Do you want to show your passion for LEGO in all circumstances? You need one of these watches ...

ClickTime, which also produces the alarm clocks in the shape of giant minifigs, has just announced the effective availability of the entire range of officially licensed LEGO adult watches that I told you about in early October.

There are many models on offer and I find it to be rather expensive (£ 79 to £ 145) for a plastic watch made in China, even fitted with a Japanese mechanism, mineral glass and water resistant to 100m .

It is possible to order on the ClicTime website (See the online catalog) and to be delivered before Christmas, even if many models are already out of stock. As we say, when we love we don't count ...

Today we very quickly go around the content of the LEGO DREAMZzz set 71460 Mr. Oz's Spacebus, a box of 878 pieces currently available at the public price of 99.99 € on the official online store and a little cheaper elsewhere, for example at Amazon.

So we're assembling a space bus here, which is a slightly wacky cross between a classic (American) school bus and a spaceship. The craft is piloted by Mr. Oz, the real-life science teacher who becomes a Dream Chaser in the world of dreams. An entire program. If you still haven't understood the concept, go see the third episode of the first season of the animated series which is used to sell these derivative products, you will see the first appearance of this ship which comes to embark the young heroes. You will discover in passing that the LEGO version is not extremely faithful to the reference ship but we are starting to get used to it in this range.

The main lines of the ship are indeed there, but many details are overlooked or are ultra-simplified, no doubt to respect the constraints of inventory and price of the product. The colors used on the LEGO version are however not the right ones, and that's a shame. the ship seen on the screen is gray with blue accents, it is not white, and LEGO does not offer us landing gear or a properly fitted interior or an access ladder to the central compartment, the latter being vaguely embodied by a sticker.

If we leave aside the reference machine, this LEGO version remains a nice product that is fun to assemble. The crossover between a school bus and a starship Classic Space is fun and should appeal to both the youngest and nostalgic adults who will not remain insensitive to the use of the recognizable logo among a thousand, here revisited with the addition of the hourglass of Dream Chasers. LEGO had warned during the official announcement of the range, the latter was going to draw from many universes of the manufacturer and this box is no exception.

The spaceship is quickly assembled, it comes with a small exploration vehicle to store in the hold at the back and LEGO offers, as usual in this range, two possibilities of evolution of the cabin to choose from in the pages end of the instruction booklet. The first allows you to equip the ship with two reactors and guns placed at the end of the wings with a very small handful of parts that remain on the desk at the end of assembly, the second proposes to keep only a large central reactor and to use the rest of the inventory to assemble two additional small ships. In this second case, the handful of unused parts is a little larger but nothing comparable to what sets in the Creator 3-in1 range usually leave behind.

The sheet of stickers provided is impressive, but it is at the cost of using these stickers that the ship takes shape and regains some color. Without this skin, it's a little too sad and the youngest should probably get a little help not to disfigure their new favorite spaceship. There are a few small unused thumbnails left at the end of the assembly, it's up to you to customize your construction with them, they're there for that.

The endowment of figurines provided in this box sold for 100 € may seem substantial at first sight but there are actually only two "real" minifigs, those of Mateo and Professor Mr Oz. All the rest of the cast is made up of a few small figurines including the monkey Albert, Logan, Z-Blob and a handful of minions in the service of the King of Nightmares. However, variety is required with different accessories for each of the creatures, even if the character does not even stand up while collapsing under the weight of the additional elements. On arrival, it's still frankly meager in terms of minifigs, one or two more would have made it easier to pass the pill of the public price of the product.

Finally, I think this box is one of the most "readable" in the range with a rather well designed machine present in several episodes of the animated series. It's playable, manipulable without breaking everything, there's something cute with the help of the different guns installed on the ship and the whole thing will look great on a shelf in a child's room. Small regret concerning the absence of landing gear, we see several times the ship land in the series and it is however well equipped.

We will also wisely wait for this product to be offered with a significant reduction in its public price to crack, this is already the case with certain retailers and this will always be the case at the end of the year just in time for the holidays.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at August 19, 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. 

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we are quickly interested in the content of the LEGO ICONS set 10307 Eiffel Tower, a large box of 10.001 pieces which will be available at the retail price of €629.99 from November 25th. Everyone will have an opinion on this voluminous interpretation of the Parisian monument, and as usual I want above all to emphasize here a few points which seem important to me in order to help those who hesitate to make an informed decision.

