Iron Builder: Hammer & Spanner LEGO® building techniques

It's easy to look at a MOC and think, wow, that's beautiful... without appreciating all the astonishing connection techniques involved. Especially in a LEGO® contest like Iron Builder's Iron Forge where the brilliance is steadily poured into your eyeballs on a daily basis. I find it can even be a bit intimidating: how on earth could I ever build that well? Here's one by #1 Nomad:

So we've partnered with Iron Builder to break things down a little for you and reveal some of the techniques used by these amazing builders in the hope it inspires you, and improves everyone's game. We chatted with some of the talented competitors who made the Top 20 last week to ask how they used the seed parts, which were two classic Minifigure Utensil Tools: the Spanner Wrench / Screwdriver (Design IDs 4006 & 88631) and Mallet / Hammer (Design ID 4522).

Iron Builder: the LEGO® building contest is back

Iron Builder returns! And you can participate. This is great news for anyone who is still looking for advanced LEGO® building challenges (if Ryan Howerter’s REC puzzles and New Elementary’s “Switch Up My Lantern” contest aren't enough for you, that is!).

We love Iron Builder for its mind-blowing NPU and cheeky sense of humour and we intend to share a lot of news about it here on New Elementary. To kick things off, we figured it has been gone for a while and many of you may have no idea what we are talking about. So we collared two of the Iron Builder admin team, Simon Liu and Markus Rollbühler, to give us the lowdown on IB 2020 and how – for the first time ever – anyone can get involved.

21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay: Designer interview with Milan Madge & Austin William Carlson

The next LEGO® Ideas set, 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay, seems to be dividing opinion in the community. Regardless, you will be interested to hear what its designers, Milan Madge (set) and Austin William Carlson (graphics and minifigures) have to say about their adaptation of Pablo Jiménez's original design. And for this exclusive interview they've also shared the seven prototypes showing the model's development!

The first thing many people will say is that the final product diverges significantly from the original fan model. How did you come to the decision to make these changes, and was there much input from the fan designer?

Milan: The first step was building the fan designer Pablo’s model, but it became obvious early on that I was missing a lot of elements. Many of the pieces have been out of production for some time, so we had to get creative. The biggest hurdle was the raised baseplate, which meant a total redesign of the structure of the model, but even tiny changes such as the new boat hulls being wider than the ones in Pablo’s submission meant that all the proportions needed altering – a real headache!

LEGO® Speed Champions 2020: Designer Interview with Christopher Stamp

Way back in May 2019, we spoke to LEGO® Speed Champions Design Manager Specialist Christopher Leslie Stamp in Billund where he thrilled us with a secret glimpse at the 2020 line and its new elements. Now that the sets are available, we can share our interview with you.

Hello Chris, how long have you worked on the Speed Champions line?

I was on the design team for the first launch, so I was lucky enough to work on those products. I was the main designer on the second launch and I worked on several of the third launch. And that's when we actually first started looking into the 911 Porsche. But we don't just pick a car and do it straightaway. For example, although we started looking into the Porsche in 2016, we thought we'd keep for 2017. Actually, we kept it until 2018 because we kept working on it for so long, and then I went off and I did Ninjago for a little bit.

10267 Gingerbread House: Designer Interview with Jamie Berard

Tomorrow we will publish our review of this year's Winter Village set - 10267 Gingerbread House - but back in May in Billund we chatted with LEGO® Creator Expert Design Manager Specialist Jamie Berard  about it. It has 1477 pieces, including three LEGO minifigures, and is priced £84.99/ US $99.99/ CA $139.99/ DE €89.99/ FR €94.99/ 799DKK/ AUD $159.99 and is already available directly from LEGO.

Inside LEGO® Campus: Opening the new HQ

We're such teases... we were going to start our Skærbæk workshop results today but Francesco Spreafico has delivered this hot-off-the-press tale of the new LEGO® headquarters. He attended the opening of its first phase yesterday to give us all a glimpse inside the workings of The LEGO Group.

In July 2016, The LEGO Group announced their plans for their new headquarters in Billund, that would take the place of the then-current HQ, located in the street called Åstvej (where they’d been since the 1970s) and the Højmarksvej factory behind it that had recently been decommissioned. The LEGO House was almost ready and this project seemed to follow its steps, proposing a wonderfully modern building surrounded by nature, once more right in the middle of Billund. Soon after the announcement the construction works started and, as it often is the case, an observation point was also set up, so that the public could see how the works proceeded. Eventually even the old HQ were taken down and nothing else was left.

