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Some of you may remember that last fall there was some sort of dicussion concerning a blade piece, which at the time was going to debut in a 2018 Ninjago set. While it clearly looked like a piece designed with constraction in mind, it made its first appearance in a System set. Some of us, me included, thought it could be a hint that something was about to happen in the constraction departement. As we all know, it wasn't the case, but simply because we were looking in the wrong direction: it wasn't a hint about constraction's near future, but about its near past. Infact, once I got my hands on the piece thanks to Bricklink, I immediately noticed a tiny detail... (sorry for potato quality) As you can somewhat see, the piece was trademarked in 2016, and yet we get to see it only in 2018. But why? Because it was a piece designed for BIONICLE G2's third year. Since development of new sets usually happens at least 12 months before they hit stores, it's highly possibile that in late 2015 designers were already working on 2017 sets, and this blade piece was on of those that was fully designed before the decision to axe the line was made. Since it already was in their pool of "trademarked pieces", why not using it? And there we are. Sure, this is not a 100% foolproof theory, but because of the year printed on the blade and the fact we first saw it only in 2018, I don't think there are many other alternatives. Chances are that we might see more "unreleased pieces" in the near future, since it's safe to assume a huge chunk of G2's third year was already designed when the reboot was canned.

It's been a while, sorry for that, but I can finally present you with the interview I had last year during the LEGO Fan Media Days 2017 with Micheal (Mike) Psiaki, LEGO Creator and Creator Expert Designer at TLG. (sorry for typo's and spelling mistakes, it's not 100% checked and verified) INTERVIEW You are Creator Expert designer. Are you involved in modular buildings? So far my involvement with modular buildings has been more like doing some of the small details and not the building itself but in the future you can probably expect to see some module built by me...we'll see *laughs* I'm asking because we do have a lot of questions about modular buildings, but we'll just ask and see if you can answer them. One of the questions is; how do you determine the next modular building? You'll probably have a long list of potential buildings. Normally when we're developing a new model we actually kind of go through a lot of different...uhh...not necessarily committees, but a lot of different people at LEGO are involved in choosing what the new product will be. We've been pretty fortunate with the modular buildings. They've been quite successful, so all those different...stakeholders we call them ...are quite trusting of us. And they pretty much let us do what we want. So normally when you're making a new model you're coming up with a lot of different proposals and showing ideas to a lot of different people and they're giving their input and then you're narrowing it down, but with modular buildings we can essentially choose what we want to do, just as a design team. And then you just do it. So for the last, for the last.... forever, Jamie (Jamie Berard, https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/creatorexpert/explore/designer-bios/jamie) has essentially been in charge of that and he will just make the make model that he and maybe one or two other people agree on should be the next one. As to how that will go in the future...uhhh...I'm sure Jamie will still be involved. But yeah we do have a list of buildings that we have kind of made our dream list of...eventually we need these things. We'd like to do these things in City. But then also sometimes we just have a more generic idea, like, hey, let's do a restaurant. Uhmm...trying to think what the first modular building was, that I was involved with...was the Parisian Restaurant. In that one, the idea had just started out that it would be a restaurant and then it kind of took on a Parisian style throughout the development and ended up as it was. So it's usually a very loose idea like that, that the model with start with...like the brick bank was just a bank. That's the only idea and then however that evolves was like, adding things later on, like, let's have this laundromat on this side and all that stuff is just kind of what we just add in as we please. The building style you choose is obviously depending on the model you choose. But like you said you chose a restaurant and then it turned into a Parisian restaurant. How does a process like this go? This all comes down to like, traditionally it's just been Jamie working on these models and what we do a is we just kind of build all year long, we've just seen what new elements are coming in. We're just building kind of little funny things like...uhmm...on the Parisian restaurant, there's this detail with the feathers that go along the top. You know, I think Jamie had that sitting on his desk for like six years or something. One day he got some of those and made this thing into something that could be a funny detail in a building eventually. And then those are just kind of start getting pulled together and you start to see a style emerge. It's almost just letting it happen. So taking some choice details that we want to put in and the style kind of emerges from that and then other things will change to fit that style. So I don't know that we've ever really made a conscious decision of this. You know, when we start from the beginning that this building will be this style and we'll kind of work towards that style. It's more we're going to we're going to make something that we think is cool and nice. And when sthe style kind of come in, then we'll go back and kind of refine things to match the style, if we feel the need to do that. Some generic Questions about the Creator Expert series. When is a set considered expert in the Creator series? What are your goals? So Creator and Creator Expert are two totally separate product lines at this point. So it's not like we start with an idea and then we develop it and then we decide, is this Expert or is this regular Creator? So for Creator Expert we're already thinking; this is the portfolio that we want to make for the next year and in Expert we want to make models that are for higher age fans. Adults, older kids, we are calling everything 16 plus, I think for the most part. The Winter Village ones are a little more down in age, so we start with that idea that we're building a model for more hardcore LEGO fan. What is it we do then that will make it appealing to them? It's a lot about how the model is built. It's kind of different techniques we use, but it's also about what parts we use. So we want to use fun kind of new different building techniques or just really crazy things building techniques in really wild ways. We also want to use parts that are fun or that are either in new colors or new shapes or just not seen before. Like on this one (10257 Carousel) where we're using a dinosaur tail in a City wheel arch to make the shape. It's doing things like that, that really kind of is the DNA of what makes something Creator Expert. Is it Creator Expert because it's hard to build or the use of different parts? I think it's more that it's harder to build because it's Creator Expert. Because we know we're making an Expert model, we say, whatever we have to do to make this look cool, we'll do that. It doesn't necessarily have to be super complicated but we have a way that we want things to look and generally you have to build things in a complicated way in order to get these results. Like on this car, you know, in order to get the wheel arch so smooth you have to do a lot of weird things to get stuff in it. We never do things intentionally just to make it difficult, but we find ways to make the models as appealing as possible. What are the key components in choosing a Creator Expert set for next year? For example, which percentage is driven by data? So, previous sales or simply 'that would be good to do next'? Well that's a tough one to answer. I think we are taking a lot into account of the market research that we do. It's not so much based on previous sales, but it's also that we have a lot of check ins throughout the year with different leaders in LEGO and so they're the ones that are deciding ultimately what will sell or not. We can come with an idea like, all we know about this is that we think it's cool. And then it's up to them to determine, will this sell? Do we believe that we can sell enough of these? We ourselves, we don't have to do a ton of market research, but eventually that gets done by people to determine if the idea will be getting out. For us it's a lot of thinking about what we would like. Me, I love airplanes and I love helicopters, so I'm always trying to say, hey we've got to do this, we've got to do this *laughs* For example; let's say you know there was a carousel not too long ago and there will be a carousel now. Do you come up with the idea to build a new carousel? Because it hasn't been so long before