We cannot repeat it enough: anything that gives or gives a little interest to a LEGO product already assembled or stored in a corner is good to take. LEGO currently offers two alternative assemblies for the set 31203 World Map with a reproduction of Denmark on one side and a map of Europe on the other. These two creations are proposed by designers of Billund, you can consider the two models as "official".

Denmark map instructions are available in PDF format at this address, those for the map of Europe are to download at this address. Even if you don't plan to dismantle the original set in the days or weeks to come because the task seems too laborious, I suggest you download both files without delay, we don't know how many of time LEGO will keep them online on its servers.

This is not a first, the LEGO ART set 31202 Disney's Mickey Mouse has also benefited for a few months from official instructions for two alternative models rather successful, just like the set 31201 Harry Potter Hogwarts Crests whose content makes it possible to assemble three alternative mosaics.

We quickly tour the contents of the LEGO promotional set 40485 FC Barcelona Celebration, a small box of 178 pieces offered from September 1 to 12 for the purchase of the LEGO set 10284 FC Barcelona Camp Nou. You have understood it since the official visuals of the product were posted online, this is to reproduce a gathering of fans around the Canaletes fountain in Barcelona, ​​the Mecca of the celebrations of the victories of the FC Barcelona team. .

We will not elaborate on the proposed construction, it is a very summary but relatively faithful representation of the fountain in question. the border of the base is in the colors of the club and the whole allows to stage the five minifigs delivered in the box. If you feel like it, you can always override the instructions provided by LEGO and align the taps embodied by the golden pieces with the four basins of the fountain whose grids are here embodied by jet blades.

All supporters logically wear the same jersey and it is the same torso that is used for all the figures in the set, regardless of gender. No sponsor, player name or number on the back of each torso, there are no small savings and LEGO avoids having to padprint five different torsos. An effort on the representation of the logo of the club would however have been appreciable, even at this scale there was material to include a little more detail. We will console ourselves by telling ourselves that these minifigs are timeless.

The heads of the various supporters provided are far from unpublished, they have all been in the LEGO catalog for more or less long time and there is hardly that of the character who wears glasses which has so far only been available in one. box, the LEGO Education set 45817 Cargo Connect launched this year. Two of the three characters have an alternate face, with a sad expression for one, probably following the departure of Messi, and sleepy for the other.

You will also need to stick some stickers on the different flags, including the two new 6x4 flags in Dark Red and on the scarf in the colors of the club. Note that LEGO, which is not a major supplier of flags, adds the flag of Catalonia in this box.

This small set offered for the purchase of the stadium of the set 10284 FC Barcelona Camp Nou is therefore a niche product that will undoubtedly appeal to die-hard Barça fans, but it will absolutely be necessary to spend more than € 300 to get it. Too bad, I think that many football fans who are not fans of LEGO would have gladly contented themselves with a few minifigs in the colors of the club without necessarily affording the stadium that goes with it.

Note: The set presented here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at September 14, 2021 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.

Today we are quickly interested in the LEGO set 10284 FC Barcelona Camp Nou, a big box of 5509 pieces which comes to join the set 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United (3898 pieces - 269.99 €) within the "collection" of stadiums in LEGO version.

For those who are not football fans to the point of knowing all the major stadiums, it is a question here of assembling the Camp Nou, home stadium of the FC Barcelona team and the largest enclosure in Europe with a capacity of just over 99.000 spectators.

Collector's effect requires, this new stadium in LEGO version takes up some of the recipes of the other model already available with its good ideas and its faults. We thus find the pad-printed lawn whose parts are still not perfectly aligned even if we note that progress has been made, the presentation base covered with Tiles matt with their large injection point placed in the center and the inevitable huge sheet of stickers with letters that you will have to try to align correctly so as not to disfigure the model.

The comparison with Old Trafford stops there, here it is much more messy when it comes to assembling the stands, the fault of the ovoid shape of the enclosure which requires to follow the curves and break down these stands. into multiple subsets. From a distance, the LEGO version of Camp Nou remains rather convincing and we find all the most significant attributes of the stadium, but closer, we have to come to terms with very rough alignments of certain parts and take into account the relative fragility of construction.

The stadium is broken down into five parts which come together via a few Technic pins. The four quarters to be placed around the lawn are not fixed to each other or to the ground, the pins only serve to position them correctly once the exhibition location has been chosen. It's a good idea, this solution will facilitate the movement of the model, but you will have to be careful to group all the modules together once the set has been set up on your shelves.

No Technic pieces in the base of the stadium which is here composed of classic bricks and plates with filling in the colors of Catalonia. The rigidity of the different parts of the base is not affected by this choice, the whole remains solid and each of the four stadium quarters can be easily grasped and moved.

