LEGO Community Headlines and Highlights for January 2026

January kicked off with a ton of quality LEGO content from across the community and on BrickNerd. We started the year by exploring two new colors and molds, we took a hard look at the number of molds in production with the new cheese slopes, and we got educated about changes to First LEGO League and the new Build. Solve. Invent sets. We embraced the snow by expanding Hogsmeade and seeing the Northern Lights, and cracked open the Stranger Things Creel House… literally.

Dinosaurs stomped through the month as we converted Paris into a fossil, built a true dinosaur jet, and dreamed up some DreamZzz alt builds. Along the way, we travelled to Skaerbaek to learn about space goats, headed to LEGOLAND Windsor to get some lifetime passes, and visited Ninjago to discover the secrets of their 15th anniversary.

In fact, we’ve published so many interesting articles in January that we’ve included an interactive calendar of them at the bottom of this post, so you can make sure you haven’t missed a thing. But there are many more fascinating stories to be told from within the LEGO community, so here are some of the best LEGO articles and videos that caught our contributors’ attention throughout the month of January. We applaud the effort that went into each of these features, so click the headlines or photos to read each story or watch each video. They are well worth your time!

Ben Cossy: The Greatest LEGO Spaceships Ever Made

Ben Cossy takes a deep dive into the LEGO spaceship MOCs of Nick Trotta, breaking down what makes his builds stand out as some of the strongest sci-fi designs in the community. From shaping and scale to greebling and overall cohesion, these ships are so much more than they appear.

Brads Archive: Why Original LEGO Characters Matter

Dig into why original LEGO characters still matter, especially outside of IP-driven themes. The conversation zeroes in on LEGO Castle and how original minifigures encourage fan attachment in a way licensed characters often can’t.

Brick Architect: What 3D-printed LEGO parts teach us about Connector Pairs

Using the 10361 Holiday Express Train as a case study, Brick Architect examines how 3D-printed parts can help unpack LEGO’s connector-pair system, explaining why certain connections behave the way they do and what builders can learn by reverse-engineering them. It’s a deep dive that makes you appreciate how much engineering hides inside a simple connection.

Brick Sculpt: The Ultimate Guide to LEGO Conifers

Enjoy this tutorial on how to build LEGO conifer trees. Brick Sculpt goes over different designs for different tree varieties, and shows step by step process of how to make your LEGO trees more realistic.

Brickcrafts: Building a Giant LEGO Winter Viking World

Brickcrafts continues his massive layout by building a winter-themed Viking Village, complete with lights, layered snow, rocky terrain, and wooden architecture. What part of the world have they not built yet!?

Brickset: Matching 3D Printing Filaments to LEGO Colours

If you’ve got a 3D printer (or one arrived over the holidays), Brickset has a practical guide to filament colors that come impressively close to LEGO’s palette, plus tips and tools for hunting down matches for colors they didn’t cover.

Brickset: 2025 Press Release Poll Analysis

We at BrickNerd love some nerdy LEGO data, and Brickset delivers by crunching the poll results attached to 2025’s LEGO press releases to see which upcoming sets readers are most (and least) excited about, along with trends around price and size.

BricksFanz: Celebrating 10 Years of BricksFanz

BricksFanz is celebrating ten years of LEGO news, reviews, and community coverage, and we want to send a big congratulations to Adam and the entire team for hitting that milestone. Here’s wishing them many more years from all of us at BrickNerd.

Cheesey Studios: LEGO’s TWO New Colors

Caleb takes a close look at two new colors joining the LEGO palette, blue violet and warm pink, where they’re appearing across the 2026 set lineup, and how they fall into LEGO color theory.

Clutch Power: The Man Behind the Mask - Creating Bionicle

In this new podcast, Clutch Power sits down with Bionicle co-creator Alastair Swinnerton to trace the theme’s origins from a three-page concept to one of LEGO’s most enduring worlds. The episode explores deep lore and behind-the-scenes history to show why Bionicle still resonates 25 years later.

DuckBricks: Every Ninjago Kai Minifigure EVER (2011–2026)

Enjoy a complete walkthrough of every Kai minifigure released across LEGO Ninjago, tracing how the Fire Ninja’s design has evolved. Check out the subtle changes in printing, colors, and accessories in this handy visual timeline for collectors.