Fast-forward to yesterday, when the so-called “first phase” of the building officially opened! The whole “Campus” (as it is called now) will be finished in 2021 but a first section is ready (with 500 employees out of the 2000 that will be there in two years).

LEGO® House interview: Fan designer Simon Hundsbichler & LEGO Designer Stuart Harris

On 26 September 2019, LEGO® House threw a party for AFOLs to mark the second anniversary of its inauguration. Among the events was the reveal of the fan models chosen to appear in the Masterpiece Gallery for the coming year, including three creations by Simon Hundsbichler (Simon NH) from Austria who you may recall participating in our 2018 Parts Festival. We met up with Simon for a chat and were joined by Stuart Harris, Senior Experience Designer at the LEGO House, for some context and information about how AFOLs and their artworks are chosen.

What are the intentions of the Masterpiece Gallery, Stuart?

Stuart: When Kjeld was dreaming up the idea of doing LEGO House, the fans were an integral part of his plans so they’ve been involved in everything – even reviewing the architecture and giving us input, which is why we have this giant 2x4 brick on top of the building. So they’ve always been planned in, to be a permanent part of the LEGO House. We have a number of places where the fans can showcase their work and the ‘main’ showcase, if you like, is here in the Masterpiece Gallery. This is the one place where we put together fan collections.

21318 Treehouse: designer interview with César Soares

This week, the LEGO® Ideas set 21318 Treehouse was officially revealed. It has 3036 pieces and is coming out on 1 August for £179.99/ US$199.99/ €199.99, but LEGO VIPs can already order it now. Our review is coming soon but here is an exclusive interview we had with the set's designer César Soares, with Monica Pedersen from Marketing also present.

Wow! You kept it at a good size then.

César: Yes, this is actually very close to the fan submission size [by Kevin Feeser – Ed.]. I think his is a bit taller.

Was it the intention to stick as closely as possible to what had been voted for?

César: Yes, absolutely. We always try to stay as close as possible. We have to change some things. In this case, the base for instance. He had a square grey base and the whole thing is very organic so a square base would look a little bit odd. So we thought, why not make it more organic, make it green also to mimic the grass or plants, and a little stream. Another thing is the cabins; in the original submission they were all brown. And actually the first sketch model was all brown but then Sam [Johnson, the creative lead of LEGO Ideas] wrote me and said, “hey, they don’t pop out as much as we would like, so make them another colour.” That’s why they are medium dark flesh instead of brown, and the same thing with the roofs. They were dark tan and brown as well, so again we felt a little bit of colour might add something.

LEGO® Overwatch: Designer interview with Woon Tze

In May we chatted with LEGO® Overwatch designer Woon Tze in Billund about the theme and its new elements. This was prior to the reveal of the upcoming wave of sets, which is why we didn't ask him about those!

How long have you worked at the LEGO Group?

I’ve been at the company three years now. I started off at Super Heroes, I moved on to Harry Potter and Jurassic World, and now Overwatch. I built D.Va & Reinhardt [75973, read our review here] and the exclusive Omnic Bastion [75987].

Were you an Overwatch fan already?

I was a fan of the artwork, and once I got added to the team, I started playing the game… quite a bit! Probably a bit too much, I would say. I’m also a family man with three young boys so I need to control that a little bit! So at the moment it is controlled, I would hope to play a little bit more.

LEGO® Jurassic World 2019: Designer interview with Marcos Bessa

In May we spoke to LEGO® designer Marcos Bessa who leads the LEGO Jurassic World design team. He ran us through the four new sets that tie in with LEGO Jurassic World: The Legend of Isla Nublar, an animated 13-episode series which is a sequel to last year's LEGO Jurassic World: The Secret Exhibit.

Marcos: "For the LEGO® Jurassic World franchise in 2019 we have four novelty products coming out. These products are primarily based on new content we are doing with Universal. It expands the universe and takes place between the original trilogy and the first Jurassic World movie. The new park is already functioning, and Owen has just arrived at the park. We’ve seen in Jurassic World that he already has a history with Claire but what we are going to see in our TV series is how they actually build and develop that relationship."

