NEXOGON: The Millennium Falcogon

May the Fourth be with you... and for once, we actually have something Star Wars-related to share with you, courtesy of Kevin Levell and his penchant for nexogonal LEGO® spacecraft.

Whilst building the flying saucergon I noticed some familiar shapes, at least to my eyes: there was a passing resemblance to the “circular” main body of the Millennium Falcon...

Contest: Build and Fix inspiration from Kev Levell

We are running a LEGO® building contest going on at the moment using the new spaceship hull piece from LEGO 4+ sets as the seed part. Prizes are The LEGO® Movie 2 sets. Hopefully your experiments are well underway and we've received many entries already. We're not revealing any until after the contest ends (8 April 2019) however our friend Kev Levell has sent us something to inspire you. (He has decided not to enter the contest.)

Now, although Kev has built us a spaceship don't think that this is solely a spaceship-building contest. Indeed we are primarily looking for inventive uses of this new element, so while spaceships are of course welcome you may prefer to build something quite different. 

I was lucky enough to get The LEGO® Movie 2 set 70821 Emmet and Benny's ‘Build and Fix' Workshop before Christmas. I immediately loved the new hull part (Design ID 43979) and ordered a couple extra of them as soon as I could. Affectionately, I’ve been thinking of this piece as Big Ugly Space Hull (BUSH), which amused me. Sorry.

I had been tinkering with a spaceship design using 43979 when I saw New Elementary post the “Build and Fix” competition calling for models that used this new element as a seed part. This is a very quick, very simple model using three of them to show how cool the BUSH is (for Classic Space enthusiasts at least).

New moulds & MOCs: LEGO® 75551 Brick-Built Minions and Their Lair & 75549 Unstoppable Bike Chase

Today some important new-for-2020 moulds are examined as Tim Johnson reviews LEGO® Minions 75551 Brick-Built Minions and Their Lair (£44.99/ $49.99/ 48.73€) as well as 75549 Unstoppable Bike Chase (£17.99 / $19.99 / 19.49€) with some additional creative investigation courtesy of Kevin Levell. The products in this article were provided for free by LEGO; the author's opinions are not biased by this.

When the movie Minions: The Rise of Gru was postponed until 2021, several of the planned LEGO® tie-in sets met with the same fate. Two sets did however get released in April, which is good as there is much of interest to be found... in one of them. 

Unless you’re a bike fan or interested in the Minion minifigures, 75549 Unstoppable Bike Chase (shown on the right) doesn’t offer much to adult builders but 75551 Brick-Built Minions and Their Lair has thrilling new moulds – and is a hilarious build. Even if you hate these little yellow pipsqueaks, don’t you want to build silly giant mech versions of them?

Let’s discover what LEGO Minions are made of, starting with the new-for-2020 LEGO parts that comprise the giant Minions found in 75551.

LEGO® Speed Champions interview with Christopher Stamp: Iconic Movie and TV Vehicles

We were thrilled to be invited for a chat with LEGO® Speed Champions Design Manager Christopher Leslie Stamp about the upcoming sets 76911 007 Aston Martin DB5 and 79612 Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger R/T, which we reviewed yesterday.
Kev Levell took the passenger's seat as Chris jumped behind the steering wheel and took us for a drive around the new sets and elements! The transcription has been edited for clarity, readability and narrative flow.

NEXOGON: Flying Saucergon

Kevin Levell is back with another new creation using the LEGO® NEXO KNIGHTS™Combo Power shield, part 27255. Also, he's back on Flickr, so you can keep up with him after this parts festival is over!

As my previous builds had been, for the most part, geodesic, I wanted to start off at least by using the Nexogons as a flat building platform (of sorts). I had intended to do something other than another spaceship, but the Nexogon is just such a sci-fi looking object! Despite trying various explorations of the part, I kept being led back to all things sci-fi, in my failure to avoid another spacecraft I have built a flying saucer.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Kev's Robots

UK-based builder Kevin Levell is back and, as with many other Parts Festival creations, these ideas are spawned from those amazing LEGO® Batman accessory packs. Many of you readers have expressed frustration that these are unavailable from Bricks & Pieces, because they are 'locked' to the Batman license. It seems there might be good news on the way about this – part 50018 is now listed on B&P, although out of stock – so we will keep you updated.

