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Prime LEGO Creator Sets Are Now On Sale At Amazon

Some of the best LEGO Creator sets are now on sale at great discounts over at Amazon. If you’re still mulling it over whether or not to start a LEGO modular hobby, then you might be glad to know that this is the best time to start one. Amazon is now offering its best price offer for 2016’s LEGO Creator Expert Brick Bank (10251). This 2,3380-piece set is now at 15% off from its original $169.99.

Another welcome treat from Amazon is a more recent LEGO Creator set, now offered with a price cut of as much as 20%. The LEGO Creator Pirate Roller Coaster (31084) is now on sale for $72 only at Amazon. This is a great deal considering that this set has just been released early this year. The Pirate Roller Coaster is a nice way of adding a pirate themed ride in your LEGO City Carnival MOC or any similar builds. It is one of the few LEGO sets that utilizes the new train track parts in an amusement ride set, other than its much larger counterpart which is the LEGO Creator Expert Roller Coaster (10261).

If you wish to take advantage of the great discounts for these prime LEGO Creator sets, now is the best time to add them to your shopping cart. Just click on their respective affiliate links below and head over at Amazon.

LEGO Creator Expert Brick Bank (10251)

Make a safe deposit at the Brick Bank!

Make a secure deposit at the highly respected Brick Bank, featuring an array of intricate details and hidden surprises. Easy-to-remove building sections provide access to the detailed interior, comprising a bank with an atrium foyer, tiled floor, arched windows, ornate chandelier, lockable vault and a transaction counter with security glass; a laundromat with printed window, tiled floor and 4 laundry machines; plus 2 second-floor offices with an array of detailed furniture, fixtures and accessories. The exterior of the building features a detailed sidewalk and an elaborate facade with carving and statue décor, decorative roofline, large arched windows, central balcony, clock and an accessible roof terrace featuring a large skylight. Collect and build an entire town with the LEGO® Creator Expert Modular Building series 10243 Parisian Restaurant and 10246 Detective’s Office. Includes 5 minifigures: a bank manager, secretary, teller, mom and child.

Build a Brick Bank with a chandelier, patterned floor, hidden alarm buttons, and a bank vault with safety deposit boxes
Includes 5 minifigures: three bank employees, a mother and child, and a buildable secretary’s office with special accessories like a wall clock, typewriter, a cabinet with opening drawers and a fireplace
Brick bank measures over 10″ high, 10″ wide and 10″ deep
LEGO Creator Expert building toys are compatible with all LEGO construction sets for creative building
2,380 pieces – For boys and girls over the age of 16 years old

LEGO Creator Pirate Roller Coaster (31084)

Enjoy the fun of the fair with the 3in1 Pirate Roller Coaster!

Hold tight and prepare to scream as you set out on a LEGO® Creator 3in1 31084 Pirate Roller Coaster adventure. This amazing set features a functional roller coaster with pirate-themed props, including a sunken galleon, skull archway, palm tree and an octopus. The working carriages are shark-themed and the ride’s main drop has a water splash feature and a cannon that fires water elements. Other features include a ticket booth and a balloon stand. This set can be rebuilt for further LEGO fairground adventures aboard The Skull Ride or The Ship Ride, and comes with 4 minifigures ready for the fun of the fairground, plus a skeleton figure.

Includes 4 minifigures, ready for the fun of the fairground, plus a skeleton figure.
Fully functional roller coaster features an oval track and train with shark carriages, water drop and decorative pirate-themed props, including a sunken galleon, skull archway, palm tree and an octopus.
Also features a cannon that fires water elements, a ticket booth and a balloon stand.
Climb aboard and prepare to scream!
Duck as you zoom through the skull arch!
Hold tight as you whizz around the bend and over the sunken galleon.
Watch out for the water cannon and remember to smile as you thunder past the camera!
Rebuild this 3in1 model and continue your LEGO® fairground adventure with The Skull Ride and The Ship Ride.
Pirate Roller Coaster measures over 9” (24cm) high, 25” (66cm) wide and 12” (32cm) deep.
The Skull Ride measures over 5” (14cm) high, 13” (34cm) wide and 8” (21cm) deep.
The Ship Ride measures over 9” (24cm) high, 21” (54cm) long and 6” (16cm) deep

The LEGO House Celebrates 10 Years of LEGO Ideas

There’s really no doubt now, that LEGO has fortuitously timed the introduction of so many elements of their total brand that their respective anniversaries – in multiples of ten – fall on the same year. Thus this 2018 they (and we) celebrated 60 years of LEGO bricks, 40 years of minifigures, 50 years of LEGOLAND (Billund’s opened in 1968), and 10 years of LEGO Ideas too.

