Accio Lego

It’s not the height of the cab I’m suspicious about, it’s the legroom. Full sized minifigs need a 2x2 space to sit down, while 99% of the time lego just has short legged figs stand in their seats, which takes up a 2x1 space. It’s hard to tell from the box/promo images but the set clearly doesn’t use the standard chairs/seat part and even uses a 2x2 circular tile instead of a steering wheel, so it’s hard to tell how much wiggle room for legs might be in there. Maybe I’m wrong but I think anyone trying to sit a normal minifig in that cab will be in for a rather tight squeeze.

Nobody has gotten their hands on the set yet, so we don’t absolutely know for certain as far as I know – but there is a picture of Harry and Ron sitting side by side in the car on the back of the box, so unless lego feels like getting sued for false advertising they should fit. That said, I’m pretty sure a standard sized minifigure with regular legs won’t be able to fit in there.

Kinda hilarious how everyone’s focused on whether or not they like Basil’s head when the same video that did the face reveal clearly shows how his cape is double sided with his symbol printed on the back. That’s pretty epic. Also, it looks like all the minifigs that can have a double sided head do, which is nice. The pro gamer has a sponsor’s logo on the back of her shirt. The Paralympic runner’s number is 2024. And the triceratops suit has some lovely printing on the back and tail. All in all some lovely attention to detail in this series.

Very cool. Lego does like throwing us curveballs in these winter fire and police sets. I wonder if we’ll see this new dog in a different color in the summer wave – a therapy or medical alert dog would fit right in with the way Lego’s been trying to diversify their representation.

That’s either a new doggy life vest piece or a new dual molded dog wearing a life vest piece. Very exciting.

Where are you seeing police pics? So far I’ve only seen the space crossover sets from City.

I’m a tiny bit peeved that we’ve only got a group shot so there’s still a lot concealed on most characters, but at least we can finally confirm the barbarian is a woman and see part of her torso. Also nice to get confirmation that Basil has printed and dual molded legs, and it looks like his ax blades are trans red instead of plain red. The arm tattoo on the crossfitter is cute but she’s still my least favorite of the series. Triceratops suit guy has more scale detailing than I could see on the leaked checklist, very nice. Honestly, this just confirms that I’ll probably be grabbing a couple of boxes when I encounter them in the wild despite not knowing what I’ll get – the entire series is really fun.

Oh yeah, definitely a match for the screech owl that Rupert Grint can be seen with in some publicity stills. Sadly, he never made it on screen though. Still amazing to actually get him. Now if only lego would resurrect Errol.

Thanks for the tip! These look lovely. The article claims there are twelve portraits currently, so I’m guessing that ‘mystery’ one is just as yet unrevealed. Given that we can clearly identify the other three founders my moneys on it being Salazar Slytherin. I think the others are all based on portraits visible in the backgrounds of the movies? The compositions all look familiar. I love that Sir Cadogan is included!

No new animal colors but the feathers on Buckbeak’s face are distinctly different from both previous versions and the pixie is winking so we’ve at least got a couple new prints. And I double checked bricklink and the glow in the dark spider has apparently only appeared in 4 sets – all back in 2018, so it making a reappearance is definitely a good thing.

Pretty sure the Owlery doesn’t even make a proper appearance in the books until Harry starts sending Sirius letters and care packages in GoF. The rat (and the spider) is likely not a book reference the way Filch is but rather a reference to the original Harry Potter lego waves fitting in random rats and spiders whenever they could. Lego knows we love the nostalgia factor after all. (The owls also might want something to eat other than those owl treats too)

Technically he’s brown. A darker and less saturated brown but still brown. Medium reddish brown is definitely not the choice I would have made to color match him from Lego’s color library though.

I thought it might be new but I wasn’t sure :D hooray for Trevor

If lego doesn’t release the official images soon a third party retailer will instead - could be any time now.

Harry Potter really is the theme for animal lovers in early 2024! The new mastiff and dragon hatchling molds are just as adorable as promised. The Owlery is very nicely populated. In addition to the smowl obviously being a new color, the flying owl is also here in dark red for the first time and looks quite handsome. I’m pretty sure the unprinted flying owl is also a new color even if it isn’t as useful. The other three owls are all repeats but still appreciated. There’s also a rat and black spider in this set. The Magical Creatures set features the promised grey hippogriff, a baby Thestral, a pixie (I believe with a brand new winking face), a black bat, and a glow in the dark spider. The Flying Ford Anglia has the expected resting Hedwig and rat. The Boathouse is really surprising – in addition to another resting Hedwig, it’s got a black spider, light blue fish, bright red crab, and an olive green frog to represent Trevor the toad!