I very often like to build in a freeform, directionless, even Zen-like way. Part of the delight of a Parts Festival for me is the opportunity to experiment with new parts in that exact way. I very rarely have a clear idea of what I want to do, I normally just tinker, putting things together in abstract ways, in regimented or geometric ways, until something 'speaks' to me. Often, multiples of the same part are a particularly effective way to do this, and this is a further delight of a Parts Festival.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Kev Levell's Classic Flash Double Gloucester Gordon Theme

Next to join our Parts Festival is Kevin Levell, a UK-based LEGO® builder who participated in our Nexogon fest and has written other lovely articles for us in the past. Kev just loves a bit of Space, he does. 

I may have squealed like a little child when I opened and emptied out the parcel from Tim, because immediately I could see more than a couple of handfuls of utterly awesome new parts. Some of which I had already (unsuccessfully) been on the scout for. It was these currently ‘unavailable’ parts that interested me most… I could almost smell the potential.

LEGO® Star Wars review & MOCs: 75300 Imperial Tie Fighter & 75301 Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter

Kev Levell (@kevlevell) gives you double LEGO® Star Wars love today as he examines the parts in 75300 Imperial Tie Fighter & 75301 Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter before creating MOCs using both their parts. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.

These two new iterations of iconic LEGO Star Wars ships have been available for a little while now. There are a very small number of notable new parts and even dealing with both sets at once, it is a scant offering. However, both sets feature elements that I wanted to investigate. None of the parts are presented in very great numbers either, but their connections and geometry may reveal them to be slightly overlooked gems. I’m hoping they aren’t disappointing, unnecessary introductions into the inventory.

LEGO® Icons review + MOC: 77942 Fiat 500

Kev Levell (@kevlevell) dives into the blue of the colour-changed LEGO® Icons set, 77942 Fiat 500, and creates his own model too. Buying this UK-only set? Consider using our UK LEGO Shop affiliate link, New Elementary may get a commission. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.

The original LEGO® Creator Fiat 500 introduced a phenomenal number of recoloured elements; please see Tom Loftus’s comprehensive review of the lovely lemony Luigi. So, it is perhaps unsurprising that the contentious UK-exclusive baby blue cinquecento also comes with many recoloured elements too.

After-Party Fest: Kev Levell's MOCs

One of my favourite LEGO® activities is a good old New Elementary parts festival. I love taking part, for a number of reasons. A bundle of lovely new parts arrive, supplied in the kind of quantities that would be prohibitively expensive for me to acquire in any of the normal ways. There are elements I perhaps might not gravitate to buying, and that's a nice challenge to face. There's a shared experience with fellow builders in the creation of MOCs that generally surprise and delight, both from my own build table and those of my co-contributors. They have become rarer in recent years and that too makes them a sweet experience. In short, even as a regular contributor to New Elementary, it's a privilege and an honour to be included.

Space Tools Parts Fest: Kev Levell

We're challenging our team of astro-engineers to create original LEGO® models using 'Space Tools' - the minifigure accessories found in Classic Space sets - and today is the final instalment!

As the Chief Flight Director of this exploration it falls to me to bring our mission to an end. The team has safely returned home, I've completed their debriefing, and once I present my findings I'll round out these proceedings with a few words of thanks.

From the selected tools I chose the Metal Detectors 4479 & 93106 and Radios 3962a, 3962b and 19220 as well as the 'T' Bar 84868.

What new LEGO® pieces were released in December 2021?

TobyMac (on Rebrickable) has created a list showing all 79 new LEGO® elements added in December 2021, with links to which sets they come in so you can check for the ones you might be interested in. 

Parts review: LEGO® Fortnite™ October 2024 sets

For nearly three decades LEGO® bricks have appeared in video game form, and more and more often we're now seeing the reverse. The latest entertainment behemoth to make the leap from console to brick is Fortnite, which received an all-LEGO mode in December 2023. Now, the physical half of this bilateral collaboration between The LEGO Group and Epic Games is dropping into our world.

What are the new LEGO® parts in July 2024 sets?

