2019 Parts Fest #2: Kev's Robots

UK-based builder Kevin Levell is back and, as with many other Parts Festival creations, these ideas are spawned from those amazing LEGO® Batman accessory packs. Many of you readers have expressed frustration that these are unavailable from Bricks & Pieces, because they are 'locked' to the Batman license. It seems there might be good news on the way about this – part 50018 is now listed on B&P, although out of stock – so we will keep you updated.

I very often like to build in a freeform, directionless, even Zen-like way. Part of the delight of a Parts Festival for me is the opportunity to experiment with new parts in that exact way. I very rarely have a clear idea of what I want to do, I normally just tinker, putting things together in abstract ways, in regimented or geometric ways, until something 'speaks' to me. Often, multiples of the same part are a particularly effective way to do this, and this is a further delight of a Parts Festival.

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

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: Sagh's bugs

Returning to our Parts Festival today is Paulo 'Sagh' Carreira from Portugal with more fun and inspiring creations using some of the newest LEGO® parts.

When I arrived home from Skaerbaek Fan Weekend with the seed parts, I decided that I would not look up these parts on the internet. I didn’t want to see their original uses, to avoid being influenced. While the use of some parts is quite clear, like Will’s hair or Bo Peep’s staff, others presented themselves as mysteries. The Mini Accessory, No. 11 in Silver Metallic (6266977|50018) was one of those mysteries. What a great set of parts!

Giant Elk Beetle

The Giant Elk Beetle walks the woods in search for food with a slow but steady pace to save energy for the mating season. That’s when the males became very active, fighting each other by making use of their big antlers.

The mix of joints with different angles and connections in this pack of parts were the perfect means to replicate different creature’s articulations. I took inspiration from different species of large beetles with horns, and after some fiddling with the parts a robust dark red beetle was born.

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: Kev Levell's Classic Flash Double Gloucester Gordon Theme

Next to join our Parts Festival is Kevin Levell, a UK-based LEGO® builder who participated in our Nexogon fest and has written other lovely articles for us in the past. Kev just loves a bit of Space, he does. 

I may have squealed like a little child when I opened and emptied out the parcel from Tim, because immediately I could see more than a couple of handfuls of utterly awesome new parts. Some of which I had already (unsuccessfully) been on the scout for. It was these currently ‘unavailable’ parts that interested me most… I could almost smell the potential.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Andreas Lenander's vintage electronics

Following his fantasy builds with the Fat Boy rims and his varied builds using 3x3 domes, we have some more down-to-earth LEGO® creations from Andreas Lenander today as we continue our second Parts Festival for 2019, which uses all these seed parts.

Headphones

Continuing my new found affinity for the big Fat Boy rims (Motorcycle Rim Ø 75 Solid in Medium Stone Grey – 6268590|46334), I decided to tackle a real-life object.

I realized the size of the rims were ideal for large headphones and adding another type of rim on the outside gave it a pretty “real” look, so that was the starting point for this build. The new 1x2 plates with rounded corners and holes were a great fit when creating the band of the headphones, of course with some 3mm flex tubes inside.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Tim Goddard's tablescraps

Tim Goddard (Rogue Bantha) is co-author of LEGO Space: Building the Future and a regular contributor to New Elementary, thanks to his ability to face any LEGO® challenge. He even managed to create ingenious builds when we slung a pile of seaside polybags at him from the LEGO Xtra theme. This time Tim was a lot happier with the parts.

What a cornucopia of loveliness this parts fest is, almost an embarrassment of riches. There are almost too many cool parts to explore but I will do my best. It is like several parts fests have come at once but for me the stand out is the good Batman family bag (that is the one with all the 3.18mm bar dream selection known as Mini Accessory, No. 11 also in Silver Metallic – 6266977|50018) so you will see parts from that in all but one of my builds.

Tablescraps

As is traditional, I will start with table scraps and build up. With so any exciting parts it is hard to explore them all in depth and I had a hard time working out where to start but I started here.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Yvonne Doyle's marine research

Our next Parts Festival participant is Yvonne Doyle, a UK-based Irish builder who likes to dabble in the different scales offered by Belville and Scala. She also has the rare honour of having been immortalised as a green Classic Space minifigure, in LEGO® Ideas 21109 Exo Suit. While other participants have seemingly battled with using the Friends marine multipack parts, Yvonne has flourished!

Biff is Buffing

Biff is buffing his quarter scale model car. The new pieces from Mini Accessory, No. 11 in Silver Metallic ( 50018 | 6266977 ) are interesting and great for attachment points, while the little Octopus from Accessories, Marine Life, No. 1 in Vibrant Coral (6262127|49595) reminded me of some cleaning cloths.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Pierre-E Fieschi's Imperial Star Destroyer and Chibi Tanks

The LEGO® parts festival we ran in late 2019 was so big and so successful, we didn't have time to finish publishing all the amazing creations our chosen builders came up with! So at last, over the next few days, we will publish the remaining models featuring our selected elements introduced in 2019. Warming us back up is French concept artist and architect Pierre-E Fieschi who showcases more of his inspiring ideas, following on from his Liebherr tunnelling machine and his sci-fi containers and launch pad.

