Posts by Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

Full-spectrum starfighter runs on color

NASA and Space X might stick to mostly monochrome vehicles, but great LEGO spaceships play confidently with color. Maybe you take inspiration from one of the classic LEGO space themes, or maybe you just love teal. For Mason Martin‘s starfighter, color isn’t an aesthetic choice but the driving force behind a bold design that fuses sleek lines with scientific scholarship. The Color Theory incorporates RGB, CMYK, and the trusty RYB color wheel. It has a prism, gradients, and a mass spectrometer. How does all that color make it better at swooshing and pew-pewing? I don’t know, I’m no scientist. But it sure looks good from every angle.

Read on for more views of Mason’s colorful creation

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Red coats make easy targets

At the start of the French and Indian War, the British outnumbered their rivals with 2 million colonists to France’s mere 60 thousand. Through alliances with Indigenous tribes and the use of guerrilla tactics, the French made sure the redcoats paid a heavy price for those “few acres of snow.” Nicholas Goodman brings this chapter of North American history to life in LEGO, depicting the British under attack in 1759. The builder excels at dioramas, mixing scenery and minifig staging to capture the drama of a moment. I love how the trees get darker away from the road, a perfect setting for an ambush. We loved his last take on tricorn hat history: a swashbuckling pirate raid.

This scene was built for an upcoming LEGO history book called Minifigure Monarchs: A History of Great Brits in Little Bricks, by Andrew Redfern.

LEGO Godzilla Minus One is ready to rock your world

Godzilla, the OG kaiju, has been enjoying a resurgence of late in both Japan and Hollywood, but it’s the grounded back-to-basics take of Godzilla Minus One that most captured the hearts of fans and critics alike. It’s this version of Godzilla that inspired builder DeRa to bring the beast to life in LEGO and the results are as striking as an atomic blast. Once again, DeRa demonstrates an unmatched talent for blending LEGO sculpting, texturing, and articulation to create a model that pushes LEGO to its limits.

See more of DeRa’s impressive beast and learn about the build process below

LEGO doodling – following unusual parts wherever they lead [Building Techniques]

Some LEGO builds are born from a clear vision of the final model. Others are more like doodles where you improvise as you go, finding joy in the parts you use along the way. Pan Noda provides little context for this latest bizarro creation, “Trioffic Lights,” but I’m guessing it falls in the doodle camp, an extension of the builder’s rescent fascination with DUPLO tubes. Aside from the star elements, DUPLO balls with faces, Pan Noda pulls in a mix of pleasing parts and techniques, like tank treads to wrap the faces, inverted rubber tires for the joints, corner window visors, Aquazone octagonal legs, and Belville perfume bottle fingers. Despite such an ecclectic set of elements, the build keeps coherent by sticking to the three primary colors. The results walk a fine line between nightmare and whimsy, a liminal space Pan Noda is qutie familiar with.

What’s the strangest place your LEGO doodling has taken you?

Say cheese, Gromit!

It’s hard to belive 35 years (245 in dog years) have gone by since Wallace and Gromit were first molded by Nick Park’s thumbs and a great cinematic friendship was born. Now the happy couple are up for another Oscar and builder byggi_l is here to capture their special charm in LEGO. Mixel eyes are perfect for bringing life to the duo’s plasticine faces. I especially love Gromit’s brows made from inverted bake-o-lite hotdog buns.

Need a ride for your next hare-brained endeavor? Isaac Wilder made a cracking good version of your Austin A35.

Hejjo Demokowicz’s immersive LEGO steampunk worlds

Immersive LEGO scenes fill the frame with bricks and make you feel like you’re getting a glimpse into another world. Hejjo Demokowicz demonstrates a mastery of the form with his series of steampunk districts that began in 2022, each depicting a solitary figure beginning a journey. The latest entry, District 3, depicts a snowy, urban realm. Hejjo draws on an eclectic mix of rounded parts for the white snow and the nougat path for a lush texture. Wrought ironwork impresses in both the foreground gate and the ornate station awnings in the background. A solitary character stuns with clever parts usage, such as eggs for arms, helmet shoulders, and a pirate’s beard as trailing hair.

Click to explore Hejjo’s other districts

Touch this poison dart mech and you’ll be sorry!

When we last checked in with Zane Houston, the builder bowled us over with a colossal Dr. Robotnik mech. Maybe the Zane spent too much time in the head of Sonic’s nemesis, as now he’s sticking cute animals inside military-grade machines, just like Eggman. On closer inspection, it’s the tiny poison dart frogs who are calling the shots here. The mech shares the bright colors of toxic tropical amphibians, mixing teal, black, and bright light orange. Those triangular missile pods pack a serious punch, but it’s hard to take this mech seriously with those tiny forearms holding a minifig revolver and the pilot frog looking like a clown nose. Uh oh… I seem to have upset the frogs and now they’ve sent out a pair of chibi tanks to get revenge.

