Apart from my dark-age gap of about 14 years, I've built Technic since my parents bought me set 850, the forklift from the first wave of Technic sets in 1977. I've a thing for tinkering with mechanisms. I take things apart to find out how they work, and put them back together. When my first motorbike died I had two options: buy another engine, or buy tools, parts and a book to repair/rebuild what I had. So I learnt what an engine looks like on the inside. I've always had GBC on my "some day" project list. It's a long list, and I'm not a prolific builder, so it's taken me a while to actually get started... Gotta Start Somewhere My first GBC module Last year I built a module using leftover parts from another project; lavender bricks and curved slopes, and white fences. It ran as a guest module in...

Color is a funny thing. On the one hand, it’s subjective; there is no universal favorite color. But on the other hand, it’s objective; a company like LEGO needs everyone to agree on what the color blue is. LEGO colors similarly have a duality. They need to be descriptive, understandable, and static while also changing over time to meet current consumer preferences. These changing needs are how, over time, you find yourself explaining to kids what ‘Azure’ means or how they get the sand in sand green. With that conversation in mind, I assembled my brain trust (i.e. my three boys, ages 4,6, & 8) once more to see if a topic makes any sense to LEGO’s core demographic. Previously, the brain trust looked at symbology in LEGO instructions and part names/acronyms from the AFOL community. This time, we’re going to dive into the wacky world of LEGO color names. According...

Welcome back everyone! Not sure why, but over the last few years, I´ve noticed more and more owl MOCs showing up in my Flickr-feed. And I must admit, I really like it! So for the beginning of autumn, I decided to dig around and find some great examples of owl-builds from around the community. Without further ado, let´s have a look at a parliament of LEGO owls. Colorful Characters We start off with one of my absolute favourites, this beauty by DOGOD Brick Design. The eyes, making great use of some of the pieces found in the recent botanical sets, are just stunning. And the colour scheme overall is truly magnificent. Overall, this build makes great use of a variety of pieces and you just get happy when looking at it. Moving on we have this regal character by Djokson. I really dig the pose and the slightly menacing look of...

It's difficult to believe that I'm writing my 4th article about the one-of-kind LEGO Train fan event Bauspielbahn-Treffen 2024 (BSBT)--and my 3rd as a participant! Ever since learning about this event's existence, I have been a committed fan and supporter. As a reminder, BSBT is a LEGO fan event dedicated exclusively to trains, and takes place in the charming town of Schkeuditz, just 12 km northwest of Leipzig, Germany. My previous BrickNerd articles discussing BSBT are linked here for 2021, 2022, and 2023. For this article, I'm going to recount my BSBT 2024 experience in the style of a "travelogue" -- or "VLOG" style for folks familiar with the video equivalent! Wheels Up to Berlin? It all starts with the travel itinerary. As you can see from my Air Canada booking, it is a busy collection of flights including three German airports. Why so many? Predictably, it’s because of model trains!...

Vignweek is an annual building competition hosted by the online group RebelLUG. The challenge lasts one week and consists of six building prompts designed to leave room for each builder to get creative with the vignette they come up with. Each build must be submitted within 24 hours of the prompts release, or 48 hours for the last prompt. The builds must be between 16x16 and 32x32 studs as shown on the right. Each year there are two winners, one from the active members of the LUG and one from the community. This competition has been run for many years and never ceases to amaze me with the amount of creativity and level of skill that is demonstrated within a single day build. I had the pleasure of chatting with the community winner for Vignweek 2024, Carter Witz, to talk about his experience and take a look at the MOCs he...