The Clayface of Nougat Flesh

We have an unusual set to discuss today in that it contains a high percentage of newly recoloured elements in a single colour. To discuss the Medium Nougat [TLG]/ Medium Dark Flesh [BL] pieces in LEGO® Batman Movie set 70904 Clayface Splat Attack we welcome a new author: Sven Franic (Flickr: svenfranic) who is a member of a LEGO User Group from Croatia, Kockice.

One of the main frustrations or challenges when building your own LEGO creations, depending on your point of view, is the limited number of colours a certain element is available in. This is especially true for those who like to build concepts in digital form, only to realize some crucial elements are not available in that shade. 

Some colours are so limited in choice of parts that nobody really sets out to build with them and it is just more convenient to stick with the commonly available colours. I am personally a bit tired of grey and brown. It is time for a colour revolution!

Dark Azure Immersion

The release of 10252 Volkswagen Beetle marks the third year in a row that the LEGO® Group have released a large-scale vehicle under the Creator Expert banner (following 10248 Ferrari F40 last year and 10242 Mini Cooper in 2014) plus of course there have been others in 2011 and 2008, both Volkswagen vehicles. Let's hope this annual tradition continues, as these are absolutely wonderful sets for many reasons - I'll hand over to Elspeth De Montes (azurebrick) to describe why, once she's out of the bath.

I am on a Dark Azur (TLG)/Dark Azure (BL) high at the moment following my total immersion in my favourite colour with Creator Expert 10252 Volkswagen Beetle. This 1,167 piece set is now available priced £69.99 / US$99.99 / €89.99. The VW Beetle has been immortalised in LEGO form before, back in 2008 with 10187 Volkswagen Beetle, which contained 1,626 parts and had a studs-on-show look that now looks somewhat ‘retro’, but nevertheless sells well above its original recommended retail price.

Recolours for 2016

There's probably no need to introduce today's writer, Chris McVeigh (powerpig) who has been a prolific and influential builder, photographer, designer and entrepreneur on the LEGO® scene for many years now. Chris was a strong supporter of New Elementary from the very beginning (which, by the way, was three years ago yesterday!) and I'm thrilled he has prepared this great post for us detailing the most interesting recoloured LEGO parts recently released. Thanks must also go to Huw Millington once again, for making this information readily available to the community via the Brickset parts database. Huw and I have been a bit worried this year as the LEGO® Group have not updated their online database with many new parts at all this year. However our fears that they would no longer add new parts were unfounded, and a massive update occurred earlier this month. 

The LEGO Group recently published instructions and inventories for its summer sets, and in the process, added thousands of missing pieces. After Brickset added the information to its own database, I sat down with a coffee and gorged myself on the many, many new elements. Now that I’ve had a chance to digest all the information, I’m going to highlight some of the notable part recolours. (New Elementary will examine a number of the entirely new parts in a future article.) Please note that some of these elements debuted with winter and spring sets, but I'm looking at the recent database additions in  aggregate.

New Brickset features

A quick post to alert you to two fantastic community resources regarding LEGO® colours and parts which Huw Millington has now integrated to Brickset, making the world's most popular fan site about LEGO even better!

Totally Swooshable

I recently found myself quite appalled with myself. I came across a LEGO fan site called Swooshable, which has been around for years and is utterly superb, yet I wasn't aware of it. How did I miss this for so long? In case you're as deprived as I was, I'm writing about it today and the site's creator, Linus Bohman, has kindly answered some questions.

An ‘Appy Medium

Ultra Agents has proven to be a popular and exciting LEGO® theme, and in advance of the new summer sets hitting stores Jeremy Williams (Bricking It) takes a look at one of the currently-available winter sets: 70170 UltraCopter vs. AntiMatter.

My 'eighties childhood was marked (as I’m sure everyone’s is) with some key contests: which is better? Dallas or Dynasty? BA or Murdoch? Neighbours or Home and Away? Blue Thunder or Airwolf? I had answers to all these questions, and (as you’ve probably guessed by now) also had the sallow skin and weak eyes of an indoors, trash-TV addict. And in the case of the latter question, it was Airwolf all the way.

Which is why I am irresistibly drawn to the Ultracopter. In my mind, it lives inside a dormant volcano, ready to unleash terror on any would-be villains. The Ultra Agents playtheme is already a firm favourite, but this has to be the standout set of the range. Bristling with weaponry and oozing with style, I couldn’t wait to get started.

LEGO® colour chart reference

I have wanted to discuss LEGO® colours more often on this blog but it's a horribly complicated subject. Happily there are those more qualified than I; one is Ryan Howerter, who has produced several valuable resources for AFOLs, which he explains for us today. But for the ease of your future reference, I'll list them up front:

• LEGO Color reference spreadsheet with BrickLink & TLG names
• Brick Colorstream, a visual catalogue - also including additional rarities
• LEGO Color Timeline showing years of production for all known LEGO colors

There are always more LEGO colors than you expect.

With the help of a few other AFOLs, I’ve been attempting to catalogue every color that LEGO has produced. I’m not the first to do this (see Peeron, Isodomos, BrickLink, Brickset, LDraw…), but in combining the existing lists and frequent updates I hope to have a reference for the AFOL community that is as complete as possible.

Blues in twos

A quick post about a new element worthy of note as it is an unusual colour now brought to a common part.

Plate 1X2

Element ID 4649765 | Design ID 3023
Colour Bright Light Blue [BL] / Light Royal Blue [TLG]