Like many of you, I was first frankly impressed by the first visuals of this imposing model which we cannot a priori blame for much. At first sight, the object seems very faithful to the reference monument and the announced measurements have something to impress, this last point eclipsing almost all the rest of the marketing arguments in favor of the product. With a footprint of 57 x 57 cm and a height of 1 m, this Eiffel Tower is indeed an exceptional object which therefore promises to guarantee long hours of assembly and an attractive exhibition potential.

I was lucky enough to be able to assemble this big model and I had promised myself, as often, to take my time to discover and savor all the subtleties of the set. However, it seemed obvious to me from the start that the assembly was going to reserve some somewhat boring and repetitive sequences and I therefore took the precaution of dividing the "experience" into many sessions that were too short to begin to feel tired.

The product inventory may seem substantial with the presence announced on the packaging of 10.001 elements including the essential brick separator, but it is in fact made up of only 277 different parts including more than 400 flowers, 666 plates 1x6, 324 bars (1x3 / 1x4) or even 660 Bar 1L with Handle. Those who love road plates will be served with twenty copies which are installed under the tower.

The inventory is also inflated by the presence of many small items whose presence may at first glance seem superfluous. But the rigidity of the tower is ensured by the use of many short elements which could easily have been replaced by longer versions, but at the cost of a visible deflection of certain substructures. It's not me who says it, it's the designer of the set. No new parts in this box, just new colors for elements already present in the manufacturer's catalog.

A logistical detail: The sachets are all unique, there are no two sachets bearing the same number in this box and this is good news for those who are not used to the presence of several sachets bearing the same number in open for a single assembly phase. There are 74 plastic bags distributed in the three cardboard sub-packages, not counting those that remain neutral and contain additional elements such as carousel rails, flexible rods or various and varied plates. The assembly process is therefore simplified by this more rational numbering, that's always taken.

On closer inspection, we quickly realize that this plastic Eiffel Tower is in fact an "idealized" version of the monument which would draw from different eras depending on the area concerned, eliminating certain details, adding others and forcing on arrival on the idea that the tower flanked by a large French flag at the top is in fact installed in the middle of an orchard filled with benches and Parisian lampposts.

We could conclude that we are therefore moving away from the pure exhibition model to get a little closer to the product for the distracted tourist who would like to bring back a nice souvenir of his Parisian holidays, forgetting in passing the current configuration of the place with its esplanade sadly tarred, its endless queues, its slightly anxiety-inducing security system and its very insistent street vendors. Why not, the LEGO version is after all only a free interpretation of reality.

You will also have noticed that the Eiffel Tower is simply not the right color here. It has never been gray over the years, it has only come in different shades of brown. The designer admits that there have been many discussions about this internally and justifies the colorway Dark Bluish Gray used by invoking in bulk the chromatic relationship between this box and the one marketed in 2007 (10181 Eiffel Tower), the impossibility of producing the entire inventory in a new, more suitable color without penalizing other sets due to internal limitations at LEGO on this specific point, or even some vague aesthetic considerations which, in my opinion, are more like a posteriori justification than anything else.

Many will try to convince themselves and you by the way that the chosen color was the most suitable, but that does not change the fact that it is simply not the right color. The dark gray used here nevertheless allows, according to the designer, to take advantage of a welcome contrast between the object and its possible exhibition context, but I am still unsatisfied on this point. The big French flag planted at the top of the tower has as usual nothing to do there, we are no longer in 1944 when French firefighters bravely hoisted a flag at the top under German fire, but it can be removed s it bothers you.

The set also explores the limits of readability when it comes to the assembly instructions divided into three booklets, certain angles are difficult to decipher and it will be necessary to remain vigilant despite the inevitable many frankly repetitive sequences imposed by the subject treated. Those who have taken the time to zoom in on the official visuals will have understood that some sections are a little fragile with braces that only hold on a single fixing point and which tend to move easily during handling. Some will therefore undoubtedly have the impression that the sub-assemblies connected on one side of the structure and which end in the void on the other spoil the overall rendering a little, especially when this tower is observed closely.

The set actually gives the illusion of a certain distance and it will be necessary to take the time to position all these braces very precisely correctly so that the effect persists closer. The regular dusting of the model with a brush must also be carried out without insisting too much, at the risk of moving some of these many crosses. You know this if you have watched the product presentation on Youtube, the four arches based on carousel rails are purely decorative, they do not support the upper structure of the tower, as on the real one.

I can't give a damn about the use of 32 sausages which are therefore now available in a previously unseen color, their presence does not seem to me to be likely to visually disturb the final result and it is always less serious than barrels that would be used to symbolize something other than their primary function. The argument of "it's too big but there are gray sausages" will allow you to create a diversion during your evenings with friends when they are looking for a place to sit in your cluttered living room.

