2018 Skærbæk Workshop: wheel hub

Two or three times a year, New Elementary run building workshops at AFOL conventions. Attendees use new LEGO® parts with general brick stock to come up with quick, interesting ideas. We’ve fallen a little behind at presenting the results to you so it’s time to play catchup! Just wind your clocks back to last September at Skærbæk Fan Weekend in Denmark where 70 builders spent a good couple of hours exploring some elements released in summer 2018. Here are some of our favourite creations and interesting techniques they came up with.

Hub Cap, dia. 24, No. 1 (Element ID 6227156 | Design ID 37195)

The Metallic Silver [TLG]/ Flat Silver [BL] hubcap is still only found in one set at present, 10262 James Bond Aston Martin DB5. Especially interesting are the illegal connections some people found.

Anne Jeppesen “Drone”

2018 Skærbæk Workshop: the candle and the inverted tile

Two or three times a year, New Elementary run building workshops at AFOL conventions. Attendees use new LEGO® parts with general brick stock to come up with quick, interesting ideas. We’ve fallen a little behind at presenting the results to you so it’s time to play catchup! Just wind your clocks back to last September at Skærbæk Fan Weekend in Denmark where 70 builders spent a good couple of hours exploring some elements released in summer 2018. Here are some of our favourite creations and interesting techniques they came up with.

Candle No.1 (Element ID 6234807 | Design ID 37762)
Tile 1X3, Inverted, W/ 3.2 Hole (6223491 | 35459)

Two elements to focus on today. White Candle No.1 only comes in White so far and appears in three sets in the Wizarding World theme as well as BrickHeadz 40348 Birthday Clown and 10264 Corner Garage. The candle is made up of two sections; a 3.18mm diameter bar that is 3mm long and a wider 5.8mm hollow portion that accepts 3.18mm bar connections in its base.

White Tile 1X3, Inverted, W/ 3.2 Hole (Element ID 6223491 | Design ID 35459) was first introduced within the Unikitty theme last year but can be found within many sets now including 21043 San Francisco and 21150 Minecraft Skeleton BigFig with Magma Cube.

Rafal Piasek “Line Jumper"

2018 Skærbæk Workshop: the pantograph shoe

Two or three times a year, New Elementary run building workshops at AFOL conventions. Attendees use new LEGO® parts with general brick stock to come up with quick, interesting ideas. We’ve fallen a little behind at presenting the results to you so it’s time to play catchup! Just wind your clocks back to last September at Skærbæk Fan Weekend in Denmark where 70 builders spent a good couple of hours exploring some elements released in summer 2018. Here are some of our favourite creations and interesting techniques they came up with.

3.2 Shaft Element, No. 1 (Element ID 6226706 | Design ID 37494) 

Called Hinge Train Pantograph Shoe on BrickLink, this is a relatively rare part as it only appears in two train sets and only in Black at the moment. You will find one in 60197 Passenger Train and two in 60198 Cargo Train. It's used as the pantograph to conduct electricity from overhead lines but we thought the plentiful 3.18mm connections and unusual angles would make it ideal for a parts festival.

Paul Lee "Micro post apocalyptic rover with steering and roll bars"

LEGO® NINJAGO turntables

Sven Franic examines the unusual and interesting new turntable pieces that come in new LEGO® Ninjago sets like 70670 Monastery of Spinjitzu.

We don't often get younger age group LEGO playsets to pick apart here at New Elementary, which makes it easy to overlook some cool new parts. Ninjago model designers have really stepped up their game in interactive play functions, and I want to see if we can bastardize some of the novelties that come in LEGO Ninjago 70670 Monastery of Spinjitzu.

One of the recent features of several Ninjago sets are the hand-held minifigure turntables. Presumably to promote interactive and social play, the resourceful designers came up with a brick-built contraption allowing players to rotate a minifigure character and fight an opponent by mimicking some impressive ninja moves.

More on the 3x3 Technic beam

Yesterday Victor P discussed the new Magenta Connector Beam 1x3x3 that does not yet appear in any LEGO® sets. Today he reveals it also comes in Black, explores more of its potential and explains how he found it for sale on the LEGO website.

In part 1 we explored the geometry of the new Connector Beam 1x3x3 and the kind of applications it could have in Technic builds. Today we’re going to experiment a bit further and see what other builds are possible with a few of them in hand.  Since I work in construction, one of the first things I thought of doing was a I-beam:

Old Elementary: Insectoids wings

One of our New Elementary parts festival builders, Duncan Lindbo, casts his mind back to an old LEGO® element that may well be familiar to fans who were youths during the 1990s. Remember the Insectoids? Well, Duncan does.

