Tag Archives: Interviews

The people behind the fascinating LEGO models we feature here are just as interesting! Read interviews with notable LEGO builders, LEGO book authors, LEGO set designers, and many others right here on The Brothers Brick.

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

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What in tarnation? Timofey Tkachev is back with a rootin’ tootin’ varmint shootin’ Yosemite Sam in LEGO

Back in the halcyon pre-COVID days, Timofey Tkachev was one of TBB’s most featured builders. With a catalog of works that includes massive spacecraft, modulars, props, cartoon characters, and mind-bending artistic sculptures, Timofey defies categorization. Back in 2023, Timofey’s prolific run seemed to come to an end as the builder stopped posting for a couple of years. Now he’s back with a rootin’ tootin’ take on Yosemite Sam the third Looney Tunes tribute from the builder. It’s a spot-on likeness of the trigger-happy toon, making good use of orange tiles in that magnificent moustache. The canted cacti are quite impressive too.

In honor of Timofey’s return, we’re reposting our interview with Timofey from 2017, which you can read below.

Continue to our interview with Timofey from 2017

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

Talking Love, LEGO, and Building with Pride with Two Gay AFOLs [Interview]

Simon and Dan, better known as Two Gay AFOLs, are vibrant voices in LEGO fan media, sharing their love for the hobby on social media and at fan events. The pair are also pillars of the Minifig Habitat community and sigfig scenes, helping build community and ensuring that everyone feels welcome. We sat down with Dan (the talkative one!) about the pair’s rise and the importance of GayFOL visibility (Gay fan of LEGO) in the hobby.

our interview with Two Gay AFOLs follows

Jen Feeny: On building community and bringing Pink City to life [Interview]

For builders of LEGO habitats, Jen Feeny is a familiar and beloved face. The Halloween Habitat challenges and other themed events she hosts throughout the year have become pillars of the online LEGO community that came together during the pandemic to connect with others through bricks. As an organizer with WMLUG, Jen’s latest project is a large-scale collaboration called Pink City that combines modulars, minidolls, whimsy, and a whole lot of pink bricks! We checked in with Jen to learn more about her journey and this latest delightful project.

Our interview with Jen and pics of Pink City come after the fold

Sakiya Watanabe’s quest for excellence as a LEGO creator [Interview]

The secret about overnight successes is that it takes years of hard work to get to that “overnight” success. Sakiya Watanabe, who builds under the handle n.a.b.e_mocs, does the work. In the six months since he started sharing his creations online, Sakiya’s MOCs have earned kudos on this site and from AFOLs and professional builders alike, even as the young builder studies Organic Chemisty at university. We sat down with Sakiya to learn about how he prepared for this “overnight success,” and what drives him as a builder.

TBB: Your work caught our attention from the very first MOC you shared, but you must have been building a lot before reaching that point. When did you first discover LEGO and what excited you about building?

Sakiya Watanabe: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. First of all, my parents gave me LEGO SpongeBob Krusty Krab set (3825) when I was around 6 years old. Also, at the time, I was obsessed with the Lord of the Rings, but LEGO didn’t sell Lord of the Rings sets yet, so instead, my parents often bought me sets of the LEGO Castle fantasy era. And I often reassembled them to create the world of Lord of the Rings. This may have been my first works.

TBB: It sounds like you were making your own creations from the start. When did you become aware of the creations of other builders?

SW: I got into LEGO Star Wars when I was about 9 years old, and started making my own creations(MOC) around that time. At the time, I was always watching speed builds of sets on YouTube, and I would create MOCs while referring to the techniques used in the sets. This is a picture when I was 10 years old.

Our interview with Sakiya Watanabe continues…

Keiichi Kamei dreams of electronic bricks – 10 years of Blade Runner Builds [Interview]

Some adult fans of LEGO finish a creation, move on to the next, and never look back. Others return to a favorite build again and again over many years, updating parts or expanding scope. Keiichi Kamei falls into the second group. For this former LEGO Master Japan and Sakura LUG member, a love of LEGO is matched, or even surpassed, by a deep appreciation for the classic sci-fi film Blade Runner. Those entwined passions have kept “KABA” expanding and upgrading his vision of 2019 Los Angeles for a decade. His creations were previously featured in Brick Journal and on this site, but when KABA shared new pieces of his Blade Runner tribute, we thought this would be the perfect time to catch up and get to know the builder better.

The Brothers Brick: When did you first start recreating vehicles and scenes from Blade Runner in LEGO? Were you building things like this since you were a child, or did you start as an adult? Did you experience a “dark age” when you stopped building?

