Iron Forge 2026 Builder Spotlight: Xiheng Xu

Every year, the Iron Forge lets LEGO builders join in a tournament to see whose techniques and creativity will reign supreme with the winner getting the chance to battle an Iron Guilder 1-on-1. The final round just wrapped, during which participants were tasked with making creations featuring the air scoop engine element over a two-week period. While the judges evaluate entries and select this year’s champion, we’re giving each of the eight final builders a spotlight, starting with Xiheng Xu (@little_monk_mocs). The builder only joined the afol community a few months ago, but in that short time has made an incredible impression with builds spanning a range of themes and styles. And in the Iron Forge, Xiheng demonstrated both incredible speed and nimbleness, presenting 18 builds, many of which are in dialogue with other participants. Let’s have a look at them all!

Xiheng brings out the emotive quality of the intake engines, using them as eyes for this adorable WALL-E. Supplementing the main build, an engine in brown doubles as the bot’s boot-turned-planter. In Iron Forge tradition, this creation incorporates both seed elements from the previous rounds – the eggshell/crown and the minifig chair.

I am Groot? I am GROOT! I… am groot.

We’re loving this fast food tray with the seed part used to hold golden fries. A torn bag and a piece of an instruction manual add texture to this miniature tableau. This one evokes the miniature food of LEGO Masters winner Ian Summers.

Click to see the rest of Xiheng’s impressive Iron Forge builds

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A city hidden in the jaws of the deep

Take another look, because this is no ordinary angler fish. Piotr Przytuła has encased a microscale world inside of it.

The small structure in the fish’s lure is easy to spot, but take a peak past all those ravenous teeth and you’ll spot a bubble encasing a larger structure. I don’t know who lives there, but I hope they’re not expecting company.

The fish itself would be a build worth talking about. The fins constructed from the trans-clear rods are a masterstroke. And the glow-in-the-dark elements used for the eyes pay perfect tribute to this creature’s real-life habitat deep beneath the sea, where light can barely penetrate.

Here’s to good fortune in the new year

We’re just a couple weeks away from the start of the Year of the Fire Horse, and Jin Chen is ringing it in with this festive build. We’re in love with the way he’s sculpted such a lively animal bust from parts that might traditionally be considered for tech-style builds. And the excellent use of mini doll hair gives the front of the mane the perfect shaping. Plus, it’s all propped up beautifully on a small pedestal that pops with violet hues. Happy new year, one and all!

All that remains is machine

Like a LEGO Victor Frankenstein, artist_davs is a mad scientist of bricks who takes apart minifigures and splices in other elements to amazing effect. This time, an Intellect Devourer from the D&D minifig line becomes an exposed brain in a mass of wires and dark metal. As the artist explains it, “Its structure suggests a fusion of organism and machine, but there are no seams, no points of assembly—only growth.” An intelligence with no apparent purpose but to observe.

The frame of bars and tubes, reinforced with a few and Technic plates, evokes a skeleton, while the tripod legs and clear tanks on the back push into uncanny territory. The Watcher might be harmless, but it’s still the stuff of nightmares!

It was discovered standing where no signals reached.

No tracks. No heat signature. No aggression.

Its structure suggests a fusion of organism and machine, but there are no seams, no points of assembly—only growth. The exposed neural core indicates continuous learning, as if it adapts faster than it moves.

It does not react to threats.
It reacts to attention.

Observation logs end shortly after first contact. The creature remains.

Working the bugs out of the latest Ninjago monster

Ninjago playsets have a track record of introducing some of the wildest and best minifig accessories around, and this January’s crop was no different. One of the coolest accessories is the Earth Monster claw, which can serve as either headpiece or hand to the latest elemental villains. Builder CapyMOCs immediately clocked the similarity to horns of Scarabaeidae Dynastinae, aka Rhinoceros beetles, and set to building one in LEGO. We couldn’t agree more – it’s the role that part was born to play!

LEGO Icons 11375 Ferrari F2004 & Michael Schumacher: a dominant display [Review]

Reading patterns into LEGO’s release schedule is normally a fool’s errand. The minute you think you can guess what set is coming next based on what’s been before, the pattern changes. That said, after previous years saw releases of the McLaren MP4/4 and Williams FW14B – two of the most famous Formula One cars ever – the next car in this fledgling series should be a surprise to no one. The Ferrari F2004 dominated the, well, 2004 season, and propelled Michael Schumacher to a record 7th drivers’ title. From March 1, you’ll be able to build your own thanks to LEGO Icons 11375 Ferrari F2004 & Michael Schumacher. It has an RRP of USD/CAD/GBP, with 735 pieces. Will it dominate the competition like its real-life counterpart? Only one way to find out!

