Another day, another LEGO Masters interview! To close out the season we're going to chat with the second place team today to hear about their time on the show. The interview was conducted by a panel of LEGO fan sites who asked the questions, and the final interview was transcribed by Megan from Brickset, Flynn from The Brothers Brick, Tom from True North Bricks, and BZPower's reporting team. There's a lot of insight about their inspiration, their process, and what the show and their fellow competitors meant to them!  

Season two of LEGO Masters has wrapped up, and a new team of champions has been selected! We had a chance to sit down with all three finalists and today we're chatting with the third place team. The interview was conducted by a panel of LEGO fan sites who asked the questions, and the final interview was transcribed by Megan from Brickset, Flynn from The Brothers Brick, Tom from True North Bricks, and BZPower's reporting team. Let's see what they have to say about the season, their time on the show, and their LEGO life!  

Recently BrickLink announced the models that would be a part of the next wave of crowdfunded sets as part of their BrickLink Designer Program. From the nine projects below, the first five to reach three thousand preorders will go into production:

• Mountain Windmill
• Modular LEGO Store
• Seasons in Time: Calendar
• Retro Bowling Alley
• Brickwest Studios
• Ruined House
• Clockwork Aquarium
• Quest Builder
• Science Adventures

Are there any favorites you'll be supporting when the next round kicks off later this year? I've got my eye on the calendar, but there's a few that look like they'd be fun builds.

With BrickFair New Jersey coming up soon and lots of prep to do for the event, we decided to just do a quick live build this weekend. Join us on Sunday, September 19th at 1 PM Eastern as we assemble some LEGO Disney BrickHeadz! We'll be opening up 40377 Donald Duck, 40476 Daisy Duck, 41617 Elsa, 41618 Anna & Olaf, 41624 Mickey Mouse, and 41625 Minnie Mouse to add them to our collection. To keep things on-brand, we'll be giving away some Disney Collectible Minifigures to people who stop by to watch. We hope to see you over on the BZPower Twitch channel tomorrow!

We thought we were done for a while, but Kamila from the LEGO Ideas team has shared just one more 10k Club interview for our reading pleasure. Head over to the blog to meet Hsinwei Chi, creator of Jazz Quartet, to learn about this Taiwanese master character builder. He brings with him some unique perspectives and experiences that are nice to learn about and worth reading. Go enjoy and we'll see if the Ideas team has any more surprises for next week!

Over on the Star Wars Kids website, a new series of videos was recently added to the LEGO Star Wars: Celebrate the Season collection. Trick-or-Treat, The Pumpkin Batch, Scary Starship, Ghost Ship, and Carving Up the Competition are all under two minutes and feature many of the recently-released LEGO Star Wars sets. So while they are certainly cute and funny, they're also very much marketing material. Go give them a watch and see if they make you laugh!

Sometimes you're inspired to build a LEGO MOC based on source material that is difficult if not impossible to recreate with physical bricks. But thanks to awesome digital building tools, we don't have to be confined by the laws of physics. BZPower member Alucus of the black Abyss wanted to recreate the first appearance of the Makuta (as Teridax was known back then) in the Mata Nui Online Game and has done so with I Am Nothing!, which you can check out in the Bionicle-Based Creations forum. I love their interpretation of the infected Matoran with the stream of pieces coming up behind it to form the frightening, shapeless cloud. The lighting effects really add to the mood and take me back to playing the game in 2001 - I can hear the music in my head. After you're done giving the model a closer look, make sure you take a gander at some of the other awesome creations that Alucus of the black Abyss has been sharing in the BBC forum as well!

Since the LEGO Ideas team is taking a break from 10k Club interviews and no one new has joined the Club, we thought we'd share some projects for your consideration:

• Bionicle: Toa Head Statue by yannickbuildsthings is one of our favorites and we think it deserves your vote
• BIONICLE - Toa Tahu Awakens by wadapan is a fantastic brick-built Tahu that would make a great display piece
• The Great Spirit Robot [Bionicle 20th Anniversary] by Axelford is an impressive and imposing build
• Bionicle Mata Nui Map by grumblebricks is one I would certainly hang on my wall

Best of luck to all of these projects!

Earlier this week, The LEGO Group shared a press release announcing that Children from across the world joined forces to move the world's biggest hauler using only LEGO Technic elements and engineering ingenuity. Thirty-five students spread across the United States, Sweden, Japan, and Nigeria worked together with engineering mentors from The LEGO Group and Volvo to design a way to move a Volvo A60 Articulated Hauler loaded with 45 tons of rocks 50 meters using only LEGO pieces. The solution they came up with utilized 728,168 LEGO Technic Elements and 1,920 Control+ XL motors and, once built by LEGO Master Builders, took only thirty minutes to move the massive vehicle the required distance. This is truly an impressive achievement of both engineering and teamwork, and all the students should be proud of this amazing accomplishment!

