LEGO Community Headlines and Highlights for April 2024

April comes to an end and while the birds are busy chirping outside, it’s time for your monthly treat that is our monthly LEGO community round-up! So sit back and enjoy this month’s collection of insightful articles, deep drives and interesting features 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 visited Bendigo Bricks in Australia and to Bricks Cascade in Portland, Oregon, took a trip down LEGO butterfly memory lane, and asked kids about LEGO part names. We learned how to build small and different wall textures, used Duplo for some wild NPU, and looked at standards for collaborative builds. And we built a shipping container, highlighted LEGO garages and igloos, and found hidden words in MOCs. We even looked at LEGO’s IP partnerships and their updated brand identity. In fact, we’ve published so many interesting articles in April 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 April. 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!

Ben Cossy: How I Built This Huge LEGO Medieval Inn

Ben Cossy takes us with him as he builds a detailed medieval inn, highlighting lots of interesting techniques that make up this build: Offsets, interesting windows, too many clips and bars to count, and wonderful rainbow bricks on the inside!

Beyond the Brick: Top 10 Epic LEGO Models at Bricks Cascade 2024 LEGO Convention

Bricks Cascade is one of the prime LEGO conventions in the American Northwest. Held in late March this year, hundreds of builders flocked to Portland, Oregon to display their creations – watch Beyond the Brick cover ten of the most outstanding MOCs there.

Brickset: LEGO Piece Count Inflation - What's Up With That?

Inflation is a much-talked-about topic in this current economy. More and more it also comes up when talking about LEGO sets and (not only) their piece counts. Over the years the piece counts have been growing steadily – and one wonders why that might be. This article explains some of the reasons – and yes, we kinda knew it all along!

Bricks Fanatics: Assessing the State of LEGO Star Wars in 2024

LEGO Star Wars turned 25 this year. A tremendous feat for a toy line – time for Brick Fanatics to look back and examine the current state of things: What is LEGO Star Wars doing well and where could it do better?

Bricks Fanatics: How LEGO and Star Wars Teamed Up For Something Special in 1999

A second article over on Brick Fanatics this month took a deep dive into the history of LEGO Star Wars and looked back at how it all came together. Travel back in time to the year 1998 and find out where the line “Over my dead body” fits into all of this!

Bricks Fanatics: Women in LEGO Star Wars - Building a Space in the Community

LEGO Star Wars is such a male-dominated space – reason enough for Brick Fanatics to sit down with female creators about their experiences and how the space has evolved. From having to prove oneself to bringing unique perspectives, this article offers an interesting insight into a still often overlooked part of our community.

Cheesey Studios: BrickLink - Finding Parts and Using Wanted Lists

Anyone familiar with BrickLink will remember the initial confusion this website can cause. This video will help with some of that and explain how you can use the extensive catalogue to find pieces and how to use the powerful wanted list feature.

DuckBricks: Ninjago Skybound - Cancelled Sets, Concept Art, and Prototypes

‘Ninjago: Skybound’ really pushed the envelope with its steampunk aesthetic and cool pirate theme. DuckBricks dives into the pitch, unreleased sets, concept art, and prototypes to uncover what might have been.

Gizmodo: The Evolution of LEGO's Classic Space Line

We surely all have seen this year’s big branding initiative across a lot of the LEGO product lines: “Space” adorns many of the boxes on the shelves right now – time for Gizmodo to uncover where it all began and how it has changed over the years. A trip down memory lane with a lot of AFOL favorites!

Kos Brick: LEGO City Mini Vehicles - Part 2 (Tutorial)

Kosmas Santosa of Kos Brick has been putting out a flurry of mini builds these past few months. This month’s highlight was this tutorial round-up of various mini vehicles: With a hot dog truck or a hovercraft there’s something for everyone here!

matyho kostky: How the Million-Part Hogwarts Castle Was Built (translated)

Most of us will remember seeing Marek’s truly giant Hogwarts castle – but did you know it even made the Czech Book of Records? This article chronicles how it came into being, from planning to sourcing parts to moving locations to just being able to build the impressive castle. What a feat – maybe this article will inspire another colossal MOC?

