LEGO Originals Iconic WOOD Minifigure – Set 853967

LEGO Iconic Wooden Minifigure Model for creative customization! Ignites nostalgia and celebrates the brand’s heritage: the new LEGO Originals series launches with a 5: 1 scale wooden “Minifigure“. The LEGO group and the design specialists Room in Copenhagen are introducing a new range of products dedicated to fans who have a little bit of LEGO nostalgia and love playful interior design. Created in 1932 by master carpenter Ole Kirk Kristiansen, the first LEGO toys were handcrafted from wood.

His craftsmanship and attention to detail has ensured a high level of quality for the products, but when wood supplies are scarce following the Second World War, Ole has started supplementing his production with plastic toys and the rest is History of LEGO. Speaking in 1950, Ole Kirk Kristiansen said: “I have always been committed to making the most beautiful and sturdy items, and just like other carpenters I believe that the best kind of advertising is when the product promotes itself”.

“Our aim is to produce really good, solid and finely crafted work, and to ensure that LEGO products are always known for their exceptional quality“. Respecting the heritage of manufacturers of high-quality handmade wooden toys, this premium model was handcrafted from FSC-certified oak, with adjustable yellow plastic hands just like today’s LEGO Minifigures. Model measures over 7” (20 cm) high, 4” (11 cm) wide and 3” (9 cm) deep. The last LEGO product to combine wood and plastic was the Bedford Fire Truck set 1130, 60 years ago in 1959.

This 5:1 scale version of the classic LEGO minifigure is presented in a premium gift box with a 28-page booklet featuring the history of the minifigures and the story behind the development of this wooden model. Also included are inspiring examples of how LEGO designers have customized their models, as well as inspiration for accessories that fans can build using the included LEGO Bricks.

Since his arrival in 1978, over 8,000 different minifigures have been launched, not to mention the many versions the kids have created for themselves. This new edition is no exception. Owners are encouraged to unleash their creativity to decorate and personalize the minifigure in unique ways, proudly display it at home or in the office and share their creations via social media using the hashtag #LEGOOriginals.

“It has been a privilege for us to expand our collaboration with The LEGO Group and contribute to the world premiere of a new series of design classics”, explains Jacob Eberhard, CEO of Room Copenhagen. “Going back to the company’s origins and helping bring back some of the original LEGO toys in creative new ways is an exciting journey to be a part of”.

LEGO also provided the following answers to common questions:

Does it have moving parts?

The only moving parts of the LEGO Originals Wooden Minifigure are the hands. This was a conscious decision made by the product designer after exploring many iterations of the concept. The high tolerances they are able to achieve when making LEGO System mMinifigures are not possible when working with wood, so to avoid deterioration of the wooden minifigure’s joint over time and to ensure that the product adheres to their strict lines toy safety guide, limbs and head were kept static. It was also important to the LEGO Group that the plastic hands work with the LEGO System in play and thus allow for fun building the new accessories shown in the flyer.

Why are there no holes under his feet?

The LEGO Originals Wooden Minifigure was designed as a decorative model for which they had to leave holes out to ensure a stable base.

Why are his hands made of plastic?

Product quality and safety are of the utmost concern to the LEGO Group, and just like with any other LEGO product, it is absolutely critical that the LEGO Originals Wooden Minifigure meets the stringent safety requirements of the toys they operate with. Due to the subtle and therefore weaker points on the hands of the minifigures, only the plastic material used for the hands of the classic minifigures also ensures that children can play safely with this model. Wooden hands would simply break too easily and splinters could fall out, which LEGO does not allow as part of their safety rating. The union of wood and plastic is also seen as a celebration of their heritage, in fact 60 years have passed since the last launch of a product with both of these materials: this was the Bedford Fire Truck set 1130.

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LEGO Art – World Map – Set 31203

LEGO Art – World Map – Set 31203 allows you to explore our planet without leaving home. On the planisphere you can mark the places visited, but there is also the possibility to express your creativity. In the large image on the box you can see only one of the achievable compositions, in the lower part of the package, in fact, alternatives are shown. Like the other LEGO Art sets, this one can also give life to an image, this time it is not a work of art or a character, but the map of the earth, with the various continents. The construction is suitable for an adult public as it is configured as a pastime that aims to relax and amuse the mind, but also to give vent to one’s creativity.

