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Historical LEGO close-ups 1940s-1980s

 LEGO Idea House museum in Billund, Denmark: This is my final installment of the LEGO Idea House display windows. I have previously covered LEGO history 1891-1969, LEGO history 1970-1999 and LEGO history 2000-2009. What remains is an assortment additional of photographs spanning approximately from the late 1940s all the way to mid-1980s. Unlike the previous…

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Old LEGO colors vs. new colors

 For background on this blog post, may I recommend reading the post Grey matter first. To cut a long story short, in 2003 TLG shocked the brick-following world by changing various LEGO colors. In the previous story I photographed old light grey with new medium stone grey aka light bley in AFOL parlance. TLG also…

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Chima Miniland

 Legends of Chima is big, no question about it. It was also the “big” new feature at LEGOLAND Billund this summer, including a LEGO Studios 4D feature, Chima Shop between LEGO Shop and the Outlet store, and Chima Miniland next to the real Miniland. Let’s be equally real about the Chima Miniland, though. It ain’t…

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How much of a 1980 LEGO train can you get new?

 While my Quest for Lion Knights’ castle was mostly about re-using old bricks, complemented by the purchase of used bricks (a reality, considering LEGO has discontinued not just many of the parts, but the very color the castle uses), I took a different tact on the Quest for Inter-City train. From the beginning, I decided…

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79001 Escape from Mirkwood Spiders

 To go alongside my 1984 grey LEGO Castle building project, I have experienced and discussed some newer castley LEGO themes and sets on this blog, including Lord of the Rings sets, 2013 LEGO Castle sets and the The Hobbit theme. On this note, I recently built my first The Hobbit set, 79001 Escape from Mirkwood…

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Toyota Traffic School Billund

 Return to LEGOLAND in Billund, Denmark: Alongside Miniland and LEGOREDO, one of the older attractions in LEGOLAND Billund is the (Toyota) Traffic School. This has been the place for several generations to drive their first “driver’s license”. Basically the driving school is a rectangular area filled with life-like (albeit smaller) roads, traffic signs, crossroads, traffic…

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LEGO history 2000-2009

 LEGO Idea House museum in Billund, Denmark has a display of LEGO history. I reported on the earlier LEGO history 1891-1969 and 1970-1999 in previous stories, now it is time to complete the series with the years 2000-2009. There weren’t any sets from recent years on display, but some milestones were printed on the walls…

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The best part, so far

 As I laid out all those months ago when starting this blog, a major motivation for me has been to document my rediscovery of LEGO. A diary of sorts. Part of this is making note of how and why I want to do certain things, the feelings, the motivators, the demotivators (see e.g. One year in). So far, the absolutely best part, in addition to the inspirational LEGOLAND visits, has been reliving past experiences. Or not so much reliving them, perhaps, as simply remembering. Sometimes you have to relive them a little to remember. Months ago I read an article about why people save memorabilia relating to decades-old dates and…

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70403 Dragon Mountain (2/2)

 70403 Dragon Mountain is the antagonist’s headquarters set in the new 2013 LEGO Castle theme. Home of the Dragon Knight boss, the Dragon Wizard, the Dragon Mountain also hosts his laboratory, treasure chambers, a prison cell and a red dragon – plus some attacking Lion Knights of course. For box photographs and initial impressions, see…

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70400 Forest Ambush

 LEGO Castle (2013) continued: After the Gold Getaway and Dragon Mountain, this is my third closer look at a set in the new LEGO Castle theme. 70400 Forest Ambush is the smallest set in the LEGO Castle launch line-up and unlike the two previous sets, which we got from LEGOLAND Billund, this one is freshly…

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Just the tool for quests

 Yesterday I discussed online LEGO repositories and included a tip by blog reader Siabur (originally to my lamenting how hard it is to know what parts you need for re-creating sets), that Rebrickable is a useful site when trying to re-create another set from existing parts. Rebrickable, then, is pretty much exactly what I could…

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Online LEGO repositories

 One of the great things about the modern AFOL hobby is the abundance of online resources, be it building instructions, brick databases, catalogs, marketplaces or even computer aided design tools, it’s all there. There is also a plethora of LEGO blogs, forums and online stores. Naturally most of this content is easiest accessed through common…

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70403 Dragon Mountain (1/2)

 Continuing with the new LEGO Castle (2013), it is time to check out 70403 Dragon Mountain aka the antagonist’s lair aka the bad guy’s castle. One of the first castle LEGO sets I built after my dark ages was the LEGO Kingdoms 7187 Escape from the Dragon’s Prison, which I build with my son some…

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Using BrickLink wanted lists

 After my recent realization that the sheer size of the historical LEGO parts inventory means sourcing parts is better done planned than by shooting in the dark, I set out to really try the best tool of the trade: BrickLink Wanted List. I have discussed this feature before, but I haven’t really used it until…

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Fortune favors fools

 There is an old Latin proverb fortuna favet fatuis, which translates to fortune favors fools. Many know this proverb from first-hand experience, of course. Like when we have practiced some feat for a considerable amount of time, do everything by the book, and then some new-comer without an ounce of rehearsal marches in, does something…

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The Transformer

 I started the Quest for Inter-City train on August 21, 2012, roughly a year ago – and I’ve yet to start building. I have gathered a bunch of bricks, some new, some old, made a ton of research and a bunch of blog posts, but today is the time to stop stalling and start building.…

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LEGO history 1970-1999

 LEGO Idea House museum in Billund, Denmark has an intriguing display of LEGO history. I have reported on the early LEGO history 1891-1969 in a previous story, now it is time to take a look at the next time period: 1970-1999. From maxifigures to minifigures to a galaxy far, far away… By the 1970s, LEGO…

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The Orc Forge II

 It has been a year and a few days since I opened 9476 The Orc Forge, an online order following up on my previous Lord of the Rings LEGO reviews. A testament to the sordid state of my first AFOL year, that is as far as I got with The Orc Forge – until now.…

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AFOL motivations

 In my article Why do adults build LEGO? I pondered about some of the motivations that adults might have for the LEGO hobby. One of the great LEGO forums, Eurobricks to be exact, is running a questionnaire/discussion on What kind of AFOL are you? It will be interesting to see where that discussion goes. In remotely related news, Gizmodo’s Leg Godt blog references Huffington Post on a rather more disturbing story of adult LEGO enthusiasm gone wrong. A successful technology executive is accused of stealing tens of thousands worth of bricks, apparently both for resale and for use in his meticulously organized LEGO room. That certainly puts a new spin…

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LEGOTOP Billund

 LEGOTOP is an attraction in LEGOLAND Billund, located right next to Hotel LEGOLAND and Miniland. Dubbed the tallest attraction in LEGOLAND, LEGOTOP (or LEGO Top) is a 360-degree rotating elevator that rises to the height of 36 meters. You can see not only Miniland and its depiction of Billund airport, you can also see the…

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