So today I figured I would play a little catch-up, by listing a few of the new elements released recently that frankly don't need any tablescrapping from me... you know what they do already, 'cos they're plates and bricks. This is not a complete listing, I just wanted to bring some of the cool stuff on my "to-do" list to your attention, in the hope you have need of some of these.
Plate 1X10
Element ID 6037995 | Design ID 4477
Colour Dark Red [BL]/New Dark Red [TLG]
Star Wars has quite a lot of Dark Red doesn't it? (Makes a change from bley.) It's a rich and regal colour so I'm sure many of you will find this plate of great use. There are two in 75019 AT-TE"
. Next, let's look at some dark offerings from the Lord of the Rings.
Plate 6X24
Element ID 6039174 | Design ID 3026
Colour Dark Bluish Grey [BL]/Dark Stone Grey [TLG]
The 6x24 plate seems to be coming back in fashion. From 1966-1991 it appeared in nineteen sets in various colours, but then was only called upon for two more sets, in 1998 and 2002, before a long absence. It finally reappeared in 2012 with a vengeance, present in three sets and then another two in 2013; 79007 Battle at the Black Gate
is one of them and is the first ever to feature it in Dark Bluish Grey. (It was never released in "old" Dark Grey.) I'd wager this recent popularity is down to the lack of baseplates in current sets. This issue of diappearing baseplates was raised with the LEGO® Designers present at AFOLCON 2012 in Manchester UK, and the main reason cited in answer was the instability when you move a model built on a baseplate. We've all been there, yes? But they also made the point that plates are more useful than baseplates since you can attach parts underneath. Fond of the baseplate as I am, I have to agree it is nicer to be commonly presented with a variety of large plates in sets instead - not just this 6x24 but also the 8x16 and 16x16. And as 10234 Sydney Opera House"
proves, the era of the baseplate is not over yet with the 48x48 being produced in Blue [BL]/Bright Blue [TLG] for that set.
Plate Round 4X4 W. Ø16Mm Hole
Element ID 6045912 | Design ID 11833
Colour Black
When this part appeared last year I was thrilled, especially with the Trans-Clear [BL]/Transparent [TLG] version. So beautiful, quite aside from any functional use! Black is the fifth colour it has appeared in, and highly useful it shall be. You will find one in the massive 10237 The Tower of Orthanc"
.
Plate 2X2 Round
Element ID 6035029 | Design ID 4032
Colour Dark Green [BL]/Earth Green [TLG]
Another round plate; a really useful one for landscaping and trees. There are three in Creator 31010 Treehouse
and one will also be found in a Christmas promo set, 40082. I feel like I'm always bigging up Friends on this blog for releasing new elements, so it's nice to see Creator come up with such a great one.
Plate 1X3
Element ID 6036788 | Design ID 3623
Colour Bright Pink [BL]/Light Purple [TLG]
Did somebody say Friends? I mentioned 41025 Puppy's Playhouse last time as having a 3X3 plate in Bright Pink, and it has two 1X3s also. In fact for such a tiny cheap set it packs a punch - nearly a third of the contents are new elements introduced this year, and five are currently exclusive to this set. Here's another of them...
Brick 1X1
Element ID 4651903 | Design ID 3005
Colour Medium Lavender
Fantastic to see this released in my favourite shade of purple. Puppy's Playhouse is a set from Series 3 of the Friends Collectibles range, which have recently gone on sale here in the UK
but at time of writing they're not yet available in the US. For a thorough and typically humorous review of this set (plus the other two from Series 3), check out SilentMode's site.
but at time of writing they're not yet available in the US. For a thorough and typically humorous review of this set (plus the other two from Series 3), check out SilentMode's site.
Plate 1X3
Element ID 6035470 | Design ID 3623
Colour Dark Purple [BL]/Medium Lilac [TLG]
So not just one but two new 1X3s to report; this time in Dark Purple and found in 41010 Olivia s Beach Buggy
in quantities of two. This little set has some more plates to offer us though...
Corner Plate 1X2X2
Element ID 4619517 | Design ID 2420
Colour Medium Lavender
Hooray, yet another useful part for Medium Lavender. Again, there are two. Thanks, Olivia!
Corner Plate 3X6
Element ID 6035469 | Design ID 2419
Colour Dark Purple [BL]/Medium Lilac [TLG]
Hmm, not exactly a high five for this one Olivia, but I am a big fan of the Alien Conquest theme which used Dark Purple in the flying saucers, and this element will be great for making my own. See, purple's not just for girls, aliens like it too.
Plate 1X1
Element ID 6031883 | Design ID 3024
Colour Bright Pink [BL]/Light Purple [TLG]
Pink's not just for girls either. There are two of these in 41007 Heartlake Pet Salon
but also one in Minecraft 21106 Micro World The Nether
. The latter has an even better new 1X1 to offer us though...
