This little guarded fort by Brick Vader is a lovely hybrid of the Imperial Soldiers and Armada styles, employing a bit of Spanish flavor in the structure. While I don’t see any revolutionary techniques in use here, the whole model comes together in a particularly nice way. I love to see simplicity done well.
P.S. Coming to you live from Brickworld Chicago 2012. So if any of our readers are here, be sure to say hi if you see me!
Sean Jensen follows his terrific Steampunk X-Wing fighter with a brilliant take on that ubiquitous Imperial workhorse, the TIE Fighter. Giving Star Wars vehicles and characters a Steampunk makeover is nothing new, but Sean has nailed the precarious, ramshackle, and gilded style quite well. The chains governing the wings are quite a nice touch.
Flickr user Deus Otiosus has been building some really terrific castle dioramas lately, and his newest caught my eye in particular, with its extraordinary rock sculpting, which is a technique I’ve never seen used on that scale before. Also worth mentioning are the lovely dragon wings.
Here’s the second of the sets I picked up on Friday, 9461 The Swamp Creature, from the new Monster Fighters line. Given that this is such a small set, with only 70 pieces, this will be a short review. The Monster Fighters theme looks fantastic as a whole, though, with lots of classic movie spooks getting a bit of showtime.
This is a simple set, with one of the Monster Fighter heroes riding an airboat, and the Swamp Creature protecting his little spot of terrain. The box is nothing special, though nicely designed. The back includes a little comic showing the Swamp Creature giving–or perhaps being forced to give, as he doesn’t look too happy about it–his green swamp crystal, one of six rainbowed crystals, to the Vampyre Lord, presumably to activate some nefarious device which is included with 9468 Vampyre Castle. Inside the box are two little baggies, and the instructions, comparable to any other similarly sized set. Oddly the instructions include no advertisement for the rest of the sets in the Monster Fighters line.
The build is quite simple, with no surprises. The airboat is nearly identical to many others that have been produced by LEGO, except that this one is armed with flick-fire missiles, which I’m still unimpressed by. The little square of swamp is about as simple as it gets, but you can’t expect too much from a set this size. The inclusion of a frog is always nice, but I’m not sure if the fish is dead, or just kept swimming away, because he’s clipped to the base.
Clearly the highlight here are the minifigs, which are terrific. The Swamp Creature is a lovely design, obviously imitating the infamous Creature from the Black Lagoon. I really like that LEGO has gone the extra step and included printing on the creature’s head that isn’t even visible with the fishy headpiece in place. Similarly, the hunter (Jack? He looks like a Jack to me) has a great torso print of a leather bomber jacket overtop a dirty white tee. Nicely enough, both figs have back and leg printing. I’m thinking that LEGO is realizing that minifigs are a huge selling point in their sets, and we all love super detailed figs. So I’m guessing that detailed front and rear prints and leg printing is going to become the rule, rather than the exception, with sets from here on out. The Swamp Creature is pretty sparse on new pieces, aside from the aforementioned crystal, and the Creature’s headpiece. A quick Bricklink search tells me that the propeller, which was new to me, has actually been around for a while. Of most interest to me was Jack’s leg piece, which is in the new olive green color. It’s basically a greenish shade of dark tan, and is really going to be a fantastic color for both foliage and military models.
All in all, it’s a fun little set, but with Jack and the green crystal included in other sets in the Monster Fighters line, the Swamp Creature is the only thing really unique to this set.
I was elated this morning when my local toy store got in the new Lord of the Rings and Monster Fighters themes. I immediately picked up several of the smaller ones, and I’ll review them over the next few days as I get time. I’m super excited to finally lay hands on these sets. Today I’ll start with the largest set I picked up, 9471 Uruk-hai Army, from the Lord of the Rings license. Clocking in at $35 USD, it’s not a bad size set, considering it’s a licensed theme. With 257 pieces, it’s fewer pieces-per-dollar than the unlicensed themes, but still comes out cheaper than many Star Wars sets, and this set includes six minifigs.
The box art is gorgeous, with a large image of Sauron’s finger wearing the one ring, with a fantastic map motif behind it. The rear of the box is pretty standard, showing all the play features, and also advertising the forthcoming LEGO The Lord of the Rings video game. Inside the box are two numbered bags, and the instruction manual. Unfortunately, it seems the brilliant idea of packaging the instructions in their own bag with a stiff piece of cardboard didn’t last long, as my instructions were quite curled and bent. On the upside though, there’s not a sticker in sight. The instructions continue the map motif lightly in the background of each page, which looks terrific.
The first bag contains the four Uruk-hai and the ballista. In keeping with recent practice, and especially the habit of licensed lines, the figures are all exquisitely detailed with both front and rear printing, and all the heads are double-sided, with a neutral expression and a battle expression. The legs and hips all have printing as well, though on the front only. The machetes and armor of the Uruk-hai are all in pearl dark grey, and seem to be of excellent quality. There are only a few pieces here that are new to me, like the Bracket 1×2 – 1×2 Inverted (recently released with the Marvel line), and a lovely brown 1×4 tile with a wood grain printing (ever so slightly different than the one found in The Burrows set).
This is, though, the first time I’ve seen 4×4 round plates used as wheels on a siege engine, instead of the old method of 4×4 round bricks, and I think I prefer the bricks, which look more like heavy wooden wheels and less like bicycle tires, even though these are probably quite serviceably within scale. The build for the ballista is pretty straight-forward, with a simple Technic frame. The ballista fires two flick-fire grappling hooks. Like most flick-fire projectiles in official LEGO sets, I’ve never been able to get much distance or speed. At least these have a little pushing mechanism, instead of pushing directly on the projectiles, as in some sets.