That’s right; it’s been ten years since that wonderfully ingenious platform for the LEGO building community to submit designs that might become official LEGO sets came to be under its original name of LEGO Cuusoo.

Now, to celebrate yet another important milestone to the complete history of LEGO, a big exhibition is being held at LEGO House in Billund, Denmark. This exhibit showcases actual builds of the various models submitted throughout 10 years of LEGO Ideas, while not passing review, did receive 10,000 enthusiastic supporters needed.

The selection of 10K submissions, now called “Product Ideas” in the platform’s parlance, comes from 11 countries all over the world. The builds range from vehicles, to buildings, to creatures and robots galore, and a testament to the intense imaginations that fired up those who submitted them to LEGO Ideas.

LEGO House will keep the exhibit up until October 8, and it can be (thankfully) viewed in the Home of the Brick’s free-access area. Or you can view photos of the displays at LEGO Ideas’ official blog, alongside information and interviews with their respective creators.

Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO Bricks Exhibit at Halifax Disovery Centre Museum

In Halifax, Nova Scotia one can find an interactive science museum run by a non-profit charity. Its mission statement is to stimulate interest, enjoyment and understanding of science and technology for all children and families coming to visit. Its name: Discovery Centre. And one of its upcoming exhibits might, for a time, end up getting it mistaken for a LEGOLAND Discovery Center, like the actual Canadian one in LDC Toronto. Starting this Friday, September 21, Discovery Centre at Halifax Seaport will play host to the Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO Bricks exhibit. Still, a selected student group from Saint Mary’s Elementary School and members of the media got a sneak peek at the display on Wednesday. They were not disappointed.

The Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO Bricks are a series of impressive 1:200 scale-model skyscraper LEGO builds that were built for Discovery Centre by a team of LEGO Certified Professionals (LCPs). The 20 buildings featured are among the most familiar skyscrapers in the world, with hometown Canadian giant the Toronto CN Tower, accompanied by the Empire State Building, China’s twisty Shanghai Tower, Australia’s Infinity Tower in Brisbane, and (of course) the wondrous edifices found in Dubai, the UAE.

Each tower is accompanied by a detailed fact corner talking about the history of the actual buildings and their LEGO replicas featured there. Once visitors have gone through the Towers of Tomorrow, they can also try their hands at building structures with LEGO thanks to the free-play construction area with over 200,000 LEGO pieces of various sizes and colors; there’s also an early-age Duplo zone.

The Halifax Discovery Centre will keep the Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO Bricks display around up until January 4. That’s plenty of time for interested visitors to drop in. It’ll feel like an actual LDC there, save for the lack of LEGO products for sale.

Submission Period for Bricklink’s LEGO AFOL Designer Program Has Begun

This early September, third-party LEGO-selling platform Bricklink dropped a bombshell when they announced a new crowd-funding initiative in major partnership with LEGO itself. This was the AFOL Designer Program, which aims to showcase AFOL-submitted MOCs which can be supported and crowd-funded into limited-release box set with revenues to the creators.

Bricklink has already laid down specific details about the AFOL Designer Program, which comes off as an alternative to LEGO Ideas, but which will have the resulting sets be limited-edition only for the 60^th anniversary celebration of the LEGO brick. Oh, and they also gave a date for when entries will begin to be accepted for the program: right now.

That’s right, Bricklink is now ready to accept MOC designs from AFOLs aspiring to have their builds be included in this limited-time wave of LEGO sets that will be coming out next year. The start date was September 18 and will last until November 18, after which they will be evaluated under the supervision of “a celebrated LEGO designer with unique expertise and a historical understanding of the LEGO system”.

All AFOL MOCs that make the cut for Bricklink’s Designer Program will then be out forth for crowdfunding throughout the month of February. They will then be put on a limited production run in time for release in April 2019. When total sales revenues arrive in the future, the lucky AFOLs will receive 10 percent of it, no questions asked.

Unlike the LEGO Ideas path, these limited sets that will be born out of the program will not be official releases, though they will likely be comprised of authentic LEGO pieces. Still, for the time they’ll be available, these uncommon sets from AFOLs’ dreams will be a true part of the ongoing grand global celebration for 60 years of LEGO.

