The Stargate is Open

I knew that I couldn't have been the only one to think 'Stargate' when LEGO Pharaoh's Quest came out. Outside of JasBrick's custom minifigures, however, I hadn't seen much done. 

Eurobricks member Yatkuu has answered the call with this MOC depicting the villains transporting in. Great use of lighting and the build captures the action the 'transporter rings' quite well.You can see more of this MOC on Eurobricks.

Extensive Series 4 Review on Eurobricks

It seems that White Fang and the folks at Eurobricks have been treated to an early release case of the Series 4 Collectible Minifigures! A very detailed review showing parts breakdowns and case counts. A must see while we await the broader Series 4 rollout.

It has also been discussed on Eurobricks that the dot code system appears to be in play again. Once the code has been cracked and reference sheets surface, we will be sure to post them.

You can see more on Eurobricks.

Fembots Four

Have you submitted your entry into the Eurobricks Number Four Raffle yet? Morgan has with these clever Fembots which use the perfume bottles from the Orient Bazaar game (see those games have minifig parts too). 

You have two more days, I believe, to submit your entry. The 'contest' is a raffle so you just have to submit a pic within the scope of the guidelines. You must have been a Eurobricks member before the contest was announced, however, to win.

Not a Eurobricks member?! Head on over today so you're ready for their next event.

Fantastic Four

No, I'm not talking about the 'first family of comics' (they're down to three now anyway). Eurobricks is holding a 'raffle contest' where current forum members submit LEGO creations that incorporate the number four. The rules are pretty soft, so it should be easy to enter. 

After four days they will draw four entries for four random draws from a Series 4 Collectible Minifigure case. You can see the full rules on the Eurobricks forums.

TLG is sponsoring the contest, but does this mean Series 4 will debut somewhere in world very soon? I'm placing my bets on a March launch. Stay tuned...

Quick Hits: New BA Freebies and Series 3 Contest

A couple of quick items before I get to more meatier posts...

BrickArms has announced that February's freebies are (drum roll please)...Jungle Camo. Johnny, tell them what they've won...

Johnny (in his best announcer voice): "Well Cygnet, orders directly from the folks at BrickArms may receive a one of a kind, randomly chosen weapon with jungle camo printing. Direct from Mr. Chapman's solvent inkjet printer, these freebies compliment any BAP collection and will leave the fanboys drooling for more. This offer will only be available in the US, as BrickArms does not ship internationally. Back to you Cygnet!"

Thanks Johnny. In other news, Eurobricks is hosting a Series 3 Collectible Minifigure building contest, quickly becoming a tradition among these fine folks. There are three categories you can enter - 8x8 vignette, interaction vignette, and the 'inappropriate minifigure adult special' (would I make this stuff up...yes, but that's beside the point).  All the rules and regulations can be found on Eurobricks.

That takes care of the bits and bobs of today's news. Now, on with the rest of the show...

Quick Hits: Aussie Series 3, Contests, and How-to's

A lot to report this morning...First up Bricks Down Under is reporting that Target Canberra Centre has Series 3 Collectible Minifigures in stock. This is the first reported sighting of this of Series 3 in Oz. The site provides the standard dot 'cheat sheet', but with all the questions swirling around, I'll be interested to hear how accurate they turn out to be. See Bricks Down Under for more details.

Eurobricks is holding a Harry Potter Original Wizard Contest. It would appear that this contest takes a purist approach according to the rules, so start sorting through your collection. The prizes are a bit of a mystery, but entries must be in by February 1st. Check out the thread on Eurobricks for more details.

If you recall, Victor (eclipseGRAFX) had an amazing Star Wars MOC a few days ago with amazing lighting an digital effects. He provides a detailed behind the scenes tutorial on the CABG forums. You can see just how much work went into this creation and hopefully have it inspire your works of your own.

More coming later today, so stay tuned...

Cygnet
Minister of Information
Ugly Duck Command Center
Minifig Nation

AlanBoar's Japanese Girls for Bricks Adventure 2011

AlanBoar posted these wonderful Japanese women on the Eurobricks Minifig Customization Workshop. The use of the flippers to act as the sleeves of the kimono and the obi are fantastic.

These were created as part of the Bricks Adventure 2011 festival for their Japanese city display.

You can see more pics on Eurobricks or visit the Bricks Adventure 2011 page for more details.

Educational Minifigure Set Reviews on Eurobricks

Well speak of the devil. It seems that Eurobricks member SilentMode was able to score both of the new LEGO Education/Dacta Minifigure sets. He has two reviews up right now, so you can see what all the fuss is (or isn't) about. The Fairy Tale and Historic set review is on the Eurobricks front page. The review contains a link to the City version.

