The Unexpected Joys of Embracing Friendshiptember

This may horrify Aubree, but my first Friends set was a GWP poly bag whose minidolls were promptly tossed aside and had to be hunted down when I did my first Friendshiptember. It has since been one of my favorite build challenges of the year. There is no other like it.

Friendshiptember, quite simply, is an Instagram build challenge in September with loose rules. You build a ship (spaceship, boat, airship, etc.) inspired by Friends (such as color palette, certain sets, and overall themes) and using minidolls, during the month of September. It was originally started by Aubree (Moctura_) (yes, the lover of all things Nightmare Before Christmas) and Martin Harris (bricksnaps) and is currently hosted by Aubree and Kate (brickhuntress) of the Let’s Build Challenge.

Like many in the LEGO community, I was not a fan of minidolls. And at the time, I had no interest in Friends sets. I’m also a guy (BrickBuiltJosh) known more for fantasy and pop culture builds, and not the only guy to enthusiastically join Friendshiptember. Martin Harris (co-founder with Aubree), Simon Liu, Moto, Ted Andes, and others have all been big supporters and participants.

The Friendship Flying Narwhal by Merideth (@_pinkwheels_), and co-host for 2023.

So if you don’t know LEGO Friends characters Aliya from Autumn, well… neither do I. Because you don’t need to be a Friends fan. And if your minidolls are more likely to be found in the land of forgotten LEGO than ever used in a MOC (Aubree, close your eyes), I still am mostly with you despite having no hate for the minidoll. They’re just not my thing. No judgment. I support anyone who loves them.

Now this seems like a strange way to start an article on an Instagram challenge that’s largely inspired by the Friends theme and requires the use of minidolls instead of our beloved minifigures. But if you already loved minidolls and already were a Friends super fan, I don’t have much to add. Just go there, have fun, you’ll love it!

But if you’re like me and are a builder whose only Friends set was a free GWP polybag with the minidolls given away… well, then I’m here to shed some light on why you still need to try Friendshiptember. 

The Aurora by Ant bandit

Why Friendshiptember?

So why join the growing annual Friendshiptember challenge happening right now and every September? Yes, you should join the fun even if your typical color palette is black and very very dark gray… even if you’re a Star Wars or medieval builder… and even if the sight of the color “coral” makes your eyes hurt a little.

There’s no Friends super-fan card required. Because at the heart of this is really not just about the Friends theme but what the Friends theme has done to broaden the LEGO community, appeal to more girls and women to enter the community, and explore color in a way that is largely absent in the majority of MOCs we see online and at cons.

Petal to the Metal by Sage Summers including creative use of surfboards and botanical set parts.

The truth is, there are so many great reasons to jump in, but where to start? I think I’ll start with the thing that attracted me most to the challenge—the opportunity to explore color.

The Freedom (and Challenge) to Explore Color to its Fullest

My first Friendshiptember was when I was still new to building my own creations (MOCs) in 2022, and the second year of Friendshiptember. It wasn’t even a year since I started building, and the thing that attracted me was the opportunity to express a different use of color. Many of us get stuck in a narrow sliver of the color wheel such as grays and earth tones. Friendshiptember challenges us to expand our color expression, experiment, or just have fun with it.

In my second year, I (BrickBuiltJosh) really expanded on my use of color for one of my favorite builds, the Dragon Airship Adventure. There are all these colors and all these parts that are just waiting to be explored, including weird things like the large trans dark pink bulb from the Trolls theme (in the back), or the azure blue banana leaves and turquoise leaves, or the lime green printed hexagonal tiles from the Tinker Bell Brickheadz. LEGO has had an explosion of color possibilities, especially since themes like Elves and Friends came out, just waiting to be taken advantage of.

The Dragon Airship Adventure by Josh Parkinson (@BrickBuiltJosh)

Whether you believe it or not, all of us builders are creative artists. And understanding color really elevates our creations. Expanding our palette, even if it’s just an accent here and there, helps make our builds stand out, grab attention, and add depth and richness. Especially so in themes that are dominated by the same old colors over and over again.