The designer has chosen to reproduce the stands using brick stacks simply clipped onto the stadium structure and the alignment of these numerous modules is a bit laborious. The vast majority of these subsets only fit on a single clip and the stands shift a bit on their own at the slightest movement. You then have to reposition everything correctly once the exhibition location has been chosen and I must admit that the exercise quickly annoyed me. The same goes for the gray pieces on which we fix the white borders of the stands, they tend to come off very easily, especially when trying to reposition the stands correctly. Putting them back in place involves dismantling at least the sub-assembly of stands that covers them and handling quickly becomes annoying.

As with Old Trafford, the pieces that embody the stands are not all ridged and there are a few smooth pieces here and there which detract from the uniformity of the whole with not only a visible difference in surface but also a feeling of different hue. due to the shadow cast on the streaks which is logically not present on smooth parts. If we add the spaces that remain visible between the different rows of stands, the result is really less convincing than for Old Trafford.

For their part, the two roof portions are only fixed via a few tenons, they are then held by the gray flexible tubes which circulate on the upper edge of the stands and which must be allowed to protrude to maintain the side of the roof which simply rests. on some Tiles. In practice, it works, but I did not expect this somewhat lazy solution to maintain the two parts of the roof. In addition to this detail, the exterior finish of the stadium is generally very correct and the ridged bricks that make up the uprights of the structure really contribute to the fidelity of the model to the reference construction.

The other flaw of the product: the really ultra-repetitive side of the assembly that is spread over the two thick instruction booklets. With a few variations, we always build the same sub-assembly which clips onto the others and forms the enclosure. If you have already donated your person for the Colosseum of the set 10276 Colosseum, you can have a very precise idea of ​​what awaits you here. It's hard to blame the designer on this point, it's the subject that imposes this repetition. If you are looking for a product that will distract you with the variety of techniques used, this is probably not the one that should be your priority.

As I said above, it is also necessary to stick a very large handful of stickers on the stands to reproduce the inscriptions visible on the real stadium, including the club's motto. As for Old Trafford, the blue of the background of these stickers does not completely match that of the parts and the black lines of the stickers are in my opinion much too thick and really too dark to fit perfectly on the blue background. I suspect the graphic designer in charge of designing the stickers to have imagined that the stripes of the blue parts would produce a shadow effect and to have tried to reproduce this effect on the stickers, but it is again a bit too pronounced.

On arrival, this officially licensed product of the club is undoubtedly to be reserved for fans of LEGO who are also fans of football and especially of FC Barcelona, ​​especially at 330 € the model. As always, there will be quite a few collectors who will want to add a second stage on their shelves, just to impress their friends with this reproduction of a mythical stage, this product generally satisfactory and credible when viewed from a certain distance. is also made for them. The others would probably have appreciated being able to get a copy of the small promotional set. 40485 FC Barcelona Celebration without having to buy the stadium, but this is not planned by LEGO.

It will be without me, I was only vaguely interested in FC Barcelona because Lionel Messi played there, those days are now over and Camp Nou is not one of my priorities when it comes to LEGO sets.

Note: The set presented here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at September 14, 2021 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.

LEGO today "officially" unveils the set 10284 FC Barcelona Camp Nou, a large box of 5509 pieces sold at the public price of 329.99 € which allows to assemble a reproduction of the stadium of residence of FC Barcelona. This new model joins the other stadium in the same format already marketed by the manufacturer in the set 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United (3898 pieces - 269.99 €) within what can now be called a collection.

The rather faithful reproduction of the speaker measures 49 cm long by 46 cm wide and 20 cm high and it is frozen in time with two stickers on the giant screens of the stadium reminiscent of the 5-0 cashed by Real Madrid in Barcelona in 2010. We will talk about this box in more detail on the occasion of a "Review ".

Until September 12, members of the VIP program get a copy of the LEGO promotional set 40485 FC Barcelona Celebration (178 pieces) for the purchase of the stadium.

Note that LEGO is offering on the occasion of the launch of this product a quiz reserved for members of the VIP program with a personalized minifigure wearing the famous red and blue striped jersey, as well as a certificate attesting to the status of superfan to win. 46 prizes are involved.

10284 FC BARCELONA CAMP NOU ON THE LEGO SHOP >>

(The link to the shop redirects to the version of the official shop for your country of connection)

The tradition is respected: LEGO acts as if we hadn't seen anything yet and goes for a little teasing for the very large set 10284 FC Barcelona Camp Nou, a novelty whose official announcement is therefore imminent.

Unsurprisingly, it will be necessary to stick a very large handful of stickers on the stands, those which assembled the stage of the set 10272 Old Trafford - Manchester United (3898 pieces - 269.99 €) certainly remember the exercise. For the rest, it will also be necessary to ensure that LEGO has learned the lesson of the previous stage and that the markings of the lawn will be correctly aligned this time ...

We will talk again about this box of 5509 pieces which will be sold at the public price of 329.99 € on the occasion of the official announcement of the product which will be followed in the wake of a "Review ".