Lepin Shamelessly Steals A Custom LEGO Gundam Fan Design

Henry Pinto is one of the best LEGO builders around specializing in huge, minifigure-scale creations. One of the most notable builds that he worked on is the towering 4-feet tall, custom LEGO Sentinel MOC based from the classic X-Men animated series. He is also actively involved with the Australian LEGO fan community and continues to delight us with his MOCs and other LEGO-inspired creations. Just recently, he came up with a worthy rival for his colossal LEGO Sentinel MOC in the character of his next gigantic mech – his custom LEGO Gundam. This behemoth clocks at more than 10,000 pieces and stands at 90cm or almost 3 feet tall.

Unfortunately, talented builders and MOCers like Henry are shamelessly blindsided by companies that don’t give any value to the creativity and tons of efforts given by LEGO builders. Within the week of posting his custom LEGO Gundam MOC online, reports came to him that Lepin has already listed a copycat set that ripped off the original design and images of his latest work. Australian-based Bricking Around managed to interview Henry and was able to get to the bottom of this barefaced thievery.

For the record, this is not the first time that Lepin stole from the LEGO community. Back in October 2016, we brought to your attention how Lepin picks up several AFOL designs and packages them as their own. Some of these were taken from LEGO fans’ Flickr sites or straight up from the LEGO Ideas page. They even launched their own copycat LEGO Ideas platform in the hope of getting more inspirational builds from avid LEGO fans. Truth be told, there are AFOLs who actually submitted their original custom LEGO creations to this site so it was but natural to ask Henry if he indeed submitted his custom LEGO Gundam to Lepin. His answer was a resounding NO: in fact, it was only Monday this week that he shared his latest creation online. After a day or two, Henry’s friends and fans worldwide alerted him on how Lepin launched a copycat version based on his original LEGO Gundam MOC. “I had people from all over the world message me”, Henry admits. “At first I thought it was a joke and someone was pulling a prank. I even thought it was funny, but then I started getting links to actual retail stores taking pre-orders. That’s when I realized that it was not a joke and they were serious”. Just by looking at the following images below, you can immediately recognize that these were lifted from Henry’s Flickr album.

As bad as this may sound, Henry is such a cool LEGO fan and builder that he does not want this incident to dampen his enthusiasm in sharing his love for the brick. When asked if this experience made him reluctant to share his future work, Henry said, “Not really, I’ve always loved sharing as I go, as it engages a lot of people and it also helps me stay motivated. I also think the journey with a build like this is interesting as it very unique. I also enjoy the fact that people learn techniques from my posts.” Thankfully, we have people like Henry Pinto.

We would like to point out that what Lepin is doing is simply wrong, and it hurts LEGO builders and avid fans when their work and designs are taken without permission just for copycat companies to earn a quick buck. Let’s continue to be vigilant and report any similar activities, and we will do our best in keeping you informed.

LEGO Cube Mobile Game Officially Launched in China

After last week’s series of teasers from LEGO and Tencent Games on several Chinese media outlets, the next LEGO-inspired online gaming platform is now unveiled. The LEGO Group has released its official press release launching its first LEGO branded mobile game in China dubbed simply as LEGO Cube.

This newest LEGO mobile game has been developed together with Tencent Games, and follows a sandbox format very similar to LEGO Worlds, while having the online gaming potential of Roblox. It is basically new territory for LEGO specially taking into consideration a host of concern regarding online safety for children and players. LEGO Cube is set to be available to the public at the end of this year, and we have to wait and see if a US version of LEGO Cube will be available soon.

Read on for the LEGO Group’s complete statement, following this video announcement for the LEGO Cube below.

LEGO® CUBE – THE FIRST LEGO BRANDED MOBILE GAME IN CHINA, DEVELOPED BY TENCENT GAMES

(Shenzhen, China, 19 September 2018) LEGO® CUBE, a sandbox game for Chinese players, was unveiled today at the “Imagination Creates the World” event by Tencent Games and the LEGO Group. This is the first mobile game developed under the strategic partnership between the LEGO Group and Tencent to provide fun, creative and safe digital experiences in China.

LEGO Cube is a sandbox game developed and operated by Tencent Games under the license of the LEGO Group, featuring LEGO bricks, minifigures and other iconic LEGO properties. It is expected that the game will be publicly available at the end of 2018.