Final Fantasy Customs from Sandy

Customizer Sandy has created a series of Final Fantasy minifigures. Although the figures are not based on particular characters they are firmly rooted in the Final Fantasy universe. Great presentation and addition of the digital backdrops.

These characters also appear in a brick comic she's created called  Final Fantasy LEGO: Crystal Hearts. You can check out the character pics and the first issue of the brick comic on Eurobricks.

Fantastic Custom Elf Decals

Customizer ED-209 has created a series of decals to assist in his quest to build an nation of Series 3 Elves. There are several different variations and each one is indistinguishable from TLG quality.

Check out all of the designs on the Eurobricks Minifig Customization forums.

Eurobricks NinjaGo Reviews

Although I'd love to do a whole set of guide entries focused on NinjaGo, it doesn't seem to be in the cards right now. No worries, however, as Eurobricks has a nice collection of set reviews.

One of those reviews showed off a character list (pictured above) of the key players in the NinjaGo universe. Note 'Chopov' and what appears to be a black pot helmet from the Toy Story soldiers. Other baddies of note are 'Garmadon' and the four-armed 'Samukai'.

These designs are very much in the style of Mike Rayhawk, who has done designs for LEGO in the past. I believe Mike is a reader of the site, so hopefully he can talk about his involvement with these sets (or at least let us know if the card art is his!)

Check out the collected reviews on Eurobricks and start planning which sets you'll purchase today. Officially, these are set to go on sale January 1st, but I've heard a few sets have made their way onto shelves a little early.

Rumor Mill: 2011 Space Theme and Glued Magnet Sets

Over the past few weeks, there's been a lot of discussion on two topics, discussion that many would not have seen unless they read the comments. I thought it might be interesting to bring some of the findings to a forefront, specifically relating to a new 2011 Space theme and a possible reason 'why' the magnet sets are now glued.

The first rumor started a few days back (for me) when FBTB posted their invite to the LEGO meet-and-greet at this year's US Toy Fair. There were two minifigures pictured that had not been 'designated' to any known LEGO sets. I guessed that the female spacer and green alien (pictured here) may have been attached to Series 5 of the Collectible Minifigures, but I'm starting to doubt that prediction now.

It seems that the Sci-Fi community on Eurobricks has been debating this for a little over a month now when someone shared this description of a set seen in a pdf given to dealers for 2011 sets:

'Also, there was some strange battlepack for what seems to be a new theme replacing Space Police III, something along the lines of Alien Invasion or something, I can't recall the name exactly. Saw 2 aliens, different heads but a rather disgusting colour of green with 2 what seems like Power Miners suited soldiers and a Civilian-like figure.'

At the time, the forum members didn't have the recent pics, but speculation started that this could be an 'Alien Invasion' theme. The pictures seem to corroborate with the description above. Also, note the female spacer has a logo on the torso that looks like the letters 'ADF' - Alien Defense Force, perhaps?

It is very likely that no one will 'really' know until February what sets these figures are actually attached to. I'm personally hoping that if there's an Alien Invasion theme there will be some soldier figs in dark or sand green to represent a military defense for planet earth (those pot helmet molds from Toy Story have to be reused somehow). We may also see Naval military minifigs using the new sailor elements from Series 4, and don't be surprised if the Radioactive Man from Series 4 doesn't make an appearance in these sets along the way.

The second rumor deals with 'why' LEGO decided to glue the magnet minifigures to their bases. A lot of the initial response was along the lines of, 'the license partners are unhappy', 'they were hurting set sales', and 'LEGO/Lucas/Disney/WB is just greedy'. Although along some of these lines, there may be more detail on why one license partner was unhappy, specifically Lucas. Even to point the finger at Lucasarts is not quite fair, it seems that Lucas has an agreement with Hasbro relating to the sale of 'action figures'.

What I have heard is that because the minifigures could easily be removed from the magnets, this crossed the line in the eyes of Hasbro as being on 'their turf'. Lucas not being a business and not a charity, asked LEGO to change practices. LEGO agreed, but it would be a logistical nightmare to have some magnet sets glued and some not. Hence, why all magnet sets starting with Pharaoh's Quest will be glued.

I have to believe that the magnets were having a negative impact on set sales. I used to track the prices of minifigures on BrickLink. I noticed that minifig prices would drop on BrickLink by 30% to 40% once a magnet set featuring that fig debuted. Good old supply and demand. LEGO may have jumped the gun and not managed the rollout of the magnet sets sufficiently, however. Magnet sets should not debut in the first wave with the sets that feature them. If anything, they should come out in the late second wave or third wave of play themes. Why would you buy any of the pricer sets when on the same day they launch, you can buy all the minifigures in a $14.99 USD magnet set?! Prince of Persia was the first set to do this, and the same thing has happened with Harry Potter. I'm certain if timed right, the economics of the magent sets would have worked! There is a silver lining to all of this...we will likely see more 'battle pack' offerings in the future across all lines.

