Tag Archives: Friends

The LEGO Friends line launched in 2012 has certainly generated its share of discussion and even controversy. But whether you’re here because you want to read our reviews of the LEGO Friends sets or because you want to see what else LEGO fans are building with the new figures and LEGO parts, you’ll find a whole lot to like about LEGO Friends here on The Brothers Brick.

LEGO addresses 2018 Friends character redesigns by Bricking Around [Guest Post]

Here at The Brothers Brick, we tend to specialize in certain kinds of news, LEGO creations, and reviews, but thanks to our partnerships with other LEGO websites, we’re able to bring you more kinds of content. Please enjoy this excellent observation of the expansion of diversity within the 2018 LEGO Friends line, which originally appeared on Bricking Around, an Australian LEGO fan blog.

When the first images of the 2018 Friends sets started appearing online I noticed that Olivia looked odd. I sent off a message to LEGO to find out what was going on and they got back to me tonight. You can read their full statement in full at the end of the article.

Essentially the visual changes to the characters are actually only one part of the change. Heartlake City will be undergoing changes as well. The town will become more realistic, with different districts and other citizens.

With regards to the five main characters the LEGO Friends team assures us that they will each still have the same personalities and interests as before. Their design changes are just to diversify their appearance.

What are those design changes? Here is a rundown, starting with the most different…

Olivia

The most obvious difference is that new Olivia has a darker skin tone and now wears glasses. Her hair style is also slightly different, with a braid in the front.

Emma

Emma’s eye colour changes from a deep green to brown in the redesign. It could just be me but it seems that they have also changed the eye shape slightly.

Andrea

New Andrea also gets an eye colour change from green to brown. The lip colour has been darkened too. The new hair style is longer and looser than current version.

Mia

While Emma and Andrea switch from green to brown eyes, Mia’s eyes go the other way changing from brown to green. Her lips also have been changed to a more subtle tone.

Stephanie

Stephanie seems unchanged. What do you think of the changes?

You can read the LEGO Friends team’s statement below.

Every year we strive to innovate and make our products even better for children all over the world. A lot of effort has gone into the development of the LEGO characters and universes across our entire product range, so it makes us very happy when changes are noticed.

LEGO Friends in 2018 looks a bit different than what it has in the past. To be specific, the 5 main characters have a slightly different look but also the city and the citizens of Heartlake City have changed.

But what are the reasons for the change?

Firstly, we want to assure you that all 5 friends are still there in 2018. Andrea, Mia, Emma, Stephanie and Olivia – they all still exist! Also the character’s main interests and personalities remain mainly unchanged.

What you will see in 2018 is an evolution of LEGO Friends, a progression of the story and characters to make sure children get an even greater play experience. Every year more than a million children and parents reach out to us and share what they love and what they would like to change. In the LEGO Friends range children told us that they would like even more differentiated characters and also suggested improvements to Heartlake City.

We always take great care to listen to input from children, and the LEGO Friends team has worked hard to make even more engaging and relevant experiences for children – and also make the LEGO Friends universe more true to the actual world children live in.

Taking a starting point in reality, we’ve made the characters more diverse in their appearance and have added more depth to their personality. And of course, they still live in Heartlake City. But just as the characters have changed, Heartlake City has become more differentiated and rich. There are different districts and there are other citizens that play a more active role in the story.

The changes we have made does not change the fact that previous and new LEGO Friends sets will cater for great building and play experience in 2018 and beyond, and we hope to inspire even more stories and play opportunities for children in the future.

This article originally appeared on Bricking Around, and is reproduced here with permission.

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2017 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 7

Welcome to Day 7 of our LEGO Advent Calendar countdown. Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Friends 2017 advent calendars along with commentary from our team.

If you’re opening one (or more) of these advent calendars along with us, we’ve made sure the pictures and commentary on each day’s models will be behind a jump and posted in the evening every day, so we don’t accidentally ruin the surprise. Will Day 7 make an impression?

Click to reveal today’s LEGO advent calendar builds!

2017 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 6

Welcome to Day 6 of our LEGO Advent Calendar countdown. Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Friends 2017 advent calendars along with commentary from our team.