In sandbox games players are not bound by the rules of traditional games. Rather than follow a linear story or structure, players are encouraged and empowered to explore the game world as they want. Creativity is at the very core of the game, where a players’ imagination is their only limit.

LEGO Cube provides an imaginative, creative and safe digital gaming experience and encourages players to explore, create and learn in safe open-ended play, leading to endless possibilities. It also offers players opportunities to develop skills including: 3D design, construction and building and coding.

Sean McEvoy, Vice President of LEGO Games at the LEGO Group, said “The LEGO Group has more than 20 years of experience in creating fun and creative games that extend and amplify LEGO play. We are excited to preview our first branded mobile game with Tencent Games in China. LEGO Cube is a platform that will enable more children and adults to engage with the LEGO brand in China, empowering them to explore their imagination and creativity in a digital world.”

The LEGO Group sees digital media, such as games, apps and movies, as an exciting opportunity to add new, exciting layers and dimensions to the LEGO experience and make it relevant to even more children.

LEGO Cube is the latest offering under the strategic partnership between the LEGO Group and Tencent which was announced in January 2018. Based on a mutual understanding of digital child safety, the two companies are working together to re-imagine the digital future of Chinese children. The LEGO Video Zone was launched on Tencent Video in May 2018 to provide a fun, inspiring and safe digital entertainment experience for Chinese children.

Paul Huang, Senior Vice President of the LEGO Group and General Manager of LEGO China, said “As a company with 86 years of history, the LEGO Group has always made safety its top priority, be that for our physical products or our digital experiences. Children are our role models and our most important purpose is to inspire them and help them develop through play. This means taking our responsibility as a company very seriously, since children’s safety is and always will be our most important concern.”

LEGO Cube will safeguard players of all ages with protection features on product and content design, user registration, parental controls and player-to-player interaction. The game will also require identity and age verification. This will empower children to play LEGO Cube, but on a dedicated server, featuring additional child safety measures. LEGO Cube will also feature an anti-addiction system to ensure a safe and healthy play experience.

LEGO Finds New Global Director of Play in Scottish Highlands Head Teacher

There are always many ways to tackle a problem or accomplish an objective, and The LEGO Group has a variety of approaches under its umbrella to promote its message of learning through play, such as with LEGO Foundation. This educational branch of LEGO has been looking for a new Global Director of Play, and they found him in the Scottish Highlands.

Ollie Bray, age 40, has been serving as head teacher for the Kingussie High School since five years ago, where he had set aside the regular curriculum for the 450-student institution for “joyful” project-based learning. But now LEGO Foundation is counting on him copy his success to everywhere in the world the LEGO Foundation reaches, as the foundation’s new Global Director of Play.

In his new job, Bray will find himself overseeing the LEGO Foundation’s global initiatives that seek to accomplish one of the brand’s most important points: connecting play with education.

According to him, “Learning through play is widely accepted in the early years and my job will be to find ways of extending it by incorporating it into the curriculum for older children.” This aligns with LEGO Foundation’s prevailing idea that current educational practices put “an outdated emphasis on standardized testing and rote learning” that prepares its students for the world “yesterday”, not today or tomorrow.

But Ollie Bray also opines that what education and learning needs is much less “fun” and more “enjoyment”; fun can potentially be without purpose, while adding joy to the purpose of education motivates students to identify problems and solve them.

And it seems other institutions, inspired by LEGO, are jumping into the “learning with play” bandwagon. The year before, the prestigious Cambridge University took on its first “Professor of Play”, Paul Ramchnadani, thanks to funding provided by the LEGO Foundation.

Source: The Guardian

The LEGO Group Becomes a 2019 “Adopt-the-Pig” Toy Bank Sponsor

The LEGO Group will never tire of its vision to spread the joys of building play for both fun and education, whether through their own campaigns or by linking up with educational and charitable foundations worldwide. Lately they have finalized a sponsorship with The Toy Foundation lasting nearly two years. And this time, the LEGO Group will be busy again since they are now named as TTF’s “Adopt-the-Pig” Toy Bank Sponsor for 2019.

The Toy Foundation, a children’s charity dedicated to giving toys and arranging fun playtime for children in need, has accepted LEGO as a sponsor for their Toy Bank initiative, for a period lasting from the rest of 2018 and the entirety of next year. To that effect, the Danish toy giant pledged it support by donating $10,000 to the charity, living up to its title of being an “Adopt-the-Pig” Toy Bank sponsor.