the other one was released. So a carousel sells? Well, that's part of it. But also we knew that we wanted to make this a new fairground, or another ride for the fairground, so we had the mixer and we had the Ferris wheel and we knew we wanted to do another ride. And we actually built four different models, four different concepts. And there was one of them that needed more development (red. Roller Coaster). It was too early. We didn't have the parts we needed to make it into reality and some that were a little more obscure. The carousel was the one that was the most promising to do that year. But the other part of it was that the carousel before this we actually had some stability issues. So after 11 months we pulled it off of the market. So it was a very short run. And so we saw that it was a really sought after set. So because of that we thought, if it had had its run and been on the market for two or three years then that's fine, you know, let it go, give it some time before we do it again. But then it was only around for 11 months and it had stability issues, but we still saw people were asking about it so much that we thought OK why not make one that is stable, that is good and that we can relaunch. The stability issues they had something to do with the animals going up and down? No the issue was actually that the old carousel was built on a 48x48 base plate. so it was fine when it was sitting there. But then if you picked it up from the plate and tried to move it, it would actually break apart. That's the reason you don't use baseplate now?. On this one we didn't use a baseplate. On the original carousel everything except the baseplate essentially is moving. On this one we have a ground level. This level is also stable to create a nice solid base that you can then actually, you know, lift the model up from that base. You shouldn't have any issues. That was the idea. And what was the reason for omitting up and down movement because that was pretty cool. No this has that. Oh, I was misinformed. This one is not going up and down. The other four going up and down (points at the animals on the carousel). The reason that we thought, you usually see it on the carousel where one animal is stable. So maybe that's for the grandmother or child and the other thing is, that there's also a mechanical reason for that. I wanted to have the stairs here. To sort of balance out the load of the function. It made sense to have no load on the other side as well. And actually the frog is a funny one because the frog had only the leg hopping. Are there also test groups for expert adults? We do both, that is, we were testing with adults, but also with kids. Eventhough you know it is for adults, we still want the kids to be able to play with it and have fun with it. Because ultimately when you buy it on the box then it says 16 plus, but as soon as you take it home and you build it in your home and it's there sitting on the counter, it's a LEGO model and to kids a LEGO model is for them. Are certain Creator Expert sets more popular in certain countries? And do you take that into consideration? When we make products, our goal is that we can have appeal everywhere. I don't know the data on which ones perform best in which countries. I don't actually know any of that off the top of my head. How long does it take to bring and initial concept to store shelves? From the initial concept it's about a year and a half and about eight months of that time is spent actually from the initial concept until the time we say the model is finished. And then from there it's eight months for production to get everything ready and actually have the final product ready for the shelves. So it's not like we're just one person sitting working on this for eight months but it's that we start out when we have the idea of a fairground, and then it's, ok, let's build a bunch of different concepts. Select the one that's best and do some development on that. Is that in line with a City set, for example? Yes. Everything has essentially the same development time frame. But when we choose, for example, when you're doing this one, that you're not working on another product as well. But if you're working in City you may be doing three models at the same time. Is that the reason that there's only one Modular released every year? It's not so much about that we don't have the resources to do it. It's more that we just don't know that there's that much demand for modular buildings, that people need to be bind to more than one every year. And we see it as a collection thing, that people want to collect the whole series so that if you start to release multiples every year then that's starting to be a really big.... it's a lot then to buy the whole series. So we feel right now, and it could change in future, that one modular building per year that's a good amount to have a collectible series and to build up anticipation and that is something that people could feasibly collect. So as soon as you start to put out two hundred and sixty dollar models a year all of a sudden everyone just had to double their budget in order to collect the whole series. How many Creator Expert sets are being released per year? In 2016 we had the Brick Bank, we had the Beetle, Big Ben and the Holiday Train. So traditionally we do four models a year. You might see that change. You might see it go up or down. Let's see...laughs. I can't say any numbers for this year. There will be others this year. I won't say any more than that. Do you also interact with other themes, because we also went to the Friends theme. There's a roller coaster in Friends. Is something like that possible in the Creator Theme? We all were in one big building, all the designers. I like to wander around and see what other people are working on. I don't know how well this fits with the Friends roller coaster but it is a similar theme. That one was actually being developed almost a year before this (Carousel) so it's very much different wavelengths. Our team, the Creator Expert team, we actually sit right with the regular Creator theme in one team so we interact with them quite a bit. The Friends Theme has roller coaster now yeah it's been pretty cool for the Expert team. Maybe one day we could do something like that. The release of the Caterham set, does that influence a potential release over another car in Expert series? While we won't do a Caterham, I'll tell you that, it doesn't make any changes to our plans. What we're trying to work out that we don't do cars that are too similar, so we kind of try to work together with them (LEGO Ideas) to make sure that we're not overlapping too much on the cars that we do. But it is a bit of a delicate relationship between us and ideas, what products can we do and what products are getting suggested on their site. There's quite some overlap in potential sets? Yes. Actually, the Saturn 5 rocket I've been proposing that as a Lego set five years and no one is listening to me. And then when I saw it on on Ideas I was like oh please, let it go through. I was actually really frustrated when I saw it go through because I thought that means they've already chosen the designer and they've started development on it. So what I did, is we have a digital system where we have all our models. And so I thought, okay, well let's see if they did anything good and when I looked in there to see if I could find it and there was nothing. So I immediately called up the project and I said; who's doing that model? I want to be part of it. We don't have anyone yet. So that was really cool to get to be involved in it. What was your role in the development of the Saturn? Myself and Carl (Merriam) were the two designers working on that model together. We started with the fan design and then we just turning that into something of an official LEGO set. Actually the first thing that we did was we build it that size to show how look at how cool this is so big. We actually changed the diameter of the original submission. They started to base their model on a section that covers the lunar lander and the diameter of the rocket was actually way too big for that. So we actually scaled down the main diameter, but we also found a way to build it so it's really round. So we didn't stay very true to the original model, which we don't talk a lot about. Essentially we just said we're going to make the model we want and we'll do your idea of a one meter tall Saturn V. But still I think the lunar lander and the little details are quite similar. The way that I see LEGO Ideas is that it's it's just an idea, it's just to say, to me the idea is a 1 meter tall Saturn 5 rocket built of LEGO. The specific details of how they built the engine it's not important. We do that however we find it's best to do. That's my view of it. Some people see it differently. And what do you think the reason was for not listening to you when you proposed the Saturn V? I didn't have any data to back it up. So it's just my opinion of saying this thing is cool. So in that sense I actually really appreciate LEGO Ideas that someone could say, hey this is cool and a lot of other people agree with you. And do you think it would have made a difference