The good, the bad and the ugly

For the second post in this series about The LEGO® Movie sets, I'm reviewing 70802 Bad Cop's Pursuit. You get a flying police car, a ruined railway structure, two alligators, two minifigs - oh, and a frog. The ruined railway thingy made me feel a bit ho-hum about this set at first; it's one of those ugly things that just looks like a tacked-on play feature, which I could do without. However play features are critical for the target market, as is the establishment of a scenario kids can act out and given they're replicating a scene from a film here, that's especially important.

Recycl cycle recycled

Unless you've been living under a big ugly rock piece you'll know that The LEGO® Movie is released in the US on February 7 (see all countries' release dates here). The tie-in sets are already on shelves for some of us, and these weird and wonderful sets are going to be reviewed over the next couple of weeks here on New Elementary, with a little help from my friends! I've invited a few UK builders to bring their voices to some of the reviews and first up we have Tim Goddard a.k.a. Rogue Bantha, co-author of LEGO Space: Building the Future. He's also contributed to DK Publishing's The LEGO Ideas Book and The LEGO Play Book, and you can generally coo over his cool Spacey talents over on Rogue Bantha's Flickr page.

The sum of its parts

I'm ending my series of posts about the Architecture theme today with a rather different post, littered with data tables rather than pretty pictures. See, I like numbers too. I thought I'd try to examine the question of how 'valuable' Architecture sets are, because I often get my knickers in a knot when other AFOLs moan about the cost. I shouldn't, because they're usually right, but I'm just overly defensive of this range that I enjoy so much.

Return of the Trans-Light Blue

The official LEGO® Architecture website used to run polls where visitors could vote which building, from a list of ten options, should next get the official treatment. It was a rather odd idea, given that they clearly stated that there was no guarantee the 'winners' would actually get made into sets, which was indeed the fate of one of them. And as it turned out, two of the least popular inclusions have been turned into sets (The Leaning Tower of Pisa and The Eiffel Tower). Stranger still was the inclusion of some religious buildings, a subject which LEGO have steadfastly avoided releasing (aside from an innocent church in the 1950s) but given these didn't win, no embarrassment ensued.

United by SNOT

© 1987 UN Photo/Lois Conner. Some rights reserved

Next in my little run of Architecture reviews is a set that was released in October 2013, 21018 United Nations Headquarters. Personally I think it was a great choice of subject for this line; although it's not as well known as some of the other buildings in the Landmark series, it's a truly international building. It sits on land granted to the United Nations by the US and was designed by a team of architects from across the globe (most notably the modernist heroes Niemeyer and Le Corbusier). Whether or not you know of or have visited it, this is a great model to build. And now I'll definitely go to see the original if in New York City!

A tour of the Eiffel

I'm having a bit of an Architecture phase at the moment, building some of the recent sets in this line which have been burning holes in my shelves for weeks, or even months. I've always been interested in architecture - both my parents were architects - and I suppose it is true to say the LEGO® Architecture line is my favourite theme, and that creating my own microscale architecture is my favourite building pastime. This is partly because 21005 Fallingwater was my conversion set, but it's not just sentimentality. As the legend on the boxes says, "Enjoy your building experience." That's a cheesy bit of commercialese, but I almost always do enjoy them. The packaging is superb, the booklets have interesting facts and the finished models make great display pieces.

The builds usually also contain stuff you wouldn't see in a regular kids' set, and hopefully these next few posts will highlight what sets Architecture apart for me. In this post I'm looking at 21019 The Eiffel Tower which was officially released on January 1, although it has been available for a few weeks in France.

Nature in tooth and claw

I began December by discussing the new ball and cup connectors that I'd received in two new Chima sets (70126 Crocodile Legend Beast and 70127 Wolf Legend Beast) and promised I'd discuss these sets more fully "soon". Well, a horrible 'flu and the general nightmare of All Those Christmas Things to Do put paid to that! But here is the promised post at long last, and it's something to get your teeth into. Ba-doom kissssh. I'm here all week.

Most interesting of all are two new parts that have been based on part 49668, the 1X1 plate with tooth, which appeared a decade ago and has seen wide usage (not only as teeth and claws but also quite random stuff like headlights and ice skates) and been moulded in a surprising sixteen colours. That part has a couple of inherent problems though, each of which have been addressed by these two additional toothed parts.

When tigers chillax

The Friends 'Collectables' range launched one year ago and since then nine cute, small and affordable bagged sets have been released featuring animals in little environments. I've mentioned them once or twice in the past thanks to the appearance of unique elements, and indeed the new one that I am discussing today - Tiger’s Beautiful Temple - got a mention in a recent post (so I'll try not to repeat myself).

HispaBrick 018

A little bonus reading for you today! The nice folk at HispaBrick invited me to write an article, which I was honoured to do as they produce a fine magazine with a professional attitude.

HispaBrick Issue 18 - free PDF download in English or español

I've written a bit about each of my favourite new parts from 2013, which was a nice opportunity as there are many excellent parts that I haven't yet written about here on the blog. This is usually because it takes quite some time to prepare a full post that does justice to the part... time that doesn't always materialise in my life! You wouldn't believe how many half-baked articles lurk in my Drafts box.

You can also see the 13 parts I chose on this Brick Owl Wishlist, although the actual article is hopefully more entertaining. If you've not looked at HispaBrick before, definitely check it out - there's always a diverse range of articles including reviews, instructions and best of all (in my opinion) practical guides on various useful topics. This month there's over 100 pages, and my favourite articles are a tutorial on creating tessellating patterns with Erling bricks from the inspirational Katie Walker, and Simon Liu gives us a primer on using low level lighting to create beautiful effects in model photographs. The previous 17 issues, which are all available to download for free from their site, are a remarkable resource and you're bound to find much of interest. Bueno!

New legends

How does one connect LEGO® parts? The classic 'stud and tube' design is the obvious answer but of course it's not the only technique. A myriad of 'connectors' have been introduced over the decades such as clips and bars, Technic snaps, various hinges - to name just a few - and in 2014 another kind is coming;  a new style of ball and cup connector. We first learnt of these in July this year when the new theme Mixels was announced and immediately caused a sensation - as these new joints have strong friction, so can be positioned at a wide range of angles. I've been dying to get my hands on them, but Mixels is not due out until March. It turns out these new parts will actually first appear in the new Chima sub-theme, Legend Beasts, which are due for a January release but are already available in many countries. The kind folk at LEGO's Community and Events Engagement Team have sent New Elementary two of the Legend Beast sets in advance of this official release so I'm rather grateful to them and rather excited to be able to tell you all about the contents!