During the construction you can listen to a themed soundtrack, simply by scanning the QR code found in the instruction booklet. The world map can be assembled by following the instructions found in the enclosed booklet, or by reinterpreting the oceans as you wish, for example by creating splashes of color or geometric designs. The plan is surrounded by a frame always made with LEGO bricks and on the back it has supports to hang it on the wall. To create the complete design, various plates must be joined, this allows you to place the area of the world you prefer at the center of the image. Moreover, thanks to bricks higher than the others, you can mark points on the map, to take into account the destinations visited or to remember those you want to explore soon. LEGO Art – World Map – Set 31203 is definitely a relaxing and challenging pastime for anyone who loves to travel. In fact, it allows you to plan new destinations or remember the beautiful experiences lived, exploring the various continents. LEGO World Map Set 31203 is suitable for ages 18+, and the number of pieces 11695. World Map measures over 15.1” (38cm) high, 21.7” (55cm) long and 6” (15cm) wide.

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Nathan Sawaya’s LEGO Sculptures – I See the World in Bricks

Nathan Sawaya is the first contemporary artist to bring LEGO, the world’s most popular toy, into the world of art as a means of expression. His works, made obsessively and meticulously, fascinate viewers for their beauty and playfulness. His ability to transform LEGO bricks into interesting figures, his devotion to scale, the perfection of color and the conceptualization of the action of matter allow him to elevate a basic toy to the status of art. Since his first solo exhibition, Sawaya’s works have attracted the attention of art critics and pop culture novices. His works have been exhibited in important art institutes around the world and hosted in the collections of important private and public collectors.

His unique sculptures and the famous traveling exhibit, “THE ART OF THE BRICK“, continue to inspire creativity and break global attendance records. Nathan Sawaya has received numerous awards and honors, recognizing his works of art and his cultural achievements. In 2014, with the belief that “Art is not optional“, Sawaya founded the “Art Revolution Foundation“, with the aim of making art a priority in our schools and homes. He has been a speaker at Google Zeitgeist, TEDx, Yahoo! and the Clinton Library. Sawaya attended New York University and worked as a corporate attorney in New York City before pursuing his dream of being an artist and working exclusively with LEGO.

Nathan Sawaya's LEGO Sculptures - Human Bust

Sawaya lives and works between her two studios in New York City and Los Angeles. Nathan Sawaya has conquered a prominent position in the world of contemporary art and created a new dimension by blending Pop Art and Surrealism in impressive and revolutionary ways. His art consists of playing with material, color, movement, light and perspective. Nathan Sawaya was born in Colville, Washington and grew up in Veneta, Oregon. He attended New York University. Since his first solo exhibition, Sawaya’s works of art have attracted the attention of art critics and pop culture enthusiasts.

Nathan Sawaya's LEGO Sculptures - Wonder Woman

Nathan stunned his colleagues when he quit his lawyer job to play LEGO full-time. Now everyone from Lady Gaga to Barack Obama is a fan of him. Nathan Sawaya describes his favorite LEGO brick, with bright eyes and a smile at the thought. But he is not a child who proudly displays a beloved toy. He is a 43-year-old former corporate attorney and is over 6 feet tall. The brick he is evangelizing on is a small 1 × 2 socket plate with a pin in the center of its top. He calls it a “Jumper“. “Do you know LEGO jargon?” He asks, looking like he is in a breakdown when I shake my head.

“He has only one pivot instead of two and allows you to do even more details. But in general, I focus on rectangular pieces“. Sawaya is 1 of 40 (2020) LEGO Master Model Builders in the World, having quit his job at a New York law firm when he was 32 to pursue full-time LEGO construction. His most striking works include a bust of a man tearing his chest with overturning bricks, called Yellow, a life-size T-Rex skeleton, a 2-meter-long model of the Brooklyn Bridge, and various replicas of famous paintings, including which the Mona Lisa, and Edvard Munch’s Scream.

Nathan Sawaya's LEGO Sculptures - Tyrannosaurus Rex

His latest builds consist of a series of DC Comics superheroes, including expressionless Supermen flying, realistically ruffling capes, and a life-sized Batmobile with shimmering batwings. Aside from his boyish enthusiasm, Sawaya himself resembles a comic book villain, a massive figure dressed in black from top to toe, with a long black overcoat, piercing eyes, and thick dark hair. At the age of thirty, when he was a lawyer, he returned home after a hard day’s work and did something creative: drawing, painting, sculpting with clay and thread. He soon began experimenting with LEGO, building models from sets he had around the house.