75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage: designer interview with Mark Stafford & Marcos Bessa

Just announced, 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage is a new Direct to Consumer set (D2C, basically ‘the big ones for adults’) that has 3120 pieces and will be available from 19 June 2019 priced US$249.99/ CA$299.99/ £219.99/ €249.99/ 1899DKK. We saw it a couple of weeks ago in Billund and can confirm it is spectacular! While there we spoke with its designer Mark Stafford and LEGO® Jurassic World team manager Marcos Bessa to get some insight into how the set came about.

© The LEGO Group 2019

Our review is coming in a couple of weeks’ time but to set the scene, here are some key details from the press release. The T. rex dinosaur measures over 8” (22cm) high, 27” (69cm) long and 6” (17cm) wide and features snapping jaws with a posable head, arms, legs and tail. The gate has an opening function and measures over 16” (42cm) high, 18” (48cm) wide and 5” (14cm) deep. The wall framing the gate features a dinosaur nest and six other scenes inspired by the movie, shown later in this post. This set includes six minifigures: John Hammond, Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, Ray Arnold and Dennis Nedry, plus a baby dinosaur figure. The John Hammond, Ray Arnold and Dennis Nedry minifigures are new.

LEGO® Apollo 11 Lander: Jamie Berard interview

At the Recognised LEGO® Fan Media Days event in Billund recently we spoke to Creator Expert Design Manger Specialist Jamie Berard who introduced their newest set, 10266 NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander, which we reviewed a few days ago.

This looks incredible, Jamie. Who designed the set?

Jamie: Lars Joe was the designer, he normally works on Architecture but he also did the Winter Village firehouse, that was his first Creator Expert model and now this is his second one. You might also see some influence of Mike Psiaki, he did some of the original configuration for this and the triangulation on the legs. Then, when Lars Joe was working with it further, I pitched in a little bit on the upper part in the locking mechanism. We all couldn't help ourselves but to want to play with certain parts! But it's definitely Lars Joe.

LEGO® Unikitty: Yi-Chien Cheng & Janko Grujic interview

From a parts perspective, LEGO® Unikitty was perhaps the most interesting new theme of 2018. During the Recognised LEGO Media Fan Days, New Elementary sat down with two of the designers, Yi-Chien Cheng from Taiwan and Janko Grujic from Serbia, to ask them a few questions about the theme – and the new parts it’s given us.

We know Unikitty from 2014's The LEGO Movie, and she will return in the sequel this February. But in the meantime she got her own show, Unikitty! How did that come about?

Janko: The idea of that show has been, probably, on the table since the movie, because she’s such an appealing character. Warner Brothers joined forces with Cartoon Network to come up with the new show, so the sets that you see are related to the show on Cartoon Network, and I’d suggest that you take a look at it, it’s a lot of fun!

LEGO® Architecture: Rok Zgalin Kobe interview

At the Recognised LEGO® Fan Media Days in Billund last summer, we sat down with LEGO Architecture designer Rok Zgalin Kobe to have a chat about the evolution of the Architecture line. The LEGO Architecture theme has so far has spawned 42 building sets and one big ‘do it yourself’ kit – and last week we reviewed another two upcoming sets, 21044 Paris and 21043 San Francisco, due for release on 1st January 2019. 

By now, the Architecture line has pretty much become a mainstay of the LEGO portfolio. Are you surprised by the success the theme has had?

Rok: I would be betting against myself if I said I was surprised! I’m happy that it has the success that I believe it deserves.

It’s very different from the other lines, apart from maybe to a certain extent LEGO Ideas, in that the sets aren’t really made to be played with, they are static objects to be put on shelves, more like exhibition pieces. How does that affect the design process?

Rok: Well, it certainly doesn’t make us exempt from any of the stringent quality standards that the LEGO Group has, so it’s still treated as a child’s toy, with all the safety and quality issues that come with that. You have to be able to do this with it (holds up a pre-built 21037 LEGO House set and shakes it), so it has to be stable, but at the same time, at any point in the building process, you must not be able to injure yourself in any way with it. You always have to imagine a small child falling on top of it, which could be quite bad.

