If the word is new to you, “greebles” are all those little details that give texture to a model. Whether it’s LEGO, or some big budget movie’s production design, they’re the details that make the fantastic feel real. Even though we don’t really see them in the real world all too often. And this Neo-Classic Space masterpiece by Scott Wilhelm has got enough greebles for a dozen spaceships. While the blue portions of the ship maintain a traditional smooth surface, Scott has made sure the gray portion is absolutely exploding with clips and bars and odd pieces at strange angles. The combined effect of which is a craft that feels like the most technologically advanced ship in the fleet.
Category Archives: Models
From Solo: A Star Wars Story concept art to LEGO creation
Star Wars MOC legend Tim Goddard is back at it again, this time with a LEGO creation based on concept art that didn’t make the big screen. Appropriately titled the ‘Lunt Snail’ (a nod to artist Jake Lunt Davies), this build is based off of unused concept art for Savereen, one of the final locations visited in Solo: A Star Wars Story. This build is large, colorful, and wonderfully shaped. There’s some great part usage throughout the entire build, but our favorite has to be the interior of the creature’s mouth. It looks dense, detailed, and hardly even LEGO.

Take a ride to see some additional photos, including the original concept art!
The little fox and the white reindeer
In Finland, where Thomas (thebrickdwarf) and his LEGO friends live, winter offers a chance to capture beautiful outdoor scenes in the snow. Here we see Fjallraven, the arctic fox, encountering the Ghost Reindeer of Greenland. It’s a haunting image, thanks to the creature design that takes inspiration from Salvador Dali for the reindeer’s spindly legs.
Thomas has a knack for using small builds in natural settings to make the tiny world of minifigures and LEGO animals feel epic. Fjallraven’s adventure continues with another spooky encounter, this time a face-to-face with the skeletal King of Greenland enthroned inside the remains of a whale. Wil we see more adventures of this little fox?
Rush hour in Makuria
In recent years, the LEGO castle building community has seen an explosion of mocs looking beyond Europe for inspiration. Andreas Leander researched the medieval Nubian kingdom of Makuria for this amazing immersive scene in which a merchant transports Nile-grown grain with an ox-drawn cart. Everything on camera is built from LEGO, including the equatorial sky and cloth headwrap. The earthen road is a beautiful effect created from a mosaic of brick yellow between sloped nougat bricks (with no connection points, I would be terrified of bumping the table!). I’m impressed by the wheel, created mostly from 2×1 round ties. The driver’s headwear includes a few fun elements, like a pool ring and tutu. But the highlight (appropriately, as this was made for Brickscalibur’s “Beasts of Burden” category) is the ox, whose looks both strong and soft with that textured broad back.
Red Squadron Standing By
John (J.R. Snotly Builds) has a penchant for Star Wars ship builds, and it shows with this smooth recreation of one of the most iconic ships in Star Wars history. In a world full of white X-Wing builds, it’s refreshing to see a gray X-Wing with proportions that more closely resemble the original ILM miniatures. We’re specifically in love with the brick-build cockpit and the build technique to expertly capture the quad laser cannons.

With this model, John has made it easy to adjust the markings on the wings, nose, and sides of the X-Wing to convert it to Luke’s infamous Red 5. The dismembered hands used for the striping really give it that ‘Luke Skywalker’ feel.