MitchBuilds: I Built a Giant Zelda Boss Out of LEGO

If you have even an inkling of interest in the Constraction genre or are a MOC builder looking to see new techniques, this almost half-hour-long video will cover both those things perfectly. MitchBuilds explains every connection and brick used in his giant LEGO King Gleeok from The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom as it comes together.

New Elementary: LEGO Part 5404 - Grateless Cheese Grater

‘Grate’ or not, a new slope warrants an analysis by New Elementary’s resident angle-builder extraordinaire Tom Loftus. While we still wonder what nickname the community will give this grateless cheese grater, Tom’s been busy exploring how it fits into the LEGO System and what angles and curves it allows for. Proper nerdy!

Solid Brix Studios: The Rarest LEGO Star Wars Collection You'll Ever See

It’s a catchy title for sure, and one might click on it just for that. But this video by Solid Brix Studios is so much more: 50+ minutes of obscure LEGO (Star Wars) artifacts and background stories, from Inside Tour sets to minifigures made from rare earth metals – this video has it all.

StoneWars: Buying and Selling Used LEGO Sets (translated)

A big part of our hobby is the market for used sets and parts – classifieds, eBay, pick your poison. Like with anything else, there are potential pitfalls though, so Stonewars has written a handy guide helping you sell (or buy) that used set of yours!

StoneWars: Minifig Scale - Is There a Correct Scale for LEGO Minifigures? (translated)

Terms such as “minifig scale” are thrown around constantly – but what do they actually mean? Stonewars does a deep dive into various LEGO scales, be it minifig or architecture scale. It’s a proper nerdy article with numbers and examples from across the LEGO history so we’re sure you might learn a thing or two!

The LEGO Car Blog: Find My Car in LEGO, Part 2

The LEGO Car Blog is a brilliant outlet featuring some of the best LEGO vehicles from across the internet. They recently published a handy guide on how to find the various car brands of which they’ve featured MOCs of over the years – if you are trying to do some research into car building, this second part of their “Find My Car” series will be perfect for you!

The Rambling Brick: We Talk to Graham Hancock, author of LEGO Star Wars: The Force of Creativity

As the editor of Blocks Magazine Graham Hancock is no stranger to the LEGO community. But he’s also the author of the forthcoming coffee table book ‘LEGO Star Wars: The Force of Creativity’ – a much-talked about compendium celebrating 25 years of LEGO Star Wars. Time for The Rambling Brick to sit down with him to talk about what’s inside!

Tips&Bricks: Representation in LEGO Hairpieces

Representing yourself in LEGO minifigure form has never been easier – but there are still gaps in the hairdressing department. Find out more about the history of LEGO hairpieces, what strides LEGO has made already, and what might still be missing in this insightful discussion about LEGO hairpieces.

Tips&Bricks: Technique Analysis of Cad Bane & Todo by @gghost_123

If you know your Star Wars, you know Cad Bane. And if you know the MOCing community, you know gGhost – and his amazingly detailed MOC of said bounty hunter. Tips&Bricks did an in-depth analysis on this blue-skinned fellow and his droid – mind-blowing stuff!

Tips&Bricks: LEGO Train Techniques 2

LEGO trains are some uniquely complex machines. Usually filled to the brim with intricate SNOT work, they not only need to look the part, but they also need to work. Tips&Bricks uncovered some more secrets that make those MOCs tick – everything from angles to boiler designs!

True North Bricks: How to Build a Frog Using LEGO Bricks

Did you know that World Frog Day is a thing? March 20th every year is dedicated to raising awareness for frogs and other amphibians – a great reason for True North Bricks to publish free instructions for a cute brick-built frog!

Variety: How LEGO Series ‘Ninjago: Dragons Rising’ Breathed Fire Into the 13-Year-Old Franchise

In human terms, LEGO Ninjago would be a teenager these days – older than its target demographic one might say. Just recently ‘Ninjago: Dragons Rising‘ breathed new fire into the beloved toy franchise – time for Variety to examine what happens behind the scenes and to sit down with the show’s creators.

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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