JB Spielwaren is once again the source of images of new retail sets prior to their official unveiling.
This morning, the German retailer has posted pictures of Technic, Speed Champions, Marvel Super Heroes, Sonic and Super Mario sets that are due for release in June and August.
Rather than post images of all of them after the break, I encourage you to delve into the database to look at recently updated sets. However, I will post a few highlights!
The annual May the Fourth extravaganza has begun at LEGO.com, bringing with it new sets, new gifts with purchase, new Insiders rewards and discounts on various Star Wars sets.
Visit the Insiders rewards centre to claim discounts on Star Wars sets, including €170/£145 off 75313 AT-AT and a €50/£40 reduction on 75355 X-wing Starfighter.
The offers are available until the 5th May but my advice is not to hang about placing your order because the GWPs will probably not last that long.
Entering its third year, the Diorama Collection already includes several classic scenes from the Original Trilogy, although there are other areas of Star Wars justifying similar treatment. 75380 Mos Espa Podrace Diorama is a perfect example, depicting the iconic podrace sequence.
This dynamic scene is superb for a diorama and provides ample opportunity for detail, particularly on the podracers themselves, which look outstanding. However, the detailing will need to be truly unparalleled to explain the price of £69.99, $79.99 or €79.99.
Three new NINJAGO sets have been revealed by Amazon Mexico, including the enormous 71821 Cole's Titan Dragon Mech!
Images of 71818 Tournament Battle Arena and 71820 Ninja Team Combo Vehicle have also been published and these should be available in June, as part of a larger wave.
In addition to the new Star Wars sets and GWPs that'll be available from tomorrow at the start of the May the Fourth celebration, two new Insiders rewards will be offered as well, including a rather nice 25th anniversary coin.
Today's random set is 4349 Creatures Pod, released during 2004. It's one of 48 Creator sets produced that year. It contains 44 pieces, and its retail price was US$3.5/£3.99.
It's owned by 2,198 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 $17.00, or eBay.
Today's random minifigure is pln081Plain Blue Torso with White Arms, Light Gray Legs, Brown Male Hair, a Town figure that was first produced during 1992. It can be found in 3 sets.
Our members collectively own a total of 918 of them. If you'd like to buy one you should find it for sale at BrickLink, where new ones sell for around $18.50.
The Art theme has come a long way since the first 'dots by numbers' sets, with every new one introducing novel techniques to recreate artwork and illustrations in LEGO form.
Given that space-themed sets have dominated the product assortment this year, it should come as no surprise that the latest Art set is space-related, depicting our spiral galaxy from a viewpoint light years away.
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.
Mark Stafford wrote this about their work on 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar:
Spaceship! It's been so long since I got to do a spaceship. :) I played Overwatch from beta, but I have to be honest I had hardly noticed the spaceship at the end of the Gibraltar map. It's a beautiful design though. I flew around it in the game, looked at every image of it Blizzard have. Then turned it into what I hope is a good toy.
It looks like the one in the game is a multi-level launcher, maybe dividing into three sections. I wanted to fit Winston in the back so it only ended up splitting in two. I also added a hidden pewpew shooter into the front part. The new angle slopes and 4x6 angle plates were both designed by Star Wars and I got special permission to use them and gave a headache to the engineering department by putting them in a set three months earlier then they planned to.
The landing pad I had a flash of inspiration looking at the new rollercoaster tracks, I'm pretty happy with that part of it too.
Oh - and first Teal coloured brick separator. (Zombie-teal :) )
71046 Collectable Minifigures Series 26 - Space further expands the collection of space-themed sets available this year, featuring twelve creative characters to populate them. They represent all aspects of space, between its possible denizens, exploration and future technologies.
Of course, this series also presents homages to some notable Space subthemes from LEGO history, continuing a trend across various recent series of Collectable Minifigures. M-Tron, Ice Planet 2002 and Blacktron II are all represented, alongside a selection of original characters and those inspired by space archetypes.
Official images of two new Animal Crossing sets have been published by JB Spielwaren, prior to their release on the 1st of August.
77051 Fly with Dodo Airlines and 77052 K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza recreate some memorable locations from Animal Crossing: New Horizons and introduce several new villagers to the theme.