Set Review - #71051 - Series 28 - Collectible Minifigures

Yay! More Collectible Minifigures that aren’t from a licensed theme. This one is made up of all costumed minifigures and they are great! These were released on 1 January 2026 and should be around through 1 April unless they get sold out beforehand. They still retail for $4.99 each. Let’s hope that price sticks with the pricing pressure we’ve had on other sets and themes. Here’s a quick rundown of each of the minifigures.

Lion Costume: This one comes with a head piece and a tail along with a chicken leg. The head is dual printed with the other side not shown being a roaring face.

Parrot Costume: This one is one of my favorites! The head piece, wing arms, and cloth pieces as tail feathers are very detailed. The snack box is a nice touch too.

Peacock Costume: Similar to the parrot, this one has the winged arms and a head piece. The tail plumage is a plastic piece with printing on it. This minifigure comes with a yellow flower.

Fluffy Cat Costume: Of all of them, I’m least impressed with this one. There’s the head piece and a tail. I feel like we’ve had these before. The ball of yard is a fun addition though.

Dolphin Costume: We’ve had other underwater mammals before, but I don’t think we’ve had a dolphin. There’s a head piece, tail, and the arms are fins. There’s a shell with a piece that’s supposed to be a pearl (I think).

Cute Bunny Costume: This one is more of an Easter bunny than a bunny costume. I like how one of the ears is lower versus both being straight up. Also the egg in the basket has some cool printing on it.

Goldfish Costume: The fish is great along with the fish food container. I think the big eyes on top really make it stand out.

Monkey Costume: A monkey with a banana. Fun!

Dalmatian Costume: I think we’ve had dogs before, but never a dalmatian. The printed bone collar is a nice touch. I like the frisbee too.

Crocodile Costume: The costume is great and the the rubber duck and floaty ring are fun additions too.

Frog Costume: A frog blowing bubbles. This is a fun costume! The eyes on the top of the head are a nice touch.

Koala Costume: This one has an awake face and then pictured is a sleeping mask with Zs printed on it. The koala is holding a plant and then a boomerang.

Set Review - #60446-1: Galactic Spaceship - CITY

Continuing (and finalizing) the CITY Space sets review is #60446-1: Galactic Spaceship. This set was released on 1 January 2025 and retired on 31 December 2025 so it’s already gone (except for the overpriced secondary market). I grabbed it right before it retired in mid-December. This set contained 717 pieces and retailed for $79.99. This worked out to $0.112 per piece. I saw this one go on sale briefly for roughly 20% off and sadly did not pick it up on sale. I did get it with a GWP from LEGO Shop @ Home so that helped some. I found it odd that this set never went on sale a lot while the other ones always seemed to be at least 20% off.

The box front shows the full set while the back shows some of the play features to include the modular parts and some of the internals of the set.

The set contained six numbered parts bags, three instruction booklets, a small sticker sheet, and the front screen piece was separate.

The first bag starts to build the front section of the ship which is the main control/navigation area of the ship. The front includes a space for a minifigure to sit at the controls along with an alien next to it. Immediately behind the control section is another section for a minifigure to sleep. Behind this section is what appears to be a small motor. This bag includes the first space minifigure. It comes with the space helmet and a hair piece for when the minifigure is in the spaceship and doesn’t need the helmet.

The second bag finishes the front craft of the ship. It adds the top to the ship, additional booster engines on each side, and adds a battery pack on each side. This section looks pretty similar to #60430-1: Interstellar Spaceship. It includes a female minifigure with a jet pack and hair piece and then an alien minifigure.

The third bag builds a modular section to go behind the front spacecraft. It is open space except for some tools. There is a jumper plate that can be used to store a robot built later. As with previous CITY Space sets, the modular attachments don’t actually have doors or connections so a minifigure can’t pass through. The play feature is that the roof opens up so you can access the module and put in minifigures and gear as desired. This bag comes with another space minifigure.

The fourth bag adds some storage containers that can attached and removed as needed. These containers contain translucent purple gem type pieces inside. It also includes two rock type pieces that open up and a small mining robot.

The fifth bag builds starts to build the rear section of the ship which includes a larger working section. As you can see from this build, it includes an eating area with drinks and a pizza. It also adds a medical section for treating astronauts. This section comes with a female space minifigure.

