November sees the release of two of the year’s most anticipated LEGO sets: LEGO Marvel 76294 X-Men: The X-Mansion and LEGO Ideas 21353 The Botanical Garden. Each set is paired with an exclusive gift-with-purchase during the first week of availability. This is also your chance to acquire a copy of the GWP LEGO 40698 Books Are My Passion, while supplies last. For full details on November’s sets, visit LEGO’s website (US | CAN | UK).
Take a closer look at November’s heavy-hitters and GWPs here!
Spooky, ooky, with the most eloquent of moans, Lurch is more than a butler in the Addams household – he’s family. mc tung celebrates Halloween with a lumbering LEGO tribute to lovable Lurch. The builder plays with the Frankenstein association with Lurch’s ears jutting out like the Monster’s bolts. Why is Lurch crying? Maybe he misses Wednesday now that she’s sharing a room with Enid at Nevermore Academy. At least Thing is here to walk Lurch home to the microscale Addams house .
What makes a cozy home? For a necromancer, nothing beats a mildewed crypt full of bones and a little pumpkin patch for a splash of color. That’s just what artist Gabriel Midgley built in LEGO to get into the Halloween spirit. Gabriel beautifully presents the spooky vignette with exposed roots creating a dynamic base and custom lighting giving the scene a suitably eerie glow. The necromancer is a chilling minifig design with layered robes, a custom staff, and the back of Szazz’s Tam‘s head making for an unsettling eyeless face.
Gabriel has only recently started sharing LEGO builds and we’re excited to debut them here on TBB. A noted Tolkien fan, Gabriel offers some wonderful vignettes from the books that are defintitely worth a look, like the Council of Elrond or this Rohirrim Homestead.
Elden Ring boss Starscourge Radahn is peak character design: giant swords, ornate armor, and an imposing profile you can spot a mile away. Seeing this beast of a demi-god teetering atop a tiny horse would make you stop and laugh if Radahn couldn’t one-shot kill you from across the map. poodooMOCs nails the absurdity of Radahn in LEGO at minifig scale. The builder employs great parts usage to build out Radahn’s hulking body. I especially like the use of Ninjago lion shields on the legs and the red bush for the Starscurge’s wild hair. As impressive as LEGO Radahn is, can someone please take down this boss so the poor horse can have a break?
One of the most exciting attractions at LEGO conventions over the past two years is the massive Cyberpunk collaboration of New Hashima. An array of builders contribute cubes or toppers to the modular megacity that keeps growing and evolving. Ben Brickson is one such collaborator and he recently shared a wonderfully detailed gallery of his residential Hex Home Block. Capsule homes slot into a honeycomb grid of girders like a high-rise hive.
Jack in and see Ben’s block up close
Builder and photographer Darth Electra is no expert on Ravenloft lore, so when they learned the vampire minifig in the new Dungeons & Dragons Collectible Minifigs was named Strahd von Zarovich, it was obvious that he was destined to be a fashion designer. Strahd trades his sword for shears and swaps the drab armor of Barovia for a look befitting a project runway star (with a top cleverly borrowed from the Alien Tourist minifigure to get those dual-molded arms in grey to match Strahd’s complexion). I love the portrait on the wall showing Strahd’s roots in royal couture before turning to the cutthroat world of fast fashion, where looking good won’t bleed you dry.
For anime fans and toy collectors of a certain age, there will never be a vehicle quite as cool as the VF-1 Valkyrie from Macross. The “variable fighter” helped usher in the era of the transforming robot, with this design even getting shoehorned into Transformers as the Autobot Jetfire. Valkyries have long been a popular subject for LEGO builders, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one as small as this model from umamen. Even at this scale, it’s fully transformable to all three modes.
![MACROSS VF-1 [4/4]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54073665722_e88b904d9f_z.jpg)
Of course, umamen is no stranger to miniature mecha and character builds. The builder has been innovating with tiny robot builds for over a decade, so it’s great to see them back on TBB!
This simple build from Galerie d’Antha might look to some like just a showcase of LEGO books and printed tiles, but if you’ve ever visited Paris, you’ll recognize it as a loving tribute to the Bouquinistes – the literal pop-up bookshops that line the promenades along the river Seine. The 900 or so green boxes filled with second-hand books, art, and ephemera are such an essential part of the city’s unique character that they were even declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. Antha created the first version of this Bouquiniste before the 2024 Olympic games when the city considered dismantling the boxes before abandoning the plan. In this revised model, the builder expands the size and selection and adds a cleaner look when the box-shop closes for the day. C’est magnifique!
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a big, loud, and utterly extra adventure film, yet somehow LEGO builder adotnamedstud captures all of that excitement on a tiny 8×10 vignette. There’s so much kinetic energy on display, from the mine car tipping forward to Shortround’s cap to the tunnel supports leaning back. Moody lighting for the photograph and LEDs in the base add extra cinematic impact. The builder shows that it doesn’t take a ton of bricks to find fortune and glory.
LEGO’s buildable figures make great toys but, for many adult fans, they lack the detail and nostalgic appeal of models built from System bricks. Star Wars builder Shin Ichirau set about building a better Vader, keeping just the shins, shoulders, and head of the official buildable version and recreating the rest with System elements. The builder focused on capturing Vader’s power with a torso that is more ripped than the on-screen version, but gains aside, Shin’s version is a remarkable likeness. I appreciate the inner robes, often left out from toy depictions of the Sith Lord in favor of just the cape. Shin pairs his poseable Vader with a perfect stand that could be cut straight from the bridge of the Executor.
This isn’t the first Star Wars buildable glow-up we’ve featured on TBB. Pierthviv’s Boba Fett rebuild takes a similar approach with results worth their weight in beskar.
Whether the mission calls for flushing fugitives out of hiding or reducing enemy bases to rubble, the imposing TIE-110 bomber will have the rebels on the run. Over the past two years, Jordan Fridal has been mashing up Star Wars vehicles with WWII aircraft in LEGO to brilliant effect. For his latest build, Jordan fuses the TIE Bomber with a Messerschmitt BF-110. The model captures the best of both sources, supplemented with custom stickering for the windshield and insignia. While I would hate to be on the receiving end of the TIE-110’s payload, I do wonder how that asymmetry would fly for in-atmosphere bombing runs.
The TIE-110 joins a growing roster of Imperial sky-fi craft: the TIE-109, TIE-190, and TIE-262. It’s quite a fearsome fleet! Thankfully Jordan made sure the Rebel Allies have equally awesome fighters.
Competition is cooking in a new Iron Builder duel between returning champ and prolific builder Duncan Lindbo and a fresh face on the scene, Ari “loafbuilds” Hytti. Per tradition, a challenger takes on one of four reigning Iron Builders to build models based around a surprise “seed part.” This time the seed part is the unikitty tail piece in bright light orange. “Allez Brick!”
Ari is a builder whose public LEGO creations have mostly focused on Bionicle and character builds, like his compelling entries in the 2024 Bio-Cup. You wouldn’t guess that from Ari’s first salvo, a brilliantly life-like pair of corn cobs that use 82 tails to create the truthy kernels, wrapped in complimentary sand green husks. It’s an ingenious use of the part that should serve Ari well in the competition.
It’s an iron builder tradition to respond to your competitor’s build with one that rhymes. Duncan ripostes with a playful scene of produce gone bad. Corn returns in miniature, with palm leaves making great husks at this scale. An appealing friend, perhaps resting his bones for a Fortnite, joins in the kitchen carnage. We can’t wait to see what these two builders cook up next!
