Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published March 3, 2021. Illuminating work by Wayne Tyler You ask: L’Enfant, qu'est-ce que c'est? (or maybe you put it more like I would: L’Enfant, what is that?). Why, it’s not a what, it’s a who! He was the Frenchman who designed Washington DC. Pierre Charles L’Enfant to be precise. In what became known as the L’Enfant Plan, this notable fellow laid out the basics of the city that we all recognize today including a roughly mile-long park that eventually became the National Mall. I can’t think of anything that better evokes for me “the best of America” so completely. The Mall encapsulates fantastic treasures of architecture, natural beauty, history, art, science, and more into one walkable beautiful park containing a seemingly endless string of top-notch museums! For builder Wayne Tyler, as our DC correspondent El Barto first covered here in 2018, the National Mall...

A new month is upon us which means more competitive building! Are you ready? Here’s the latest batch of LEGO contests and challenges from all around the AFOL community for March 2023 to help you find some inspiration and motivation to build! There’s nothing quite like a theme or a prompt to take you out of your comfort zone and give you something new to try. Besides, contests are the perfect place to interact with other contestants and judges and get to know your fellow builders. And if you’re like me, a deadline helps make sure you actually finish! We’ve listed them in order of deadline so you can plan your building time to the best advantage. Make sure to check the LEGO activity calendar for local challenges and events near you. Here at BrickNerd, some of our fondest memories, greatest building achievements, coolest trophies, and best friendships came from LEGO...

Following yesterday’s look at the LEGO House’s upscaled Captain Red Beard, today we take a continued tour around a pirate bay MOC that is as big as they get! Despite the scale of this build, it’s not a collaboration between a bunch of LUG members but rather a singular build made by a Swedish couple who just decided one morning to build something huge. So hold your breath as we take a deep dive into this awesome creation. Andreas: Thanks for chatting with BrickNerd. Could you introduce yourselves a bit? Martina & Andreas: We are Martina and Andreas Hed, and we live in a small town called Köping in Sweden. We actually didn’t have any interest in LEGO when we first met in 2006. We are both musicians and have played in the same band, so we can say that music actually brought us together. When our band split up, we...

The LEGO House has just released the latest model in their exclusive limited-edition series, 40504 A Minifigure Tribute, available only in Billund, Denmark. Celebrating the 45th anniversary of the minifigure, this 6x-scale version (maxifig) of Captain Red Beard is the latest iteration of brick-built minifigures that LEGO has created over the years. Join BrickNerd as we take a look at the similarities and differences between these brick-built buccaneers! Predecessors at Scale Before we look at our pirate friends, we have to start a few decades earlier. A large brick-built minifigure (set 3723) was released in 2000. Standing nearly 20 inches tall, this version included movable arms, hands, a rotating neck and a removable hat. The legs were in a fixed position, although they did visually depict the leg hinge of real minifigures. The set had a whopping 1,850 pieces, including over 500 2x_ bricks (you can fill in the blank with...

February was another month filled with fascinating features, interesting deep dives and cool videos from all across the LEGO community. We are lucky to have this many outlets and channels that keep creating incredibly content, and these are the best of the month. Here on BrickNerd, LEGO Elves moved into Rivendell, we modded a cabin and raided a Viking village. We celebrated 100 issues of Blocks Magazine, covered the history of LEGO trains and experienced the struggles of creating a black sigfig. We covered shiny chromed cars, analyzed the color of the villainous vehicles in LEGO City and took a deep dive into Fabuland. We measured LEGO down to the LDU, learned about the AFOL ARMY behind BTS, were dazzled by a wedding dress and smashed a LEGO castle. In fact, we’ve published so many interesting articles in February, that we’ve included an interactive calendar of them at the bottom of...