About Nick

Nick Jensen, also known as Nick Brick, plays games almost as much as he builds LEGO. He's probably most well known for replicating gaming weapons and equipment at 1:1 scale. He is a member of ChiLUG and attends Brickworld Chicago every year. You can follow his LEGO work on Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.

Posts by Nick

LEGO Soldier 76 loadout has you in his sights

ZaziNombies built perhaps my favorite replica from him yet in terms of screen accuracy with his LEGO Soldier: 76’s Heavy Pulse Rifle prop from Overwatch. The V-shape of the muzzle area and the blue barrel paneling are especially outstanding when compared to source material. The build is rounded out with nice touches like a removable top-loaded ammo cartridge and a light-up, wearable tactical visor. See it all in action in the video below. If you’re not familiar with Overwatch, don’t worry; some Soldier: 76 gameplay captures are also shown.

Overwatch has been a wildly popular subject for LEGO builds lately. Check out more of the Overwatch creations we covered, including brick-built heroes, Ana Amari’s rifle, and Jesse McCree’s revolver.

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A ship built for the defense of Earth

Andreas Lenander’s destroyer, named the USS Viking, shows that good design doesn’t necessarily require fancy building techniques. It’s Andreas’s design work that caught my eye on his spacecraft, with clean slots through the red plating on the sides and top revealing a good amount of detail bits. Impressive work, especially for his first build of a spacecraft at this scale.

See more photos of the USS Viking, with shots of the building process, on Flickr.

Watching your back with LEGO Ana’s Rifle from Overwatch

When Ana Amari was revealed as an addition to the Overwatch hero roster, I knew I wanted her rifle added to my LEGO arsenal. It was an interesting short rifle design, had bolt action that would be fun to build, and even the concept of a healing sniper was a rad idea. The most challenging part of the build was the bolt action itself. There were countless iterations of the bolt itself that can simulate chambering the biotic round, the chamber walls hiding the bolt’s slots inside the body of the rifle to reduce gaps, and the trigger mechanism that released the bolt. All this design work led to a LEGO rifle that has realistic looking firing action, despite not actually firing.

Watch this firing action, as well as other functions including a folding stock, removable magazine with opening mag cover, and glowing biotic round powered by BrickStuff lights, in the video below. You can also view all photos of the biotic rifle in my Flickr album.

Titanfall 2’s LEGO Ronin Titan online, signal when ready

Titanfall still is one of the most fun and intense gaming experiences I’ve had, and every titan I drop in to battle feels like the first. It should be no surprise that I am also hyped for the sequel. Several new titan types have been designed for Titanfall 2, and of the titans revealed thus far, the sword-wielding Ronin Titan stood out to me as a good idea for a LEGO build. There were a couple challenges in this approximately 8-hour build.

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LEGO Bastion from Overwatch deserves every play of the game

Bastion is a rather divisive character to fans of Overwatch. While adorable as a character, his charm does not forgive his unstoppable hail of gatling gun bullets. Piggy Brother’s LEGO rendition of Bastion is definitely a showcase of his charm. Not only are the details of his Bastion model nearly spot-on, his pose with the bird Ganymede on his finger is just like Bastion’s concept art. The continuation of the black outline over the blue “eye” using a rubber band is a great detail.

Piggy Brother even constructed his Bastion to transform into sentry mode. A rather impressive touch to his excellent model.

See more photos on the builder’s Flickr.

Stunning LEGO A Link Between Worlds mosaic

While I have not yet played this particular title in the Legend of Zelda series, the LEGO mosaic version of Link in wall merged form built by Hans Demol is instantly recognizable. In game, Link can take the form of a wall painting to traverse the worlds and puzzles in interesting ways, and Hans shows this with a stacked plates mosaic style that works well for both the painted Link and the uneven brick wall texture.

In this close-up of Link’s face, you can see several different colors used to achieve the painted look.

A gentleman’s sidearm

A fantastic selection of primarily Technic elements come together in a LEGO double-barreled steampunk handgun built by nobu_tary. All kinds of interesting details are found throughout, such as the split paneling revealing the barrels, compass piece as some sort of gauge, and a thin wire trigger guard.

It’s high noon somewhere when wielding LEGO McCree’s revolver

Effectively utilizing custom chromed LEGO elements, ZaziNombies creates a stunning replica of Jesse McCree’s Peacekeeper six-shooter from Overwatch. I particularly like the use of a Technic gear as my favorite touch of detail on the Peacekeeper in-game: the spur on the handle. See ZaziNombies’s overview of his revolver replica, featuring a fold-out cylinder, in the following video.

If you like LEGO and Overwatch, be sure to also check out D.Va’s pistol and mech, as well as Reinhardt’s hammer.

Execute a counter strike with the LEGO PP-19 Bizon

Some people, understandably so, may not like the use of LEGO bricks to construct weaponry. Others, like myself and YouTube LEGO builder Bricks n’ Guns find it an interesting subject for a build and an extension of fandoms; in this case, it’s LEGO and gaming. Bricks n’ Guns built an incredibly life-like replica of the Russian submachine gun PP-19 Bizon as it appears in the first person shooter game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The realism doesn’t stop at its appearance; watch him demonstrate the working trigger, sliding charging handle, removable cylindrical magazine, and folding wire stock in this short video.

Super Mario looks super with bricks

In 2015, the thirtieth anniversary of Mario, Nintendo released an awesome amiibo of every player one’s favorite koopa slaying plumber as a 3D version of the original character sprite. Perhaps used as a guide, John Kupitz constructed the 3D projection with LEGO bricks to equally impressive results. Sure, the voxels in the LEGO version aren’t perfect cubes, but they’re close enough that the build is instantly recognizable.

The Foxbat Fighter rebuilt for combat

As new pieces and building techniques emerge and as builders improve their style, it’s interesting to see a builder revisit a previously built design. Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann shows a side-by-side comparison of his custom fighter design, the FB12 Foxbat, with his original 2013 build on the left and 2014 rebuild on the right. Improved color blocking, an overall smoother shape, and added rear fins and air intakes show Benjamin’s efforts to rework an already great compact fighter design.

See more views of Benjamin’s FB12 Foxbat on his Flickr, with an album each for Mark I and Mark II.

Keeping things running at optimal level

This rad little droid built by Marco Marozzi has all kinds of neat details packed inside its frame. I especially like face, with the thin tire squeezed in between two translucent orange armor plate pieces to break up the orange a bit. Though the droid is what grabbed my attention here, don’t miss the overall maintenance scene with engineers in oversize helmets — a bold idea to choose over standard minifigure headgear, but it works well.