Bag two is for the wall chunk from Helm’s Deep, and Eomer and the Rohirrim Archer (or, as LEGO puts it, the Rohan Soldier). Eomer seems a little out of place in this set, though until they make a Meduseld set (here’s hoping!) I suppose this location makes the most sense from a play-set standpoint. Eomer’s helmet is in its own bag, as is the case with most specially painted pieces. The helmet is quite amazing, both in shape (which the Rohirrim archer shares) and in printing, with golden horses on each cheek. The two men’s torso and leg printing is no less detailed, with wonderful generic armor (front and back) that will be of great use to Castle builders. The soldier’s torso is my favorite of the set, and would fit perfectly with the recent dark green dragon faction from the Kingdoms line. And then, of course, there’s the new horse. 
It’s really quite something. I have to admit that LEGO has done an absolutely fantastic job of re-designing something so iconic as the LEGO horse. I immediately grabbed a classic horse, and took some time to compare the two. The new horse’s head is slightly wider, meaning it can’t wear the head-pieces designed for the old horses, but LEGO has assured us that they’re making new ones. The body, however, while posed differently, retains the classic dimensions, meaning that classic bardings still work. The new pose-able leg-section allows for a two-legged reared up stance, and the legs actually make a soft click into place when they’re fully extended. The horse is remarkably well balanced when standing on two legs, and isn’t particularly off-balance even with a rider or when posed running.
There aren’t any new pieces in this section beyond the horse, though several pieces do make appearances in useful colors. Most noteworthy of these is the 1×2 brick with brick pattern, which appears here in light grey for the first time. This piece is going to be amazing for castle-building. Again, the construction of the 16-studs long wall is straight forward, though it is worth noting that the wall is built modularly, and is intended to fit with 9474 The Battle of Helm’s Deep to make an even longer wall, which is rather a cool idea. The wall includes a small catapult fixed in place, so you’d best hope that the Uruk-hai don’t veer to the left or right as they charge. Beyond that, the set is pretty sparse on built-in play features, though somehow I doubt kids (and big kids) will have much trouble figuring out what to do with it.
My conclusion: With six highly detailed minifigures, a bit of wall, and a ballista, this set is a great introduction to the Lord of the Rings line, even though it doesn’t come with any members of the Fellowship. I’m sure a great many of you plan on buying the whole Lord of the Rings line no matter what I say, but if you want a larger orc army, this is a fantastic way to get it.
Today might be a witty day for a Star Wars celebration, but it also happens to be the day The Avengers film is released. And with as much excitement as the rest of us, but a with great deal more effort and skill, Ken Robichaud (aka buriedbybricks) is showing his enthusiasm for Marvel’s latest film. Ken has broken out his Lego to create some astounding life-sized props for the Avengers. I actually spent a moment looking at Hawkeye’s bow, and trying to figure out why it was in the “Lego” group on flickr, before I zoomed in and realized that it was, in fact, entirely Lego. And Ken’s other props are no less magnificent.
There are good ways to blend a lot of colors in a model, and there are bad ways. Joe Perez has mastered the good way. The wings really make this model, both in technique and color.
Here’s a perfect example of why there is no such thing as a useless piece. Even broken pieces can be used, given sufficient imagination and skill, as flickr user erth&fiya so aptly demonstrates with his adorable creation made entirely of damaged pieces.
Bruce Lowell (aka Bruceywan) is at it again, making more uncannily accurate models of familiar real-life objects. The latest thing he’s turned his hand to is that classic ubiquitous red wagon, the Radio Flyer, and it’s so crazily accurate, at a glance it just looks like a photo of the real thing.
This lovely diorama by flickr user Burning Brick has lots of great little details to pore over. While the lattice work windows in the front tower may not do much to aid the tower’s ability to withstand a siege, they are certainly picturesque. And the knobbly tree in front is quite imaginative, and is an excellent departure from the sort of trees we usually see in LEGO form.
LEGO Cuusoo is really picking up speed lately, breaking 88 miles per hour moments ago! Masashi Togami’s DeLorean project on Cuusoo achieved the 10,000 vote threshold tonight, meriting it an official review by the LEGO Company, and if all goes well, development into an official LEGO set.
When LEGO fan Greg (aka Yatkuu) achieved 10,000 votes for his Cuusoo project based on the R-rated film Shaun of the Dead, we were all incredibly curious to see how LEGO would react. They’ve given it full consideration, and have determined that they will not further pursue turning this project into a set. This marks the first time that a Cuusoo project has reached the proper number of votes, but failed the review process. The official statement is below.
The LEGO Jury has completed the review of the Winchester – Shaun of the Dead project that hit 10,000 supporters on LEGO CUUSOO on March 31, 2012.
LEGO CUUSOO gives the opportunity to submit product ideas, however all LEGO products, regardless of age target, must be content appropriate for our core audience. With this in mind we have decided that – good though the model is – the film Shaun of the Dead contains content that is not appropriate for our core target audience of children ages 6-11.
Long before the Winchester received mainstream media attention, Greg (Yatkuu) contacted us in earnest to see if his project was acceptable. We recognized the potential conflict, but didn’t see a reason to remove the project. The model was presented tastefully and we thought it deserved fair consideration. With 10,000 supporters, the Winchester earned the opportunity to receive the full LEGO Review.
Greg has been a pleasure to work with throughout this process. We’re impressed by his model, grateful for his constructive approach with us, and we are sad to disappoint such a devoted LEGO fan.
We appreciate the passion exhibited for new product ideas on LEGO CUUSOO. Opening ourselves to new product suggestions invites popular ideas that don’t always fit our brand. This is the first time we’ve felt that we should turn a LEGO CUUSOO idea down, but we’re grateful for the spirit behind projects like the Winchester and for the opportunity to be challenged. It keeps us sharp and looking toward the future of the LEGO brick.