Set Review - #71045 - Series 25 - Collectible Minifigures

It’s series 25 already! How crazy is that? This batch was released 1 January 2024 and they are still $4.99 each. Individual minifigures are #71045 or you can purchase the box of six with set #66763. There are scannable codes on the boxes to tell which minifigures are inside so it should prevent the boxes from getting broken into like we saw with the last version. I’m more of a fan of the non-licensed versions that they produce so let’s take a look at this round.

First, a picture of the boxes of six. Nothing super exciting.

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My kids helped me put these together and they saw the fish with the Film Noir Detective and couldn’t figure out why it was there? Does it matter? This one is a fun concept and I’ve already seen a MOC or two posted using the minifigure as a main character.

Not our first gamer, but the E-Sports Gamer comes decked out with the most gear to include headphones, a controller, a keyboard, and the trophy.

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Everything castle seems to be popular lately so we’ll see if this one joins that party. the translucent red ax blades are pretty cool. I doubt Vampire Knight will be a new sub theme, but it’s pretty creative.

We’ve had numerous Olympians before. The Sprinter here is different as he has prosthetics on.

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Goatherd. Is everyone happy now? There’s a goat. I’m not sure why everyone is so excited about this goat, but it’s here. I hope you all can get some sleep at night now.

The Mushroom Sprite is very fun. The mushroom cap is a fun detail and you get a colorful butterfly as well.

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The Fitness Instructor comes equipped with a kettle bell, fitness drink, and printed abs. She looks like she could kick any minifigure’s butt.

The Triceratops Costume Fan is great. Could go well with the new Natural History Museum modular or maybe as a Jurassic Park visitor.

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Harpy is… um… what is it? Wings, claws, purple hair… okay?

Train Kid is fun with the costume similar to past boat and plane characters. We weren’t sure why he has an eye patch on. I assume he has an injury that he’s healing from. The printed part on the front of the train piece is a nice detail. You get two in the bag so figure out how to use the extra one.

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The Fierce Barbarian could be a good addition to a Viking Village. This is not the first time we’ve had a barbarian if you can remember back to Series 17. If you have the previous one, you can now grow your barbarian horde.

Lastly, we have a Pet Groomer. This one comes with a dog that I don’t think we’ve gotten before. The minifigure has a dual printed face and the apron is printed on the torso and legs.

There you go…Happy hunting!

Rumored Space Collectible Minifigure Series

Okay so everything you read on the internet isn’t 100% true, but recently the rumor going around is that LEGO will release a space themed collectible minifigure series soon. After the Disney 100 series retires, we’ll have Marvel Studios series 2, then Series 25, and then a supposed space series in 2024. No one knows that that means yet. Will it be a CITY space themed series? Or Classic Space? Or a mixture of multiple space themes? Or a bunch of alien minifigures?

If I had to guess, based on the recent success of the Classic Space minifigures showing up in #10497-1: Galaxy Explorer, #40580-1: Blacktron Cruiser, and the brown Classic Space minifigure with space baby showing up in #71037: Series 24, I would think LEGO will cater to the fans with more of the same.

So what does that mean? Let’s take a trip down LEGO Space memory lane to discuss what we might see in this release…

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Classic Space

We have seen a lot of Classic Space minifigures return in different colors and sizes. I suspect that we would see at least one new Classic Space minifigure and hopefully it will be in a color that we don’t have. What’s left anyways?

Side note… I forgot I even had this one. Other than the dust, it looks pretty good. The helmet doesn’t have a crack and the logo is still there. Nice!

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Space Police

The first version of space police looks similar to Futuron, but has a red face shield on the helmet. The re-boot a few years later added some different colors and printing on the faces. We already saw a Space police minifigure in #71029: Series 21 Collectible Minifigures, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them appear again.

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Blacktron

Blacktron I and II have reappeared with the Blacktron Cruiser GWP recently. Maybe we’ll get a new Blacktron II minifigure? I like the jet pack suit. Maybe another one will show up?