I've created a list showing all 33 new LEGO® elements found in sets released on 1 July 2024, so you can check for the sets you might be interested in buying. For those of you who instead prefer our list of sets showing which contain the most new elements, click here.

5x5 fest: Kev Levell's MOCs

Kev Levell (@kevlevell) is the next contributor to our 5x5 fest! We sent 5 LEGO® sets to 5 of our team and asked them to get creative with the parts. Be inspired every Friday!

As outlined in the 5x5 fest introductory article, each contributor was given two fixed sets, a Beatbox and a choice of up to two other sets. My five sets were 71476 Jungle Dragon, 43184 Raya and Sisu Dragon, 43107 Hip-Hop Robot BeatBox, 71740 Jay’s Electro Mech and 41921 Extra Dots Series 3.  I have not exclusively used parts from any of the sets in my MOCs, more is the case that I have used parts from all these sets in a haphazard fashion.

5x5 fest: Caz Mockett's MOCs

Caz Mockett (@cazmockett) is the first of the 5 contributors in our 5x5 fest! We sent her 5 LEGO® sets and asked her to use the new and interesting parts to create MOCs. Every Friday is 5x5 fest day for the next 5 weeks, so come back to see what our next AFOL built.

As a relative newbie to the New Elementary team, I have not been involved in a Parts Festival before, so I was eager to have a go this time. We each received a copy of LEGO® set 71746 Jungle Dragon from the Ninjago theme, 43184 Raya And Sisu Dragon from the Disney lineup, one of the eight VIDIYO™ BeatBoxes and up to two extra small sets of our choice, to use for our MOC festival. To save repetition, we covered the interesting new elements in the two largest sets in our 5x5 fest introductory article, and I took a comprehensive look at the new parts in all of the Beat Boxes previously. We were encouraged to look at the pieces in our sets as seed parts or to give inspiration, but we were quite at liberty to add additional pieces from our own collections to complete our builds.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Eero Okkonen's trio of characters

Well it's been our biggest, longest Parts Festival to date but today our LEGO® building fiesta comes to an end with not one, not two but three incredible characters designed by Eero Okkonen featuring the new 2019 pieces we sent him. You can also see his earlier parts fest builds here and follow his builds on his blog.

Gwathlo of Order of Morning Star

5x5 fest: Introducing the elements

It's been a while since we ran one of our "parts festivals", where we send LEGO builders some of the most interesting new elements and ask them to create some original models to inspire you. Well, buckle up because we have not one but two parts festivals coming at you this month, and they're a little different to before! We will introduce the second one soon, but today we reveal our 5x5 fest.

No, LEGO have not released a 5x5 plate, it's nothing like that! We simply sent 5 of our gorgeous contributors 5 LEGO sets, and asked them to get busy making gorgeous stuff. As well as parts in the sets, they could use their own part collections. So for the next 5 weeks, every Friday is 5x5 fest day when we will reveal what each of the builders created! The gorgeous bunch are Caz Mockett, Kev Levell, Aron Gerencsér, Thomas Jenkins and Tom Loftus.

LEGO® 2021 Chinese Traditional Festival: 80106 Story of Nian & 80107 Spring Lantern Festival - the new parts

A first peek at 2021 for you today, in the form of two LEGO® sets from the Chinese Traditional Festival lineup: 80106 Story of Nian and 80107 Spring Lantern Festival. Lee (cityson) has scoured the images to find as many new, printed and interesting pieces as he could. 10 January 2021 is when these sets become available to the whole world; if you're buying please consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: UK LEGO Shop | USA LEGO Shop - for other countries, Change Region. 

The two 2021 LEGO® Chinese Traditional Festival sets announced at the 3rd China International Import Exhibition (CIIE) on Friday 6 November absolutely blew me away. Not only are they great display pieces, these two upcoming sets are like the Cave of Wonders for builders who love elements, like us here at New Elementary. Unable to wait for the release of these awesome sets, I decided to go on a visual “part hunt” to find interesting parts for our readers in advance.

LEGO® NINJAGO® review and MOD: 71785 Jay's Titan Mech

Gundam! Jay’s Titan Mech looks great. This Beautiful Blue Bot is the second largest of January’s LEGO® NINJAGO® releases. Let's take a look at what this set has to offer, and see whether my idea for a modified version is successful.