Welcome to the Festival of Mundanity!
/LEGO contests bring out the best in builders. You see entries with amazing castles, sleek cars, gorgeous flora, and fantastical locales. Well, this contest is different. This contest, from both BrickNerd and The LEGO Car Blog, is meant to celebrate the mundane. Welcome to the Festival of Mundanity!
You heard me right, we don’t want to see beautiful trees, a sleek Bugatti, a waterfall or a cyber truck. We see those all the time. What we want to see is the boring ol’ stuff that doesn’t get built out of LEGO that often. We’re looking for the most ordinary, mundane, and uninspiring things you can think of.
Mundanity at Its Finest
There are two boring categories: objects and vehicles. Your old dusty Dodge Dart? Perfect candidate! That old crummy kitchen toaster that doesn’t work? Go for it! Need a reason to commemorate your Ford Pinto that is still kickin’? This is your excuse! Want to immortalize that one square plastic alarm clock that EVERYBODY had growing up that just won’t die? Now’s your chance!
Yep, we’re looking for the ordinary, common things that just exist unnoticed in our brains. We’re on the hunt for amazing LEGO builds of the most uninteresting things. Think of your Toyota Corolla with 280,000 miles on it. Your junk drawer of unused items. That rusty red Rover 45 you saw on holiday in the UK and forgot about immediately. That half-empty ketchup bottle in the back of the fridge.
But be careful! There is a difference between “mundane” and “vintage.” Mundane doesn’t mean old, bad or rubbish. It means common and uninteresting. So no shiny record players, no steampunk Model Ts, no chrome typewriters, and no concept cars. Anything that the real-life version would make you look twice is out.
But we want you to make us look twice when it is built out of LEGO! Mundane doesn’t mean presented poorly either. Your creations should still be built well, of course. (NPU is still NPU!) They will be judged on mundane concept, build quality, overall presentation, photo composition, and how uninspiring it is.
So get building! You have until the end of March!
Prizes
In contrast to such a boring contest, we have some flashy prizes for the top three LEGO creations in each category. These prizes may change (or be added to) at any time so keep an eye out for periodic updates. And we owe a big thank you to our prize sponsors for donating some really awesome stuff to the prize pool!
Object Category Prizes
1st Place
Golden Nerdly Trophy & BrickNerd Swag Box
$50 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd
Brickstuff brick-built TV with Remote Control and Sound (plays up to two hours of any video you load onto it)
iDisplayIt case/stand
Game of Bricks lighting kit
2nd Place
$25 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd
Brickstuff Lighting Effect Starter Kit
Game of Bricks lighting kit
3rd Place
Brickstuff Headlight lighting kit
Game of Bricks lighting kit
Vehicle Category Prizes
1st Place
Golden Nerdly Trophy & BrickNerd Swag Box
$50 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd
BuWizz 3.0 or 2.0 Bluetooth brick (winner’s choice)
iDisplayIt case/stand
Game of Bricks lighting kit
2nd Place
$25 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd
Game of Bricks lighting kit
3rd Place
Game of Bricks lighting kit
Festival of Mundanity Rules
All entries must be new creations. Entries may be updated as long as the contest is still open.
Entries can be posted either on Flickr or Instagram. A link to your entry should be posted in the Festival of Mundanity Flickr group using the hashtags #FestivalofMundanity, #BrickNerd and #TheLEGOCarBlog. If you do not have a Flickr account, you can use the hashtags and tag us on Instagram and we’ll post a link to your entry for you.
Please only add one photo/submission of each entry to this group (extras will be removed). If you don’t have either Flicker or Instagram please email your submission to dave@bricknerd.com.
You may enter as many times as you want with unique creations.
Entries must be either a vehicle or an object (settings are welcome too). If you can figure out how to combine the two and still make it uninteresting, you could win prizes in both categories.
Digital renders are allowed, though the creation must be structurally sound and all the pieces must be available physically. Custom or modified parts are not allowed this time around though unique prints/stickers are acceptable.
These rules or the prizes may be modified at any point.
The contest ends on Thursday, March 31st, 2022 at 11:59 pm PT (7:59 am GMT on April 1st for the Europeans). Winners will be announced a few weeks after.
The contest will be judged by both BrickNerd and The LEGO Car Blog contributors who will evaluate entries based on mundanity, concept, quality, presentation, composition, and how uninspiring it is.
What are the most common things you can think of building out of LEGO for The Festival of Mundanity? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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