Yearly Archives: 2015

Issue 15 of Blocks magazine out tomorrow [News]

Coinciding perfectly with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the latest issue of Blocks will arrive in stores this Thursday 17th December. To celebrate, Blocks has assembled the best builders in the galaxy to construct seven iconic Star Wars scenes, takes a look at the Star Wars Battle Figures, and compares Darth Vaders new and old in a showdown of galactic proportions! All topped off by an exclusive interview with Michael Price, the mind behind the LEGO Star Wars series Droid Tales.

In this issue you can also find out how LEGO is being used with prosthetic limbs to improve the lives of child amputees, how Britain’s most outspoken toy retailer is preparing for the Christmas season, how to bring your minifigures to life, and why not every LEGO set is a solid investment. Animation expert Steve Guinness also wraps up his Italian Job project, while David Kresse shows you how to motorize your Technic MOCs.

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NEXO Knights prototypes & development from LEGO designer Mark Stafford

Mark Stafford, a current LEGO designer on the new NEXO Knights theme, brought some 3D-printed prototypes and development parts to BRICK 2015 in London last weekend. NEXO Knights is the newest LEGO theme to be launched and is an eagerly anticipated Fantasy Castle theme with a sprinkling of Steampunk in the mix.

Mark brought set 70315 Clay’s Rumble Blade with him, but even more interestingly, he brought some 3D-printed prototypes and a series of development figures & parts to show the design process in more detail. The concept and final builds for Clay’s Rumble Blade show the significant changes that occur as the design progresses.

Click to see the rest of the prototypes!

The venerable Incom X-wing gets an upgrade

With decades between the events in Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, it stands to reason that the Rebellion’s primary starfighter would be tweaked and upgraded. The X-wings in the Original Trilogy were model T-65s built by Incom Corporation. The sleeker, narrower X-wings of The Force Awakens — with scissoring S-foils — are apparently T-70 models. Peter C. has captured the sloping nose of the new X-wings with this microscale version, which uses various “illegal” techniques to achieve the shape, like the cockpit’s tile pressed across two levels of plates, helmet visors for engine cowlings, and a rubber band for the blue stripe.

Naturally, the X-wing has a Resistance pilot.

LEGO Star Wars 75140 Resistance Troop Transporter from the Force Awakens [Review]

I’m seeing The Force Awakens in 48 hours, but some of the 2016 LEGO Star Wars sets arrived from our friends in Billund yesterday (with a confirmation from LEGO today that we can go ahead and post our review prior to the movie’s release on Thursday), so we’ll start our pre-movie rush of Star Wars LEGO set reviews with 75140 Resistance Troop Transporter, due out in January.

Given that this set references characters and a vehicle from The Force Awakens, I’ll be careful about spoilers myself, and the full review itself is buried after the jump.

Read the full review after the jump!

2015 LEGO Star Wars & LEGO Friends Advent Calendars (Day 15)

Does anybody read these intros? This is the 15th one I’ve written for TBB’s virtual LEGO Advent Calendar, and I’m running out of different things to say.

We’ll be unveiling the mini-kits or minifigs from each Advent Calendar around this time every day, and we won’t ruin the surprise — you’ll need to click through to reveal the LEGO behind the tiny doors.

Click to see the Day 15 mini-kits!

70603 Zeppelin Raid from Ninjago 2016 [Review]

The Steampunk-inspired January 2016 wave of Ninjago will soon be available, bringing airships and balloons and epic Pirate-versus-Ninja fights. The first set in our review tally is 70603 Zeppelin Raid, brought to us courtesy of LEGO. It features a small airship held aloft by a balloon and piloted by a pair of sky pirates; one a snake and the other skeleton. It also includes one of the eponymous Ninja heroes flying a small craft. We can’t confirm the price yet, but the set has 293 pieces, so expect it around the $30 USD mark.

Read the full review after the jump!

Virtually probing and roving

I typically shy away from LEGO rendering. Having unlimited access to every piece ever made, in every color, can be overwhelming and often leads to rather ostentatious builds. But Sunder_59 demonstrates with just a handful of virtual pieces (and an impressive level of self-restraint) that renders can be quite dramatic. Sunder_59’s sparse use of fictitious pieces and muted color palette makes for two very pleasing space-themed vignettes.

As a side note, that wonderful light aqua base under the rover is meant to represent Minmus, the smallest moon of Kerbin, from the Kerbal Space Program game.

Poultry-inspired space theme is clucking eggs-cellent

Between designing new Ideas sets, turning your favourite dudes into cubes, and helping make movies, Angus MacLane has been working on his very own classic space theme. So what sensible topic did he use as inspiration for his ‘tron? Well chickens, of course! The theme is called “BokBokTron” and Angus has created quite a few awesome models already:

BokBokTron Box

BokBokTron Thigh Fighter (…ten points for the pun, Angus)

BokBokTron Meggatron (…does not transform into giant chicken gun, unfortunately)

And Angus isn’t the only one building to the BokBokTron theme. Chris Maddison was recently inspired to have a go too…

BokBokTron CHX Nugget

We’re hoping to see more chicken creations from other builders soon. After all, isn’t it just a cracking good idea?

2015 LEGO Star Wars & LEGO Friends Advent Calendars (Day 14)

We’re two weeks into our virtual LEGO Advent Calendar series. Here we go with the LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Friends mini-kits from Day 14.

Click to see the Day 14 mini-kits!

Droid Wars: The GONK Awakens

You probably don’t need to be a particularly die-hard Star Wars fan to recognize this LEGO creation by Ethan Marak as being GONK, a cute shambling droid that appeared in the original 1977 Star Wars movie A New Hope. And while the planet is going crazy over the shiny new spherical droid BB-8 from The Force Awakens, some of you no doubt still hold a place in your heart for GONK. Which is why you’ll be happy to know that GONK appears in the new movie! (oh crap, erm… spoiler alert?)

Don’t believe me? Well now you have a choice: Take a peek at the not-very-spoilery photographic evidence, or spend the entire movie trying to spot it yourself!

LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack 40% off & Level Packs 33% off at Amazon [News]

If you’ve been procrastinating on picking up LEGO Dimensions hoping for a deal on the admittedly rather ridiculous price tag for a game, the base LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack is 40% off at Amazon.com today for all consoles. To sweeten the deal, several of the Level Packs that unlock new character abilities as well as new areas are about a third off as well.

My favorite Level Pack is from Portal 2, featuring Chell, a Weighted Companion Cube, and a Turret. The Portal level and corresponding home world include new, original dialog by both Ellen McLain voicing GlaDOS and Stephen Merchant voicing Wheatley. While the puzzles are certainly not the braintwisters of the “real” Portal games, I’d go as far as to call it “Portal 2.5” — quite enjoyable.

The Back to the Future Level Pack includes Marty, a hover board, and a DeLorean. The main level itself (excluding the separate Hill Valley home world area) took me all of about 20 minutes to complete, but it does include newly recorded dialog voiced by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd.

Finally, the mildly amusing but mostly forgettable Simpsons Level Pack includes Homer, his car, and the Simpsons family TV. Dan Castellaneta does seem to have voiced a handful of original lines, but he seems to be the only actor with any new/added dialog in the Simpsons level, resulting in a terrifyingly silent Springfield…

When made out of LEGO you are, look as good, you will not

Serbian builder Djordje really is one of the best in the game when it comes to capturing characters in LEGO, as this model of Yoda demonstrates. From the ears made of green Kraata, to the upper lip recreated with a single flipper, to (my favourite) the entirety of his robes made with two technic lift arms. It’s. Just. So. Clever.

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