Nabii

On Wednesday former Chief Designer at LEGO, and creator of the LEGO Minifigure Jens Nygaard Knudsen passed away. Jens hired my colleague Niels in the 1970’s and they worked together until Jens retired in 2000. “It is with great sorrow and dismay that I must announce that an amazing man, the best colleague of many years, an unforgettable friend, the most loving husband, father, father in law and grandfather: Jens Nygaard Knudsen has passed away on 19th February 2020. Among all those who have worked for, built with, and generally known and loved LEGO over the years Jens should be known and remembered as one of the most important designers ever. He was the man who created the LEGO Minifigure, he was behind all the classic themes: Space, Pirates, Castle, Trains and countless more besides. He was a leader and an inspired builder. Few have ever had as much imagination and creative power as he and no one who has got to know, or simply met Jens will be able to forget his amazing lovely and positive personality. LEGO fans around the world they should know that perhaps the most important ever creator of the LEGO Universe is no more. Honour his memory. His equal no longer exists. Jens Nygaard Knudsen, 25 Jan 1942 – 19 Feb 2020.“ Niels Milan Pedersen I (Mark Stafford) only met Jens twice, on both occasions he stuck me as full of energy and enthusiasm for LEGO and designing toys. For example I took him to take a photograph in the LEGO Idea House and he noticed a classic-space model he had designed 30 years earlier was built wrong and just had to stop, get down on his knees and fix it! Jens was made Chief Designer after the success of the minifigure he designed and led the design team throughout the 1980’s and 90’s. He designed the LEGO Minifigure, and had a hand in pretty much every LEGO theme between 1968 and 2000, including Classic Space (he designed the entire first wave and most of the later models too), Blacktron, Aquanauts, Ice Planet, all the Classic Castle themes, Trains, Pirates, Adventurers etc. He leaves behind his loving wife, three children, two grandchildren and over eight billion little plastic people infused with childhood imaginations. Millions upon billions of happy childhood memories are owed to this man. Thank you Jens. Please leave a comment, all of them will be forwarded to his family. And, if you would like to do something in his memory: build a LEGO spaceship, he would have loved that. Hashtag it as #NygaardMemorialFleet and lets see what we end up with.

It is not. :)

Nope. I had no idea Echo is going to be in the MCU, really? That's awesome news. If I'd known I would never have mentioned the character. I don't want to start rumours! I was mentioning what I thought were obscure characters. Thanks to everyone for all the kind words BTW, and the constructive criticism too, I'm taking it all in.

To end the speculation, can confirm the solar panels on WW84 are printed. (I designed this one.)

I can see you guys have been pulling in my interviews from all over the place, so I thought I'd add this one I did in Singapore. It only went live yesterday.

Anyone else seen this new figure from the LEGO business cards? (The bottom one - not the Exo-Force figure on the old card.) Brick Jounal Blog Joe Meno says there will be more later today on the main Brick Journal site: Brick Journal

The use of the Jurassic World logo instead of the Jurassic Park one is the decision of the license holder. I'm sorry reception of this set seems to have fallen so flat. I was hoping people would like it. It seems everyone was expecting a visitors centre, I have no idea why as this was never even discussed. Hopefully as people start to get their hands on it the general impression of the set will improve. I tried to make it cool. Cheers everyone.

This is now my favourite Eurobricks quote of all time. I will treasure it until someone manages to say something else that makes me laugh as much. Thank you! You are a true comedian!

I actually have a copy of this book, these scans are pretty poor. In the book I can see the holes are there but they seem to be filled. It's possible they used the molded 'studs' that prototyping still make to this day that were glued to wooden carved pieces to make new element prototypes in the days before 3d printers. I'll try to remember to ask Neils Milan Pedersen who worked with the guys who did this book and it's companion the 'castle' version why they filled the holes. Hope that helps.

I worked on these sets. There was a big internal discussion about basing things on an FPS, but Overwatch has no blood, no realistic weapons (except maybe McCree) and a fantastic story universe with wonderful heroes and villains. Also Blizzard have big plans for the future which excited us. (EDIT: the future of Overwatch that excited us. (- sorry Digger of Bricks!)) I've been a player since beta so I was incredibly excited to be part of it. For now that's all I can say, but I will be back in the future and will probably answer a few questions at that time (a month or three from now when things start to officially surface), but I can't answer any questions right now.

