Following quickly on the latest LEGO Star Wars and Indiana Jones sets, 8038 The Battle of Endor and 7749 Echo Base
are also now available from the LEGO Shop online.
The Endor set includes 12 minifigs and a great-looking AT-ST. The rebel commando minifigs have torsos that will work really well for military minifigs.
For only $25, Echo Base has a Tauntaun — let me repeat: a Tauntaun!!! — Han Solo, two rebel troopers (with new goggles), and two Imperial snowtroopers.
LEGO Space Police, Agents 2.0 and other third-quarter/summer 2009 LEGO sets have been out for a month or so, but the rest of the new sets are now available from the LEGO Shop online.
First up, 10196 Grand Carousel incorporates Power Functions and plays music. The set is also the first to feature tan beards.
New LEGO Star Wars sets feature vehicles from the Clone Wars, including 8037 Anakin’s Y-Wing Starfighter and the Venator
playset.
Other new LEGO Star Wars sets include:
The newest magnet sets make buying rare LEGO Star Wars minifigs affordable, including the LEGO® Star Wars™ 10th Anniversary Stormtrooper™ Magnet for $10. I call him “Chromy”.
The latest LEGO Indiana Jones sets take us back to the classic trilogy.
Finally, trolls and dwarves from the current LEGO Castle theme get their own Battle Packs.
And remember, by clicking through to the LEGO Shop online from The Brothers Brick, Brickset, Peeron, FBTB, or elsewhere, you’re helping to support the LEGO fan community and to keep these community sites running. Thanks for your support!
Legoland California just finished their hiring competition and selected 5 new Master Builders, as well as 4 Associate Builders!
Among the finalists are some very deserving builders, including several that will be familiar to Brothers Brick readers.
After participating in a routine job application process, finalists were subjected to a timed, two hour build-off, which narrowed the field down to nine who were offered jobs.
See the full article in the North County Times and video coverage from CBS8 in San Diego. Congratulations to the new employees of the Lego Company!
New Master Builders:
Mark Larson
Ryan Wood
Joel Baker
Brian Heins
Amanda Juon
New Associates:
Dana Bradsema
Eric Christie
Bryan Decker
Samuel Swiger
Thanks to Bill Toenjes for the heads up on this very cool information!
Space-zombies need a chaser. Since LEGO unicorns are in short supply, we’ll go with LEGO weddings. Ryan and Katie aren’t the only ones who’ve celebrated their love with little plastic bricks.
Chris Wunz created a series of five vignettes as his cake toppers when he married Erin last year (see all five on Flickr):
One of my favorite LEGO-themed cakes is the one Louise and Greg Tudor had at their wedding (full photoset). Greg made LEGO cufflinks for the groomsmen, and a Classic Space minifig even adorned Louise’s garter belt!
Even celebrities get in on the LEGO wedding action. Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz commissioned Nathan Sawaya to create this enormous bee as a wedding gift for Ashlee Simpson:
Finally, Cake Wrecks had a great roundup a while ago of some very cool LEGO cakes, including this wedding cake for Alex & Adrian:
Congratulations to all the happy couples!
Portuguese LEGO fan group 0937 hosted the 2nd TomarLEGO between June 11 and 14 in Tomar.
One of the centerpieces of the event was an enormous, custom-built tank full of water, plied by a fleet of LEGO Pirates.
See lots more photos from this event in Rupi’s Brickshelf gallery.
UPDATE: Biczzz has a full roundup of all the photo galleries from attendees, along with a few videos like this one below.
My apologies for slacking off on the last two days of our 2009 BrickWorld coverage (unless you’d rather read what I write at past 3 a.m. for both nights). Now that the event is over and I’m back with a nightmare of bricks to sort, I’ll wrap things up with a few concluding words. This year’s BrickWorld set records in every way. With over 550 attendees, 25,000 square feet of LEGO, special guests from LEGO execs and more, we’re left to wonder how this year’s even can ever be topped.
Planning for BrickWorld 2010 has already begun, and this time the coordinators have booked the entire Westin hotel just for us LEGO fanatics.
See more pictures of BrickWorld on Flickr.
Continuing coverage of this year’s BrickWorld, I bring you photos from Friday of the four day weekend event. A few noteworthy news items to mention include an unofficial announcement that LEGO will be producing Disney themed sets starting with Toy Story, Cars, and Prince of Persia. Also, BrickArms and BrickForge bring new items and colors to the show, which will result in our usual review soon. Stay tuned as we bring you more coverage from the front line.
Meanwhile, check out more pictures taken by Chris Edwards, Bill Ward, and Bluesecrets.
Some of you may already be aware because this announcement came out earlier this week. I ran across it when reading posts by Ryan Wood on From Bricks to Bothans (FBTB) and Mariann Asanuma on the flickr LEGO group. I post it here for good measure. Apologies for not giving the scoop on this earlier, but here’s the quick and dirty: LEGOLAND California (LLCA) is hiring model builders.