Click to reveal today’s LEGO advent calendar builds!

2017 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 5

Welcome to Day 5 of our LEGO Advent Calendar countdown. Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Friends 2017 advent calendars along with commentary from our team.

Click to reveal today’s LEGO advent calendar builds!

2017 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 4

Welcome to Day 4 of our LEGO Advent Calendar countdown. Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Friends 2017 advent calendars along with commentary from our team.

Click to reveal today’s LEGO advent calendar builds!

2017 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 3

Welcome to Day 3 of our LEGO Advent Calendar countdown. Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Friends 2017 advent calendars along with commentary from our team.

See all of the Day 3 LEGO Advent Calendar mini-builds

2017 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of our LEGO Advent Calendar countdown. Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Friends 2017 advent calendars along with commentary from our team.

Click to reveal today’s LEGO advent calendar builds!

2017 LEGO Advent Calendars: Day 1

It’s that time of year again! Break out the hot cocoa and stoke the fire, because The Brothers Brick is counting down to Christmas the only way we know how: with LEGO Advent Calendars! Each day, we’ll reveal the three mini-builds from the LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars, and LEGO Friends 2017 calendars along with commentary from our team.

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More 2018 sets revealed with our Nexo Knights, Ninjago, Friends and Disney Princess Round-up

November is a busy time with new sets revealed for 2018 and we have already revealed 2018 sets Technic, Minecraft, City, DC Comics Superheroes, Architecture and Creator Expert themes, as well as some special 60th Anniversary sets. Now we can reveal a further selection of Nexo Knights, Ninjago, Friends and Disney Princess sets, all pictured below. Even if a particular theme does not take your fancy, there are plenty of new parts to spot within some of the sets.

Ninjago has a sub-theme of Sons of Garmadon for 2018, including a headquarters set, a larger temple and the return of hand-held rip-cord powered sets.

70643 Temple of Resurrection

70640 S.O.G. Headquarters

Click to reveal more sets due to be released in 2018

Enter Elvendale, the village of colours and magic

Stepping out of her favourite theme of modular buildings, Vesna Todorović has struck gold with this Elves-themed diorama. Heavily inspired by the Elves Netflix series and a bit of the official sets too, the builder had the idea in her head for quite a while before amassing enough bright colours to realize it. She notes that the diorama was a great opportunity to use not only new colours, but new bricks too, including many floral elements, Angry Birds eggs and all sorts of Elves and Friends decorative elements.

The cliff in the back is recycled from an earlier diorama, with appropriate upgrades of course. The foliage is bright and colourful, as are the cute little cottages – exactly in the official theme’s style. There are interiors built for all the cottages, but sadly the buildings don’t come apart to be photographed.

This diorama was one of my favourite builds at the 19th Kockefest, the Slovenian LUG’s display, and many people I talked to there, from fans to casual visitors, agreed.

When LEGO themes collide: Exo-Force + Friends = Exo-Friends

Tyler Sky has been thinking about Friends minidolls and the retired LEGO Exo-Force theme, and perhaps eating a little too much cheese before bed. “What if Exo-Force continued to evolve, and then got assimilated by Friends?” These six Exo-Friends were the result. The minidolls look very cute with their new hair styles even if some of their exosuits are rather more intimidating.

We have an eye-catching lime exosuit, loosely-based on the alternate build suggestion for 7712 Supernova. Those clawed toes look very flexible and give the impression this Exo-Friends character is not limited by gravity and can climb any obstacle.

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Come in and grab a cupcake... while the city is about to be destroyed

LEGO Super Heroes sets have some of our most favorite minifigures of all times. And, of course, superheroes need epic surroundings for their epic brawls. But the buildings we get in official sets sometimes are not as big and detailed as we would like them to be. Gzu Bricks takes matters into his hands and upgrades the 76038 Attack on Avengers Tower set in the most adorable way — by adding some friendship! The cheery 41119 Cupcake Café set takes up residence right below Tony Stark’s apartment, and now fighting over the last blueberry muffin is the only acceptable reason to start a war.