For many AFOLs, the late 1990s were a low point in set design. They think there were too many overly specialized parts, and they’re not entirely wrong… but because of that, there’s a lot of interesting parts that tend to get ignored by the AFOL community. Today, we’re going to explore a couple of Transparent Blue [TLG]/Trans-Dark Blue [BL] elements from the Insectoids line (1998-1999).

2018 Parts Fest #2: Peter's Bloodborne beast and Vera Kamsha scene

In his second post, Russian builder Peter Guz showcases two more fantastic creations using the LEGO® elements we sent him for our parts festival.

When I saw candle parts, I imagined long and pale creepy fingers. I thought, who could have such fingers? I love the PlayStation game Bloodborne so much, and there are a lot of creepy creatures with cool designs in it. Vicar Amelia is one of the bosses, and the last high cleric of the Healing Church. She could not resist the curse of the old blood and became a beast.

2018 Parts Fest #2: Peter's Post Apocalyptic World and Flying Fortress

We are continuing with our ongoing LEGO® parts fest and welcome our penultimate guest builder, an extraordinarily talented young builder from Russia, Peter Guz. We are huge fans of Peter's work, but even we did not anticipate the creations Peter made in a short space of time with a parcel of elements we sent.  Peter is a builder of few words but his images speak for themselves. This is the first of two posts by Peter.

“Lanterns have to light” thought I at first. And then I found the mecha leg Elspeth made using a Lantern in the blog post Enlightening Elements. I realised that I must complete it and build a light-up Lantern mech using Black Lamp, No. 1 (Element ID 6227901 | Design ID 37776).

LEGO® Creator review: 10265 Ford Mustang

The LEGO Group have just announced the next car in the LEGO® Creator Expert series 10265 Ford Mustang, based on the 1967 Fastback and will be racing into LEGO stores and online from 1 March 2019. It has 1,471 elements and priced US $149.99/€129.99/£119.99. Jonas Kramm gets into gear to take a closer look under the hood of this 1960s American muscle car.

The LEGO Creator Expert theme’s new addition to your garage is a classic 1967 Ford Mustang. It’s a dark blue beast that comes with two play features and - even more importantly – includes two new moulds and more delicious recolours.

2018 Parts Fest #2: Devid VII's mecha, radiator and more

The next builder in our LEGO® parts festival is Devid VII, an Italian builder whose work I have admired for sometime, especially his mecha creations. Devid showcases a variety of ways to use our chosen parts festival elements, including this fantastic mecha just for us!

2018 Parts Fest #2: Hubtastic skyscrapers

As our parts festival nears its end, there are still a couple more LEGO® builders to come but two builders we have already featured sent me some further ideas using Metallic Silver [TLG]/ Flat Silver [BL] Hub Cap, dia. 24, No. 1 (Element ID 6227156 | Design ID 37195), an element only found in one set at present, 10262 James Bond Aston Martin DB5. So I thought both Sarah Beyer and Ralf Langer could share a hubtastic post, starting with Sarah.

When I first saw the hub cap my instant thought was "skyscraper". The silver colour and round shape remind me of modern cylindrical skyscrapers. The pattern adds an interesting aesthetic dimension and, seen from the side, makes excellent nanoscale windows. However I didn't have a clear idea about the surroundings and lay the concept to one side. Later on, when I was sorting loose parts, I came across the hub caps again.

LEGO® Xtra 40341 Sea Accessories

We're always excited to receive new sets from The LEGO Group but this supplementary set was definitely one of the stranger offerings... so after scratching our heads we challenged a man who will seemingly face any LEGO® challenge, Tim Goddard (Rogue Bantha), to actually build something with them!

The LEGO® Xtra line is a very welcome one, offering a chance to purchase some useful parts at a reasonable price. The Xtra set 40312 Streetlamps released last year contains particularly great parts such as the new lantern (Design ID 37776). I was sent three copies of the new 2019 set 40341 Sea Accessories to, um, review I guess.

There is something a bit fishy about this Xtra set though; the parts are not quite so useful as those found in other sets in the range and I am not sure I would be tempted to buy a copy myself.

2018 Parts Fest #2: Ralf's Compass, Medieval cart and microscale menagerie

The next builder in our parts fest is Ralf Langer from Germany.  He previously wrote about integrating LEGO® Modulex bricks in two posts for New Elementary last year.  Ralf has a real knack for innovative parts use, sometimes illegally, but always with the potential for stunning results.  If you haven't seen his builds before then you are in for a treat.