6887-FS: Friendship Protector by Dana Knudson (troublesbricking)

Friendshiptember is, to me, a celebration of color and the challenge and freedom to use entire swaths of the color wheel we barely touch. It opens the doors to experiment and explore so we can broaden our capabilities and creative eye. And for good builders who haven’t explored these colors before, this presents a worthy challenge to figure out how to use them in an effective way. Because it’s not always easy compared to marrying somber earth tones together.

Hands down, a better grasp of color will make you a better builder. And a more versatile color palette in your skillset will bring new life to your work.

Friends Tea Ceremony Boat by Kristel Whitaker

When it comes to Friends colors, what colors are we actually talking about? Generally they’re more saturated hues, but not always. Sand green is a good example of a less saturated but fairly common color coming up in Friends sets, but beloved by many others. But to get a good idea of colors let’s explore some of the sets themselves.

The Renaissance in Friends Sets Opening Possibilities

Even AFOLs who never gave Friends sets a second thought have been swayed to the ‘bright side’ in recent years. The flow of excellent sets and the refinement of color, parts usage, and detail has really elevated Friends beyond your standard “children’s” LEGO theme.

Sets like the Andrea's Theater School, Botanical Garden, Andrea's Modern Mansion, and Castle Bed and Breakfast, and others have wooed AFOLs to give a second look to the theme. Even space fans have given a side-eyed glance of admiration to the siren call of the recent Friends Space Research Rover, and with good reason.

So why does this make Friendshiptember so attractive right now? Because this renaissance has brought us more parts, more inspiration, and a wider variety of minidolls to work with. This is especially true when you consider the explosion of Disney and other minidoll based sets. Minidolls now even come in a variety of space styles, along with minidolls that can be easily used for more fantasy or medieval style builds. 

And who can resist a space cat or space pooch?! Not me, that’s for sure. We now have both.

With the new announcements of a wider range of themes with the Wednesday minidolls and Wicked minidolls, there’s even more variety to customize your own minidoll figures for any style and theme. Plus, there’s the old Elves theme, which has a lot of fantasy-based minidolls.

As you can see here, there’s actually tremendous potential to customize all kinds of figures, including these put together based on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Llano (femmefromtheblock).

League of Extraordinary Gentlefriends by @femmefromtheblock

And the ship, The Nautilus!

You may not be a fan of minidolls generally. That’s okay (although Aubree may “boo” your sentiment as she did me, ha!). You can just use the minidolls for Friendshiptember and you don’t have to use them anywhere else. Again, any creator needs to experiment and try new things to get better, boost their creativity, and open up new ideas. So give it a try, especially if you’re in a rut. It’s not the end of the world guys!

Friends Style Speeder by Loke (byggi_l), a TFOL

Try Something Different, Have Some Fun

Look, there’s no shortage of serious challenges out there on the common themes of space, fantasy, etc. I can guarantee you this will be a completely different challenge for you. It will get you to have fun with it, to try new things, to open your imagination and get your creative juices flowing.

And it’s a fun one. It’s hard to take it too seriously with a color palette like this. And it’s ripe for mash-ups and recolors - such as Star Wars vehicles and pirate ships. It’s great for outlandish stories, hilarious goofy concepts, and unexpected surprises.

Recolored Star Wars Microfighters by cynthia_brickbuilds

Like Moto’s rainbow pirate take on TIE Fighter.

The Pirate In Eye (PIE) Fighter by Moto

Or a spaceship designed around Stratocasters.

Friender Stratoblaster by Rick Brickham

Or even a space hippo! Proving people just like to have fun with this.

Space hippo by Martin Harris (bricksnaps)

Surprisingly Cheap Parts and Figures

Here’s a secret benefit for Friendshiptember - the parts (and minidolls) are often cheap or even given away! I mean how great is that? If you don’t have minidolls, I bet there are plenty of AFOLs happy to get rid of theirs. And the colors pioneering in Friends sets tend to be overlooked and are cheap on places like BrickLink. You may even have those colors collecting away in some forgotten corner of your parts collection waiting for an opportunity to shine.

