Stuntz, the latest subtheme of LEGO® City was officially released on 1st of October. This theme brings flywheel powered motorbikes to a world of monster trucks and jumps. At this point, we have limited availability on shop shelves. However, I was able to pick up 60927 Demolition Stunt Bike. This set has only 12 pieces, including a minifigure and a motorcycle only. Let’s take a quick look at this set, and see what it has to offer.
Continue readingIn which Ricky raccoon goes to pieces, and we realise that these figures are a little more flexible than initially suspected…
Meet Ricky Raccoon. Like all Fabuland figures, Ricky has a few years behind him. He first appeared in 324 Ricky Raccoon and his Scooter way back in 1979 – forty years ago. The world population of Fabuland figures is not increasing (unless there is a super secret birthday treat coming our way).
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This week, we celebrate the anniversary of the submission of the minifigure design to the Danish Patent office. It was in the following year, 1978, that we got our first glimpse of the LEGO® Minifigure. However, development of an appropriately sized, articulated figure began sometime beforehand…
The LEGO Group have recently released some new picture, showing historically significant developments in the the life of the Minifigures. Many of the items shown here are on display in the LEGO House, in Billund, but some may not be at this time. Continue reading
With new Harry Potter LEGO Sets and Collectable Minifigures occupying the Zeitgeist, I look back on ways in which our minifigures have been innovated through their use in this theme over the years.
When we recently looked at the new Harry Potter Collectable Minifigures, we had a look at the new leg elements – the ‘miniskirt’ and mid length legs. These new elements are a great inclusion during this, the fortieth anniversary of LEGO Minifigures. I found myself wondering ‘What other innovations in figure design have we first seen in Harry Potter?’ We have seen so many different characters and creatures since the series first appeared in 2001: house elf, giants, goblins and trolls, as well as humans. To adequately depict these characters as minifigures form, a number of modifications to the standard form were introduced. Some of these we now take for granted.
In which I explore the ever evolving structure of the basic minifigure over the past 40 years and realise that there are a remarkable number of variations on the seemingly ‘normal’ elements, that many of us take for granted. There may be some obsessive measurements taken.
The LEGO® Minfigure turned forty years old this month. You may have heard about it. You might have purchased a celebratory Collectable Minifigure. Or seventeen. During the course of following up on some classic sets from both my own, and other people’s childhoods, I have come across signs of possible deliberate reimagining of some classic sets in the City range. While looking at these sets, I have found myself looking at minifigures from different eras. Much to my surprise, the differences between this figures are significantly more than skin deep.
While discussing these things with one of my suppliers, she pulled out her box of minifgure heads, pointed to some old smileys and asked ‘What do you think of this?’ If I didn’t know better, I would have said that some of these heads seemed a little more square than others. Now, BrickBunny has been around the traps a bit longer than I have, so I am not surprised that she knows about these things.
Intrigued, I returned home, full of investigational vigour, and got out my trusty loaned Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 macro lens, and realising the need to go further with attention to detail, attached the extension tube for life size conversion. We were going in close. Really close.
A little over a year ago, I wrote up an analysis of gender distribution in LEGO® Minigures in the post friends era. In the years since LEGO Friends had been released, there had been some positive trends towards an equal balance, after starting from a pretty low base line (around 11% in 2012) up to 30% in the Volcano Sub-theme of LEGO City in 2016.
As well as supporting the regular themes, 2017 has been a big year for LEGO tying in with cinematic releases, with both inhouse and external IP. By the end of the year, we will have seen a new Star Wars movie, Wonder Woman and Justice League movies, The LEGO Batman Movie and LEGO Ninjago Movie released.
This post was provoked, in part after reading a comment about the relatively low female representation in the Collectable Minifigure sets recently released. I thought it would be interesting to revisit the question of gender distribution in some popular LEGO themes, and see if there were any significant shifts in trends over the last 12 months, when I last reviewed the numbers. The impending release of the Ideas set ‘Women of NASA’ is also of interest, as it certainly demonstrates a desire to see inspirational female role models immortalised in LEGO form.
I would like to look specifically at LEGO City, overall, as well as broken down into its major sub themes; The LEGO Batman Movie; The LEGO Ninjago Movie, and also LEGO Friends. I would also like to look at LEGO Star Wars sets released since the Force Awakens… Continue reading
I only picked up 4 sets from the first wave of LEGO Batman Movie sets. Three of them contained Batman. This was part of my plan. They all look much the same: the printing on each body is the same.
What I had not planned on was successfully selecting sets that each had a different Batman Head…. so I present the Many Faces of The LEGO Batman Movie BATMAN. Continue reading
