Posts by Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)

Baba Yaga won’t be contained in a LEGO book nook!

Mixing LEGO and books is in vogue right now, but who says the bricks need to go between your volumes? Roman Shemis built this spellbinding witch’s hut emerging from the page of a brick-built book, which looks great stacked atop books of the paper variety. Based on the Cyrillic text, I can only assume that Baba Yaga herself lives inside the chicken-legged cottage. Technique-wise, it’s that tree trunk on the left I’m pining over! Roman only recently started sharing MOCs, but we’re already big fans of the builder’s skill and range. (Especially the technique Roman employs for this cobblestone street). I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more from Roman in the years to come!

If you want to add a bird-legged hut to your collection but don’t know where to start, the Never Witch’s Midnight Raven is one of my favorite sets in recent years.

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Return of the Mon Calamari Cruiser

Once again, we find ourselves writing about an excellent LEGO diorama by swbuilds. And once again, it’s a Mon Calamari Cruiser full of life! After finishing the bridge, this build apparently followed close behind. But I’m not going to talk about Star Wars here. Instead I’m going to reference another space-faring LEGO theme: Life on Mars. For that is where all that glorious sand purple comes from! This is one of those colours with an extremely limited colour palette: only 18 designs, and six of those are minifigure parts. Fortunately, many of those other 12 parts were larger ones, so you can make them go a long way, as swbuilds does here. I’m particularly fond of the overturned pump from 7317 Aero Tube Hangar in the background!

Sakiya Watanabe’s quest for excellence as a LEGO creator [Interview]

The secret about overnight successes is that it takes years of hard work to get to that “overnight” success. Sakiya Watanabe, who builds under the handle n.a.b.e_mocs, does the work. In the six months since he started sharing his creations online, Sakiya’s MOCs have earned kudos on this site and from AFOLs and professional builders alike, even as the young builder studies Organic Chemisty at university. We sat down with Sakiya to learn about how he prepared for this “overnight success,” and what drives him as a builder.

TBB: Your work caught our attention from the very first MOC you shared, but you must have been building a lot before reaching that point. When did you first discover LEGO and what excited you about building?

Sakiya Watanabe: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. First of all, my parents gave me LEGO SpongeBob Krusty Krab set (3825) when I was around 6 years old. Also, at the time, I was obsessed with the Lord of the Rings, but LEGO didn’t sell Lord of the Rings sets yet, so instead, my parents often bought me sets of the LEGO Castle fantasy era. And I often reassembled them to create the world of Lord of the Rings. This may have been my first works.

TBB: It sounds like you were making your own creations from the start. When did you become aware of the creations of other builders?

SW: I got into LEGO Star Wars when I was about 9 years old, and started making my own creations(MOC) around that time. At the time, I was always watching speed builds of sets on YouTube, and I would create MOCs while referring to the techniques used in the sets. This is a picture when I was 10 years old.

Our interview with Sakiya Watanabe continues…

“Get away from her, you bricks!”

Like James Cameron, here at the Brothers Brick we never turn down an opportunity to show off a good power suit. Take this Minilander-scale Power Loader from Aliens built by Marco DeBon – equally adept at moving cargo and battling Xenomorphs. This model requires a Class-2 license to operate, but is a class all its own in terms of design, with pleasingly chunky arms and a great use of tiles for a clean look.

Ripley can step out of the loader and is fully poseable. She looks like she’s been training with Chun Li before joining the mission to LV-426. I almost feel sorry for the poor Alien queen that has to face her!

From the side, we can better appreciate Marco’s judicious use of greebles and the excellent application of printed and stickered tiles.

Netbrix and chill with these LEGO TV tributes [Minifig Monday]

Ah, LEGO – the building toy that lets you explore deep space, medieval castles, and… the set of Seinfeld. From Stranger Things to Queer Eye, LEGO has made comfort viewing a staple of its catalogue. Since LEGO’s current product offerings are a bit light on adult TV fare (unless you count Bluey) we’re dedicating this week’s Minifig Monday to stars of the small screen

Kimberly Faul takes us back to Staten Island where What We Do in the Shadows was faithfully recorded for 6 seasons. Sadly the camera crew is gone, but we can get some satisfaction knowing that Nandor and crew are still tending to hedges. Kim does a great job of capturing the cast in minifig form, staged in their lovingly decrepit home (plus a few bonus cats, courtesy the builder!).