The last bag finishes the set with the eating area, a plant, and some science equipment. The trans clear/black roof section is held on by some pieces that rotate on to keep it in place.

It’s a great set if you were able to pick it up in time. Lots of play features and options to change the modules around. My kiddo had a blast swooshing it around. Sadly, it was overpriced and it was sad to see that it didn’t go on sale as often as I’d hoped.

I think the space sets were great with the ability to connect them together for play fun. It was also great to see sets across the price range from small polybags to larger sets like this one. I hope we can get more themes or subthemes like this again.

Happy building!

Final Giving of 2025

If you read the first update on our giving from 2025, you saw that we sent some LEGO Speed Champions sets to a friend of mine with a kid in the hospital. Sadly, this friend’s kid spent Christmas and New Years in the hospital and will be there for quite some time afterwards. To help support some of the efforts that hospital does to help out kids, Bricks for Bricks donated $483 to Stanford Children’s Hospital in California.
It was great in the past to know where donations were going in advance, but it worked out this year to be able to support those who needed it the most at the right time.

Thanks for helping to give this year and here’s to some happy building in 2026!

Space Baby!!!!!!!!!!! (MOC)

I reviewed the GWP set back in September 2025 and oh by the way, you can grab the GWP still from the Bricks for Bricks Bricklink store. The GWP is great, but wouldn’t it be awesome if we could build more Space Babies? What other colors are possible? Well, I dug into LEGO Bricks and Pieces (or Pick-a-Brick) and found that blue was a possibility. Granted, I had purchased a few extra 2x4 tiles with the Classic Space logo back when #10497-1: Galaxy Explorer was out. Along with the face piece available at the time of this post, everything was there to build. As you can see in the picture below, I was able to use the parts listing in the instructions to get everything together except the helmet. They don’t sell the lighter blue color (yet). I’ll keep watching though. Everything else was available. I made a few errors in my order so there are a few parts substitutions, but it’s pretty close (and you can’t tell from the picture). We’ll have to watch and see if other colors come in the future so we can expand the space baby crew.

Happy building!

First Giving of 2025

Bricks for Bricks didn’t decide on a campaign at the beginning of the year and it has worked out. We’ve been able to support where opportunities present themselves.

Our first opportunity came when we learned of a friend who has a son in the hospital long term waiting for an organ transplant. This one is a little non-standard from what we do, but when we received updates for this friend, we learned that his son enjoys building with LEGO in the hospital. The sets work out great as he can start and stop building as needed. Also, he really enjoys fast cars so we completed his collection of F1 Speed Champions sets

Our second opportunity to give was with a toy collection with a local charity. The charity sets up a store for those that can’t buy gifts for their kids to come in and pick up items for Christmas. We gave some Speed Champions sets to them to give out as well.

That’s $269.09 in giving for the year with more to come. So stay tuned!

Happy building!

Set Review - #60433-1: Modular Space Station - CITY

I grabbed another of the CITY Space sets. This one is #60433-1: Modular Space Station. It was released on 1 January 2024 for $109.99. It contains 1,097 pieces so that works out to $0.10 per piece which is right on the dot of the average some fan created and everyone seems to go with. I picked this up on sale for around $68 so while it’s getting ready to retire, there are some good sales still if you look for them.

The front of the box shows the full set with the CITY and Space logos. The back shows the play features in that you can detach the modules from the ring and then attach them together to make a modular looking space vehicle. It also highlights some of the insides of the various modules.

The set contains nine numbered parts bags and one unnumbered bag with the large pieces that make up the ring.

There are six instruction booklets so this is definitely a set you can build with multiple people if you split up the bags and instructions correctly. There is a small sticker sheet. I can’t complain too much as they were pretty easy to apply.

The first bag assembles what can be used as a command vehicle for the modules. You can use this as an attachment to the ring or as a front to the assembled modules. Not sure why there are little winglets as it’s in space, but it’s a nice touch I guess. This bag comes with one space minifigure.

The second bag starts to assemble the ring. It’s a mix of Technic and system pieces and in my opinion it’s quite a lot of Technic pieces for an age 7+ set.

The third bag wraps up the ring with all of the various attachment points for the various modules. It’s a pretty sturdy build and is hard to take apart which is good if this is a play set for kids enjoying space exploration play.

