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.

Building on the wild side with rising MOC star Hodgepodge Builds [Interview]

Every so often, a builder shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, with a creative style so distinctive, complex, and cool that you feel shook – like walking barefoot on a pile of bricks, but in a good way. C, who posts as @hodgepodgebuilds, only started posting LEGO models three months ago, is such a builder. Of course, talent doesn’t come from nowhere. Today we sit down with C to learn more about his LEGO journey and unique style.

TBB: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us today. Maybe you could talk about your LEGO journey. What was the first set or theme that really excited you?

C: The first theme that really excited me was definitely the 2009 Pirates line, which came out when I was about 5 (and insanely obsessed with pirates). I still think that line is remarkably well-designed. My interest in nautical aesthetics and ships has morphed since then, but is still rooted in my love of it back then. A recent build that speaks to that would be the research vessel ketch sailboat that I built this past winter. It was a full circle moment for me, finally being able to build a ship I was completely satisfied with from a technical and visual standpoint.

TBB: Have you stuck with LEGO continuously or did you go through a dark age before coming back to the hobby? What inspired you to start sharing your models?

C: I’ve never had a true dark age when it comes to LEGO, but it’s always ebbed and flowed for me. It’s always functioned as a sort of calming process in times of stress, especially during the last year as a college English major. It helps me relax and express my creative ideas in a visual sense. Honestly, what inspired me to share my models was the community, I had made the account a few months earlier to follow builders I liked and got very excited by the work I was seeing. I had been building consistently for about 8 months by the time I first posted, so I was also very excited to finally get my work out there (and thank you to my dear friends who encouraged me to post!)

Our interview with rising star HodgepodgeBuilds continues

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Build your own Star Wars AT-RT Scout Walker with these free instructions from Creativbricks [instructions]

Does the sticker-shock of the 327th Star Corps Clone Troopers Battle Pack have you lamenting that a decent LEGO AT-RT is out of reach? While we found the official LEGO version to be an improvement over past incarnations, this fan design from French builder Creativbricks is even better, and with these free instructions, you can build your own from common LEGO elements.

Free instructions for the AT-RT follow

Our top 10 favorite LEGO creations of 2025 thus far [Feature]

We’re a bit more than halfway through the year so far and we’ve seen some amazing LEGO creations from talented builders around the globe. Normally, we’d highlight a top ten list at the end of the year and we still will. But let’s take the time to scope out what our prospects are thus far based on views and see if they remain at the top of the heap once we celebrate the new year with fireworks, champagne, kazoos and whatnot. In no particular order, here’s what we have so far.

Speaking of celebrations, LEGO fenom DeRa has two reasons to celebrate as they’ve hit our list twice. First up is this impressive RX-78-2 Gundam in all it’s primary colored glory. This formidable Gundam blasted onto the scene in January and the year and the LEGO Gundam world hasn’t been the same since.

Celebrate with more of the best LEGO creations

Heroes of Fur and Feather Grand Prize Winner – Ben Grayson’s adventures of Priscilla Bramblewhisk [Feature]

Over the past four weeks, fifty brave builders joined us for our inaugural role-play competition: Heroes of Fur and Feather. In three challenges, each player created LEGO scenes and lore that advanced the story of their animal hero. There were so many inspiring builds and epic plot twists, but at the end of the journey, one builder consistently won us over with his amazing character, beautifully staged scenes, chilling creature designs, and cozy storytelling. And that builder is Ben Grayson! For completing the quest of winning over our panel of judges, Ben wins a copy of Blathers’ Museum Collection. Thanks to everyone else who participated. Now, we’re proud to present Ben’s series of builds in full.

Pour a cup of cozy tea and tuck in for Ben Grayson’s winning adventure

Building The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim’s open world in LEGO with BDD Builds [Interview]

Some LEGO fans gravitate to greebled fleets of spaceships, others to cunningly engineered trains and trucks, but it’s epic castle creations that will forever have my heart. Brett, who builds under the moniker BDD Builds, has been creating massive medieval scenes to share online and at conventions for several years now. After Brett revealed his most ambitious work to date, a recreation of Fort Dawnguard from The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, we reached out to learn more about the builder’s epic LEGO journey.

Our interview with BDD Builds and pics of Skyrim’s Fort Dawnguard follow

Bounty Hunters, Troopers, and Droids – oh my! [Minifig Monday]

Wookiepedia catalogues thousands of characters from a galaxy far, far away, and yet the richness of Star Wars leaves ample space for anyone to imagine their own swarthy scoundrel, sinister Sith, or back-stabbing bounty hunter to roam the Outer Rim. This week on Minifig Monday we round up some recent builds from the custom minifig community that’ll have your lips buzzing with lightsaber hums and binary beeps.

brickmedude invented a trio of mercenaries called the Saber Hunters who hunt Jedi and Sith alike. This ghostly merc evokes General Grievous by way of the Sisters from Kubo and the Two Strings. brickmedude is always an amazing photographer, but especially adept at post-production on light sabers.

When bam.bricks_customs goes Star Wars, he goes hard. This Nikto bounty hunter showcases incredible handling of cloth, with layers of fabric skirt and capes paired with a molded scarf and satchel. He looks like a Hasbro Black Series action figure in miniature. The reprogrammed Battle Droid has the makings of the perfect SW sidekick. Batter up, roger, roger.

