LEGO® Creator Expert review: 10270 Bookshop - The Elements

Whoops, The LEGO Group accidentally released images a few hours early but now the true embargo has passed we can divulge details of next year's Modular. To begin, Jonas Kramm has assessed all of the pieces in the set and figured out which are new or interesting.

Today marks the reveal of the 2020 addition to the Modular Buildings series - arguably the most popular LEGO® series among fans. And having survived the Black Friday madness in the last few stressful days, it’s now time to relax and take the first glimpse at the newest building in town: the Bookshop.

This Creator Expert set comes with 2504 pieces, costs US$179.99/ CA$199.99/ €159.99/ £149.99/ 1299DKK and will be available, as is traditional, from 1st January 2020.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Oscar's Anti-Gravity Repair Bay 5

Oscar Cederwall returns for a third time to our Parts Festival following his previous articles: an exploration of geometric joys and clips and crustacean.  This time Oscar has been using those greeble-tastic Batman LEGO® elements in a sci-fi scene. Get your spanners ready, we are about to land on Oscar's futuristic Anti-Gravity Repair Bay 5.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Andreas Lenander's oversized camera

Oops! I left one creation out of yesterday's post of vintage electronics by Andreas Lenander. 

Oversized camera

About two years ago I built an old camera which I was fortunate enough to be able to display in the LEGO® House Masterpiece Gallery. I really wanted to try something similar again and came to the conclusion that using two of the rims (Motorcycle Rim Ø 75 Solid "Fat boy" in Medium Stone Grey/ Light Bluish Gray – 6268590|46334) would give me the appropriate size for the objective.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Andreas Lenander's vintage electronics

Following his fantasy builds with the Fat Boy rims and his varied builds using 3x3 domes, we have some more down-to-earth LEGO® creations from Andreas Lenander today as we continue our second Parts Festival for 2019, which uses all these seed parts.

Headphones

Continuing my new found affinity for the big Fat Boy rims (Motorcycle Rim Ø 75 Solid in Medium Stone Grey – 6268590|46334), I decided to tackle a real-life object.

I realized the size of the rims were ideal for large headphones and adding another type of rim on the outside gave it a pretty “real” look, so that was the starting point for this build. The new 1x2 plates with rounded corners and holes were a great fit when creating the band of the headphones, of course with some 3mm flex tubes inside.

LEGO® DC Comics Super Heroes Review: 76139 1989 Batmobile – The New Elements

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Tim Burton’s iconic Batman movie and The LEGO Group have announced 76139 1989 Batmobile, built from over 3,300 pieces, measuring over 60cm long and sitting on a rotating display plate. It includes two one-of-a-kind LEGO® elements designed specifically for this set, to get a close representation to the original movie.



1989 Batmobile is now available priced at €249.99 / $249.99 US / £219.99. Before reviewing the complete build, we thought we would take a look at all the new elements in this set.

2019 Parts Fest #2 : Eero's Fig-barf

Minifigures are not something you see an awful lot of on New Elementary but for his next Parts Festival submission, Finnish builder Eero Okkonen used the seed parts to create some awesome outfits and accessories!

I used to make lot of custom minifigures, usually in so-called 'barfs' of four to six figs but I last made one in August 2016, over three years ago.  Some of seed parts seemed useful at minifig scale, so I began fiddling. At first these figs were going to be on the bridge scene which developed into the creation called Frost Serpent Arises but they didn’t work in that context. In a way, this is a special gift to anyone who has asked me to make another barf or wondered why I ever stopped.

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: Tim Goddard's Bots and Hover Racer

Tim Goddard returns to our Parts Festival today using the new LEGO® parts we sent him to create interesting and inspiring models.

Underwater Geometry

The marine life family bag (Accessories, Marine Life, No. 1 in Vibrant Coral – 49595 | 6262127) is tricky, it basically is what it says on the tin. What else could it be? Of course I have already seen some good uses within this very Parts Festival.

PFC, 24 (plus some seaweed/coral and a couple of extra fish)

I used the pieces in a random underwater geometric shape, again making use of the 120º 3.18mm bar. Having a hollow stud on both sides in the middle of this piece is amazingly useful. The centre is a stud thick; if you put a tile on both sides the height is exactly 1 brick.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Sagh's bugs

Returning to our Parts Festival today is Paulo 'Sagh' Carreira from Portugal with more fun and inspiring creations using some of the newest LEGO® parts.

When I arrived home from Skaerbaek Fan Weekend with the seed parts, I decided that I would not look up these parts on the internet. I didn’t want to see their original uses, to avoid being influenced. While the use of some parts is quite clear, like Will’s hair or Bo Peep’s staff, others presented themselves as mysteries. The Mini Accessory, No. 11 in Silver Metallic (6266977|50018) was one of those mysteries. What a great set of parts!

Giant Elk Beetle

The Giant Elk Beetle walks the woods in search for food with a slow but steady pace to save energy for the mating season. That’s when the males became very active, fighting each other by making use of their big antlers.

The mix of joints with different angles and connections in this pack of parts were the perfect means to replicate different creature’s articulations. I took inspiration from different species of large beetles with horns, and after some fiddling with the parts a robust dark red beetle was born.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Pierre-E Fieschi's Liebherr Tunnelier

Today, Pierre-E Fieschi returns to our Parts Festival. Following his sci-fi creations, Pierre burned the midnight oil to make another model using new LEGO® elements from our selection.

I got into the small polybags of Silver Metallic/Flat Silver tools and connectors known officially as Mini Accessory, No. 11 (50018 | 6266977) - and all are incredible! Somehow looking at these parts led to me finally building a Liebherr Tunnelier.