Following on from previous creator expert vehicles – including the Mini, VW Beetle and Ferrari F40, today, the LEGO group announce the forthcoming release of the new Fiat 500 Creator Expert set (10271). To commemorate the release of this set, a life-size Fiat 500, made from over 180000 LEGO Bricks was unveiled today, at a live streamed event from Turin. (Public events in this region of Italy have been cancelled due to the outbreak of COVID 19. Images and press release, after the break
About a month ago, we heard about the forthcoming arrival of LEGO® Dots. This is a range of jewellery and decor items pitched squarely at the 6-10 year old market, where some children might be reluctant to create a model of their own , because of doubts in their own creativity. The DOTs sets have far more free form instructions, to help you decide how you might choose to to place small square, circular and quarter circle 1×1 tiles – in a wide variety of colours.
LEGO Dots is due to be released on March 1st 2020, but some have made their way into the wild a couple of days in advance of this. I picked up a few of the first wave of sets, and will present them over the course of the next few days.
First I thought I would start with 41908 Extra DOTS – Series 1. Recommended retail price for these is $AUD5.99, but I found them at K-Mart (an Australian retailer) for $AUD5 per pack. So I bought a couple, to look at the consistency between them. The pack purports to contain 109 parts, including 10 ‘surprise charms’. These surprise elements are white round tiles, with emoji like expressions printed on them. On the packet there appear to be 16 different printings in this bag – and the printed elements here are different to those seen in the other sets currently available. Read on to see what I found inside…
In which I attempt to label my storage drawers, only to discover technical difficulties getting in my way. I overcome these and have a Q&A with Tom Alphin, who has created a set of labels to use in these circumstances.
A couple of months ago (closer to three ) I set about getting some of my bricks sorted out. I now have lots and lots of small drawers, useful for the small fiddly bits, and larger boxes, more suited to traditional bricks and plates, of varying size.
But, its all very well having approximately 250 small drawers full of smaller LEGO® elements, BUT when they are semi opaque, how are you going to know what’s in them. I thought I might set out to label them. So, I reached for the trusty family label maker, perhaps a little underused in the last 5 years, typed up 1×2 with horizontal clip and pressed print.
This weekend, we received news that Jens N. Knudsen passed away. Jens was a designer at the LEGO Group between 1968 and 2000, and was responsible for the design of the LEGO Minifigure. His name is there, on the patent document, next to Gødtfred Christiansen. After the successful introduction of the minifigure, he was made Chief Designer.
It’s a busy weekend with all of the news coming out from the New York Toy Fair starting to surface. In the meantime, I received notice of an interesting competition from Chronicle Books, announcing a new publishing line aimed squarely at the adult market. As we have seen, with the increased number of sets aimed at adult LEGO Fans, we are an increasingly important market for LEGO. In a presentation the Nuremberg toy fair, it was announced that (in Germany at least) 10% of the revenue from LEGO purchases was from purchases being made for adults.
More news from the New York City Toy Fair today, as the LEGO Group unveiled the sets to be released in May in association with the new movie: Minions: The Rise Of Gru. With 5 sets in total, the first are considered 4+: designed for simple construction, as well as only featuring printed elements. Others are rated 6+ and 8+. They are due for Release on April 27 2020
The New York Toy Fair is now underway, and we have seen a couple of new sets officially unveiled. 75317 Brickheadz: The Mandalorian™ & The Child was prematurely revealed to the world by Amazon in Canada last week, but today we got our first look at 75292: The Razor Crest, the Mandalorian’s ship. We don’t know too many additional details – release is merely slated for ‘Second Half 2020’, and global pricing is not available at this stage. Release is slated for 1st September 2020, and will cost $AUD199.99.
We seem to be settling into a pattern in the way that Collectable minifigures are being issued during the year: two licensed series and a generic ‘Series x’ collection. Last year, we saw the first series for the year containing figures from the LEGO Movie: The Second Part, and then finally, series 19. I am uncertain as to when we can expect to see series 20 this year. Or what we might see in the other licensed series (if the pattern of the last couple of years continues). I worry that we might be headed towards the same franchising that we see in the cinematic multiplexes today: Disney 3, Harry Potter/Wizarding World 2, Simpsons 3, LEGO Movie 2 and so forth. Or there might be another theme coming our way… we can only hope.
This time we have a new series of Figures based on DC Heroes and villains, from across the last 80 years. This series features 16 figures, with three complete sets and a few spares available in a box. Fellow LEGO® ambassador, @cheepjokes has shared his minifigures with me. As such, I have not had the opportunity to confirm the distribution of figures within the box myself… but let’s take a look at who’s inside.
In which we try to tie up the loose ends, identify our heroes, and after one thing leads another, discover something we never set out to.
For almost a year, now, I have been exploring the potential for ongoing adventures of Mary and Bill – these minifigures first appeared in the 6000 Ideas Book, published in time for Christmas 1979. We started off looking at the 6000 Ideas Book itself, covering the story set in the town, and then the weird space bit, along with the Castle bit.
I asked a Big Question: Could Mary and Bill still be found in the world of LEGO City today? For characters to survive nearly 40 years, we would need to be confident that we see story telling occurring within the in-house themes, that characters see development over the course of years, and that they have the potential to cross themes, as Bill and Mary did in the book, and indeed would need to to move from Book characters to LEGO City.