if you would have built a sample rocket to show them, like here's what we can do. I don't think so. I wish you could come in and see our office it's just full of so many cool models. We can go there now *laughs* Another question which may be hard to answer but it's been asked like it's been a while since there's been a Creator Expert Train, not counting the Holiday Train. Can you shed a light? You won't say yes or no but I mean; people seem to like the Expert Trains. The problem we the trains is that people don't like them that much. When we make our product line for the year we can only do four, maybe sometimes five, products in that year and then we look at what are going to be the most popular things. That's what we want to do. And every time we've done a train we always hear that people are really excited. But then every train that we've made will never perform as well as the other models that we make. And so it seems like there are two explanations. Either trains aren't as popular as people say they are or we just haven't been able to figure out how to make the right train. I think that it's more the second one that we haven't figured it out. I think the challenge with trains is that they're very kind of regional. There's very few world famous trains. Whereas with cars, everyone knows the Volkswagen Beetle and probably everyone has even driven one. But when you talk about trains; if you're from France you want a TGV. If you're from Denmark you want the Danish train. If you're from the US you want probably the Santa Fe. It's hard to pick what is the one that will have that universal appeal. We can definitely make a train. We can make a train that will be popular in France. We can make a train that will be popular in the US. We struggled to find what is an icon of a train that has universal appeal. And surprisingly the Winter Village train, that one has been quite a hit. So I think we can learn from that to figure out how could we do a train in the future. Do you think it could be option 3 that people won't buy a train because they think; well I don't have a train set. I don't have the tracks, so it's useless to me? That could be an option yeah. Generally when someone's buying an Expert model they've already bought a lot of other LEGO. So if they're buying an Expert train they probably already have tracks from other City trains that they bought. But it's a fair comment to say. I mean to your point, our holiday train, it does include track. And I think from my personal opinion the Winter Holiday Train is something you will buy because you collect the Winter Village sets. We will buy it. Not because we like trains that much or we want the tracks. So the thing is figuring out how can you get people, other than train fans, to get excited about this and that's what works at the Winter Holiday Train. You get everyone that's into the Winter Holiday sets and into trains, so maybe some train people will buy it. And everyone that's buying the Winter Holiday sets they will also be interested in that. So maybe we need a Modular Building with a train. Train Station maybe? *laughs* Some questions about miscellaneous themes that aren't released anymore or aren't released at all. I'm referring to, for example, Classic Space or Western themes, castles stuff like that. There are loads of things that aren't in current themes which could be released in Creator Expert. Do you consider making a castle or some Classic Space set in Expert? We definitely considered it. And it's similar to trains. For example, the Modular Buildings are actually part of the idea that they appeal to castle fans even though it's not a castle. It's a great way to get a lot of the parts that you would need to build a castle. Maybe more so with the older ones than with the newer ones where it got a little bit more wild with the colors, but I definitely wouldn't rule out Classic LEGO Themes. One of the questions that we have though with those is like with Classic Space is, was it so popular because there was no Star Wars? I mean when that was released there was no LEGO Star Wars. So that was the best LEGO spaceship that you could have. But now you could have the UCS Snow Speeder. So then how can we sell a classic spaceship. Will it live on nostalgia alone?Actually we begun some research to try to figure out just how powerful LEGO nostalgia is. There's some hesitation to just put a lot of faith in that, but it's not out of the question. So basically the Star Wars theme is one of the reasons that we don't have another space theme? Probably, we don't know exactly. It's not it's not 100 percent the reason that we don't do it in Creator Expert. There's other reasons as well, but having Star Wars is a reason that we don't necessarily do a second full space line line like that. And again that may change. There haven't been much Western's themes...at all. We used to have some sets, but aren't Western themes popular? I don't know about any of the market research on Western themes uhmm we'll see, I don't know...laughs. I love the old western theme actually. You know the LEGO Ideas projects made by Marshall Banana? Yeah the LEGO Western modular. I was looking at that and thinking, yes please do that. Like with the Saturn V. Please do that. I think it's the difficulty with something like that, of course they're really amazing models and they would definitely be really cool. But how do those fit in when we have the regular Modular Building line. If we introduce something like that, are we taking people away from the regular Modular Buildings. We can't just assume that when we introduce a product then people don't replace something else you know like, okay, now there's a new space theme. Now I don't need Star Wars anymore, so now all of a sudden Star Wars is nonexistent because I want to buy this new space theme. It's about striking the right balance of, we can only produce so many LEGO sets. And people only have room in their houses for so much LEGO. So when we think about making stuff for the AFOLs then it's just as much about are we giving them the elements, the bricks, in order to do what they want to do, instead of just give you exactly every model what you want just because we can only produce so many models. But we can we can make a dinosaur tale in blue. And I don't know what people are going to do with that but that's easy. You know we could make a whole car out of the weird Azure Blue color and then people can take that and they can build something really amazing with it. So for me I'm much more interested in trying to get fun and exciting elements into people's hands than just to make every single cool idea because there's an infinite number of cool ideas. you can see that on LEGO Ideas. there are so many cool projects but we will never be able to make all of them. Makes sense. Good explanation and I think you maybe right that classic feeling or that nostalgia is more of a feeling. Do you have any idea, like Bennys spaceship, did it sell well? Well I don't know the sales performance of this set. I'm really excited about the Saturn V combined with Benny's spaceship we're starting to see some real nostalgia for kind of this thing. I guess it's like the space race of the 1960s kind of nostalgia for that first journey into space. And I think that could mean a lot for LEGO in terms of what we make for products. Nowadays you hear more and more news about going to Mars in 10 or 20 years or so. Is that something that LEGO is looking into as well? Like maybe we can do Mars exploration? I shouldn't say anything about that. We're paying attention to a lot of things. How long have you been working for LEGO? In August I have been here for five years and I started on the Creator line in 2009. For the 2015 year I made the Ferrari F40 for Creator Expert and so from then until now I've been kind working half time on each and now I'm a full time only working on Creator Expert. Of course I did the Saturn V for Ideas and stuff like that. Interesting you bring up the Ferrari F40. One thing I noticed was it has different type of instruction booklet, outlining the parts you need to put on the model. I haven't seen that in the UCS Snow Speeder. Is that something that will be standard in newer instructions? I may be wrong on this but I believe we've implemented that for all Creator Expert products. Maybe not the Winter Village sets but I think all the others we now do, we outline the bricks in the right colors and that was an idea that the building construction team had when we were doing the Ferrari, because there was so much of the same color, they wanted to think of a way to highlight the parts. So did it work? Yeah because as you start building and then you don't notice it. And after a couple of pages you think; something's different. I didn't know what, so I was looking and thinking, they are outlining the parts! It's great! So I think you should do that for other sets as well. Some personal questions. How many sets have you designed? Somewhere around 20. What's your favorite? I'm really proud of the Saturn V rocket. But there's also a jet that I made for Creator. I think that's still my favorite because I love airplanes so much. Ok, thanks for your time.