More questions - so a few more answers. "Are you a harry potter fan? And did you work on an other project from the wave of HP?" Yes, though I am also a Star Wars, Marvel, DC, LotRs, Destiny, Narnia, Overwatch, Portal, Anime, Dungeons and Dragons and Sci-fi fan to higher or similar extents, so it's very rare I'm not excited by what I'm working on! I built a lot of sketch models of all kinds of parts of Hogwarts when we started this theme, I got a bit obsessed with it, but this is the only set I got to be final designer of. I hope we do more in future and I get to do more! "Is Voldemort on the back of quirrel’s head ?" I won't give spoilers, so you'll have to wait and see. "Dumbledore was clearly some pre-version of the Michael Gambon actor. Was this changed in process because you wanted a parts 1&2 setting? or was the one from the toy fair really just a placeholder?" The toy fair figures are all half finished stand ins, only look at the press release figures. We based these sets on movies 1 and 2 with a few bits from 3 added for flavour, it is Dumbledore, which actor we don't like to say. "- How did you choose to make "child variants" of the kids? Was it to save space or to reach another audience (because they look soooo adorable!)?" This was a huge discussion in the design team- some of us wanted full sized legs, others wanted kids legs as in the first couple of movies they were definitely kids. And it was not to save space or anything, it actually introduced all kinds of challenges about how to let them 'sit' at tables and in seats and things. (I almost talked about other sets there... sneaky fans!) "Would they not also have had an issue with the fact that the student protagonists are unable to “sit” down because of the short legs?" Yes. This was part of our big discussion. In the end I found a way to make the benches so when they are in the set they give the impression of sitting, it satisfied most of the kids. "Why the basilsk?" Play. The only antagonist in the set is Quirrel. If the kid wants to play fight conflict but also want to keep Quirrel's secret from harry there needed to be a 'bad guy' and the Basilisk provided this. I built a ton of Chima sets, this is not my proudest animal build! But it is great play for kids. "I'm starting to hope that you will be working on the next true Castle theme." True castle theme eh? You could be waiting as long as the space theme fans! "Aren't you guys meant to be the last line of defense against things like this, it is lego's product. Who stands up for the consumer?" The product is ours and I'll fight for the best building and play experience I can every day, I'll do my best to make this an excellent toy. But the characters and setting belong to the creators and franchise holders. If JKR says Quirrel should be in black school robes like the other teachers then Quirrel is in black. Although on many occasions we do stand up for the consumer please don't think this is our responsibility, we aim to please and make an excellent product, and I want my work to be loved and appreciated, but it is not our duty, it is only our honour that keeps us doing so. At the end of the day we are a company, our priority will always be to make money for our owners. As consumers we all have to stand up for ourselves, let LEGO know if something is not good enough, if we make mistakes tell us. Keep us on our toes. Keep all companies on their toes, remind them who really has the power - it's us! "Dumbledore is not Doubledoor." I'll call him 'Gandalf' if you prefer, or 'Lord Melchett' - old, robe, beard, easily confused. "You both will have one set or will each have own?" They should both buy three sets each, one to build one to keep mint in sealed box and one because I answered this question for them. "Am I right to think about 2 sets combine in one proper size?" One set is the proper size. : ) There is no easy way to join two back to back if that's what you mean. Sorry. The back wall is open so kids can play inside. "Has anything been said about the black stand at the beginning of the video? Are those Lily and James? What is it for?" That is Lily and James! Drawn badly by my own fair hand. As someone has guessed this was an early version of the Mirror of Erised that folded flat and slid under the floor of the hall, I wanted it to be like the Room of Requirements and appear like magic if needed. As that layer of bricks disappeared it moved to the tower. That both versions are in this model is even weirder to me as this ties the model down to a very specific point of development as I was figuring out where the mirror would end up and also as I was deciding if I should use the mirror design from the first movie or later in the series as they were a bit different! Cool. Take care everyone. M.

