We’ve seen so much creativity in how minifigs can be customized, from creative use of existing parts, to custom printed minifig torsos, to third-party cloth accessories, to hand-crocheted minifig coats! But for fashionistas, there’s only so much that can be done at minifig scale. Recent buildable figure sets for Wednesday and Wicked offer a new template for creative accessorizing, as seen in this custom couture from Maachi.
Click for more thoughts on LEGO x fashion
It’s a stacked month of releases with sets for every taste, from geodes to Gizmos to game consoles to giant death slices! We found a lot to like in this month’s offerings (even if the trend of more big-ticket releases has us questioning who has shelf space to keep up). If you’re looking to add any of these sets to your collection, we’re grateful when you use our affiliate link as it helps fund the site and allows us to keep bringing you the best MOCs and builder stories every day.
Our top pick for October is the new Game Boy set. A near-perfect 1:1 recreation of the vintage handheld, the Game Boy is an incredible build that will make you appreciate LEGO geometry. As a bonus, all graphics but the two cartridge labels are printed elements, and the lenticular screens are a novel treat.
Click to see the rest of the major sets releasing today!
There’s something magical about creating stained glass in LEGO with transparent colors. We see many techniques for creating patterns in “glass,” but one of the most reliable is using a 1x2x3 window frame to hold 8 cheese slopes. GothGirlBricks uses this technique and adds a beautiful spin by including black slopes as negative space to create a picture in the glass.
Each window pane pairs two complementary colors for a gradient. Blue and purple transition to purple and pink, into pink and red. The completed mosaic art suggests a tree at sunset.
A work-in-progress shot shows the artist’s process, using transparent slopes to hold the black mosaic image in place while she figures out the gradient. So much lovely cheese!
Last week’s grab bag installment of Minifig Monday was a lot of fun, but today we return to themed roundups. Specifically, we’re looking at wizards and warlocks and their sorcerous kindred – but the real magic is in the creative use of parts to push the boundaries of minifig creation!
We start this magical Monday collection with a character who is barely a wizard at all – Rincewind from the Discworld novels. As created by legendary minifig photographer Jez Rider, Rincewind is accompanied by The Luggage and a definitely-not-stolen sheep.
Custom minifigs represent! This incredible Wicked duo from LEGO Masters winner Ian Summers (bricktacular_builds) is currently in the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery, and might be the smallest build to get that honor. The parts usage is mind-blowing, especially the backwards arms, Glinda’s teapot body, and a beard for Elphaba’s broom. I had the chance to speak with Ian at LEGO House and he’s a fan of Minifig Monday and the creations shared here.
Backwards arms? Redbirch ups the ante with legs for arms! The builder has only shared 11 MOCs so far, but they’ve already made Minifig Monday twice with some of the most innovative parts usage we’ve seen. Look at those extended legs, made by slotting a minifig hand into the leg hole. The handlebar shoulder armor is great too.
Let’s make some more minifig magic after the fold
Since its debut at Brickworld Chicago in 2023, the New Hashima collab has gone viral, spawning new incarnations at LEGO events around the world. (You can learn more about its origins here.) Builder Toltomeja provided cubes (the modular format from which the city is built) at Bricking Bavaria in 2023 and 2024. Now Toltomeja fuses the cyberpunk city with their talent for microscale with this stunning tribute to the 2024 iteration. At 64×64 studs, it’s quite massive for “micro,” but that’s what it took to showcase the contributions of more than 50 builders.
For reference, here is the full-sized model in all of its glory:
Click to explore more of New Microshima
LEGO House in Billund offers guests an incredible way to connect with the company’s history and playfully engage with bricks, but my favorite wing is the Masterpiece Gallery, which honors fan creations from builders around the world. It’s an amazing way to showcase what LEGO artists are doing with bricks to a wide audience, and for those who follow the MOC world closely, it’s a chance to see favorite builds up close in the best possible venue (alongside three enormous T. rexes!). This year, the space was expanded to include two sections for wall-mounted artwork, bringing the total to 17 artists.
TBB was fortunate to speak with all of the builders this week before their works were opened to the public. Some of the faces and builds are quite familiar to readers of this site – one is even a contributor! Let’s meet these amazing builders:
Seigo Aoki (aka DeRa) – Japan
DeRa has created some of the most popular builds of the last two years featured on Brothers Brick, so seeing the amazing models in person was truly an honor. While DeRa‘s featured builds are organic subjects, the builder studies Architecture and has created incredible buildings from LEGO as intricate as his beasts and mechs. DeRa is proud that Japanese builders have been recognized around the world.