I started off with Reddish Brown Mini Brush (Element ID 6046576 | Design ID 15232), quite a versatile part. It is not as versatile as it could be as it doesn't fit in a recessed stud because of its tapered ends.

2018 Parts Fest #2: Sarah's Furniture and Robot

Our next builder is Sarah Beyer from Sweden. We have been admiring her creations for some time as she builds beautiful homes with LEGO® bricks, complete with detailed interiors. We sent Sarah a parcel containing new parts to see what should would build.

My first reaction when I saw the parts sent to me, was that they would constitute great furniture material. I mostly build modern furniture for my MOCs, but these elements fit in both retro and contemporary surroundings.

2018 Parts Fest #2: Simon's naughty dog and a touch of Japanese Architecture

The next builder in our LEGO® parts festival is Simon NH, a talented guy from Austria who is best known for his clever use of parts, especially novel ways to create textures and patterns.

Let’s start off with a fun little build featuring the four new elements shown: Metallic Silver [TLG]/ Flat Silver [BL] Hub Cap dia. 24 NO. 1 (6227156|37195) , White Tile 1X3 Inverted W/ 3.2 Hole (6223491|35459),White Candle No.1 (Element ID 6234807 | Design ID 37762)  and Reddish Brown Mini Brush (6046576|15232).

2018 Parts Fest #2: Marcel V's Helmet, Kitchen and More

Our second guest builder taking part in our second 2018 Parts Fest is Marcel V, an excellent LEGO® builder from Germany with an eye for detail whose work is full of creative parts use. We posted him a selection of new LEGO parts last month and waited to see what would happen.

Yay, new elements to discover! Can’t wait to dive into it…

2018 Parts Fest #2: Grantmasters' elephant, church and more

We sent some of the most interesting new LEGO® parts from 2018 to fan builders to see how they would use them. Grantmasters received his elements in two parcels due to a slight logistics issue and so his first post took a look at the 1x1 brackets, and now the remaining elements are explored in this second post. Over to Grantmasters...

So, round 2 began after receiving a load more parts from New Elementary. Whilst this image isn't all of the parts sent, it is all of the parts I included in this lot of builds.

2018 Parts Fest #2: Grantmasters' 1x1 brackets

As well as running workshops at fan events like Skaerbaek or Paredes de Coura, we also like to post a bunch of new LEGO® elements to some of our favourite builders from across the world. We will be publishing the techniques and creations they came up with in the coming weeks, and then show you what builders at the Skaerbaek workshop did with them. First up we have Grantmasters, a talented builder from New Zealand. The first of his two posts takes a look at the 1x1 brackets: Medium Stone Grey [TLG]/Light Bluish Grey [BL] Plate 1X1, W/ 1.5 Plate 1X1, Downwards (Element ID 6248078|Design ID 36841) and Dark Stone Grey [TLG]/ Dark Bluish Gray [BL] 1X1, W/ 1.5 Plate 1X1, Upwards (6225494|36840).

Initially, I was a bit stumped by the brackets as they aren't really what I would usually consider a "decorative" seed part. Over the years I have regularly wanted one of these brackets for various builds.  I tried to arrange the brackets with different orientations and with other offset types of connections to see where that took me first.

2018 Parts Fest #2: Introducing the Elements

Clearly we love new elements here at New Elementary, and what better way to explore the potential connections and uses than to send a pile of new parts to some innovative and inspirational LEGO® builders.

Let's introduce the  elements released in the second half of 2018 that our guest builders will be taking a closer look at in the coming weeks.

LEGO® MOVIE 2 review: 70840 Welcome to Apocalypseburg!

Coming 1 February 2019 (and already available for VIP members), LEGO® 70840 Welcome to Apocalypseburg!
 is the largest and arguably most thrilling set from THE LEGO MOVIE 2: The Second Part. But how do the parts stack up? Sven Franic takes a look inside this 3178-piece set and its plethora of Sand Green.

The flagship set for THE LEGO MOVIE 2: The Second Part focuses attention on the part of the film featuring the derelict remains of Bricksburg from the first film (which may have some resemblance to New York?). This is an opportunity to jump on the revived pop-culture trend of the post-apocalypse dystopia and a great way for adult fans to connect with what is probably the closest The LEGO Group will touch a certain Ozploitation trilogy from our childhoods.