Showing posts with label Technique. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technique. Show all posts

23 May 2020

Iron Builder: Bryce Dempsey's stud shooter techniques

Posted by Admin
The Iron Forge contestant from the Iron Builder challenge revealing their LEGO® techniques for you today is Bryce Dempsey (on Flickr, YouTube and Instagram), from California. Appropriately enough for a builder who creates replica guns from LEGO pieces, last week in Round 3 the seed part was part 15391, the Minifigure, Weapon Gun, Mini Blaster / Shooter. 

My favorite of my own builds for Round 3 using stud shooters as the seed part was the soda machine. The build featured 11 stud shooters in total, with many unique uses.


21 May 2020

Iron Builder: Stud Shooter LEGO® building techniques

Posted by Admin
We've been asking the Forge competitors from Iron Builder to highlight the techniques they've used each week with the seed parts. In Round 3 last week the element they all had to use was Design ID 15391, known as the "Minifigure, Weapon Gun, Mini Blaster / Shooter" on BrickLink, "Mini Shooter With Ø3.2 Shaft" on Brickset and "Weapon Gun / Blaster / Shooter Mini" on Rebrickable. Since being introduced in 2014 it has appeared in six colours. Given many would consider this a "specialised element that can only be used for one thing", it was a great choice of seed part by the Iron Builder admin!



Miro78: I found an interesting 'non-connection' with the stud shooters during my Round 3 builds, in the build Zorro where I included some furniture. 


20 May 2020

Iron Builder: Thomas Jenkins' stud shooter techniques

Posted by Admin
We have another Iron Forge contestant from the Iron Builder challenge revealing their LEGO® techniques for you today: Thomas Jenkins (on Flickr and Instagram), a Welshman living in Japan who has been building with LEGO for over 20 years. Last week in Round 3 the seed part was part 15391, the Minifigure, Weapon Gun, Mini Blaster / Shooter. 

On my first assessment of the Stud Shooter piece, there were two ways to use it in a model: take advantage of the bar that sticks out at an angle from the barrel of the shooter, or utilize the gaps and recesses that are usually used to house the accompanying trigger element.

Techniques using the angled bar of LEGO Mini Shooter With Ø3.2 Shaft, Design ID 15391

The angle of the bar meant that when used in conjunction with more shooters, it was quite easy to reproduce something akin to a spider’s leg. 


The shooters are connected quite simply with a 1x1 round plate with hole. The spanner seed part from the previous round also found its way into this model!

17 May 2020

Iron Builder: Cab's White Diamond techniques

Posted by Admin
We have another Iron Forge contestant from the Iron Builder challenge revealing LEGO® techniques for you today. Cab (on Flickr) hails from Germany but lives in California, and turned eighteen recently... "so I don't even know whether to call myself a TFOL or an AFOL". We don't think it matters really, so long as your techniques are awesome!

Hello everyone, Cab here! I was lucky enough to be among the final 20 contestants in this year’s instalment of The Forge. Now, while the final four compete for the prized Iron Builder slot, I thought I would share some techniques and tricks from my main entry in Round 2, a bust of the character White Diamond from the show Steven Universe. 


Adept builders will probably be familiar with many or all of these techniques, but I hope I can contribute to a few builders’ technical arsenals. 

13 May 2020

Iron Builder: Jaap Bijl's hummingbird techniques

Posted by Admin
One of the contestants in Iron Builders preliminary rounds, The Iron Forge, is Jaap Bijl (jaapxaap, found on Flickr and Instagram) from the Netherlands and he is a member of Lowlug and Innovalug. He took part in our 2019 Parts Festival and has now progressed from the Top 20 to the Top 8 in the Forge. We asked him to explain a couple of the techniques involved in one of his Forge builds from last week.

Hey everyone, it’s Jaap here! I’ve been participating into the Iron Forge contest, and made it to the final 20. In that round we had to build using the hammer and/or the wrench minifig accessory pieces. At some point when I was playing around with the wrench piece I found a wrench combination that looked a lot like a bird’s beak to me. So there I started building this hummingbird.


(Yes, for those New Elementary readers who remember it, I also used those big yellow stars from the 2019 parts festival in the flowers!)

11 May 2020

Iron Builder: Hammer & Spanner LEGO® building techniques

Posted by Admin
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).

