2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Garmadon's Hat

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Yesterday brought many vehicles using Ninjago Mini Hat No 19 (Design ID 26007), also known as Minifig, Headgear Hat, Conical Asian with Raised Center on BrickLink or, I believe, 'Jungle Garmadon's hat' to Ninjago fans. Today we have an even wider range of builds using this decorative piece, even though it only has one connection point.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Vehicles

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Following on from yesterday's ships, we have some other kinds of vehicles today using new parts, especially the Ninjago Mini Hat No 19 in Dark Brown (Element ID 6198018 | Design ID 26007).

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Ships

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Some used the parts to build ships, which I've collected for you today. Click any image to enlarge.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Furniture and gates

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Today we present some of the models using Fence 1X4X2 W/ Shaft No 1 in Black (Element ID 6195092 | Design ID 32932) from Ninjago.

This ornamental furniture is exquisite! Note how the one on the left also uses the Plate 1X3 W/ 2 Knobs in Black (Element ID 6199908 | Design ID 34103).

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Patterns

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Faced with parts in large volumes, many were inspired to make patterns.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: the SNOT column

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Today we look at models containing Brick 1X1X1 2/3 W/ Vert Knobs in Bright Red [TLG]/Red [BL] (Element ID 6187620 | Design ID 32952) - except that being such a functional piece, it usually gets buried in the build!

Such as within this spectacular geometric form which makes use of the Nexo Knights pentagonal shield tile (Design ID 22385).

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Cages

Welcome back to our Parts Festival where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions.

Many people used the Ninjago fence - (Element ID 6195092 | Design ID 32932) Fence 1X4X2 W Shaft No 1 - to create cage-like structures.

This microscale temple covers up parts of the fence, giving it quite a different feel. Many of the seed parts are used here. Note how the two Plate 2X2 W/ Reduced Knobs in Reddish Brown (Element ID 6196221 | Design ID 33909) slightly tuck under the tiles that have been offset using 'triple jumpers' Plate 1X3 W/ 2 Knobs in Black (Element ID 6199908 | Design ID 34103),

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: Microscale

Okay, it really is happening! Welcome to our Parts Festival, where we gave 60 LEGO® fans an hour to make whatever they liked using a range of new LEGO elements as 'seed' parts for their constructions. I'll post a handful every day for the next nine days. Hopefully some just might inspire you to get building! 

To kick things off I have selected some of the microscale constructions that the participants came up with. Microscale essentially means that the scale of the model is smaller than one that minifigures could inhabit.

To me this looks like a floating industrial island with traditional housing. Look carefully and you'll see that the builder has made use of the 3.18mm bar connection on the Black Fence 1X4X2 W/ Shaft No 1 (Element ID 6195092 | Design ID 32932) giving an impression of 'floating'.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival

On the last weekend of each September, the Skærbæk Fan Weekend brings together hundreds of LEGO® fans from dozens of countries for a few fun-filled days in a remote Danish coastal town. 2017's was the biggest yet, and on the Sunday morning New Elementary ran one of our 'live' parts festivals: a special workshop where, thanks to the LEGO Group, 60 AFOLs got their hands on some of the newest LEGO pieces to see what they could build within the space of an hour.

At long last I'm ready to show you what they made! Well, almost. Today I will introduce the parts I chose for the festival.

PdC Parts Festival: Day Three

Here are the results from the final day of our first ever live parts festival, where AFOLs from all over the world who were attending the Paredes de Coura (PdC) Fan Weekend last June were given just over an hour to come up with ideas of what might be possible using a range of new LEGO® parts. See the parts selection here.

Bill Ward

At the rear of his spaceship, Bill created rather neat vector thrust capability by creating oval shapes from pairs of Mudguard 3X4, W/ Plate, No. 1 (6178912 | 28326). I will show you a breakdown of this technique in my next post, when I explore the geometry of this part a little more deeply. 

PdC Parts Festival: Day Two

AFOLs from all over the world took part in our first ever live parts festival in June in Portugal at the Paredes de Coura (PdC) Fan Weekend. Each day, 15 builders had just over an hour to explore what might be done with a range of new LEGO® parts. See the parts selection here, but today let's look at what the second round of LEGO fans came up with.