Hi, quite a few questions. Let's see what I can answer: "Is there any chance that Professor McGonagall will have both regular legs and the new dress piece?" No, sorry, she has legs so she can sit at the table. Kids found it frustrating that the only ones who could sit down were Doubledoor (heh), Nearly Headless Nick and Quirrel "Does this mean that the 1x3 half arches are not in the final model?" Sorry, they are not in this model and should never have been shown at this point - we may make them in the future. "Can any of your colleagues explain why professor Quirrell Is made in black and not brown like he is in the film?" Quirrel's colours were approved and suggested by Warner Brothers under the direction of JK Rowling - if you think it's wrong I suggest you take it up with her. :) "Why do you use a lot of stickers on it?" There are a few. Most of them are on the Mirror of Erised, the house banners and the plain expanses of walls. Without them the model looked unfinished. The banners particularly added a lot. We could never have printed this many parts. Every printed part is the same as a colour change as far as production complexity goes and Harry Potter went over it's allotted number of changes and actually had to take some from Jurassic World! "Did you choose all the characters or TLC forced you to put all of them?" Well, I am TLC when it comes to this model so I wasn't forced. There was a point where I wanted to take Susan Bones and/or Scabbers out to maybe keep in some other stuff, but at the end of the day I like Hufflepuff and rats too much. :) "Can you tell us more about the wave of Harry potter and his future please?" No. Sorry, I can never talk about anything that hasn't been officially released yet and right now all the other stuff is still secret. "So where is Snape?" Snape was never ever in this set. Not sure why anyone thought he was. As I said I'm not allowed to talk about the other sets... but it would be very weird if he wasn't here somewhere wouldn't it? Cheers guys, much appreciate the mostly positive response, very different from Nexo Knights! :D

Hi. Hogwarts Great Hall is one of the sets I've designed. Sorry about the model that was shown at NYTF - it was an earlier version from the time before the price point of $100 was arrived at and there was some chance it was going to be $120 so it's slightly bigger and has a layer of bricks and structure at the bottom which I had to take out. It surprised me to see it in pictures and videos of the event as it's a version I built myself and was on my desk less than eight months ago. Though it's nice to let people see a step from the design process like this, and be able to talk about it, it really shouldn't be at TF! PS - most of the new elements have been spotted, but did anyone notice the new 4x2x3 half cone element used in the construction of the tower roof yet?

Wow that's really weird because in October 2016 many LEGO Designers, myself included were already working on sets that would come out in January 2018, and many of them were finished before Christmas time. It's amazing how we are able to get consumer feedback though our top secret time machine. Once we finish design work it takes time to make the Building Instructions, make the parts in the right colours, pack the parts into bags, print the boxes, print the building instructions, pack the bags into the boxes, distribute them around the world.

As others have pointed out (thanks guys) just because we haven't found a way for the theme to work it doesn't mean we haven't used the aesthetic of Steampunk in various places, so it seemed safe for me to use as an example. As for what tests well and what has failed, of course I can't go into details, and even if I did the landscape of what works for kids imaginations changes over time as popular culture; TV shows, movies, games all introduce new ideas to each new generation. For example an 8 year old today was only three when The Avengers came out and was born the year Iron Man debuted so the Marvel universe is not fresh to them, but new heroes can make it exciting. That said as the last 'castle' line was in 2013, it's already been four years and a new castle theme might seem exciting and new to a kid soon - if we ever do one again that is. :P I'm still looking for the early concept art of NEXO Knights BTW, when I find it I'll put a link in the thread.

The main problem with Steampunk - and many hybrids is that for it to work you need to know the conventions/history that are being twisted. To kids it can be confusing and "stupid". Why would a spaceship have a propeller? Or a sports car have a chimney?! If you are not yet aware of actual history and the timeline of technological breakthroughs then alternative histories can be too weird. Nexo Knights made sense to kids because in a castle setting 'magic' made these things possible. In a world with magic books and spells then of course it would make sense to move your castle around!

Challenge away! The LEGO Company does not have investors, it is family owned and this means sometimes the family decide to override commercial concerns and produce a product for reason other than profit. (Like the first Mindstorms.) Concepts and new themes at LEGO are not created by marketing, they are created by Designers. We draw and build and test extensively, and you are right, hybrid concepts often fail, (for example so far steampunk performs terribly). But NEXO Knights outperformed all other concepts including tradition Space and Castle ideas. Marketing people are involved from very early on only to help figure out ways to communicate the themes, and sometimes to figure out ways to explain new play types, like the shield scanning in Nexo Knights. Yes, some kids will become AFOLs, but as I said the percentage of purchasers who are buying for themselves, or other adults, has not increased, we produce as many AFOL sets at the moment as we believe the market can sustain. I too would be happy with an AFOL space set, castle set or pirate set as regularly as we get modulars, but so long as modulars, world icons, Star Wars and fairground rides are selling as well as they and seem to be keeping many of our long time adult fans *interested in the brand' so it's hard to justify doing something without a track record. (I know this sucks, I'd love to do a Shop At Home Space or more Castle sets - and who knows maybe one day I'll get that chance, just don't hold your breath for it.) The frustration of designing for 5+ becomes just a challenge once you have adjusted your building style a little. Though i prefer 7+ it can still fun. And honestly if I wasn't having fun building then how can I expect the kids to have fun doing it!

