Guest contributor Joe Meno talks about LEGO instructions, if you should ask a MOC builder for them, and his experience in LEGO building that spans two millennia. (How’s that for a lead-in!?) In The Beginning You know, I’ve never asked for instructions for someone’s creation. Let me explain myself: I started LEGO building way, way back in 1999 (yeah, the 20th century). At that time, the community was beginning to gather online, post on LUGNET, and post photos of their MOCs on Brickshelf. Digital modeling was just beginning with LDraw and MLCAD. It was a pretty bare frontier then, but there were LUGNET pages that were hopping with activity. I saw some phenomenal builders (and later met them) and their works. But I wasn’t one to ask for instructions. If I saw a MOC that caught my attention, I would look at the photos and see if I could figure out...

A new month is upon us which means more competitive building! Are you ready? Here’s the latest bunch of LEGO contests and challenges from all around the AFOL community for June 2025 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...

“The Conversation Piece” is a monthly BrickNerd series about creativity and building with LEGO authored by our friends over at the Builder Improvement Initiative (BII), a Discord-based community that helps LEGO builders of all levels get better at their craft through knowledge-sharing and constructive feedback. Have a question you'd like us to consider for a future article? You can submit it here. Enjoy! How to Begin Building Anonymous asks: “I’m really interested in making my own creations, but I have absolutely no idea how to start. I’ve only ever bought sets and followed the instructions, but have never really been able to make anything from scratch. I love building with LEGO and love being able to assemble/create things, but I’ve no idea how to see something and have a good shot at trying to build it. Is there any advice you could provide to get me started with a MOC for...

Today’s guest article about building with color comes from Steven W. Howard (aka Ghalad), a prolific MOC builder featured in the LEGO House Masterpiece Galley and a future LEGO set designer. All thoughts and opinions expressed in the article are his own. What’s Your Color? Every time I set out to do the Color Wheel Challenge, the song “Colors” by Stella Jang is ringing in my ear… “What’s your color? I wanna know. What’s your color? I wanna know. What’s your color? I wanna know. I wanna know. I wanna know. I wanna know.” For two years in a row, I have completed a digital LEGO take on the popular art community challenge called the Color Wheel Challenge. What is that, you might ask? In the artist community, it involves creating a character or artwork for each color on a color wheel. This was quite popular on Twitter and YouTube in 2023. View...

Just a few days ago, I received the latest addition to the LEGO Ideas family, 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine. I was very excited to see the set, as probably many of you will be, and I’m happy to report that… it didn’t disappoint. My first impression of the box was that the set is going to be a cool display piece, and of course, it brought a lot of nostalgic memories. It took me down to memory lane and I felt like a kid again! The Build The initial steps of the building experience are nothing special, but throughout going through numbered bags with the pieces, you get to enjoy the large number of minifigures included (more about those later). Then you get to the mechanism thing. Every two pages, I was like “wait, what?” I’m not much of a Technic guy, and the whole time I was adding those axels,...