The fourth bag assembles a module that is used as sleeping quarters. There is a small bed and a hat the minifigure can wear when inside. You open a translucent piece on the top connected with a hinge to get inside. While this makes it easier to play with, this doesn’t make sense from a space functionality standpoint. The airlocks don’t actually open or close so the minifigure would have to suit up and go out the top which would vent any air inside the compartment. I’m sure most kids wouldn’t think of this, but it does make for some interesting thoughts on how it would work. One space minifigure in this bag.

The fifth bag assembles a few items. There is a module for growing plants in space. It includes a pumpkin, some tomatoes (maybe), and a few other plants. Same dilemma… you have to open the hinged clear bubble to get inside which would kill the plants.

You also assemble a solar panel array and an antenna for communications. This connects to the ring in the same way as the other modules.

Finally, there is a little robot that can work outside or inside the modules as needed.

Bag six assembles a module with some tools inside and you put a sticker on a tile which shows some details of the ship. Not a lot of detail in this module which makes it seem a bit plain, but you can beef it up if you need to using your own pieces. This bag comes with a yellow space minifigure.

Bag seven builds another module and this one is for science experiments. There is a power pack, a screen to look at some sort of microbe and then a blob of some sort made of an ice cream piece. This bag comes with a minifigure wearing a jet pack and solar panels. The minifigure is able to stand inside the module with all the gear on despite the solar panels attached so the module is decently sized.

Bag eight assembles a small landing platform that attaches to the ring. You then assemble a small space vehicle that can take the included blue space minifigure around. I assume it can be for maintenance or for short journeys to other space vehicles nearby.

Bag nine assembles the last module which is an eating area. It includes a sandwich, a coffee maker, and a small bottle of something. Not a lot of food for all the space minifigures, but maybe there is more in storage somewhere. One last green space minifigure in this bag.

Here is the final build assembled in ring form with all of the modules attached. You get six minifigures and a little robot. This one exceeded my expectations and it helped that I got it on sale. The play features are great and the ability to attach the modules to each other or to other sets in the line is a cool function. Lots of minifigures to do things with options to expand or do other things with your own pieces. I know it’s not for everyone and not every adult is into the kid lines, but as a LEGO Space fan, I think this CITY line did a great job in keeping with past themes.

It has some fun parts, lots of minifigures and if you can grab it on sale, the pricing isn’t bad. I recommend it to kids (and adults) into the LEGO Space themes.

Happy building!

Set Review - #21357-1: Luxo Jr. - LEGO Ideas

I’m usually not a fan of Disney themed sets, but this one is outside of the ordinary cartoon characters or representations. #21357-1: Luxo Jr. is a recreation of the famous ball playing desk lamp from the early Pixar days. This one was released on 1 June 2025 and contains 613 pieces. It retails for $69.99 which works out to $0.114 per piece. I picked it up for $56 so still a bit pricy, but better than the $70 list price.

The set was shipped to me in a padded envelope so the box I have got was beat up a bit. The front shows the lamp with the ball. The back shows the full set, provides dimensions, and shows some of the moveable features the set has.

The box contains four numbered parts bags, an instruction booklet, and the two lamp shade pieces. This is my first set with the recyclable paper bags. It was so great to be able to recycle the bags when I was done instead of throwing the plastic bags into the trash. Thank you LEGO!!!

The first bag assembles Luxo Jr’s ball. The inside is a cube with SNOT bricks. There are a number of colored pieces assembled together to resemble characters in various Pixar movies. Then there are a number of printed round pieces to make the ball round and are printed with the stripe and stars. In-between those round pieces are some triangle pieces to fill in the spaces.

The second bag assembles the lamp base. It is mostly white pieces with some Technic parts to hold up the rest of the lamp.

Bag three assembles the arm that holds up the lamp. The piece usage here is great to make it look like an actual adjustable arm. I like the mix of white pieces and silver round 1x1 plates as fasteners. This section of the build required paying attention to how pieces were aligned in the instructions. It’s fairly complicated despite being a relatively small build.

The fourth bag adds the lamp, a base (to attach the flattened ball to), and finishes the arm of the lamp. The lamp itself includes the lamp cover and the bulb. Inside the bulb piece is a mini build from another Pixar movie (no spoilers here). The base piece is a small square with a place to hold the ball when you remove two of the round pieces to make it look like Luxo Jr. is jumping on top of the ball. Then the arm is finished with two rubber bands that connect some pin pieces and are covered by a rubber piece that looks like it could be metal or maybe a spring.