More seriously, I still salute the work of the team in charge of designing this Eiffel Tower at LEGO, we are a long way from the basic stacking set 10181 marketed in 2007 and this new product involves many elements and techniques that make it a beautiful showcase of the manufacturer's current know-how.

I leave to all those who will make the effort to invest 630 € in this product the pleasure of discovering the different techniques used to preserve the essential mobility of the feet which allows them to be adjusted, the design of the different intermediate platforms and the connection points between the different sections, there is in my opinion enough to conclude that the designer has tried to do his best so that the fans find their account in spite of the few questionable choices of which I speak above and the lack of homogeneity of the curvature of the monument beyond the second floor. As luxurious as it is, this product remains a modest plastic model that cannot overcome certain constraints. On arrival, the model is stable, it does not wobble and the weight of the entire structure is well distributed over the four legs, as on the real one.

As for the assembly experience, it can't be called frankly entertaining, unless you like (very) repetitive sequences. There remains the pleasure of connecting the four legs together by orienting them so that they meet above the center of the base, of discovering from a certain distance the visual effect produced by the dozens of braces installed or the satisfaction to stack the four sections to obtain the final product but it will be difficult to escape a certain weariness which will precede the other problem posed by this product: where to put it once completely assembled? Let us be clear, there is no question of complaining about having the possibility of affording a large model which provides long hours of assembly, but it will then be necessary to find the ideal location to exhibit this enormous model which don't do it discreetly.

Those who have a room dedicated to their favorite hobby will quickly find a corner to display this Eiffel Tower, the others will have to learn to live with this luxury coat rack stuck somewhere in their living room. The good news is that the assembly can be moved or stored quite easily thanks to the cutting of the model into four independent sections which are simply fitted together. The base plate is also provided with four side notches which allow it to be grasped without breaking everything, it is well seen.

I won't be one of those who will buy this box, because I don't need a 1m50 high Eiffel Tower in my house, just as I can easily do without a wallpaper with the Empire State Building or large letters format the word kitchen on the wall of my kitchen, and that I wouldn't find a place for it that could really show it off anyway. On the other hand, I would have settled for a less ambitious but more compact model to obtain a more acceptable compromise between finish and size. To be totally honest, however, I do not regret having been able to have this imposing construction in my hands, the assembly of which, lasting around twenty hours, deserves to be shared with several people so that everyone can taste the different techniques offered.

LEGO once again wanted to impress its world with the "highest official product"Never marketed by the brand and the objective has probably been achieved in terms of marketing. It remains to be seen whether this announcement effect is transformed into sales volume thereafter, but even if this Eiffel Tower does not become a commercial success , it will have achieved its primary objective: to get people talking about the brand at a time of year when toy manufacturers are vying for the favors of consumers.

Now it's up to you whether this big adult fan toy that's also a very impressive but also very idealized rendition of the Eiffel Tower is worth moving the living room sofa to make room for it. If you intend to treat yourself to this product, don't spoil yourself too much about what makes it interesting: the different solutions used to arrive at the final result. This will be the only real reward you will get besides being able to display this great Eiffel Tower in your home.

Note: The set presented here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at November 28, 2022 next at 23:59 p.m. Just post a comment under the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we are quickly interested in the LEGO Disney set 43179 Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse Buildable Characters, a large box of 1739 pieces which will be sold for 179.99 € from July 1st and which allows to assemble two emblematic characters from the Disney universe, Mickey and Minnie.

This new exhibition product is intended according to the box and the official description for a hyperactive adult clientele anxious to relax while playing LEGO and the first opinions on this set have been very divided since its announcement with on one side the fans of the Disney universe who find these two models very successful and the other fans who remain a little dubious or even frankly disappointed. And that's without counting on the public price of the product which seems to him to be almost unanimous: it's too expensive.

The good news that will add a dose of user-friendliness when assembling the product: LEGO provides two independent instruction booklets, Mickey on one side and Minnie with accessories on the other, which allows a two-person assembly to be relax as a couple or with friends. Please note, these are not figurines in the true sense of the word.

The two characters, here directly inspired by those seen in the episodes of the animated series Mickey Mouse broadcast since 2013 and which reintroduces "classic" versions of the characters, are in fact statues which have no articulation and which are permanently anchored on their base. It is still possible to change the direction of the arms by modifying the orientation of the two black curved pieces that form the limbs and to turn the hands, but that's it.

