A lot happens in the LEGO building world each week. Thankfully we have ABrickDreamer to help round up the must-read articles, essential videos, and provide extra MOC commentary. Some highlights from this week: Markus Rollbühler rounds up all the currently open contests and prizes, Tips&Bricks breaks down one of our favorite builds of 2024, and with F1 fever upon us, ABrickDreamer plays with racing-themed minifig habitats.
Category Archives: Feature
As Febrovery rolls to a close, it’s time for a final rover roundup! [Feature]
Alas, Febrovery has reached the end of the road. If only February were a few days longer, then we would get more amazing LEGO rovers rolling across distant moons. On the other hand, more days might burn out those hard-working builders creating a new build each day. Let’s celebrate our favorite rovers from the second half of the month. In case you missed it, here is is our mid-month roundup. Tell us in the comments which rover you’d most like to take for a spin!
Two-seater Monowheel Rover by Wynd
We lead with greebles courtesy of this delightful monowheel from builder Wynd. It’s a fresh spin on her rover from last year, maintaining the neo-classic space vibes, but expanding for an extra passenger and bringing in a rubber tire.
Our Febrovery roundup continues with many more amazing space builds
This Week in LEGO Bricks: Rovers reign, roads ripple, roger roger [Video]
Here at the Brothers Brick, we love writing about our favorite MOCs and new sets, but there are too many amazing creations and builder stories for us to cover them all. Thankfully ABrickDreamer is here to highlight the must-see models, articles, and videos of the week. My favorite link this week is Brick Fanatics’ wonderful video on why Fabuland was a hit in some places and not others, but the “illegal” road techinque from Brickcrafts is a close runner up.
This Week in Bricks: Ballerinas, Chinese Guardian Lions, and set mods, oh, my! [Video]
In this edition of This Week in Bricks there are LEGO creations and set mods not to be missed; including a C-3P0 set that has been made into a very elegant lounging lady. ABrickDreamer lulls us into our happy space once again with some of the best LEGO creations on the planet and we are exponentially better off for it. Grab yourself a favorite beverage, lounge back and relax for this episode of This Week in Bricks!
The living history of a fictional LEGO city: building Medinat al Musawrah [Interview]
If you’ve ever been to a LEGO fan event like BrickCon or Bricking Bavaria (and if you haven’t, do look for an event in your area!) one of the highlights is seeing collaborative builds where the parts, creativity, and passion of a team comes together to make something epic. 2024 saw some incredible collaborations, like Rogue Ronin or the latest incarnation of New Hashima. One of our favorite collabs of 2024 was “Medinat al Musawrah,” a fictional city inspired by the architecture of the Middle East and North Africa that is both modern and ancient. When we learned that the display would be returning in 2025 at BrickFair NoVa with new additions from Blake Foster and others, we reached out to the organizers to discuss the project’s inspiration, creation, and future.
A big thanks to Michael Willhoit, George Hawes, and Tobias Whelan for sharing their story.
TBB: First, can you talk about how the project came together? You had all just teamed up for the Old City district of New Hashima. What inspired this new collaboration?
Michael: The project was born from a few different factors. First, I wanted to move away from cubes. Having just completed New Hashima, some collaborators and friends of mine expressed interest in breaking away from using just a cube standard because of the constraints it had. It’s a tried and true technique but I wanted to devise a new system. More odd angles, pockets and alleys, density, and generally capturing the feeling of a city that’s been standing for centuries. Originally I modeled this off the iconic Kowloon Walled City, but that brings me to the next factor. We wanted to move out of the Eat Asian aesthetic sphere. I personally find a lot of inspiration in the Middle East, and I was lucky enough that I found people to share that. Looking in that area you can see similar insane density in cities like Cairo. There were initially 11 of us to test this. Everyone brought something unique to the display that I think really pushed it forward. George and Tobias shared in coordination roles, and George particularly contributed a massive modern pyramid structure to the build.
Tobias: I’ve been collaborating with George, Mike, or both of them since 2019. They’re some of my closest buddies and we can all unify a vision despite stylistic differences in building. Even with the massive scale of 2023’s New Hashima, George, Mike, and I all built for the Old City portion.