Here are some final pictures of Luxo Jr. and the ball. The build was great with some interesting piece usage to create a very realistic looking lamp. The cost is a bit steep so look for a sale like I did. I don’t believe it’s retiring soon so you have some time to wait for a good sale. The lamp has numerous poseable functions and can be adjusted without falling over or rotating with gravity. Great job design team!

This set is good for fans of Pixar, but can also work for those interested in a fun display piece and want a lamp for an office or desk. Also, it’s great to see LEGO Ideas still out there with #65 in the line.

Happy building!

Set Review - #42172-1: McLaren P1 Hypercar - Technic

Car number five in the LEGO Technic supercar line was released on 1 August 2024. This one is #42172-1: McLaren P1 Hypercar and it retails for $449.99. It contains 3,893 pieces which works out to $0.116 per piece. This is actually slightly lower than the last car #42143-1: Ferrari Daytona SP3 which was $0.119 per piece. The Ferrari also had 3,778 pieces so this one has slightly over 100 more pieces. Overall this one seems to be in line with the others, but at $450, it’s quite expensive. I used a large amount of Lego Insider Points to pick this one up at a discount and grabbed a GWP as well in the process.

The packaging is very impressive much like some of the previous cars. The imagery on the box is very sleek with the set shown on one side while the other side shows the image of the real car with a P1 logo.

When you open the box, there is an image of the actual car using flaps. Opening these flaps shows a few other images of the actual car and then an image of the LEGO car which is created with the assembly of the three boxes that contain the parts bags.

When the parts boxes are removed, the very bottom of the box include the two instruction books. Shown on the picture on the right below are the boxes numbered by when they are used in the instructions.

Each of the boxes contains numbered parts bags and some number of unnumbered bags. There is one of each number of bag and it goes up to 23. The last box contains the wheels and rims.

Contents of Box 1

Contents of Box 2

Contents of Box 3

Bags one and two start to build the exhaust and rear suspension. It is mostly a Technic build, but on the picture for bag two you can see some System pieces to include the gold pieces on the top.

Bag three finishes up the rear suspension.

Bag 4 starts the 7-Speed Gearbox and V8 Engine. First up is the Gearbox and it is an intense build where you really need to make sure you pay attention to what goes where in the instructions. I thankfully finished it without any issues as it would be a lot to take apart and try to repair.

Bag five wraps up the gearbox while bag six adds some connectors to eventually connect it to the engine.

Bag seven adds the Technic piston pieces that move when you move the wheels.

Bag eight is listed as Hybrid Mode, E-Mode, & Interior in the instructions. It wasn’t clear to me what the Hybrid and E-Mode sections of the build were, but I’m not a car expert so that’s probably why. As you can see from the picture, this bag extends out the frame from the back.

Bag nine adds in the seats and more of the details in the front to include the paddle shifters. Bag ten builds up the dashboard a bit and more of the front of the car.

Bag 11 is listed as Door Mechanism & Sides. The doors open up and they are held in place with a spring mechanism. That mechanism is added in this step. Bag 12 adds some of the side panels of the vehicle behind where the doors will go.

I failed to take a picture of the build for bag 13, but the instructions label it as Front Suspension & Steering.

As advertised by bag 14, you have a steering wheel and a front suspension. Bag 15 adds the roof to the vehicle.

Bags 16 and 17 are labeled as Front Hood & Headlights. Bag 16 assembles more of the front to include the bottom bumper area. Bag 17 adds the lights and more of the hood. The main part of the light is a LEGO claw piece which is a cool use of the piece.

Bag 18 finishes the hood. When assembling it I thought it looks odd, but it really comes together in a Technic sort of way and looks good.

Bag 19 adds the passenger side butterfly door. This was another part of the build where as you are building, it doesn’t seem to make sense, but the final product comes together well. The mechanism to hold them open works well. There is not switch or lever, you just grab the door and pull, but it still works.

Bag 20 adds the driver side door. The picture shows them both open.

Bag 21 is labeled as the Rear Clam & Spoiler. This section is built away from the rest of the car and then attached later. One bonus to this set is there are no stickers. All printed pieces. So I guess the $450 isn’t bad in that sense.

Bag 22 continues to build out the rear section.

