How do LEGO ghosts glow?

One of my favorite parts of having my ghost infested castle (see previous post), is that for several minutes after turning the lights off, there is a green glow coming from the top of my dresser.  Being a nerd, I was already somewhat familiar with the idea of phosphorescence, but I thought it would be educational to learn a little bit more about it.

New LEGO Castle!

It has been rumored and now seems to be confirmed that LEGO will be releasing new Castle sets in August of next year (2013). The logo will be the same as the 2007 one, but packaging will be yellow.  I obtained the following list from Toys N Bricks:

• 70400 Forest Ambush
• 70401 Gold Getaway
• 70402 The Gatehouse Raid
• 70403 Dragon Mountain
• 70404 King’s Castle

A couple of things jump out at me with this list: 7946 was already called King's Castle so I hope this is not just a rehash of the previous version.  Second, the name "Dragon Mountain" suggests that  either it will have a dragon or the Dragon Knights will be making a comeback.  In my mind it would seem appropriate to make a large castle for the Dragon Knights since the Lion Knights already have one and put them somewhat on equal footing.  We shall see.

Since Castle is by far my favorite series, I am struggling to find an adjective for how excited I am.  I will be loading up on these as soon as they are released!

New Modular Building!

A picture of the newest modular set, called the Palace Cinema, was found on shop.lego.com.  I first learned about it from Brickset.  While I am a huge fan of the modular building series, I don't feel like this one will fit in with the rest of the town quite as well.  The color scheme and architecture have a very oriental feel to them which I'm sure is the effect they were going for; something akin to Mann's Chinese Theater.  However, combining this with the rest of the town I feel like is a little like taking a building from Chinatown and putting it in downtown Manhattan: clearly out of place.

Nevertheless, I will be buying it and trying to arrange my town in such a way that it doesn't stick out too much.  Because what other option do you have?

TNMT Sets on Shop@Home

The Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtle sets are now up and live at shop.LEGO.com. Right  now they are listed as coming on December 17th.

I was a huge fan of the TMNTs when I was younger, but the licensed themes are beginning to wear a bit thin.  I will probably pass on these sets.

Minifigures Series 9 Full Review

Official pictures for the upcoming 71000 LEGO Series 9 Minifigures are now available! If you are looking for a comprehensive review, Eurobricks has posted one including a breakdown of the minifigures in each case (shown below).

Image courtesy of The Lego Group

Review of 9495 Y-Wing

Toys'R'Us has this set on sale this week so I picked one up.  I have been excited about this set from the first pictures that were released. 

To start with, here is a comparison of this one versus the one released in 2007.  There are several things I like about this one better.  To start with, the front of the engines don't have those golf ball looking caps.  The blasters have more detail rather than just being rods.  I also think the shape of the head is more traditional Y-wing than the previous model.

I think this one is an improvement in just about every way.

The Inn is Finished!

I actually finished it about two weeks ago but was very slow with taking pictures.  With the roof on it looks pretty much like one solid continuous building.

Town Hall now available!

As of today, the Town Hall is now available for order on shop.lego.com.  I will be making a trip to my local store to check it out very soon.  There are also some very cute Easter polybags out today.

Weekend Progress

My pick-a-brick order arrived last Friday and I spent the weekend putting it to go use.  Keep in mind I basically started with nothing but the front of the house.

First order of business was to tile the inside floor.

About half my order was the tile pieces for the inside.  The other half was the bottom half of the structure.
After building the bottom I decided to make a trip to the local Lego store and use my last pick-a-brick box from Christmas.  That (along with a lot of my own pieces lying around) allowed me to complete the rest of the walls as seen below.

Ghostly Castle

My army of Lego ghosts.  You can't see all of them in the shot but there are 43 haunting this particular castle.

The castle that they're sitting on consists of 6080 King's Castle, 6040 Blacksmith Shop, 6041 Armor Shop, and 6067 Guarded Inn.  And NCC-1701-A ;)

Town Hall!

Brickset has a copy of the latest press release from Lego officially announcing the Town Hall.  I think I can now safely assume it didn't make it to the toy fair because it was being debuted a week later (the magic of hindsight).  There are several pictures now floating around the web and, I must say, it looks fantastic.  There was also a YouTube video but it has been taken down, possibly because it contained a few images of sets not yet officially announced.