That's all for now. Looking forward to continuing the conversation...

Eurobricks Christmas Star Wars Photo Contest

Good lord, another contest?! It would seem that the folks at Eurobricks are looking to have a contest mixing the themes of Star Wars and Christmas. A fairly limited window with this one, you have to submit your entry between December 23rd and 31st. You can find out more on the Eurobricks website.

Hi-Res 2011 Star Wars Pics at Amazon

The German and French Amazon sites now have most of the 2011 Star Wars sets up for preorder. With that come the coveted hi-res shots of the sets and figs.

KimT ,of Eurobricks fame, has already started to upload these to his Flickr stream. I've favorited a selection of pics which you can see on the site viewer, or you can go to KimT's Flickr stream and see them all.

(Via Eurobricks)

Eurobricks Scorpion Pyramid Review

Eurobricks member Hinckley provides an in depth review of LEGO Pharaoh's Quest set 7327, Scorpion Pyramid. If there was any doubt that these sets were going to be awesome, that doubt is erased after this review. Lot's of amazing minifigs in this set, so head on over and check out the full review.

Also check out BrickZone.net, which is a slick little site that was new to me.

(Via Eurobricks)

What Have We Here...

It looks like Toys N Bricks and Eurobricks are posting pics of the 2011 LEGO Star Wars box art. Given that these pictures don't have the 'confidential' stamp these are likely good to distribute (but you never know with Lucas and Co.)

No big surprises from what I've seen, other than the Quinlan Vos minifig appears to have been dropped from the T6 Jedi Shuttle line up. Perhaps he'll surface again in an upcoming set. Also all of the Mandos in the battle pack are the same. I would have figured an appearance of Pre Vizsla and his darkblade would have been in order (did it really drive up the cost of the set to include one guy with a cape and a black lightsaber?!).

If you would like to see more, head on over to the Toys N Bricks Flickr stream.

Creations for Charity 2010

I wanted to mention the Creations for Charity 2010 event is going on right now on BrickLink. Many in the minifig and custom community have put forth their time and creations to make this year's event a big one. I noticed from the splash page on Eurobricks that JasBrick contributed his Tau Pathfinder. Also Legoagogo contributed a piece which is still up on the store, and Arealight contributed some of his new sci-fi helmets and jetpacks.  My thanks to everyone in the community who have contributed to this great cause.

I believe you can still participate, with creations or donations, through December 1st. If you would like more details Eurobricks has a thread up on their frontpage right now.

Eurobricks Cosplay Custom Minifigure Contest

This contest, sponsored by the Minifig Customization Forum on Eurobricks, is a little...different (so bear with me).

'Cosplay' or 'costume play' is a popular past time at conventions where attendees dress up as their favorite video game, comic book, or Star Wars character. Sometimes the results are kinda cool and sometimes they are not. Nevertheless, the folks are holding a contest whereby you design a 'cosplay' custom minifigure in both costume and real life. The rules are a little convoluted, so I would highly recommend reading them here.

What's up for grabs? A whole mess of BrickArms gear so massive, they had to give it a separate post.

Don't dawdle, you have until October 20th, 2010 to submit you entries, just in time for Halloween. Good luck!

(Via Eurobricks)

Fantastic Hogwart's Castle Review on Eurobricks

Eurobricks member Ras 74 has put together a really fantastic review set 4842, Hogwart's Castle, from the latest round of LEGO Harry Potter.

Some of the highlights include great front and back shots of each of the 10 minifigures that come with this set. There are also some fantastic shots of the minifig-scale animals like Mrs. Norris the cat and owls.

Of course, I'll be using this new information to help inform the guides. Until then, head on over to Eurobricks and check out the review.

(Via Eurobricks)

Second Eurobricks Series 2 Contest

Hot on the heels of the Minifig Scavenger Hunt, Eurobricks is announcing its next Series 2 Collectible Minifigure contest.

This time the objective is to build a minifigure vignette in one of two categories: an 8x8 vignette based on any theme or a 16x16 'interaction' vignette which shows the worlds of Series 1 and Series coming together. There are rules for each of the two categories which can be found here.

The prizes? Each category will have six winners for 12 in total. The higher you end up in the standings, the more minifigs you get to pick from a complete set.

So if you have a hankerin' for building vignettes and a love for Series 2 Collectible Figs, then this contest is for you.

(Via Eurobricks)