Amy Fennell

PdC Parts Festival: Day One

Our first ever live parts festival (or "parts party" as regular reader Håkan put it!) took place in June in Portugal at the Paredes de Coura (PdC) Fan Weekend. Each day, 15 builders had just over an hour to explore what might be done with a range of new LEGO® parts. See the parts selection here, but today let's look at what the first round of LEGO fans came up with.

Michael Studman 

Yes, that's his real name. Jeal much?

Most of the seed parts are present in this characterful chihuahua! Funny, I never thought to use Boomerang (6153574 | 25892) as the structure of a dog's body...

PdC Parts Festival

Back in June, we had a first for New Elementary; our first ever live parts festival! We've run several online parts festivals in the past, where we take some of the newest elements released by the LEGO® Group and challenge builders to explore what they might be used for. This time around, regular contributor Jonas Kramm proposed that we run a workshop at the Paredes de Coura (PdC) Fan Weekend in Portugal to see what builders could come up with - in the space of an hour!

LEGO® House pre-opening event

The new experience centre/museum in Billund, LEGO® House, has now opened to the public but on Friday 22 September 2017 there was a special pre-opening event for hundreds of LEGO fans from around the world. I was lucky enough to be one of them, so here are some photos from the day. If you are planning to go yourself, you might consider any photos to be 'spoilers' but I am glad to report that there is just so much to do and enjoy inside LEGO House, the photos I'd seen beforehand really didn't spoil much for me and I trust this post won't either.

General manager of LEGO House Jesper Vilstrup welcomes us along with third-generation owner, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. Behind them is a lenticular made of cheese slopes (Design ID 54200) that shows either the company motto or portraits of the four generations of family owners, depending where you stand.

Bricktastic: Alex Jones (Orion Pax)

One of the many who regularly display at Bricktastic, the LEGO® show in Manchester in aid of Fairy Bricks, is Alexander Jones works as a LEGO Model Designer for TT Games, so if you're into LEGO video games you've surely played with his models before. But Bricktastic provided the opportunity to see Alex play with his own models! Including Arcee, one of the Autobots from the Transformers franchise which is a favoured subject of his.

2017 Skærbæk Parts Festival: registration

Sorry, this event is now fully booked.

Are you already registered to come to Skærbæk Fan Weekend in Denmark in late September? If not, I am afraid you are too late for this year, folks... but if you are registered: New Elementary will be running a one-off special building workshop and we'd love you to come and build with some new elements!

Bricktastic 2017: Event videos

I shot a couple of quick videos on my phone at Bricktastic, the LEGO® show in aid of Fairy Bricks.

It was an awesome event! As you can see, plenty of people, but also plenty of space to move around. This was a deliberate move by the organisers to ensure people didn't get stressed by the crowds or feel they couldn't stop and stare at something for ages... like these amazing models....

Bricktastic 2017: event pictures

We're live from Manchester! Bricktastic, the event run by the wonderful charity Fairy Bricks, is underway and the quality of models is outstanding. It's a really relaxed event thanks to the generous space, carefully managed crowd numbers and the lack of doof-doof music!

Here's a very random look at some of the AFOL creations on display - sorry not to be more polished with this post, it's been hard to find the time. Enjoy!

Steve Deaville and Steph Cotter - The Odyssey (1980s animated series)

Competition: make a LEGO font

Entry is now closed. View the amazing entries we received!

It's high time we ran a competition. In the last year or so the LEGO® Group have released several new tiles, and they are very cool pieces. I want you to use them to create lettering, such as this example I designed digitally. You could win 250 new LEGO tiles!

Bricktastic 2017, Manchester UK

The third annual Bricktastic show takes place on the weekend of 1st and 2nd July at Manchester Central. Come along! And tell anyone you know who lives in the Northwest to get there too - it's worth travelling to experience this big, friendly LEGO show with a great atmosphere. Many of the UK's greatest AFOL builders make the effort to be there, because it is run by and in aid of Fairy Bricks, the wonderful charity who raise money to buy LEGO sets for children's hospitals.

I'll be there too! The New Elementary table will feature some of the amazing Nexogon models you're seeing from our talented UK builders, and Elspeth De Montes will be adding some colourful creations, no doubt injected with her colourful sense of humour.

Here's another of the amazing models that will premiere at the show; Jamie Douglas has expanded the official set 10253 Big Ben to show the entire Houses of Parliament!