Imperial Star Destroyer

This small Imperial Star Destroyer was a lot of fun to build. The large hook/grappler kind of resembles the trapezoid of the ISD bridge. It is found in the 'Batman bag' (Mini Accessory, No. 10 – 6266155| 40598).

Review + MOC: 71478 The Never Witch's Midnight Raven from LEGO® DREAMZzz™

The last 2024 LEGO® DREAMZzz™ set we're reviewing is another great example of the quirky set design of this original theme: a witch's hut nested atop a gigantic raven. So far, I've been critical towards many sets of this wave due to unfocused and messy set design. I've associated this with the alternative builds. I like how these sets offer different designs using the same parts, emphasising the nature of this medium – but so far, it has deemed sacrifices on the design coherence.

Obviously, it's much easier to make one focused set design with a specific set of parts. In this respect, 71478 The Never Witch's Midnight Raven is closer to the original August 2023 wave. There is a distinct B-Model, but it shares about 85% of the structure with the main model while still supporting very different play patterns. How does the raven fare?

2019 Parts Fest #2: Oscar's Anti-Gravity Repair Bay 5

Oscar Cederwall returns for a third time to our Parts Festival following his previous articles: an exploration of geometric joys and clips and crustacean.  This time Oscar has been using those greeble-tastic Batman LEGO® elements in a sci-fi scene. Get your spanners ready, we are about to land on Oscar's futuristic Anti-Gravity Repair Bay 5.

2019 Skærbæk Workshop: Batman bits

In September 2019 we ran a workshop at the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend in Denmark. 60 AFOLs were given two hours to make interesting stuff using some of the newest LEGO® parts, and a supply of mostly random brick stock. Of the hundreds of models and tablescraps created, we are presenting some of the most interesting to inspire your own creations. My thanks to the SFW organisers, the New Elementary team on the day and our cheery photographer, Andrew Tipping.

To finish our selection of workshop builds we look at Mini Accessory, No. 10 (40598 | 6266155) and Mini Accessory, No. 11 both in Silver Metallic/ Flat Silver (50018 | 6266977); two accessory packs from Batman sets that contain amazing pieces and proved so popular, you get an extra-long post!

Edward Eggens “Light tank”

Torbjörn Kristiansson “Dark Pearl Palace”

2019 Parts Fest #2: Mansur Soeleman's kitchen, church and temple

Today sees the return of Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman (Flickr & Instagram) to our Parts Festival, who previously blew us away with his LEGO® Star Wars creations. We have a really varied range of creations from him, using the seed parts we provided.

Life Sized Stove

Exploring the jumper plate-like characteristics of the 'Frozone board' (32627) led me to discover its real life counterpart one morning when I spilled freshly brewed espresso on a stove-top: perfect knobs, unlike the ones I had to clean the coffee from.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Pierre-E Fieschi's Liebherr Tunnelier

Today, Pierre-E Fieschi returns to our Parts Festival. Following his sci-fi creations, Pierre burned the midnight oil to make another model using new LEGO® elements from our selection.

I got into the small polybags of Silver Metallic/Flat Silver tools and connectors known officially as Mini Accessory, No. 11 (50018 | 6266977) - and all are incredible! Somehow looking at these parts led to me finally building a Liebherr Tunnelier.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Introducing the Elements

Well our previous Parts Festival ended just weeks ago but we are ready to crack on with our next one! Over the coming weeks we will be showing you creations from the workshop we held at Skærbæk Fan Weekend in September which included many of these parts, and then we'll bring you creations made by our select group of AFOL builders from around the world.

2019 Parts Fest #2: Oscar Cederwall's geometric joys

Following Andreas Lenander, our second Parts Festival builder is Oscar Cederwall, a fantastic builder also from Sweden. He is probably best known for his spaceships and other vehicles, but Oscar is very much an all round talented guy when it comes to LEGO® MOCs. Here is the first bunch of his explorations and creations.

The two accessory parts packs in Silver Metallic/Flat Silver from new Batman sets (Mini Accessory, No. 10 - 6266155|40598 & No. 11 – 6266977|50018) will undoubtedly be used as greebling by many builders. I thought it was fun to connect them in geometric patterns.

LEGO® Chinese Festival review: 80108 Lunar New Year Traditions

Tom Loftus (@inthert.lego) examines a 2022 LEGO® Chinese Traditional Festival set, 80108 Lunar New Year Traditions, which is available now in some markets – for local release dates, check LEGO.com. and please also consider using our affiliate links to purchase (New Elementary may get a commission): USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop | UK LEGO Shop/for Europe 'Change region'. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.

LEGO® 80108 Lunar New Year Traditions contains 1066 pieces, 12 minifigures and will cost €69.99/ US$79.99/ £59.99. The age mark is 8+. The set provides a charming holistic view of Lunar New Year, embodies the spirit of the event with the build together format and all for a reasonable price. The only downside being, you have a little detective work to do once you're done.

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.