Jay’s Brick Blog: Can LEGO Overcome Its Checkered History of Melding Technology and Bricks?

This editorial looks back at LEGO’s mixed track record combining digital technology with physical bricks, examining what’s worked, what hasn’t, and whether recent efforts suggest a more seamless future for tech-enhanced play or just more expensive elements for your parts bin.

Master Builder Alec: Building a Hot Dog Ball

Sometimes the best desk builds turn into the inspiration for an entire MOC. Well, that’s what we hope Alec does with this new Hot Dog Ball! We can’t wait to see what comes next.

Nate From the Internet: Building a Giant Lego-Style Castle - The End is Near!

In this penultimate video, Nate is almost finished with his giant 3D printed upscaled LEGO castle! Check out how he makes the portcullis actually go up and down. It may be a while until the next video, but we are ready to see the final result!

New Elementary: MOC Analysis - Nick Trotta’s Chain Reaction RVR-05

New Elementary puts Nick Trotta’s Chain Reaction RVR-05 under the microscope, breaking down the ship’s angular geometry, layered hull shaping, and dense greebling, while explaining how subtle part choices and symmetry tricks give the model its mechanical, high-energy look.

Rebrickable: Classic Theme Revisit - Life on Mars

Rebrickable looks back at LEGO’s short-lived Life on Mars theme, breaking down its unusual designs and minifigures while exploring how fans are remixing those parts and ideas into modern builds… including the first appearance of sand purple!

Rebrickable: Final 2025 Statistics - Users’ Edition

Rebrickable’s year-end wrap collects stats on sets, parts, themes, and user activity from 2025, revealing which MOCs drew the most attention and what builders actually added to their inventories. It’s a great trove of nerdy data for anyone who likes spotting trends hiding in the numbers.

SpitBrix: Why It Sucks To Live in LEGO City

This video is a tongue-in-cheek look at the many ways life in LEGO City goes wrong, from the lack of schools and insane crime rate, yet the population of doctors and space engineers is off the charts!

The Brothers Brick: Chatted with LEGO Phenom Paul Hetherington to Catch a Whiff of Greatness and maybe Old Spice

This interview with Paul Hetherington digs into how he thinks about texture, scale, and character. There’s also some self-aware humor along the way, including why not every build needs to be hyper-realistic and how inspiration can strike, whether you’re staring at a parts bin or a questionable bottle of cologne.

The Brothers Brick: Talking Mechs, Music, and LEGO Fashion with Mexican Creator Tenkyuu MOCs

Mexican builder Tenkyuu MOCs about their journey into mech design, how music and fashion shape their creative voice, and the personal influences behind their builds. The interview digs into how color blocking, stylized silhouettes, and non-traditional inspirations help their mechs stand out from the usual sci-fi crowd.

The LEGO Car Blog: How to Get Your Model Featured

Our friends over at TLCB share practical advice on what helps a LEGO build get featured anywhere, from clear photos and strong descriptions to behind-the-scenes details and storytelling. It’s also a great reminder to swing by the TLCB showroom for all those cool cars and more!

Tips&Bricks: Celebrating 3,000 Posts

Tips&Bricks just passed 3,000 posts of incredible LEGO content from techniques, discussions, and deep dives to hard-hitting cultural analyses. Congrats to the whole team from BrickNerd. What an amazing milestone!

Tips & Bricks: Languages in LEGO Products

Tips & Bricks dives into the history of how LEGO has used language, examining how product text, packaging, and set instructions have evolved over time. It’s a fun discussion for builders who’ve ever wondered why certain bricks, manuals, or labeling choices reflect different eras or regional conventions in LEGO’s history.

If all of those amazing features weren’t enough to satisfy your LEGO community craving, here is an interactive calendar of everything that BrickNerd has published this last month to make sure you didn’t miss a single article.

Did we miss any of your favorite LEGO articles and content for the month? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Do you want to help BrickNerd continue publishing articles like this one? Become a top patron like Marc & Liz Puleo, Paige Mueller, Rob Klingberg from Brickstuff, John & Joshua Hanlon from Beyond the Brick, Megan Lum, Andy Price, Lukas Kurth from StoneWars, Wayne Tyler, Dan Church, and Roxanne Baxter to show your support, get early access, exclusive swag and more.