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Futuron

Futuron is kind of an upgraded Classic Space series. I enjoyed some of the tools they came with and it would be fun to see a new one, but I’m not sure we’ll be getting another one considering the popularity of Classic Space and how similar these look.

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M-Tron

Please bring M-Tron back in the CMF series!!!!! I was a huge fan as a kid and still am. The magnets in the sets were fun to play with and I wouldn’t mind adding to my M-Tron stash.

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Ice Planet 2002

Ice Planet brought a new theme with new helmet visors, printed faces, and lots of translucent orange pieces. It would be awesome to see these guys re-appear. Maybe some girl space figures?

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Spyrius, Unitron

I forgot I had these guys. I picked them up right before I entered my “Dark Age.” They had some printing on their faces and different looks, but the theme wasn’t really a standout. I doubt we’ll see either of these guys make a return.

Edible Minifigures

My NLS (Non-Lego Spouse) isn’t a huge brick fan, but she is very artistically talented. When my son asked for LEGO themed cookies for his birthday, using some cookie cutters we were gifted, she took the challenge on. She used our sugar cookie recipe that we usually use for Christmas cookies and got some made some royal icing (I was not aware of royal icing… she made a frosting and added special food coloring to it).. We’ve made these sugar cookies before so I knew they were good and usually you can’t go wrong with frosting, but they just look so fun!

The gift we were given came with three cookie cutters. One was a full minifigure, one was a minifigure head, and the other was a 1x4 brick. The full minifigure had issues with the hands. They were just too thin to last and either broke off while cutting the dough, while cooking, or when they were removed from the cookie tray. Other than that, there weren’t issues. Before I go on, I did a search and apparently these were from Target. It doesn’t look like they are available anymore, but you can find them online at places like eBay if you still want them.

For the icing, my NLS found examples online of various faces and went to work. She did an awesome job! She tried adding a black outline to show texture on one of the full minifigures (above) and one of the bricks below, but it was a lot of work, for not much gained. In the end, the main customer was very satisfied and everyone enjoyed devouring minifigures.

Here’s a few more of the heads and full minifigures.

Here are a few more of the 1x4 bricks.. You can see the one she outlined in black icing. I don’t think it added much to the look in my opinion.

Have you made these before? We enjoy them.

Happy eating and building!

The LEGO® House: Experience Zones (Part 1)

There are multiple ways to leave the Masterpiece Gallery and you can go into the different Experience Zones which are color coded (green, blue, red, and yellow). If you want a full up tour, there are plenty of videos on YouTube that show you everything. I will just go through the experiences my family and I had in each area.

So not in any particular order…

The green zone has a character creator section where you there are a number of bins of minifigure parts. Besides legs, torsos, craniums, and hats/hair, there are also a lot of accessories. There was everything from weapons to skate boards to foods. It actually made the task of building a minifigure rather daunting as there were so many options to choose from.

Once you build your minifigure, you can go over to the kiosk, scan your wrist band, and then it asks you to put your minifigure into the background. It takes a picture of it and then you can pick from a number of magazine backgrounds. My skiing, bread holding, mug holding minifigure with a green hat is on “MINI” magazine for being the “minifigure of the year.”

A few notes:
-You can take as many pictures at the kiosks as you want. I originally thought it was limited and if you took one, it would erase the last one. In actuality, it stores them all and then you can download them all through the LEGO House app after your visit. I think my 5-year old took around 8 pictures of minifigures.
-In the character creator area, they have a number of spots with various base plates set down. This allows you to create a whole bunch of minifigures and place them down. A few people made full armies of the same minifigure. Some just made random groups.

Also in the green zone is the Story Lab. This section allows you to make your own stop motion movie. There are about 20 stations or so and on the day I went, there was no line. If there is a line, don’t worry as they limit you to 20 minutes. I was told that if I needed more time they would give it to me since there wasn’t a line.

