Best of BrickNerd: Weekend Highlight (in celebration of our “pi-RATS & BUG-aneers” contest)— Article originally published May 13, 2021. Nerdly wants to be a parrot too. Seeing all the recent excitement over LEGO animals, whether it’s the exhilaration of the pink frogs in the Bonsai Tree, the disappointment in the lack of goats in the Blacksmith’s Shop, or the enjoyment my fellow contributors have over their own creature collections, I was reminded of one of my favorites, the parrot. This got me thinking back on my love for the bird. So I did what any BrickNerd would do: dive into their storied history. But know that much of my appreciation for the charming avian element comes from a knock-off version I received in a bulk lot some years ago. So prepare yourselves for a deep exploration into why this little guy has become one of LEGO’s most common, versatile, and popular...

The Stanley Cup Finals last month were great. Since I’m in Las Vegas, I follow my local hockey teams, the Vegas Golden Knights (who didn’t do very well this year) and Henderson Silver Knights (an affiliate of the Golden Knights with the American Hockey League [AHL]). Also being an Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL), I wanted to make a mosaic of their logos as they are really cool to me. Images via Vegas Golden Knights and Henderson Silver Knights. So the first task was to figure out the size because that would then set the scale and number of pieces I would end up needing. I tested out a few online mosaic makers and quickly realized 48 studs x 96 studs for each image would be about perfect. (The site I ended up using was Lego-Art-Remix.com.) Why this size you ask? Well, because at that size, it fit the rectangular size...

How many Technic friction pins are in your collection? Wouldn’t you like to know? Okay, probably not—but there have got to be some pieces that you’d like to have exact numbers for. So, why not count them? Well, if you’re looking at a 60,000+ piece collection like I was, you’ll need a better reason than mere curiosity to count out all those pieces. A reason to catalog your pieces might include having a handy way to see exactly what pieces you have available to build with—which would be especially useful if you buy instructions or build MOCs digitally and then physically. But for me, the reason was “needing” to know how much my collection was worth. So, in early March, I started counting. Two months later, I finished cataloging. And now, two months after that, I’m finally far enough away from the process to talk about it without immediately feeling exhausted....

Round 2 of Bio-Cup 2022 has come to a close with 27 contestants participating. With only nine people remaining after this round, the competition is nearing its end. With these high stakes, everyone has been bringing their A-game trying to outdo each other for a place in the semifinals. But because of this, many talented builders were knocked out of this round. Each of the builders featured in this article is moving on to the semifinals—so make sure to check out all the entries because it will be well worth your time! The theme this round was “numbers,” with each bracket being assigned a number 1 through 9 with no further direction or context. This brought out some very creative concepts and, as always, expert execution. So without further ado, let’s literally count down some of the amazing builds from Bio-Cup’s second round. 9 Starting with number nine, VelociJACKtor brings the...

Do you like your cars loud? Do you smoke your tires at every traffic light? Do you only drive in a straight line? Then you’re probably an American muscle-car fan. And you’re probably pretty stoked about LEGO’s announcement of the new customizable 1969 Camaro Z28 coming August 1st. Here at BrickNerd, we figured we take a lap around the interwebs to check out some other versions of Camaros from the LEGO community. So take a break from Amazon Prime Day and get in gear for a ride through these Camaro-inspired MOCs. Let’s fire it up with Eric Teo’s mining scale Camaro, complete with sleeveless driver. He’s got some nice upgrades here, like the fog lights and the exposed engine-y thing in the hood. Boss! (That license plate looks strangely familiar, though!) Next up, we’re shifting gears to a 1973 Camaro Z28 by Doug Vander Meulen. Although he said it started out...