Today is AFOL Day at the LEGO House in Billund, which is the sort-of-official start of the Skærbæk Fan Weekend, the world’s most international LEGO event. I figured this would be a good day to tell you about my very first encounter with other adult enthusiasts of the brick—you see, I dove straight in at the deep end! Me at my very first LEGO event, with my new friends Megan Rothrock and Mark Stafford. Many people probably start their AFOL life when they meet somebody else who turns out to be a LEGO fan, and then visit a local show, before maybe eventually working their way up to an international event. Not so with me: My very first encounter with AFOLs was at the LEGO Fan Weekend (now Skærbæk Fan Weekend) in 2012, which makes this sort of an anniversary year for me: It’s the tenth year of me going to...

Apart from my dark-age gap of about 14 years, I've built Technic since my parents bought me set 850, the forklift from the first wave of Technic sets in 1977. I've a thing for tinkering with mechanisms. I take things apart to find out how they work, and put them back together. When my first motorbike died I had two options: buy another engine, or buy tools, parts and a book to repair/rebuild what I had. So I learnt what an engine looks like on the inside. I've always had GBC on my "some day" project list. It's a long list, and I'm not a prolific builder, so it's taken me a while to actually get started... Gotta Start Somewhere My first GBC module Last year I built a module using leftover parts from another project; lavender bricks and curved slopes, and white fences. It ran as a guest module in...

Color is a funny thing. On the one hand, it’s subjective; there is no universal favorite color. But on the other hand, it’s objective; a company like LEGO needs everyone to agree on what the color blue is. LEGO colors similarly have a duality. They need to be descriptive, understandable, and static while also changing over time to meet current consumer preferences. These changing needs are how, over time, you find yourself explaining to kids what ‘Azure’ means or how they get the sand in sand green. With that conversation in mind, I assembled my brain trust (i.e. my three boys, ages 4,6, & 8) once more to see if a topic makes any sense to LEGO’s core demographic. Previously, the brain trust looked at symbology in LEGO instructions and part names/acronyms from the AFOL community. This time, we’re going to dive into the wacky world of LEGO color names. According...

Welcome back everyone! Not sure why, but over the last few years, I´ve noticed more and more owl MOCs showing up in my Flickr-feed. And I must admit, I really like it! So for the beginning of autumn, I decided to dig around and find some great examples of owl-builds from around the community. Without further ado, let´s have a look at a parliament of LEGO owls. Colorful Characters We start off with one of my absolute favourites, this beauty by DOGOD Brick Design. The eyes, making great use of some of the pieces found in the recent botanical sets, are just stunning. And the colour scheme overall is truly magnificent. Overall, this build makes great use of a variety of pieces and you just get happy when looking at it. Moving on we have this regal character by Djokson. I really dig the pose and the slightly menacing look of...

It's difficult to believe that I'm writing my 4th article about the one-of-kind LEGO Train fan event Bauspielbahn-Treffen 2024 (BSBT)--and my 3rd as a participant! Ever since learning about this event's existence, I have been a committed fan and supporter. As a reminder, BSBT is a LEGO fan event dedicated exclusively to trains, and takes place in the charming town of Schkeuditz, just 12 km northwest of Leipzig, Germany. My previous BrickNerd articles discussing BSBT are linked here for 2021, 2022, and 2023. For this article, I'm going to recount my BSBT 2024 experience in the style of a "travelogue" -- or "VLOG" style for folks familiar with the video equivalent! Wheels Up to Berlin? It all starts with the travel itinerary. As you can see from my Air Canada booking, it is a busy collection of flights including three German airports. Why so many? Predictably, it’s because of model trains!...