You watch a short video at the beginning that explains how it works and then you get to it. There are 3 cameras and you take pictures based on what part of the scene you are working. They also have a few special effects that you can throw in.

My 5-year old and I focused on using just one camera in the center of the scene. A tip for everyone… we had too much going on. We wanted to use all of the vehicles and people they gave us so it took too long to adjust everything. At the end of 20 minutes, we had only taken maybe 25 shots so our video was very short. I recommend focusing on moving just 1 or 2 things each frame. Still, it was a lot of fun. In the end, you get to see your video. They add an intro in, you get to select your title, and at the end your name(s) are in the credits. Since my kid and I both worked on it, the credits used me as the producer and my kid as the director and so on.

Your video is tied to your wristband. The worker scans your wristband with a phone to log you in and the video gets saved for downloading later. So don’t worry, you can keep it forever!

Next in the green zone is the World Explorer section. For this section, the kiosk is tied to a bunch of small cameras set up inside of some giant brick built displays. You can rotate the camera and it puts you (a minifigure you) in the scene wherever you take the picture. Then you get a scrap book of all of the pictures you took.

I only did the scrap book thing once as I spent most of my time just looking at the scenes. They are packed with detail, creativity, and humor. If you look closely, you can see a lot of fun things that designers did. Every few minutes, the scene changes to night time and it lights up. Then it switches back to daytime and the lights go off.

A giant ship yard at night

In the center of the shot is a cinema. I like the Octan logo on the building to the top left. It’s also pretty cool how all of the cars have lights that light up to include even the smallest ones.

Another part of the CITY.

The billboard says “got bricks?”

The city again at night

The city in the daytime.

Mountain scene with a castle on top.

The city area with some skyscrapers.

There is a screen with a view from the front of a train going through the city. The odd part was that the train wasn’t even running so it’s obviously pre-recorded.

The English Pub. You’ll notice the minifigure coming out of the pub has a LEGO logo on it. If you watch the video by “What’s Inside,” they interview Stuart Harris who at the time was the Senior Experience Designer at the LEGO® House. He points out his minifigure and we learn that if you work at LEGO, your calling card is your own personalized minifigure. We found another 2-3 of these minifigures throughout the display to include one that was bungee jumping.

The beach, forest, volcano, amusement park scene.

A better shot of the volcano and Fabuland park with a giant fish that the minifigures can explore.

Throughout the LEGO® House, there are numerous display cases with various MOCs inside. Most have signs next to them (like these) that say who built it and where they are from. Some are just items built in one of the Experience Zones that were left and someone at the LEGO® House decided to display them.

Here are a few pictures of fan models. They are covered in glass so I apologize for the reflections you see.

Some small scenes with minifigures

A brick built LEGO museum

A brick built ad for “The LEGO Movie”

Onto the yellow zone… first up was the critter creator. You can build some sort of creature to live in the brick vegetation. There is also section (that I didn’t take a picture of) where you can build creatures and they go on a table. Every few minutes the table lights up, music plays, and it vibrates. The workers said the game is to start your figure on the outside and see if you can race someone else to the center of the table. My 5-year old just enjoyed dancing to the music and we have a video of one of the workers dancing along. You can also race your creatures down a slope with these snake things that move. We didn’t have as much luck with this section.

Here is my critter

A view looking back… you can see the slope where you can race critters down past the snake things and a build area.

Here is the picture I took of my critter at the kiosk

Next in the yellow zone is a Flower Artist section. This section was made up of various yellow pieces to make flowers. They have most of the stems pre-made and then you just create what you want. It was interesting to see what people came up with based on the bricks available. I pictured my flower below. If you go to the LEGO® House website, you’ll see that they are building with colored bricks so they must switch out the bricks after a while so you can build different types of flowers.

Also, be sure to look up while you are there as they are some brick built butterflies flying overhead while you build the flowers.

