Today The LEGO Group is celebrating International Women's Day early as well as the fortieth anniversary of its now iconic, 'What it is is beautiful,' ad campaign. They are launching a new initiative to champion gender equality and encourage girls and young women to chase their aspirations. Read on to learn more about the #LEGOFutureBuilders campaign and how you can participate in the movement!  

There were some fantastic Hero Factory builds people shared last month during Hero February, but they weren't all heroes. Take, for example Redd Klaw aka Jacques Thermidor, by Pohaturon, who used crustaceans as his inspiration for this chef-turned-villain. The first thing I'm drawn to are the angry eyebrows, which sell the build, but the claw arm, sail, and clam belt are all perfect touches. So if your caviar ever turns into crabs, you'll know that Redd Klaw has struck again!

Three new projects have achieved ten thousand votes of support on LEGO Ideas over the past two days. Take a look at SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy (BFR) by haymaw99, Ancient Greek Temple by HP_Brixxter, and Succulent Garden by Succulent Joe, three very different models that all garnered a lot of support. All three builds feature amazing details and techniques and could be a great addition to the Ideas theme, both complimenting and contrasting the Winnie the Pooh set revealed earlier today. We wish them the best of luck when they enter their upcoming review phase!

Today LEGO is sharing the final result of their collaboration with Ben Alder on the LEGO Ideas Winnie the Pooh set. Available to VIPs on March 18th and everyone else on April 1st for $100, 21326 Winnie the Pooh captures the titular bear's house in the Hundred Acre Wood and all of his friends. As we've come to expect in these models, there's a ton of detail made up from the 1,265 elements, with everything you would expect after reading the original stories by A. A. Milne or the Disney adaptations over the years. Read on to check it out and and learn more about the set and the Ideas process!  

It's time for this week's installment of the Bits N' Bricks podcast, still discussing the still popular and well-regarded LEGO Universe. Go listen to Episode 13 - LEGO Universe: Death of a Dream on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform to hear more behind-the-scenes of the launch of the game and the events that led to its closure less than two years later. Journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent pull back the curtain with their usual interviews and insight. And if you're still looking for a LEGO Universe fix, don't forget about Darkflame Universe, the fan-made remake of the game!

Tonight we'll be switching gears in our LEGO videogame streams and heading back to LEGO Dimensions to check out the Back to the Future area. Come on by the BZPower Twitch channel starting at 7:30 PM Eastern to watch us head to Hill Valley in our DeLorean to save time or something - who knows! I'm looking forward to seeing what adventures we have and chatting with the people who join us!

Yesterday The LEGO House announced that a new set would be joining their 'The LEGO House Limited Editions' collection: 40502 The Brick Moulding Machine. The 1205-piece set will be available starting on March 4th only at the 'home of the brick' in Billund, Denmark for 599 DKK (about $100 USD) and replicates the machine found in the building as well as in LEGO factories around the world. The set certainly looks like a unique and interesting build that would be a great souvenir if you can manage a visit to the birthplace of the company. If you're interested in learning more, you can head to The LEGO House website to read the full press release!

Yesterday another cool creation joined the ranks of the LEGO Ideas 10k Club. Take a look at the Steampunk Airship by BrickHammer, which captures the Victorian Era alternate history style in our favorite plastic bricks. The airship is the fourth project this builder has had reach the goal, after Terry Pratchett's Discworld, Viking Village, and The King's Castle. I absolutely love all the details in this creation, from the golden decorative elements to the fully-furnished interior. It would certainly be something different to come out of the Ideas process, and we wish it good luck during the review phase!

Welcome to March - spring is almost here! Since it's a new month, it means we have a new giveaway for BZPower members to enter. Head over to 2021 Member Raffle #3 to count yourself interested in getting a free 75114 First Order Stormtrooper set from the Star Wars buildable figure series. All members are welcome to enter, and if you're lucky, you'll be like Mistah_Grammaticul, the winner of last month's raffle, and walk away with a new addition to your LEGO collection!