23 April 2020

Minifig Posing Stand: Pierre-E Fieschi's starfighters

Posted by Admin
This year we have been examining an interesting new LEGO® part: the new posing element (Design ID 65578) known as "Handle, No.1", "Minifigure, Utensil Posing Stand, Bar with Hollow Stud" or "Bar, Angled with Stud on End". Following on from Jonas Kramm's and Kevin Levell's analyses, our final article reveals what gaming concept artist Pierre-E Fieschi (see his Instagram, ArtStation) created using the posing stands we sent him.

Mini LEGO TIE interceptor

I had the idea to make a mini TIE interceptor from Star Wars - which is one of my favourite TIE designs – using the 45° trans-clear thingies instead of the usual hinge/clip assemblies for the wings.

21 April 2020

LEGO® Reverse-Engineering Challenge: Days 6-17

Posted by Admin
We are a little behind with sharing Ryan Howerter's REC puzzles with you (been too busy organising our own building contest!) so here is a bumper crop to give you a challenging LEGO® challenge to fill your days. Want more? They appear on Ryan's Instagram at 11am Mountain Time every day (and we also try to publish them on New Elementary's Twitter at the same time).

Welcome back to the Reverse-Engineering Challenge, or REC for short. Simply look at these small LEGO builds, and try to figure out how they are built. Always assume the hidden side is identical. The colours are irrelevant. No rubber bands and no flex tubing allowed! It's not a contest, there are no prizes – think of it more like a daily crossword puzzle. Solve as many as you like, at your own pace. Solutions are posted every Sunday at https://linktr.ee/rhowerter.

REC17 Halhi141 

Bottom looks like the top.


19 April 2020

LEGO® Creator Expert review: 10271 Fiat 500 – The Build

Posted by Admin
Following his examination of the new parts, Inthert returns today to report on the actual build of LEGO® Creator Expert 10271 Fiat 500. (And don't forget, you could win a copy of the set in our latest building competition!)

While the most striking thing about the LEGO® Creator Expert Fiat 500 is unquestionably its Cool Yellow/ Bright Light Yellow base colour, the set has much more to offer than just recolours! Today we’ll be delving deeper into the build process before taking a look at the completed model.

11 April 2020

LEGO® NINJAGO™ Arcade Pods: Victor Pruvost's Computer and Rover

Posted by Admin
2020 seems to be a bit of a year for LEGO® pods. The Friends, Ninjago and Trolls lines all feature large two-piece containers that you might struggle to think of uses for. Today, Victor Pruvost examines the second of these: the LEGO NINJAGO Arcade Pods which come in sets 71714 Kai Avatar, 71715 Jay Avatar and 71716 Lloyd Avatar.

Breaking away from the usual spinners, flyers and other Spinjitzu-related entry-level sets, LEGO® released three Arcade Pods as part of the latest Ninjago wave, which is inspired by video games. Like the new Friends Play Cubes, these Arcade Pods are built around two specialized new parts, which we’re examining today.


Those two elements are:
Interestingly enough, Element IDs 6287558, 6287560 and 6287561 aren’t assigned, so I wonder if there could be more Arcade Pods in the future for the other Ninjas, with different colours.

09 April 2020

LEGO® Reverse-Engineering Challenge: Days 2-5

Posted by Admin
On the weekend we mentioned Ryan Howerter is running an advanced daily building challenge and showed you the first one. They appear on their Instagram at 11am Mountain Time every day but we know not everyone uses Instagram, so we've started publishing them on New Elementary's Twitter and now here are a bunch of them for those of you who are yet to catch up! We will try to keep this up but if not, there's always Ryan's Instagram!

Welcome back to the Reverse-Engineering Challenge, or REC for short. Simply look at these small LEGO builds, and try to figure out how they are built. Always assume the hidden side is identical. The colours are irrelevant. No rubber bands and no flex tubing allowed! It's not a contest, there are no prizes – think of it more like a daily crossword puzzle. Solve as many as you like, at your own pace. Solutions are posted every Sunday at https://linktr.ee/rhowerter.

REC5 by Ryan Howerter


05 April 2020

LEGO® Creator Expert review: 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United

Posted by Admin
Today Ben Davies plays with a set the size of a football field! LEGO® Creator Expert 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United clearly has a target audience of certain football fans, but will certain LEGO fans appreciate it for its techniques and many parts, including new moulds? The set is priced £249.99 / $299.99 / 269.99€.

