Coming in 2017: The Future…

Over the last couple of weeks, official photos of many of 2017’s sets have come to light: Creator,  Lego® Technic (celebrating 40 Years), Elves, DC Superhero Girls, City, Disney, Marvel Super Heroes, Nexo Knights, Architecture, Star Wars, and LEGO Batman movie.  I have lost count of the number of reveals that have occurred.

If you don’t like spoilers, look away now.

There has been a steady reduction in the number of unknown unknowns, with an increase in the known knowns, and clarification as to the nature of the known unknowns.

Some of the my highlights in the reveals seen to date:

LEGO® City has 40% female minifigures in the sets revealed so far. [Great for girls and their families who are not fans of minidolls]

city

The LEGO® Creator Expert 10255 Modular Assembly Square has so many great new pieces.

new-elements-10255

LEGO® Friends is no longer restricted to the bright pastel palette, and some more traditional colours are coming into play in 41311 Heartlake Pizzeria.  There are 3 male minidolls, and 6 puppies to add to the collection in the sets revealed so far for 2017.friends

LEGO® DC Super Hero Girls will add a some additional heroism, and villianism(?) to our minidoll collections.

dc-shg

This year’s Creator Ocean Explorer 31045 has grown up into next year’s Technic Ocean Explorer 42064

oceran-explorer-creatoroceran-explorer-technic

The Creator Mighty Dinosaurs 31058 looks like a terrific landscape parts pack:

creator-dinosaur

Elves continues with Goblins, and Emily’s little sister Sophie. More great fantasy landscapes and transportation

elves1elves2

LEGO® Ninjago sets seem to be a little darker this year… mainly in palette

ninjago

The LEGO® BATMAN Movie will bankrupt many of us with great looking sets and TWENTY, yes I said 20 Collectable Minifigures to collect…

batman-movie1batman-cmf

 

These are the things that have made ME look up and take notice. Many new sets have been previewed on other LEGO® News Websites lately. What has grabbed your attention?

And what other treats may there be to celebrate to 10th anniversary of ‘the really cool sets catering for AFOLs’ such as the first modular building sets, 10181 Eiffel Tower, 10182 Hobby Trains and of course 10179 Ultimate Collectors Millennium Falcon. I’m sure there is much left for us to see.

What are you looking forward to?

 

Play well

 

 

Lego Classic: Retro Values with a Modern Aesthetic

When LEGO rebooted their ‘generic brick’ sets last year as ‘Classic’ I was pretty excited.  Whilst I enjoy the creator and mini figure containing sets, the building often feels a little bit constrained. It’s like we aren’t being encouraged to experiment too much with building any more.  Now, my early experiences with lego were before the release of the mini figure, and in those early days, box art would often demonstrate alternative builds without instructions.  So the classic sets are available in a variety of sizes and price points, from $AU25 (224 bricks) through to the $90, 1500 piece, creatively named ‘Large Creative Box’.  In between are a variety of building sets and also ‘supplement sets’ these $AU30 sets come without wheels or plates, but a variety of bricks, as well as some ‘eye tiles’.  There is even a ‘bright’ supplement set: featuring much of the Friends color palette. I would love a ‘landscape supplement’ full of greys, greens and browns, but leaving out the purples and trans red and so forth…

Today I am looking at 10702 – Lego Creative Building Set.  Whoa… lets look at that word again: Creative.  That’s like ‘building without a net.’ It was purchased on special, $29.99, rather than the standard $39.99: 25% off.  It contains over 570 pieces in 41 colours. That was around 7 cents per piece; 73 cents per colour, 13.9 pieces per colour. Forty one colours? you’d think they were ice cream flavours.

The box is shaped like an old school toy box, made of corrugated cardboard and  contains several transparent poly bags, filled according to color family.

These images show us all the colour, and representative of the parts selection. I ran out of space in my light box so…

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