Some explanation of LEGO's financial performance in 2017 from the BBC News site. It was already known that the company had had disappointing sales in North America, but the article also points out over-production issues. There is a connection between poor sales and over-production of course, but some of the excess stock may be in addition to lower-than-expected sales. If LEGO over-reacts in the opposite direction, i.e. cuts production too drastically in 2018, we could see stock shortages and sets being retired sooner than we have been used to. Here is LEGO's press release.

2017 ranks as one of my favorite years for F1 in the last decade. I love the improvements to the cars’ aesthetics, and the racing got back to record-setting speeds. Beyond that, Ferrari made a strong return to form that really took the fight to Mercedes, and I could not be happier with that development. 2018’s cars are set to debut later this month (and introduce cockpit protection to the sport), but I wanted to take one last look at the 2017 season by capturing some of it in LEGO. I present to you the Ferrari SF70H vs. the Mercedes W08. ^ Here they are! I really tried to capture the proportions of the cars as well as I could in this scale while keeping the designs fairly detailed. ^ I originally built the W08 with actual green pieces, but eventually opted to just give the car it's correct colors using custom made stickers on gray parts. It just looked so much better this way. ^ The #5 driver numbers on the SF70H are the only custom stickers I had to make for it. The rest are from Speed Champions sets (I almost always save the stickers). ^ The Mercedes has a slightly longer wheelbase than the Ferrari, as seen on the real cars (example). ^ The Mercedes also has a slimmer nose than the Ferrari, again to mimic the real cars. The front wing "aero" varies between the two models as well. ^ The last major difference between the two models are the engine covers; The Ferrari has it's T-wing mounted directly to the shark fin, whereas the Mercedes has it mounted on it's own little support arm. ^ The drivers are made with the "driver body" pieces that were included in a ton of the 2002 Racers sets. These two are from "4593 Zero Hurricane & Red Blizzard", with helmets and customized minfig heads. While it would be possible to make full minfigs fit in these cars, I don't think it's possible to do so without making the cockpit area look considerably less accurate. In the last four years I've only built one other model, but alongside these two I'll be putting up a few more replica F1 cars in 2018 for sure. This is my first time posting a creation on Eurobricks, so thanks so much for taking the time to look at my MOCs! I've also posted this to MOCpages (link), and larger images can be found on my new Flickr page (link). EDIT: Bonus photo comparison of the real SF70H vs the MOC version;

Which project do you think will be LEGO's choice for the Second 2017 Ideas Review? Likewise, what do you think LEGO's choice will be for the Third 2017 Ideas Review?

