You heard that right, SHIPtember fans! Everyone’s favorite annual at-least-100-stud, Seriously Huge Investment in Parts, month-long build-a-thon is drawing to a close. But it’s not too late, even if you haven’t started yet. Got some vacation days to burn? Good at faking an illness (cough cough)? Then you’re ready to get to it! But if you’re just curious about who’s built what so far, you’re in luck. We’ve got a preliminary round-up of this year’s SHIPtember builds, plus some exclusive, behind-the-scenes commentary from the builders themselves! USS Alliance Kicking it off, we start with Ryan Olsen. Ryan kind of got an early start this year since he was planning on taking his finished build to BrickCon. He started with some renders back in August, but that’s totally within the rules of SHIPtember. As long as you start and finish within a month, no more, it’s cool. This allows, for example, students...

Many of us love the LEGO Botanical Collection. Making flowers and plants from unusual and repeated LEGO elements has stretched back in AFOL history from competitions like the Iron Builder to more modern sets. LEGO’s extended line of floral décor touches upon that desired “NPU” (Nice Parts Usage) descriptor for AFOLs and reaches out to the average person’s appreciation for beautiful plants and flowers. Bruce LoweLL If you’re anything like me and have a killer thumb instead of a green one, finding plants you can keep alive is a challenge. Enter the hearty succulents! Even before LEGO produced set 10309 Succulents, I found succulent gardens and terrariums enticing. Their ratio of beauty, life, and upkeep seemed to be perfect. Now, let us swap out the “life” category of these plants actually being alive with our favorite toy! The beauty is still there, but is now joined together with a tabletop puzzle...

Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published September 15, 2022. Today we feature a guest article from one of BrickNerd’s patrons Liz Puleo. She shares her experience growing as an AFOL and how ADHD has impacted her LEGO journey. One Thing Leads To Another Well, that escalated quickly. In the blink of an eye, I feel like I went from being a casual LEGO fan to part of the LEGO community to competing on LEGO Masters US Season 3. Let me quickly recap everything that has happened in my life relating to LEGO in the past two years. It began innocently at home—my family and I amassed a rather large LEGO collection for fun. Trying to sort this collection found me conversing with other adults in the LEGO community online including BrickNerd. Chatting with them online helped me find other adults in my area (a LUG) that built with LEGO. Building with...

Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published September 28, 2022. What do Dr. Strange, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Disney characters all have in common? They’re subjects built into MOCs by the talented Josh Parkinson of course! Last month I covered the holy grail of nerdiness, Emerald City Comicon (ECCC), and the group of AFOLs that I hung out with there called Brick Nation. As part of the story, we took a minute to talk to one of the builders who presented MOCs there, Josh Parkinson, to get his first-timer ECCC experience recap. It turns out that while we chatted, he was so fascinating that I got to asking him other questions that ranged far past ECCC… so I decided to split it out into a second article. So here we are! It’s always exciting to get to learn about another builder—everyone has such a unique and fascinating story to tell...

Once upon a time, I was displaying my LEGO Beatles album covers at a crowded event on a tightly packed table, and a handsy child reached over the barricade. *TOUCH* Propped on easels, the thirteen album covers fell like dominoes. The MOC on the end shot dramatically in the air, flipping three times in slow motion. I leapt to the table’s edge, and caught “Please, Please Me” inches before it crashed to the floor. (It lived to see another day and even made the trip to Denmark.) All’s well that ends well. Relax, We’ve Got Braille Bricks! Many AFOLs have stories about unwanted LEGO advances when their MOCs have been on public display. Our LUGs post “do not touch” signs for a reason. So many of our building techniques are frail on a good day, and many more MOCs are held together with a whisper and a prayer. This article is...