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The LEGO builds from the 'Star Wars' theme (sets and MOCs) are the reason my dark ages ended about 3 years ago. My son started building LEGO around that time and I had and still have fun doing this with him. But then at first some fantastic star wars micro builds and later on the larger sets caught my eye and I decided to start collecting and building LEGO again for myself.

I miss the days of living in Japan and being surrounded by cheap and delicious noodle shops. Maybe that is why I was drawn to set 31131-1 Downtown Noodle Shop? I find it is easy to skip over Creator sets, with my focus drawn to favourite themes (Ninjago), and other larger adult targeted sets. Have I been missing out on a gem hiding in plain sight? This set is from 2022, but still easy enough to find on shelves.

What I love about LEGO, is the rich history the brand has. Even though I've been an admin here for almost 7 years now, and LEGO is a daily part of my life, I still run into things that are new to me. I'm sure others will have the same experience. And with this long history, there are bound to be themes and products that have you wondering: Is this LEGO? So far, I have written 5 installments in this series, examining Scala, Jack Stone, Znap, Galidor and Clikits.

So we've met the new friends, now let's check out the changes to Heartlake City. What new shops, restaurants, and parks await us? Hopefully more than a hair salon and organic cafe.

Okay, so there is a new hair salon, but the new friends have so much more than that. The Friends design team made their best efforts to bring us a range of places that even if they're not new they've given them a fresh new identity taking the theme in a new direction. As you'd expect there's sets that aligns with a Friends interest, some obvious examples are a Skate Park for Liann, or a Camping Trip for Paisley.

The Star Wars Universe has given us a lot of different TIE ships. The standard TIE fighters consist of a center pod with two hexagonal wings fitted with solar panels which power a twin ion engine (TIE or Twin Ion Engine) system that accelerates ionized gasses at a substantial fraction of lightspeed along almost any vector, affording the ships tremendous speed and maneuverability albeit with limited fuel reserves.

In 2022, we reviewed multiple CITY sets. And for the majority, they did not spark joy, and some even got me worried for the future of the theme. According to this tweet, the theme has a new creative lead, with the first sets being released in January 2023.

The B-Model of set 71786-1 was more of a giant lizardman than a mech, so I was looking forward to seeing some mech-MOCs starting to appear on the alternate build tab. Dragons make great donor sets for mechs with all the joints avaliable. The first alternate build posted, MOC-135314 Ice Dragon Warrior by thebricksong, looked impressive so I just had to give it a go.

We have introduced some changes intended to improve your ability to promote your MOCs and engage with your followers.

The new Workbench page is your own personal blog that you can use to document your LEGO builds. This might include work-in-progress designs for MOCs that you are working towards publishing; or official sets you might be building; or anything else related to LEGO building.

Serenity. A Firefly class ship belonging to a renegade group of space cowboys. The pop culture classic Firefly ran in 2002 with a measly 14 episodes and was followed up with a feature length movie to help conclude the story. If there is one thing Firefly fans can agree on, it is that 14 episodes was not nearly enough screen time for the loveable cast, witty dialogue, and clever storylines. LEGO has many impressive space ship builds, so can the system bring justice to Serenity? Let's find out.

When I reviewed set 42144 Material Handler the verdict was a bit mixed. The absence of an official B-model was one of the negative points. But of course Rebrickable's designers come to help. So today I will be reviewing the Cherry Picker alternate by M_Longer.