From the inception of an idea to final reality, the LEGO Ideas 21325 Medieval Blacksmith took over 3 years to become an inspiration from a fan designer to an official LEGO set. Go behind the scenes with designers Sir Austin Carlson and Wes Talbott as they share their journey together with the original designer Clemens Fiedler.
Click to watch the designer video
LEGO has revealed the IDEAS 21325 Medieval Blacksmith after since it was green-lit to be an official set back in February 2020. It comes with 2164 pieces and features a 3-level building from the Middle Ages it comes with removable sections similar to the popular modular designs. 4 Minifigures are featured including 2 Black Falcon Knights, an archer and a blacksmith and will be retailing at US $149.99 | CAN $199.99 | UK £134.99. The set will be available for sale on February 1st 2021.
Click to see more images of the Ideas set
Next year the LEGO Group will celebrate its 90th anniversary, and to mark the occasion LEGO is planning bring back a classic theme with the help of fans. The company has assembled a list of 30 iconic themes and is holding a fan vote to select the best one. The winning theme will be turned into a single new set that will launch next year as part of the company’s lineup aimed at adult fans.
The voting process will be split into two parts. Starting today, fans can vote for their favorites among all 30 themes, and each fan will get to choose up to three themes to move forward. This first round of voting will be open for one week until Jan. 25. Then LEGO will compile the top three themes and hold a run-off vote starting Feb. 3, where each fan will get to select their single favorite. LEGO won’t announce the final winning theme right away as they intend to keep it secret for a while, presumably until they’re ready to reveal the finalized set based on the theme. The new set will be dubbed LEGO’s 90th Anniversary Set.
Click to see themes up for consideration
Today, LEGO has shared a short funny video teasing the setting for its next Ideas set. A stop-motion animation puts us right in the middle of a long queue of knights with their weapons and armor bent and severely damaged in battles. Although the video doesn’t show the set itself, we already know that it’s all about the Medieval Blacksmith that should be announced very soon.
The third and final review for 2020 qualifying fan creation submissions consists of 25 projects. This makes a total of 86 qualifying projects for the year with 26 in the first submission and 35 in the second submission. These fall within the qualifying period for which they will be considered to be made into official LEGO sets.
Click to see the full list of qualifying projects
LEGO Ideas, the company’s crowd-sourcing platform that turns fans’ ideas into real-life sets, is best known for products like 21322 Pirates of Baracuda Bay or 21323 Grand Piano. But LEGO Ideas isn’t just for massive sets that will break the bank. Last May LEGO tested out a small Ideas set as a giveaway, resulting in 40335 Space Rocket Ride. And now the latest Ideas set, 40448 Vintage Car, follows in its footsteps as a giveaway. Based on a design by LEGO fan Versteinert after it won the fan vote in last year’s LEGO Ideas vintage car contest, it’s modeled after a classic 1950s-era sedan with a two-tone teal and white paint job. The set contains 188 pieces and is available this month from LEGO as a free promo between Jan. 1 and Jan. 17 with orders over US $85 | CAN $85 | UK £85. There are over 100 new LEGO sets for 2021, so you’ll have plenty of options.
The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
Click to read our full, hands-on review of 40448 Vintage Car
The latest set to come from LEGO’s crowdsourcing platform LEGO Ideas is one that’s sure to take you down memory lane. 123 Sesame Street (21324) captures a piece of the famous children’s show with a block of New York City populated with a variety of its most beloved characters. The 1,367-piece set includes Bert, Ernie, Grouch, Elmo, Big Bird, and Cookie Monster, and locations such as Hooper’s Store, Bert and Ernie’s apartment, Elmo’s room, and Big Bird’s nest. The set will retail for US $119.99 | CAN $149.99 | UK £109.99 and will be available from LEGO starting Nov. 1. Be sure to check out our full, hands-on review of the LEGO Ideas 123 Sesame Street (21324) published earlier today.
Click to see more images and read the full press release
Today, the LEGO Ideas design team finally announced the First 2020 Review Results. This review round included 26 projects that reached 10,000 supporters between January and May 2020. Surprisingly enough, only one project was approved to become an official LEGO Ideas set so far — Earth Globe by Guillaume Roussel (aka Disneybrick55). Designers praise the idea for its possible educational application and display value. Release date, price range, and availability are yet to be announced.
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Yesterday a whopping 35 LEGO Ideas projects were announced for qualification review. Earlier this year, 26 sets were shortlisted for also achieving the 10,000 votes required for a submission to be reviewed. Achieving 10,000 votes is no easy feat as we’ve seen in the past, but with the recent support of projects skyrocketing, there has been chatter amongst the community if the rules should be tweaked or changed to bring it back down to more palatable numbers.
Click to read the current decision point from LEGO
LEGO just announced a new record of 35 submissions by fan creation submissions to be considered for the second 2020 review, the highest ever amount since the inception of the programme for a single review period. The first review earlier this year had 26 submissions, making it a total of 61 sets now in the pipeline of options for LEGO to decide what creations would be made into official LEGO sets.
Click to see the qualifying projects
They say there is nothing you can’t build with LEGO bricks. Most of the time, that is very true provided you have enough plastic bricks. But let’s get real; there are certain categories of real-world things that do not translate into LEGO-world particularly well, carrying form but not function. One example would be musical instruments. It looks like building a playable LEGO musical instrument is nearly impossible. It also looks like you have to have the skills of a magician to land a job as a LEGO Ideas designer. The work the LEGO design team did to turn fan Donny Chen’s idea into the official 3,662-piece 21323 Grand Piano set seems truly amazing. However, you never judge a set until you have built it, so let’s assemble, tune and play this majestic instrument, which can be purchased today for US $349.99 | CA $449.99 | UK £319.99.
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LEGO Ideas has become quite a popular theme over the last few years, and while the sets don’t really all go together, many LEGO fans have taken to collecting all the Ideas sets. All those sets take up space though, but Aido Kessler has a great solution: microscale versions!
He’s even included some larger scenery to surround the miniature sets. Between the scale and the scenery, there are some pretty fun and innovative parts usages at play. I’m particularly fond of the transparent tiles sticking out of the sideways blue water to simulate waves off the coast of the Old Fishing Store. Using Asajj Ventress’ lightsaber as a palm tree trunk gives it just the right sway. The robot hand makes the perfect little arms for the tyrannosaurus fossil. The skeleton arms and transparent antenna make excellent undersea structure for the microscale Shinkai 6500 Submarine to explore.