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
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!
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!
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!
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.
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
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
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!
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
Halloween may be in the past, but we’re still haunted by a collab of classic movie monsters reinterpreted in LEGO by top character builders.
Fresh off winning the 2025 Bio-Cup, Hlebo Bas gets back to the mad NPU science with this wild and inspired take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Both the good doctor and his alter ego feature wonderfully expressive faces from a fun mix of parts. Just as impressive is the sinewy sense of movement that the builder excels at.
Another Bio-Cup alum, GiiKei, unearths this stunning Mummy. The delicate limbs wrapped everything from rubber bands to minifig helms to balloon panels looks phenomenal in the leonine pose, but the showstopping piece here is the buildable Rey face painted gold.
Click to see the rest of monster mash, if you dare
What’s a hero without a good villain? Or, better yet, a whole rogue’s gallery of baddies in every flavor. This week on Minifig Monday, we celebrate custom LEGO creations of villains – both familiar faces from comics and original characters.
Llano (femmefromtheblock) gets things started with this hot take on Mr. Freeze. It’s just one of the builder’s growing ensemble of #dcllanoverse Bat characters. The pale blue and pearlescent works so well for Gotham’s coolest villain.
Redbirch Bricks is back with this “midi-fig” spin on Bane, from the infamous Knightfall arc. The villain’s minifig legs as arms perfectly sell his venom-fueled muscles as he breaks the Bat.
Click for more villains from the world of comics, Warhammer, and fantasy
What if Jim Henson had worked with ABS plastic instead of felt when he started creating the Muppets? Maybe they’d look something like the incredible characters of Chicago-based LEGO builder Greg Scherrer. Each model shows an uncanny talent for bringing out personality in bricks, with a cartoonist’s playfulness in form and color and a puppeteer’s playfulness with motion. It makes sense seeing as Greg is a cartoonist and illustrator by trade. We reached out to the builder to learn a bit more about his process.
“For the past couple of years, I’ve gotten pretty into creating improvised brick-built characters. I try to stock up my parts collection with the kinds of pieces that inspire me, lots of bright colors and curved slopes. My approach to building characters is then fully improvised based on my parts inventory. I’ve never built digitally, and I rarely leave a build unfinished to wait on an order of something specific.
The fun of building characters for me is in the improvisation and problem-solving on-the-go. I’ll often start off with just wanting to try out a build idea for eyes, or a mouth that hinges for a potential working puppet. From there, I completely lose track of time and can spend hours figuring out what I’m building and making it work.
Click to read more about Greg’s incredible LEGO characters