Nathan Sawaya's LEGO Sculptures - Superman

His son, now 17, has never been particularly interested in playing it alone. “Eventually I made the choice to leave the law firm behind and become a full-time artist who plays with toys”, he says beaming. His family was supportive, his colleagues jealous and his bosses confused, but it wasn’t long before Sawaya found success as a LEGO Artist. He has held exhibitions of his work on every continent except Antarctica and has won over some high profile fans. When he was president of the United States, Barack Obama posed for one of his installations of him, life-size monochrome men sitting on benches in Washington, and Bill Clinton has a sculpture in his office, as does Lady Gaga in a music video.

“This is the magic of LEGO“, he says of its popularity. “In a sense it has become a universal language“. Sawaya’s Master Builder status means that he can buy all of his bricks directly from LEGO in bulk, which is impossible for us LEGO civilians. At first he bought sets in toy stores and on eBay, now he can send e-mails asking for 500,000 red 2 × 4 bricks, let’s say, and LEGO ships them to him on wooden pallets. He has 6 million bricks on hand in his Los Angeles studio. “Millions of all colors, shapes and sizes“, he says. “And they are all organized by shape and color“. He works for hours at a time in his study, with his dogs obediently at his feet, in what he describes as a “trance“.

Nathan Sawaya's LEGO Sculptures - Man in the Wall

He creates designs on special “brick paper” such as graph paper, but sometimes builds freely from his imagination. “I often see the world in rectangles“, he says, and sometimes he even dreams in bricks. Just like kids do with LEGO sets, he just pops the bricks together, even as he dabs glue between the bricks, which triples the time it takes. He describes it as “therapeutic“, but he says that making a mistake can be “heartbreaking“, he can lose days and weeks of work at a time. “Sometimes I can start questioning my choices in life”, he smiles. Sawaya faced the snobbishness of the art world when he started approaching galleries as a LEGO artist. “Oh, are they cars, trucks and little castles?”, was the answer.

He feels that it is now a more accepted medium. “It makes art accessible“, he says. And in doing so, he democratizes the world of art a little. It allows people to relate to art. Everyone popped a couple of bricks together at one point, every kid played a little bit with LEGO. “As an artist, my role is to inspire. And what better way to do it than through a medium that everyone knows? If someone sees a marble statue, he can appreciate it, but very few people have marble at home, and it can crumble”. The first LEGO creation Sawaya remembers making was a playhouse when he was first given the toy at the age of 5. He then created a city that has grown to 10 square meters.

Nathan Sawaya's LEGO Sculptures - Batmobile

When he was 10, he was desperate for a dog. His parents refused, so he destroyed all of his buildings and made his own life-sized dog out of LEGO. “Of course it was very colorful and very nice”, he says. “But that was when I realized I didn’t have to build what I saw in the front of the box. It can be what I want“.

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LEGO MOC Imperial Base on Daro – Star Wars: The Bad Batch LEGO MOC

LEGO MOC Imperial Base on Daro

Solid Brix, a.k.a. David Hall, recently posted this video to his YouTube channel. The video features a time-lapse look at Hall as he assembles the monster LEGO diorama, which aims to capture the essence of Daro from Star Wars: The Bad Batch. A 100,000 piece LEGO Star Wars diorama build in only 30 days. Although the 6-minute time-lapse feels brief, it’s easy to imagine how difficult the task was for Hall. The massive diorama measures 6 feet / 1,8 meters in length and looks like it’s almost nearly as wide. It’s hard to know where to begin in describing Hall’s Bad Batch MOC as every facet of it is essentially impeccable. Dozens of trees with bark, roots, branches, and leaves abound, and the greebling on the rock faces is simply chef’s kiss. Really though, imagine the sense of satisfaction one gets from making such “realistic” geological features. Along with the natural features, Hall’s MOC also has a hidden, underground Stormtrooper lair. And not only does it contrast with the nature scene above it in a perfectly Star Wars kind of way, but it also lights up in the dark. Along with the ships that hang above the huge diorama.

