Category: Toys

LEGO Dagobah

August 7, 2022

In the previous post I referred to a pile of unopened LEGO kits in our house; it was time to make one. This one:

For me, this is the best of the three Star Wars dioramas they have released and I bought it as soon as I saw it a few weeks ago. And apparently it jumped to the front of the line as far as assembling kits goes 🙂

Here’s what was inside:

Exactly 1000 pieces apparently. When I opened it I didn’t pay too much attention to bag #3, but more on that later…

As with most LEGO kits these days it is built in stages, and the pieces for each stage are collected together in the same bags. This makes the build easy and fairly fast (in total it took me about 3 hours).

For the first few steps it feels like building a mosaic, with a lot of small pieces going into the flat base. And then you reach bag 3 and this step in the manual:

Yep, place 177 flat 1×1 transparent green tiles! I think this must be the largest amount of pieces I’ve seen in a single LEGO step! Thankfully the bag contained exactly 177 tiles and it was easy:

The next step built most of Yoda’s house:

What you can’t see is a cute touch: there’s a lightsaber hidden in the ‘attic’. While this obviously wasn’t in the movie (The Empire Strikes Back) it’s reasonable to assume he had it with him when he fled to Dagobah!

After the final steps – adding trees and the X-Wing – the diorama is complete. And it looks great! Here’s a detail of Luke ‘do or do not-ing’:

What an amateur he was in those days… he couldn’t even lift an X-Wing 😉

This is the ideal sort of LEGO kit for someone like me that makes these and displays them on shelves. I like it even more than I thought I would and am now considering the other two. And with so many iconic scenes in the Star Wars films I expect there’ll be more dioramas on the way.

Lion Knight’s Castle

August 3, 2022

Back in 1978 LEGO released their first castle set, and we got it for Christmas not long afterwards. We had loads of LEGO in those days, but this set was always my favourite:

I loved all the mini figures, the drawbridge and the way the walls were hinged and the entire castle opened up for play. In time both Bernard and I could make this even without the instructions, and I remember playing with it for years. Since then I’ve always had nostalgia for LEGO castle sets, and despite a few others being released over the decades none wowed me like the original set ever did.

Until now!

This is Lion Knight’s Castle, a new set inspired by the 1978 classic castle that also incorporates elements from newer sets. It’s massive, with 22 minifigs and the level of detail we expect from LEGO sets these days (like the blacksmith). It was only revealed a few weeks ago and came out today for VIP members. I had to have it, and was at the LEGO store before it opened.

To my amazement there was a line, and a longish one at that! I was at the store just this past Monday (to get the Atari set) and had walked right in and bought what I wanted without a wait. What was going on?

It quickly became obvious this was a line for the castle. They let us in and there were very few sets to be seen, and I immediately sensed anxiety. Not just me (about 8th in line) but everyone was wondering if they had enough to go around? Very quickly the manager assured us did, and apologized for the fact it would take a while since only one register was working. It would be a slow process.

As I patiently waited my turn – and they were bringing castles out from the back room at this point – the line continued to lengthen behind me. A few people were grabbing other sets (but not the new Sanctum Santorum or Atari VCS, both of which were sold out) but everyone was there for the castle. It was a diverse line, with people of all ages, genders and colours. And here I thought only guys my age would be this excited about a nostalgic set 🙂

Before I got to the register the line was out the door, and as I paid and left I heard the woman at the door tell a customer they were sold out of castles and not sure when they’d get more. I believe they only got about 20 based on what I counted, and they’d sold them all at $400 in under half an hour! From what others in line were saying it sold out online almost immediately as well. Now we know why LEGO continues to make such big and pricey sets.

Here’s my castle. It’s the biggest set I’ve ever owned both by box size and piece count (over 4500) and quite a beast to pick up. Now I own it of course I’ll need to make it, but given there’s a bunch of other sets in this house waiting to be built it’ll probably be a while.

When I do, I’ll definitely blog it 🙂

Bird of Paradise

May 10, 2022

It’s time for a new LEGO kit:

This is the third in their ‘botanical’ series, and as a child of the jungle myself, naturally this called to me!

It’s the biggest of the botanical kits so far, mostly because (unlike the flower bouquet) it comes with a pot.

It also came with a number of tiny (~ 5 mm) golden rings. These are dazzling, and apparently somewhat special (the kit mentions it has more of them than any other LEGO kit) but they are embedded inside the pot and you can’t even see them in the finished product!

The pot is dense and heavy, and wouldn’t be fun to dismantle. Obviously the bulk is required to prevent the piece from falling over when made.

The stalks are made from smaller pieces joined together, rather than very long axles, and therefore the plant would be very customizable. I followed the instructions perfectly 🙂

Speaking of which this was a very easy kit to make, even if you’ve not done LEGO before. It was a pleasant build as we watched Japan walking videos on YouTube, and dreamed of our next visit to Japan…

Doesn’t this resemble the real thing!?! I expect as I scampered around the dense jungles of my place of birth I saw these flowers often as I listened to the singing of real life birds of paradise!

The last step was to add the soil, which was hundreds of small brown circular pieces. I expect if you bought enough of these it would make good cat litter.

And here’s the finished piece! It’s lovely isn’t it? It’s also very large, but looks great on a mantle. As with the other two botanicals, I think this one will find a permanent position in our home.

Robot Claw