Take thou thy plate of flesh

New-fangled parts are very exciting, but perhaps more important are the simple parts at the core of the LEGO® System that arrive in new colours. Today I highlight basic bricks and plates that have been released in new colours in 2014.

To date the only plate in Medium Dark Flesh [BL]/Medium Nougat [TLG] has been the beautiful 4X4 round with a 2X2 hole, but now there's the regular 2X2 (Element ID 6056383 | Design ID 3022). It comes in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 79121 Turtle Sub Undersea Chase and a set that I'll mention several times today - Friends 41039 Sunshine Ranch. There's also the matching brick, the 2X2, in 71006 The Simpsons" House, a set that is stacked with exciting colours but I'm most excited that it has a plate in Flesh [BL]/Nougat [TLG] - the 6X8 (Element ID 6060856 | Design ID 3036). This is a common enough colour of plates in LEGOLAND Resorts - they're needed to create the skin on large scale Star Wars and Friends characters, for example. But in sets, this colour has only ever been used for... well, flesh... on figures and piggies. Also on sausages, which are mostly piggy flesh I guess. That was for some Scala sets 15 years ago, by the way. So using it in a plate (and also a door) in an official set is quite radical. Will we ever see a whole range of plates and bricks to match or will the secondary parts market be AFOLs' only source of other sizes?

One of the final missing basic plates in Reddish Brown is now here; the 1X12 (Element ID 6055145 | Design ID 60479) which probably would have appeared sooner had the same plate not previously appeared in Dark Brown. But it's here with a vengeance - appearing in three sets, including 15 of them in the massive 10241 Maersk Line Triple-E. The Triple-E is yet another set I'll keep mentioning today...

In fact, I'll do so immediately. It also provides us with a couple of large plates in Dark Red [BL]/New Dark Red [TLG]: the 4X10 (Element ID 6052765 | Design ID 3030) and 6X10 (Element ID 6052874 | Design ID 3033). On the brick side of things, we get the 4X4 round brick with Technic holes (Element ID 6057433 | Design ID 6222) in Star Wars 75039 V-Wing Starfighter.

Magenta [BL]/Bright Reddish-Violet [TLG] now comes in the 1X1 brick (Element ID 6022035 | Design ID 3005) in four sets: Creator 31021 Furry Creatures, Disney Princess 41052 Ariel's Magical Kiss, Friends 41057 Heartlake Horse Show and Sunshine Ranch - which has an impressive 40 of them! The 1X2X5 (Element ID 6056385 | Design ID 2454) is also found in Sunshine Ranch along with 41029 Stephanie's New Born Lamb. It's worth noting 1X4 and 1X6 bricks make a welcome return in Sunshine Ranch, and that you also get 20 1X2s, so that set is a great boost for anyone wanting to build in Magenta. (Sunshine Ranch also has a cool new plate and a tile, but I'll write about those another time.)

Dark Pink [BL]/Bright Purple [TLG] has a couple of new plates, the 1X2 (Element ID 6057387 | Design ID 3023) and the 2X3 (Element ID 6060801 | Design ID 3021), which are both found in two sets: Juniors 10668 The Princess Play Castle and, once again, Ariel's Magic Kiss. This colour is now extremely well-represented in bricks and plates.

Bright Pink [BL]/Light Purple [TLG] isn't doing quite as well yet, but plate selection is nevertheless very good. In 2014 the 1X1X5 brick (Element ID 6058396 | Design ID 2453) arrives in Princess Play Castle and the 1X6 plate (Element ID 6058222 | Design ID 3666) is in The Simpsons House.

Bright Light Orange [BL]/Flame Yellowish Orange seems to be a very popular colour with AFOLs and in official sets it appears in both 'girl' and 'boy' themes. The available parts are growing more slowly this year it seems; all we have so far in the basic department is the corner brick (Element ID 6034175 | Design ID 2357) found in Friends 41035 Heartlake Juice Bar.

I said it before, but I'll say it again, 'cos it's cool. The 1X1 round brick now comes in Pearl Gold [BL]/Warm Gold [TLG] (Element ID 6060800 | Design ID 3062). There are 20 in 41055 Cinderella's Romantic Castle.

Here's a super-useful part in a tiny set. Creator 31015 Emerald Express has the 2X2 round brick in Dark Green [BL]/Earth Green [TLG] (Element ID 6055770 | Design ID 6143). Goes nicely with the 2X2 round plate in Dark Green which Creator introduced only just last year. Yay Creator!

The double jumper plate finally comes in Lime [BL]/Bright Yellowish-Green [TLG] (Element ID 6056291 | Design ID 87580) in Chima 70133 Spinlyn s Cavern and 40114 LEGO® Friends Buildable Jewelry Box.

1X1 round plates appear in Transparent Bright Green (Element ID 6057034 | Design ID 30057) for the first time in four 2014 Chima sets. Previously this part has appeared in Transparent Green and Trans-Neon Green [BL]/Transparent Fluorescent Green [TLG], so this new shade is sufficiently different to feel worthwhile.

Yellowish Green [BL]/Spring Yellowish Green is an extremely new colour so I'm very glad to see another plate now available, and once again it's thanks to our friend Unikitty from The LEGO Movie. She's feeling queasy aboard 70810 MetalBeard's Sea Cow and the 1X3 plate that makes up the bottom of her face has turned Spring Yellowish Green (Element ID 6069258 | Design ID 3623). I may as well mention the top of her head is a Sand Green 1X3 plate, which isn't new, but not seen in a set for over a decade which could prove good news for anyone trying to buy the parts necessary to build 3450 Statue of Liberty or 7194 Yoda.

Bright Light Blue [BL]/Light Royal Blue [TLG] seems to be 'a blue too many' for some AFOLs but like it or not, the number of plates available is slowly and surely increasing. The 6X8 (Element ID 6056216 | Design ID 3036) appears in Disney Princess 41053 Cinderella's Dream Carriage.

Following an alteration to the Maersk company's corporate blue, Medium Azure is now being used in LEGO sets instead of Maersk Blue [BL]/Pastel Blue [TLG] which, as far as I know, is now a discontinued shade. Once again the Triple-E brings us very useful parts: the 1X2 brick (Element ID 6004945 | Design ID 3004) and the corner brick (Element ID 6052877 | Design ID 2357).

As for plates, you'll find the 4X4 quarter-circle plate (Element ID 6056271 | Design ID 30565) and the 4X12 plate (Element ID 6056270 | Design ID 3029) in both Ariel's Magic Kiss and Cinderella's Romantic Castle, both of which contain the strange new Medium Azure Kermit neck I described recently.

I hope this post has alerted some of you to elements that you've been hoping for!

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