We start with the pretty plinths in the form of a photo negative or cinema film on which the two characters sit. The staging is very interesting, some will undoubtedly see characters who come to life when they leave their 2D support. As for the innards of Mickey and Minnie, the interior of the two pedestals based on frames Technic is full of colored parts, which in addition to facilitating the positioning of certain elements makes the instructions on a black background more readable.

The two large white plaques with pad-printed signatures then add a little collector's touch to the two statues and dress the surface bordered with bands, perfectly reproducing the perforation visible on the films.

The effect is obtained by inserting smoked glass in windows and it is really very successful. These 48 panes are the parts shown as using the new color that joins the LEGO palette: 363 Transparent Brown with Opalescense. The result is more blue than brown.

The two figures are firmly anchored on their support, which ensures the stability of each of the statues whose heaviest element is the head. Mickey's right leg is the most successful, it consists of two of the ten new pieces curved at 45 ° and smooth also used for the arms. The other three legs are more classic, they are straight with parts threaded on a flexible axis.

We can't escape the usual barrels used to symbolize something other than what they really are and two red elements form the bottom of Mickey's shorts. There are also two barrels at the base of the necks of the two statues, but these will be hidden during the insertion of the head.

The inside of the torso is a stack of colored pieces on which a few sub-assemblies are attached which are responsible for bringing a little roundness to the two models. If Mickey's shorts and Minnie's skirt are quite successful, the upper torso is in my opinion much less with angles that are a little too pronounced which produce a "pear" effect.

The hands of both mice are very well done with three fixed fingers, a movable thumb and the outer layer of the glove which is pad printed. Be careful during assembly, in the copy that I received one of these four pad-printed parts has a printing defect with a white spot.

To be honest, I'm one of those people who find these two figures a bit too rough to be really attractive. We obviously recognize Mickey and Minnie, difficult to confuse them with other characters, but all this is still too stylized to convince me. Up to the neck, we can admit that the designer did quite well. Above, it is much less obvious with a too angular rendering which gives me the impression of dealing with characters wearing a mask on the lower face.

The two heads are built on the same principle as the torsos with a stack of colored parts on which we attach sub-assemblies which try to give a little roundness to the whole. The remaining spaces are filled in with half-dome quarters in two different sizes and the nose is the result of a somewhat odd assembly that uses a white version of the piece already seen in red in the LEGO Star Wars set. 75247 Rebel A-Wing Starfighter and which made the heyday of the range Cars in 2017. This piece is also present in yellow on the back of Mickey's shoes.

At the end of the nose of the two characters, there is a copy of the helmet Space Classic in black plugged into a neutral head. LEGO also recalled when announcing the product that this helmet had not been produced since 1987. It's up to you to see which way you prefer to put it, the opening downwards if you place the two statues on a chest of drawers or upwards so that your friends will notice it and you can tell them this anecdote before going to dinner. The ears are made up of an assembly of two semi-circles with visible tenons fixed on a Ball joint. A few Tiles would not have been too much to smooth the inner surface of these ears a little, which as it is, seem a little thin to me.

From the front and from afar, the two characters are almost illusory and the whole will easily find its place on a shelf. Some approximations can be justified by invoking an "artistic" bias or the limitations of the LEGO concept, but in my opinion you have to be really lenient to consider these "interpretations" as faithful to the reference models. It is moreover by placing the two mice in profile that the difficulty of adapting round shapes with square bricks is felt a little.

The Minnie statue shares a lot of techniques and internal sub-assemblies with Mickey except obviously for the attributes specific to this character like the pumps or the skirt. The skirt, composed in particular on the sides of large pad-printed red windshields, is rather successful. I am less convinced by the pumps which are really crude if you look at them closely. Once again, it will be necessary to contemplate the model as a whole and from far enough away not to focus on certain sub-assemblies that are a little too rough to really convince.

Like Mickey Mouse, the mouse's gaze is a big half Dish in pad-printed bi-injection which covers the upper half of the face. LEGO had the good taste of pad printing the eyes on a white piece, thus avoiding the usual color shifts. Unfortunately, the eyes are not as deep black as their outline which is tinted throughout. Too bad, even if from afar, it passes.

To accompany the two mice, LEGO provides some accessories to assemble in the box: A vintage camera in Reddish brown on its tripod with new rounded corners, a cigar box guitar to a rope seen in Mickey's hands on many illustrations, a bouquet of flowers for Minnie and a book whose cover and interior are decorated with four stickers.

