If you are anything like me, you have an entire drawer full of dark gray LEGO ball plates, which were first introduced in the Mixels theme. well, it looks like NikiFilik does too, and they found the perfect use for them as tiny typewriter keys. But the inspiring parts usage doesn’t stop there. Minifigure helmets are used as ribbon spools, and the little vents capture the look perfectly.
We’ve been admirers of the LEGO trains from Sérgio Batista for some time now. Builing at 1:45 scale, Sérgio recreates the trains of his native Portugal in incredible detail, earning prizes and the attention of local media. In his latest project, it wasn’t the trains themselves but the setting that caught our attention – specifically the minifig-scale graffiti on the ruined buildings, walls, and train cars along the tracks. Some might call painting on bricks in this way vandalism, but we were taken by how immersive the effect is. It’s a side of life by the train tracks that you don’t often see in LEGO or models in general. We reached out to Sérgio to learn more about his love for LEGO trains and how he came to playing with graffiti in his latest work.
TBB: First off, how did you become interested in LEGO train modeling?
Sérgio Batista: Since childhood, I have been fascinated by trains. I was born in the ’80s and grew up in the ’90s, often riding suburban trains with my parents. As for LEGO, I had catalogs featuring the Metroliner, which had a design/shape similar to the Portuguese trains I used to ride (the CP 2300 series from the Sintra Line). However, it was an expensive set that my parents couldn’t afford, so it remained just a memory.
Years later, as an adult, I emerged from my dark age and bought the Metroliner on eBay around 2005/2006. That’s when I thought, what if I built Portuguese trains in LEGO? I searched online and discovered the work of builders like James Mathis and Raised on Brickshelf, and I figured I might be able to do the same. I came across BrickLink and began my journey to replicate Portuguese trains in LEGO.
Next stop, more on Sérgio’s LEGO train journey
Today The LEGO Group and The Pokémon Company announced a multi-year partnership with new sets to arrive in 2026. Details are short at this time, with a teaser video just showing the tail of a brick-built Pikachu, but with over 1,000 Pokémon and 30 years of games and anime to draw from, the possibilities are vast.
Previously, Pokémon building toys had been released by Mega, with the line including both larger-scale buildable characters and smaller-scale playsets. Will LEGO follow a similar model? Can we expect minifigs of your favorite trainers? Tell us in the comments what you want to see from Pokémon LEGO sets next year. And while you’re waiting, have a peek(achu) at our Pokédex of fan creations we’ve admired over the years.
Read on for the full press release
With all the talented LEGO builders out there, cool techniques are constantly showing up in our feeds. However, it’s not every day that I’m so intrigued that I bookmark the page. Thanks to Joost van Velzen (MejoliDesign), I have a new trick I have to try! This ship is nice by itself, complete with moving landing gear and ramp, but the real head-turner is the use of 2×3 light bricks and a little bit of centrifugal force. Read on to see how!
Click to see how this awesome technique is achieved!
With two decks built above and below its iron arch, Portugal’s Dom Luís I Bridge is a beautiful testament to late 19th-century engineering. Inspired by this double-deck marvel, civil engineering student and LEGO architecture fan Sébastien Houyoux took to Studio to painstakingly recreate the bridge and the the buildings of Porto and Gaia built in its shadow.
The model stretches 1.3 meters and is made up of 13,000 elements. The builder designed a 1/650 scale version of the bridge two years ago, but for this updated take, Sébastien doubles the detail with a scale of 1/325.
The mesopelagic (or twilight) zone is the lowest layer of the ocean that sunlight can reach, after which strange creatures with bioluminescent qualities start to appear. nu_montag riffed on this interpretation of “twilight” for a Rogue Olympics LEGO building challenge, creating a terrifying anglerfish with glow-in-the-dark teeth made from 101 parts. This monstrous fellow must have missed the memo that fish are friends, not food, as it lures a pair of lost reef fish in for a meal. Inspired by Bioncle Rahi, nu_montag added a biting function when you squeeze the tail, which you can see here.