Somehow more than two days have passed without a project on LEGO Ideas achieving ten thousand votes of support. So I thought instead of talking about a creation that already met its goal, let's look at one that's still on the rise! Bionicle: Toa Head Statue is a great tribute to the early years of the theme and instantly recognizable to anyone who built the original Toa Mata or Nuva. It looks like it would be the perfect size to display on a desk or a bookshelf next to all of your Bionicle books. I also love the little details on the base: a Hau, an Ussal crab, some gears to show the Technic roots, and the Mata Nui and Makuta stones. We wish yannickbuildsthings, aka ToM Dracone, the best of luck and encourage you all to vote if it's the kind of thing you'd like to buy and build!

It's February 28th, and it's not a leap year, so that means there's only a few hours (sixteen or so) left to enter the 2021 Member Raffle #2! You could be the lucky winner of 75535 Han Solo just by being a BZPower member. If you miss out though, no worries, we'll have a new giveaway for March tomorrow. Best of luck to all!

If you've been around BZPower for a while you might have bumped into Ray, who goes by InnerRayg and Funny Figs around the web. Yes, he's the one who made the sprite kit. Recently though, he and collaborator Jake Cohen are setting their sights elsewhere: comic books. Yesterday they launched their Kickstarter campaign for Astounding Tales, a Golden Age Adventure for the Modern Age, and if it strikes your fancy you can help them make their dream a reality that you can hold in your hands and flip through. No, this isn't really LEGO related, but Ray has been my friend and a part of this community for a long time, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes him! Excelsior!

So we've got a little LEGO set that we're going to build. By little I mean the largest set of all time: 10276 Colosseum. Want to watch? How about tomorrow, February 27th starting at 1 PM Eastern on the BZPower Twitch channel? There's no way we'll finish, but we will definitely chat and give out some prizes. See you there!

Today we have a review of another Star Wars set for you all, kindly provided to us by LEGO. We're taking a look at 75302 Imperial Shuttle, which allows us to recreate Luke Skywalker turning himself in to Darth Vader on the forest moon of Endor. Containing 660 pieces and retailing for $79.99 when it launches on March 1st, it's smaller than the previous iteration that was released in 2015, but what is the impact of that lower cost and piece count? Is it still a fun build, are there useful elements, and can you play with it? Read on to find out my thoughts!  

Two new projects have achieved ten thousand votes of support on LEGO Ideas over the past couple of days. First up is Marine Life by Brick Dangerous, which features a seahorse, jellyfish, and clownfish in adorable little aquariums. Then we have Via Rail Canada - The Canadian by NickLafreniere1, capturing the rail line from Toronto to Vancouver that has been in operation for over seventy years. The two projects are quite different, showing off the variety that the platform enables. We wish them the best of luck when they enter their upcoming review phase!

Who doesn't love a good meme? Obviously not BZPower member Tattorack, who recently shared IT'S ALL BONKLES!! over in the General Art forum with his take on the 'It's All Ohio' meme. The artist takes it to the next level though, doing away with MS Paint doodles and Photoshops with some lovely artwork that pays tribute to our favorite LEGO theme. And really, it's just reaffirming what we all already knew, it is all Bionicle.

We shared the press release yesterday but didn't get around to sharing the newest episode of the Bits N' Bricks podcast. You can go listen to Episode 12 - LEGO Universe Soundtrack: A Conversation to learn about how the music behind the game came into being. Richard Dekkard and Brian Tyler get interviewed by journalist Brian Crecente and documentarian Ethan Vincent about how they both became involved in the project and what it was like working with the team and Sir Patrick Stewart. There's even some audio clips from the original behind-the-scenes recording about the game where we get to hear Sir Stewart talk about his experience with LEGO bricks! This is probably one of my favorite episodes yet, so give it a listen!