Our in-depth interview with Michael, George and Tobias continues
This Week in LEGO Bricks: New Hashima goes global, Bricklink voting, and and a new Iron Builder is Forged [Video]
Cyberpunk is spreading as New Hahima collaborations appear in Australia and Germany, Bricklink Designer Program opens voting for the next fan-designed set, and a new microbuild contest challenges you to shrink your favorite 18+ set. These are just some of the stories covered by ABrickDreamer in This Week in Bricks!
A big congratulations to Dominique Boeynaems on a well-deserved Iron Forge victory! (You can revisit our spotlight here.)
This Week in LEGO Bricks: Brickscalibur crowns a Dragonslayer and FebRovery kicks into gear [Feature]
February is here, which means it’s time for a month of retro space rovers as FebRovery rolls out on planet AFOL. Meanwhile, in the Castle community, Bas van Houwelingen takes the Dragonslayer crown in the Brickscalibur competition. Our friend ABrickDreamer covers these events and other must-see builds, videos, and articles from the LEGO world in the best 15 minutes you’ll spend all week!
This Week in LEGO Bricks: From Sandworms to scarecrows [Feature]
From Iron Forge finals to the biggest LEGO Sandworm we’ve ever seen, it’s been a week full of amazing MOCs and builder news. Our friend ABrickDreamer is here with the highlights, including our Lunar New Year interview with Vooi Loon Low. Which build is your favorite this week?
Nanyang heritage and Petaling Street: One builder’s journey to connect with the past through LEGO [Feature]
As a child growing up in a small town, LEGO made my world so much bigger. I could imagine life in space, the Middle Ages, or big cities because the act of building with bricks made history, science, and far-off places real. But it wasn’t until years later, thanks to communities like Brickshelf and sites like this one, that I came to understand how universal my experience was. One of my great joys in writing for this site has been the chance to learn from and be inspired by creations shared by talented builders around the world.
Builders like Vooi Loon Low, a Chinese Malaysian AFOL living in Kuala Lumpur.
A few years ago, Loon started sharing LEGO models of shops on Petaling Street, the heart of Kuala Lumpur’s historic Chinatown. Specifically, he’s been recreating the shops as they would have appeared in the 1950s. These buildings, sometimes paired with black and white photos, are the only LEGO models Loon has shared. I wanted to know more about Loon’s motivations for this very specific and long-running project. When I reached out, Loon was kind enough to share his story.
Read on to hear Loon’s story and see more of his builds of historic Petaling Street
This Week in LEGO Bricks: Parseltongue edition [Feature]
With the Lunar New Year less than a week away, we’re seeing a lot of amazing Year of the Snake builds from LEGO builders around the world. In the latest This Week in Bricks, ABrickDreamer puts the spotlight on snakes while highlighting many other incredible MOCs, contests, and builder tips from around the web, like the results of the Colossal Castle Contest (congratulations to Louis of Nutwoood, builder of this incredible castle!)
Bringing the LEGO Endurance to life: an interview with photographer Benedek Lampert [Feature]
If you ask us, one of the prettiest sets to come out last year was LEGO Icons 10335 The Endurance. But we’re not the only ones to think that! Benedek Lampert is a toy photographer with a particular affinity for LEGO. In fact, as well as conducting official photoshoots, he even appeared on the LEGO Masters TV show! But when he came across the brick-built model of Ernest Shackleton’s famous ship, his next photography project immediately became clear. And the results are stunning, fully immersing us in the Antarctic and bringing new life to this exceptional set.
But how did he go about photographing it? How did expedition snapper Frank Hurley’s famous pictures help inspire him? And how did he get involved in photography in the first place? Well, you can watch a short video below on Benedek’s setup – but we also had a chance to quiz him about this latest project! Be sure to click the link below to see more photos, behind-the-scenes, and read our interview with him!
Step this way to read our interview with Benedek!
This Week in LEGO Bricks – It’s Medieval Madness! [Feature]
With the Brickscalibur submissions window closing, this week saw a surge in amazing medieval builds being shared, while Iron Forge challengers were challenged to get their head in the game. All this and more news from around the LEGOverse gets summed up with style by our friend ABrickDreamer!