As most collections do, it started innocently enough. LEGO’s Collectible Minifigure (CMF) Series 3’s Gorilla Suit Guy tickled me—something about seeing the minifigure’s eyes through the gorilla mask. The snowball began rolling down the hill with Series 5’s Lizard Man, and picked up steam with Series 7’s Bunny Suit Guy, and really hit a fever-pitch with Series 13’s Hot Dog Suit Guy. At that point, I knew I was on a quest to acquire every costumed minifigure ever produced, which has resulted in a collection of roughly 145 minifigs. After Hot Dog Suit Guy, costumed minifigs started getting more and more CMF slots while also showing up in sets, not just in the CMF series. One of my personal favorites costumes is Stumpy, which came in 2018’s 60174 Mountain Police Headquarters. I clearly wasn’t the only fan, as LEGO reacted with Series 18 and 23, both of which were almost all...

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s almost Christmas, and for a lot of us, it already feels like it’s been winter for a while now. But if Hallmark can do Christmas in July, why can’t we do July for Christmas? Our Southern Hemisphere readers get it! BrickNerd contributor and long-time builder, Miro Dudas, just can’t leave well enough alone: “I don't know how many of you go through constant refinement of certain MOCs. I often start a MOC and wish there was a part in a specific color, and I often have to either wait for me to obtain it or wait for LEGO to produce it. So I put off updating it for years at a time.” That all makes perfect sense. LEGO evolves, your skill as a builder evolves, life happens, you disappear, then all of a sudden, you’re back! I get it. History Miro’s 2016 edition caught my eye...

With Christmas fast approaching, many of us are frantically wrapping presents for our loved ones. In need of a box for something small? Or maybe you bought something from our Non-LEGO Gift Guide and need a very LEGO box to put it in? Build your very own LEGO gift box today! Fun and festive, What a combo! Yes, we have another cute LEGO gift box for you to build to give to that special someone in your life. Nothing says holiday spirit like a tiny present made of LEGO! Whether you’re a seasoned builder or just someone looking for a creative way to package a gift, this little LEGO gift box delivers charm in spades. A Memorable and Customizable Gift SPACESHIP??? You can customize the box with your favorite colors to suit the occasion. For a classic Christmas look, we opted for green with a dark red bow — a timeless...

Katsushika Hokusai - by Mike Dung Welcome back to our series on chibi figure building! Yesterday in Part 1, we provided an introduction to chibi building and got to know a bit more about prolific chibi builders Javier Soravilla and Mike Dung. In Part 2, we will continue our discussion with them both about how it all got started, the evolution of their chibi style, and the building techniques that you can apply to creating chibi figures of your own! Continued Interview with Javier Soravilla and Mike Dung Japan Brickfest 2019: Mike is second from left, and Javier is at bottom right. Inspirations Ted: We ended “Part 1” by talking about some of the builders who inspire you. When planning out what to build, if you see that one of those builders in the “chibi gang” has already built the character you want to make, what do you do? Do you...

Rebecca - by JAvier Soravilla; The muse for this chibi adventure Javier Soravilla (LegoWyrm on Flickr) is well-known in the AFOL community as a prolific MOC builder of anime-inspired chibi characters. A couple of months back, his build of Rebecca from the anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners really caught my eye. I thought to myself “Man, what a cool figure to have on a display shelf!” It turns out that I was not alone in that sentiment. There was so much interest in Rebecca that Javier kindly created building instructions for her a week later and posted them on his Flickr account. With Javier’s instructions as my starting point, I decided to try building some “original” chibi characters of my own. I chose to build the “LycoReco girls”, Chisato and Takina from the recent anime series Lycoris Recoil… But what I didn’t realize at the time was that the “O.G.” who developed...