Delve into Elves

When pictures first appeared, the new 2015 theme LEGO® Elves certainly caught my attention, and the bizarre recolours were certainly a big part of that! Over the coming weeks the Barnick brothers will be examining them all - yes, today Andrew Barnick writes his first review for us. Andrew shares many of the same interests and favourite LEGO themes as his twin brother Scott (who is a regular here at New Elementary) but is also a video game aficionado; especially Nintendo. 

My brother Scott and I have been ridiculously excited for the new LEGO Elves theme since I first set eyes on it. I had long held a passing interest in recent sets aimed at girls such as the LEGO Friends theme, but ultimately most of that theme’s more realistic, grounded subject matter tended not to sway my purchasing decisions. Elves, on the other hand, promised an elaborate fantasy theme like my favorite themes Bionicle and Ninjago, with elementally aligned heroes and a compelling invented universe. As soon as I saw what this theme had to offer, I knew 2015 was going to be an expensive year.

LEGO® colour chart reference

I have wanted to discuss LEGO® colours more often on this blog but it's a horribly complicated subject. Happily there are those more qualified than I; one is Ryan Howerter, who has produced several valuable resources for AFOLs, which he explains for us today. But for the ease of your future reference, I'll list them up front:

• LEGO Color reference spreadsheet with BrickLink & TLG names
• Brick Colorstream, a visual catalogue - also including additional rarities
• LEGO Color Timeline showing years of production for all known LEGO colors

There are always more LEGO colors than you expect.

With the help of a few other AFOLs, I’ve been attempting to catalogue every color that LEGO has produced. I’m not the first to do this (see Peeron, Isodomos, BrickLink, Brickset, LDraw…), but in combining the existing lists and frequent updates I hope to have a reference for the AFOL community that is as complete as possible.