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:

Theme Guide: Minecraft minifigure scale sets

Page created 31st August 2014. Last updated 17th November 2014.

Following the successful series of "Microworld" sets based on Minecraft, Lego are expanding their range this year, with larger minifigure scale sets. There are six sets in the range, including various settings from the game, featuring an assortment of Minecraft-style minifigures, animals, and accessories.

Lego and Minecraft and bound by the core concept of building things, and these sets all come not just with a set of instructions for the featured design, but inspiration for other builds too. They are also highly modular, meaning sets can be both easily rearranged within themselves to create different scenes, and connected together to create a large Lego Minecraft world.

The aesthetic of Minecraft is very blocky, which translates well into Lego form, although perhaps ironically makes the sets seem more simple than most modern Lego designs - In many ways these are very pure Lego sets; few embellishments, and lots of basic bricks. Even if you're not familiar with Minecraft there are interesting parts and designs to be found in the range. Continue below for a look at each set - As someone who's never played the game I'll be examining them purely as Lego sets.

UPDATE: Now with lots more images!

21114 The Farm

This outdoor location comes with a pen for keeping the included cow and sheep in, plus a small grassy area, waterfall, and tree. I really like the blocky tree design, and would find that quite acceptable in any Lego environment.

The animals feature a new cube-head brick, and a different cube is used as the head for the included minifigures, as well as the pumpkin.

There are a couple of new Minecraft-styled accessories included, a spade, and a bow and arrow. This also looks like quite a good sets for plant-parts, with several large leafy plants, flower-style studs, and carrot tops (including a few for the first time in a light orange colour).

Purchase: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp, Forbidden Planet. 

21115 The First Night

Green and brown are again dominate colours in this little house set, which hinges open to reveal the interior. This set also has an animal pen, this time holding a pig, while Steve is able to roam free, with his sword or axe, and meet the Creeper.
There's another tree in this set, which this time is part built from transparent-green bricks.

The Creeper is an interesting construction, featuring a single part making it's legs and body, with tiles attacked to bulk it out, and the Minecraft head cube on top. It will be interesting to see if the central component to that has potential for use other than a Creeper body.

Purchase: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp, Forbidden Planet.

First look at minifigure scale Minecraft sets

Thanks to a couple of listings appearing on Hemleys' website, we have out first look at the forthcoming minifigure scale Minecraft sets. Hamleys revealed images of 21113 The Cave and 21114 The Farm:

Owing to the blocky subject matter these sets are of course quite heavy on regular bricks. There are several new parts in the mix too though. We can see two new head pieces, a cubey head for minifigures, also seen as pumpkin here, and a cubey head for animals, which appears to be sort of modified plate, to allow it to be built onto the brick-built bodies. There are also several new accessories; the skeleton's bow-and-arrow looks most interesting to me.

No doubt there will be more new parts to come as the other sets in the range are revealed in the lead up to release. Four more sets make up the rest of the wave:

• 21115 The First Night
• 21116 Creative Box
• 21117 The Ender Dragon
• 21118 The Mine

Minecraft goes minifigure scale

It would appear that the Minecraft sets have been quite the success for Lego. After three "Micro World" sets (the first a Cuusoo project), work is now under-way to expand the series even further, and at a larger minifigure scale. Here's a teaser image from the Lego Mincecraft Facebook page:

Lego plan to do a series of sets at minifigure scale, and have solicited for fan feedback on exactly how they do that, as this video explains:



The "cobuild" has already kicked off, which Lego posting a gallery of prototype designs for the Creeper character, again on Facebook. They are asking for a vote by "like" for the best of the six options on offer. I'm still pretty ignorant of Minecraft, but on a purely aesthetic level, I rather like this version:

One assumes they will continue offer other opportunists to shape the new Minecraft sets via Facebook, so keep an eye on the page!

Official images of the new Minecraft sets

Due out next month are two new Minecraft sets, setting a new precedent in not being Cuusoo projects themselves, but building upon the success of a Cuusoo set (21102 Minecraft Micro World). Eurobrick's GRogall has released images of the two new sets, 21105 The Village and 21106 The Nether:

 

 

New Minecraft sets announced

Lego has announced two new Minecraft sets. Like the first, 21102 Minecraft Micro World, the new sets are at a microscale, and split into four modules, allowing you to reconfigure them in a variety of arrangements. The new sets will be released in September, and are being previewed at the San Diego Comic Con this week. Brickset posted images along with the press release. UPDATE: Higher res images from Leg Godt. The sets are:

21105 The Village

With this model, fans can create and customize their own Minecraft village with LEGO bricks. Just like the game, fans can build houses, grow crops and beware the mines in their own micro-world as well as play out their own storylines with Pig, Villager and Zombie constructible Micromob figures.

21106 The Nether

Builders can create the Minecraft Obsidian Portal and The Nether to explore the newest biome with this microscale LEGO model, complete with Netherrack, gravel, flowing lava and bedrock. This model includes two Ghasts and one Zombie Pigman constructible Micromob figures.