This LEGO Monkey’s Gone to Heaven
Sun Wukong, aka the Monkey King, or just plain Monkey, is the most enduring mythological hero in the world, inspiring so many retellings, including LEGO’s own Monkey Kid franchise. Chinese Builder Jin Chen took on the legendary character at the height of his power, armed with the
Ruyi Jingu Bang staff and standing atop a fallen demon. Monkey’s white face markings are based on the traditional depiction seen in Chinese Opera.
Jin’s makes excellent use of the range of elements in pearl gold to sculpt Monkey’s ornate armor, tightly packing every surface with horns and shuriken. The tattered cape is especially dramatic with its mix of rounded tail elements and angular plates.
Take a peek at the making of Monkey after the break
Celebrating Bionicle’s 25th Anniversary with Minifigures
“The tales tell of six great heroes who will come to aid us in our darkest hour. A powerful toa of fire. A wise toa of water. A strong toa of earth. A mighty toa of stone. A courageous toa of air, A brave toa of ice.” Has it really been 25 years since LEGO introduced us to the heroes of Mata Nui?
I created this series of minifigs for a collaboration with @majestyminifigs where we reboot a cancelled LEGO theme with custom minifigures. Of course I chose Bionicle. It took me a hot minute to figure out how I wanted to convert the toa mata into minifigure form, but I overall, I’m proud of the result!
Jacob’s figs and story follows
This purple pod racer is anything but poodoo
Pod racing is back! Last year, we rounded up a slew of new pod racing mocs from AFOLs and LEGO designers, but now a new competitor zooms in courtesy of Kyle Collard, aka Lord of Vador, and this one’s a stunner. (Of course, we wouldn’t expect anything less from Kyle, whose Mustafar moc was one of our favorite builds of 2025.) The engines roar with greeble detail thanks to the larger scale. I didn’t appreciate just how big this build is until I saw the cables connecting the cockpit. This racer is huge! The size also allows for beautiful color blocking and smooth curves in the fins.
Kyle based the design on a piece of concept art from Alexander “Minze” Thümler, but the LEGO version incorporates purple as the primary accent color. As the builder explains: “The color scheme stays dark and aggressive: dark purple, dark blue, and light gray, layered with pearl dark gray and flat silver to give the engines weight and metallic depth. The white accents are decals—kept clean to cut through the darkness.”
Kyle’s racer has me pushing Galactic Racer to the top of my most anticipated game releases:
TIE Striker in flight, afternoon delight
I saw this sweet LEGO TIE /sk X1 Striker by Auto’s Builds and somehow the chorus to a cheesy provocative tune popped into my head, hence the title. Now I’m making it your problem. But now that you’re hearing it too, you have to admit this Coruscant Air Guard checks all the right boxes: Star Wars, cool-ass spaceship, and striking design aesthetics. Auto tells us the TIE Striker is ideal for navigating Coruscant’s dense architecture and crowded skylanes. The Air Guard fitted their variant with precision weapons and under-wing guided missiles to minimize collateral damage. What’s the Earthly equivalent to this? An Apache helicopter maybe? I can’t speak for the Apache’s maneuverability within a city but seeing any of these gunships in your rear view means your days of doing that afternoon delight stuff are numbered.
These WALL-E x LEGO Space remixes are the nostalgia I need right now
WALL-E and LEGO Space will always share a special bond. After all, WALL-E’s lead animator Angus MacLane designed the winning Ideas set that became the first LEGO take on the character. There’s something about the big-eyed robot’s design that lends itself so well to bricks, and not just for screen-accurate interpretations. Curtis D Collins uses the basic WALL-E design as a springboard for a whole army of bots inspired by LEGO’s iconic space themes.
Of course, the series has to start with Classic Space colors. Curtis incorporates signature elements from each era into the WALL-E builds, like this fella’s positioning thrusters.
My favorite of the whole series is the M-Tron WALL-E, which might not incorporate actual magnet pieces, but does upgrade the bot’s hands with magnet-inspired manipulators. The design also incorporates theme-appropriate tires for retro authenticity.
The robot rollcall continues after the fold
LEGO Knights of the Square Table
I’m sure every one of us has an unusual LEGO part that they remember from their childhood. Perhaps it’s some of the original buildable LEGO figures, or something from the barely-LEGO Scala theme. What really activates my nostalgia is these fold-out racetracks from LEGO Racers sets. A racetrack that doubles as a box?! How cool is that! The flip-side of such unusual parts is that they can be difficult to incorporate into MOCs. Such trivialities don’t scare Mattia Careddu, though. Even then, of all the things to turn it into, I never would’ve thought of a rectangular knight!
But wait! It’s not just a knight and its minions. Mattia has stayed true to the unfolding nature of the racetrack, and this knight turns into a base of operations for the smaller ones! Weapons storage, siege lessons, tools and repairs – it’s all here. It harkens back to a different style of toy entirely. It’s even got its own superbly edited TV commercial!
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















