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"

Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - April 2019

With a new month comes new pieces on “Bricks & Pieces”, The LEGO Group’s service for purchasing individual new LEGO® elements. My highlights for April are here and while the list is short I still made some interesting findings. As always you can find my list here:

BnP.jonaskramm.com

Most new parts come from the LEGO 4+ theme this month and therefore are quite big such as the new 1x8x3 Slope (Design ID 49618) and the new POOP: 1x4x3 Brick (49311). The latter is pretty useless for the AFOL community but the former will definitely find some use. Its angle is 25° in TLG's nomenclature or 33° if you prefer BrickLink's. It is only found in Toy Story 4 10767 Duke Caboom's Stunt Show at present.

AFOL Designer Program: The LEGO® Story

It has been a couple of months since the 16 finalists in the AFOL Designer Program, hosted by BrickLink and supported by The LEGO Group, were revealed. We know two of the finalists well and asked them both to tell us a little about their winning designs. Last time Jonas Kramm described his Wild West Saloon, and today we have another Jonas K! – namely Jónás Kovács, a Hungarian university student living in Serbia, known online as BrickJonas.

Hopefully most of you have already seen The LEGO® Story, which is a limited edition set designed by me and packed and delivered by BrickLink. I sent this LEGO set idea to the AFOL Designer Program and was one of the 16 builders who entered the final, pre-order phase in the program. Today, I would like to talk a little bit about my submission, and show you some interesting details in it.

AFOL Designer Program: Wild West Saloon

Recently there's been a lot of interest in the AFOL Designer Program, where a handful of fan builders have had their designs turned into crowdfunded sets for sale. Given that a couple of the builders are good friends of New Elementary, we thought we'd ask them for an insider's view on their designs and the program itself. First up, Jonas Kramm reveals how he used this opportunity to make a Wild West Saloon that is also an exciting parts pack. 

The AFOL Designer Program is a first-of-its-kind cooperation between The LEGO Group and BrickLink. Both companies collaborate on making a small selection of fan designs into sets for sale. That may sound like a second LEGO® Ideas to you but I will take a look at the differences, and they are essential!

Build & Fix contest: the winners

At last the time has come to reveal the most innovative uses of  'Ship Front 12X12X1 1/3' (Design ID 43979), as created by our readers. Our judges Sven Franic and Jonas Kramm had tough decisions to make, so without further ado let's see who their favourites were.

The five equal winners

In no particular order... the five builders each winning 70828 Pop-Up Party Bus and 70841 Benny's Space Squad are...

The Cheese Slicer, by Bas van Houwelingen

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 4

We chose a difficult, controversial seed part for our latest LEGO® contest: 'Ship Front 12X12X1 1/3' (Design ID 43979). The idea was to BUILD using the seed part in an inventive way to FIX those negative opinions that this is merely a Big Ugly Ship Hull.

Once again, New Elementary readers blew us away with their superb ideas. Our judges, Sven Franic and Jonas Kramm, have made the tough decisions but before we reveal the five winners tomorrow, we are showing you all 53 entries received – here is the final bunch. Missed part 1? Start here.

Electric rock guitar

By
Csaba Toth

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 3

We chose a difficult, controversial seed part for our latest LEGO® contest: 'Ship Front 12X12X1 1/3' (Design ID 43979). The idea was to BUILD using the seed part in an inventive way to FIX those negative opinions that this is merely a Big Ugly Ship Hull (BUSH).

Once again, New Elementary readers blew us away with their superb ideas. Our judges, Sven Franic and Jonas Kramm, have made the tough decisions but before we reveal the five winners, we will show you all 53 entries received over the course of the next few days. Missed part 1? Start here.

Honored Adventurer

By
Big Stannis

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 2

We chose a difficult, controversial seed part for our latest LEGO® contest: 'Ship Front 12X12X1 1/3' (Design ID 43979). The idea was to BUILD using the seed part in an inventive way to FIX those negative opinions that this is merely a Big Ugly Ship Hull.

Once again, New Elementary readers blew us away with their superb ideas. Our judges, Sven Franic and Jonas Kramm, have made the tough decisions but before we reveal the five winners, we will show you all 53 entries received over the course of the next few days. Missed part 1? Start here.

Hera Customs Official

By
Oscar Cederwall (o0ger)

I ordered six 43979 and started combining them in different ways. I liked the shape I got from combining two of the parts stud-to-stud. I started attaching bricks on the outside of the parts and this is the result. There are two engines with two 43979 each, and there are also two 43979 in the front of the fuselage.

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 1

We chose a difficult, controversial seed part for our latest LEGO® contest: 'Ship Front 12X12X1 1/3' (Design ID 43979). The idea was to BUILD using the seed part in an inventive way to FIX those negative opinions that this is merely a Big Ugly Ship Hull.

Once again, New Elementary readers blew us away with their superb ideas. Our judges, Sven Franic and Jonas Kramm, have made the tough decisions but before we reveal the five winners, we will show you all 53 entries received over the course of the next few days.

Anatomical Mouth Model

By
Quoting

A model of the mouth and teeth like you would find at the dentist.

Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - March 2019

Another month has passed and so it’s time for a new round of highlights from “Bricks & Pieces”, The LEGO Group’s service for individual new LEGO® elements. Check it out:

BnP.jonaskramm.com

Fairy Bricks auction: Technic Pagani Huayra BC

Our friends at our favourite charity, Fairy Bricks, have let us know about an amazing fundraiser coming up. An online Catawiki auction of a Pagani Huayra BC recreated in LEGO® Technic by Jeroen Ottens is taking place so that Fairy Bricks can continue their work of bringing LEGO sets to children in hospitals. To tell us the unusual story of how this has come about, meet Grum.

In 1983 at the age of 19 I had a motorcycle accident in which my neck was broken leaving me a C4/5 Tetraplegic. I was completely paralysed from the upper chest down with no use of my hands and very impaired movement of my arms.

Book review: The Unofficial LEGO® Color Guide

We love LEGO® colours here at New Elementary and know it is an important topic for many of you too. A reference book, The Unofficial LEGO Color Guide by Christoph Bartneck, was first released late in 2017 with a second edition in July 2018. We sent a copy to LEGO colour aficionado Ryan Howerter (creator of LEGO colour resources like Brick Colorstream) to see what it offers.

There is a definite need in the AFOL community for LEGO® color references, whether for BrickLink sellers to verify the color of parts they’re listing, artists to match RGB values to brick colors, or geeks like me who like data and historical information just because. This book is, to my knowledge, the first attempt to make that information available in a physical format for easy reference, but it unfortunately misses the mark on several points.

New Elementary launched on Patreon

We've been working on an exciting new offering that's now live: the New Elementary Patreon page. This blog will continue as always, publishing for free the quality original content about LEGO® parts that you've come to know and love. Patreon is now your opportunity to support the work we do – and as a bonus, get access to exclusive extras every month on our Patreon feed.

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).

Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - February 2019

You may recall Jonas Kramm has decided to curate monthly lists of cool parts available from “Bricks & Pieces”, The LEGO Group’s service for individual new LEGO® elements, to save you checking the price and availability of the wanted pieces one by one. He's so nice! Here is his February update.

After receiving great feedback on my January list I have now added the highlights of Bricks & Pieces in February. As always you can find it on:

BnP.jonaskramm.com

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).

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.