Plate 1X1
Element ID 6058245 | Design ID 3024
Colour Olive Green
I mentioned the other new Minecraft set, the Village, in my previous post but you may be more excited by The Nether thanks to the introduction of the 1X1 plate in Olive Green. Again, there's only one, but LEGO now seem to be consistently including spares of 1X1 square plates in sets. Wait! There's more...
Brick 1X1
So there actually IS a reason to get the Minecr..aft sets!
ReplyDeleteI know, I'm as shocked as you are.
DeleteIt's time to update your Bricklist, and it would be useful if there were an easy to find a link to it here on the blog somewhere, maybe accessible from the About page, or even directly from the blog's menu bar.
ReplyDeleteOh yeh. Joy. Glad you use it though... is it actually useful?!
DeleteYep. 'Specially when it's up to date!
DeleteGenuinely forgot about it, after procrastinating about one and then writing a couple of posts not really about new elements :O) All done...I hope.
DeleteLink to BrickList now added to righthand menu. By the way folks... feel free to mark my BrickList as "helpful" if you find it so :o) Would be nice to make the list of Most Helpful!
DeleteThis question has been bugging me for a while. Perhaps you know the answer. What exactly does "Ø" stand for in the Ø designations?
ReplyDelete^ Never mind. Googling about, I see it is simply a standard symbol for diameter, and does not itself stand for some word (in Danish, for instance).
DeleteActually, in Danish Ø or ø could be a word meaning "island", not that it's really applicable here.
DeleteNot applicable, but a top trivia fact!
DeleteGirls ARE aliens and not all are dark purple either.
ReplyDelete^ Hey, you *other* Anonymous! For a small modicum of fun, go Google "what about us grils."
Delete-- The Real Anonymous
Plate Round 4X4 W. Ø16Mm Hole
ReplyDeleteElement ID 6045912 | Design ID 11833
Colour Black
Do you think you could show some cool table scrap thingy with this? I'm not entirely sure I have any of those, but it'd be cool to know of things to do with 'em in case they cross my path. :)
They've put it to interesting use in official sets, like a round window frame on the Bag End set, and a two-color round stained glass window on the new Arkham Asylum. It could also be helpful as a "mortar" layer to hold together stacks of macaroni bricks, and it's obviously perfectly suited to interface with either of the two 4x2 half-cylinders.
DeleteIt joins the square version as being useful at some times when you have a central core structure that you need to build around separatey. If that makes sense.
DeleteBut my favourite use to date has to be Chris McVeigh's rotary phone... just brilliant.
http://powerpig.storenvy.com/products/1441641-rotary-telephone-red
Regarding the olive green 1x1 plate, I was actually the first person to buy those on Bricklink. Paid $1.50 per for ten back in April because they don't make 1x1 _bricks_ in olive-green, and then I ended up putting that project on hold until about a week ago. And now you can buy those plates for 1/10 what I paid for them (or 1/20 if you want a _lot_).
ReplyDeleteAnd dark-purple (the best purple - and I oughta know) 1x3 plates? Huh. I thought they already existed, but I guess they didn't (at least not officially). Those might come in handy if I make more Pixar Cars.
There seems to be quite a share of various Dark Purple parts now, although most of them are quite rare having only been distributed in one or two sets each.
DeleteAh Dave I know the feeling! But it's nice just to have *had* them when no-one else did, eh.
DeleteIt is lagging behind other colours, isn't it Håkan? Such a shame the Knight Bus was a fiasco of mismatching colour :O(
Yeah, for a "basic" color, it's notably neglected (compared to green and orange), possibly due to it being considered "feminine". At least the Friends line could possibly change it somehow. In the early 2000's, there used to be purple bricks in Basic sets along with orange, but since then, purple bricks are mostly side-stepped and found in small amounts in the "girls-only" sets... =(
Delete(There are a couple of purple bricks in the Batman sets due to Joker and Two-Face etc, but building up a purple collection seems to be a costly affair.)
@caperberry:
DeleteEh, I could have cared less about other people owning them (and obviously, technically, the seller beat me to it and still owned more than what I bought). I'd still have much preferred bricks over plates, but the only other alternative was to put 1x2 bricks endwise, which would leave them sticking out inside, and that could interfere with future plans.
Besides, it's olive green. Hardly worth getting that excited over. Now the roughly 1000 dark-purple 2x2x3 castle slopes that I have, on the other hand...
As for the Knight Bus, there are lots of colors that have issues of that type. I constantly run into two different shades of basic orange. Dark-red was also really bad around that same time. And that's not even getting into the stuff they intentionally changed.
@Håkan S.:
But it's not a basic color. Purple was a basic color, and that has been dropped. Dark-purple is one of the dark colors, which isn't even a complete group yet (no dark-yellow).
I follow this blog from the first post and I'm really enjoying it.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the excellent work.
Greetings.
Thank you so much!
DeleteThanks for the update. Anything in the new greens is a win for me!
ReplyDeleteToo late for some more landscaping, James? ;O)
Delete