You raise me arch

There are many reasons why LEGO® parts get redesigned, for example to strengthen a part or to improve the moulding process. But sometimes a whole 'family' of parts will get redesigned, and this process can take years for TLG to roll out because moulds need to reach the end of their working lives before the expense of replacement is undertaken.

Over the last five years or so, the family of arched bricks have been altered and I was prompted to write this post because what I think/hope is the last of these, the 1X8X2 arch, has now begun to appear in its new form. The essential change to arched bricks is that they are being "raised" - the interior curve no longer sits flush to the bottom of the brick.

Super Surma Bros.

I've mentioned in the past; one thing which really interests me is when fans push their love of LEGO® into original, unusual territory. I was simply going to post a link to these guys from New Elementary's Twitter account, but I couldn't really compress my love for them into 140 characters so here's a proper post instead.

The Surma Bros. are Marcin and Przemek; two Polish comic illustrators who, as the name suggests, are brothers. For two years they've been posting an illustration of an old LEGO set every Sunday on their blog, Sur m'ale Gobros. I only found them after they posted on Eurobricks recently, although I see they got some love from The Brothers Brick back in 2012. While disappointed I'm so late to the party, it does mean I've been gorging myself for hours on dozens of beautiful images.

The Princesses and the frog

A weird new part for you today, named Brick, Round 2 x 2 with 4 Petals Base on BrickLink and Plate 2X2,2/3 W/Krydshul\U0026 Crown Leaf by TLG, which so far has only been released in two 2014 Disney Princess sets in Medium Azure (Element ID 6058746 | Design ID 15469). However I've taken to calling it the Kermit, which is a really terrible name, but once the vague similarity to the collar of that Muppet had entered my mind, I couldn't shake it.

The lost world of Sand Blue

2014 has been packed full of new elements, yet all we've been doing here on New Elementary is going on about Architecture and The LEGO® Movie sets. Time to redress the balance and one particular category of 2014 elements I was very glad to see on Brickset are the ones in the lovely colour of Sand Blue.

When carrots attack

Somewhat delayed by life in general, here at last is my final review completing the first wave of The LEGO® Movie sets; 70813 Rescue Reinforcements. You get a lot in this set (it has the greatest piece count of this first wave) and the completed build consists of a Micro Manager, a chunky mech made from a fire truck and a kooky helicopter made from a windmill. You don't get to see the 'original' forms of these as the set doesn't have the alternate instructions to build them. Nor did I spot them in the film itself - only the transformed versions - but perhaps like so much else in the film it was a case of blink and you'll miss it.

Lime in the Cuckoo Nut

I discussed 70803 Cloud Cuckoo Palace back when pictures were first released, and given it's a fairly simple and flat build, I haven't too much more to say now that I have the actual set in hand. But things did take an unexpected creative turn when I mailed one of its elements, which comes in Lime [BL]/Bright Yellowish-Green [TLG] for the first time, over to spacey chap Peter Reid. He's perhaps most famous for designing the Exo Suit which will be developed by TLG to become the next CUUSOO set, but another trademark build of Pete's is his MkIII M364 Turtle. Let's hand over to Pete to explain what this new element meant to him.

Ultimate alternate

Just a quick note. In recent posts, fellow builders have been reworking sets from The LEGO® Movie to create alternate models. Perhaps you've considered giving it a try yourself...
well here's some further inspiration for you!

ReBrick, the MOC bookmarking site run by TLG, are running a competition with some rather unique LEGO Movie prizes. To enter you must build an alternate model using only the pieces from one official set of your choice. It's for 16 year-olds and over and closes at the end of March.

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Hey, this seems like a good chance to remind ourselves of the alternate models we've come up with here at New Elementary over the last month!

6-in-3-in-1

Following James Pegrum's look at 70806 Castle Cavalry, today I'm reviewing all three of the other "2-in-1" sets from The LEGO® Movie series; 70805 Trash Chomper, 70811 The Flying Flusher and 70804 Ice Cream Machine.

Castle meets Space

On reviewing and rebuilding duty today we have James Pegrum, a prolific builder famed for his British history series (his model of WWII code-breaking computer Colossus sits on display in Bletchley Park next to the real thing!) and his realistic Castle builds. At 2013's STEAM exhibit in Swindon, UK, he built the massive castle and grounds for The Land of Tigelfah group display and recently he's entered seven categories in CCC XI (the eleventh annual Colossal Castle Contest). Given these honourable credentials I thought it would be interesting, or perhaps horribly cruel, to send him 70806 Castle Cavalry.

This'll never fly, it's saloonacy

We have a LEGO® Movie set review and alternate build from Rod Gillies today. Under his Flickr pseudonym 2 Much Caffeine, Rod's well known for his steampunk builds and his microscale - in particular his elegant Star Wars microscale. Rod contributed to the recent LEGO Play Book but is also a published author of two steampunk novels.
Rod decided that the bizarrely-named 70812 Creative Ambush looked sufficiently steampunky for him to take on.