With the exception of the occasional LEGO® Friends set, the last time LEGO tackled the subject of football (or for our American readers, soccer) was in 2006 for the LEGO Sports theme. That changes with 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United, introduced in February to the LEGO Creator Expert line.

Old Trafford stadium was first opened in 1910 in Greater Manchester, England, and since then has served as the home stadium of the famous Manchester United Football Club. It is currently celebrating its 110th anniversary, which LEGO is capitalizing on with the release of this set.

04 April 2020

LEGO® Reverse-Engineering Challenge: Day 1

Posted by Admin
If you’re looking for some fun and good LEGO® building challenges and ideas, we can help! Today there’s a piece of great news for advanced LEGO builders: our friend and contributor Ryan Howerter is launching a daily building challenge on their Instagram. It will give your LEGO brain a good workout and definitely teach you new techniques.


It’s called the Reverse-Engineering Challenge, or REC for short, and you may be familiar with the concept already as four of these have been run on Flickr in the past. Here’s how it works.

Ryan posts a small LEGO build, and you try to figure out how it is built.

19 March 2020

Old Elementary: LEGO® technique and geometry articles, part 1

Posted by Admin
Stuck inside much? Here at New Elementary we have been discussing ways to keep you entertained... and we have lots of ideas coming up!

First off we thought you might like to read some specially chosen articles from New Elementary's back catalogue. To start with we went to the beginning; 2013! See if any of these LEGO® articles take your fancy.

10 March 2020

Minifig Posing Stand: Kevin Levell's Fishy Fun

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
We sent a few builders an interesting new LEGO® part and following on from Jonas Kramm's analysis last month, UK-based builder Kevin Levell reveals what he made of these small but useful angled bar and stud elements.

The new posing element (Design ID 65578) is officially known as "Handle, No.1", while BrickLink call it "Minifigure, Utensil Posing Stand, Bar with Hollow Stud" and Rebrickable have gone with the neat "Bar, Angled with Stud on End" and can be found in 71026 DC Superheroes Collectible Minifigure series. It looks to be another wonderfully versatile addition to the selection of small LEGO parts.


28 February 2020

LEGO® DOTS review: Bracelet Strap

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
As a follow up to Michael Studman's report from the LEGO® DOTS launch at the House of Dots in London, we are taking a closer look at one of the most unusual elements from this new-for-2020 theme which is available in stores from Sunday 1 March.



Dots was actually delayed from its planned launch date last year and the reason seems to be this strap, known as Bracelet (Design ID 66821). The design was changed from a 'slap' bracelet to a flexible fastening bracelet.

17 February 2020

Minifig Posing Stand: Jonas Kramm's fantastic furniture

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
As soon as we saw the LEGO® DC Super Heroes Collectable Minifigure Series, we knew that we had to get our hands on the new little transparent angled bar included with the figures. We gave a handful of these new elements to three creative minds to see what they thought, and we will publish these over the coming weeks. First up is Jonas Kramm who analyses its geometry and possibilities.



Jumping, flying and fighting: these poses and many more can now be achieved easily by your LEGO minifigures. With the new element introduced in the DC Super Heroes Collectible Minifigure Series, called "Handle No.1" (6285587|65578) by The LEGO Group and "Minifigure, Utensil Posing Stand" by BrickLink, minifigures can strike a suitably super stance by connecting it to the bottom or the back of their legs. Regardless of which DC character you get, you get one posing stand and often even an extra one spare.

12 February 2020

Old Elementary: the Train Light Prism

Posted by Admin
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.

09 February 2020

LEGO® FORMA and Revan New's alien moth

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
Back in September 2018, The LEGO Group launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for a new kind of premium set aimed at adults: LEGO® FORMA, a kinetic sculpture that could be customised with different skins. Although the theme is not to be continued, we thought we would take a look at the new elements that came with it, and ask the talented Russian fan builder Revan New to create something original using them. We also have official instructions and sample skins at the bottom of this post, for you to download and build yourself.

31 January 2020

2019 Parts Fest #2: Eero Okkonen's trio of characters

Posted by Admin
Well it's been our biggest, longest Parts Festival to date but today our LEGO® building fiesta comes to an end with not one, not two but three incredible characters designed by Eero Okkonen featuring the new 2019 pieces we sent him. You can also see his earlier parts fest builds here and follow his builds on his blog.

Gwathlo of Order of Morning Star