New Character Building Toys

British toy distributor Character Group is releasing a new range of construction toys this year, to be exhibited at the coming UK Toy Fair (25-27 January).  This new ‘Character Building’ range of toys are based on licensed themes and will include BBC’s Dr Who and HM Armed Forces. 

I’ll be interested to know if the toys are LEGO compatible and of good quality as the selling point is that each licensed 3D micro-figure has sculpted facial features and ‘the use of texture on some of the building blocks, which will be a key feature when it comes to fans recreating each environment”.

While I’m not a Dr Who fan (have not watched the shows), perhaps Character Group may pair up with other brands that I like in the future?

Source:

http://www.licensing.biz/news/6590/BBC-readies-for-busy-2011-with-Doctor-Who;

http://www.kasterborous.com/2011/01/19/doctor-who-character-building/;

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hSYIA-HAi2aCVeuB4vVsJa1xUJUQ?docId=N0244531295443599304A;

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23915489-rival-to-lego-builds-hopes-for-character.do

New Products Launched in Lego.com

Update on 2 Jan 2011: Another new review of the 9349 – Fairytale and Historic Minifigure Set by Silentmode from EB can be found HERE. 

Update on 31 Dec 2010: Very informative review of the 9348 – City Community Minifigure Set by Silentmode from EB can be found HERE. 

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Brickset highlighted 2 interesting sets that I didn’t know about previously… the minifig collections for city and ‘historic’.   Below are the new Dacta sets (set names link to Brickset so you can conveniently add to your ‘want’ list), and the links to USA and UK new product sites as well.  Also spotted are some Valentines Day sets in case you need to start preparing some gifts for your partner in 2011.  Enjoy! 🙂

• USA – Products Launched in 2011
• UK – Products Launched in 2011

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9348 – Community Minifigure Set GBP39.99 (On UK but not USA site)

Bring your LEGO® town to life!

Add even more life to your bustling LEGO® town! This set features important people from everyday life in a community, such as a postman, hospital staff, a mechanic and many more. Includes 22 minifigures, plus a variety of accessories, such as food, animals, a laptop, a bicycle and a backpack!

• Includes 22 minifigures: postman, hospital staff, mechanic and many more
• Features a variety of accessories including food, animals, a laptop, a bicycle and a backpack
• Explore all of the roles in a real community!
• Provides endless hours of creative play!
• Teaches functions of community workers and their responsibilities!
• Promotes the development of expressive language and social skills

 9349 – Fairytale and Historic Minifigure Set GBP39.99 (On UK but not USA site)

Build a fairytale!

This set features a variety of minifigures that enable children to create and act out beloved fairytales and popular themes. A great addition to any LEGO® brick set, characters include pirates, a witch and wizard, a king and queen, mine workers, a mermaid and merman and many more. Includes 22 minifigures and great accessories!

• Includes 22 minifigures: pirates, a witch and wizard, a king and queen, mine workers, a mermaid and merman and many more
• Features a variety of accessories
• Explore the differences of real life, make-believe and historic roles!
• Provides endless hours of creative play!
• Teaches storytelling through characters and their functions!
• Promotes the development of fantasy, imagination and imitative skills!

 40015 – Heart Book

Build a keepsake for your valentine!

Build the love this Valentines Day with the LEGO® Heart Book! This buildable hinged book with heart design holds a wallet-size picture inside. Makes a perfect desktop display frame and gift for your sweetheart.

• Holds a wallet-sized photo inside!
• Makes a great gift!
• Stands over 3” (7cm) tall and nearly 5” (12cm) wide when open

40016 – Valentine Letter Set

Say “I Love You” the LEGO® way!

This Valentine’s Day, build a special message to your valentine. Say “I love you” in bricks! Each letter comes on its own red base plate. Makes a special keepsake for LEGO® fans.

• Build this special keepsake for your valentine!
• Makes a great gift!