I would have preferred a picnic basket and a cinema camera, but we will do with these generally very convincing accessories that allow you to place items in the hands of the characters to boost the presentation a little.

In short, Mickey and Minnie or Michel and Monique, tastes and colors are indisputable and it's up to you to see if these slightly angular LEGO versions of curvaceous characters deserve your money.

To try to end on a positive note, I think the staging of the two characters is really effective and the props provided are very successful. However, I am not really convinced by the aesthetics of the two heads or by the prohibitive price of this exhibition product. But I'm not the ideal customer for this type of set: Mickey and Minnie scared me more than anything when I was young and I preferred the service ducks like Scrooge, Donald, Daisy, Gontran and the Castors Juniors.

This LEGO version will not change my mind about the slightly disturbing side of these two mice, quite the contrary, and so I don't really want to display these two smirking statues in a corner knowing that 'they watch me all the time, especially in the dark.

Note: The set presented here, supplied by LEGO, is as usual in play. Deadline fixed at 30th June 2020 next at 23pm. 

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.

The offer of books around LEGO products continues to grow and if some of them are simple collections of beautiful creations to leaf through from time to time or catalogs filled with official visuals surfing on the popularity of such and such range, other books are more intended to help develop your creativity in a less passive way.

Your LEGO Movies: The Perfect Director's Manual falls into this last category of books from which one discovers a particular subject and one improves certain techniques in passing. This is the French version of the book The LEGO Animation Book written by David Pagano (paganomation) and David Pickett (brick 101), two benchmark Brickfilms directors.

For those who do not yet know, a Brickfilm is a video sequence featuring LEGO bricks and minifigs animated frame by frame (stop motion). Directing a Brickfilm therefore requires a lot of patience and creativity, but also requires some serious technical knowledge on the part of the director for the result to be visually successful. Many try, few manage to produce original content that is really enjoyable to watch.

This book is a real guide that will help the bravest to embark on this time-consuming and demanding activity. But did you really have to write a book to learn how to make an animated film? Both authors have thought of everything and this guide has an interesting common thread that highlights the purpose of the content, the video below. Many shots of this film are also used as illustrations for the various chapters of the book.

Watch a first time The Magic Picnic like an ordinary spectator before you start reading the book and then return to it with your eye of a director in the making to understand how the techniques presented in the book are implemented. You will then have set foot in this hobby which allows you to approach the passion for LEGO from an original angle.

Over the 216 richly illustrated pages, Your LEGO Movies: The Perfect Director's Manual really tackles all aspects of making brickfilms, from script writing to post-production, selecting a suitable camera, setting up optimized lighting and creation of special effects. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I had the impression that I had in my hands a product that really covered the subject.

As a regular viewer of the various more or less successful brickfilms that flood Youtube, I found answers to the questions I usually ask myself by discovering certain creations that fall short of recurring technical gaps: How to properly light a scene and especially keep the same level of lighting throughout the sequence, how to ensure perfect fluidity of the animation, how to tell a story with a beginning and an end, etc ...

Well-informed directors may only find there reminders of elementary rules that they already know by heart, but fans who want to get started will have in their hands a fun and well-researched manual that should help them methodically solve all problems. which they may face in their quest for the perfect Brickfilm.

Be careful, the book is not the result of an extreme popularization of this hobby which seeks to appeal to very young audiences. The assistance of an adult to explain certain technical terms to the youngest will therefore be welcome, in order to allow them to continue to progress in their discovery of this art.

I meet a lot of LEGO fans who have at least once wanted to create their own films. Most don't really know where to start and just spend hours looking at the creations of talented directors who don't really share their crafting secrets.

Their numerous attempts to produce something correct in turn sometimes end up discouraging them definitively, either because the result does not live up to their expectations, or because their audience generally does not fail to point the finger with a finger. your condescending the faults of their creation. Our skills as parents on the subject are often very limited and this book is in my opinion a relevant solution to give the youngest the keys to an enriching and creative activity.

David Pagano and David Pickett make an effort here to be truly didactic and the book is organized into thematic chapters to which those who have already started their career as an animator / director can refer to in case of doubt or need to find an answer. specific to a particular technical question.
I say yes, to arouse vocations or to deepen the subject.

The book, edited by Huginn & Munnin, is available at amazon at the price of 18.95 €. To offer with a small box to move without delay from theory to practice.

Note: we do as usual, you have until October 7, 2017 at 23:59 p.m. to manifest yourself in the comments.

Update : The winner was drawn at random and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.