I am really looking forward to this set although I'm disappointed that the retail is $200!  On the one hand, it is a large set.  It's got 2,766 pieces.  That's 414 more (or a 17.6% increase) than the next closest, the Green Grocer.  And as a comparison shows, it stands quite a bit taller than the Pet Shop and Grand Emporium.

On the other hand, I felt like $150 was expensive as it was.  Now they're adding another 33.3% for only a 17.6% increase in pieces.  I suppose it doesn't matter though, I'll still be buying one.

New York Toy Fair

FBTB is at the New York toy fair this week and has posted about 10,000 up close pictures of all the new sets along with retail pricing on many of them.  See them all here.

The Lord of the Rings sets look very well done, particularly all the characters.  They also have a whole slew of new Friends sets, including an advent calendar.  This is also the first time I've seen the new Creator house.  Unfortunately, that one's not going to be available till August.

I'm not sure how I feel about the new monster hunter series.  I was imagining more of a Dept. 56 type feel but in Lego.  Instead it seems a little less dark and scary and more Scooby Doo monsters.  I want to like it but I'm just not sure.  Also, while I want to be very excited about the new ghost minifigs, I just don't like them as much as the originals.  I like the rounded head and happy face better.

The only thing I didn't see in their massive collection of photos is the new Creator Town Hall which is supposedly due in March.  I can only assume that set did not make an appearance at the fair.

Sketches

While I'm waiting for my pick-a-brick order to arrive I thought I'd share my notes.  This was me trying to figure out how many bricks I'd need to tile the entire floor of the house in the back of my village.  The overall size of the house will be 26x24.  The entire floor is going to be tiled in 6x6 simple mosaic squres with lines in between each.  Hopefully I did my calculations correctly.  I also ordered enough to build up the walls which are going to be simple to begin with and will probably be redesigned as I get more ambitious.

Review of TIE Fighter 9492

My Tie Fighter just arrived in the mail yesterday and I had a chance to put it together last night.  It is definitely a step above the previous models.  Let's start with the box:

If I can be unreasonably disgruntled for a moment, having Darth Maul on the box is irritating.  He was dead long before the modern TIE fighter came to be.  I'm sure it is because episode one is being re-released in theaters but still, not good enough.

The other thing about the box is I feel like it's too big.  There are three bags and an instruction book.  How big does it really need to be?
This also brings me to my first notation.  If you're like me you probably open all the bags first and then open the instructions.  But it turns out with this set the bags are numbered 1, 2, & 3, and you can quite literally open them in that order as you build.  If you have limited space or want to look through fewer pieces at a time, that may come in handy.

Totally Off Topic...

I love Valentine's day.  But not for the reason you're thinking.

I love it because the overwhelming amount of red reminds the candy makers that cherry is a flavor too.  In a sudden rush of enthusiasm, they put it into everything.  So far this month I've seen cherry M&Ms, cherry Three Musketeers (which are delicious by the way), cherry Dove hearts, and well as cherry lollipops and other miscellaneous confections.

While perusing the fruit juice isle in the grocery store today I discovered yet more cherry deliciousness.  Ocean Spray now makes a cherry juice cocktail.  Now I know what you're thinking, "What a tosser.  He didn't know Ocean Spray made Cran-Cherry.  They've had that for forever."  But this is not that.  This actually uses cherry juice for the base and then throws some other fruit juices in with it.  It's pretty good but not as cherry as I was hoping.

If anyone runs across any other brilliant exploitation of cherry flavor, please let me know.

News

Finally received the email that my pick-a-brick order is on it's way.  It will probably still be like a week before I get it.  I hate waiting.

The Lego Duplo princess collection is also available starting today.

This is one of the few times I wish I had a daughter because this is pretty fantastic.

The Village

Pics of the beginning of my village.  Not too much going on yet, still waiting for my pick-a-brick order.

Lego LotR at German Toy Fair

Images have started to appear around the web of the Lego Lord of the Rings display at the German toy fair this week.  Since this is basically the replacement for the Castle series I am super excited.

From what I've read, it's set to be released in August of this year.

Lego Friends at Toys'R'Us

There will be a Lego Friends building event at Toys'R'Us on Saturday, February 4th.  Participants can build a lemonade stand and get a free Stephanie fig for spending $20

See details here.

First Post!

This is hopefully the first of many posts on this blog.  This is primarily for me to share my creations as well as any Lego news I pick up along the way.

If you want to check out a real professional Lego site, check out www.brickset.com.  They are the best.