Take a seat! The 2026 Iron Forge heats up

If you follow TBB regularly, you’ve no doubt encountered many articles spotlighting the Iron Builder competition, like our interview last month with the participants in the most recent battle. You might be wondering, how does one get to challenge Iron Builder? One path is to prove your skills in the Iron Forge, a January tradition now in its 7th year. As with the Iron Builder contests, a seed part is chosen that must be used in multiple builds. Only for the Forge, builders only have one week per part before a new seed element is chosen. There is no prize for winning beyond the chance to compete against an Iron Builder, but several Iron Forge champions went on to become LEGO set designers, including Maxx Davidson and last year’s winner Dominique Boeynaems. Glory aside, it’s an amazing showcase of creativity and inspired parts use.

The first round, open to all, just concluded, which featured the minifig chair as the seed part. Here are the to-scoring creations from the 20 builders advancing to the next round.

Grant Davis integrates the seed part in multiple ways into this elegant cafe scene. The obvious spot is for the diner stools that flip the chairs on their back, but chairs are also used for the espresso machine and door panel. The biggest flex of all, however, is the sign which uses LEGO rubber bands and string to form the lettering and lines.

See the top-scoring builds from the other 18 advancing builders below

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Nothing beats a good cup of tea... Except maybe a great LEGO build

At the risk of sounding excessively British: there is no problem that can’t be solved over a good cup of tea. My preference is for English Breakfast (strong, milk, two sugars), but that maxim doesn’t need to be restricted to certain types of tea! For Taj: Brick Minstrel‘s slice of Arabian life, chai is the drink of choice. And now we know what the tea is, we need to know what the tea is. (I gather that’s what the kids are calling gossip these days.) Are these three discussing matters of science, or economics, or politics, or philosophy? Or are they discussing more serious matters, such as how far you could walk barefoot on LEGO bricks?i

Jumpei Mitsui pushes artistic boundaries with bricks

The life of a LEGO Certified Professional is a glamorous one – at least when you’re Jumpei Mitsui and your latest client is gaming auteur Hideo Kojima. But as impressed as we are by the builder’s life-size Ludens model, it’s the builder’s latest non-commercial work that I find most exciting.

Last year, we reported that Jumpei was returning to higher education to study artistic expression at Tokyo University of the Arts. It turns out that where Jumpei goes, LEGO follows, as the artist’s first academic project is all about the brick.

See Jumpei’s first academic LEGO project after the break

I Spy a LEGO puzzle, discovered two years too late

Better late than never. But does it depend on how late? Looking at this photo, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s nearly 30 years late – especially if you grew up with the I SPY book series. But in actual fact, we’re only a couple of years late for this one. The photo is not taken by Walter Wick, but by John Reily. We’ve only just come across his series of photos made as on homage to the original Wick and Jean Marzollo books. This is our favourite of the bunch, with its mix of scales and reflections! Can you find everything mentioned in the rhyme?

Making mecha the Mischief way

The aptly-named builder mischiefmecha has a knack for creating playful bots from surprising pieces. After a brief building hiatus, Mischief is back with a pair of fresh mechs with personality and NPU to spare. First up is Gahlok Stiil, looking good in light bright blue plating and grey greebles. Galidor limbs blend with car hoods to make a Transformers-adjacent bot who’s ready for action.

Next comes TOUNG, a bot with a dumpy body who looks like a very good boy with that lolling tongue and three wagging tails. Mischief deploys brilliant parts usage again, especially with those Bionicle masks as knees.

NPU’s better down where it’s wetter, take it from this Tidepool Princess

From jellyfish to deep sea monsters, underwater settings have long been a favorite subject for NPU flexes. LEGO’s recent Tropical Aquarium boasts one of the most colorful and eclectic mix of parts ever found in an official set, but this Tidepool Princess from nu_montag says “Hold my Beerracuda.” Some of the amazingly diverse elements on display – a DUPLO skirt, a Bionicle Barraki headpiece, and, most impressively, a gaggle of legs from a McDonald’s Galidor Happy Meal toy.

More Galidor and Bionicle elements are visible on the back side of the moc. These weird and organic-looking elements feel alien and out of place in today’s LEGO lineup of parts, so it’s always a treat to see them integrated into modern builds.

LEGO Skeksis extracts essence from Galidor parts

I’ll always be partial to Labyrinth when it comes to Jim Henson fantasy worlds, but the creatures of The Dark Crystal, especially the deliciously wicked Skeksis, are undeniably rad. Margit (one of the talented builders to make our shortlist for Builder of the Year) consulted her LEGO orrery and found a great conjunction of elements to make this spot-on take on the simpering Chamberlain. The head comes from the unhinged Nepol and Shimmel set and perfectly captures the Chamberlain’s totally trustworthy smile. He’s just here to help! The staff was snatched from Euripides and complements the Skeksis aesthetic like a dream.

