The Best of BrickNerd 2021
/What was your favorite article on BrickNerd this year? There are so many to choose from! We’ll start by asking the BrickNerd contributors themselves what article they most enjoyed (by another contributor, naturally) and why. These were seriously hard to nail down since BrickNerd has posted DAILY this year.
Yeah, yeah, another “end-of-the-year filler article” you might say. But it’s a good time to highlight the changes that have taken place on BrickNerd this year and to acknowledge the hard work that’s gone into it. So let’s begin with the Best of Bricknerd 2021!
Bart: I’ll kick things off with my choice, Not Just Street Art, It’s Dijon Street Art by Samuel Pister, aka Pistash. What I enjoyed about this piece was how Sam observed M’Brick’s street art there in France, tracked down the mysterious artist, then followed up with an interview about all the other things he’s involved with. Just taking pictures of what was readily available to the public at large would have been great on its own. But Sam went the extra mile. And I think that really shows what the new BrickNerd is all about.
Ted: My favorite article from this year is Becoming an AFOL: My LEGO Journey to BrickFair Virginia 2021 by Liz Puleo. What makes it special is that it is the direct result of BrickNerd’s mission to build connections within the LEGO hobby. Liz first found us in her search for an article on sorting, and to her surprise discovered that she is a part of a diverse, international AFOL community. This snow-balled into her becoming a BrickNerd patron, becoming inspired to attend her first convention, building a MOC to display at said convention, and then finally writing a guest article about all her experiences. It was a joy to read, and I am sure will inspire other people to attend their own first conventions as well.
John: My favorite article(s) were Beatlemania: LEGO Album Covers Part 1 & 2. I chose these for two reasons. 1: Thirteen excellent MOCs! 2: Gwyneth captures the wide range of emotions that can occur when pouring your heart into MOCs. Inspiration, intimidation, encouragement, discouragement, hopefulness, weariness, persistence and validation. We can all relate to many of these at one time or another. Creating MOCs is often a journey, and the final photo(s) posted online only represent the finish line.
Doug: This particular article stood out to me as it exemplified how Dave and the new team wanted to branch out and look at the larger ecosystem of the LEGO hobby and explore so many fun random aspects beyond just the MOCs themselves. The story began with a MOC, but became an adventure with royalty involved! Such a neat tale and Are is a great story teller so the ride along the way was quite entertaining!
Are: I’m going to cheat a bit by picking not one article but three, and I’m going to get away with it because they are sort of stuck together: Our SNOT series by guest writer Oscar Cederwall (o0ger). A Short History of SNOT; LEGO SNOT Basics: Geometry, Techniques and Pitfalls; and LEGO SNOT: Advanced Techniques and Implementations were posted in February, March, and May, respectively. They contain such an incredibly useful insight into this building technique, and are so brilliantly illustrated, that they are worth bookmarking, all three. Even though I knew most of the tricks already, it’s just so handy to have them all in one place, and I know I’ll be coming back to them again and again.
Gwyneth: So, my first thought was, "I had the biggest laugh all year at Ted's toilet roundup"... but I thought that maybe I shouldn't highlight my puerility. (Maybe?) Then, I thought of several hardcore Nerdy dives. I learned a lot from so many articles, but they stick out as a group, and I can't pick just one! Same logjam with Malin's honest, poignant accounts about struggle and art. In the end, I'm going with Teresa's inaugural article about collecting creatures. I am a fan of "weird bits", charts, and being in tune with one's own collection in one's own way. This article had all three - a delightfully nerdy triumvirate.
Malin: I love sorting and this is still my favorite article of the year. I like how Ted makes everyone feel at ease about how they choose to organize their building space. We all have our own style and need to find out how we like to have our building space so we feel comfortable to be creative. The article also gives us an insight in how to save ideas for builds to come and much more!