Meet the other 16 Masterpiece Gallery builders after the break
Creating a compelling LEGO model with just 30 bricks is tougher than it sounds. Gregory Coquelz is a wiz at making every brick count. There’s so much personality packed into these micro-build dogs hawking black-market bones. Their faces come courtesy of Dots, but it’s the ears and the black bands for eyes/sunglasses that make them come alive.
Gregory has been on a roll with cartoony characters of late, including this M-rated tribute that hopefully won’t get the builder cancelled.
Ever since LEGO transported the Castle theme to medieval Japan in the ’90s, samurai have inspired countless LEGO builds. artist_davs pays tribute to perhaps the most famous samurai of all, Miyamoto Musashi, in an incredible LEGO vignette that looks more like a museum diorama than a model built from bricks. Musashi, the famous duelist and philosopher, is uses a minifig head and a cloth-covered brick-built body for realistic proportions.
Musashi’s armor is as impressive as the man himself, incorporating cloth and string. The tatami floor, made from profile bricks laid on their side, is artfully raised a half tile above the floor. If you’re wondering where the kanji scroll comes from, it’s a sticker from the Hanzo vs Genji set and reads “Dragon Head, Snake Tail.” I don’t think that comes from the Book of Five Rings, but it makes sense that Musashi would display it as he was famously fond of playing Overwatch.
I’m in Billund this week, representing The Brothers Brick at Fan Media Days, where we’re lucky to get an inside look at what projects LEGO is cooking up for the months to come. As cool as those sneak peeks are, a highlight of this experience has been the chance to see the MOCs on display in the LEGO employee campus, especially The Great Turtle Race by Ghaniaian/Canadian artist Ekow Nimakow. I’ve admired pictures of Nimakow’s work online, with the unmistakable use of black bricks to create large-scale models embodying the spirit of Afrofuturism. Still, pictures didn’t prepare me for seeing the artist’s work in person.
The sculptures are massive, but that alone isn’t noteworthy in Billund where you’re surrounded by large-scale brick installations designed to inspire and delight. It’s the non-system elements, like the Technic plates used for the turtle shells, used at such a large scale that seamless curves emerge. Thousands of feather elements in the fins are layered to create a texture between animal scale and brush stroke. The feeling of motion in the children’s locks stirs the spirit.
more of Nimakow’s work follows
When LEGO goth queen Pernilla Johansson (legonillan) shows up with her sigfig, you know things are about to get spooky! The Swedish builder found a lot to love about the recent Beauty and the Beast Castle, but the lilac and gold simply would not do for Pernilla’s coterie of vampires and ghouls. In Extreme Makeover: LEGO Home Edition fashion, Pernilla strips the castle down to the studs and paints it black.
Of course, a project like this is too big for one minifig, so legonillan invites a few sigfig friends to help out with the remodel. Even some hitchhiking ghosts get into the spirit of things.
Pernilla matches the original castle nearly brick-for-brick, while adding additional flourishes like bats and spooky foliage. It’s a great example of the joy that comes from treating official sets as a jumping off point for creativity.
Greebles are famously the extraneous bits added to the outside of a model to add texture. Builder Aidan Webb dares to ask, what if a model were nothing but greebles? The Wasteland Strider is inspired by the mechanical wildlife of the Horizon games, with Aidan exploring what a creature might look like if its rider was constantly scavenging for parts to keep the mount functional.
A work-in-progress look at the build process reveals how precariously assembled the Strider is – a barely contained skeleton of clips and minifig arms. As fragile as the beast appears, Aidan managed to wrangle it into a rideable state for a desert nomad and their supplies. It’s an incredible amount of detail for such a compact creature.
In the United States, the fourth Saturday in September is National Public Lands Day – a day of service and celebration for the stewardship of public lands, from community gardens to national parks. It’s a day to give back as well as a chance to visit any of the county’s national parks for free. If you’re in the US, consider visiting a park this Saturday or reflecting on how to steward nature and resources for tomorrow.
Let’s also celebrate the amazing LEGO Park Ranger account, celebrating 10 years of sharing daily builds inspired by America’s parks and history.
Enjoy more highlights from the LEGO Park Ranger below