Let’s get Nerdy about bridges! Today I thought it would be fun to do a little deep-dive into something that’s been around for a very long time in human history: bridges. And since you’re here on BrickNerd, I figure we’ll keep the discussion about LEGO bridges, sound cool? Ok, let’s get into it! Let’s start this off by stating the obvious, bridges are cool. In real life, absolutely. In LEGO, oh ab-so-lutely! And there are a LOT of ways to build a bridge. When I first started thinking about writing an article about LEGO bridges I did a quick search on Flickr and my first reaction was “there are a LOT of bridges!” I pitched the idea to the rest of the nerds over here and within a few minutes I had about a dozen examples of bridges that people in the community had built over the years. So yeah, bridges...

Today is AFOL Day at the LEGO House in Billund, which is the sort-of-official start of the Skærbæk Fan Weekend, the world’s most international LEGO event. I figured this would be a good day to tell you about my very first encounter with other adult enthusiasts of the brick—you see, I dove straight in at the deep end! Me at my very first LEGO event, with my new friends Megan Rothrock and Mark Stafford. Many people probably start their AFOL life when they meet somebody else who turns out to be a LEGO fan, and then visit a local show, before maybe eventually working their way up to an international event. Not so with me: My very first encounter with AFOLs was at the LEGO Fan Weekend (now Skærbæk Fan Weekend) in 2012, which makes this sort of an anniversary year for me: It’s the tenth year of me going to...

Apart from my dark-age gap of about 14 years, I've built Technic since my parents bought me set 850, the forklift from the first wave of Technic sets in 1977. I've a thing for tinkering with mechanisms. I take things apart to find out how they work, and put them back together. When my first motorbike died I had two options: buy another engine, or buy tools, parts and a book to repair/rebuild what I had. So I learnt what an engine looks like on the inside. I've always had GBC on my "some day" project list. It's a long list, and I'm not a prolific builder, so it's taken me a while to actually get started... Gotta Start Somewhere My first GBC module Last year I built a module using leftover parts from another project; lavender bricks and curved slopes, and white fences. It ran as a guest module in...

Color is a funny thing. On the one hand, it’s subjective; there is no universal favorite color. But on the other hand, it’s objective; a company like LEGO needs everyone to agree on what the color blue is. LEGO colors similarly have a duality. They need to be descriptive, understandable, and static while also changing over time to meet current consumer preferences. These changing needs are how, over time, you find yourself explaining to kids what ‘Azure’ means or how they get the sand in sand green. With that conversation in mind, I assembled my brain trust (i.e. my three boys, ages 4,6, & 8) once more to see if a topic makes any sense to LEGO’s core demographic. Previously, the brain trust looked at symbology in LEGO instructions and part names/acronyms from the AFOL community. This time, we’re going to dive into the wacky world of LEGO color names. According...

Welcome back everyone! Not sure why, but over the last few years, I´ve noticed more and more owl MOCs showing up in my Flickr-feed. And I must admit, I really like it! So for the beginning of autumn, I decided to dig around and find some great examples of owl-builds from around the community. Without further ado, let´s have a look at a parliament of LEGO owls. Colorful Characters We start off with one of my absolute favourites, this beauty by DOGOD Brick Design. The eyes, making great use of some of the pieces found in the recent botanical sets, are just stunning. And the colour scheme overall is truly magnificent. Overall, this build makes great use of a variety of pieces and you just get happy when looking at it. Moving on we have this regal character by Djokson. I really dig the pose and the slightly menacing look of...