With some exceptions, many parts in colors like cool yellow, flame yellowish orange, lavenders and purples, lime green, pinks, turquoise, certain trans colors, and others are often all dirt cheap on the second-hand market, making it easy to afford going all out on this challenge and experimenting with these colors. Often they’re cheaper than online Pick-a-Brick as well. The exception would be something like Sand Green, which is very popular outside Friends. Or certain molds that are rare in those plentiful colors.

Valkyrie Alien Pet Exploration Research SHIP by Chris Giddens (Fazoom7)

This opens tons of opportunities to play and experiment and join in without breaking the bank. Like trying for a 100+ stud Shiptember ship like the one above that’s also for Friendshiptember! And it gives you an outlet for any of those colors and parts that you might just never have known how to use.

Broadening the LEGO Community

I waited a little to introduce this, even though it’s super important and another driver for my enthusiasm for Friendshiptember, because this isn’t a political/social justice thing to me, and you don’t need to be motivated by that to join in. I’m primarily about the builds.

Elsa's Frozen Spaceship by TheNaterater

BUT… it’s pretty great to know you can have this much fun, grow as a builder experimenting with color and different themes, and also do something that broadens the LEGO community. Truth is, the Friends theme and minidolls in general have probably done more to bring in girls and women to the hobby (and others who wouldn’t have otherwise) than any other theme.

That enriches the LEGO community whether you’re into the theme or not. Not only the diversity of the community but the diversity of the builds. The creativity of the AFOL collective body of work grows with it. It also brings in new creative voices we would never have had if we had focused exclusively on our traditional, often male-dominated themes.

Build by Jennie Lindell

Our cons are better for it. Our online media is better for it. And public support is better for it. Aubree describes a big part of her original motivation for starting Friendshiptember:

“I want people to see the importance of LEGO Friends. In its creation, it was made for little girls ages 5-8. Girls who had been told for years that LEGO is for boys. Women have struggled to be accepted into the LEGO community. Every friendship built means so much to me because it is a symbol of acceptance. Girls and women belong in LEGO.”

You don’t have to be a social justice warrior to appreciate what that brings to the LEGO community and the work we create. As someone who considers himself an artist as much as a builder, I love to see variety and unexpected things, whether that’s in my newsfeed or on the con floor. It enriches what we love and everything we do as creators.

Friendshiptember has already had an impact on brightening and diversifying what we see from builders. Aubree let me know that “One of the main things people say about Friendshiptember is how colorful their Instagram feed gets in September!”

Friendshiptember fleets have also been making an increasing presence at cons where multiple participants get together to display together. As Aubree puts it:

“There have been Friendshiptember tables at Atlanta BrickCon, BrickWorld Chicago, and BrickSlopes that I have facilitated, but others have taken their ships and created friendship fleets on their own, which I love! It is always so fun to see how the public interacts with any display, but Friendshiptember displays always get comments about how fun and colorful the ships are.”

The friendship fleet at @atlantabrickcon 2024

For those who want to join in on a con display, she typically posts on the Friendshiptember page which conventions there will be displays at, and how to register your ship if you want to display at that show!

The Story of Friendshiptember

So where did Friendshiptember come from? Well, let me bring Aubree herself to tell the story:

Friends is a very important LEGO theme to me. It’s the theme that inspired me to build my own creations long before I knew what a MOC was or that there was a whole community out there. I loved building the sets with my daughters, seeing the clever techniques used to make play functions and objects you would find in your every day life. It really got me excited to build the world around me. 

In fact, the first MOC I ever showed at a convention was a tattoo booth my husband and I built together. We displayed it at a tattoo convention. It was so fun! The kids loved it and I had made micro planes and trains to give out to the kids who took an interest in the fun things at our booth. 

LEGO had some successful themes (which I still adore, especially Belville) before Friends that were meant to get girls involved in building but none of them worked quite like Friends. There are a variety of reasons for this, which I could talk about for days and days, but the point is, Friends worked! 

Airship by Dana (virginia_bricks)

In fact, when Friends was released in 2012, Olivia’s house was the best selling LEGO product of that year. Out selling Star Wars, City, Ninjago, you get the idea. It was something LEGO fans, especially little girls, had been waiting for! 