Mini Tirith, City of Mini Kings

Just last month we posted a roundup of some of the incredible creations from Joe (jnj_bricks), including a Minas Tirith build that cleverly uses force perspective akin to the Peter Jackson films. Apparently not content with wow-ing us with just one Minas Tirith build, Joe is back again with a smaller but equally impressive build of the White City. He shared that everything here is fully connected, and we think the smooth lineup of the cheese slopes used predominantly throughout the shaping of this build give it a very polished look.

An aerial view reveals the Court of the Fountain, which cleverly uses a turntable base atop a green plate to nearly identically recreate the courtyard’s appearance in the films and art from Alan Lee.

Construction comes alive with these epic CityCore bots

Creating a badass mech in LEGO takes skill. Instilling that build with personality is the work of a master builder. Doing so while working in DUPLO elements, now that is next level! Redverse first introduced the “CityCore” theme, blending kid-friendly construction with sophisticated mechh design, with the orange MK series. Now the builder is back with the RW series:

Before any road is paved, before any path is cleared, the CityCore RW-Series is on the job… Whether it’s pushing debris, digging deep, or hauling heavy loads, these machines know the value of getting things right the first time – no shortcuts, no hesitation.

First up is Rumblejack, a Quattroid on the smaller side who pounds the ground flat before paving. Not only does Redverse brilliantly employ oversized Quateo blocks for the tamping tool, Fabuland arches also make an appearance in the bot’s feet.

Next we have Duplon bruiser PushWell, an anthropomorphic dozer. The expressive face clinches this bot as a winner, thanks in large part to the DUPLO antennae element used for the grille mouth and nose.

Finally, there’s Grubjaw, a gruff and hard-working digger. The jutting dozer jaw and sunken eyes sell the bot’s silent resolve in such a fun way.

Redverse’s bots seem like they rolled straight out of a cartoon and leave me wondering what other DUPLO parts are waiting for new purpose in tomorrow’s mechs?

We were on the verge of greatness...

If you’re a long-time reader of The Brothers Brick, you know we tend to praise the talent of the best LEGO builders out there. A recent diorama by Abe Fortier (aka Hypolite Bricks), the first of 12 tributes to Rogue One, is technically masterful. Lah’mu’s landscape with a cutaway of the dark soil, the domed homestead, and the builder’s signature black frame at the base are absolutely top-notch. The vignette effortlessly captures the entire plot of the scene.

And yet, there’s one little detail that leaves me longing. You see, Abe’s build can’t quite capture the scene’s tension and desperation! Yes, glossy and colorful LEGO bricks are to blame. I wish the grass wasn’t quite this bright, and if only there was a way to build that unsettling, stormy wind that hangs in the air during the tense exchange…

Nevertheless, Abe reached the ultimate goal: he made me wish this were an official LEGO set. Seriously—what a perfect candidate for an 18+ diorama. Give us more Rogue One sets like this, LEGO!

And by the way, don’t miss the detailed video showing the building process. Or feel free to revisit the movie’s opening scene to soak in its dull, unsettling vibe once again.

A coastal kingdom in decay, dreaming of past glory

Imagine building a story as sprawling as Game of Thrones in LEGO one vignette at a time. That’s just what the builders behind French LEGO RPG Feodalis are doing! Guillame (@gui.lego) is the creator behind House du Messny of Rivermer, a once great kingdom rebuilding from ruin. Here we see the great gate shut tight after the sighting of an ominous bird. Guillame is an accomplished builder of kingdoms in decay, as seen in this latest model, where brickwork is pockmarked and full of stones coming loose.

See more of Guillame’s medieval kingdom below

Talking mechs, music, and LEGO fashion with Mexican creator Tenkyuu.mocs

LEGO fandom is global and here at The Brothers Brick, we strive to feature creators from every corner of the world. Access to bricks and local support isn’t evenly distributed, though, as the recent changes to Bricklink’s service reminded us all. For Mexican builder Zazil Yakín Xipé, who shares LEGO creations as @tenkyuu.mocs, not amassing a huge collection of bricks hasn’t stopped her from creating a string of impressive and innovative mechs. Today we’re excited to share an interview between Tenkyuu and Zakar.ion that covers LEGO-inspired fashions, Exo-Force, and that one time a worker at a Mexican LEGO factory went rogue and made black market Vaders with the official molds!

Our interview with Tenkyuu.mocs begins here