The Brick Connection –A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Happy end of Summer, LEGO fans!

Sure, there’s technically two more weeks until Fall starts, but Labor Day is over, kids are back in school, and pumpkin spice is available. Summer is OVER!! Deal with it!

I will be dealing with it by going on vacation next week. I could not be more ready for this vacation. I’m so ready, I’m considering leaving for it right now...


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But I will finish this blog instead. Because I am dedicated to my loyal readers.

You may have figured out that since I am on vacation next week, there will be no blog next week.

Don’t cry for me Argentina LEGO fans!!! My return will be worth the wait.

Actually I shouldn’t promise you a worthy return. I will just promise a return.

This week has been very busy at BrickWarriors, mostly due to a Labor Day weekend sale. That was compounded by the fact that I am apparently the only BrickWarriors employee right now. Fun times!

Anyway, I say all this to excuse my short post today. That’s right, no long-winded blogging from me this week.

So what should I talk about? Fortunately, LEGO posted about this yesterday on their Facebook page:

Have you heard about this?

It is a new site (a site within the LEGO site) that gives you instructions to remake some of your LEGO sets into completely different models, using the exact same pieces.

As LEGO put it…

Get ready to be inspired! LEGO Remake is filled with fan designed models that you can build using your existing LEGO City sets!

As you can see in that little blurb, this is for rebuilding existing LEGO City sets. But is it only for City sets??

Now normally I would never advise reading a comment section anywhere online, not even the Facebook page of a popular children’s toy. Reading online comments will make you question the sanity and humanity of everyone on this planet. But not to worry, I took the risk for you and for the first time ever(?), reading the comments was helpful.

Someone asked if Remake was only intended for City and not other LEGO themes. LEGO replied: “As of right now LEGO Remake only includes LEGO City sets, but it is possible that other themes will be included in the future.”

Here is an example of a remake. The before: Deep Sea Submarine set. The remake: Support Helicopter

So who are these LEGO fans that created the “fan designed models”? Can just anyone submit designs?

I’m so glad I asked that for you! LEGO notes at the bottom of every page that “these building instructions were created by an independent LEGO fan as part of the "LEGO Remake" Project.”

From my extensive research (looking through the Remake site) I found this statement on every fan designer profile page: “All of our fan designers were sourced from Rebrickable.com.”

What’s Rebrickable.com?

Geeze, I have a lot of questions!

Some of you might have already been aware of them. Clearly they’re a pretty big deal in the community if they ended up working directly with LEGO

For those that don’t know, this is from their site:

Rebrickable will show you which LEGO sets you can build from the sets and parts you already own. You can choose from official LEGO sets or custom made MOCs (My Own Creations) by many different designers. All MOCs include building instructions, some of which are even better than the official LEGO ones!

Unless you have a LOT of sets, you will usually be missing a few pieces. In these cases Rebrickable will show you exactly what you are missing and even provide suggested sets that you could buy which will get you those pieces - effectively showing you how to buy two sets for the price of one!

The creator of the site, Nathan, met with LEGO in 2014 about doing something together and that led to LEGO Remake. I highly recommend you read Nathan’s blog about how the whole thing came to be: LEGO Remake

But this part from his blog really stood out to me as interesting look at LEGO’s thinking in all of this and how for now, this is kind of just a test before they decide whether or not to expand it:

The initial content is targeted quite specifically at 7-10 year olds which is why it only contains City sets for now. The designers were limited to 15 specific City sets and had to follow LEGO provided guidelines to ensure the models were suitable for the target age range.

LEGO performed extensive testing and study groups with children on the actual models and instructions you see on the site. Even though they were all awesome, not all of them passed the rigorous testing LEGO performed. It was a great experience learning more about what goes on inside LEGO to produce a suitable set for release, and even getting tips from their own internal model and instruction designers.

This reminds me of when I looked into what it was like to be a LEGO Designer. I always love to get a behind the scenes look at the big LEGO machine. Because it’s not a machine. There are real people behind all these ideas and they’re always creating, thinking about, and imagining the next big thing. (And they have a lot of restrictions.)

Okay, there’s so much more I could have blabbed on about, but I held back, because I really am on a bit of a time crunch.

What do you guys think of LEGO Remake? Will you remake anything? Have you already been doing this for years through rebrickable.com or on your own? Do you think it’s cool to see LEGO working with a site like Rebrickable?

(If you remember, when LEGO was having down times over 10 years ago it was because they weren’t giving their fans the respect and consideration they deserved. TLG’s really turned that around. )

Let me know your thoughts!!

Until next time……………….……… ♪Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away! ♪

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*