For a post-apoc minifig challenge on Instagram, Expansion Bricks revisits three of the stars of The Walking Dead, the franchise that refuses to die, in this update of one of the builder’s earliest minifig tributes. Figs aside, I love those trees made from stacked stud-shooting blasters.

Don’t tune out now. Keep scrolling for more minifig TV tributes!

One Piece pirate ship? How about 4,000 Piece?

As excited as we are for the newly revealed One Piece sets, we still hold out hope that LEGO will return to the Age of Sails with sets that aren’t infused with clowns and talking reindeer. For minifig-scale ships, there are few LEGO shipwrights as skilled as Saran (MocYourBricks) who for years has been upgrading designs from LEGO’s past with an AFOL’s eye for detail and custom sails and rigging. This photo comes from bee.brick, who recreated the Black Pearl and Queen Anne’s Revenge from Saran’s instructions. with extra flourishes, like brick-built canon blasts.

Built from 4,000 pieces, the Queen Anne’s Revenge is a thing of beauty, and even if the roughly $1000 cost of sourcing the parts and instructions is out of your price range, you can vicariously experience the joy of building it in this one-hour “speed build.”

LEGO Voyagers revealed at Summer Game Fest, co-op adventure from Builder’s Journey developers Light Brick Studio [News]

LEGO’s biggest video game hits have featured minifig mayhem and slapstick adventures in the worlds of Star Wars, Batman, and Fortnite, but there is one LEGO game that took a different path. A Builder’s Journey was released in 2019 by Light Brick Studio, an internal development team inside of LEGO, and it offered a poignant and wordless puzzle experience similar to games like Monument Valley, but through an AFOL lens. It’s a beautiful game that offers a more meditative approach to playing with bricks. Today at Summer Game Fest, Light Brick Studio reveals their follow-up: LEGO Voyagers.

Putting players in control of a humble 1×1 brick, the game expands on its predecessor’s gameplay by letting two players journey together in a new co-op adventure. As a fan of the A Builder’s Journey and low-stress couch co-op games, this one looks like a must-play. It’s a welcome addition to the LEGO games lineup – one that remains accessible to all but with a special appeal for AFOLs. The trailer and game details follow.

Official press release and screen shots follow

Heroes of the Star Wars Expanded Universe: Legends but not forgotten

The original Star Wars hadn’t even been released when Alan Dean Foster started writing Splinter of the Minds Eye, the first story in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (later called Legends). Prior to Lucasfilm’s sale to Disney, telling stories in the Star Wars sandbox was a fairly freewheeling business, guided more by a code of honor to not contradict what came before, and to be game to retcon anything that George made canon.( I had first-hand experience writing in this era, penning a choose-your-own-adventure style book full of EU easter eggs.) These days, the Star Wars Universe feels a bit trapped between three aesthetically very different trilogies, with Dave Filoni doing his best to fold EU favorites like Thrawn into the continuity between Clone Wars and Rise of Skywalker. I love The Last Jedi and Andor, but I also miss the era when the Adventures of Luke Skywalker was an endless blue ocean of possibility.

Jan Woźnica certainly carries a torch for the Expanded Universe. In the past, the builder shared an incredible LEGO model of the Moldy Crow from Star Wars: Dark Forces. Now Jan is back with a bevy of expanded universe characters, perfectly assembled from official LEGO parts and staged on custom stands. There are some pretty deep cuts here, so in the gallery that follows, I’ve added links to Wookiepedia if you need a refresher on who’s who.

