In medieval times, a blacksmith was a vital part of any village or town’s existence (as my kids and I discovered in our home learning while stuck in Lockdown 3). They were among a small group of craftsmen that no civilisation at the time could have done without. Usually working in iron and later steel, they would make all manner of things – nails, horseshoes, hinges, weapons, armour and hand tools, among many other practical and decorative things. A blacksmith would also be called upon to mend those same things too.
24 January 2021
LEGO® Ideas review: 21325 Medieval Blacksmith - the build
In medieval times, a blacksmith was a vital part of any village or town’s existence (as my kids and I discovered in our home learning while stuck in Lockdown 3). They were among a small group of craftsmen that no civilisation at the time could have done without. Usually working in iron and later steel, they would make all manner of things – nails, horseshoes, hinges, weapons, armour and hand tools, among many other practical and decorative things. A blacksmith would also be called upon to mend those same things too.
23 January 2021
LEGO® Ideas review: 21325 Medieval Blacksmith - the parts
The LEGO Group is taking us on a journey in time. Back to Medieval times and, by association, back to the Classic Castle sets of the 1980s.
21325 Medieval Blacksmith is beautiful: this isn’t just a half-timbered house with a characteristically charming second-storey overhang, oh no, there is much more to it. The three floors are packed with authentic-looking details and clever features.
11 January 2021
LEGO® Ideas review: 21323 Grand Piano
Released in August 2020, 21323 Grand Piano is an unusual and remarkable LEGO® product. For the few of you still unaware of it, let’s start with the quickest of rundowns. Measuring 58 x 38 x 16 cm (23 x 15 x 6 in) and weighing over 6kg (13 lb) in the box, this is a faithful LEGO representation of a working grand piano. Lids flip open, the stool rises, the keys strike strings – and it kinda plays music too; a Powered Up electric motor can be activated by a phone app to make the keys move while music plays on the phone.
23 October 2020
LEGO® Ideas review: 21324 123 Sesame Street - the parts & minifigures
As we've all now seen, LEGO® Ideas 21324 123 Sesame Street is a vibrant set full of new and rare recolours of parts, and brand new minifigs too. Hang on a second – new moulds in Ideas? The press release confirms “exclusive buildable minifigures which have been moulded specifically for the set”. Seems that’s no longer against the Ideas rules; Brickset user Brick_Clicker noted the guidelines on the LEGO Ideas site now state: “Should we deem it necessary, we may introduce new LEGO element molds, new cloth or other non-brick elements in the final official LEGO Ideas set. This would [be] done on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the LEGO Ideas Product Development team.” Well, that is good news, although I really hope we get a CMF line too because I want Grover and The Count!
22 October 2020
LEGO® Ideas review: 21324 123 Sesame Street - the model & stickers
Warning: I haven’t been this excited about an IP since LEGO Doctor Who, and so unusually for New Elementary there will be scrutiny of the source material, the minifigures and even the stickers! We’ll start with the completed set however, so settle back, pop on an appropriate disco soundtrack and let me show you what you get, what you get in Sesame Street.
28 March 2020
LEGO® Ideas review: 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay - the new pieces & minifigures
LEGO® Ideas try their best to work without creating any new moulds, so we don’t get any in 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay. That statement turns out to be not completely true however, as you will see later.
Recoloured LEGO® pieces in 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay
Most interesting are the recolours – existing elements changed to new colours – and there are more in this set than I thought.The first surprise while building was the colour of the palm leaves used in this set. From the picture on the box I would have bet that they are the usual Dark Green/ Green (shown top right), but all 16 are actually Bright Green (6299808|10884, shown lower right).
25 March 2020
21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay: Designer interview with Milan Madge & Austin William Carlson
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!
24 March 2020
LEGO® Ideas review: 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay - the build
Pitched by Pablo Jiménez (Bricky_Brick) as “The Pirate Bay” in 2019, the submission that took only 25 days to reach the required 10,000 supporters has now been turned into an official set and will be available from 1 April 2020. It contains 2,545 pieces and the price point is US$199.99/ CA$259.99/ €199.99/ £179.99/ 1599DKK.
21 January 2020
LEGO® IDEAS review: 21321 International Space Station
The selection of the ISS as an Ideas set was via a slightly different route as a mark of the 10 years anniversary of LEGO Ideas (originally LEGO Cuusoo) This time, the LEGO Ideas team looked back at all the submissions that had reached 10K but had not passed review, and selected four for fans to vote for to make the final decision. The ISS by by fan designer Christophe Ruge won the public vote. The new LEGO Ideas International Space Station is rated 16+, contains 864 pieces and priced at US $69.99 / CA $99.99 / DE €69.99 / FR €59.99 / UK £64.99 / DK 549DKK from LEGO stores and online from February 1st.
Let's take a look at those new elements...
16 October 2019
LEGO® Ideas review: 21320 Dinosaur Fossils
18 August 2019
LEGO® Ideas review: 21319 Central Perk
07 August 2019
LEGO® Ideas 21318 Treehouse: the build
In a great alteration to Kevin Freeser's original fan submission, which had a grey square base, César Soares' official version has an irregular green shape with a stream running through it. The stream is Dark Azure plate (including the 4x8, Element ID 6209672, its third appearance in sets) with a layer of Transparent 1x1 and 1x2 plates on top.
05 August 2019
LEGO® Ideas 21318 Treehouse: the parts
26 July 2019
21318 Treehouse: designer interview with César Soares
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.
18 March 2019
LEGO® Ideas Review: 21317 Steamboat Willie
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.
16 February 2019
LEGO® Ideas 21316 The Flintstones
LEGO Ideas is a constantly evolving system, but there are a couple of individuals who seem to have cracked the magic formula. This is fan designer Andrew Clark’s second Ideas submission to make it all the way to store shelves after 21304 Doctor Who in 2016.
27 October 2018
LEGO® Ideas 21315 Pop-up Book
The LEGO® theme without a theme, also known as LEGO Ideas, has given a traditional object a fresh brick-based perspective. Pop-up books embrace a combination of the intricate arts of bookbinding, illustration and origami, resulting in an interactive, palpable storytelling medium. If only there was a toy today that could do that ;)
07 August 2018
LEGO® Ideas 21311 Voltron: the parts
Leandro (Lendy) Tayag’s winning LEGO® Ideas submission blasts its way to market as 21311 Voltron. The towering robot defender comes to life by combining five mechanized lions, each which is a separate model in this set. So how does Voltron stack up (both literally, and in terms of new elements)? Let’s take a closer look!
23 July 2018
LEGO® Ideas 21311 Voltron: Exclusive Niek van Slagmaat interview
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.
02 June 2018
LEGO® Fan Media Days 2018: What happened
LEGO TECHNIC 42083 Bugatti Chiron
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On Friday the new Technic supercar for 2018 was announced in an exciting press event at LEGO House. |