LEGO Community Headlines and Highlights for June 2023

June is over and we’re in the midst of Summer - time to sit back and enjoy a cocktail of great features, insightful articles and deep dives from all across the LEGO community! We are lucky to have this many outlets and channels that keep creating incredible content, and these are the best of the month.

Here at BrickNerd, we put LEGO under the microscope and also looked at larger-than-life minifigures. We got nerdy about more LEGO SNOT and (missing) LEGO colors, and looked at how toys might be able to help equaling the playing field. We discovered Rome (twice!) and Venice made from bricks, and visited Sydney, Nevada, the UK, and Kobe, Japan. And on top of that, looked at Bio-Cup villains, went to the arcade, did some alt-building, revived old LEGO themes and 12V train track and talked (to) Big Planes. In fact, we’ve published so many interesting articles in May, that we’ve included an interactive calendar of them at the bottom of this post so you can make sure you didn’t miss a thing.

But there are many more fascinating stories to be told from within the LEGO community, so here are some of the best LEGO articles and videos that caught our contributors’ attention throughout the month of June. We applaud the effort that went into each of these features, so click on the headlines or photos to head to each story or video. They are well worth your time!

Beyond the Brick: Massive LEGO Cyberpunk City Built by 80 People! New Hashima at Brickworld Chicago 2023

If there was a single LEGO video to watch this past month, it would have been this: Beyond the Brick covering what is likely the most impressive collaboration a LEGO convention has seen to this day. 2.5 hours of Cyberpunk city goodness, talking to organisers and builders, covering details and more… You better grab some popcorn!

Brick Model Railroader: Brickworld Chicago 2023 Charity Auction Train

Brickworld’s Charity Auction is a big affair every single year, and so is auctioning off a charity auction train. This year’s was by none other than Cale Leiphart and in this article he covers how it all came into being, going all the way back to 2015 when Anthony Sava kicked it off as a friendly challenge between builders.

Cheesey Studios: Revisiting Eco-Force - Wave One

Caleb is back for another look at some retro LEGO sets - this time he's covering the first wave of Exo-Force, along with its lore!

New Elementary: Old Elementary: Cannon Fodder - parts 84943 & 2527 analysis and MOCs

New Elementary was on fire this month - a smorgasbord of no more than 14 properly nerdy articles served a delightful variety of elemental goodness. One of the highlights was their deep dive into old pirate elements - who else but New Elementary dismantles a cannon to then build MOCs with the components?

StoneWars: Second chance for the mushroom house! Conversion work from the LEGO Ideas project to the BrickLink Designer Program (translated)

For the Bricklink Designer Program Jonas Kramm was trying to give a second life to his rejected LEGO Ideas project. In his article over on StoneWars he covers the changes the project had to go through to fit the BDP - from simple things like replacing bricks all the way to rethinking the concept of accessing the back. It’s an interesting glimpse into the complexity of custom models and might help people interested in joining the BDP.

Stuck in Plastic: NASA Mars Rover Perseverance

You don’t have to travel to Mars to put the new LEGO Technic set in situ. Sweden seems to be just as good to capture the sparren landscape of the red planet. Stuck in Plastic are at it again, doing what they do best: Turning pictures of toys into art!

Tips & Bricks: Fir Tree Techniques

Fir trees come in all kinds of shapes and sizes - and techniques, as Tips & Bricks proves with their round-up. Click through to find out what pieces builders have used over the years to capture the iconic trees - there’s everything from classic leaves to flower stalks.

Tips & Bricks: Boat Hull Techniques

One of the toughest things to replicate with LEGO are organic shapes. The supreme discipline there might just be boat hulls where complex shapes have to not only replicate their real-life counterpart but also lend structural integrity. Tips & Bricks had a great overview of different boat hull techniques this month!

True North Bricks: FLEGO Spinosaurus Repaint

Not a fan of existing color schemes of elements? Why not repaint them? At. least that’s what True North Brick’s Tom thought when he picked up a third-party Spinosaurus. While not technically LEGO, the techniques covered in this article also apply to customising the real deal.

If all of those amazing features weren’t enough to satisfy your LEGO community craving, here is an interactive calendar of everything that BrickNerd has published this last month to make sure you didn’t miss a single article.

Did we miss any of your favorite LEGO articles and content for the month? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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