After my multi-post rant about new technology last week, you shouldn’t be surprised that I’m still skeptical about LEGO Universe.
Ochre Jelly disagrees, and I think he generally knows what he’s talking about, so I suppose I’ll pass on the news that Beta sign-ups are now open.
Have fun!
Wired.com brings us the first high resolution images of two out of the six upcoming Star Wars sets coming this August. The Clone Turbo Tank will retail for $120 while Wampa Cave will go for $40.
Publisher LucasArts and developer TT Games have announced the next installment in the LEGO Star Wars video game series, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, due out for Wii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox 360, and PC in time for the holiday season later this year.
Once again stealing the New York Toy Fair’s thunder, the first publicly available photos (read: not stolen or leaked) of late 2010 LEGO sets come from the Canadian Toy & Hobby Fair, via CTV tech reporter Kris Abel.
Of particular note for LEGO Castle fans is the new Kingdoms theme.
Check out Kris’ main post for links to each of his theme-specific posts, including:
The first pictures of LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 2 have shown up from the Nuremburg Toy Fair. Although there’s not yet an official listing of all the figures in this series, they look just as interesting as those of the upcoming Series 1 in June of this year.
Via Eurobricks
The BBC’s Teck Know section currently has an article on the LEGO hobby with a focus on LDraw and virtual building. It includes discussion with Chris Dee who is the man responsible for quality control and library management for LDraw (and who does an excellent job). It also highlights the excellent work of Warren Elsmore, creator of the featured bridge and LDraw-using designer.
One of Warren Elsmore’s work-in-progress St Pancras LDraw sketches as mentioned in the article.
Paul Lee and his son entered their local LEGO Store’s monthly Minibuild contest back in September, and recently learned that their entry has just won the national contest, and will be featured as this coming September’s monthly model.
It’s a great little Miniland character that would look perfect on the tiny streets of LEGOLAND California, complete with sneakers and backpack casually slung over one shoulder. Congratulations to the father and son team!
BrickJournal and their publishers TwoMorrows are hosting a LEGO event May 8-9, 2010 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Here’s the event’s description:
- Meet professional LEGO builder NATHAN SAWAYA, and help him assemble an incredible LEGO structure!
- See a huge hall filled with custom LEGO creations by top AFOLs (“Adult Fans of LEGO”) from around the country!
- Participate in workshops on building techniques and making custom minifigures!
- View animated LEGO films running continuously both days!
- Watch a robotics competition by First® LEGO® League teams from area schools!
- Build a special LEGO Mother’s Day rose for your mom!
- Cheer for the Great LEGO Boat Race, and see presentations on Mindstorms, creating LEGO Mosaics, and more!
For exact times and prices, check out the BrickMagic website.
With sincerest apologies for the belated post to our thousands of our readers in Hong Kong, Bricks Adventure 2010 has been happening on the University of Hong Kong campus, January 27 through February 12.
ArzLan, Antony Tam, John Ho, and many other talented builders are there, along with America’s own Dan Siskind.
Photo by Erikmok
Check out all the photos in the Bricks Adventure 2010 photo pool on Flickr.
You don’t have to travel to Ryloth to get your hands on a lovely Twi’lek dancer, jedi, personal assistant, or sith minifig. Arealight Custom Work now sells printed versions of the custom accessories we reviewed last year, as well as new curved torsos.
The heads are 5.00 USD each and the torsos 4.00 USD. Check out more photos on Flickr.
As someone too untalented to try designing, printing, and applying waterslide decals myself, I just ordered a full set and can’t wait to make them dance around on my coffee table. ♫ Jabba’s Theme ♩ as Pugsly observes approvingly…
The Classic-Castle Admins have finished the judging and announced the results! Check out the winners. There are some excellent castle creations there. If you need more Castle goodness, take a peek at all the entries. While there were less entries this year, the quality seems to continue to rise. I can tell you, it was hard to judging this year.
The Design Lab at LEGO has finally agreed to share the company’s internal color scheme with the public. In the chart below, you can see the official LEGO color names with their corresponding color numbers.
Of course, there are differences between the names that LEGO gives to their colors and what we fans call them. Nevertheless, this is still very useful information, especially to improve communication with The LEGO Group regarding the LUGBULK Program.
You can download a high-res version (25 KB Adobe Reader PDF) as well.