Today’s guest article about builder’s block comes from Casey McCoy, an AFOL from Chicago. You can find him online on Flickr and Instagram. Beating Builder’s Block Builder’s Block: It’s happened to me – it’s probably happened to you. You’re working on a MOC and you get stuck. You have an idea as to where the build should go or maybe a vague idea of what it should look like, but no concept of how to get to the destination. Don’t be frustrated! This is completely normal for a lot of creatives who can’t just flip on the creativity like a light switch. “Builder’s Block” comes from a similar subject in creative writing with “writer’s block.” Between the two, the general definition of such a block is defined as “the inability to access one's internal creativity.” Sometimes your mind just feels completely blank, like Emmet’s at the start of the 2014 LEGO...

Oh, how soon they forget. When I was looking through our monthly BrickNerd contest round-up for October, I noticed that a once-popular monthly building theme was conspicuously absent from our list; Ma.Ktoberfest. Sure, there hasn’t been much buzz or enthusiasm for the Sci-Fi theme over the last few years, but its exclusion is striking. We made t-shirts, I tell you. T-SHIRTS!!! (designed by Victor Vercesi; Instagram) I mean, at one point there were Ma.Ktoberfest T-shirts designed for it. T-SHIRTS!!! (And I’m pretty sure it was the first monthly building theme to ever do so). To make matters worse, people are now being gas-lit into thinking that the theme month for October has been Mechtober all along (I blame Simon). Well, as always, we here at BrickNerd are here to set the record straight. So What is “Ma.K”? Kow Yokoyama - Creator of “Maschinen Krieger” Ma.K is the short form for Maschinen...

Here at BrickNerd, we love to highlight the bright and imaginative works of talented builders across the LEGO community—and today’s feature is no exception to that. I had the pleasure of speaking with Katja (Palixa And The Bricks): a talented LEGO artist and a two-time finalist in BrickNerd’s own Nerdvember contests in 2016 and 2017. View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize Ann: Hi Katja! I’m very excited to discuss your work on BrickNerd! Please, tell us a bit about yourself. When did your interest in LEGO begin? Katja: Hi Ann! And I am very excited to be interviewed by BrickNerd! I am a software engineer living in the south of Germany. Like many people, I came into contact with LEGO as a child. My mum bought me a few small sets, and I just loved playing with them and taking them apart to build new stuff. While LEGO sets definitely have...

Against the wishes of our Nerd-in-Chief Dave, we are happily re-publishing this interview about his Rainbow Heart mosaic for a very special reason: you might be able to purchase it as a product! Yes, this double-layered color extravaganza is now up for public vote through the BrickLink Designer Program Series 6. If it receives enough “heart happy face” 😍 reactions from those with BrickLink accounts, it could be produced as a limited-edition set! Keen-eyed viewers will notice there have been a few updates from the original, mostly due to the color palette for the BDP program. The greyscale sub-layer has also been optimized to reduce the amount of pieces to fit the program’s piece count limit. So what are you waiting for!? Go and vote for Rainbow Heart, share the link with your friends, and you might be able to build it and hang it on your wall soon! With that,...

Today’s guest article comes from Kyle Keller, a prolific builder and Brothers Brick contributor from the Pacific Northwest. We’ve highlighted his Stardew Valley MOC before, and today he takes us through his process of building custom MOC trophies for AFOL conventions. Defining the Trophy I understand that for many of you outside of the United States, the concept of a LEGO trophy may be a bit of a mystery. Even within the US, what constitutes a trophy can vary depending on your side of the Mississippi. (See BrickNerd’s article all about LEGO trophies at conventions.) And while I’ll leave the legacy of the brick-built trophy to someone far more wizened than myself, I feel I should still specify the subject of this article. I’m here to talk to you all about the creation of the US’s West Coast version: a construction typically on an 8x8 plate that includes a 1x8 brick...