Category Archives: Feature

The Brothers Brick is not just about showcasing the best fan builds and bringing you the latest LEGO News, we also love to investigate, interview and discuss! These featured articles are all interesting articles that you can look back and enjoy reading.

2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 6 [Feature]

Our favorite holiday tradition is opening all six LEGO Advent Calendars, one day at a time, with you, our readers! Along with spoiler pics of the daily gifts, we include commentary and alternate builds to celebrate the season and creativity.

We have an all-star cast of custom minifig creators leading our Advent adventure this year. Fool’s Figures is wizarding his way through Harry Potter and Frozen calendars. ExpansionBricks is launching Star Wars and Friends. And beyondb0nes is digging into Minecraft and City. Now let’s open some doors and see what gifts are in store for today!

Click here for spoilers of today’s builds!

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2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 5 [Feature]

Click here for spoilers of today’s builds!

2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 4 [Feature]

Click here for spoilers of today’s builds!

NovHENber hatched a new challenge, now let’s count the LEGO chickens! [Feature]

This November saw a new LEGO challenge: NovHENber. Participants were invited to build chickens during the month, and many AFOLs answered the call. With the last chickens hatched, we checked in with builders behind the challenge – Syrdarian and Carson Lacy – and cooped up all the hens from the inaugural event.

See the full roundup of egg-celent birds below

2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 3 [Feature]

Our favorite holiday tradition is opening all six LEGO Advent Calendars, one day at a time with you, our readers! Along with spoiler pics of the daily gifts, we include commentary and alternate builds to celebrate the season and creativity.

Click here for spoilers of today’s builds!

2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 2 [Feature]

Day 1 got off to a fun start with a figure behind every door! What surprises does Day 2 have in store across this year’s calendars? Let’s find out with our intrepid team of Advent explorers!

Harry Potter and Frozen calendars are being covered by Fool’s Figures, who also provided the cover image below. ExpansionBricks is launching Star Wars and Friends. And beyondb0nes is digging into Minecraft and City.

Click here for spoilers of today’s builds!

2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 1 [Feature]

December is here, and for LEGO fans, that means one thing: time to start opening Advent Calendars! Here at The Brothers Brick, we’ve been sharing daily reveals since 2015, served with hot mugs of spicy commentary and plates of silly side builds. This year, the spoiling duties are being shared by three accomplished builders who you might recognize from our Minifig Monday series. Harry Potter and Frozen calendars are being covered by Fool’s Figures, who also provided the cover image below. ExpansionBricks is launching Star Wars and Friends. And beyondb0nes is digging into Minecraft and City.

6 themes, 24 doors, 144 gifts. It’s going to be a wild ride! Starting tomorrow, in addition to the daily spoilers, our intrepid advent adventurers will also be creating alternate builds with the day’s parts and pieces that came before. Now it’s on to door number 1!

Click here to see today’s builds!

Building a community: An outsider’s guide to the history of NoVVember [Feature]

The team here at The Brothers Brick, like many of the builders we feature, live and breathe blocks and have been stewing in LEGO lore for so long that we’re more minifigure than man. But we recognize that not all of our readers are as fluent in the insider jargon and history of this hobby. With you in mind, I’ve prepared an outsider’s guide to help you understand an annual event with deep roots in these parts: NoVVember. This story showcases the importance of community, it speaks about a tragedy, and how we still honor age-old traditions.

You may have seen recent NoVVember entries such as this one but what does it all mean? And why the heck do y’all spell it that way, anyway? The double V in NoVVember stands for Vic Viper. This recent pair by Bradk918 perfectly demonstrates what a Vic Viper is; denoted by two wings or prongs that extend forward of a centralized cockpit and flares out at the rear of the craft and a central stabilizer fin. The style and term was taken from the Gradius video game series.

Creative examples from the community

Now that we’ve established the rather rigid rules that constitutes what a Vic Viper is, how does a builder go about being creative while still following the overall shape and guidelines? Last year, LEGO phenom Maxx Davidson prescribed the medicine-themed Sick Viper complete with syringes, pill pack wings and a central cockpit reminiscent of a two-color pill capsule. It’s good for whatever ails you.

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A month of daily mechs with ace AFOL Ivy [Interview]

From Febrovery to Frogust, the LEGO world is rich with events that challenge AFOLs to build under constraints to spark creativity and build community. Some of these, like the newly minted NovHENber, casually invite a single build during a month. The most rigorous challenges are those with a daily creation. Few have the time and stamina for that breakneck pace of building, and every builder who achieves this is an inspiration. Ivybrickss is one such builder who recently completed her second Mechtober – a month of LEGO mechs with mind-blowing variety in theme and function. We sat down with Ivy to talk about her amazing month.

Click to read our interview with Ivybrickss and see highlights of her 31 mechs

Award-winning Canadian LEGO artist breaks the ice with a stunning 152,000 piece polar icebreaker [Feature]

Canadian LEGO artist Paul Hetherington probably needs no introduction. But in case you’ve been buried under the ice since the Truman administration like Captain America, Paul has just launched his largest commission yet; a 152,000 piece Seaspan Canadian Polar Icebreaker complete with a fully detailed interior. Designed with the help of LEGO Certified Professional Robin Sather of Brickville DesignWorks, this ship measures 11 feet long and 2 feet wide. Paul tells us the real Seaspan hasn’t been launched yet so this model will do more than help to visualize the real polar icebreaker currently under construction— it will help inspire future shipbuilders.

Not only has Paul built the ship, but he has included detailed landscaping, including the ice and ocean floor. Here is an aft view of the ship and its surrounding ice. The helodeck and helicopter are all very nice touches. This shot makes it clear that the interior is lit up as well.

Dive deeper into this record-breaking, icebreaking build

LEGO x F1 Academy: thoughts on brands, tie-ins and progress [Editorial]

Here’s a pop-trivia question for you. Who is the biggest tyre manufacturer in the world – i.e., who makes the most? I’ll give you a second to think about it. No doubt many of you know the answer already, if you’re reading this. The answer is, of course, LEGO. And after so long at the top of the tyre tree, they are finally getting involved in the real-world automotive sphere with a surprise partnership with F1 Academy, as announced the other day.

This represents the culmination of a big year for LEGO and Formula One. 20 sets have so far been released across five themes, including an entire wave of Speed Champions sets. LEGO has been a major presence at F1 races, most notably the Miami, British and Las Vegas Grands Prix. But even then, this latest announcement surprised many, including me. It got me thinking about LEGO’s relationship with IP partners, bringing in new fans, driving positive change in both motorsport and the world at large, and how to do a brand tie-in properly. And I got a bit carried away – so enjoy this long, rambly read!

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Build your own LEGO Enterprise D & Shuttlepod with these free instructions

On November 28th, LEGO ~~boldy~~ boldly goes to the final frontier with Star Trek 10356 U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D. We found this Black Friday release to be a stellar build, albeit one that asks a lot of your wallet and shelf space. During this year of big sets and big price tags, “the one I can afford” memes have flourished, with builders sharing their microscale spins on premium releases, and the Enterprise has spawned a few impressive fan builds. We were especially taken by this version from 2Bricks, which includes the Enterprise D, shuttlepod GWP, and minifigures. 2Bricks was kind enough to share the instructions so that you can build your own mini Enterprise!

With the holidays approaching, if you’re looking to Trek the Halls with Borg and Holodecks, 2Bricks has created instructions for a full Advent Calendar of Star Trek microbuild instructions that you can order here.

But first, start with the free instructions for the Enterprise D and shuttlepod. As Picard sings so merrily, make it so!

Click to view the instructions for the microscale Enterprise D and Shuttlepod