Not only are they hiring, part of the application process looks fun. On Wednesday June 24th and Thursday June 25th, they will be holding a competition at LLCA in Carlsbad, where applicants will be tested on speed, skill, teamwork and creativity. Initial events will be on the 24th and finalists will move on to additional activities on the 25th. The 6 winners will be helping design the Dune Raiders attraction in California as well as advance design work for the parks being developed in Dubai and Malaysia.
Go to the online application here and search in the “CREATIVE/DESIGN” category. Model builder will be the only option in that category. I won’t reinvent the wheel as far as giving the details of the job qualifications. Ryan, Mariann and the official job description all do a good job at that, so I encourage you to link to those resources.
Believe it or not, the picture above is relevant. The silly person posing with Jabba is Andy Grubb, a model designer at LLCA, and Jabba was built by Bill Vollbrecht, who is also a designer there. From hanging out at LLCA all weekend with several model builders, one important tip is that handinesss is handy.
BrickWorld kicked off today in Chicago with over 550 attendees displaying 25,000 square feet of LEGO creations. The event tops records as the largest convention in the US. Over the course of the weekend I will be uploading pictures to my Flickr gallery in addition to collecting links to photos by other attendees. For now, here are pictures from the setup day.
Meanwhile, you can also see more photos from Joe Meno and Bill Ward. Coverage of the opening ceremony and more will begin tomorrow.
LEGO builders and Star Wars fans, including the San Diego LEGO User’s Group (SandLUG) and From Bricks to Bothans (FBTB) converged on LEGOLAND California last weekend (June 13 and 14) and set up several tables across from The Big Shop. This isn’t an effort at self-promotion, but more a desire to share a few of the great creations that I’m pretty sure the builders don’t have time to post online or the creations are just too cool to pass up.
In addition to Mark Borlase’s gigantic Hoth diorama (it tragically took a “humpty dumpty” on the way back to Las Vegas) has been featured on The Brothers Brick before, here are a few of the other notables:
Cooperatively built Sarlacc Pit by Andy Grubb (anderson.grubb) and Gary McIntire (MrGSnot). Check out my other photos which show Sarlacc’s stomach contents, perhaps the coolest feature. Yummy.
Probably the most coveted creation at the display, people were quite literally offering to buy this “Star Wars: A New Hope” chess set created by Brandon Griffith (icgetaway) right off the table, thinking it was an official set. That good. Playing with toys are (left to right) Ryan Wood (lights) and Andy Grubb.
SandLUG member Brian Heins built this Ronto that has such great coloration and was quite playable.
(Edit: misspelled Brian Heins’ name. Corrected.)
UPDATE: 10197 Fire Brigade is now available from the LEGO Store online.
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In news that I strongly suspect reveals the mystery question mark in the 10194 Emerald Night announcement video, LEGO announced 10197 Fire Brigade at LEGO fan events in Germany and Portugal.
Here’s the full announcement from The LEGO Group:
10197 – Fire Brigade
Ages 16+. 2,231 pieces.
US $ 149.99; CA $ 199.99, UK £ 97.85, DE € 149.99
Build an authentic vintage fire station!
Ding ding ding! There’s a fire in town! The fire brigade drives to the scene from this detailed and realistic 1930’s fire station. Designed to fit with other modular buildings like 10182 Café Corner and 10185 Green Grocer, the station features rare LEGO® pieces and innovative construction techniques. It includes a ‘30s-style fire truck, 4 minifigures, a fire-dog, an opening station garage door, and a removable building roof for interior access. It also includes 2 fully-furnished floors with fire-fighting tools, racks for the firemen’s helmets, fire-pole, ping-pong table, kitchen with fully-stocked fridge, couch, bookshelf and a roof with a water tower and bell. Measures 14″ (35 cm) high and 10″ (25 cm) wide.
- Includes a 1930’s-style fire truck, 4 minifigures and a fire-dog!
- Features lots of realistic details including fire-fighting tools, racks for firemen’s helmets and even a fire-pole!
- The station house features an opening station garage door and 2 fully-furnished
floors including a kitchen with fully-stocked fridge and a ping-pong table!- Remove the roof for interior access!
- The roof is equipped with a water tower and bell!
- Fire Brigade features rare LEGO elements including bricks and plates in dark tan, 1×1 dark red tiles, a red hot dog and the 3x6x5 Belleville® arch. It also features gold fireman’s helmets, a tan hand bag and a red sliding garage door!
- Measures 14″ (35 cm) high and 10″ (25 cm) wide.
- Add Fire Brigade to your LEGO® Town and combine it with other modular buildings like 10182 Café Corner and 10185 Green Grocer!
September can’t come soon enough for me, and you can guess where my second fire station will show up in October.
I’ve uploaded a full gallery of photos to Flickr:
UPDATE: Andreas Haase has photos from 1000steineland 2009, showing interior shots of the upper story:
Check out the album on 1000steine.de for more event pics from the event in Berlin.
