Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published July 23, 2021. Today’s article on LEGO lighting was written by Rob Klingberg, Chief Enthusiast of Brickstuff. Rob is a fixture in the AFOL community and has continually helped advance what lighting is capable of in LEGO builds—custom creations or sets. At the end of the article, he also announces a new effort that will help all lighting solutions come together—just like he helps the LEGO community come together. A World of Lights It happens about every two months: I’m catching up with my social media and BAM! Another Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram ad appears for some new company selling lights designed for LEGO models. I’m going to date myself here, but it seems a little like that scene from the 1967 film The Graduate, where an older businessman takes a young Dustin Hoffman aside at a party and shares what he believes is the...

LEGO’s latest Architecture set 21060 Himeji Castle is quite a stunner. When BrickNerd was offered a copy of the set from LEGO, we knew we wanted a local perspective. Our guest contributor Masayuki Muraki, known to his followers as @legoanywhere, is a talented LEGO photographer from Japan known for photographing minifigures, erm, anywhere! He has turned everyday scenes into captivating tales, breathing life into our favorite bricks and incorporating them into our world. Today he shares with us not only his awe-inspiring photographs but also his insights and perspectives on LEGO’s take on this iconic Japanese castle. But First, An Introduction My name is Masayuki Muraki, and I am a LEGO photographer from Japan. If my memory serves me right, the first toy I received from my grandmother as a child was a LEGO set. Looking at the photos from my childhood, it seems like I always carried LEGO with me...

Introduction This is the first part of what I hope will be a series looking at the history of The LEGO Group from 2000 onwards. On a year-by-year basis, I’ll use a mix of newspapers, annual reports, and other media sources to tell the LEGO story as it was being reported at the time. Today I will focus on the years 2000 and 2001, but before I do, I would like to fast-forward to 2005, when The LEGO Group announced the biggest loss in its history. These upcoming and seismic events nicely set the context for 2000 and 2001—The Ides of March—documenting the years building up to those difficult times. The Height of Financial Distress The LEGO Group’s loss booked in the 2004 Annual Report was the largest in its history. On 2 July 2005, The New York Times reported on The LEGO Group’s devastating financial results stating “competition from abroad,...

For each issue of BrickJournal Magazine, the BrickNerd team creates instructions for a LEGO mini-model to go with the theme of the cover story. For their recent issue all about castles, we decided to make our own microscale LEGO castle called “Harmony.” All Things In Harmony Castles are iconic. From Neuschwanstein to Disney, their architecture sparks the imagination of heroic knights to magical fairy tales. For the castle theme of BrickJournal’s summer issue, we wanted to capture that same majestic feel and recreate it in microscale. This castle is a fortress fit for royalty with soaring towers, turrets and more! The castle is also a love letter to the LEGO System. It has a fun variety of special elements spanning almost five decades of LEGO that all fit together flawlessly in perfect harmony. Here are the step-by-step instructions you can scroll through to build all the art supplies. The flowers used...

August is almost here and it is one the biggest LEGO release days on the LEGO Shop for the US because that is when we finally get the summer 2023 sets. There are over 90 sets that will be dropping from a number of themes. For the promotions, we only know about the LEGO® Fun Creativity 12-in-1 (40593) so far with purchases of $80 until August 6. As of this post, LEGO hasn’t announced any other promotions yet. Architecture • Himeji Castle (21060) – $159.99 Art • The Amazing Spider-Man (31209) – $199.99• Modern Art (31210) – $49.99 City • Car Wash (60362) – $32.99• Ice Cream Shop (60363) – $39.99• Street Skate Park (60364) – $67.99• Apartment Building (60365) – $94.99• Ski and Climbing Center (60366) – $119.99• Arctic Explorer Ship (60368) – $159.99• Arctic Explorer Snowmobile (60376) – $10.99• Explorer Diving Boat (60377) – $39.99• Arctic Explorer Truck and...

