Category Archives: News

Stay current on the latest news and information about LEGO, from sales & deals to new set announcements. We also cover LEGO events and conventions all over the world.

LEGO Announces 75828 Ghostbusters 3 Ecto-1&2 set [News]

Following hot on the heels of the release of the Ghostbuster’s Firehouse, this morning LEGO announced a tie-in set for the upcoming Ghostbusters 3 movie. The set will feature a revised version of the Ghostbusters famous ride, called the Ecto-1&2. It will also feature the five new Ghostbusters as well as an imp. LEGO says it will be available this summer, and is slated to retail for $59.99 USD, though no word on the part count yet. Be sure to also read our review of the original LEGO Ghostbuster’s Ecto-1 so you can spot the differences in the new model.

Click through to see more photos

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Birds from Bricks book by Thomas Poulsom available for preorder [News]

Thomas Poulsom, the fan builder behind the LEGO Ideas Birds set has just announced the upcoming release of his new book, Birds from Bricks. Tom is a bird and wildlife enthusiast, so it is no surprise that his new book follows on from the 3 lovely bird models in the Ideas set. The book has detailed step-by-step instructions for 15 more bird models, with colour photos and information about each species.

Birds from Bricks: Amazing LEGO Designs That Take Flight is currently available to pre-order from both Amazon US and Amazon UK (with free UK shipping) and a release date of 15 April 2016 in the UK, and April 1st in the US.

LUGNuts 100th challenge

For those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the last eight years, LUGNuts is the Flickr group for LEGO car enthusiasts, founded by Lino Martins and Nathan Proudlove, with Tim Inman, the impossibly prolific Peter Blackert and yours truly serving as moderators. Ever since it was founded, the group has organised a monthly build challenge centred on a particular type of car or car-related sub culture. Normally these challenges are just for the fun of it and they’ve inspired many cars blogged here on TBB. This month is extra special, however, because it’s the 100th challenge!

To mark this occasion we’ve turned the challenge into a competition, with whoppers of prizes. The third place winner gets the Technic 42050 Drag Racer, second place gets the Technic 42039 24 Hours LeMans Race Car and for the first place winner, we pull out all the stops with the Technic 42030 Remote-Controlled Volvo L350F Wheel Loader. These prizes are sponsored by The Brothers Brick, one of the biggest Bricklink stores in the US, Constructibles, and the LUGNuts Admins and moderators. Furthermore, the three winners will also receive autographed editions of The Art of LEGO Scale Modeling, courtesy of Dennis Glaasker, Dennis Bosman, and No Starch Press. Thanks to Dennis Glaasker and his equally creative daughter Stacey for making the poster.

To compete, join the discussion, pick a number, get assigned one of the individual challenges from our top-secret list of wacky cool cars and start building.

Taiwanese LEGO fan uses 15000 bricks to build 4½ foot long SHIELD Helicarrier

The most anticipated LEGO set of 2015 was the enormous Avengers SHIELD Helicarrier. As we highlighted in our extensive video review, there was a lot to like about that set, except for the relative scales of the carrier, the microfigs, and the quinjets. And while some builders have explored more ambitious LEGO Helicarrier designs within the confines of a computer screen, no-one has dared tackle the challenge of building a more properly scaled and movie-accurate version of the Avengers’ flying fortress using actual LEGO bricks …until now!

Working with nothing more than reference photos from the 2012 Avengers movie, Taiwanese builder ZiO Chao and a his friends Dada, Kimura, Kuan-Wei, Stephanie, Tiger and Will from the Formosa LEGO club spent a month and a half (and many sleepless nights) constructing this enormous and fully detailed model of the iconic Helicarrier. At 140cm x 80cm it’s twice the size of the official LEGO set, and contains five times as many pieces. At last, those “swooshable” little quinjets now actually have room to move around!

Regarding the build process, which he photographed in great detail, ZiO told The Brothers Brick: “Before I started to build it, the most annoying thing was collecting parts and classifying them. Then we used Technic beams to sketch out the skeleton of the carrier, which needed to be strong enough to hold everything together. Technic beams were also a great solution for the supporting yellow columns, the front of the carrier, and the four turbine engines.”

Click here to keep reading

Life-size LEGO BB-8 from The Force Awakens built from 11,000 pieces

Norwegian LEGO builder Henrik Lorentzen has built a life-size LEGO model of the wonderful droid BB-8 from The Force Awakens. Though not quite as adorable as a pug dressed in a BB-8 hoodie (which I saw at the dog park today), this LEGO BB-8 has all the charm of the droid in the movie.

Henrik started planning and designing his LEGO BB-8 last April, using Bruce Lowell’s sphere technique and Bram Lambrecht’s sphere generator. The finished model uses about 11,000 LEGO pieces — including a thousand white 2×4 bricks and three thousand white 1×2 plates — and weighs 10 kg (22 pounds).