I decided to try out a Lego Advent Calendar this year. It was fun opening 24 small builds across the 24 days before Christmas I wondered if I could make something using just only the parts from the 2017 Advent Calendar. Using most of the Red, White, Gold and Light Gray parts. I was able to come up with this Sleigh for Santa. While it's a bit fragile in real life. I think it looks good for what parts I had available (LDD pics for now. I'll photograph the real version later)

Hi, I would like to share my winter village. It's my first experience in this size and I hope I didn't mess too much. It's not comparable to most of the works here because it's way simpler I think, but I enjoyed doing it and hope you enjoy seeing it. It's a 5x3 32*32 baseplate layout plus the north pole. Comments and suggestions are welcome (if kind ) The whole layout Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Hockey game Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Fun Park and Letters to Santa Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Ski Slope Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Nativity Scene in the park Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Carolers and Musicians Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Curling Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Main Plaza Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Look-alike concert Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Chair Lift Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr Ice Scuplting Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr The North Pole Lego Winter Village 2017 by Matteo M, on Flickr other Photos in flickr album https://flic.kr/s/aHsmcaadnF

Since it's almost the end of the year , i thought I'd ask the question of which was your favourite lego set released this year.

Hello eurobricks! I have seen this done in the past here and I thought it would be a great idea to do it again for 2017 now that The Joker's Manor is starting to be released. Basically post your favorite theme, minifigure, and set from this year. Then post you least favorite theme, minifigure, and set. If you want you can put your most anticipated set, theme or whatever for 2018. For an example here is my list. Best Theme: The Lego Ninjago Movie, Honorable Mentions: The Lego Batman Movie, Lego Ideas Best Minifigure/bigfig: Gladiator Hulk, Honorable Mention: Two-Face Best Set: Ninjago City, Honorable Mentions: Assembly Square, Knighton Castle, Destiny's Bounty, Old Fishing Store, The Joker's Manor, Arkham Asylum, Carousel, Resistance Bomber, NASA Apollo Saturn V Worst Theme: Minecraft Worst Minifigure: Snoke Worst Set: The Ocean Monument Most Anticipated 2018: Harry Potter sets, Honorable Mentions: Avengers: Infinity War sets, Modular Building, Nexo Knight's, D2C Fairground set 2017 was a great year for Lego and I hope 2018 is even better.

Most of you know I'm a huge Star Wars fan. So when I saw the pictures of the new Sandspeeder on reddit, I knew I was going to get it. Well, thanks to others on this forum I was able to get the Target DCPI number (204-00-0294) and find one at my local store. It has a sticker price of $29.99. I've never done a review before, but since this is such a fun set and I know some of you want to know what it's like outside the box, I decided to dip my toes into the review world. So, here's my review of 75204 Sandspeeder. The front of the box has a background set on Jakku. I don't know if Battlefront 2 was their inspiration, or if we are getting clues to something from Last Jedi, but based on everything else I've read no one knows. So we'll leave the speculation for now and wait and see what Lego has for the official press release. The back of the box shows the play features. Pretty basic stuff. Swoosh the speeder, firing the missiles, and kill that sneaky snake! I was surprised to find 1 loose wing inside the box. I checked all the bags to make sure none were ripped, but all were sealed with no openings. Later in the instructions you can see that Lego left the wing out intentionally, but just the right wing. An odd move on Lego's part, but I guess it had to do with the size of the bags. Bag 3, which has the left wing, also has all the parts for the moisture-vaperator so it's bigger already and could fit the wing. There are some fun pieces in the set. The canopy is printed. You get 3 of the new black modified tile/plate that came out with the Ninjago Movie sets. And the printed computer is not very common, at least in the sets I've bought. You can see here that the loose wing was intentional. You can also see how the build looks after bag 1. I've never owned any of the previous snow-speeders so I don't know how to compare the sand-speeder to it's predecessors. But I found the underside of the wings to be very plain and almost unfinished. The plate-to-pin connectors are nicely covered with reverse curved slopes, but the missile shooter is left very exposed. They couldn't spare 3 extra pieces to cover it better? The rest of the underside is also pretty plain, but it connects to the body of the speeder very well so I guess I can't complain too much. And of course, everyone wants to see the new pilots! And here's the finished model. I love the feel and look of the speeder. And when part the set out, I'll have a bunch of earth toned plates for my castle MOCs! The moisture-vaporator seems very unfinished as the base is just a plate and a couple slopes. I'd rather they add Stormtrooper and a small turret or some other kind of antagonist for the speeder to attack. Overall though, I give this set a 4.5/5. I highly recommend picking it up!

Lego World 2017 @ Jaarbeurs Utrecht, The Netherlands. Date: Wednesday 18th of October - Tuesday 24th of October. Time: 10.00 - 17.00 each day More info/tickets @ legoworld.lego.com So, anyone going? I went a couple of times when it was held in Zwolle. Pretty neat to talk/hang out with some fellow AFOL's in person.