Next in the Yellow Zone is the Fish Designer. You build a sea creature out of bricks that fits in a specified space, you scan it in, you pick out digital eyes and a mouth, and then on the screen, you watch your fish swim through a pipe into a big fish tank. My 5-year old enjoyed this section the best. We may have around 30 pictures of various sea creatures from my kid.

My fish on the screen swimming through the tank.

One of the many my 5-year old built. This one is an eel.

My fish from the picture the kiosk gives you. The scan didn’t catch all of the angles very well so my tail shows just as a 1x1 brick versus a slope.

One thing I did not capture is the DUPLO® contributions. In going to the LEGO® House, we were concerned that my 2-year old would not have much to do. We figured that my NSL or I would have to hang with the younger kiddo while the other one went around with the older one. We were proven wrong. It seemed like every zone had a DUPLO® play area. The yellow zone had the LEGO® DUPLO® Mood Builder section. They had some stop motion videos playing of Simon the Snail and a few other creatures and they change their emotions based on what happened. Then in a giant pile, you could build your own creature with various faces/emotions. Most importantly, the younger kiddo could play while the older kiddo played. This worked out great! I have some pictures of the other DUPLO® sections that I will post in part 2.

My wrap up for this first post… what a great experience! The activities were great for kids, but even as an adult I enjoyed them. I do wish I had more time to look at all of the fan-built MOCs throughout the Experience Zones, but kiddos don’t want to do that when there are all sorts of fun activities to do. I’ll post more on the Experience Zones soon. In the meantime, happy building!

Set Review - #71023 - LEGO Minifigures - The LEGO Movie 2

I fully admit, I am way late to the game with this review. All of the major fan sites have released their Disney series 2 collectible minifigure reviews and here I am just wrapping up the previous set. Better late than never I guess.

This set was released on 1 February 2019 in the US. It takes me a little over a month to get small packages (read USPS Retail Ground) over here in Germany so hence the delay. I don’t want to pay the exchange rate and VAT here so I wait for the cheaper minfigures I order from the US. Like previous Collectible Minifigures, these are $3.99 per bag. There are 20 minifigures total in the series.

A few changes this time:
-The size of the bag the minifigures come in is slightly larger in size from previous versions.
-A number of the figures have a clear plastic bag with parts inside the main bag. In most cases, the minifigure itself was in the clear plastic bag. Then that was inside the main bag with the instructions and any accessories on the main bag.
-The instruction sheet and minifigure picture list is folded up much smaller.
-This is just from my limited experience, but in the orders I placed with Shop @ Home, they all arrived with a wider variety of minifigures. In the past, I’d open up the first 10 or so and already have a lot of duplicates. This time I felt like I’d open up 10 and they were all different. I’m curious if LEGO made an effort to disperse the minifigures a little more or if it was just by chance with my orders.
-The base piece is white. While not the first time it’s been different from the black bases, it is the first time it’s been in white.

Onto the minifigures…. and keep in mind that I have still NOT seen the movie as of the writing of this post. Hopefully that doesn’t qualify me for banishment from the AFOL community.

Hula Lula is the minifigure with the light green hair. She has a vinyl record and a microphone. Her grass skirt is a fabric piece that you have to insert into the leg studs while assembling her.

Candy Rapper has pink hair and is holding a microphone and cassette tape. She has the skirt similar to many others. She’s also giving an eye wink. I’m a fan of the different colored hair pieces on both of these minifigures.

Kitty Pop comes with a guitar and microphone. Her hair piece has ears and she has a tail.

Flashback Lucy has a microphone and gold record award plaque for “Everything is Awesome.”

Apocalypseburg Abe has the steampunk look and comes with an ax. His outfit is pretty creative and i like the goggles attached to his top hat.

Sherry Scratchen-Post & Scarfield are repeats from the first LEGO Movie minifigure series only in Apocalypseburg style this time. Scarfield’s mohawk haircut style is great.

Again, I have yet to see the movie yet so I don’t know why the “Wizard of Oz” crew is in this series, but we have the Cowardly Lion with his bravery award and the Tin Man holding his ax and his heart.

