Tokens. Like Tolkein’s One Ring, these precious little LEGO things can change the trajectory of a little hobbit and can hold great untold value when forged correctly.  Yesterday’s article discussed the Token of Brickworld: the Gugick, which is built and distributed by the Brickworld Master which has its own set of rules. Today, I’m going to talk about Tokens of Appreciation given from builder to build at LEGO conventions—and my personal rules for them. Tom - frequent Febrovery builder - and his rover Tokens The Origin of Tokens While I'm squarely to blame for the Gugicks, you can’t blame me as much for tokens. Tokens of Appreciation (or whatever name you want to call them) started long before Arthur invaded our displays with Scorpions, so it’s not something that he or I can be blamed for. KC Ross’s signature snails - Magic Card for scale I believe KC Ross has been...

Donkey Kong by If You Build It is the latest project to achieve 10,000 supporters on LEGO Ideas. The 800 piece build is based on the original 1981 video game and features the stage with a brick-built Donkey Kong and a minifigure of Pauline. The project joins Claw Machine Wallace & Gromit – A Grand Day Out, Pioneer CDJ 2000 Nexus Multi Player, Impression Sunrise – Monet, The Loneliness of the Voyager – NASA’s Voyager Mission, Humpback Whale Breach, Tintin – Space Rocket, The Iron Giant in the Forest, Tetris Solid, Working Image Projector “Magic Lantern”, Popcorn Machine, Arsenal F.C. – The Invincibles, Sony Walkman, Sony Walkman, Hydroelectric Power Plant, Floating Sea Otter, Avatar: The Last Airbender!, Blacksmith – Wild West, Bluey!!, New Holland CR Combine, Wednesday The Room and The Balcony, Lisbon Tram (Electrico 28), Market Village, Modular Post Office in Neoclassical Style, Working River Rapids Ride – Fairground Rafting...

Today I’m going to dive into “Gugicks.” Arthur Gugick Source: Flickr What’s a “Gugick” you might ask? It’s simply a token of appreciation, a little LEGO mini-build given out at a fan convention. Tokens are often mislabelled as a Gugick. However, the genuine Gugick is actually a very specific token made by a very specific individual at a very specific convention. Why do I know this? Because I started it—sort of. This is why the BrickNerd editors have been encouraging me to write about this topic and tomorrow’s article on the non-Gugick tokens of appreciation. Why the name difference? What makes a Gugick special? What are the rules behind Gugick tokens? Let’s begin. Deep Dish Dive While nice that it’s somewhat common in parts of the US to call LEGO tokens of appreciation “Gugicks,” there is technically only one Gugick given out a year—and only at Brickworld Chicago. And this is...

Today’s guest article comes from Australian builder Kristel Whitaker, known for her whimsical builds and her continual exploration of colourful tile techniques. She shares her experience building LEGO’s new 41839 Message Board set on BrickNerd’s behalf. Editor’s Introduction A few weeks back, BrickNerd was offered a new LEGO “message board” set. As with most offers through the LEGO Ambassador program, we needed to respond quickly, knowing little about the set. With the recent retirement of the DOTS theme, we were at least curious to see what new direction LEGO might take with lettered signage. If nothing else, we hoped that some new brick-built font styles or techniques would be featured. This led to a discussion amongst ourselves about all of the notable brick-built alphabets that the LEGO MOC building community has developed through the years. Here are a few of the notable examples that came to mind: A person whose font...

LEGO hasn’t released a larger scale Bat-Pod set in a long time but this summer, there is a new one in the Batman Construction Figure and the Bat-Pod Bike (76273). The original one was back in 2015 when there was a competition for LEGO VIP members and subsequently was in the Rewards Center for 15,000 points and a sweepstakes after that. This new 713 piece set is much easier to get for $64.99. Build The Batman figure is the larger scale ones that were re-introduced a few years ago, however, this one is based on the suit from The Dark Knight. The build is fairly similar to its predecessor, give or take a few changes here and there. You do start with the torso which has ball joints for the arms and the head. The armor on the shoulders are on hinges and they attach to the top of the shoulder....