Bag 23 wraps up the build with the rear spoiler, the rear part assembles the rest of the car, a small carry bag, and the printed tile you can place next to the car with the name and details. I took a few pictures from different angles and with some of the play features to include the rear spoiler which can be raised or lowered by turning a gear in the back of the car.

Overall, a great build. I enjoy the challenge and marvel at how the Technic designers can seemingly take some random pieces and craft the into a cool looking car. I will continue to get these into the future, but will look for sales or use Insider points. $450 is a lot and at over $0.11 per piece, it falls above the usual range of $0.10 per piece. I understand it’s a licensed product and there are a lot of odd pieces, but still…. Yikes! That price is steep.

I pulled out all the cars that I have for a photo shoot. My kiddos suggested we line them up in rainbow color order. We just need a purple one next. LEGO? Now I need to find a good way to display them in my build space.

Happy building!

Set Review - #71050: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Series - Collectible Minifigures

We’re thankfully back to minifigures after the last round of minifigure heads on miniature cars. This is #71050: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. These were released on 1 September 2025 and are scheduled to retire at the end of the year, but they are already getting hard to find at the end of October 2025. They retail for $4.99 each which is the same as they have been. The minifigures still come in the cardboard boxes and you an still buy them in packs of six as well.

I’m not a big Spider-Man/Spider-Verse fan so don’t ask me who these characters are or where they are from. I will make a few comments on individual minifigures. Of note for this round, the base plates are in translucent orange which is a new thing to see. I’m a fan of that color!

Margo Kess/Spider-Byte - The light blue colored head piece is fun.

Peter B. Parker & May “Mayday” Parker - Come on… who doesn’t love a Spider Baby. We started with just babies. Then it was Space Babies. Now we have Spider Baby. What is next?

Petra Parker/Cyborg Spider-Woman

Charlotte Webber/Sun-Spider

I’m not really sure what to say about either of these. I guess you have to be a fan of the series to enjoy them.

Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk

Miles Morales/Spider-Man

I like how these minifigures come with two heads so they can be the human version or the Spider-Man version.

Patrick O’Hara/Web-Slinger - Is it a donkey or a pony? Either way, it’s a fun addition with the minifigure.

Peter Parker/Werewolf Spider-Man - I think we have had a werewolf before so now we have a Spider Werewolf.

Miles G. Morales/Prowler - Is that a record tile?

Gwen Stacy/Spider Gwen - This one is interesting in that you get two heads and two hair pieces.

Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 and Lyla Statuette/Trophy - The cape is plastic instead of cloth. Not sure if I prefer one over the other and since I don’t know the character, I don’t know if it’s designed accurately.

Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India - Spider-Cat? Or is there an official name. Lots of fun extras in this series.

Set Review - #40802-1: Luna Lovegood & Thestral Figures - Brickheadz

More Harry Potter themed Brick Headz sets! Continuing with the packs of two, this one is #40802-1: Luna Lovegood & Thestral Figures. It was released on 1 September 2025 in the US for $19.99. It contains 292 pieces which works out to $0.068 per piece. It’s the standard box design with the numbers on the bottom of the front. Thestral is 279 and Luna is 280. The back gives another view and shows that you can take off the plate at the base from the figure.

The box contains five parts bags numbered one through five. There are two instruction booklets that were jammed in with the parts bags in my set.

Bags one and two build Luna Lovegood as she appeared in The fifth movie (“Order of the Phoenix”). There’s a scene where she is hanging out in the woods with the Thestrals and Harry stops by. She explains to him what Thestrals are and tries to feed an apple to the baby Thestral. Also, she isn’t wearing any shoes which explains the skin toned color used for her legs/feet. Nothing extraordinary about this build. Her sweater is printed along with her top. Also, I like how they did the bag that she is carrying with the tiles placed at an angle instead of using more prints.

Bags three, four, and five build the Thestral. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be the baby or the adult from that scene. It captures the wings and tail and while hard to see in the picture, the four legs. It’s actually propped up on two clear 2x2 bricks as if it were jumping or flying. The eyes use the glow in the dark plastic seen in other sets, but have the white printing to match the standard Brick Headz eyes.

Here are the figures fully built from the front and side. Similar to other Brick Headz sets, if you are a Harry Potter fan or if you have to have all of the Brick Headz, pick these up. If not, pass. The pricing isn’t too bad, but they are LEGO exclusives so you have to hope they go on discount before retirement if you want a better deal.

Happy building!