Thursday, June 25, 2015

Lego Ferrari F40

The latest large scale vehicle model in the Creator Expert line has been revealed, and this time they've moved away from the more retro feel of the previous releases (Mini Cooper, VW Camper, and Beetle) to a more modern classic, in 10248 Ferrari F40.

Bild (via Neoape) took the honour of revealing the set to the world, and also highlighted some of the features of the build, which include a new screen piece with printed angled sides, new hubcaps, pop-up headlights, and an opening back to revealed the detailed engine within, plus a tool-kit in the luggage compartment.

UPDATE: And now the full suite of images has been released (via The Brick Fan), plus the designer video, continue below to scrutinise every detail of the model:



Sunday, June 21, 2015

Theme Guide: Scooby-Doo

Due out in a couple of months is the new Scooby-Doo theme, based on the long running spooky-mystery animated series.

Like Lego's previous Monster Fighters theme, the Scooby-Doo sets offer a variety of different supernatural foes, and assorted vehicles to apprehend them with. The series has a much friendly tone though, swapping out the gothic and steampunk elements for bright colours (all but one set comes with a blue and green Mystery Inc. vehicle), and more light-hearted antics rather than a focus on violence.

Continue below for a look at all the sets.

75902 The Mystery Machine

After the five main characters the Mystery Machine is surely the most iconic element in Scooby-Doo, so of course is due a set of it's own.

The brightly coloured vehicles has lots of printed details, alas mostly as stickers. The dish elements have useful printed flower designs at least.

Every set in the range includes Scooby and Shaggy. Note Scooby's head is a separate element, giving him more possibility than many small Lego animals. This set also includes Fred (his only appearance in this initial wave), and a zombie (which appears to have glow in the dark skin). Plus there's a spooky tree!

Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens tease

We have our first tease at Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens sets, thanks to the teaser page in the latest Lego catalogue. What we see is mostly a pile of bricks, which certainly have the right colours and abundance of curvy parts to be the speeder-bike seen in the trailer. What we can see for sure is the minifigure scale BB-8 droid, which like the real-world counterpart has an amazing amount of character for a head on a sphere!


One The Force Awakens set has been fully revealed already, Entertainment Weekly recently revealed several different toy versions of the First Order stormtrooper, including the Lego Battle Figures buildable action figure:


You will have to wait until January to get the stormtrooper, but the first wave of Battle Figures is due out this year, continue after the jump for the Lego catalogue page previewing all the characters that will be available:

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Second wave of minifigure scale Minecraft sets previewed

Lego have released an image previewing the boxs for the second wave of minifigure scale Minecraft sets, due out in a couple of months. The four new sets include a variety of new Minecraft environments.


These join the six previous minifigure scale sets released last year, which themselves followed four micro-scale sets, the first of which was the first ever licensed Lego Ideas (then Cuusoo) set.

UPDATE: The newly released summer Lego catalogue also has spread featuring these four sets:


Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Lego Jurassic World animations

With the release of Jurassic World, Lego have been busy releasing their own Isla Nublar animated adventures to promote the accompanying Lego range. Naturally they are full of all the wit and charm you would expect from a good Lego animation. Enjoy (more after the jump):

This first one takes us through an average morning getting Jurassic World ready for visitors:



Lego Dimensions, the trailers

The latest trailer for the forthcoming toy-to-life video game, Lego Dimensions, is out, and as I've yet to post about said game, I thought I'd play catch up and look at all the trailers so far.

If you've somehow missed news of the game, Lego Dimensions will bring together a host of Lego themes, both original Lego creations and numerous licensed properties (some making their Lego debut), in a single video game, allowing characters and vehicles from different Lego worlds to interact.

The core of the game is the toy pad, which allows different characters and vehicles into the game. The starter pack (available on Playstation 3, Playstation 4, X-Box 360, X-Box One, and WiiU) includes the toy pad, plus Batman (DC Comics), Gandalf (Lord of the Rings), and Wyldstyle (The Lego Movie), as well as the batmobile.

Additional characters, vehicles, gadgets, and game content will then be available as separate expansions, in the form of level packs, which include new levels in the game, plus a new character and vehicle/gadget. Other expansions will just add extra characters and vehicles/gadgets; either team packs, which contain two characters and two vehicles/gadgets, or fun packs, which add one extra character and vehicle/gadget.

To kick off promotion of the game Lego released a couple of rather cinematic trailers, focusing on the drama and scope of the licenses involved (continue after the jump to watch them all).



Saturday, June 13, 2015

Lego WALL•E revealed

Another Lego Ideas set, 21303 WALL•E, has been revealed, thanks to Smyths Toys (via Brickset) who posted several images when listing the set.