And then we have the Scarecrow with his certificate and then Dorothy Gale & Toto.

Awesome Remix Emmet with his overpriced coffee, smart phone, and headphones.

Vest Friend Rex comes with his mini-velociraptor.

Gone Golfin’ President Business has the standard yellow hand and then a hand with what I assume would be a golfing glove. I’m waiting for someone to make a golf course with the club from this minifigure. Or maybe a mini golf putt-putt course

Apocalypse Benny has a mech arm and a tool box. Other than that he looks the same as the last movie.

Battle-Ready Lucy has a brown hood with goggles. She has some arrows in her quiver and is holding binoculars.

Uni Kitty comes in her happy form versus Angry Kitty.

Swamp Creature is holding a whip and has a fun print on his chest. The head piece is pretty cool too.

Watermelon Dude is holding a slice of melon and has an over-sized slice on his head. This one ranks right up there with many of the costumed minifigures from past sets.

And finally, more costumed minifigures!

Giraffe Guy is holding some leaves and has a giant giraffe head costume on.

Crayon Girl is holding a 2x2 tile drawing of a minifigure head.

Both of these are great. I’m a big fan of all of the costumed minifigures. I think it’s partially because you can easily mix them into a larger city scene display as Easter Eggs for people to find.

Overall, I think LEGO didn’t disappoint with this series. The characters from the original series were done up well, the Apocalypseburg style is fun, the costumed characters are a win in my book, and the “Wizard of Oz” gang look pretty good too. My preference is the more free form Collectible Minifigure Series sets versus the ones attached to a licensed theme, but I think this time LEGO did a good job of matching the theme and giving the fans a bit more.

I’ll be back (late) with the Disney Series 2 in a few months!

Happy building!

3 LEGO Orders for the Price of 2 (almost)

I placed a few orders recently for some LEGO Batman Movie Collectible Minifigures and encountered an interesting situation.  The goal was to get polybag 30607 Disco Batman and Tears of Batman.  I also wanted to add some more of the minifigures to the store.  I placed 2 orders for 19 minifigures each.  That put me over the $75 minimum to get the polybag, ensured free shipping, and got me a Batman Poster.  Sweet!

A few days later the first of the 2 orders arrived.  The next day, 2 more packages arrived.  I opened them up and LEGO sent me a duplicate of one of the orders.  SCORE!  Free minifigures!  3 orders for the price of 2.  WOOHOO!!!

And then my conscience got the best of me.  I (sadly) emailed LEGO customer service to tell them of what happened.  The first response back said that I could return one of the 2 orders I placed for a refund.  So I emailed again and said that I wanted to keep my 2, but didn't want to pay for the third.  Could I keep it anyways?  In my mind I was like, "Yeah right!  They won't let that happen."  As a seller of LEGO, I would feel terrible if I made a mistake like that and would want someone to let me know what happened.  The next customer service rep emailed me back, thanked me for my honesty, and sent me a free shipping label.  So I ended up not keeping the extra 19 minifigures, extra bonus set, and poster.  I did however do the feel test on the bags and ended up swapping out a few that I didn't want for some that I did want.  I didn't think that was wrong to do as they all have the same price, right?  

With that being said, I have not seen the new LEGO Batman Movie yet.  Have you?  What did you think if you saw it already?

Oh and if you want one of the LEGO Batman Movie posters that I got, just place an order at my BrickLink or Brick Classifieds store and I'll include it for free if you mention this post.

Set Review - Series 15 Collectible Minifigures - #71011

I originally thought the LEGO collectible minifigures were just a rip off.  You have to hope that you can collect all 16 and you don't know what is int he bags... or maybe you're good at feeling through the packaging to figure out which minifig it is.  I avoided them and then one day while walking through a Walmart I decided to pick up a few just for fun.  From there it was all downhill.  I was hooked.  I had to get all 16 of each release... and the rest is history.