Since we've made it to Wednesday, it means there's a new episode of the LEGO Gaming podcast Bits N' Bricks for everyone to listen to. Head over to YouTube or your favorite podcast app to check out Season 3, Episode 33 - Nexo Knights and the Big Bang Theory, which, despite the title, has nothing to do with the sitcom and everything to do with marketing. In this installment, hosts Ethan Vincent and Brian Crecente chat with Daniel Mathiasen, former partnerships and innovations director in the LEGO Front End Innovation team, Mark Hoffmeier, the head writer on Nexo Knights, and Mads Prahm, a production director for the theme. They talk about the process The LEGO Group uses to create a 'big bang' marketing event, including how in-house IPs are developed and how the company works with various partners to make a transmedia launch happen. There's a lot of moving parts and it's interesting to hear how it came together for Nexo Knights!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Since it's that special second day of the week we'll be heading over to the BZPower Twitch channel tonight for our weekly dose of LEGO gaming. After recently completing The LEGO Ninjago Movie Videogame and LEGO Builder's Journey, we're going to be headed back to The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame to pickup where we left off after finishing the main story. I expect there will be a lot of re-learning the layout as we start finding all the collectibles. This is also going to be our last stream for a few weeks as BrickFair New Jersey and some other real life events are coming up that will be keeping me busy. So come by tonight starting at 7 PM Eastern to watch and chat!

Earlier this morning, The LEGO Group and Queer Eye revealed a fabulous set to celebrate creative expression and promote positivity, which will release on October 1st. The set, 10291 Queer Eye - The Fab 5 Loft, contains 974 pieces and includes minifigures of Bobby Berk, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, Karamo Brown, and Jonathan Van Ness as well as Kathi Dooley before and after her transformation on the show. The set was designed by Matthew Ashton, Vice President of Design for The LEGO Group who also designed the Everyone is Awesome set released earlier this year. The model will set you back $100 but is sure to be popular among fans of the show eager to recreate the show's setting and appreciate the myriad little details that Matthew and the LEGO team were able to include.

This morning Kamila posted what is apparently the last in the third batch of 2021 10k Club Interviews over on the LEGO Ideas blog. You can pop on over to meet Marcel Steeman, the Creator of Bike Lanes and see how this Nederlander went viral with his idea for LEGO City. It's really fascinating in this case, as the model is fairly simple but really caught on around social media and even in the news, indicating a lot of interest in the concept. Go see what you can learn from the interview and possibly apply to your own idea in the future!

It's almost time for season two of LEGO Masters to come to an end, but before we get to the finale tomorrow night, we have a chat with the last team to be eliminated. The interview was conducted by a panel of LEGO fan sites who asked the questions, and the final interview was transcribed by Megan from Brickset, Flynn from The Brothers Brick, Tom from True North Bricks, and BZPower's reporting team. Read on to hear about their time on the show, their personal LEGO journeys, and what's next for them in their LEGO lives!  

This past week it was announced that LEGO Monkie Kid Arrived on September 9 on Amazon Kids+, making it the first time the show was officially released in North America. In addition, the sets, which were previously only available through LEGO stores and [email protected], will also be available on Amazon later this fall. If you're not a subscriber to Amazon Kids+, which is a separate service from Prime Video, you'll have to wait a little longer for the first season to be added to the queue for all Prime members. I think overall this is good news, since before now Monkie Kid felt like it might be floundering in North America despite the fantastic sets. Hopefully this will kick-start its popularity and make sure the theme stays around a bit longer.

Let us not forget what happened twenty years ago today. We were here at Kanohi-Power and BionicleZone back then, and we all lived though 9/11/01 as a community. Twenty years later, we are still here, members are still here - and the site, the members, and the world are just a little less innocent because of that day exactly twenty years ago. The world is now different, as is our community that has lived through a difficult time - it is important to remember all those who lost their lives.

There was one last blog post over on LEGO Ideas by Kamila before the work week wrapped up yesterday. You can head over to read the 10K Club Interivew with Brad and Kevin Hehmeyer, the creators of SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy (BFR) to learn about this pair of brothers with a passion for space exploration. It's interesting to hear about their process of designing the model as the actual rocket was going through revisions and changes. As a lover of space discovery myself, I really appreciated their insight, and hopefully we get some more space-themed models out of the program in the future!

Earlier this week a trailer for the latest LEGO Star Wars special went up on YouTube. Head over to check out the LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales Official Trailer to get a taste of the Disney+ exclusive that will air on October 1st. If you've watched any of the other LEGO Star Wars animated shows, you'll see some familiar returning faces like Dean and Graballa the Hutt, as well as Star Wars stalwarts such as Darth Vader, Poe Dameron, and Emperor Palpatine. It looks like it will be a fun way to start the spooky season this October!