Box. Reverse side. The Aira in the 1: 1 format. The contents of the box. Sticers Instruction. The beginning of the instructions. Random page. The end of the Assembly. Poster. Set list elves 2017( the first half). Map of the Elfendale 2017. The reverse side of the instructions( nothing unusual). Parts from the first bag. Goblin. Aira. .Printed circuits. Cronan symbol.. ."Jetpack" goblins. The base of the airship Airs. Continued Assembly of the first package. The end assembling the first packet. The contents of the second package. The bohrok eyes. The main part of the mechanism for folding and unfolding of the wings. New elements. Detals in new color. Aira boomerang. The contents of the third package. A lot of gold details. Map is a classic feature of this series. The base of the crossbow elves. Interesting gold details. The auxiliary engines. All the spare parts. Three Aires. Using the mechanism, it is possible to fold and unfold the wings.

Arr mateys, it is Talk Like A Pirate Day 2017! It seems even Batman is taking to the Seven Seas, to plunder and drink rum: Batman in full pirate regalia, aboard his trusted "Black Bat". Who needs more than one sail? Who needs cannons? He's Batman! It is a rather simple construction, aye. Loot is aplenty, and you need some room for your batarangs. So celebrate todays most piratey holiday, and may your rum bottle go never dry!

This Ford GT is the ultimate expression of form following function. Its teardrop- shape body is the result of extensive work in the wind tunnel. Its carbon-fibre body and its 600-plus horsepower 3.5L EcoBoost V6 engine are the ultimate expressions of technological innovation. Flickr: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm7qSxrk Hello Ford and Technic addicts! Thorsten has completed professional instructions for the Ford GT. It might be time to disassemble your 42056 Porsche Kit and build this orange replica of the 2017 Ford GT! Avail at Rebrickable, check it out! Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-10792/Loxlego/ford-gt Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/gp/139930963@N04/83f95A Video: https://youtu.be/bV8_uOz50oU Ford GT - race car for the road ? by lachlan cameron, on Flickr This supercar packs RWD driven by 2 XL-Motors, Servo for steering, pushrod-actuated torsion bar style suspension front and rear, Sport and track mode suspension, V6 engine, Sbrick plus, Rear spoiler with manual lift, 2 M-motors (1 for each door), button to turn on the car under the hood, easy battery access. Ford GT - From drawing board to reality ? by lachlan cameron, on Flickr Nothing about this build was easy. This car had so many new things that I've have never accomplished before. To start was the framework. I was worried this build would be too heavy for the pushrod suspension. Each wheel has 2 inboard shocks that are positioned in the same fashion as the real Ford GT. Ford GT - door mechanics - filter shot by lachlan cameron, on Flickr I really wanted to have the doors open the same as the real car and this is where difficulty started. Opening those huge, heavy doors was a small feat in itself. The pressure required to pop the door to the final position upwards is immense, so I has to seriously gear down the axle. Ford GT - doors by lachlan cameron, on Flickr The next challenge was the motor placement. Man was it ever hard to fit everything inside a tear drop bodywork! I had to use the middle of the seats for the Sbrick, which may not look too cosmetically appealing, but I can assure you it did completely strengthen the framework immensely. (this may be my sturdiest frame I've made) IMG_0043 by lachlan cameron, on Flickr Lastly, I kept the Veneno to race the Ford GT as they have identical gearing. If you watch the video, you'll see who wins. I will work with Thorsten as well for professional instructions in the future. Ford GT back view ? by lachlan cameron, on Flickr A big thanks to @brunojj1 for suggesting to place more studs between the wheels. I tried it this time (2 extra studs) and I feel it looks proper. thanks! Ford GT - white room - filter by lachlan cameron, on Flickr

I think you might be right Jim. They clearly have something very special planned for the next year. I found this on the Swedish AFOL forum:

Hello everyone, as i didn't see any Mods topic for this set, i decided to start it myself, and to start, i would like to share with you the LDD file for the official set (not sure if there was one already), there are some parts missing and some pieces are not fully connected (could i have used developer mode to solve this? yes, but for some reason i decided just to place apart the pieces i couldn't fit in), here is the model: Missing parts: -x4 24118 Panels in Dark Purple (Brick-built and grouped in the model) -x11 6167281 (I didn't add any substitute) -x1 6187734 (The rope) LDD file:http://bricksafe.com/files/imanol/42069/42069.lxf And next is my modifications for this set so far, the first thing that i wanted to do was to put wheels and tires, and because this is an snow-themed set, i decided to put tumbler tires, and i knew that these tires didn't look good in those very wide axles, with these tires the vehicle would look silly, but after narrowing the axle a little bit, i think it is looking like an authentic snow expedition vehicle (it even looks like an JLTV from the sides), i also changed some colors, but is just a test (the model is still WIP): The goal is XL-Motor for drive, Servo Motor for steering and M or L-Motor for the winch (and possibly some lights): I hope you like it, i will try to make more improvements, and i am looking forward to see more modifications by any other member, have happy modding.