Muse’s Grammy-winning rock album The Resistance might have dropped on 2009, but its thematic mix of Orwell, conspiracy, and posthumanism feels very much of the moment. Maybe that’s what prompted TBB alum Nick Jensen, master of 1:1 scale models and Muse superfan, to recreate the kaleidoscopic cover of Muse’s fifth album in LEGO bricks. You don’t need to know the music to be drawn in by the gorgeous tunnel of colors and fractal geometry.
A closer look is better for appreciating the subtle angles Nick uses to achieve the striking microfig perspective. For planet Earth, at the end of the tunnel, Nick swaps in a printed disc from Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Nick’s commitment to The Resistance is no passing fancy – in addition to the brick display, he also has the album art tattooed on his shoulder.
Last year SeigneurFett spent months backpacking throughout South America. Since coming home to his collection of LEGO, he’s been unable to forget the visions of Quechua women determinedly walking the high-altitude trails of Bolivia and Peru. Drawing on photos and memories of Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca, SeigneurFett uses LEGO bricks to depict a Quechua woman walking with her alpaca. In contrast to the sun-bleached terrain, the builder uses a mix of bright colors for the woman’s clothes, with grill plates adding texture to the petticoat fringe. An umbrella makes for a perfect hat on this large-scale character. I like the use of twine for the alapaca’s leash.
SeigneurFett’s model makes me nostalgic for walking those same trails many years ago. I wonder if he also ate pasankalla (bolivian popcorn) from a street vendor after coming back from Isla del Sol?
Back in 2021, we featured an amazing set of monochrome habitats from Caz Mockett featuring every color brick available at the time. As LEGO continutes to introduce new colors, the potential spectrum of habitats has grown since then. This time builder Dana Knudson has accepted the nigh-impossible mission of creating a minifig habitat using only parts from a single LEGO color, this time hitting a total of 50 unique hues. Neon yellow and coral are some of the newly possible configurations that Dana includes.
Monochrome habitats like these are such a fun way to explore the relationship between color and shape in LEGO’s vast catalog of elements. While some colors offer a vast array of options, other colors, can be a challenge to build with. Some, like sand red, can be quite expensive to source. But the results are spectacular. And seeing how different builders create their own little scene from those constraints is inspiring.
In addition to playing with monochrome builds, Dana also created habitats celebrating 40 years of LEGO Space themes that you’ll enjoy getting lost in.
Taking an official LEGO set and building something new with it has been a common activity ever since the launch of the modern building block, with many early sets featuring alternate models pictured on the back of the box. But Dicken Liu has taken this to an entirely new level, and I will never look at a rabbit the same way again… The tan and light nougat color scheme perfectly matches the terrifying stage in the Xenomorph life cycle known as the facehugger. If you dare to look closer at the creature’s maw, you can even see a few small brown espresso handles serving as part of the creature’s squishy underbelly.
UPDATE: Looking to build your own adorable(?) facehugger? Dicken shares the instructions on Instagram.
“Corneria, fourth planet of the Lylat system.” For gamers who grew up with the N64, those words are enough to set your imagination spinning with polygonal starfighters doing barrel rolls. Builder Matteson Pino is far from the only person to name Star Fox 64 their favorite game, but he’s surely the first to pay tribute with a LEGO microscale diorama atop a brick-built N64 cartridge. It’s a briliant concept, depicting the game world spilling out of the physical media that stored it. The Great Fox carrier ship looks great, as do the chibi arwings, but it’s the pixelated terrain of Corneria that most draws me in. Now can Nintendo please bring Fox and co back to consoles? Switch 2 launch title, please.
Building a circular model using LEGO is a challenge in itself, but Plastic Pauper took on that challenge and built a microscale city with not just one ring, but three, creating nested neighborhoods that all have a specific purpose and vibe. The outer ring looks industrial, with smokestacks, factories, and other gray structures. The middle ring is composed of many smaller buildings and greenery, while the central section sports tall, sterile, and modern structures fit for the city’s wealthy elite. And what futuristic city would be complete without flying cars?
