Old Elementary: the Train Light Prism

Following his stunning contributions to our recent LEGO® Parts Festival, the talented Swedish builder Oscar Cederwall (Flickr) suggested he write an article about one particular element he used in one particular build that a lot of you have been asking about. 

You might have seen this MOC of mine before. It showed up in the New Elementary Parts Festival in late 2019. When you saw it, you might have wondered what those weird parts that make up the cockpit are? Well, let me tell you all about them…

The story about the Electric, Train Light Prism 1 x 3 (Design ID 4171), or "train prism" that I will call it hereafter, begins in 1980 with the new LEGO electric train system. The part was released in six sets during a seven-year period, and only in Transparent/Trans-Clear. Just three of these sets are actual trains; the other three are accessory packs.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Thorin Finch's Republic Assault

When we sent new LEGO® parts to Alice Finch she got her sons involved in the Parts Festival fun! We saw many of their resulting builds last year but today we showcase an epic Star Wars diorama built entirely by Thorin (aged 16) as well as a gunship.  

Republic assault on an outer rim Separatist science facility

LEGO® Employee Gift 4002019 Christmas X-Wing: Build Your Own

Each Christmas, The LEGO Group give their employees all over the world a special gift set. Since this year is the 20th anniversary of LEGO® Star Wars, it seems they have decided to incorporate the theme by designing a Yuletide X-Wing complete with R2-D2 sleigh and Yoda's igloo. The problem with employee sets is that they are are not released for purchase although inevitably a large amount seem to find their way to the secondary marketplaces.



Recognised LEGO Fan Media (like us!) are lucky enough to also receive one and so we thought we would take a look at this exclusive set with the aim of reassuring you that if you want to build it, that is almost entirely possible thanks to the scarcity of exclusive elements in it.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Peter Ilmrud's gunship, flying city and bathhouse

Our final new Parts Festival participant is Peter Ilmrud, a Swedish AFOL who is a building engineer in real life but builds wondrous fantasy, castle and steampunk builds in his LEGO® life. His most well-known creations are perhaps his beautiful scenes contained within glass domes.

This build is an alien gunship often referred to as "Bullet Bill" by the survivors in the year 2119, 50 years after The Invasion.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Mansur Soeleman's Star Wars

Today, another new participant for this Parts Festival presents his first builds. Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman (Flickr & Instagram) is a former art & design student who, having just come out of his Grey Age (that's a semi-Dark Age), has been building with LEGO® elements seriously for just a year now, but mostly digitally.

For a newbie it is always an exhilarating surprise to be recognised for your work, and to be invited to challenges that only elevate your skills. Such was my reaction to find out that I had been recommended for this year’s second Parts Festival by several world-renowned Classic Space builders.

Clone Turbo Tank and AT-TE

2019 Parts Fest #2: Tim Goddard's Star Trek & Star Wars

Back to the Parts Festival today – yes, we have lots more LEGO® inspiration for you yet, even some new faces! – but it is Tim Goddard's turn again today, following his recent collection of bots and a hover racer, and other tablescraps. 

USS Enterprise

We start with the spacey franchise Star Trek. Possibly my hardest model ever to photograph.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Andreas Lenander's 3x3 dome inspiration

Following his first post of LEGO® creations for our Parts Festival, Andreas Lenander returns today with three varied builds that were all inspired by one piece.

The new rounded 3x3 dome (Sphere 3X3X11/3, W/ Knob in Medium Stone Grey – 49308 | 6263183) was a piece that I instantly loved when I first saw it. I can see it being used in a variety of builds since it works equally well for nature-scenes (rock work, etc) as it does for sci-fi builds (greebling on a spaceship, etc).

Elementarium IV

The first time I picked up the rounded 3x3 domes (Sphere 3X3X11/3, W/ Knob in Medium Stone Grey – 49308 | 6263183), I knew I had to build a spaceship.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Eero Okkonen's Doctor Who and the Frost Serpent

Finnish builder Eero Okkonen returns to our Parts Festival today with another two varied creations using new LEGO® parts. You can see his earlier two builds here and follow his builds on his blog.

