LEGO® Disney review: Storybook Adventures - the new parts

On Monday, Tobias Witmer (TobyMac) examined the recoloured and printed parts to be found in the new LEGO® Disney Storybook Adventure sets (43174 Mulan’s Storybook Adventures, 43175 Anna and Elsa’s Storybook Adventures, 43176 Ariel’s Storybook Adventures, and 43177 Belle’s Storybook Adventures). Today he completes his review by examining the new moulds, including the new 'Micro Doll' figures.

New parts in LEGO® Disney Storybook Adventures

Firstly we will examine the elements that comprise the books themselves.

The spine consists of a single part: Plate Special Book Cover Back 6 x 16 (65200). It is 16 studs long (or high, given that a book stands upwards in a bookcase) and the center consists of a plate with 4 x 16 studs with, for some reason, gaps of 2 x 2 in the middle. On the sides are curved walls with a pin hole on the ends, which allow the connection to the book covers.

LEGO® Disney review: Storybook Adventures - the recolours and printed pieces

We're excited to have our friend Tobias Witmer (TobyMac), from the fantastic website Rebrickable.com (which shows you what other models you can make with your existing parts) reviewing the new LEGO® Disney Storybook Adventure sets for you across two posts this week. A Technic fan as a child, Tobias came back to LEGO around 10 years ago when he discovered Peeron.com. When that great resource sadly stopped updating he stumbled upon Rebrickable and, soon becoming utterly LEGO-obsessed, he became an admin there in 2016. 

This week I’ll be looking at four sets at once:
 43174 Mulan’s Storybook Adventures, 43175 Anna and Elsa’s Storybook Adventures, 43176 Ariel’s Storybook Adventures, and 43177 Belle’s Storybook Adventures. This series of sets consists of a LEGO-build book with a small diorama on the inside and figures, to play out your own stories.


These sets caught my eye because of the new style of figures introduced, which BrickLink call Micro Doll. Then I also noticed the large book pieces. Unneeded, single-use parts? Or could a creative mind do more with them? I’ll describe them for you, and let you be the judge.


New LEGO® Colour 364 Transparent Medium Reddish Violet with Opalescence

It seems that 2020 is not limited to bringing us 362 Transparent Blue Opal, but also 364 Transparent Medium Reddish Violet with Opalescence. We are calling them new colours because they have been given a LEGO Colour ID but it seems that adding the Opalescence effect is not likely to classify this as part of the "one colour in, one colour out policy" as far as we can tell.



One of our readers, BrickoMotion, mentioned that the 1x4 Panel in Transparent Medium Reddish Violet/ Trans-Dark Pink from Disney' 43173 Aurora's Carriage was "weirdly colored" and it seems it was also pearly and iridescent. They were right, so let's take a look at this second new colour.

New LEGO® Colour 362 Transparent Blue Opal

Following on from the introduction of new LEGO® hues over the last couple of years, it seems that 2020 continues the tradition. In 2018, 107 Bright Bluish Green/ Dark Turquoise returned, 2019 gave us 353 Vibrant Coral and now 2020 brings 362 Transparent Blue Opal.

As far as we know this new colour only appears in two sets, both within the Disney theme. [Edit: there's also a pink version too.] Our thanks to Ryan Howerter for the heads-up. We thought would take a look at this sparkly, iridescent hue.

LEGO® review: 71044 Disney Train and Station

Announced today, LEGO® set 71044 Disney Train and Station is a mammoth, detailed set containing a 77cm-long train, and a station based on Disney theme parks measuring 39cm x 35cm. Victor Pruvost has reviewed it for us and it retails at £299.99/ US$329.99/ CA$379.99/ DE€329.99/ FR€329.99/ 2499DKK/ AU$549.99.

In 2016, LEGO released the first series of Disney Collectable Minifigures, followed by a big set. This year, LEGO released the second series of Disney Collectable Minifigures, and it is also followed by a big set. 71044 Disney Train and Station comes with 2925 pieces and five minifigures, which we’re about to examine!

