Making Miniland Scale for May the Fourth. Delays Mean It Will Be The Revenge of the Sixth…

Last week, I presented my review of the new 75341 Luke’s Landspeeder. While this latest UCS set comes with 2 minifigures, the set has been designed at decidedly greater than Minifigure scale – greater even than Jack Stone or Belville Scale. And so I put together some figures using techniques used for building the figures populating the Miniland Displays at the LEGOLAND theme parks. Don’t confuse these with the Minilands in the LEGOLAND Discovery Centres – they just use minifigures.

One of the great things about Miniland figures is that they can be built with the bricks that many of us have close to hand, and there is no obligation to make them posable – but you might need to think about the pose to strike before you start building.

Today, we will take a look through the pictures I have of the Star Wars Minilands from over the years, and we will look at building Luke Skywalker at Miniland scale.

Continue reading

75341 LEGO® Star Wars Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder Revealed

As May the Fourth Approaches at what feels llike an ever glacial pace, it is time to see the official release images of the latest Ultimate Collector Series set: Set 75341 has 1890 pieces, comes with a Luke Skywalker minifigure, as well as a new exclusive C-3PO figure and will be priced at $319 AUD/$269.99 CAD/£174.99 GB/€199.99 EU/$199.99 US. It will be available exclusively from LEGO Stores.

Luke Skywalker, like any young adult around our world, values the freedoms that he has, despite the pressures from his Uncle Owen, and his X-34 Landspeeder is the key to those freedoms. While it allows him to go out to service the vaporators around the Lars’ moisture farm, it also gives Luke the chance to head over to Anchorhead, and catch up with his friends at Toschi’s Station.

This model is remarkably large, measuring 50cm longx 30 cm wide and 17cm high – significantly larger than any of the existing 6- 8 stud wide versions released over the years.

Continue reading

Swoosh-Swoosh, Pew-Pew: Child’s Play on May the Fourth

Last year, we saw the LEGO® sets aimed at younger builders shift from the the ‘Juniors‘ branding, to their respective themes, but with the added labelling of 4+. These sets feature the nifty aspects of the Junior sets: easy to build, no stickers, some cool minifigures, but with out the stigma of build specifically aimed at ‘Junior Builders.’ Now you can be 8 years old, and confident in the idea that these sets are OK for you to get: 8 is still on the plus side of 4. Previously, these sets had been limited to LEGO’s in-house ranges (City, Friends, Ninjago), as well as Disney Princess, Marvel Superheroes, and DC Superheroes. With this change in labelling, we have also seen LEGO Star Wars enter the fray, with a range of spaceships labelled 4+. Quick to assemble, and easy to start playing around with, these sets feature some large elements, which might be described as POOP: Pieces that could/should be made Out of Other Pieces.

Continue reading