Frost Serpent Arises

Sometimes the bulk of a creation stays almost the same while the concept changes completely. 

2019 Parts Fest #2: Sagh's robots and coconuts

Our next LEGO® Parts Festival participant is Paulo 'Sagh' Carreira, an architect that works for a company managing conservation and restoration of Portuguese heritage. 

After finally being able to participate in one of the New Elementary workshops at Skaerbaek Fan Weekend this year, I was very pleased to also be invited to participate in the Parts Festival. This challenge proved to be a great experience, making me build a lot of different stuff, and it was also good at pulling me out of the building hiatus I had fallen to.

Fujin the Samurai Droid 

Some folks have the patience of an angel, but not him: his heart, well, it yearns for vengeance. No one really knows what actually happened, but after the attack to the Holy City in Jedha, Fujin the Samurai droid has been one fierce enemy of the Empire, spreading justice through his swords, swift like the wind.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Peter Reid's Bits of Batman

Our next Parts Festival participant is Peter Reid, fan designer of LEGO® Ideas 21109 Exo Suit and father to an army of weaponised turtles.  Peter has taken part in previous parts fests and other articles on New Elementary so regular readers should be familiar with his fantastic LEGO builds and Spacer style.

I love the new Batman bits bags - Mini Accessory, No. 10 in Silver Metallic/ Flat Silver (6266155|40598) and Mini Accessory, No. 11 also in Silver Metallic (6266977|50018). The elements go really nicely with those hammer pieces in Silver Metallic (6037878|11106) and other shiny things too. The turtle's name is Michael.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Andreas Lenander's Fat Boy inspiration

Now that we have shown you the new LEGO® elements that we sent our latest Parts Festival participants, it is time to start taking a look at the results of their hard work. We invite inspiring builders to explore new elements for inspiring ideas, connections and techniques. We start with a favourite builder of mine who is taking part in our Parts Festival for the first time. Andreas Lenander is from Sweden and, despite being a busy medical doctor with three children, he has blown us away with his builds for this parts fest and the speed at which he delivered them - the first pictures appeared only two days after receiving the parts!

As a builder that has a tendency to jump between themes and challenges, I was very pleased when asked to make some MOCs using some of the newer LEGO pieces. I received the parts during the fan weekend in Skaerbaek and spent most of the (long) drive home thinking about what I could build with them. When going through the parts there were some that I instantly loved (the greebling pieces from Batman in particular) and others that I was less blown away with... yes, seashells, so many seashells… haha!

Helicopter NE-P Defender II

I decided to try and tackle the biggest piece first, which is the new rim from the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy set (Motorcycle Rim Ø 75 Solid in Medium Stone Grey – 6268590|46334).

Old Elementary: Insectoids

Duncan Lindbo returns today with another look at a weird LEGO® part from history and how it might be used in your creations.

Today, we’re going to venture back into the dark days of the 1990s once again and take a look at some more parts from the Insectoids theme. Last time, we looked at some of the properties of the Insectoid wings; this time we’re looking at the legs. Bug legs! Weird biomechanical big legs!

2019 Parts Fest #1: Duncan Lindbo's Schwebeadler

It's the final day of creations in our Parts Festival today and we hope you've been inspired by the incredible LEGO® models and techniques our global team of fan builders have come up with. (If you're looking for a building challenge yourself, check out our latest competition, Recycle my Bicycle!) To round things off, Duncan Lindbo creates a cool ship.

With Ma.Ktober approaching, I decided to get in on the action with this build for the parts fest. So, here’s the Schwebeadler, a two-person hovercraft used primarily for scouting and light anti-infantry duties.

2019 Parts Fest #1: Inthert and the pauldon

Our Parts Festival has almost ended but those of you with a good memory may recall there is an element that hasn't yet been shown in any of the LEGO® creations yet; Reinhardt's pauldron. We didn't have lots of this element and a couple of unfortunate complications meant that in the end, only one builder was able to use them. That builder is Inthert, and we're excited to present his ideas to you today!