While the greater Toy Foundation primarily relies on privately donated toys for their charity work, their Toy Box program serves to receive bulk donations of toys from the very manufacturers themselves, which it then distributes to its various partner charities.

Jean Butler, executive director of The Toy Foundation, expressed the organization’s gratitude for the continuing generosity of The LEGO Group, which had made prior donations of its sets, minifigures and more to the Toy Box in years past.

“While the donation of toys is always critical, the funding we receive from individuals and corporate sponsors makes it possible for us to actually get toys into the hands of deserving kids all over the world,” says Butler. “LEGO’s sponsorship will help The Toy Bank bring the magic of play to more than a million children in need throughout the coming year.”

Source: ToyNews Online

Rumor Time: Are We to See LEGO Minecraft Buildable Figures in 2019?

There are probably not a lot of franchises licensed by LEGO to make products of, that does well with a “building and construction” theme all on its own. One of those rare properties is the iconic sandbox game Minecraft by Mojang and Microsoft Studios, which does feature lots of building.

Aside from the conventional play sets, LEGO has also fiddled with buildable Minecraft figures in its BrickHeadz line, particularly the latest Steve and Creeper (41612) dual pack. But apparently LEGO is planning more. That’s what this latest rumor courtesy of Brick Fanatics says: a lineup of new LEGO Minecraft buildable figures is set to arrive in 2019.

No specific details have been revealed of course, but speculation has it that this new range of LEGO Minecraft buildable figures will boast a hybrid building system taking elements from “Constraction” sets and System pieces. The resulting figures are said to stand about six ~~feet~~ inches tall.

The LEGO Minecraft line started in 2012, growing out of a fiercely supported submission on LEGO Ideas: Minecraft Micro World (21102) based on an idea by Mojang themselves. The line has grown since then, thanks naturally to the perfect sync of sorts between the two brands’ building and construction themes.

As always, we would like to remind our readers that any news featured on The Brick Show that is flat-out indicated as a rumor, will stay that way until The LEGO Group makes an official announcement about it. For now, if you’re a Minecraft aficionado and haven’t picked up the LEGO BrickHeadz Steve and Creeper (41612) yet, be sure to check it out at shop.LEGO.com.

Captain Marvel’s Official Trailer Finally Revealed!

Another MCU trailer has broken the internet. Currently trending at #3 on YouTube with more than 14 million views, Captain Marvel’s official trailer has overtaken the online world in less than 12 hours. In this official trailer, the Kree heroine is thrown from space and landing on an all-too-familiar 90s pop culture symbol. In case you missed it, here’s the official trailer once again.

We don’t need the power of the Mind Stone to be sure that LEGO has something in the works for MCU 9^th Phase 3 film. Since March early this year, when Marvel Entertainment released its official press release about MCU’s cosmic-powered heroine, I made a wishlist of LEGO tie-in sets that I would like to see before the film debuts on March 8, 2019. And this month, when official set images of Captain Marvel were revealed, we had a better look at Starforce, the Kree’s elite military group with which Captain Marvel is affiliated, and the Skrulls, which are the film’s supposedly main antagonists.

Similar to LEGO Marvel Superheroes Guardian of Galaxy Vol. 2 and Black Panther subthemes, we can expect that Captain Marvel will also have two or three LEGO tie-in sets under her name. Some of the things I hope are sets where we can find Captain Marvel in her various minifigure renditions, including her predominantly green Starforce uniform, another uniform iteration with the signature mask and helmet on, and the upgraded red and blue uniform as seen in the comic books.

As I mentioned before, another LEGO Marvel Superheroes Captain Marvel set will most likely include Nick Fury in his younger years as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and the Kree hero Captain Mar-vell (played by Jude Law). Another candidate will be a set that includes the shape-shifting Skrulls – something similar perhaps to that beachfront scene where the Skrulls have supposedly arrived.

It is somehow established that most of MCU’s recent movie trailers are also teasers for future LEGO sets. Some of these are G.O.T.G.’s battle with the Abilisk as depicted in The Milano vs. The Abilisk (76081), Black Panther’s Royal Talon Fighter Attack (76100), and Thor Ragnarok’s Thor vs. Hulk: Arena Clash (76088). Therefore, it is not a long shot to consider that any of the scenes we saw in Captain Marvel’s official trailer will find their way as an official LEGO Marvel Superheroes set early next year.

Which particular scene from Captain Marvel’s official trailer do you think will become an official LEGO set? Tell me about your wish list and share it in the comments below.