BrickLink Designer Program - Vote for Your Favourite LEGO Fan Designs!

If you haven’t heard of BrickLink.com, then do yourself a favour and check it out. It is a website that brings together a community of Lego fans who either wish to sell, buy, or look up some statistics on Lego sets and pieces. BrickLink also has a program which allows fans of LEGO to design and submit a build which, if successfully submitted, can be voted for by the BrickLink community (https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/main.page). According to the website, ‘Up to 5 designs will be chosen for crowdfunding. All designs that reach the 3,000 pre-order minimum threshold will be produced.’

This program is similar to Lego Ideas, but the final design is controlled by the individual LEGO fan rather than LEGO designers re-working a fan’s idea into their own structured way of production. This means some of the builds that you can vote for, and potentially order, could be way more complex than any regular LEGO set.

Looking through the submissions I could see a range of designs, from art to practical, from small to large, but a large majority seemed to be play sets. There were a good number of these play sets that would make very nice display sets too in my opinion. Personally I tend to gravitate towards buildings or landscapes as a preference, and I really like the medieval or historical themes, so for me there was plenty to admire.

I’ll share with you roughly a dozen designs that grabbed my attention, starting with two matching wild west sets by ‘llucky’; ‘Sheriff’s Office - Wild West’ and ‘General Store - Wild West’. In these the designer has created wooden plank style walls by placing the planks on an angle. As with many of the designs you can vote for, there is a lot of detail added to the sets.

Sheriff’s Office - Wild West, designed by llucky. (Source: BrickLink.com)

General Store - Wild West, designed by llucky. (Source: BrickLink.com)

There are a number of castles, palaces and fortresses, many of which are good designs… but if I had to choose one it would be the ‘Mountain Fortress’ by ‘SleeplessNight’. It grabbed my attention with its snowy scenery, and held it with the detail in various parts of the build, such as above the entrance gate. I also like the ramp and drawbridge feature that crosses over the frozen creek.

This Black Falcon fortress opens up using hinges to allow access to the many rooms inside. The entire build uses 3,986 parts, which keeps it just under the 4,000 part limit for this BrickLink Designer Program.

Mountain Fortress, designed by SleeplessNight. (Source: BrickLink.com)

Another one of my favourite designs is ‘Lizard’. This piece of conceptual art by ‘legobouwer’ is a brilliant build of a creature, combined with the idea of a drawing coming to life. This design is comprised of 1,807 parts.

Lizard, designed by legobouwer. (Source: BrickLink.com)

There are a few small designs that are pretty cool too. ‘The Snack Shack’ by ‘Skeletuhr’ totals 548 parts, but the takeaway from this trailer for me is the deep fryer and the sandwich press. ‘A Burr Puzzle’ by ‘TheBrickedCave’ has 452 parts, and is as the name suggests… a puzzle. There are a few robots or mechs, but my favourite due to its sleek and simple look is ‘Robio 2024’ by ‘Vulcanus’, with only 404 parts used (and that’s including its vacuum cleaner accessory).

The Snack Shack, designed by Skeletuhr. (Source: BrickLink.com)

A Burr Puzzle, designed by TheBrickedCave. (Source: BrickLink.com)

Robio 2024, designed by Vulcanus. (Source: BrickLink.com)

For the lovers of the pirate theme, there are a few good sets in the mix for you to see. I like the look of ‘The Crimson Outpost’ by ‘Brickjester’, a tower with an adjacent house situated on a small island. This set includes a small pirate ship too as an added bonus.

The Crimson Outpost, designed by Brickjester. (Source: BrickLink.com)

When done well, LEGO made into everyday objects can look quite amazing, and I would be interested in having a play with these next two designs to see how they work. ‘Oscillating Desk Fan’ by ‘gman13579’ is the most practical build of the ones I’ve shared with you here. By turning the hand crank it becomes a working fan that stands about 32.5cm tall.

The other design is by ‘iprice’, titled ‘Boogie Boombox’, it features a cassette tape and batteries which can all be inserted into the boombox. There is a surprise inside though… you can open the device to reveal a D.J. and a tiny disco!

Oscillating Desk Fan, designed by gman13579. (Source: BrickLink.com)

Boogie Boombox, designed by iprice. (Source: BrickLink.com)

Getting back to the medieval theme now… There were so many in this theme that it was hard to narrow down which ones I favoured more. ‘Brick_Jongleur’ designed the ‘Medieval Marketplace with Wart Tower (Observation/Watch Tower)’, and I liked the various parts to this one; some features included a food stand, weapons and armour stand, a well, and a beautiful tree with a sword in the stone below it. This is an idea that interests me, having multiple medieval buildings and features of a town to bring together into one large display/play set.

Medieval Marketplace with Wart Tower (Observation/Watch Tower), designed by Brick_Jongleur. (Source: BrickLink.com)

Which leads me to the final two buildings I wish to share with you; if I could add these following houses to a display I’d be one happy chappy!

Stables & Inn’ is technically more Tudor era than medieval era, and at first it didn’t grab me as a stand out design as there were a few similar builds. But the more I looked at it, the more I fell in love with it. The designer ‘thepresident14’ has done an amazing job with the roof texture, and creates a nice overall structure with stairs between levels and a spacious interior (some Lego buildings feel small and cramped in comparison). The internal space of the three levels, along with the stables, make it a good play set too.

The ‘Medieval Joiner's Workshop’ has basically the same features I mentioned in the previous set, but has a bit more colour which grabs the viewer’s attention quicker. It has two levels, the workshop and the living space, and like the previous set the roof and top level can be removed to access each area.

Stables & Inn, designed by thepresident14. (Source: BrickLink.com)

Medieval Joiner's Workshop, designed by Leewan. (Source: BrickLink.com)

A nice aspect of a lot of the designs I viewed was the background information of their design, and quite a few would have a story surrounding their creation, such as the Black Falcon history of the ‘Mountain Fortress’, or the character in the ‘Medieval Joiner's Workshop’ being based on the founder of LEGO.

Do yourself a favour and waste some time scrolling the submissions to the BrickLink Designer Program like I have done. Even if you don’t feel an urge to sign up and cast you votes, you are sure to be inspired to build something… maybe you could create something for the next series of the Designer Program… or perhaps the next Brick News build competition is where you will release your creativity!

Website for the BrickLink Designer Program:

https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/main.page