At the start of June, as part of the LEGO Fan Media Days, I had the opportunity to meet Fenella Charity and Ricardo Silva, who are both part of the LEGO Friends design team. Fenella’s back ground is in industrial design, and Ricardo came to work at LEGO via the fan community. Our conversation rambled over a variety of topics relevant to the Friends line: including storyboarding the sets and animated stories; stickers vs printed elements; gender balance; designing Stephanie’s house and starting the trip down a slippery slope by using tan walls in the pizzeria. But before we started on that path, I had to ask something…
The LEGO Friends sets have be inspirational for introducing buildings around town that aren’t fire stations, banks being robbed or police stations, as are de rigour in LEGO City. But something I have been wondering… Are we going to see a police station?
One of the great things about LEGO bricks is the system: the way elements fit together and interact with each other, sometimes in unexpected ways. Studs and tubes are easy to understand. As are minifigure hands and the way they plug into the end of a tube or anti stud, or clip over a 3.18mm bar. Every so often you come across a new set of interactions, and wonder just how far these relationships between elements extend.
This happened to me this week: While my sorting continues, I was browsing through my holding bin of bricks with bows and arches. Look, over there, a distraction. And before I knew it, I found myself considering the 1x4x2 arch and what I can place snugly under this arch. Fortunately, during The Sort, most of the the relevant parts end up in the ‘bricks with a curved surface’ bin.
The arch fits nicely over the top of a window frame 1x2x2 2/3 (Design ID 30044).
The curve of this arch perfectly describes a semicircle, with a radius of one stud (that is, a length of a 1×1 square plate). This is the same circle described by a 2×2 round plate, brick, tile or droid body. Also the base profile of a 2×2 ‘dome brick’ officially known as final brick 2×2 Design ID: 30367. But more on that element later.
I have several other bricks that look like they should fit underneath this arch, with a studs up orientation. Those parts are a few of the bricks with arches and/or bows, including:1x1x1 1/3 with arch; (Design ID:6091); and 2×3 with arch (Design ID: 6215); brick 2×2 with bow and knobs (Design ID:30165) and 1x4x1 1/3 (Design ID: 10314). Let’s see how they all line up after the break…
Please do not consider this a complete color guide!
Here at Rambling Brick headquarters, there is a project looming. Not technically an immensely secret or important project. But I don’t wish to reveal it right now. Please don’t take it personally. It will enhance the element of mystery in weeks to come.
In the meantime, I need to be ready for it. Now, for the last couple of weeks I have been sorting elements in my spare time. My initial eight box sorting technique was a little optimistic. What was initially going to be a simple ‘bricks plates, modified bricks, slopes, plates, tiles, small bricks/plates, greebly bits and everything else’ . I found a few extra bowls to put go through on the way: minifigures; minifigure accessories; curves and arches; round bricks; round plates, long tube like bits, profile bricks and random technic elements; I have made it through the majority of the casual boxes of broken down models and unrelated parts lying around the house.
The smaller elements seem to be in different types: 1×1 cylinders; 1×1 cones; 1×1 square plates, square tiles, round plates, and round tiles. Possibly a few more different colours than I would have been happy trying to fit into a fifteen compartment tackle box. But if we double up colours in the same compartment, it should be easy enough to identify them. In principle.
The other thing that has become apparent is the need for adequate lighting. And reading glasses. Some of these things are just related to normal ageing. The light is more related to sensible purchasing decisions. Sometimes the white LEDE light panel needs to come out to help work out what I have. However, I have discovered is that perhaps I am a a little more colour blind than I realised. Some colours are a little difficult to identify on their own, without a reference. Color variations in LEGO are not unknown. Colours that seem to be particularly inconsistent include medium blue and flame yellowish orange. Especially if medium Azur or regular yellow are close by.
This has been a challenge when sorting cheese slopes, small plates and round studs. As you can see many of these colours are pretty close together on the spectrum, and if the lighting is a little unreliable, then confusion can abound.
One colour is especially causing me problems. When ever I see pale aqua on its own, I accidently put it in with the white parts. Then I see it has doesn’t match, and attempt to chase it. How is it that it vanishes to the bottom of the compartment, only to be visible out of the corner off my eye when I stop searching for it? Any direct questing seems to result in bitter disappointment. If only my visual acuity was a little more akin to the hearing of a dog?
But was it real, or just a trick of the light? So again, I come back to this: bright, white light is certainly more important than a nice moody warm light in your sorting space. What do you use to ensure appropriate color matching in your build area. I’m open to suggestions. It may save a few headaches. There are more important things to have headaches about!
Do I actually own pieces in this colour? According to the Brickset colour database, I should own some. I have a couple of sets with Unikitty in somewhere. There were some spare 1×1 plates included from what I recall.
I wonder where they went?
Why not share your colour matching challenges in the comments below, and be sure to follow the Rambling brick for casual musings, random thoughts and occasional reviews.
Today, after weeks of speculation, leaks and teases, LEGO announced the forthcoming release of Creator Expert Set 10258: London Bus. With over 1680 pieces, this is the largest London Bus set released to date.
The set will be physically unveiled at the five LEGO Brand retail stores in the London Area on 1st of July, and launched at the online store on 1st August 2017. Early Access will be available for VIP customers from 17th July. The Australian price is will be $199.99.
Some of the teaser images from LEGO’s twitter feed.
Larger than life characters need larger than life figures. As such, over the last 18 years, the ‘Bigfig’ has been developed to cover situations where a regular minifigure feel a bit… inadequate. Especially useful for Rock Monsters, Snow Monsters and Trolls, they have also been used to represent super sized villains such as Darkseid, Thanos, Gorilla Grodd, Dogshank and Killer Croc, and heroes such as the Hulk and Maui.
Bane doing his bit for the ramblingbrick marketing department, holding onto a 1×8 brick in the bottom of his hands
Compared with regular mini figures, they have no leg or neck moment, and only in relatively recent years have they had rotating wrists. What they lack in movement, they make up for with an imposing physique. The degree of sculpted muscular definition varies, as does the amount of printing.
A great hulking(sic) figure, this version of Bane comes from the second wave of The LEGO Batman Movie sets, specifically 70914: Bane Toxic Truck Attack. I would like to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the moulding of this bigfig in comparison to the smaller figure, with multiple printed muscles. Fortunately, this set provides us with one of those as well, in the form of the Mutant Gang leader. We will also compare this figure with the only other bigfig currently active in my collection: Maui from Moana. Continue reading →
The LEGO Ninjago Facebook page tonight revealed the first 10 of 20 collectable mini figures, Blind bags, numbered 71019, to tie in with the LEGO Ninjago movie this September:
LEGO have officially announced the Ninjago City 70620 set via their Facebook channel. It is due to be released on September 1, and will be available initially through the direct to consumer channel. Details can be found at shop.lego.com here. Or here, in the Australian LEGO store.
Tying in with the LEGO Ninjago movie, this has been the latest set to be revealed, with official announcement of another yet to come.
With 18 figures and 4867 elements, this set sets the stage for life in Ninjago City! So much life and activity! It may not officially be a modular town set, but with a little ingenuity I am sure it can be made to fit!
More images, and the description follow after the break! Continue reading →
Well, I have several, but only one is particularly relevant to you today. It is to find order amongst the chaos. Yes, we are talking about sorting the LEGO collection: mine has gotten a little out of hand.
This topic is frequently brought up discussion groups, so I thought I would tell you where I have been, and let you know where I am going. I know many of you have well sorted collections/resources, some are a little more…chaotic.
My current collection of building bricks has evolved from my children’s collection: started around 10 years ago.
In those early days, after graduating from one box, Continue reading →
The LEGO Batman Movie coming to DVD/Blu Ray/ 4K-UHD and digital formats! After waiting six weeks from the international release for it to arrive in Australia, it turns out we only have to wait until June 28 – fifteen days after the US release. Already, we are staring to hear some of the marketing buzz. In the US, Target already has an edition with Batgirl Polybag (30612) and four post cards. And Walmart is offering a special edition Bluray-DVD-Digital Download and Lunchbox (with removable cape!) pack. We are still waiting to hear if any of these will be coming to Australia. I would be really excited if the Batgirl Polybag makes it, as it does appear to be another different figure to the one that appears in regular sets and different to the one that appears in the LEGO Dimensions ‘Play the LEGO Batman Movie’ Pack .
So, What do we have to look forward to?
That’s a funny looking minifigure…
JB Hifi have announced that they will have, somewhat erroneously, an exclusive minifigure with all formats including DVD, Blu Ray, 3D, 4K and Ultraviolet! Erroneously, because they then go on to list the bonus minifigure as being the polybag: 30524: The Mini Batwing.
At least, even though it is not an exclusive minifigure, it is a poly bag, which rarely arrives in Australia out side this kind of promotional exercise.