Zane’s mechs never cease to inspire with their dynamic design and top-notch presentation. This Nintendo Switch mech remains an all-time favorite build.

LEGO enters its oak tree era with 6440443 antlers in green [Building Techniques]

Today marks the roll-out of a little part that promises to have a bit impact on the future of LEGO trees – 6440443 antlers in green. The part first debuted in 2022 as an accessory to the Reindeer costume, but surely the designers at the time recognized the resemblance to a pair of oak leaves? So far the piece has only appeared in green in 2 sets, making the part fairly hard to come by. This is about to change as the part trickles out into Pick a Brick offerings from LEGO (currently available in Europe), making it easy to stock up. Builder Ryan McBryde has managed to amass quite a collection of the part already and demonstrates how effective these leaves can be when used as the primary foliage on a large tree.

It’s not an easy part to work with as the primary connection point is the small peg used for hair accessories, but Ryan found a few effective ways to integrate with branches. The workhorse partner in Ryan’s tree is the 1×1 round plate with shaft which conveniently has a hold in the shaft to match the antlers’ small peg. It looks like Ryan also relies on the tight squeeze between the inner prongs to chain together another pair of antlers.

Maybe it’s because I was such a fan of the Forestmen faction in my early building days, but I’ve always adored brick-built LEGO trees. Options for foliage elements have steadily increased over the years, even ignoring the unconventional parts used as plants in the Botanicals line. This part has me very excited for the creative solutions the community will find for working them into the next wave of trees. The era of oak trees has arrived!

ABrickDreamer dazzles with this sparkling microscale Cullen House

Davide Sacramati (aka ABrickDreamer) is a wiz at shrinking big LEGO sets into microscale versions (see his itty bitty Viking Village, Avengers Tower, and Rivendell). Davide’s latest project shrinks 221354 Twilight: The Cullen House onto an 8×16 footprint without losing any of the modern architecture charm. The middle floor in dark orange includes some clever problem-solving, like the legal-ish technique of wedging tiles between studs for the pillars on the right. In a video break-down Davide opens up the build and shares insights, like when to use SNOT building and how certain choices were made to accomodate gaps in his parts collection.

While Davide doesn’t need a reason to shrink sets, this model coincides with the LEGO Micro Build Tournament sponosred by Toys N Bricks that runs through April 1, 2025. Feel inspired? Shrink a set yourself and maybe you can win a copy of Tudor Corner!

A LEGO encampment where legends train for battle

As much as we love a colossal castle, a brick-built LEGO encampment can be just as inspiring when depicting life in the Middle Ages (see our thoughts on the latest Bricklink Designer Program Siege Encampment). French builder Gus (Faëbricks) erects a training camp for House Austren in what promises to be the first chapter of a LEGO roleplaying scenario called Féodalis. Duke Galdric, accompanied by his wife Elyanna, trains for a joust against the Duke of House Clawthorne. The scene is packed with details of camp life like serfs unfurling a tarp over an a-frame tent and crossbow training.

I love the colors of House Austren, pairing the Forester stag crest with fur collars and dark green capes.

Click for a video tour of this model!

How to clean a fish in LEGO

Clearly Harry Duncan has experience cleaning a fish, as the former LEGO Masters New Zealand contestant captures every gory detail of the process in this inspired scene. A fish scaler on the right left pearlescent tiles everywhere. Ropy red parts and stacks of pink skates are gutted and cast aside so the chef can begin the delicate work of deboning the fish. And here we see the most brilliant parts usage of all: a stack of white stems serving as a perfect fish bones. Harry brilliantly hides one of the stems in the counter, exposing only the v-shape of the spine. Ski poles and wands add some variety to the bony mix. Meanwhile, on the floor, a furry friend takes an interest in tonight’s meal. Should we report this to the health inspector, or is it more of a Ratatouille situation?

This build was created for the 2025 Iron Forge competition using the seed part of plant stems.

Something wicked stirs beneath the spires

In a building system founded on right angles, stringing together a bunch of LEGO macaroni tubes is anarchistically delightful. The snaking black tubes in the ruins of An-za-kàr Uru Dingir from Mattia Careddu, however, are downright sinister. I love how the layered ruins evoke organic anatomy, with fleshy tan bricks curved around a bony white core. What did this once-great city look like in its prime, I wonder? The model is a rare example of architecture from a builder best known for their weird and wonderful character builds, and an exciting direction from one of our favorite builders of 2024.