With a LEGO event at his local theater in November and the movie coming out in December, Henrik gathered all the parts he needed in September and began building, finishing it just in time for the event on November 6.

First look at summer 2016 LEGO sets from London & Nuremburg [News]

Toy Fair in New York City in mid-February is usually the first time each year when LEGO unveils its planned sets for the summer and fall. However, Toy Fair NYC is preceded by industry events in London and Nuremburg, where often LEGO puts small signs banning photography next to some of its new sets while showcasing them at a public event. This tactic is apparently proving particularly ineffective this year, as numerous photographs continue to emerge from both shows, such as the LEGO Technic 42056 Porsche test car set revealed earlier this week (in that video, the LEGO rep is clearly pointing things out to the camera, so they’re obviously ok with some photography).

TBB and other LEGO news sites like FBTB will have full, professional coverage of New York Toy Fair in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, here are a few highlights from London and Nuremburg, given LEGO’s apparent change in policy and public unveiling schedule.

Brickset has just posted box photos (photos of boxes, not the official high-res box art) for a number of summer 2016 LEGO sets. Making the rounds of news outlets this week is 60134 Fun at the Park, a LEGO City minifig-oriented set that features a minifig in a brand new LEGO wheelchair, a new LEGO baby, and the hotdog bun first noticed in the forthcoming LEGO Angry Birds sets — plus a whole bunch of useful new minifigs.

Click through to see more summer 2016 LEGO sets

Niima Outpost on Jakku

Wookieewarrior spent several months building a minifigure-scale diorama of the Niima Outpost from Star Wars, complete with a massive model of the Millennium Falcon similar to LEGO’s UCS version. It was displayed at Bricking Bavaria 2015 where for his efforts the builder was awarded “ummmmm… one-quarter portion.”

In addition to the large Falcon, the diorama includes a highly detailed market.

LEGO Technic 42056 Porsche & other Technic sets revealed at Nuremburg toy show [News]

Thanks to flickr user Jim van Gulik, we now have photos of several of LEGO’s newest big Technic sets (see the others after the jump). We can’t confirm the precise set name yet, but it’s set number 42056, and is a Porsche 911 wrapped in zebra test patterns (used by auto manufacturers to disguise the outlines of an unreleased vehicle). Some sources say that the test pattern will not be included in the final model, though. You can bet that this will be an expensive set, clocking in well over $100 USD.(Update: You can now read our review of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS.)

HobbyMedia brings us this 360 view, as well:

Click through to see more new sets

Issue 16 of Blocks Magazine now available [News]

Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, and what better way to declare your love than with LEGO? From hearts to brick bouquets, this month’s issue of Blocks Magazine is packed with outside-the-box ideas to make this year’s celebration a little more special. Meanwhile in the ‘Build It’ section learn how to construct your own transforming Optimus Prime, with step-by-step instructions and a guide to sourcing all the necessary parts.

Also in this issue, Daniel Konstanski takes us through the history of “ramp and pit” baseplates, Simon Pickard investigates how LEGO can save a national heritage site from ruin, and there’s an exclusive interview with Matt De Lanoy, the man behind one of LEGO Ideas’ fastest-growing projects: Johnny Five.

LEGO Digital Designer officially defunded and unsupported [News]

LEGO has announced that LEGO Digital Designer (LDD), the company’s proprietary virtual building program, will no longer be updated. New parts may occasionally be added, but LEGO is officially defunding the platform.

LEGO sales & deals for mid-January 2016 [News]

Many of the LEGO sets that never actually showed up on January 1st are finally starting to show up online and in stores, including Collectible Minifigures Series 15, NEXO Knights, and others. At the same time, Amazon and the LEGO Shop have discounted many earlier sets.

First off, nearly all LEGO Dimensions Fun Packs remain 50% off at $7.49 from Amazon.com, including the brand new ones released this week.

The LEGO Chima set 70146 Flying Phoenix Fire Temple is $36 or 30% off at $83.98 from both the LEGO Shop and Amazon.com.

Click through for more January LEGO sales & deals

LEGO Concorde cuts away from the runway as 65,000 bricks take flight

LEGO Certified Professional Ryan McNaught has been busy unveiling some fantastic new creations at Brickvention Australia. We showcased his incredible LEGO minifig-scale 120,000-brick sinking Titanic, and now we take to the skies with LEGO Concorde.

Ryan has chosen to build the iconic supersonic aircraft Concorde in miniland-scale. Building Concorde in LEGO is cool, but it’s only when you see the other side of the build that the really impressive details emerge.

While one side shows the complete aircraft, the other is an ingenious cutaway view that shows a slice through Concorde.

Click through for more photos of this huge airplane!