Helicopters of this scale are more often found within larger sets, but notably, the biggest set in this wave, 60414 Fire Station with Fire Truck, features an empty helipad. Here, 60411 Fire Rescue Helicopter acts as an expansion pack, offering a supplemental helicopter to complete your LEGO City fire department’s arsenal.
With no further side builds or story, this set only features a single ‘fire’ which needs to be used creatively to make your own play scenarios. This flexibility keeps the size of the set down, but the lack of further prompts could be unwelcome at this price, particularly for the 5+ target age range.
The recognised AFOL networking event, which attracts participants from around the world, takes place 7-9 June in Paredes de Coura, a small town 100Km north of Porto in Portugal. It's one of the highlights of the AFOL calendar, set in beautiful surroundings, in (hopefully) beautiful weather.
The event coincides with the annual Portugal Day celebrations, so there's a lot going on in the town in addition to the LEGO event.
You can find out more and reserve your place at fanweekend.pt, and if you have any questions about it, feel free to ask in the comments. I've been several times, so I can hopefully answer them. I'll be there again this year, after a 5-year hiatus, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
Many LEGO set designers use our BrickLists feature to maintain a list of the sets they've worked on and often provide interesting insights about their involvement.
Once a week we publish an entry from one of their lists on the home page to increase awareness of this information and to encourage more designers to create them.
Aron Gerencser wrote this about their work on 76996 Knuckles' Guardian Mech:
This one was super fun to design, and the first instance where I had the chance to take a set through the process from initial concept to final model. It was particularly interesting to have a brief not based on something directly from pre-existing source material. I've always loved mechs and big robots, and the build of this mech was influenced by one of my favorite childhood themes, Exo-Force! I'm also happy I could use those elements for the Master Emerald. The opportunity to have studs on the brick built feet call back to Knuckles' shoe design was also too good to pass up. While most of the stock images show Knuckles standing in the cockpit, it was designed for him to sit, which he comfortably can! The 1x1 heart-shaped tile elements came in handy, fitting not only Rouge's motifs but also the nose of a bat. Graphics by Lauren Cullen King.
Today's random set is 6530 Sport Coupe, released during 1990. It's one of 27 Town sets produced that year. It contains 43 pieces and 1 minifig.
It's owned by 3,717 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you should find it for sale at BrickLink, where new ones sell for around $113.30, or eBay.
Today's random minifigure is but034Shirt with 3 Buttons - Blue, White Legs, Red Pigtails Hair, a Town figure that came in one set, 1064 Dacta Buildings, released during 1981.
Our members collectively own a total of 51 of them. If you'd like to buy one you should find it for sale at BrickLink.
Stitch, from the Lilo & Stitch franchise, is one of Disney's most beloved characters. Even after 22 years, Stitch merchandise seems very popular, especially in a certain affordable clothes store here in the UK, so it's no surprise that LEGO wanted in on the action.
Stitch is a genetically engineered extraterrestrial creature supposedly resembling a blue koala, so let's see if 43249 Stitch resembles experiment 626!
7778 Midi-scale Millennium Falcon was released in 2009 and instituted the short-lived midi-scale series. Fifteen years later, the impressive 75375 Millennium Falcon returns to the iconic YT-1300 freighter at this scale, albeit consisting of nearly three times the pieces of its predecessor!
The designer has definitely put those additional pieces to good use, as the model appears stunningly detailed and accurate to the onscreen vehicle. The texture across the fuselage looks great and the proportions seem excellent too, which is a feature past versions of the Millennium Falcon have often struggled with.
James May, aka poshhammer, worked on numerous sets such as 21327 Typewriter and 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters' Cottage during his four-year tenure as a LEGO designer.
He recently left LEGO to pursue a career in other areas of product design, but what's LEGO's loss is our gain because, in addition to launching a YouTube channel, he will also be writing articles for us, promising to spill the beans on various aspects of the LEGO design process and life as a LEGO designer.
Before we publish his first article, I thought it would be worthwhile conducting an interview to find out more about him and his career.