The starting point is simple: Offer an OMC on the Lord of the Rings theme while trying to respect the constraints that LEGO must meet to offer an official set for sale.

If you follow the blog, you may have already seen the work of Nuju Metru in the same spirit.

As part of this MOCAthalon 2012, the flower of MOCeurs is therefore found on MOCpages to offer teams of many creations on different themes, both of which on the Lord of the Rings theme presented here: The Masked Builder Siege of Gondor (above) and Legohaulic Oliphant (below).

Obviously in this MOCAthalon which brings together talented MOCeurs as well as many less experienced AFOLs, the very good rubs shoulders with the less good, but you should have a good time discovering all these creations.

As with each availability of a new wave of sets, we will be flooded with reviews. But this one, presented by Vader on the Brick Horizon forum is the first of the set 6869 Quinjet Aerial Battle and I had to mention it here.

It is presented in a progressive way, and the first part already online gives pride of place to minifigs and Loki's flying cart. Black Widow is superb, Martians are ... weird, but I would wait until the movie to decide whether or not to hate them, Loki is nice, there are lots of stickers, a comic in the box and the instruction booklets are well packed.

To see the photos of this review, go to the dedicated topic at Brick Horizon.

A quick wink for this realization of wokajablocka which I find very successful. With a little artistic sense and the right pieces, he offers us this portrait of Darth Maul inspired by the shot on the right. 

You can see some photos of the process of creating this portrait which will be presented in June 2012 at Sydney Brick Show on the dedicated topic at Eurobricks.

We learn a little more about the characters who will be present in the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man which will be broadcast in the USA by Disney XD. By extrapolation, we can hope that LEGO will offer us all these super heroes in the form of minifigs in the coming months, knowing that hope gives life and that the series will probably be very popular across the Atlantic.

We therefore find Spider-Man, Iron Fist and Doc Ock, all three already announced in the set 6873 Spiderman's Doc Ock Ambush. Also present in the series: Nick Fury, Nova, White Tiger, Power Man, Venom and Doom. Hopefully LEGO will produce several sets in the Ultimate Spider-Man sub-range ...

The minifigs of the three super heroes in the 6873 set are clearly inspired by the versions of these same characters in the series. Nick Fury's minifig in SHIELD battle gear featured on the LEGO poster for the movie The Avengers is different from the character of the animated series, shown in the visual below with her outfit seen at the cinema.

Okay, Series 7 is done. You have all seen what the minifigs in this series look like thanks to WhiteFang's review on Eurobricks. So let's move on to the next series: Series 8 ...

The only concrete information we have is the box presented at the New York Toy Fair 2012. The series 7 was also presented with a red box which corresponds to the bags that we have just discovered, so we can deduce without being too mistaken that the bags of the series 8 will be black, like the box presented during the living room.

Another lead, the LEGO Concept Designer Alexandre bourdon and his work on minifigs. If you look closely this board from his portfolio, you will see that many sketches that allowed him to get the job since 2010 have been materialized in the different series released to date. He was also at the origin of the Swamp Monster minifig from the new Monster Fighters range.

Obviously, we must be right and not draw too hasty conclusions, but we can legitimately hope that some concepts from these boards will emerge soon.

In short, we don't know much, but take the time to look at the boards he presents on his two portfolios, the answer may be in:

Alexandre Bourdon LEGO Application Portfolio 2010

Alexandre Bourdon LEGO Billund 2010

Note that Alexandre Bourdon agreed to submit to a little interview on Brickpirate. The answers to the questions asked are apparently being validated by his hierarchy before they are made public in the dedicated forum topic. Wait & See ....