The Outer Rim Ruffian round-up continues!

LEGO Batman 76304 Batman Forever Batmobile – Bricks love the car [Review]

Since Batman’s LEGO debut in 2006,we’ve had Batmobiles inspired by the classic ’60s TV show, the Animated Series, LEGO Batman, Burton’s Batman, Nolan’s Batman, and the most recent The Batman. This August, the Dark Knight’s Schumacher era gets its due with LEGO Batman 76304 Batman Forever Batmobile, just in time for the film’s 30th anniversary, and we had the opportunity to build it early. Capturing the car’s ostentatious lines in LEGO was no small challenge, but set designer Mark Stafford makes it work, but not without some compromises.

Releasing on August 1, LEGO 76304 Batman Forever Batmobile contains 909 pieces and can be pre-ordered now for US $99.99 | CAN $129.99 | UK £89.99.

Read on to experience the power, the pleasure, the pain of the latest LEGO Batmobile

Sleeps With LEGO dreams of telling stories with friends and LEGO sigfigs, one stitch at a time [Interview]

LEGO may have started as a toy – one that fostered creativity and problem solving – but today LEGO fills so many roles in people’s lives. It’s a medium of artistic expression, a forum for collaboration, a key to peace and self-confidence during trying times, and of course, it’s to collect and display. But for many, one of LEGO’s greatest gifts is providing a foundation for community. When Andrew founded The Brothers Brick 20 years ago, it was an extension of the brickshelf community in an era when MySpace was the dominant social platform and LEGO news for adults was rare. These days, it’s much easier to connect with other AFOLs on Instagram, Discord, TikTok (even good old Flickr), but as the number of LEGO creators grows, it can be hard, if not impossible, to follow all the amazing ways people are using LEGO to create and share, especially if your biases and algorithms are trained to serve up space ships and dark fantasy.

I first discovered Barbara, better known as @sleepswithlego or just “Sleeps,” after seeing minifigs wearing crocheted coats across a range of accounts. Following the trail back to Sleeps, I fell into a rabbit hole of creativity and friendship as elaborate and joyful as any massive convention constructions and had to know more. Thankfully, Sleeps awoke long enough to talk with us about her unique LEGO community.

Our interview with Sleeps With LEGO follows

This Week in LEGO Bricks: Shuffling cards and crabs [Feature]

With so many incredible creations and builder stories being shared every day, there’s no way we can cover it all here at Brothers Brick, which is why we’re grateful to ABrickDreamer for capturing the best of the week in one convenient video. As a big fan of Scott Wilhelm‘s space creations, my favorite link of the week has to be the Beyond the Brick feature of Scott’s builds at Brickworld Chicago. Which is your favorite build this week?

Custom Minifig creations with Hollywood LEGO hero stuntmanbrick [Guest Feature]

Hi there! I’m Aidan, you may know me as @stuntmanbrick on Instagram, and I’m fortunate enough to be TBB’s guest writer today. A little about myself – I’m a screenwriter based in Los Angeles and I just graduated from USC with a master’s degree in writing. I write mostly family/adventure/sci-fi-type features, and I say all this because film is one of my two passions – the other, of course, being LEGO.

A lifelong fan of the plastic, I’ve been running my LEGO Instagram page for about six and a half years now, accruing over twenty-thousand followers in that time. My work mostly focuses on recreating pre-existing characters from movies and television, whether it’s 1902’s A Trip to the Moon, this year’s Sinners, or anything in between. With that, let’s talk LEGO customs.

The story continues…

This Week in LEGO Bricks: Convention collabs, contests, and creativity unleashed [Feature]

As much time as I spend following the LEGO hobby, there are always amazing builds and stories that I would have missed without ABrickDreamer’s weekly This Week in Bricks videos. Like this video tour of Ben Cossy’s incredibly LEGO collection that is sure to fill any AFOL with awe and envy. Or Harry Jo’s final epic build before joining LEGO next month as a set designer. Lots of amazing builds this week!

Silverpuke Collab redeems Metalheart Y2K aesthetic in LEGO

If you’re a fan of the post-Bionicle LEGO character scene, you might have noticed a spike in monochrome silver creations that look like liquid metal exiles from a Cyberspace graveyard vibing to Nine Inch Nails as they hack the planet.

They’re rad. I poked the building beast who started the trend, Djokson, to find out more about this collab called “Silverpuke.”

Originally, this started with a few of my builds: Psychopomp Alloy, Sinew and Silver Fog. In an attempt to revisit the aesthetic of metallic Y2K renders (metalheart stuff in particular) I used the often maligned palette of silver pieces from Bionicle to achieve that feeling.

The term silverpuke itself used to be a derogatory phrase thrown around on certain fan forums to refer to builds utilizing an overabundance of such parts. The aim with the collab title was to reclaim it. For the longest time, Bionicle builders bemoaned the excessive usage of silver blade pieces in sets, and many called them unusable outside of weapons. So it also serves as a fun challenge when building.

From there, some of my friends were inspired to make their own, and it sorta snowballed into a recurring collab. The builds tend to come together very quickly when inspiration strikes.

A selection of models from of the growing collab follows:

The Silverpuke MOCS go Halcyon and on and on