Las Vegas, Sin City, the Entertainment Capital of the World, or the Gambling Capital of the World… call it whatever you like. We have 32 million visitors a year to our fair city in southern Nevada that features a plethora of entertainment options, food, wedding chapels, and, of course, gambling (not necessarily in that order). As the adage goes, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” Though not necessarily in LEGO brick form… Past: Ready, Set, Vegas It’s been a little over a year since I’ve updated everyone on the progress of my microscale Las Vegas Strip. To summarize, my original creation was made up of eight 48x48 stud base plates which when placed together measured 7.5 feet long and 2.5 feet wide. That was enough space to build Las Vegas in microscale representing about 3 miles of the Las Vegas Strip. This is close to a scale of 1 brick...

LEGO has started a new promotion on the LEGO Shop where you can choose your gift between a LEGO Friends set or a LEGO City set. From now until July 28 with a purchase of $40, you can either pick the LEGO Friends Emma’s Magical Box (30414) with code EMB1 or the LEGO City Skater (30568) with code SKT2. Note that this promo may be different for each country. The promo also doubles up with the LEGO Fun Creativity 12-in-1 (40593) with purchases of $80. Remember to use Rakuten to earn some cash back on your purchases. As a Rakuten/Linkshare Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. The post LEGO City/Friends Choose Your Gift – July 2023 appeared first on The Brick Fan. Original linkOriginal author: Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

Just like that, San Diego Comic Con 2023 is now over but here’s a recap of the LEGO happenings during the four days. First off is the LEGO booth itself which they have named it LEGO Brickbuster Video. This is a play on the old Blockbuster Video stores. Throughout the store, there were displays of upcoming LEGO sets from various themes. On the shelves were VHS cassette cases featuring movies and themes in LEGO form. The back wall named New Releases was filled with creations from fans. Some of the themes for the builds were unplanned and spontaneous such as the Spongebob ones and Pikachu ones. I was told that fans took inspiration from the builds that were already on the shelves and they made their own version. There were also brick-build statues that fans could take pictures with. The builds were made to look like the old 2D cardboard cutouts...

This is it, folks. We're down to the last three builders of Bio-Cup 2023 after a jaw-dropping Round 3 full of amazing builds. Before we get to who they are, we need to take a look the competition everyone was up against. This round’s theme was punk, broken up into three subcategories: Steampunk, Dieselpunk, and Cyberpunk. Steampunk Starting with steampunk, we have a super creative take on the category from Pierthviv. They recreated the iconic Lofi Girl scene in LEGO and steampunk themed. This build has so much to take in, from the many different Bionicle masks used in the background to the impressive shaping achieved by mixing System with Bionicle on the man in the foreground. It really makes you think. Instead of being relegated to the background, this steampunk city is the focus of the entire build. Student Scissors has brought to life a fantastic walking steampunk city. He...

The Krusty Krab! by Lanko is the latest project to achieve 10,000 supporters on LEGO Ideas. The build has 2,824 pieces and it is an updated version of the set that also hit 10k supporters last year featuring the crap trap restaurant, the Patty Wagon, the restaurant sign, and the dumpster. The project joins “Big Boy” Locomotive, Retro Arcade, Spartan Helmet of Leonidas, Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, The Muppet Show, Red Bull Racing F1 Team RB18 1:12, Scooby Doo Mystery Machine, Western River Steamboat, Dreamwork’s Shrek Swamp, Asterix & Obelix, Venice, Stilt House, Red Bull RB18, Trojan Horse, Red Dwarf: Sleeping Quarters, TaleSpin Seaduck Meeting Seagull, Stud Lane Book Nook, Greenhouse, Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Box: Dark Magician vs Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Phineas and Ferb Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc., Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Taylor Swift “Lover House”, The Motograph, Taylor Swift’s Lover House, Disney’s Phineas and Ferb: Perry the Platypus/Agent P, Flying Scotsman – LNER...