Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts

04 November 2019

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

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
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).



01 October 2019

Old Elementary: Insectoids legs

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

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!


21 September 2019

2019 Parts Fest #1: Duncan Lindbo's Schwebeadler

Posted by Admin
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.



20 September 2019

2019 Parts Fest #1: Inthert and the pauldon

Posted by Admin
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).


18 September 2019

2019 Parts Fest #1: Duncan Lindbo bugs out

Posted by Admin
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.

29 August 2019

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

Posted by Admin
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)

25 August 2019

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

Posted by Admin
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

16 August 2019

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

Posted by Admin
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.


03 June 2019

LEGO® Apollo 11 Lander: Jamie Berard interview

Posted by Admin
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.

30 May 2019

LEGO® Creator Expert review: 10266 NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander

Posted by Admin
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.

04 May 2019

75253 LEGO® Star Wars™ BOOST Droid Commander announced

Posted by Admin
For this year's Star Wars Day, The LEGO Group have just revealed a really cute new set, 75253 LEGO® Star Wars™ BOOST Droid Commander. This is the first time the company have combined their LEGO BOOST coding technology with a licensed product.

The set has 1,177 pieces and will be available globally on 1st September 2019 to tie in with the release of Star Wars Episode IX. Prices were not provided.


The set comes with the Mouse Droid, R2-D2 and the GONK Droid – "with their own personalities, skills, and authentic Star Wars sounds and music" – in order for each of them to complete over 40 missions.

There's a new mould on R2's head; 4x4 quarter domes. Teal fans will be on a mission to get their hands on those nice new large parts in Bright Bluish Green [TLG]/ Dark Turquoise [BL] – I believe I see 2x14 plates and an 8x16 tile.

26 April 2019

LEGO® Overwatch review: 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Our second LEGO® Overwatch review takes a look at the new and interesting elements in 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar. The largest set in the theme, it contains 730 elements, four minifigures and costs £79.99 / $89.99 / 89.99€ and has been available since January 2019.


There are some interesting new angles in this set and a few elements appear for the first time in a new colour, so let's take a closer look.

17 April 2019

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 4

Posted by Admin
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



16 April 2019

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 3

Posted by Admin
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



15 April 2019

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 2

Posted by Admin
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.

14 April 2019

Build & Fix contest entries: Part 1

Posted by Admin
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.

09 April 2019

A long time ago... LEGO® Star Wars™ began

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Billund, 9th April 2019: Twenty years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the LEGO® Star Wars™theme began and has remained one of the most popular franchises ever since. Today, the LEGO Group is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the much-loved theme which now includes around 700 different sets and over 1,000 minifigures.

They've provided us with some fascinating pictures to share with you, so we thought it would be fun to look back to a time when Star Wars was the theme introducing new LEGO elements and breaking the mould. All images are © The LEGO Group unless otherwise attributed.

Interesting LEGO Star Wars Element Facts


The 1999 Jar Jar Binks minifigure was the first ever to have a unique LEGO head sculpt. These are a couple of prototype versions of Jar Jar's moulded head that show the development process.

07 March 2019

Old Elementary: Insectoids wings

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
One of our New Elementary parts festival builders, Duncan Lindbo, casts his mind back to an old LEGO® element that may well be familiar to fans who were youths during the 1990s. Remember the Insectoids? Well, Duncan does.


For many AFOLs, the late 1990s were a low point in set design. They think there were too many overly specialized parts, and they’re not entirely wrong… but because of that, there’s a lot of interesting parts that tend to get ignored by the AFOL community. Today, we’re going to explore a couple of Transparent Blue [TLG]/Trans-Dark Blue [BL] elements from the Insectoids line (1998-1999).

04 March 2019

Contest: Build and Fix inspiration from Kev Levell

Posted by Admin
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).

16 January 2019

LEGO® MOVIE 2 review: 70830 Sweet Mayhem’s Systar Starship!

Posted by Admin
Our series of set reviews of THE LEGO MOVIE 2: The Second Part continues today with 70830 Sweet Mayhem’s Systar Starship! Ben Davies (ProfessorBrickkeeper) returns to examine another bumper collection of exciting parts.

One of the first sets revealed for the toy line and featuring prominently in the initial trailer for the film, 70830 Sweet Mayhem’s Systar Starship! has been one of the most anticipated sets for The LEGO Movie 2, thanks in no small part to its unusual design, wide assortment of teal bricks, and inclusion of several new-for-2019 elements.

Before examining all the new parts, let’s take a look at the construction of the ship and the finished model.