Daro was a forested rocky planet situated in the Outer Rim Territories. Though data claimed that the planet contained no settlements or installations, the Galactic Empire maintained a secret military base within a mountain on Daro in the time shortly after the regime’s formation, where troopers were recruited as part of Project War-Mantle. One of the clone trooper instructors, Gregor, attempted to desert from the facility on Daro and was captured, but not before sending a distress signal to fellow clone deserter Rex, who dispatched the unit of former clone commandos known as the Bad Batch to rescue him. The Bad Batch managed to break Gregor out of imprisonment, but the leader of the unit, Hunter, failed to escape the base and was taken prisoner. Daro was a terrestrial planet in the Outer Rim Territories. It had a forested landscape dotted with roughly cylindrical mountains of varying size.

Its atmosphere was breathable to humans, and fauna included carrier butterflies. Daro’s plant life included trees, as well as grass and ferns. Although Daro was officially uninhabited, the Galactic Empire had a secret training facility located inside one of the planet’s mountains shortly after its formation. The base was highly defensible and difficult to escape, with only 2 ways in or out, only one of which was accessible on foot. The Imperial Base on Daro was a secret Galactic Empire training building hidden inside of a mountain, the base was situated around a large central ring, with turbolifts that connected to each level. It had several hangars, and its muster report included 50 Clone Imperial Commandos and 1,000 TK Troopers. Shortly after the Empire’s formation, the rogue clone commandos known as the Bad Batch entered the base to rescue Gregor, a commando who had attempted to desert from the facility.

LEGO MOC Imperial Base on Daro - Star Wars: The Bad Batch LEGO MOC

Star Wars: The Bad Batch is an American animated series created by Dave Filoni for the streaming service Disney+. It is part of the Star Wars franchise, acting as both a sequel to, and spin-off from, the series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Clone Force 99, also known as the Bad Batch, a group of elite clone troopers with genetic mutations that were first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, take on daring mercenary missions in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. The first season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch premiered on May 4, 2021, and ran for 16 episodes until August 13. A second season is set to premiere in 2022.

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LEGO Walls – Dante Dentoni’s LEGO Walls – LEGO Art

There are few universal truths. One of them is that everyone loves LEGO constructions. There is something about the colored bricks that makes adults become children again. It rekindles the imagination and knows no language barriers. A video of intricate LEGO installations in a Miami club owner’s home went viral. The work features a stripper dancing on a pole, a series of bathroom booths and a unique version of the cover of a N.W.A.

Dante Dentoni‘s pop-art works also draw inspiration from cultural artifacts from the past. His Instagram bio of him offers a little insight into his work, “I create art in difficult places“, he says, which is exactly what he does. The pieces are often housed in broken walls and fill in cracks as if the house itself is decaying and revealing its foundation of colorful LEGO bricks. Seeing his installations emerge from the walls is like being brought back to our childhood by a time machine.

The small narrative plots are like a vision of past, future and parallel lives to ours. LEGO minifigures seem to exist in their ideal world with their own dynamics, following their daily lives behind the facades we have built. We imagine rats, mice and spiders, but when we see them in the form of LEGO minifigures, our existence seems to become much safer. Our childhood moves with us. Something that resonates in all of his creations of him is the positivity that Dante expresses in what he does.

It is fun, uplifting and transformative, both for the artist and for us viewers. Dentoni clearly loves what he does and this echoes in his installations himself which at the same time draw a substantial part of our fascination to them. By making themselves observed, they offer us a strange and incredible sensation of beauty and elegance. A former carpenter applied his skills to his new medium of expression (LEGO), giving him the upper hand in perspectives and thus enabling him to beautify homes with his work.

Being a bit classically trained in working with his own hands, he employs the discipline of a construction worker and an incredible attention to the details of his artistic tendencies. To allow his ideas to manifest themselves, he must have an understanding of the structural nuances of the buildings he works on. It is a relatively complex process that requires exact measurements and the ability to work within the physical boundaries set by each specific wall.

Dante has thus allowed his whole life to sharpen up to a certain point, the point is exactly that (2019). His childhood in Argentina drastically shaped what he did later in life. That LEGO excitement clearly never went away. It’s something so profound in his life that he took it upon himself to share it with others. As his pieces become more and more ambitious, he pushes himself and his clients to try more new things.

Part of the power of his works lies in the fact that the pieces are collaborative with each other and also that, as anyone who has ever played with LEGO will know, there is no limit to what we can do, as long as there are enough bricks to do it. New challenges arise from new opportunities. The artist has a constantly evolving and so unique style, giving us excellent clues as to where he is going: we are invited together on his journey. For now, I can’t wait to see what will come after Dante Dentoni.