3315 Olivia's House, photo from brickset.com

Fast forward to 2020 when I entered the LEGO community. (Pretty late for someone who had a basement full of LEGO, but that’s another story). I found that Friends was strongly disliked. People DID NOT like the sets, the colors, or the minidolls. I honestly found this a bit shocking because I knew how beloved these sets were by myself, my children, and their friends. It seemed strange. 

I did find a few people who were fans of the theme, one of them being Martin (@bricksnaps). We brainstormed how we could get more people building with Friends elements and enjoying the theme. Martin had built some really incredible Friends-ified Star Wars ships with minidoll pilots. Those, plus Simon Liu’s “FriendSHIP One,” were major inspirations for Friendshiptember! 

Portion of Friendship One by Simon Liu

We decided to put out a challenge on Instagram for people to build FriendShips! We wanted this challenge to be really accessible so there are fairly minimal requirements. Build some type of ship, and Friends-ify it in some way! Use minidolls! We had WAY more people participate than what we thought we’d get and it was a lot of fun. So I decided to keep it going in the following years! 

There have been so many people that have helped with Friendshiptember, but there are a few who really stand out as key components. Martin as a co-creator of the challenge in 2021, Simon Liu and Ted Andes who have been so supportive, Merideth (@_pinkwheels_) who basically ran the entire challenge in 2023. (I seriously could not have done it without her, and she was going through cancer treatment at the time. She is a saint.)

Most of all, my husband Cole. He has done the majority of the artwork I use for posts, he builds awesome ships for it every year, helps with the logistics of conventions. All around, he’s my biggest supporter and makes so much of Friendshiptember possible. 

Merideth's (@_pinkwheels_) Build: "Last year Lego asked me to take the lego classic space Galaxy Explorer set and rebuilt it with inspiration from Friends."

This year, 2024, teaming up with Kate (@brickhuntress) and her @letsbuildseries challenge she runs for #LetsBuildFriendshiptemeber!  

Perfect For All Skill Levels

Since starting, Friendshiptember has grown a life of its own. It’s expanded to bring in people like me who just love the creative challenge, the freedom to try new things and work with unusual colors, and just have fun with it. While also knowing it helps to bring more people, particularly girls and women (and others who may not have seen a place for them traditionally), into the hobby, and gives them more to get excited about at cons.

Friendshiptember is perfect both for experienced builders wanting something new and different to flex their creative muscles, and for brand new builders to try their hand at building their own creation (a MOC). The rules and expectations are very open. And there’s no pressure to be the “best” builder, win a trophy against the more experienced builders, or feel you have to go big.

The Jetson by Kristel Whitaker

When I asked what advice she’d want to give to new participants, Aubree let me know:

“When I first started building my own creations, it felt very intimidating. All of the builds I saw online were HUGE. I had no idea how you even acquired so much brick. I didn’t want that challenge to feel that way. I wanted it to feel like anyone could participate. Whether you’ve never built your own creation before or if you’ve been building your entire life and you do know how to get that much brick, Friendshiptember is meant for everyone. 

It is so special to me when people build their first MOC for this challenge. Or when someone buys a Friends set and uses the bricks to make a ship. Or when someone takes the whole month building a beautiful, extravagant, well crafted work of art. It all has a place in Friendshiptember.”

By Andy & Maddie AFOL/TFOL, a Dad and Daughter duo - m_and_a_bricks

Now’s the time to get started! Head over to the Friendshiptember Instagram account and follow it, start building, dig up some minidolls to use in it, and post your creation before the end of September. Just make sure when you post that you use the collaboration feature in the post settings to tag the Friendshiptember account as a collaborator. There are instructions on how to do this if you go to Friendshiptember and click on “how to tag”.

Are you ready to take on the challenge? Have you already been participating? If I haven’t convinced you to join this year, I hope I’ve at least given you some compelling reasons to consider bringing more Friends and more color experimentation into your building.

Have you built anything for Friendshiptember? Let us know in the comments below.

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