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.

Iron Forge 2026 Round 2 builders break some eggs!

The Iron Forge contest challenges builders to make mocs (and puns!) showcasing a specific LEGO element to demonstrate skill and entertain judges alike. We spotlighted builds from the first round here. With Round 2 complete, here is a selection of the amazing creations built using the eggshell/crown element.

Twenty builders participated in Round 2, eight of whom advanced to Round 3. We’ll start with them.

Grant Davis unearths this happy Count in a delightful build packed with one eggshell… two eggshell… three eggshells… twenty eggshells, ah ah ah! Using them as teeth is bitingly clever.

Xiheng Xu creates a perfect Forgge entry that is also a tribute to one of Xiheng’s favorite creators, Eli Willlsea.

See creations from all 20 builders after the break

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Catch ’em all? Taking a closer look at the first LEGO Pokémon wave [Editorial]

Resident Pokémon fan Jarrett (wilderland.builds) here to offer some early thoughts on the long-awaited official LEGO Pokémon sets! This week marked the reveal of the first wave, and like everyone else, I’ve already begun dissecting the promotional images to get a feel for what to expect from this release. Pokémon has long been a well-represented theme in the MOC community (you can view some highlights in The Brothers Brick Pokémon archive), but for the first time, we have official collaboration sets from these two industry titans. While I’m looking forward to seeing each of them in person before making any final judgements (which is something I always recommend), I’ll take a closer look at each set below and offer my Poké-fan take.

Should we catch ’em all?

Take a seat! The 2026 Iron Forge heats up

If you follow TBB regularly, you’ve no doubt encountered many articles spotlighting the Iron Builder competition, like our interview last month with the participants in the most recent battle. You might be wondering, how does one get to challenge Iron Builder? One path is to prove your skills in the Iron Forge, a January tradition now in its 7th year. As with the Iron Builder contests, a seed part is chosen that must be used in multiple builds. Only for the Forge, builders only have one week per part before a new seed element is chosen. There is no prize for winning beyond the chance to compete against an Iron Builder, but several Iron Forge champions went on to become LEGO set designers, including Maxx Davidson and last year’s winner Dominique Boeynaems. Glory aside, it’s an amazing showcase of creativity and inspired parts use.

The first round, open to all, just concluded, which featured the minifig chair as the seed part. Here are the to-scoring creations from the 20 builders advancing to the next round.

Grant Davis integrates the seed part in multiple ways into this elegant cafe scene. The obvious spot is for the diner stools that flip the chairs on their back, but chairs are also used for the espresso machine and door panel. The biggest flex of all, however, is the sign which uses LEGO rubber bands and string to form the lettering and lines.

See the top-scoring builds from the other 18 advancing builders below

Jumpei Mitsui pushes artistic boundaries with bricks

The life of a LEGO Certified Professional is a glamorous one – at least when you’re Jumpei Mitsui and your latest client is gaming auteur Hideo Kojima. But as impressed as we are by the builder’s life-size Ludens model, it’s the builder’s latest non-commercial work that I find most exciting.

Last year, we reported that Jumpei was returning to higher education to study artistic expression at Tokyo University of the Arts. It turns out that where Jumpei goes, LEGO follows, as the artist’s first academic project is all about the brick.

See Jumpei’s first academic LEGO project after the break

Talking mechs, music, and LEGO fashion with Mexican creator Tenkyuu.mocs

LEGO fandom is global and here at The Brothers Brick, we strive to feature creators from every corner of the world. Access to bricks and local support isn’t evenly distributed, though, as the recent changes to Bricklink’s service reminded us all. For Mexican builder Zazil Yakín Xipé, who shares LEGO creations as @tenkyuu.mocs, not amassing a huge collection of bricks hasn’t stopped her from creating a string of impressive and innovative mechs. Today we’re excited to share an interview between Tenkyuu and Zakar.ion that covers LEGO-inspired fashions, Exo-Force, and that one time a worker at a Mexican LEGO factory went rogue and made black market Vaders with the official molds!

Our interview with Tenkyuu.mocs begins here

We ring out 2025 with LEGO phenom Paul Hetherington to catch a whiff of greatness- and maybe Old Spice [Interview]

Paul Hetherington seems on top of the world right now, so I reached out to see if he’d be game for an interview. He said, ”Hey, Lino, that would be amazing! It would be an honor to be interviewed by my favorite interviewer. Now that Barbara Walters is gone, we need more decisive journalism to clog up the internet.” With that said, let’s soften the lights and get our decisive journalism on. Sit back, relax- and you might want to mix yourself a good, strong Tiki drink for this one.

Our interview with Paul follows

Miscellanabuilds and CRCT Productions talk Iron Builder as the latest round comes to an end [Interview]

Season 7, Round 8 of the prestigious Iron Builder competition with the seed part of flower bell in light blue has come to a close. In the building battle between defending champion Eann “Miscellanabuilds” McCurdy and challenger Drew “CRCT Productions” Cazenave-Tapie, the judges were split 2-1 in favor of Eann. Even though only one builder can claim the Iron Builder title this round, both participants shared incredible creations. In addition to sharing all of the entries from this round, we spoke with both builders about their experience.

Our full coverage of the Iron Builder round follows

TBB’s best and worst sets of 2025 [Feature]

We at the Brothers Brick got through quite a lot of LEGO this year. We had 81 reviews penned by both in-house and guest writers, and that’s not even counting the sets we bought of our own volition! As you know, we’re an opinionated bunch. We all have our favourites: LEGO kits that wowed us with new parts, interesting techniques, or just downright charm. On the other hand, you can’t win them all, and there were a fair few duds this year too. We’ve listed some of our picks for both categories below. Agree or disagree? Tell us in the comments! What were your most and least favourite sets from 2025?

Let’s get the bad out the way first, shall we?

Continue reading →

Our Boxing Day chat with Moptoptrev – Canada’s busiest, weirdest, and most joyful builder [Interview]

At the Brothers Brick, we’re always on the lookout for fun builds that we think bring joy to a larger LEGO audience. During 2025, scarcely a week went by (or a day during peak holiday periods) when we weren’t delighted by a new creation from Trevor Pearson-Jones, who builds under the name moptoptrev. Trevor’s works take inspiration from the natural world, pop culture, and his home in the Great White North, all filtered through a kaleidoscope of color and whimsy. As one of our most featured builders this year, we couldn’t let 2025 slip away without getting to know more about what makes Trevor tick.

Our interview with Trevor starts here

2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 24 [Feature]

All good things must come to an end. Today brings us to the end of our Advent Calendar adventure. Thanks for coming along with us for 24 days of surprise gifts. We hope you enjoyed the bonus builds and banter.

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!

2025 LEGO Advent Calendar Spoilers: Day 23 [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 22 [Feature]

Click here for spoilers of today’s builds!