Hey everyone, I would like to present my latest finished MOC, the crop sprayer built from 42054. it has 2 motorized and 1 manual function. The build went relatively smoothly, though toward the end, a problem arose where the model simply refused to roll forward. I originally thought this was because of the model being front heavy (which it is) but then I saw that the wheel hubs were parting toward the outside when rolling forward, so the wheels were hitting the chassis, which made it stop rolling. This problem could have been avoided if the model didn't need to have so much ground clearance. On the other hand, it steers very smoothly and the motorized functions work smoothly. The motorized functions are the deploying and lowering/raising of the sprayer arms. More can be seen in the video. Pictures are below with added lights: Overall I was happy with the look and function of the model. If you have a comment or some criticism, please leave below as I would love to hear from you. Videography tips would be especially helpful, as I feel my videography is subpar compared to most on this forum. Thanks for reading/watching! BrickbyBrickTechnic

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Hey all! Welcome to my pictorial review of set 70613 Garma Mecha Man. It retails for $59.99 in the US and comes with 747 parts and 4 minifigures. This set will be evaluated on a scale from 0 - 100: Figure Desirability/Quality, Main Build Design, and Main Build Aesthetics. On a side note - I'm out traveling and couldn't resist getting my hands on a Ninjago Movie set, so lightning is not top notch, but hopefully the photos can get the point across. And now, without further ado, let's meet the Mecha Man. Let's start off with the figures. For $59.99, you only get four figures, which is disappointing given the high amounts of figures in smaller $20-$30 sets. Another henchman or ninja (or both) would have been appreciated to add value to the set, but for now, let's take a look at what we get. Let's start off with the titular villain, Lord Garmadon. He sports a new armor element that extends his torso and gives him two extra arms. While similar to the element used widely in the Stone Army range of sets in 2013, it has a flat front and more detailed printing, unlike the previous variant. Garmadon also includes a new samurai-style helmet mold, which is fitting for the villain and, in my opinion, much more intimidating than his simple bone helmet of 2011-2012. From the back, it does come across as comically large, although I assume that was done on purpose. Unfortunately, there is no back printing on the upper torso, something which would have been excusable up until this point, where LEGO has proved their ability to print on the backs of such longer torsos with Garmadon's Jungle, "Dad," and Pajama variants. However, I suspect this wasn't printed because this figure normally comes with a large, regal cape, something which is inexplicably and very unfortunately absent from this set. With the plus-size torso removed, Garmadon's chest printing is very similar to his 2011-2012 TV show variant, with his simple, white muscular lines. With his old man out of the way, the spotlight shifts to Lloyd, the Green Ninja. Lloyd is decked out in a spiffy new outfit with reflective gold highlights and layered texturing around his suit - look closely and his suit is patterned with diamond marks, adding another layer to the print that shines in certain lighting. The back of his torso is adorned with the classic Sensei Wu logo from way back in 2011, with a few minor stylistic changes to curvature and thickness of lines. Again, the diamond pattern repeats onto the back and he wears a simple green belt around his waist. Lloyd's mask comes as two separate elements that weave together seamlessly, much like Darth Vader's newer mask introduced last year. The back of the new hood dips back dramatically to allow the tied "knot" of the upper mask to fit, revealing almost all of his alternate face. Lloyd also comes with a new sword mold with the 2016 tassle element attached to the end. The new sword is extremely sleek and is a refreshing update to the original katana we've been seeing variants of since 1998. However, with the tassle removed, the end of the handle does feel a bit out of place, continuing past the stopper. An interesting note is that every new element in the set is copyrighted to 2015, which shows just how long this movie and its sets have been in production. And now, we move onto Garmadon's lackey: Great White. The shark part of the getup is unfortunately attached to the armor and battery indicator as a single mold, making head movement impossible and decreasing the reusability of the parts. However, the mold is an extremely nice element for its limited use, sporting two color tones for the shark head, white teeth, black eyes, and dark silver armor, bring the color count in this single mold up to 6, counting the red batter indicator. On the back of Great White sits the traditional LEGO airtanks we've come to know and love, which was a bit of a surprise to me - I figured it would be part of the armor. Note that the back of the shark head curves upwards greatly to accommodate this element, meaning that a great section of back head and neck is exposed without the tanks. With the headgear removed we get a peek at his comical expression - if nothing else, these aquatic army troops give us really unique and fresh facial expressions. For those interested, with tanks removed, the back of the soldier is thankfully printed, with a skydiving clip and pockets. And now for the final figure - a civilian: While just a side character, this female civilian brings all new prints and a refreshing look to an "ordinary" city-goer. The feet are printed excellently with sandals, and the blue printing on the legs is consistent with the printing on the torso, which is a relief. She also sports the conical hat new to the Ninjago Movie and common throughout its several sets. Note the copyright 2015 on the backside. The back of the torso is extremely simple and almost plain, save for a few lines here and there. However, there really doesn't need to be anything here, so it's passable. But the figures aren't the reason you'd buy this set (or maybe they are, but regardless, let's meet the Mecha Man) Behold the Mecha Man! Compared to the poster, the set is extremely downsized, but this is to be expected with movie to set conversions. One very notable omission is the gargantuan staff the movie version wields, which is designed to match the new staff element Garmadon is wielding in the poster. This omission is particularly disappointing as there's nothing for the hand to do on the toy version, besides one small thing we will get to. In addition, the red eyes on the side of the hammerhead shark head, which appear very menacing in the movie, seem very comical in this version, as no attempt was made for eyebrows or elements to cover up the circular nature of the 1x1 plates. Thus, the eyes, combined with the slanting mouth, give the mech a comical and unthreatening gopher-like appearance, which is quite unfortunate. From the side, unique elements start to pop out, such as the back-mounted boot thrusters and the amusing shark tank in the back of the mech. However, this angle showcases some of the mech's weak spots as well, such as the gappy knee plating, disproportionate, chunky legs, and unsightly red and blue bits around the sides. LEGO's been doing a better job of making mechs more presentable from the back, and this is no different - in fact, the back side reveals one of my favorite and most quirky parts to the set - the fish/shark tank that houses the ammunition for the left arm cannon: sharks. Or, rather, blue fish, because sharks wouldn't work at this scale. The back also reveals some out of place yellow, red, and blue elements, especially on the back of the cannon, bottom legs, and head connection area. I'm all for including multicolored bits to make the build process easier (staring at a pile of black bricks and trying to find a specific one is never a fun or easy task), but not covering them up is really unfortunate. However, the fact that this is a common issue and not an aesthetic error unique to this set (Assault on Hoth's ion cannon particularly stands out as an infamous example), and because the issue has appeared in far more egregious areas in other sets, I'm willing to not be as harsh on this particular fault. Starting with the feet, you can see the extreme efforts LEGO put into making sure this set was stable - efforts that may have overcompensated way too much, resulting in pretty much no foot movement at all. Any attempt to pose it with more than one "click" to the leg makes the set extremely unstable, which is ironic, given the purpose of the extra parts. Even when rotated side to side, the feet are still extremely restricted - the photo above shows the extent to which I was able to turn them. I don't understand why such heavy precautions were made - the friction joints were made for this purpose, and the ball and socket is extremely stable. Moving up along the leg, we can see the slightly awkward way the legs are placed - luckily, this is covered mostly by the side flaps, so aesthetically it isn't too bad. Functionally, it still offers a wide range of motion, so it does work. Up to the mid torso there's a fine bit of piston greebling that is sadly immediately covered by the front flap, leaving on the gold elements poking out and seeming rather out of place. It's a shame the flap revealed a bit more of this construction, as most of it goes to waste when fully covered. The upper torso front plate folds down, along with the upper head, much like the original Ninjago mech: 9448 Samurai Mech. However, unlike its predecessor, the upper helmet is not attached with a click-hinge and thus doesn't have any friction whatsoever, causing it to flop around needlessly during play. Moving to the arm, we take a look at the shark shooter: Sadly, this is one of the worst-looking parts of the set. It's asymmetrical in all the wrong ways, with only one missile. I understand the need for this - a second missile would prematurely fire whenever the arm was moved, but the execution of it is far from sufficient, leaving a gap on the other side of the cannon. The four front studs on the cannon look similarly exposed and unfinished, which is disappointing given that two single elements could have solved this issue. The one good thing going for this arm is the hilarious shark ammo belt, a fine detail I've come to expect from the Ninjago Movie sets. The hand is also given something to hold - the human artifact laser pointer. While it's not as clever or well-designed as the Kragle, it does its purpose as a laser keychain - the only issue is that the mech is given no way to hold it in a good pose. It can't point it and aim it at targets, contrary to what the box art suggests, and just looks very awkward held in the fist of the mech. Moreover, it's useless as a minifigure scale weapon - the attachment point is secured by a freely-moving Technic pin, making it impossible to stay in one place and be held by a minifigure. I tried several times to get a good shot of Garmadon with the weapon and failed each time, which is really unfortunate given all the promotional shots of him wielding the weapon. Overall, for minifigures, I would rate the set 80/100 - the designs are great, but having only four minifigures and the omission of Garmadon's cape drags the value down. Plus, each figure is available in other, cheaper sets (including the CMF line), which is unfortunate. For main build design/functions, I'd give the set a 70/100 - it's a cut above most other Ninjago mechs, but is nowhere near as well-built as Kai's mech, for example, and has a limited array of functions - the firing arm and the cockpit exposure (which is so loose it barely works). Plus, poseability (or lack thereof) really dampers the score. For aesthetics, I'd rate the set an 85/100 - at certain angles, it's very menacing, and it towers over a standard minifigure. However, aspects like repeated exposure of randomly-colored red, yellow, and blue bricks scattered about and the pitifully goofy eyes drag the score down. On average, the set clocks in at a 80/100, or B. It's a solid set with nice detailing, but the lack of poseability and questionable functions make it not one of the best Ninjago Movie sets. I'd say to buy this only if you are an avid collector of Ninjago, love the character of Garmadon, or are impatient and want to get ahold of any Ninjago Movie set before official release. Otherwise, given other options, I'd hold off on this set in lieu of sets with much better value (70611 Nya's Water Strider - only $30!) or better visual and functional appeal (70615 Fire Mech, for only $10 more) Hope you enjoyed the review, and feel free to leave comments and feedback below!