Was totally not expecting set pics to leak today – what a great way to kick off the holiday season! Initial reactions: Magical Creatures: I was not expecting the baby Thestral to make it in here, but I won’t complain about getting another. A little bummed there’s no Niffler return but the winking pixie and the glow in the dark spider and mushrooms are all super cool. The modular bases that you can link together into a little fairy ring is kinda fun. Boathouse: McGonagall, Harry, and THREE other students - not two. Unfortunately no new faces though. I like the new fern piece finally making an appearance in Harry Potter though, the conifer trees made with it really fit the theme. I like the general design of the building and several fun details are noticeable right away – McGonagall has a student list! and there are so many animals hidden in this one: Hedwig, a fish, a crab, and Trevor complete with a little hidden compartment! That’s one of the things I really missed from the 2001-2 era sets so I love the inclusion. Ford Anglia: completely as expected Hedwig: the owl build is honestly a little creepy. Not really interested in this one other than the photo and history of magic textbook. Hagrid’s Hut: Fang and baby Norbert! I love the new pieces and the new outfits for Hagrid and the trio! I wasn’t expecting them to do Hagrid’s apron because of logistical reasons but they just printed it on his preexisting body and it actually works. I actually really like the design of the build too, it’s got several differences from the previous iterations to make it interesting (and I love the stump outside the window for Draco to spy from). Owlery: somehow even better than I’d predicted. SIX owls (one unprinted) and half of them are in new colors (including the unprinted one). The new smowl in grey is expected (I dub thee… Pigwidgeon!) but the new color of flying owl is completely out of left field – really like the red though. I also like how they threw in a rat and spider as well, tea feels like the old sets where we got tons of extra critters as set dressing. The minifigs new outfits are perfect too. Mtcilaneous: MYSTERY PORTRAITS?!? Was not expecting that, but I did have quite a bit of fun collecting all the chocolate frog cards, and it looks like these can be used to enhance all our castle sets instead of just looking pretty on a 16x16 plate. I’ve been telling myself I should design my own castle modules for awhile, and needing a proper place to display all these sounds perfect (unless I’ve just predicted this year’s gwp). I’m itching for someone to get ahold of a instruction manual so we can see the checklist for these - I wonder how many there are this time?

I can sort of understand not bothering with the doe, since all you really need to do is remove the antlers off the stag build and even people completely new to MOCing should be able to work that out on their own. But an otter, hate, terrier, and cat would probably make for popular alternate builds amount fans.

Now there’s an idea, a Patronus pack - Harry’s stag, Hermione’s otter, Ron’s terrier, Luna’s hare and Dumbledore’s pheonix or Lupin’s wolf. The alternate builds with all those parts available would be endless.

If I had to hazard a guess, ‘snuggly duckling’ probably didn’t translate well into some language so Disney changed the name in that language’s dub. If you wanted to look into which languages that could be you could theoretically get an idea where this leak originated (presuming the language in question isn’t just Dutch).

Just looked through this year’s Brickheadz and the only 5 pack was a ‘Battle of Endor’ Star Wars one, so perhaps a battle themed line up? Like Harry, Ginny, Fawkes, Ron, and Lockhart from the Chamber of Secrets Or Harry, Hermione, Buckbeak, Padfoot, and Moony from PoA Or Dumbledore, Harry, Sirius, Lupin, and Tonks from the Department of Mysteries Or Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Molly from the Battle of Hogwarts

The four Hogwarts Founders + the architect’s statue maybe?

Forgive me if I’m wrong, my knowledge of Fortnite is pretty limited, but isn’t it really all over the place as far as costumes go? What would a Fortnite inspired costume that wasn’t close enough to an existing costume to infringe on copyright even look like? Animal Crossing is a lot easier, since lego has all the defunct Vidiyo heads and they’ve already done a recolored+reprinted one in the BAM towers once. The old Vidiyo heads might not fit exactly with all the Animal Crossing characters, but imho there’s a pretty large range of styles amongst Animal Crossing characters themselves, so while recolored Vidiyo characters might not look like they belong next to Tom Nook, they’d probably look just fine next to Isabelle.

True, I know. But Pygmy Puffs are supposed to be miniature puffskiens, and Lego’s awkward scaling means the Lego Pygmy Puffs end up more the size of regular puffskiens compared to minifigures, so I often think of them like that instead. Well then, maybe there’s hope of getting the Pygmy Puff/puffskien in a different color in the Magical Creatures set coming up. I’m pretty sure they could the current print on purple without it looking odd at all.

I’m guessing the different departments do talk to each other, but they just don’t really know what the others are doing without asking. In this case, the Harry Potter team want to include Lee Jordan in a set. There’s no short dreadlocks piece currently and they have no idea what the Dreamzzz team is working on, but they do know there’s a new LOTR set coming so they decide to use the dusted off hobbit hair piece mold in a new color. Meanwhile, the designers for the Icons of play set are looking to include a bunch of different hair pieces to allow for a mix and match build your own characters element, so they look through what the new in house theme has introduced to see if there are any fun new hairstyles they could use - and they find one they like and decide to include it in a new color. Now, should there probably be some sort of system that would let all the designers see when new non-IP-locked molds are made for other themes without have to randomly go and ask ‘hey are you making anything that we might be able to use’ directly? Yes. Who knows, maybe the number of people vocally peeved about this will encourage lego to develop more open lines of communication between departments in the future.

That was a side build though - just look at the actual store the set was named for. WWW featured two new product prints: the fanged frisbee and the pink puffskien (which we got two of) as well as new torso prints for all seven minifigs. The upcoming Owlery set is focused on the Owlery and should only need two new torsos. Given what we know I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw one spread winged owl, two or three regular owls, and an identical pair of the new small owls with a new color and print.