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Unfortunately I couldn’t find any hi-res pics of the 2 new Dacta sets, but they look great from what I can see… yeah, and added both on my ‘want’ list on Brickset. 😛

Are they must haves for you too?  Actually it’s like getting another 2 advent calendars huh? 😀

Inaugural AFOLCON in Manchester (UK)

I wish I can go! That’s my 1st reaction after reading this piece of news from Brickset. 

In short, it’s a US-style convention for AFOLs from 28 april to 2 May 2011 at Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Manchester, UK.  A quick calculation of the costs works out to a cool S$10K/GBP5K [flight, accommodation, loads of shopping (LEGO & non-LEGO) for 2 pax] plus a bone breaking 16 hour flight – so I won’t be there.  But if you can attend or is interested to find out more, the official site is:

http://www.afolcon.com

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“Recently announced at the Skaerbaek LEGO fan weekend, AFOLCON is a brand new event for the UK and Europe in 2011. Located in central Manchester, AFOLCON will comprise of a two day conference for Adult Fans Of LEGO, with exclusive content from LEGO, TT Games and more. After the conference days, AFOLCON will open its doors to the public for three days.

“AFOLCON is a new style of LEGO event for Europe. Based on the US style of conventions, AFOLCON will give fans the ‘inside track’ to the LEGO company and licensing partners.

“AFOLCON aims to bring the best of Billund to you! Think Comic-con, but for LEGO! The two private days will include a number of speakers, who will be showing exclusive information not available anywhere else! These include:

• LEGO set designers, showing early set mockups, designs and how a LEGO set is brought to life
• TT Games designers, detailing the process behind creating models for games such as LEGO Harry Potter and LEGO Indiana Jones

“Many more great speakers are yet to be announced. As well as getting the inside track information, AFOLCON attendees will receive a limited edition souvenir brick and a number of other special benefits throughout the whole conference including discounted LEGO!

“We want your MOCs! AFOLCON attendees are also encouraged to bring their LEGO creations to show off throughout both the private and public days. Following the private conference days, the doors will be opened to the public for a long weekend to showcase the best AFOL creations around! The public days will be widely advertised in conjunction with LEGO to encourage thousands of people to come to the show and see your LEGO creations.”

World’s Largest Star Wars LEGO Mosiac

Curious about DK’s world record breaking event/mosiac? Yeah, here you go:

Stats from Geekdad:

There were 25 rows and 60 columns in the design, making a total of 1,500 tiles (Amodlife: each ’tile’ is one green baseplate)

As they’d decided to go with the 2×2 bricks, that meant that each tile would need 256 to complete it, making a total of 384,000 bricks for the whole picture.

If they’d gone for the ‘higher resolution’ version and used all 1×1 bricks it would have needed over 1.5 million of them!

Each base plate tile is 25.5cm square, so by my (GeekDad’s) calculations the final size of the mosaic was 6.375m x 15.3m or 97.54 square metres, which beats the previous record of 80.48 metres square, held by The Toy Museum in Ohio, USA

Btw you can also play with the widget for SW minifigs mashup on DK: http://us.dk.com/static/cs/us/11/101009/widget.html
Source: GeekDad & picture from DK

Almost bought Lego from UK today

I almost bought another 2 Battle of Endor (8038) sets from Tesco Direct (UK) today.  Almost but did not cos I ran into problems with credit card payment as I did not have a UK address for credit card… (I’ve a UK Borderlinx address) 

The offer was fairly irrestible. GBP38 for a set.  Sigh. 😦

No more stock if you are curious, so I won’t even bother providing the link.

Ok, if you must know, I already have 2 sets of 8038… But I need more ewoks. Really. 😛

Giant (stackable!) Lego Boxes

I love these boxes. And the head. Must.get.many…

No idea when and where they would be available in Singapore though, anyone can help?  Lucky UK AFOLs, they will be available from Store this August…

According to homeshoppingspy, a large box will be £23, the smaller one will be £14 and the head will be £17.  And they are stackable/buildable… so if you get enough, you could actually build a small house/room out of them… or even the classic yellow castle! 😀

A quick search of amazon uk also shows them to be available: Link

The amazon site also has these goodies available: – heads in large and small size, boy and girl design, and dustbins in various colors with Lego head on the cover.