Welcome to Its Not Lego!: 2025

Hey Brick fans!

International Steampunk Day just passed, and fans of the genre were pulling out their goggles, winding up their pocket watches, and diving back into the world of gears, steam, and Victorian imagination. But if you're hoping to mark the occasion with a brick-built tribute, you'll quickly notice a gap: LEGO, despite its massive portfolio of themes, has never truly embraced steampunk. Sure, a few scattered sets over the years may have featured airships or industrial-style builds, but there’s no official steampunk line. Enter Lumibricks, a rising star in the world of Lego-compatible building blocks, which has stepped in to fully embrace the genre with open arms—and intricate gears.

Mechanical Structure: Where Function Becomes Art

Steampunk is all about visible mechanics and imaginative engineering, and this is where Lumibricks truly shines. Their sets are filled with functioning gears, crank systems, and mechanical linkages that don’t just look the part—they actually move. Instead of decorative, non-functional gears glued to the sides (a common pitfall of superficial steampunk design), Lumibricks integrates these components into the play experience. Turn a wheel, and you might spin a propeller or raise a steam-powered hatch. Pull a lever, and internal lighting flicks on like an old-world gas lamp.

This focus on mechanical realism—even when wrapped in fantasy—gives Lumibricks’ builds an authenticity that’s often missing in similar sets. It's not just about building a cool-looking model—it's about building a working machine from an alternate universe. In short, Lumibricks doesn’t just mimic steampunk; it lives it.

Design Aesthetics: Brass, Bolts, and Victorian Dreams

Where LEGO often leans toward bright colors and clean lines, Lumibricks heads in the opposite direction—with stunning results. Their steampunk sets use a rich palette of metallic tones—copper, bronze, gunmetal, and antique gold—that evoke the gritty charm of a bygone industrial age. Decorative flourishes like riveted panels, exposed piping, smokestacks, and wrought-iron lattice windows make the sets feel like relics from a Jules Verne novel.

But the aesthetics go beyond color and texture. Lumibricks also includes storytelling elements: weathered crates, vintage control panels, lantern-lit interiors, and miniature accessories that hint at the world beyond the bricks. These details give the builds a lived-in look that’s perfect for tabletop dioramas or display shelves. It’s the kind of tactile, layered worldbuilding that LEGO has largely skipped over when it comes to this genre.

Let There Be (Steampunk) Light

One of Lumibricks’ standout features is its use of built-in lighting, something that’s still relatively rare in the brick world. Rather than treating it as an afterthought, Lumibricks makes lighting a core part of the steampunk experience. Hidden LEDs are placed behind frosted windows, inside lantern housings, or under translucent boiler parts to mimic the warm glow of gaslight or arcane energy.

This feature adds a huge amount of atmosphere—especially in darker settings—and reinforces the steampunk vibe. It turns models from static scenes into dynamic, glowing machines that feel alive. Combined with the mechanical movement, the lighting turns each build into a functional display piece that looks like it could start whirring or hissing steam at any moment.

No Official LEGO Steampunk? No Problem.

It’s still a bit surprising that LEGO, with its history of adventurous themes like Pirates, Castle, and Space, has never gone all-in on steampunk. Aside from a few MOCs (My Own Creations) from fans and the occasional vaguely industrial build, the genre has been completely overlooked. Lumibricks, on the other hand, isn’t just filling the gap—it’s owning it.

From their early releases such as the Ore Train and Station of the Empire, Lumibricks has established a new creative language for steampunk bricks:

Functional, gear-driven mechanisms modeled after real machinery
Pre-embedded lighting layouts, designed from the earliest stages of the build
A unified Steam Spectrum lighting system that captures the mood of different eras
Multi-set linked power systems for synchronized lighting effects
Narrative-driven design, where each model plays a role in a larger storyline

My contacts at Lumibricks headquarters have advised that many of the future Steampunk themed sets will be aligned within these major categories:

Aeronauts – “The skies don’t belong to the ground.”

Iron Empire – “We build the skeleton of the world.”

Future Lumibricks Steampunk sets will delve deeper into the mysteries surrounding the high seas, mechas, and other fascinating concepts such as:

Abyss League – “The future lies in the deep.”

Mecha-Alchemists – “Only we can merge magic and machinery.”

Chrono Custodians – “Time is our law."

One can only imagine how cool those sets will be in the coming months! For now I'm definitely in the Aeronauts faction, but who knows that may change once we see the new sets. I'm especially curious about the Abyss League. Can you imagine what a Steampunk Submarine would look like? Here's my AI generated image of one.

So if you're looking to amp up your Steampunk collection with something a little more hands-on than cosplay or tea duels, consider building your own steam-powered marvel. Lumibricks makes it easy to step into the shoes of a Victorian inventor—one brick, gear, and glowing light at a time.