Dan: The story is awesome and I loved reading about. It got me dreaming about visiting events like Skærbæk Fan Weekend. I was planning on visiting the LEGO House last year, but with covid and everything, I had to postpone it. Without sounding strange, but I do want to stay in a cabin with other AFOLs talking about LEGO all night long :D And if possible, have the same overload as Are had! With few words, this article inspired me a lot and I would love to visit a LEGO event somewhere, anywhere. Never been to one yet, but hopefully next year I'll make a debut.
Geneva: We build and we take pictures and we sort, and then we build and we take pictures and we sort--but the people who've inspired us and the people we inspire mean far more than the old pictures gathering dust at the back of a photostream. Visors in Darkness has the great LEGO builds, it has the interviews, and it has the nerdy look at a little niche of the LEGO community--but it also is a compelling personal story of Simon's journey as an inspiration to other builders.
Ann: 'Deep Dives' is one of the treasures that LEGO fans can find in our BrickNerd community. If you like to find the origins and inspirations of the well-known LEGO lines, you will definitely enjoy the article created by Griffin Rose - 'Everything You Want to Know About LEGO Adventurers' looks like a colorful book about the Adventurers' spectacular travels, their history; the locations, perfectly illustrated with their real-life counterparts. Griffin's article proves that LEGO is more than bricks: the design of the 'Adventurers' sets is a great reflector of the history and culture. Thank you for this amazing reading, Griffin!
Markus: With ‘Travel Posters‘ last year’s edition of Space Jam offered one of the most novel contest categories I had seen so far. While graphical designs and immersive scenes are gradually becoming more prevalent in the community, this category specifically lead to a huge influx of very different LEGO MOCs – and Geneva interviewed the smart minds behind some of most inspiring ones! I love a peek behind the curtain as much as anyone – and this article came with seven of them!
Michael J.: I’ve learned so much in the last year from my fellow contributors, as we took what Tommy started and got even Nerdier! So many deep dives into niches in our hobby I haven’t had a chance to explore, tutorials on uping your photography and building game, conversations with builders not just pithy descriptions, and a place for the greater AFOL community to interact. I went with Simon’s photo tips piece. Great reference material!
Caleb: I've always loved good worldbuilding, whether it's Lord of the Rings, Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Star Wars. As such, the idea and lore of Hibernia really appealed to me, and Habitation on Hibernia served as a great introduction into this amazing, icy world. The fact that it's built by so many different builders in such a vast range of styles, and yet still all works so well together to create one unified world is amazing to see.
Andreas: I really enjoyed Are’s 30-mile walk story for Fairy Bricks. It was an interesting story that highlighted some of the best stuff within the AFOL community—giving back to the community—something that I think and hope that BrickNerd is all about. So that’s what made it stick out to me among all the great stuff that we’ve been able to come up with over the past year.
Inez: I picked Malin’s article because I loved her raw honesty about her struggles and difficulties. I also loved it because I could relate on so many levels, especially on her use of LEGO as therapy. In the past year, I have come to appreciate LEGO as so much more than a toy. It has become a means to connect, not only with others around the world, but with myself as well. I feel that Malin perfectly captured the journey of so many, including myself, who have turned to LEGO as a means to heal.
Dave: Whew, thankfully no one took my favorite one, Pedro’s epic “Stickers of Ninjago City” article. This piece is SERIOUSLY nerdy in such an approachable way. It discusses both the new and old of LEGO by showcasing the amazing graphic design of one of the year’s hottest sets and thoroughly documents what those Easter eggs were referring to. It remains one of the best articles that I hope we can continue to live up to as we look at the year to come.
So there you have it, BrickNerd fans, your Year in Review for 2021! We’ve seen a lot of changes in the past twelve months, and I think we’ve picked a representative variety of articles that highlight the new direction here. We hope you’ve enjoyed looking back at these posts, and that you stick with us for another exciting year of deep-dives, in-depth interviews, and general LEGO Nerdiness!
What was your favorite article from the last year? What would you like to see next year? Let us know your story in the comments!
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