LEGO® Inside Tour 2019: new and exclusive parts

Every year The LEGO Group run a few “Inside Tour” events where they open their doors to a small group of fans. The lucky participants – I say lucky because although they are paying for the pleasure, tickets sell out almost instantly – are given behind the scenes access to LEGO HQ, hang out with designers and receive all manner of goodies. The most notable goodie is the Inside Tour set, a set designed for the tours that (sometimes) remains unavailable elsewhere. Each celebrates an aspect of LEGO history such as the Ferguson tractor, or the LEGOLAND train.

This year’s set is especially exciting to New Elementary as it contains a new element, produced exclusively for the set. It is 3D printed rather than injection moulded, so while its quality is much lower than regular LEGO pieces, it’s still super exciting... and rare. Participants were told it is the first 3D-printed piece ever to appear in a LEGO set (unless any of you readers know otherwise?). They’ve even given it ID numbers; Element ID 6286866|Design ID 66237, but don’t expect it to ever become available anywhere!

Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - May 2019

My newest list of Bricks & Pieces highlights has been online now for two weeks but I never got around to writing something about it. But the list is worth it for sure, so take a look here:

BnP.jonaskramm.com

Many new sets launched recently so we get a long list with a wide variety of bricks that are now available. Worth pointing out are LEGO® Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down – with a small selection of plates, windows and minifigure parts, and Disney Minifigure Series – with some elements like the black plant and flower.

75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage: set review

We hope you've been enjoying the run of LEGO® Jurassic World articles we've published recently including two designer interviews and a look at the new parts in 75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage. Today, Jonas Kramm examines the build and techniques of that set.

75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage is only the second set from the LEGO® Jurassic World series that is a homage to the classic movie from 1993. It comes with 3120 pieces that get used to build a huge dinosaur, an enormous gate and an additional minifigure stand.

LEGO® Jurassic World 2019: Designer interview with Marcos Bessa

In May we spoke to LEGO® designer Marcos Bessa who leads the LEGO Jurassic World design team. He ran us through the four new sets that tie in with LEGO Jurassic World: The Legend of Isla Nublar, an animated 13-episode series which is a sequel to last year's LEGO Jurassic World: The Secret Exhibit.

Marcos: "For the LEGO® Jurassic World franchise in 2019 we have four novelty products coming out. These products are primarily based on new content we are doing with Universal. It expands the universe and takes place between the original trilogy and the first Jurassic World movie. The new park is already functioning, and Owen has just arrived at the park. We’ve seen in Jurassic World that he already has a history with Claire but what we are going to see in our TV series is how they actually build and develop that relationship."

75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage: the new parts and minifigures

On Tuesday The LEGO Group announced the very first LEGO® Jurassic World D2C set, 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage, and you already read what the designers have to say about it. Now that the review copies are arriving it’s time for the fans' views of this huge set, and Jonas Kramm takes his first look today.

In this, the first part of my review, I will investigate what the minifigures look like and the elements released in new colours. The second part will then be about the model, but first I have to finish building it.

Minifigures

75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage: designer interview with Mark Stafford & Marcos Bessa

Just announced, 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage is a new Direct to Consumer set (D2C, basically ‘the big ones for adults’) that has 3120 pieces and will be available from 19 June 2019 priced US$249.99/ CA$299.99/ £219.99/ €249.99/ 1899DKK. We saw it a couple of weeks ago in Billund and can confirm it is spectacular! While there we spoke with its designer Mark Stafford and LEGO® Jurassic World team manager Marcos Bessa to get some insight into how the set came about.

© The LEGO Group 2019

Our review is coming in a couple of weeks’ time but to set the scene, here are some key details from the press release. The T. rex dinosaur measures over 8” (22cm) high, 27” (69cm) long and 6” (17cm) wide and features snapping jaws with a posable head, arms, legs and tail. The gate has an opening function and measures over 16” (42cm) high, 18” (48cm) wide and 5” (14cm) deep. The wall framing the gate features a dinosaur nest and six other scenes inspired by the movie, shown later in this post. This set includes six minifigures: John Hammond, Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, Ray Arnold and Dennis Nedry, plus a baby dinosaur figure. The John Hammond, Ray Arnold and Dennis Nedry minifigures are new.

The 1x8x3 25° Slope

We were surprised by a large new piece that appeared in a LEGO® set recently, so we sent a copy to Ben Davies (ProfessorBrickkeeper) to check it out.

Although the LEGO® 4+ sets (previously Juniors) may not appeal to all builders, the simplified sets have led to the introduction of several new elements over the past few years. The most recent of these is the 1x8x3 Slope (Design ID 49618), also known as Roof Tile 1X8X3/25º [TLG] and Slope 25 8 x 1 x 3 [BL], which comes in the new LEGO Toy Story 4 theme.

LEGO® Apollo 11 Lander: Jamie Berard interview

At the Recognised LEGO® Fan Media Days event in Billund recently we spoke to Creator Expert Design Manger Specialist Jamie Berard who introduced their newest set, 10266 NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander, which we reviewed a few days ago.

This looks incredible, Jamie. Who designed the set?

Jamie: Lars Joe was the designer, he normally works on Architecture but he also did the Winter Village firehouse, that was his first Creator Expert model and now this is his second one. You might also see some influence of Mike Psiaki, he did some of the original configuration for this and the triangulation on the legs. Then, when Lars Joe was working with it further, I pitched in a little bit on the upper part in the locking mechanism. We all couldn't help ourselves but to want to play with certain parts! But it's definitely Lars Joe.