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

LEGO Icons 11375 Ferrari F2004 & Michael Schumacher | 735 Pieces | Available March 1, 2026 | US $89.99 | CAN $119.99 | UK £79.99

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Captain, there be whales here!

As you no doubt recall (and for shame if you don’t), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home sees the crew of the original Star Trek series travel to 1980s San Francisco because a probe from space is speaking humpback whale. Trust me, it makes sense in context. Anyway, the film never gives us a glimpse at the other worldly creatures that want to speak with the humpbacks (my wife calls them whaliens), but I imagine they’d look something like this celestial cetacean by Jesse Gros. Jesse has captured the beauty and majesty of those gentle giants in a craft that looks like it would be equally at home gliding through the cosmos as through the waves.

Where the sidewalk ends

Nominally, LEGO is a building system designed for sturdy connections to support play and display. My favorite mocs throw those rules out the window and approach building like a chef embracing molecular gastronomy. Cloudy, a teen fan of LEGO from Poland, has only recently started sharing pics, but clearly, they are on the fast track to leaving their mark on the hobby. On a footprint of just 6×10 studs, Cloudy delicately assembles a slice of sidewalk that transports you to a miniature world.

There’s so much to admire from the fence of brown rods, to the sidewalk of loosely configured tiles and hammers. My favorite detail is the three leaf plant sunken into the ground to hide the long stems. Cloudy cites Daniel Cloward and modulexfan as inspirations – clearly learning from the best! We’ll be watching Cloudy closely to see what brilliant creations this young builder will share in future.

Exo-Force Uplink upgrade is ready to quash the robot rebellion

Mechs are a core part of LEGO’s lineup, featuring prominently in Ninjago, Monkey Kid, Dreamzzz, and even in Star Wars and superhero sets, but only the dearly departed Exo-Force theme made mechs the stars. Twenty years after its debut, Exo-Force continues to inspire moc creators like WyndGekko who reimagine and expand on the heroes and villains of the robot rebellion. Here Wynd gives a beefy update to Uplink, one of the smaller mecha of Sentai Mountain.

Wynd applies the same talent for neo-classic space greebling that she displayed as the set designer for Building a LEGO Space Force Volume 2. This suit looks great from every angle.

The scrawny original set packed a lot of play into its $4.99 retail price. I wish I’d picked it up at the time.

Dicken’s kickin’ with block Crocs

We weren’t on the list to preview the first LEGO x Crocs collab shoes, but based on the reports from those who did, it seems like our feet dodged a bullet there! We’d much rather kick it with this brick built pair from the inimitable Dicken Liu.

Where will the LEGO footwear collabs take us next? Bloc Martens? Birkenblocks? Ugg.

A LEGO Designer digs into his Overwatch stash with some interesting results

What does LEGO Designer Chris Perron do when not designing awesome LEGO sets? He’s proven to still be a community team player as he created this mech/drone for Droneuary. A striking color scheme, long legs, and a rather compact head/body configuration make this a memorable mech. Plus, if that printed dish piece looks vaguely familiar, that’s because it comes from the Overwatch Wrecking Ball from 2019.

Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Chris proves to be on an Overwatch kick lately with this Sprite utilizing the pink wedges from the D. Va and Reinhardt set. This set single-handedly quadrupled my pink parts in my collection when I picked it up. Chris combined these with the green canopy parts from the 90’s to create this build; a fine mix of old and new pieces.

On a side note, while Chris hasn’t been able to post to Flickr for about a year, he’s been busy on his Instagram feed with both LEGO creations and other artistic experiments, like this LEGO Space inspired 3D animation test.

LEGO Icons 11373 The Lord of the Rings: Sauron’s Helmet – The Dark Lord returns [Review]

The Lord of the Rings films are currently celebrating their 25th anniversary (we’re feeling old), and LEGO is marking the occasion with a new set for the beloved theme. LEGO Icons 11373 Sauron’s Helmet is the first helmet set from The Lord of the Rings, and is also the first helmet set to include a minifigure: the Dark Lord himself. We’re not sure if this is a one-and-done or if we’ll see more helmet sets in the theme, but let’s cast our all-seeing eye on how the helmet line meets the fantasy world!

LEGO Icons 11373 The Lord of the Rings: Sauron’s Helmet | 538 Pieces | Available March 1, 2026 | US $69.99 | CAN $89.99 | UK £64.99

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

One helm to rule them all? Our review follows…