Fresh from LEGO® CON, the LEGO Groups Live streamed product showcase, MINECRAFT Game director Agnes Larsson and LEGO Designer Fred joined the stream to help reveal two new LEGO Minecraft sets: 21189 the Skeleton Dungeon and 21190 The Abandoned Village.
Both are set to release on August 1st 2020.
Read on for more details.
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Today at LEGO CON, the LEGO Group’s Live Streamed Product Showcase, Avatar Producer Jon Landau, and Lightstorm Entertainment’s Josh Izzo gave us our first clear views of sets tying in with the movies Avatar, and Avatar: Way of the Water (due for release in December 2022).
At this stage, we only have one hi-res image of 75574 LEGO® Avatar Toruk Makto & Tree of Souls. The set has 1212 pieces, including lots of lavender whips and transparent purple elements. As always, a demonstration of brick-built landscaping techniques is welcome.
The set was outlined on the live stream by senior designer Woon Tze Chee, who highlighted some of the set’s features.
The sets will launch October 1, and 75574 has a RRP of 149.99 USD/149.99 EUR/129.99 GBP/229.99 AUD/179.99 CAD.
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At LEGOCON today, we got a sneak preview of series 23 of the collectable minifigures.
Designer Esa Petteri Nousiainen and Minifigure Governance maven Tara Wike took us through the design process before revealing 3 figures from the next series of 12 figures.
It seems like a lifetime ago that the LEGO Ideas fan vote took place, to select the theme for a 90th Anniversary, AFOL level build. It was a close call between the castle and Space themes, but this seems to be the grander of the two sets. With 4514 pieces and 20 minifigures, this set goes on sale to VIPs on August 3, with general release August 8. The set is aimed at an adult audience and will cost $399.99 / £344.99 / €399.99 /549.99 599.99 AUD/449.99 CAD.
If you are a fan of LEGO Castle, this has almost everything, and everyone: villagers, Black Falcons, Lion Knights, Forestmen a wizard and a queen. But no King! I wonder if there will be a realistic way to obtain one in the months to come?
It seems like an age ago that LEGO Ideas ran a fan vote to determine which LEGO Theme would be commemorated as part of the company’s 90th Anniversary Celebrations. I had long hoped we would see a grey and blue castle, with a transparent yellow Bionicle mask mounted above the drawbridge. Today I am delighted to say that I was mistaken. Not one set or one theme, but at least two. Will we see more? I honestly have no idea.
A revised 928/497 Galaxy Explorer was announced at LEGO CON today. This is the Iconic LEGO Spaceship. The emblem of LEGO Space in the early days, representing the ethos of peaceful exploration, before the introduction of conflict was required to drive the story-telling.
The set was revealed by Mike Psiaki – who revealed it is 1.5 times larger than the original set.
10497 will arrive on August 1st 2022, and will cost $99.99 / £89.99/ €99.99 /179.99 AUD/129.99 CAD. IF YOU ARE KEEN, it will be available for preorder in some markets from today!
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At the peak of the BrickHeadz craze back in 2018, the set Go Brick Me was one of the most popular sets of the range – giving builders the chance to create avatars of themselves in BrickHeadz Form. Further customisable figures arrived in the form of Brick and Groom figures in 2020. After a quiet year or two, we have seen an increased number of BrickHeadz released in 2022, and the line continues to innovate:
Today, at LEGO®CON 2022, the LEGO Group’s live-streamed product showcase, we have been given our first look at the 40542 LEGO Brickheadz FC Barcelona Go Brick Me, giving fans of FC Barcelona to create themselves in team livery, or their favourite team member, as a BrickHeadz figure.
Aimed at an audience aged 10 and up, this set has 530 pieces and will launch on August 1st. It has an RRP of 19.99 EUR/19.99 USD/17.99 GBP/29.99 AUD/24.99 CAD.
Today at LEGO CON, the LEGO Group’s Live-Streamed product showcase, we got our first official look at the Sanctum Sanctorum. This set fits a modular corner block, and contains lots of dynamic action.
Designer Justin Ramsden presented the set during the event – the building is confirmed to fit the modular standard, with the full four walls and portals that can be swapped in and out.
Aimed at audiences 18 years and older, it will release on the 1st of August, have 2708 pieces, and will cost 249.99EUR /249.99 USD/349.99 379.99 AUD/ 214.99 GBP/279.99 CAD
Spoilers for Doctor Strange and the Multitude of Madness are present in the Minifigure selection…
Read on for this, as well as enlarged detail from the back of box images.
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FEEL THE RHYTHM WITH THE NEW LEGO® JAZZ QUARTET SET
It seems like a lifetime ago:The results of the ‘Music to our ears‘ contest on LEGO Ideas were announced at the start of the Pandemic, back in May 2020. While the winner of the contest was a rather epic Daft Punk Model, it was the first runner up, Jazz Quartet by Hsinwei Chi, that has been brought to the shelves by the LEGO Ideas Team.
The set features a dynamic jazz quartet doing their thing. the set features 1606 pieces, and measures 42 cm wide. The set will cost £89.99 / € 99.99 / $ USD99.99 /169.99 AUD/ 129.99 CAD when it is released on July 1, 2022.
Read on for more images, as well as a look at the original submission.
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I find it hard to believe that it was just over 4 years ago that we first saw the 10261 Roller Coaster. It offered a slow climb to a sudden descent, in the best tradition of the classical roller coasters of my youth. Now as time has progressed, so too has engineering: people now seek ultimate thrills: sudden drops, loops and in some cases, cork screws. Now, my body’s ability to tolerate such behaviour diminished significantly a few years ago. Fortunately, the ongoing development of the LEGO ICONS (The range formerly known as Creator Expert) Fairground Collection has now brought us an ultimate thrill seeker: a track with a vertical drop and two loops. I watched the video twice and felt slightly nauseous…
But seriously, dynamic models with figures and movement are great attention getters – either in the living room, or at a public display, and I suspect people are going to sit and watch this one for hours. Featuring 11 minifigures, 3756 pieces and priced at 399.99 EUR/ 599.99 AUD/ 344.99 GBP/ 399.99 USD/ 499.99 CAD this set goes on sale July 1.
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Back in the early days of LEGO® minifigures, the majority of sets that we had to play had a modest part count, and could be pulled apart and rebuilt in less than an hour: there was plenty of source material for alternative builds, either from the suggestions on the back of the box, or using an ideas book, such as #6000 – which documented the adventures of Mary and Bill, initially in a Town-based adventure, but takes a detour through the worlds of Classic Space and Castle…
Sets were built, played with and rebuilt. Hardly anything was kept together for a significant amount of time.
Flash forward 40 years, and the way some kids play seems to have changed: sets become display pieces in some households, gathering dust until the owner enters their dark ages, before moving on to sell them on the secondary market.
In part, I can understand this: sets have become a bit more sophisticated over the years: more pieces, more complicated building techniques, and we have already invested a couple of hours in building the core model. I encountered some examples of this recently as I worked on the new Creator 3in1 sets – Viking Ship and Midgard Serpent, as well as the DownTown Noodle Shop: pulling these sets apart and building the alternative models took up to 2 hours, depending on the models.
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