What's most interesting about these new sets is the fact that the original Minecraft set was a Cuusoo release. This is an exemplar case of the success of the Cuusoo initiative; Lego have been able to tap into a different fan base, create a unique set, and do so well out of it that they feel confident in expanding that initial success into an ongoing product line. One-off Cuusoo treats can grow into more Lego sets, an exciting prospect!

Next Cuusoo set announced, and more sets in the running

The latest Cuusoo review results have been announced, of the three sets that made it to the review stage in Autumn last year (after getting ten-thousands supporters on the Cuusoo website), one will be going into production, with second still being considered. The set that is definitely going ahead is the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, based on the current NASA robotic rover mission on Mars, and designed by one of the engineers from the actual rover. This set builds on something of a science/exploration sub-theme within the successful Cuusoo projects to date, following on from the Shinkai 6500 Submarine, and the Hayabusa spacecraft. The set is likely to be quite similar to the design submitted, as it has been deemed well built and at about the right scale for the size set Lego expect to produce. Here are their comments on the project:

After analyzing the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover project, we learned that this product has niche appeal and strong demand from the space and education communities. The product aligns well with the LEGO Group’s mission to “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow,” including those who will build our future in outer space.

Like the Back to the Future Time Machine, which was approved in the Summer Review, the model presented in this project is built very closely to the LEGO Group’s design standards and so the final product will be very close to Perijove’s original design. It has a high play value, it fits well with voters’ price expectations, and we’ve secured the rights from NASA to release this project as the next LEGO CUUSOO set.

For these reasons, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover project has passed the LEGO Review, and has been selected for production as the next LEGO CUUSOO set. Pricing and availability are still being determined.

There is already a chance to win this set! Lego's reBrick website and NASA are inviting Lego builders to to make models based on future NASA missions to win the Curiosity set, once it's out, and some other NASA goodies.

Two other sets were up for review alongside the Curiosity:

• Thinking with Portals, a series of Lego game proposals based on the video game Portal 2. Despite announcing the review results, they've not quite finished looked at the possibilities of doing something with this yet, so a set might still be forthcoming.
• USC Sandcrawler from Star Wars. Lego have ruled out the Sandcrawler, citing issues with their Star Wars license. It also seems to me that this would have been a ludicrously large set. There has previously been a Sandcrawler set, which while not accurate minifigure scale was still pretty significant.

Cuusoo also released a video explaining these latest review results, check it out:



In other Cuusoo related news, a Brickset reader noted that the Minecraft set (the third Cuusoo set to be produced) has been renamed in Lego's database, from "Micro World", to "Micro World - The Forest". This appears to be setting the stage for additional Minecraft sets; a Hungarian website, Kockamania, has reported a rumour of two new sets being planned.

Meanwhile, several other projects have gotten through to the review stage recently. Continue after the jump to check them out:

The latest exclusive and promotional Lego sets

In my attempts to keep up to date on all the Lego sets that are to exist I have got a bit behind with the odd promotional and exclusive sets. So here's a little catch up:

The big news, a couple of months ago, was that the first Lego CUUSOO proposal in the international version of the platform got to the 10000 vote mark, and was oked by the Lego team. Coming some time this summer will be a Lego set based on the game Minecraft:

21102 Minecraft Micro World

There are a couple of Lego shop at home special sets on the way too. Here's a video with the designers of the big new R2-D2 set:

10225 R2-D2

The other is their latest aircraft sculpture; a new Sopwith Camel, a sequel of sorts to the previous 2001 edition.

10226 Sopwith Camel

Also in the more specialist arena is the latest set in Lego's Architecture range: Big Ben. This one should be out just in time to cash in on extra British tourism for the Olympics. I'd rather have the entire Palace of Westminster though; looks a bit odd just chopping off the end bit.

21013 Big Ben

Also targeting tourists is a new airline promotional set, a neat little glider to add to your city airport. These are currently available from Virgin Atlantic and TUIfly.

4442 Glider

Getting even more exclusive, there's a special mini Statue of Liberty set available from the New York Lego store, and several newly opening Lego stores have had limited supplies of Lego Store Lego sets:

40026 Statue of Liberty

3300003 Brand Retail Store

Also exclusive to Lego stores, as well as Lego's online shop, will be two promotional minifigures with purchases of Star Wars and Super Heroes sets, during in promotional periods:

TC-14

Hulk

Already out in the wild is a special Darth Maul minifigure, so far made available at the New York Toy Fair and Legoland Windsor:

Darth Maul

At some point there is also to be a single figure release of the Ninjago minifigure Rattla. (I'm hoping this will be a release I can get hold of as it's a figure I really like for it's Stargate Jaffa looks, but comes in sets I'm not interested in)

30088 Rattla

Finishing off the minifigure releases, there has also been a pack of firefighters at bulk out your city team:

853378 Firefighters

Finally there have been a few seasonal releases for Easter and Valentine's Day, plus there's a tiny cake due at some point:

40029 Valentine's Day Box

40030 Duck with Ducklings

40031 Bunny and Chick

40048 Birthday Cake