legocreator

London: A Happening Place (London bus 40220).

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So I recently placed a shop.LEGO.com order, primarily because the small London Bus img_793140220 was being offered as a free gift with purchase over $AU120. And I am glad I did.  It cannot be a coincidence that there has been a rush on nifty London based sets appearing this year.  Any Day Now (well… November 17th) will see the opening of the LEGO Flagship Store at Leicester Square.  This promises to be quite a store, indeed one of the largest in the world.

So in 2016 we have seen the Creator Big Ben (10253); Buckingham Palace  in the Architecture range (21029) and now the iconic Double Decker London Bus (40220) has made an appearance, along with the teasing images of Lester, the minifigure mascot for the new store.

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LEGO Rebrick: Contests with Real Prizes

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Have you visited the LEGO Rebrick recently? Previously designed as a MOC sharing site, the website was relaunched a few months ago primarily as a competition platform for TFOLS and AFOLs alike.

There have been contests for NXT, Bionicle, Porsche and Creator building. Current contests include Classic (Microscale Building – closes November 4, 2016) and LEGO Friends (closes November 21,2016).  Have a closer look at these contest pages to check out the prizes on offer.  The standard of competition is reflected by the value of the prizes.

This week, one of the most exiting competitions to date was announced: To celebrate the release of the new 10255 Assembly Square, build a room for one of the existing Modular Buildings. The full details can be found here.  Click on the link to read all about it. Make sure you read the rules properly!

The Grand Prize for this competition consists of:

  • 10218 Pet Shop
  • 10243 Parisian Restaurant
  • 10246 Detective’s Office
  • 10232 Palace Cinema
  • 10251 Brick Bank
  • 10255 10th Anniversary Modular Building: the Assembly Square.
  • If you were to purchase these separately from shopLEGO.com, they would cost over $AU1300 (Prize value varies according to your geographic region).

The competition closes on 30th November 2016 at 02:00 am AEST.  Visit the competition page through the link above to confirm the closing date and time for YOUR PART OF THE WORLD.

This competition is not visible through the LEGO Rebrick home page, but through emails sent out from LEGOShop.com, as well as links shared on LEGO Fan Media websites. Enjoy.

Play well.

Dragonheads Revisited: 31032 – Red Creatures

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Have I been dragon my feet?

I appear to have been discussing LEGO Dragons on this blog a little more than I do in real life.  I have no good explanation for this.  Of interest, dragons appear in LEGO sets a little more often than they appear in real life.  Coincidence? I think not.  Dragons are creatures inspired over the years by human imagination, and LEGO bricks are intended to inspire the human imagination.  Earlier this year, I looked at the Fire Dragon’s Lava cave: Part of the Elves Dragon’s Series this set contained some great scenery, but the brick built head was not entirely to my taste at the time.   Kai’s Elemental Dragon (70602) was an impressive dragon, and the head featured interesting use of arches.  However, the final effect was fairly large compared with the Elves Dragon’s heads.

IMG_5105Red Creatures (31032) was released at the start of 2015 (this means anytime between early December 2014 and February 2015, depending on where in the world you happen to be standing.) At the time of its release, it was overshadowed somewhat by the release of 31031 – the Rainforest Animals.  This colourful Creator Set featured a brick built parrot, with a controversial play feature. I didn’t see red creatures around the department stores in Australia, but it may have been on limited release around some of the independent toy sellers.  There always appear to be a couple of small Creator sets on shop.lego.com that don’t get general release on this side of the globe.  The current Park Animals (31044) and Future Flyers (31034)would both appear to be in this category [NOTE: this is a tip for anyone seeing them in an airport, or overseas, wondering what sets to buy for their LEGO fans back home in Australia.]

But I Digress…

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Scaling it Up 4×4 Part 1: 31040 Desert Racers

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One of the great things about LEGO is the way in which the same model can be built in different scales: some times, equivalent models in different scales are available simultaneously.  This is the case with the sub-minifig scale 31040:Desert Racers and Jack Stone Scale (I’m not afraid to go there…) 31037:Adventure Vehicles.  Each of these is a 3-in-1 Creator Set.

While travelling along this path, I thought we might have a look at forced perspective, as a way to give images the impression of greater depth.

 

Let’s Start Small

Lets start today by looking at 31040 Desert Racers: this set has 65 parts, costs $AU 9.95 and is a 3 in 1 creator set.  The presented models include a 4 x 4;  a dune buggy  and what appears to be a quad bike.

The thing I love about building at sub minifig scale is that pieces take on brand new roles: here the short ladder becomes a roof rack; the motorbike handlebar becomes a bullbar and the round tile with a hole in the middle becomes a spare type, strapped on the back of the vehicle.  The build takes around 5-10 minutes and measures 4 studs wide, around 4.5 bricks high and  6-7 studs long.

triptic vehicle1

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Free and Exclusive: When too many things happen in the one week (Lego Creator App and Poe’s X-Wing Polybag)

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Polybag Fever

So, last monday the word began to spread around the inter webs:Lego (TM) Starwars (TM) Poe’s X-Wing Fighter(TM), free but only if you buy this month’s K-Zone.

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We hardly ever see these in the wild in Australia – more often in the confined ecosystems of Videogame pre-order bonuses or lego Shop@home bonuses

For those without tweenage children, K-Zone is a magazine aimed primarily at boys aged 6-10, containing equal parts toy advertisements, movie ads (some veiled as toy advertisements), video games (some based on toys, some with toys based on them) and comics (based on the subjects of TV series, movies, or the toys derived from said licencees).  It effectively retails for 6 dollars (cover price $5.99) and sits at the end of supermarket checkout isles, ready to trap unsuspecting mothers in a frenzy of uncontrollable pleading. I wish it was around at the time I was a boy.  My mother is glad that it wasn’t.

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