To me, “Titolian” (Flickr / Instagram) – also known in real life as Theo Bonner – has always been a hallmark name in the LEGO sci-fi community. He’d most likely laugh and call me crazy, but his distinct style stuck with me so much that I immediately recognised it when he showed up in Billund for a hiring workshop, despite a few years of university-induced dark ages. A few months later he moved to Denmark, having been hired onto the LEGO Ninjago team as a product designer.  Soon he’d build MOCs with the bricks at work, his talent inspiring many of his colleagues and future products. And naturally, it also got noticed by the curators of the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery where his wonderful collection of Friends cube creations is currently residing. Join us for a deep dive into what went into these colorful creations, and maybe learn a thing or two...

Best of BrickNerd: Weekend Highlight — Article originally published July 21, 2021. Like most things I do, the end of this article didn’t really resemble what I started with. I’ve been recently dabbling in a shared world-building group: World In Darkness (WiD)—it’s a near-future military theme started by Everette. I thought this would be a great place to do a quick write-up and give them some publicity and such, but as we got talking about a possible article, the standard Q&A format quickly went by the wayside and a different story started emerging. End of the Line - Everette But to tell this story, I have to go back to my “LEGO Birth.” Most people that know my builds know me for Sci-Fi stuff, a lot of spaceships, robots, stuffing animals into mech suits, and such… But I started as a “military kid.” I liked my BrickArms third-party stuff and built...

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....