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 Builder 1-on-1. The final round just wrapped, during which participants were tasked with making creations featuring the air scoop engine element over two weeks. 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,...

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. The post A city hidden in the jaws of the deep appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Norm Harper

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! The post Here’s to good fortune in the new year appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Norm Harper

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...

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! The post Working the bugs out of the latest Ninjago monster appeared first on The Brothers Brick. Original linkOriginal author: Jake Forbes (TBB Managing Editor)