Earlier today The LEGO Group lifted the lid on the latest addition to their Creator Expert Winter Village collection of sets. If you're a VIP member, you'll be able to order 10293 Santa's Visit starting next Thursday, September 16th, with the full release on October 1st. The 1445-piece set features a family home on Christmas Eve waiting for Saint Nick to pop down the chimney with his bag of toys and gifts. It looks like there's a lot of great building techniques and design elements, including a light-up Christmas tree. The model will be selling for $100 in the US, and if past launches are any indication, you're going to want to pick yours up as soon as possible if you want to build it in time for the holidays!

The announcements and content over on LEGO Ideas continues to flow. Kamila has shared yet another 10k Club interview: LEGO DNA Double Helix Discovery by Daniel Khosravinia. Learn all about what makes this builder tick and what inspired them to create this scientific MOC. Also, while we don't know which design will become an actual puzzle yet, Jacob has shared the Fan Vote Results for the You're The Final Piece Contest! The winners are all absolutely fantastic and deserve to be checked out and admired. I hope to see one of them as an actual puzzle soon!

After posting some teasers earlier in the year, BZPower member Tattorack has shared the Project Inquilina v1 Release with everyone. The project, as it turns out, is a modern interpretation of the sprite kit concept that was popular in the Comics subforum back in the day. Tattorack has created a basic 3D-modeled Matoran body and a collection of armor, masks, weapons, tools, and other accessories that you can use to your heart's content to make your own custom villagers. The kit is available for free for everyone for noncommercial use, so you can use it to create your own fan animations, videogames, comics, OCs, or whatever else you can come up with. I love the idea and the execution and hope many people check it out and incorporate it into their own creations!

After some social media teasers and leaks, we now know about the LEGO Super Mario 64 ? Block to hit the LEGO Super Mario universe, expanding the offerings on the adult-oriented side of the LEGO-Nintendo partnership. The set, 71395 Super Mario 64 Question Mark Block, will go on sale October 1st, contains 2064 pieces, and will retail for $170 in the US. While on the outside it looks like the iconic block from the Nintendo 64 launch title, an ingenious mechanism reveals microscale versions of Peach's Castle, Bob-omb Battlefield, Cool, Cool Mountain, and Lethal Lava Trouble hidden within. This set looks like it will be awesome to both build and display and I'm sure it will be going on every Nintedo fan's LEGO wishlist this holiday season!

With so many projects reaching ten thousand votes, Kamila and the LEGO Ideas team have certainly been busy conducting and posting the 10k Club Interviews. We have two more to share today. First you can learn about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Jody and Roberto and how this pair of Italians captured the classic Roald Dahl book in iconic bricks. Then head over to find out more about Chitty Flies Again! by Chris Nordberg to see how this builder took what they learned from the last time they made it to the 10k Club and used it to find success a second time with an improved build.

The latest LEGO Gaming podcast episode was released earlier today, delving into the short-lived Life of George augmented reality game. Go listen to Bits N' Bricks Season 3, Episode 32 - The Life (and Legacy) of George and hear from hosts Ethan Vincent and Brian Crecente as they talk to Paal Smith-Meyer, former head of the LEGO Group's new business group, Cynthia Bodin, designer on the app, and Matthew Zoern, Executive Producer at Funcom Canada, about the unique experience it provided. What started as a proof of concept from an Israeli company eventually launched around the globe and spawned the LEGO Fusion games as well. How did it arrive so quickly and disappear almost as suddenly? You'll have to check out the episode to find out!

Today The LEGO Group is revealing the final design of the set based on the winning fan entry of the Music to Our Ears competition on LEGO Ideas. Releasing on October 1st, 21329 Fender Stratocaster captures the iconic electric guitar along with an amp and stand in 1074 pieces. Some of those are extra that allow you to build the body in either black or candy apple red depending on your taste or mood, which is a cool idea, but where's the sunburst finish? The set will retail for $100 in the US when it arrives online and in LEGO stores. Read on to see a bevy of images, videos, and the full press release for this rockin' instrument.  

It's the first Tuesday of the month, which means that it's time for us to head back to the myriad worlds of LEGO Dimensions (not to be confused with the myriad dimensions of LEGO Worlds?)! Tonight we'll be opening up the Ghostbusters level pack to show those ghosts that we ain't afraid of none of them! Stop by the BZPower Twitch channel starting at 7 PM Eastern to watch and chat with us as we hopefully complete the main story level in time before the penultimate episode of LEGO Masters airs tonight!