Keeichi Kamei (KABA): When I was a child, of course, I played with LEGO, but it was just one of several games for me at that time. LEGO became “my hobby” in 2012, when I was 49 years old.
Originally, my oldest son was a LEGO enthusiast, and as a parent, we built sets together. When he started college and stopped playing with Legos, he told me that “I give all the parts to you Dad,” and I decided to build the Police Spinner from my favorite sci-fi movie Blade Runner. A few years after I started building the LEGO Police Spinner, I finally completed the MOC with a satisfactory result. I wanted a backdrop for my MOC photos, so I started working on buildings and other vehicles that appeared in “Blade Runner. It kept expanding, and a few years later it became what it is today, a diorama that recreates the city that appears in Blade Runner using LEGO. By that time, I was totally hooked on LEGO.

Keiichi’s Voight-Kampff test… er, interview continues after the fold

Talking Iron Builder with LEGO space legend Tim Goddard [Feature]

The most recent Iron Builder competition just came to an end, providing the LEGO community with some truly excellent creations fueled by the creativity of two amazing AFOL talents: Tim Goddard and Bousker. For those who are not familiar with Iron Builder, it is a competition that puts two builders directly against each other in a two-week contest of creating models that incorporate a specific LEGO piece. In this instance, the Airplane Door in White. Fresh off an amazing run of 7 stellar creations, we sat down with Tim about his thoughts on competing for the Iron Builder crown.

Read TBB’s interview with Tim below!

I Didn’t Mean to Build a LEGO Camel (But I Did Anyway) [Guest Feature]

Today we’re excited to present a special feature from accomplished film editor and LEGO modeler Nick Lever. Nick was a finalist in season 4 of LEGO Masters Australia and has had his work displayed in LEGO House in Billund. In this guest post, Nick shares his experience working with LEGO’s Middle East division to celebrate Innovation and Creativity Day. Nick, the floor is yours!

Join Nick for a look into how his camel project with LEGO came together

Spreading joy and crossing cultures with LEGO legend Dicken Liu [Interview]

TBB: Your LEGO creations first came to our attention after your appearance on LEGO Masters China, when you started a Flickr gallery. From the start, you were building at a very high level. I’m sure there was a long journey between when you first discovered LEGO to where you are today. When did you first discover LEGO?

Dicken Liu: Lego hasn’t been in the Chinese market for very long, and the price was a big reason why it wasn’t a toy for the average person when they first appeared in China. I first saw Lego in a shopping mall in the 90s. But it was more than a decade later that I actually bought my first Lego set.

TBB: How did you discover that LEGO was more than just a toy? When did you become “serious” about making your own creations?

DL: It was probably from 2016 that I started to try my hand at making small pieces. (Before that my interests were more focused on models, drones, and film.) I started to look around for information and learn techniques to enrich my MOC knowledge, but at that time the actual LEGO MOC pieces I saw were quite limited. Here are a few pieces I’ve kept. They’re pretty rough to look at now, but it was really the start of my MOC journey.

Our interview with Dicken Liu continues

Gayle Spiller’s enchanting LEGO box dioramas [Interview]

Gayle Spiller turns whimsical ideas into inspiring LEGO models packed with detail. Her builds, like the Butterfly Collector, are so dense with imaginative use of parts, you can get lost in them. In 2023, Gayle joined the exclusive group of builders to be featured at the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery. In recent months, Gayle has been playing with a new, cozier build format – one that, like minifig habitats, could inspire builders looking to make their own MOCs from their favorite pieces who might be intimidated by larger constructions. We checked in with Gayle to talk about her latest series and life with LEGO since her invitation to Billund.

TBB: First of all, congratulations on being chosen as one of the latest builders invited to display your creations at the Masterpiece Gallery at LEGO House. What was it like to learn that your works would be displayed in Billund? What was it like meeting the other amazing builders and the LEGO team? Has anything changed in your relationship with LEGO building since your works were spotlighted?

Gayle: Thank you. Being asked to exhibit at the Lego Masterpiece Gallery 2023/24 was a complete surprise and I definitely had imposter syndrome. It was a fantastic experience and I loved meeting the other builders who I had admired online for so long. It was interesting to learn about their building methods, how for instance Zach produces some of his spectacular pieces in only 3 hours. That was a revelation and definitely inspired me to scale down and create something that would take a weekend to finish rather than some of my larger projects which have taken months.

Click to see more of Gayle’s immersive box dioramas

Tags and trains: Capturing the gritty side of the tracks in LEGO with Sérgio Batista [Interview]

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