LEGO® Ideas Review: 21317 Steamboat Willie

The next LEGO® Ideas set, 21317 Steamboat Willie, marks the 90th anniversary of the most famous cartoon character ever, Mickey Mouse. His fame was sparked in the 1928 black-and-white animated short film called Steamboat Willie which was also the first Disney film to have synchronized sound. Let's steam ahead with Mickey and take a look at the set that will be available from 1st April 2019 priced US $89.99/CA $119.99/DE €89.99/UK £79.99 and contains 751 parts.

The original LEGO Ideas proposal was submitted in 2016 by Máté Szabó who lives in Budapest and is an animator. The proposal hit the 10k votes mark in July last year and it was only revealed that the proposal would become a set last month when the review results were announced. Clearly a lot has been going on behind the scenes as the set has evolved into a larger, functional, impressive version of the original proposal. Let's take a closer look.

LEGO® BrickHeadz: Marcos Bessa interview part 2

In the first part of this interview with LEGO® BrickHeadz design lead Marcos Bessa, Are J. Heiseldal asked him about the advantages and the complexities of working with multiple intellectual properties (IPs), and the inherent limitations of the BrickHeadz concept itself. Today he asks about the new and recoloured parts as well as the production process... and which character is Marcos' favourite!

At New Elementary, we love new parts so the two new types of glasses that we got in the Go Brick Me set are particularly interesting for us. What can you tell us about the development process of those?
Marcos: The brief for the BrickHeadz line actually came with a request to do something like this. The idea for the Go Brick Me set came very early, in early 2017, so the brand was just about to come out officially on the market. We were already planning what to do for 2018 and so the importance of customisation, allowing people to represent their features was of key importance for this. So we immediately started looking into what that would mean in terms of new elements –  how to make glasses, do we need something new? I started exploring and came up with a whole lot of variations of new elements that we could make, trying to come up with something that would work and fulfil the brief for this purpose, but become a versatile enough element that it could become interesting for other uses. And I think we ended up finding something that is pretty cool for what we do in the set, but also offers a lot of other opportunities, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.

LEGO® Minifigures: Tara Wike & Austin Carlson interview

The LEGO® Minifigures theme has given us a great deal of interesting new parts, particularly minifigure accessories, since the arrival of the first blind bags eight years ago. At the Recognised LEGO Fan Media Days, Are J. Heiseldal sat down for a chat with designers Tara Wike and Austin Carlson to see if we could make them spill the beans on what the future holds (not really).

You represent a very successful line – since the beginning in 2010, and I did some counting, there’s been 441 figures released…
Tara: Oh my God. I lost count after we reached the 300 mark. I stopped counting then.

That’s 55 per year, pretty much one per week, for eight years. Are you going to slow down?
Austin: I don’t think so.
Tara: Not if I have anything to say about it.

Brickheadz: Super Heroes & Disney

The LEGO® BrickHeadz are available today on VIP Early Access! They are on general release from March 1 priced £9.99/ US$9.99/ 9.99€. Sven Franic returns to examine the remaining sets.

As I said last time, there are certain pointers which tell me this theme could be a great success. Apart from its collectible perspective, the theme is jam-packed with pieces in new colours and exclusive printed elements, and I would assume this kind of budgetary flexibility isn't given to every LEGO design team.

Previously I built (and destroyed) the characters from The LEGO Batman Movie for your delectation; today it is the turn of the MARVEL LEGO Super Heroes and the characters from Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Towering achievement

Have you all already decided whether or not to buy 71040 Disney Castle? At £299.99 / US$349.99 / €349.99, the first obstacle is cost. Beyond that, if you are a Disney fan, I imagine it is a must-have. If you crave large, challenging LEGO® builds this is definitely something out of the ordinary. If you love to wow your friends with your latest LEGO display, this is a great choice — aside from being appealing and highly detailed with loads of rooms inside referencing different Disney films, it is a good shape for display in that the model’s footprint is relatively small compared to the overall height. We even have a human being to show you just how big it is...