Sorry if I came over bitter. I'm still a bit annoyed by his forum deciding that a basket with a witch under a dragon, or Lord of the Rings ARE historic/castle sets and yet what is essentially a giant siege engine (the Fortrex), or a magical flying sword (the top of the Rumble Blade) is not. But that is a long dead argument that I lost! I wish I could show more of what LEGO did in development of the theme, I have shown a couple of early concept art images at fan events, I will try to put them online (when I find the memory stick). I'll post a link here when I do. Of course one day traditional Space and Castle themes will return, never give up hope, but if any theme 'type' suffers a perceived 'failure' or even just does 'okay', there is a large chance there will be a break for a while. Two things i would like to mention though. One, I see it said in many places that because the adult community is growing that more and more sets will/should be developed for them. Be careful it makes you sound like train/monorail fans from ten years ago :D! More importantly realise that the number of kids getting LEGO is growing at around the same rate, so as a percentage of purchasers you are still only around the same as ten years ago (it is a little hard to measure because it relies on people telling the truth on if they are buying sets for themselves). Not that this couldn't change the number of sets for AFOLs, just that the growth of AFOL communities should be kept in context. The second thing is often overlooked by adult fans, particularly here in the historic forum: the age marking on boxes. If a line is a 4/5+ line like our last traditional castle theme, or our last pirate theme then it is a recruitment theme for kids who are very young and getting their first real LEGO brick sets. They are going to be very simplified compared to a 7+ theme, there is a huge difference in abilities for kids of these ages (as great as from 2 to 5) and adult fans will generally not be happy with these sets. (I personally get frustrated designing 5+ as the restrictions drive me nuts). Consider the difference in building between the last large traditional castle and the Nexo Knights Knighton Castle I just designed. The things i was able to do for an 9+ set (for a 7+ age appeal target) are so much more complex then the stuff Bjarke Madsen could do in the 7946 King's Castle at 7+ (for a 4/5+ appeal target). If you are going to be lobbying for a return to castle (or any historic theme) and you want it to have some building complexity and depth then consider the age range too!

So many people in this thread still saying Nexo-Knights is not Caslte. Fine, you can believe that if you like. But it was developed as Castle, it was tested alongside and against much more traditional Castle sets and it was the one that kids around the world helped shape and chose as their favourite direction for a castle theme. If, despite these very strong test scores, Nexo Knight does not perform well in the market place then how likely do you think it is LEGO will take a bet on one of the themes that tested worse? Like the old Classic style castles? Anyone seen any Space sets since Galaxy Squad 'failed'? Never make the assumption that just because you like something and it has been around for years that it will continue to be made. And if you spend a couple of years constantly telling the kids who read this (and other) forum how crappy NEXO Knights is because it's different to how Castle was when you were kids. It does you no favours. The Designers, who you should really want on your side, might start to see you as complaining people who are never happy with anything we do and don't seem to understand this is still mostly a kids toy. If you don't like what we design that's fine, but unless it's a bad building experience or the quality of bricks has tanked (things that should be complained about) then why are so many of you trying so hard to tell kids they shouldn't like it? That it is terrible? That only dumb little kids would like it? You seem so delighted with the idea Nexo Knights might fail. You're hoping something you claim to be fans of goes wrong? It's crazy, and as fans of 'castle' it is self defeating. You should want it to shine, so that when it comes to a glorious ending LEGO turn around and say: "Yep, that was good, let's get back to traditional castle stuff." and not: "Kids don't seem to like castle anymore no matter how we dress it up, let's get another movie license."

Nothing? Someone says "nothing" when I got permission to show early concept models? I don't know why we bother! :) BTW nice of The LEGO Adventure Book to put up these pictures, but I will try and get permission to share the actual slides when my current vacation ends.

Not me. The SP3 helmet remains the only one I've designed. Most of the Nexo Knights design team had input on all of the new parts, I don't remember if I said anything about the helmet, seem to recall it was great from the get go. Do remember giving some input on the some of the other parts.

I will be at the 'Brick' event in London this weekend with some behind the scenes Nexo Knights stuff. I'll be giving a presentation about work, including Nexo Knights information too. I'm sure some of it will end up online. Edit: Santa places his order in August. At that point Nexo Knights was secret even from him. ☺

Very cool.

That third version with the dark blue was spot on, looks a bit like one of the unused sketch models in the Nexo Knights area at work. Nice build!

Printed.