Take a closer look at Jan’s minifig tributes to the Star Wars Expanded Universe

Don’t lose your head over this elegant mantis

The praying mantis female will sometimes consume the head of the male while mating. What’s this self-made widow’s secret? alex_mocs knows that there’s nothing more alluring than Bionicle and Constraction elements, seamlessly integrated into organic LEGO builds. This model of the
Viridis Mantidae is the pinnacle of elegance with a touch of menace. Like a master sculptor, alex manages to coax disparate LEGO elements together in ways that suggest that this was the role they were destined to play, from the green whip antennae to the Ninjago sail wings to the Bionicle chest.

alex_mocs is one of the organizers of the Bio-Cup. The first round, with the theme “Dreams,” closes on June 9th. If you’re interested in building MOCs that play with non-system elements like alex’s model here, it’s not too late to enter. Don’t worry – they won’t bite!

This Week in LEGO Bricks: Absolute Icons [Feature]

Every week there are so many amazing MOCs and builder stories that we’ve come to rely on ABrickDreamer’s handy This Week in Bricks videos to keep up. After a well-deserved two-week break, our faithful video chronicler of the LEGO building world is back with a bumper crop of creations to share! This week brings a mix of iconic characters, from Mario to Black Panther, as well as iconic builders like N.A.B.E. mocs (look forward to our interview with this rising star next week!), microscale legend jeff_works, and many more!

Also, welcome to the Brothers Brick review crew. ABrickDreamer (aka Davide Sacramati) reviewed the latest Botanicals sets for us last week: Japanese Red Maple Bonsai Tree and Happy Plants.

LEGO sets sail for the Grand Line with a treasure trove of ONE PIECE sets coming August 1, 2025

Today LEGO unveiled the Most Wanted sets in the Grand Line with a full range of sets based on the Netflix adaptation of ONE PIECE. This license is huge for LEGO as the world of One Piece, drawn from the 105 (and ongoing) volumes of manga from Eiichiro Oda, is a global phenomenon packed with hundreds of unique characters, memorable locations, and cool vehicles. Not since Marvel and Star Wars has LEGO found an IP with as much potential for both play and display sets.

While the sets are based on Netflix’s live-action version, the visuals of the show hew so close to the anime that the LEGO versions might as well be lifted from the originals. Even if you don’t know or care about the source material, the sets bring the pirate theme back to the fore with a splash of fantasy. The minifigs and mix of parts look incredible (I love that they found a way to incorporate Zoro’s Three Sword Style). This first wave of sets draw on the first Netflix season. Season 2, coming next year, brings in even wilder characters and locations to draw on for new sets. Enough gushing. The full set reveals follow. Tell us in the comments if you’ll be joining the Straw Hats crew.

Sail on for the scoop on all of the One Piece sets coming this August

Keiichi Kamei dreams of electronic bricks – 10 years of Blade Runner Builds [Interview]

Some adult fans of LEGO finish a creation, move on to the next, and never look back. Others return to a favorite build again and again over many years, updating parts or expanding scope. Keiichi Kamei falls into the second group. For this former LEGO Master Japan and Sakura LUG member, a love of LEGO is matched, or even surpassed, by a deep appreciation for the classic sci-fi film Blade Runner. Those entwined passions have kept “KABA” expanding and upgrading his vision of 2019 Los Angeles for a decade. His creations were previously featured in Brick Journal and on this site, but when KABA shared new pieces of his Blade Runner tribute, we thought this would be the perfect time to catch up and get to know the builder better.

The Brothers Brick: When did you first start recreating vehicles and scenes from Blade Runner in LEGO? Were you building things like this since you were a child, or did you start as an adult? Did you experience a “dark age” when you stopped building?

Keeichi Kamei (KABA): When I was a child, of course, I played with LEGO, but it was just one of several games for me at that time. LEGO became “my hobby” in 2012, when I was 49 years old.
Originally, my oldest son was a LEGO enthusiast, and as a parent, we built sets together. When he started college and stopped playing with Legos, he told me that “I give all the parts to you Dad,” and I decided to build the Police Spinner from my favorite sci-fi movie Blade Runner. A few years after I started building the LEGO Police Spinner, I finally completed the MOC with a satisfactory result. I wanted a backdrop for my MOC photos, so I started working on buildings and other vehicles that appeared in “Blade Runner. It kept expanding, and a few years later it became what it is today, a diorama that recreates the city that appears in Blade Runner using LEGO. By that time, I was totally hooked on LEGO.

Keiichi’s Voight-Kampff test… er, interview continues after the fold