland Life: Creating A Scottish Castle in LEGO [Feature]

When I volunteered to help run the new Tales of Old game (it’s a medieval LEGO RPG!) on EuroBricks in September 2025, I had no idea I’d have a massive castle keep sitting in the middle of my build area a month later!

In the game, I created a character named Duncan, who is loosely based on real-world medieval Celtic and Gaelic cultures. Duncan has a Scottish tam hat from the bagpiper CMF, and kilted-torso from the Highland Warrior CMF, plus he sports a large black mustache and BrickArms claymore.

Pour yourself a wee dram and join us for the rest of this Highland building adventure

Minifigs of Spooky Season: The Final Nightmare [Minifig Monday]

Halloween is over, so it’s time to retire the jack-o-lanterns and put away the ghosts and plastic spiders (unless you’re in Australia, in which case it’s just spiders all the time). But before we close the book on spooky season, let’s take one last look back at the chilling minifig creations with costumes and creatures!

Let’s jolt things to life with this incredible take on Frankenstein and the Monster from Garret (2p_figs). These are characters that have been recreated so many times in LEGO, but Garret makes them his own with some brilliant choices, like using Nute Gunray’s head for the monster’s face and Tasha’s buckle-heavy torso for the doctor. Incredible staging too!

frankytea_lego creates a grizzly scene from the dark corners of Fleet Street. I hear the pies there are delicious!

Love The Addams Family and Wednesday but aren’t a fan of minidolls? gcbricks recreates the altogether ooky family as minifigs. My favorites are Cousin Itt and the uncannily perfect Fester made from Gru minifig with the eyebrows erased. Of course Wendsday brings her friend Thing…

Our Spooky Season roundup concludes after the break

Quoth the raven, MORE GREEBLES!

LEGO might be more commonly associated with three-dimensional models, but in recent years, the medium has seen an explosion of creativity around mosaics. While mosaics can be flat and tile-based, many builders play with texture and layering in ways that add depth. Greeble Mosaics take that to the extreme, adding large vertical elements, or even whole scenes, that dissolve into a painterly texture when seen from a distance. GothGirlBricks, a frequent mosaic builder, created her first greeble mosaic this Halloween and the results are spectacular.

The builder started the project four weeks ago with a flat base layer of the raven and skull. While ravens may be “black,” there’s an iridescence to the feathers that she brings out with color highlights in the pink and blue spectrum.

Up close you can see so many parts that GothGirlBricks brings into the model – especially the animals! I see spiders, kittens, owls, butterflies, and even an octopus in the mix!

For builders who would like to try making a greeble mosaic but with instructions and parts, LEGO’s Milky Way set is a good way to try your hand at this immersive style. You can also check out the breathtaking work of Gerardo Pontierr, an artist whose work is currently on display in LEGO House in Billund.

Hark, Castle fans! Build your way to the Round Table – Brickscalibur 2025 begins now! [News]

Brickscalibur, the annual winter contest for Castle builders, is now open and builders have until January 15th, 2026, to complete their models for a chance at prizes. Organizer and chief trophy maker Markus Rollbühler reveals this year’s categories:

Beasts of Burden
Arabian Knights
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Faction Action
Cotton Candy Kingdom
The Heist of the Century (Team of 2)

Individual Prizes

Additional layers to the entries above that can score an extra prize!

Cerulean Count
Elemental Sorcerer
Royal Poet

While the above categories require physical builds to win, there is one “Digitalibur” prize for the top digital entry.

You can read the full details on each category here or join the community on Discord.

Participants don’t just have a chance at prizes – each entry also earns points that carry over into the Eternal Hall of Fame.

Iron Man Mark 3 Collectors’ Edition Headlines January wave of LEGO Marvel sets [News]

Today, LEGO revealed the next wave of Marvel sets arriving on January 1, 2026. Five minifig-scale let builders of all ages recreate epic superhero battles for play or display, while adult collectors can assemble the 1297-piece Iron Man Mark 3 Collectors’ Edition. Spider-Man continues to get an outsized starring role in the Marvel theme. Full details and comments follow.

See the full list of Marvel Sets coming on January 1