As an AFOL who almost exclusively builds spaceships (more specifically, grey spaceships) there was one part amongst the selection I received that I took particular interest in: Design Element 5x5x3 in Medium Stone Grey/ Light Bluish Gray (6254171|49523).

2019 Parts Fest #1: Duncan Lindbo bugs out

After a break let's get back the last few contributions to our Parts Festival, where LEGO® builders use some of the newest parts to create inspiring ideas. Duncan Lindbo is back today, finding a place for the first creation he made for us.

Today we get to see where the TRT13 dropship was in such a rush to get to…

(Click image to enlarge)

The colony on planet LG-624 had gone silent, so a platoon of marines was dispatched to investigate. They start their search at the colony’s power plant complex. The massive reactor tower appears intact, but the shattered windows and flickering fires in the admin towers suggest some kind of struggle. More ominous still, the entire complex seems deserted: no sign of the colonists anywhere.

2019 Parts Fest #1: Inhert's Splat Gear Experiments

Back to the Parts Festival fun today as our LEGO® fan builders find uses for 2019 parts. Following his discoveries with the big yellow star, Inthert returns today with fascinating analysis of the gear wheels.

Perhaps it was their bright colours or unusual shape but the three sizes of the affectionately dubbed ‘splat gears’ immediately caught my eye as I emptied all the parts onto my build table.

• Vibrant Coral Gear Wheel 6X6, Z14 (Element ID 6258385 | Design ID 35446)
• Dark Stone Grey [TLG]/ Dark Bluish Gray [BL] Gear Wheel 4X4, Z10 (6252371|35443)
• Medium Lilac [TLG]/ Dark Purple [BL] Gear Wheel 2X2, Z6 (6238330|35442)

2019 Parts Fest #1: Jarekwally's Space Base, candle and summer break

Following his first creation for our Parts Festival, LEGO® builder Jaroslaw Walter (jarekwally on Flickr, Facebook & Instagram) returns today with three more varied builds all using our seed parts.

Base in Space

2019 Parts Fest #1: Duncan Lindbo's TRT13 dropship

Our Parts Festival begins today! If you missed yesterday's post introducing the LEGO® parts that our selected builders are using in their creations, check it out. To kick things off proper today though we have the one returning builder from a previous parts festival, Duncan Lindbo (donutsftw on Flickr and Instagram). Duncan is a member of the North Carolina LEGO Users Group who generally builds mecha and Space stuff and for his first build he has chosen one of the most peculair and controversial elements from our selection.

Stud shooters: Kids love ‘em (I assume, since LEGO keeps making new ones) and AFOLs hate ‘em. So Shooter w/ Cross Axle, No. 1 (6248534|41812) probably wasn’t a part I would have sought out on my own but now that I’ve got my hands on a bunch of them (thanks Tim!) let’s see what I can come up with.

The various ridges, flaps, and clips that facilitate the stud-shootin’ action give this piece some interesting texture, and because every part is a spaceship (or mech) part, my first thought was to use them as thrusters/engines on a mini spaceship.

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® Creator Expert review: 10266 NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander

Revealed today, the spectacular LEGO® Creator Expert 10266 NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander comes with 1087 pieces, and will be available June 1st 2019 for 89.99€/ US$99.99. Sven Franic took this modular module for a spin, and had a blast!

The LEGO Group (TLG) has a longstanding relationship with NASA which has ensured minifigures are no strangers to space travel. They once sent three minfigures as far as Jupiter, just for fun. If the number of NASA-themed LEGO Ideas proposals are anything to go by, there seems to be a recent increase in popularity of non-fictional space sets. The LEGO Ideas 21309 Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket is great for demonstrating the different rocket stages and modules, but despite its impressive size, the most iconic landing module which touched the surface of the moon was tiny compared to the entire vessel.