Little Lego WALL•E looks just about perfect to me, and is very close indeed to the final model suggested on the original Lego Ideas project. I cannot wait for this set! Continue after the jump for the box art:

Friday, June 12, 2015

Batman v Superman posters

Lego have released Legoised versions of the posters for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice posters, featuring minifigure version of the two titular characters:


They look much snazzier than the actual posters to me. What do you think? (Regular ones after the jump)

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Marvel Avengers video game previews

The first trailer for the forthcoming Lego Marvel Avengers video game has been released, giving us a look at the Legoised interpretations of scenes from the Avengers movies:



The Facebook page for the game has also released artwork of the Avengers team, continue after the jump to check out that, and the pre-order exclusive minifigure:

Monday, June 8, 2015

Lego Angry Birds coming next year

Lego have announced their latest licensed product range will be Angry Birds, coming next year to coincide with the release of the movie based on the popular game app. Toy World (via Brickset) broke the news, which at this stage is just that this is happening, and a couple of comments. From Lego's Jill Wilfert:
We are excited to bring Angry Birds to life in Lego form, given the popularity of the game and its characters with fans of all ages. We seek partnership with globally relevant properties that offer a unique and rewarding play experience to our fans, and our designers are having fun developing building sets that leverage the engaging play and deconstruction found in the Angry Birds game.
And from Angry Birds developer Rovio's Pekka Rantala:
The Lego brand has an unparalleled ability to connect with people through products that spark creativity and imagination. We’re really excited to build experiences together with this amazing best-in-class partner.
Angry Birds construction toys have previously been produced by K'nex, and like many Angry Birds toys focused on recreating the demolition style of the original game. It will be interesting to see what angle Lego takes on this, especially with it also tying into a movie, which will presumably have its own take on the game.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Dinosaurs like to be MOCed

With the release of Jurassic World imminent I've got dinosaurs on my mind, and so it seems do many other Lego fans, are there are come great new dinosaur MOCs in the wild. Continue below for a look at some of my recent favourites.

Starting with Tim Goddard's ankylosaurus and predator pairing, which he apparently built for a feature in the second issue of Bricks magazine.


There's a slightly friendly encounter for Timofey Tkachev's triceratops family, which you can also support on Lego Ideas.


New Jurassic World promo set and video game updates

The nice people over in the Lego corner of Reddit have uncovered a forthcoming Lego mini-build promotion at Toys'r'us in the US, which will see a micro-scale Jurassic World gate set, complete with a most desirable Jurassic World printed tile! Pictured is the poster promoting the event, which is surely worth attending if you can, for this great little build.

Meanwhile the promotional efforts for the Lego Jurassic World video game continue apace, including the release of the third poster image, this time featuring rampaging dinosaurs invading the Jurassic World labs.

Continue below for more new teases from the game, including an amazing Mr DNA minifigure!

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Lego in Spaaaace

Some of my very favourite Lego sets are ones based on real-world space-stuff. Indeed throughout my childhood my dream Lego set was one the space shuttles; and I had no lack of sets to choose from, to date there have been at least fifteen different Lego representations of the space shuttles! My dream came true in 2010, when I decided to get a newly released set, what I think is the best model of a space shuttle Lego ever made (and indeed one of the best Lego sets outright), 10213 Shuttle Adventure.


This is by far the most detailed and accurate Lego model of the shuttle, one of just four that includes the fuel tanks and booster rockets. In a perhaps ironic reflection of the problems in the real shuttle program, there were design issues with the fuel tank, prompting Lego to reissue a tweaked version of the set in 2011, 20131 Shuttle Expedition.

This set is a thing of beauty, but it's just one of many wonderful Lego sets based on real space science. Continue below for a look back at Lego's long-time fascination with space.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

The Big Bang Theory set revealed

Lego have revealed the next Lego Ideas set, 21302 The Big Bang Theory, which is due in August. The set brings to life the communal area in Sheldon and Leonard's apartment, and features all the main characters from the series, and a host of geeky props; including action figures, model planets, a DNA helix, white boards and more. The final design has tweaked, but remained remarkably true to the originally submitted Lego Ideas project.


The Lego Ideas Facebook page also posted close-up images of most of the minifigures, continue after the jump to check them out:

Lego Worlds

A new video game, Lego Worlds, has launched, available for early access play on Steam; that is to say, it's not quite finished yet, but they are welcoming players to help shape the game as they develop further features. At the moment the world building game,rather similar to Minecraft, has landscape generating and building features, and some animals and vehicles you can ride around. In future there will be a greater variety of environments, more pre-built vehicles and models, more minifgure character options, and multi-player play. Here's the official description:
LEGO® Worlds is a galaxy of procedurally-generated Worlds made entirely of LEGO bricks which you can freely manipulate and dynamically populate with LEGO models. Explore each World and unlock new discoveries: from cowboys and giraffes to vampires and polar bears, to steamrollers, race cars, and colossal digging machines! Use the multi-tool to shape environments and alter any World to your liking: raise the terrain to create vast mountain ranges, or enter the Brick-by-Brick editor to build anything you can imagine. Save your creations to build with them again. LEGO Worlds enables you to populate your Worlds with many weird and wonderful characters, creatures, models, and driveable vehicles, and then play out your own unique adventures. Probably not worth upsetting the Skeletons though…
And here's the trailer:



Continue after the jump for a few screenshots from the game: