Posts by Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

This spectactular Snoopy is a matter of perspective [Building Techniques]

Good grief, that’s some Nice Parts Usage! In this tiny build, Ian Summers captures the silhouette of beloved Peanuts pooch Snoopy in just 8 elements through the perfect mix of parts and clever use of perspective. Two of those parts are hats – a white baseball cap for the belly and a black cap for an ear – and for Snoopy’s muzzle and nose, I spy a Mixels eye. Pal Woodstock is unmistakable from just two tiny yellow elements. By framing the pieces from just the right angle, Ian gets the most from every piece in matching the shapes of the comic strip inspirations.

Ian’s builds are, as his handle suggests, bricktacular. A member of LEGO Ideas’ 10K club, Ian’s Jumanji board is currently under review to become an official set and probably won’t unleash rhinos in your living room.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

This Week in LEGO Bricks – March miniature madness [Feature]

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another roundup of notable MOCs and must-see stories from the LEGO community courtesy of our friend ABrickDreamer. This week’s biggest trend is thinking small – amazing microscale builds connected to the Marchitecture competition, and the first rounds of the Rogue Olympics with its strict 101 piece count. Also featured are some fabulous brick-built food, BrickLink Designer Program series 7 analysis, and a deep dive into the tricky new suspension mount element in the latest wave of F1 cars.

Out of this world aerospace engineering in LEGO

When I started building spaceships as a kid and teen, I assumed the only possible angles were the ones found on sloped bricks and wing plates. Seeing the smooth curves that builders like MWBricks can coax out of LEGO is nothing short of miraculous. The builder calls this flying beast the Yelets LOng RangeD Exploder, part of the Goznian Psycho Navy. With a raised cockpit and a recon jet docked and ready, the Yelets owns the unfriendly skies.

MWBricks works with Studio and physical bricks when designing ships like the Yelets. Some of the tricks the builder has come up with to achieve the perfect angle are equal parts impressive and anxiety-inducing, using friction and rubber bands when stud connections aren’t enough. I can’t help but wonder what this ship would look like in cross-section.

Tags and trains: Capturing the gritty side of the tracks in LEGO with Sérgio Batista [Interview]

We’ve been admirers of the LEGO trains from Sérgio Batista for some time now. Builing at 1:45 scale, Sérgio recreates the trains of his native Portugal in incredible detail, earning prizes and the attention of local media. In his latest project, it wasn’t the trains themselves but the setting that caught our attention – specifically the minifig-scale graffiti on the ruined buildings, walls, and train cars along the tracks. Some might call painting on bricks in this way vandalism, but we were taken by how immersive the effect is. It’s a side of life by the train tracks that you don’t often see in LEGO or models in general. We reached out to Sérgio to learn more about his love for LEGO trains and how he came to playing with graffiti in his latest work.

TBB: First off, how did you become interested in LEGO train modeling?

Sérgio Batista: Since childhood, I have been fascinated by trains. I was born in the ’80s and grew up in the ’90s, often riding suburban trains with my parents. As for LEGO, I had catalogs featuring the Metroliner, which had a design/shape similar to the Portuguese trains I used to ride (the CP 2300 series from the Sintra Line). However, it was an expensive set that my parents couldn’t afford, so it remained just a memory.

Years later, as an adult, I emerged from my dark age and bought the Metroliner on eBay around 2005/2006. That’s when I thought, what if I built Portuguese trains in LEGO? I searched online and discovered the work of builders like James Mathis and Raised on Brickshelf, and I figured I might be able to do the same. I came across BrickLink and began my journey to replicate Portuguese trains in LEGO.

Next stop, more on Sérgio’s LEGO train journey

LEGO announces Pokémon partnership, sets coming in 2026

Today The LEGO Group and The Pokémon Company announced a multi-year partnership with new sets to arrive in 2026. Details are short at this time, with a teaser video just showing the tail of a brick-built Pikachu, but with over 1,000 Pokémon and 30 years of games and anime to draw from, the possibilities are vast.

Previously, Pokémon building toys had been released by Mega, with the line including both larger-scale buildable characters and smaller-scale playsets. Will LEGO follow a similar model? Can we expect minifigs of your favorite trainers? Tell us in the comments what you want to see from Pokémon LEGO sets next year. And while you’re waiting, have a peek(achu) at our Pokédex of fan creations we’ve admired over the years.

Read on for the full press release

Double-decker Ponte de Dom Luís I bridge is a massive microscale achievement

With two decks built above and below its iron arch, Portugal’s Dom Luís I Bridge is a beautiful testament to late 19th-century engineering. Inspired by this double-deck marvel, civil engineering student and LEGO architecture fan Sébastien Houyoux took to Studio to painstakingly recreate the bridge and the the buildings of Porto and Gaia built in its shadow.

The model stretches 1.3 meters and is made up of 13,000 elements. The builder designed a 1/650 scale version of the bridge two years ago, but for this updated take, Sébastien doubles the detail with a scale of 1/325.

Y’ell take the high road and I’ll take the low road and we’ll get a better look at this amazing double decker bridge!

Your next undersea stop: the twilight zone

The mesopelagic (or twilight) zone is the lowest layer of the ocean that sunlight can reach, after which strange creatures with bioluminescent qualities start to appear. nu_montag riffed on this interpretation of “twilight” for a Rogue Olympics LEGO building challenge, creating a terrifying anglerfish with glow-in-the-dark teeth made from 101 parts. This monstrous fellow must have missed the memo that fish are friends, not food, as it lures a pair of lost reef fish in for a meal. Inspired by Bioncle Rahi, nu_montag added a biting function when you squeeze the tail, which you can see here.

Muse about resistance to the brick separators who won’t stop breaking us down

Muse’s Grammy-winning rock album The Resistance might have dropped on 2009, but its thematic mix of Orwell, conspiracy, and posthumanism feels very much of the moment. Maybe that’s what prompted TBB alum Nick Jensen, master of 1:1 scale models and Muse superfan, to recreate the kaleidoscopic cover of Muse’s fifth album in LEGO bricks. You don’t need to know the music to be drawn in by the gorgeous tunnel of colors and fractal geometry.

A closer look is better for appreciating the subtle angles Nick uses to achieve the striking microfig perspective. For planet Earth, at the end of the tunnel, Nick swaps in a printed disc from Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Nick’s commitment to The Resistance is no passing fancy – in addition to the brick display, he also has the album art tattooed on his shoulder.

Quechua me if you can

Last year SeigneurFett spent months backpacking throughout South America. Since coming home to his collection of LEGO, he’s been unable to forget the visions of Quechua women determinedly walking the high-altitude trails of Bolivia and Peru. Drawing on photos and memories of Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca, SeigneurFett uses LEGO bricks to depict a Quechua woman walking with her alpaca. In contrast to the sun-bleached terrain, the builder uses a mix of bright colors for the woman’s clothes, with grill plates adding texture to the petticoat fringe. An umbrella makes for a perfect hat on this large-scale character. I like the use of twine for the alapaca’s leash.

SeigneurFett’s model makes me nostalgic for walking those same trails many years ago. I wonder if he also ate pasankalla (bolivian popcorn) from a street vendor after coming back from Isla del Sol?

50 shades of LEGO fun

Back in 2021, we featured an amazing set of monochrome habitats from Caz Mockett featuring every color brick available at the time. As LEGO continutes to introduce new colors, the potential spectrum of habitats has grown since then. This time builder Dana Knudson has accepted the nigh-impossible mission of creating a minifig habitat using only parts from a single LEGO color, this time hitting a total of 50 unique hues. Neon yellow and coral are some of the newly possible configurations that Dana includes.

Monochrome habitats like these are such a fun way to explore the relationship between color and shape in LEGO’s vast catalog of elements. While some colors offer a vast array of options, other colors, can be a challenge to build with. Some, like sand red, can be quite expensive to source. But the results are spectacular. And seeing how different builders create their own little scene from those constraints is inspiring.

In addition to playing with monochrome builds, Dana also created habitats celebrating 40 years of LEGO Space themes that you’ll enjoy getting lost in.

Star Fox 64 in microscale (Rumble Pak not included)

“Corneria, fourth planet of the Lylat system.” For gamers who grew up with the N64, those words are enough to set your imagination spinning with polygonal starfighters doing barrel rolls. Builder Matteson Pino is far from the only person to name Star Fox 64 their favorite game, but he’s surely the first to pay tribute with a LEGO microscale diorama atop a brick-built N64 cartridge. It’s a briliant concept, depicting the game world spilling out of the physical media that stored it. The Great Fox carrier ship looks great, as do the chibi arwings, but it’s the pixelated terrain of Corneria that most draws me in. Now can Nintendo please bring Fox and co back to consoles? Switch 2 launch title, please.

Joy is an infinite spectrum

Being diagnosed with autism as an adult isn’t easy. Maybe, like me, you grew up with a very narrow understanding of what autism meant based on a few harmful stereotypes. Maybe you learn strategies to cope and “mask,” but you can never escape those moments that leave you feeling broken or alien. Thankfully neurodiversity has largely moved from taboo topic to a source of community, empathy, and self acceptance. Understanding that autism is a spectrum and not a box is key, and it’s why the infinite spectrum has become a symbol for Autism awareness and a reminder that with infinite diversity comes infinite potential. It’s what inspired LEGO builder Margit to create this work titled “Autistic Joy.” As Margit says: “I want them to be proud of who they are, joyfully autistic. I love my brain and myself. It’s taken decades to get to this point, and I’m celebrating with this flora and fauna 3D mosaic. I hope you like it.”

Margit recreates the the rainbow spectrum using LEGO bricks, drawing on elements that give her joy to express this hopeful message. Like last year’s Milky Way set or the art of Jiwoo Seon, Margit’s mosaic is full of texture and uses clever connections to draw in a wide range of disparate elements that only reveal themselves up close. Seeing a crab holding up an apple certainly brings me joy!

Considering how neurospicy the LEGO community is, it’s great to see the LEGO Group continue to recognize and support with efforts in schools and the recent Hidden Disabilities Sunflower program.

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!

Like this article? Tell all your friends!