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® BrickHeadz: Marcos Bessa interview part 1

LEGO® BrickHeadz first popped onto the scene as four exclusive sets, each containing two figures, for the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2016 but 22 more sets were added in 2017. Now, more than 70 different figures have been released and by the end of the year the number will be rapidly approaching 100, featuring figures from more external intellectual properties (IPs) than in any other LEGO product line. Are J. Heiseldal sat down with BrickHeadz design lead Marcos Bessa in Denmark to talk about the apparent smash hit.

BrickHeadz differ from a lot of other current LEGO lines in that it’s actually a new, in-house, brick-built concept, and you still deal with a lot of external IPs. What’s it like to be covering new ground like that?
Marcos: On a personal level, for me, it’s been a great challenge, because it’s a very different approach from any other product line that I’ve worked on. It has the similarity of dealing with IPs, which I have been doing for a while, but it’s in a whole different medium, with a whole different set of restrictions and challenges, and also with a whole different purpose. And my role in this product line as a creative lead has also allowed me to be much more involved in the strategy behind the line, the IPs that we bring on board, the character selection, the price point discussion, and so on. So it’s no longer just on the field, working as a designer and creating a model, I’m also more involved in other levels of discussion on the product line, which has been greatly appreciated from my side, as a growing professional. On the product line, in terms of challenges, it has been great to deal with all these different IPs, very challenging at times, there have been days and weeks when things seem to all be going south and wrong and then suddenly things get picked back up and go back on track. So it’s a fun journey. It doesn’t get boring.

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.

LEGO® Ideas 21311 Voltron: Exclusive Niek van Slagmaat interview

Voltron is the latest set from LEGO® Ideas. Niek van Slagmaat (pictured below at San Diego ComicCon) designed the set based on the original fan submission by Lendy Tayag (pictured below in the picture in the picture) and you can read our review of the parts here. Meanwhile, Are J. Heiseldal met Niek in Billund to find out how the largest LEGO Ideas set to date came about.

What kind of response are you expecting from the big Voltron fans when this comes out?

Niek: I myself come from the fanbase, so if I was looking at this from that point of view, what I would probably immediately check out is whether it matches the original fan submission. We very much wanted to try and get the set as close as possible to the image that the original fan designer submitted. With LEGO, we have very rigorous quality standards, so we have to make sure things are stable and can last for the ages. This model has been going through an incredible amount – I’m fairly sure it’s a record amount – of long-term testing, because it was such a hotly debated topic within the company. But I’ll be mostly looking forward to seeing if people like the proportions, because for me personally, super robots are all about proportions, and for Voltron specifically, because it’s all animation, proportions change a lot from frame to frame. I’ve been working very closely with Lendy Tayag, the fan designer, to check in with him – he really knows his Voltron stuff, so he had a lot of feedback about the head designs for the lions and the general shaping and use of finishing elements like slopes and stuff in certain areas. So I’m very interested to see if they like the general expression of the model, if you like. That’s a very long answer to a very simple question.

Sustainable LEGO® elements: 40320 Plants from Plants

Here at New Elementary we usually talk about new shapes and colours of LEGO® elements but today we’re looking at a new material from which some botanical elements are now being made. By 2030, The LEGO Group (TLG) intend to use sustainable materials in all of their core products and packaging.

This article is a collaboration between Are J. Heiseldal who met TLG employees Matt Whitby (Environmental Responsibility Engagement) and Bistra Andersen (Senior Materials Platform Manager) at LEGO Fan Media Days in Billund, Tim Johnson, and Elspeth De Montes who has her hands on the limited edition gift-with-purchase set, 40320 Plants from Plants.

LEGO plastics

The first bricks made in 1949 were made from cellulose acetate, which warps over time. After some research by plastics companies, TLG replaced it in 1963 with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, used to this day.

LEGO® Ideas Pop-Up Book: exclusive Samuel Johnson interview

We are all on tenterhooks awaiting further news of the upcoming LEGO® Ideas Voltron set. But yesterday the LEGO Ideas team instead announced the results of their latest review, which examined seven successful fan creations to decide which would be released as a real LEGO product later this year. Spoiler alert if you've not watched the reveal video... it's going to be Pop-Up Book, by Grant Davis and Jason Allemann.

Image © Jason Allemann/ Grant Davis

Thanks to the help of New Elementary readers, our reporter Are J. Heiseldal was inside LEGO HQ in Billund yesterday, for LEGO Fan Media Days, where he spoke to Senior Designer Samuel Johnson about Pop-Up Book and the other fan creations that didn't make it.