After some electrical issues yesterday, we are good to go with streaming tonight! Join us starting at 7:30 PM Eastern on the BZPower Twitch channel as we continue our revisit of The LEGO Movie: The Videogame and try to reach the lofty goal of 100% completion. Since next week will be the first Tuesday of March, meaning we'll be heading back to LEGO Dimensions, tonight we'll also be asking what you'd like to see us play in that title, as we have many different characters we can explore. See you all there!

It's Wednesday, which means as per usual that a new episode of the Bits N' Bricks podcast is coming out, but that's not all! In celebration of 25 years of LEGO Games and to coincide with the episodes about LEGO Universe, Brian Tyler and The LEGO Group have remastered and released the soundtrack from the beloved MMO game! It's available to purchase and stream right now! Read on for more details and to find out where you can listen.  

Unfortunately, some electrical work going on at my house is taking longer than planned, so we'll be postponing tonight's Twitch Tuesday stream. Once everything is up and operational we'll let you all know what night this week we'll be moving the stream to. Hopefully it will be tomorrow, but we'll play it by ear for now. I'm looking forward to playing some more The LEGO Movie: The Videogame with you all!

It's no secret that I'm a lover of all things Tolkien-related, so the latest LEGO Ideas news is something I'm happy to see. A new project has reached ten thousand votes of support on the platform: A Map of Middle-Earth by Artem Biziaev, yet another 10k Club veteran. The map is the third project this builder has had reach the goal, after the Hyrule Castle (The Legend of Zelda) and Baba Yaga. While I absolutely love all the details in this creation, from the place names to the micro-figs of the Fellowship, I will keep my expectations tempered for when it enters the review phase. Perhaps we'll get lucky, but until we know for sure I'll just enjoy the beautiful MOC!

Happy Monday! If you're dealing with depressing winter weather like many in the US right now and need a pick-me-up, look no further than LEGO Ideas! A new project has achieved ten thousand votes of support: My LEGO Totoro ( feat. Cat Bus ) by legotruman, who is no stranger to the 10k Club. This is their fourth time getting a project this far, and if they're lucky, it will become a LEGO set just like the upcoming Vincent van Gogh: The Starry Night! Anyway, this project captures the look and feel of the classic Miyazaki film by Studio Ghibli and I'm sure would make a great addition to many people's collections. We'll keep our fingers crossed for a favorable review result!

If you've ever been to a LEGO fan convention, chances are you've seen a Great Ball Contraption. A staple of events everywhere, these are always a huge hit with visitors and exhibitors alike. About a year ago, at LEGO World Copenhagen in February 2020, the world record for the longest LEGO GBC was set! In the video on the LEGO YouTube channel, you can see some of the 299 modules made up of over 200,000 LEGO elements, with each one intricately placed to help get a LEGO soccer ball from point A to point B. Congratulations to Maico Arts, Ben Jonkman, Klaus Hansen, Vibeke Brogard, Brian Soholm Larsen, [email protected], and Andreas Engelmartin, who assembled this awesome layout. If we ever get to go to conventions again, when you see the GBC running, go up and ask, 'is that all it does?' They love it when you do that! (Don't really do that.)

Recently another pair of cool creations have entered the hallowed halls of the LEGO Ideas 10k Club. First up is The Trulli of Alberobello by Renato Lovicario RennaWSL, which captures the looks of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in our favorite plastic bricks. Next up is the Jazz Quartet by Hsinwei Chi, which is an updated version of the builder's entry to the Music to Our Ears contest. Both models feature superb attention to detail and could be great additions to the Ideas theme. We wish them both the best of luck when they enter their upcoming review phase!

Earlier this week, The LEGO Group and Universal Music Group shared more details on VIDIYO and teased the release of an upcoming single from L.L.A.M.A, "the first ever human version of a LEGO minifigure." The single dropped today and you can listen to Shake by L.L.A.M.A, with Ne-Yo and Carmen DeLeon on a variety of platforms, including a music video on YouTube. That video sure is something. Given the collaboration between TLG and UMG on this project, I was expecting at least some LEGO content or references, personally, but I didn't spot any in the 2:42 track. Give it a listen and see what you think, then share your thoughts in the Talkback!