I was going to wait until Cyberhand finished the final version of the Titan Scale MOUP but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime soon. So I'd figure I would show off the Moc now and add more pictures when I got the final Titan Scale MOUP The idea behind the moc was to somewhat recreate G1 Makuta's Shadow Titan build (2003 Makuta) Yet also keep aspects of G2 Mask Maker Makuta. I really like how it turned out. But one problem is with the massive hammer I gave him. He's a bit top heavy due to the small feet. But I like the design to much to change it and its not hard to get him to balance. Pictures (Will resize if needed) No Hammer or Cape His weapon. Which I've dubbed the Corrupted Crystalline Hammer Figured I'd also try to see what he looks like with my Metal MOUP. Its not fully attached so it won't get stuck so I only have one picture And one last picture of what he looked like with the gold G1 Mask of Shadows Finally an LXF file of his build. Most of the G2 parts aren't there but it should be easy to create him using the LXF file http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/takanuinuva/Bionicle2015/Makuta/makuta_master_of_shadows.lxf

With some people being able to find the Summer 2017 Nexo Knight sets. I was wondering if anyone would be willing to part with there Lord Krakenskull Minifigure from Aaron's Rock Climber Seeing as the set hasn't been inventoried on Bricklink yet As I really don't want to buy the set just for one Minifigure If you do wish to sell him to me. I'd like his with his helmet and cape. Weapon is optional but I'd don't need it.

Stop motion review (presentation) of 71042 Silent Mary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa8bjqstsQM Year: 2017 Pieces: 2294 Minifigs: 8 Price: £179.99 / $199.99 / 199.99€ Bricklink Brickset