These minifigs were released in January 2016 and LEGO typically keeps them out for 3-4 months (although it usually depends on order and stock levels).  The cost is $3.99 each so buying large amount and hoping to get them all can get expensive.  So what are they?

While I'm not an expert on collectible minifigures, there aren't too many that come with animals.  There are a few the come with cats or dogs, but I think this is the first one with a pig.

As a kid I was a huge fan of all the space sets.  I miss the regular stream of creative space items being pumped out.  Thankfully, the LEGO company has released a few cool sets like the Exo Suit that come close.  This minifig sporting the classic space flag is awesome.

There is a knight in this set to add to your castle collection or maybe to terrorize your city.

Clumsy Guy is a first as far as I know.  I don't ever recall there being a set of LEGO crutches out there.  The banana peel on the shirt is new and different too.

There have been a few Native American minifigs in the collectible minifig sets to include this one.  This one is a first because the minifig has a baby that is wrapped up that she can either wear on her back in a pack or hold in her hand.

I'm not sure where this one was designed from, but it's interesting looking.

In my second order from LEGO, I received the faun.  It definitely looks like he fits into a famous CS Lewis book.

Series 9 Collectible Minifigs came with a plumber.  This one comes with a janitor.  I don't think I have seen this mop design before in another set.

If the pig wasn't good enough, having a skunk in the same series is awesome too.

The ballerina!

This is not the first mech to show up in the collectible minifigure world.  There is the Battle Mech from Series 9 and then the Evil Mech from Series 11.

I think the swords that come with the Kendo Fighter are new.  Has anyone see these before?

When the first pictures were released by LEGO, everyone knew that shark guy would be popular.  This shark looks very similar to the dancer made famous during the 2015 Super Bowl half time show with Katy Perry.

The Wrestling Champion looks pretty tough... except for the sky blue eye paint.

Keep your jewels safe from this minifig!

The queen goes along with the Classic King from series 13.  I haven't seen a dress like this before on a minifig so I think this is a new piece.

Bricks for Pencils of Promise

Bricks for Bricks is always looking for local groups to help out with, but we've decided to support some larger groups as well since our online sales will not always be from people in the local area.  With that being said, the first group we have decided to support is Pencils of Promise.  Have you ever heard of it?  Pencils of Promise was founded in October 2008 by Adam Braun.  While traveling in India, he asked a boy what he wanted most in the world.  The boy responded that he wanted a pencil.  Adam handed the boy a pencil and so it began.  Since then, Adam put together a team that collects funds to build schools in Guatemala, Ghana, Laos, and Nicaragua.  Besides building schools (329 finished since 2009), they provide support to teachers, water and health programs for the school, and scholarships for students.  If you want to see more about them, you can visit the Pencils of Promise site here.  

So what's the plan?  Bricks for Bricks is focused on giving back.  In the past year or so of operations, we've given a small amount of funds to various local groups by participating in sales at their fundraising events.  Now that we're selling online, it's time to reach out to help a wider audience.  Why not help people around the world?  So here is the announcement...

Starting today, 24 January 2016, bricks for bricks will be giving 15% of our profits to Pencils of Promise.

Pencils of Promise lists a number of goal amounts:
-$25 provides educational opportunities for 1 student
-$500 supports a teacher
-$10,000 provides a WASH (Water Sanitation, and Hygiene) for a school
-$25,000 builds a Pencils of Promise school

So what can we do?  Support a few students?  Support a classroom of students?  Support the class and their teacher?  Keep the class healthy?  Build a school?

What can you do?  Just check out our STORE and get the minifigures you were looking for.  We'll track our profits and give 15% to Pencils of Promise.  Simple as that.  No extra work required.

One other bonus...

Starting today until our supply is exhausted, we'll give a free brick separator to anyone making a purchase of $25 or more.

Brick separators are sold by LEGO for $2.49.

250 million children worldwide lack basic reading, writing, and math skills.  Together we can change that.  Every purchase can help make a difference.  Thank you for your support!