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Red Dragon Close Look

Having some fun with the new LEGO D&D set and a couple of Red Dragons.

#toyphotography #legophotography #lego #brickcentral #toy photography #dnd #lego dungeons and dragons #dragon art #dragons #red dragon

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Peril on Snake Mountain

I built the Snake Mountain MegaConstrux set earlier this year and I really love it. It's a huge set and great value especially when compared to LEGO

I'll be making an effort to use it in more photos too.

#toyphotography #mega construx #motu #motu revolution #masters of the universe

[freethefigures]

I took a break from building the new Red Dragon Tale D&D set to build the Mimic GWP last week. I really liked it so I decided to take a handful of photos. There's more on my website (see below) if you are interested

https://freethegeekman.co.uk/2024/04/07/feature-lego-dd-mimic-dice-box/

#toyphotography #lego #legophotography #toy photography #dnd #lego dungeons and dragons

[freethefigures]

So excited to get my hands on this asap

Review: LEGO Ideas 21348 Dungeons & Dragons

After many Lego Ideas attempts and a massively successful Ideas challenge campaign, Lego is finally releasing a set to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons. The winner of the challenge, Dragon's Keep: Journey's End, designed by BoltBuilds, was selected through an exciting fan vote. Although the set is not an exact copy of the submission, which is to be expected, it delivers an incredible experience.

The sets presents itself like a One-Shot Adventure. There is a QR code with a link in the build instructions to download the adventure, with pre-designed characters and a few scenarios to feed the adventure. There is a brief description on the monsters and the characters and some intro to the Dungeons & Dragons history. Full disclaimer, I haven't had my hands on the actual adventure that comes with the set (the code does not work yet), so this is mostly based on intuition and guesses. I will try my best to avoid any spoilers.

If you are a DnD player, or even more a dungeon master, building the set itself is pure joy. As you go along creating the parts of the set, you also go along building secrets, treasures, traps, monster hideouts... No brick is placed randomly and there is a purpose for even the smaller space. You feel like you are preparing the stage for your players.

The heroes and the NPCs

The adventure comes with four pre-designed heroes: A Dwarf Cleric, a Gnome Fighter, and Orc Rogue and an Elf Wizard. All three come with two different heads, male and female, with the exception of the orc that just has two different expressions. They are customizable up to a degree, including weapons and spells.

Besides the heroes, we have two NPCs: the innkeeper (also two heads for male/female) and a green dragonborn, which uses the head mould from the Vidiyo series.

The monsters

There is a surprisingly large selection of monsters in the set. A gelatinous cube (which was teased on social media), a beholder, an owlbear, a mimic (or two?), a displacer beast, a treant, two Myconid? (I'm not sure if that's what they are meant to be), several skeletons and a large red dragon.

The smaller monsters are all brick-built and very well made, in perfect proportion for the heroes and to fit inside the scenarios. The owlbear and the beholder however might be too big to put inside the buildings or ruins though, so maybe they will just appear in specific places, but both of them are gorgeous builds.

The dragon itself is huge and beautiful, but delicate. I keep having to reattach the legs often when trying to pose it. The head also keeps looking down, since there is not much friction on the ball joint and the head is too big and heavy for it. And yes, there are printed tiles for the eyes! They are just almost impossible to see behind the horns.

The scenarios

The set is divided into four different builds with their respective books of instructions: the inn, the forest/dungeons, the tower, and the dragon. All three have different styles and building techniques, so it makes the building experience entertaining. I'm not a fan of the blue/purple roof of the inn, but I agree that it needed a color pop to separate it from the rest of the build and the dragon.

All three are open in the back, to allow the players to move around. For a toy photographer, this gives the chance to shoot many different scenes. They are also modular and can be easily separated, I'm assuming to allow players to go around discovering each one individually as they explore the environment. On their own, the scenarios are small, so I'm guessing movement will have to be limited or counted by studs.

Everyone knows a good adventure starts and ends on an inn. Our heroes need a place to rest and prepare for the coming adventure, so I'm guessing this is where the adventure will begin.

Some details will have to be described by the Dungeon Masters, otherwise I don't see how four players's heads can look into the tiny inn and say: "Hey, I want to investigate the chest, it looks interesting" or "That brick has a different color, I want to know if I can move it". It will also look very cramped if all four minifigures try to be in the same room investigating or fighting a monster.

There are already a few secrets on the inn for the more curious adventurers, and food and drinks for the more relaxed ones.

As they leave the inn they will most likely step into the forest, and from there, several paths can be followed. One could go through the ruins, or the dungeons, explore both, or find a completely new path to the tower (which I assume is the final destination).

On the way, there will be treasure to be found, weapons and spells, some potions... These are things to prepare for the upcoming final battle. But to get to those there will be monsters and traps and mysteries to be solved.

As with the inn, the space is very small to see and put all the players in, so the Dungeon Master must be very involved in describing and hinting so the players can be more successful at finding these secrets.

Eventually, they would reach the tower where there is a climb up to the adventure finale. I don't want to show much there to avoid spoilers, but the same applies here. Secrets to be found and possibly the story will unfold into an unexpected conclusion.

Verdict

With a high price of 359,99€/$359.99 and 3745 pieces, it is a large and expensive set. But for both LEGO and Dungeons & Dragons fans, if you can afford it, this one is worth it. The joy of physically building the adventure and being able to play with the characters and monsters is for me what makes it so great.

I also believe that most of the scenes are rather a visual reference than a playing grid, it does feel small for four players to move around and still be able to see the surroundings, let alone have full battles in a few squared studs. But I'm more than happy to try!

I would also say that fans of medieval fantasy would probably enjoy the set, but perhaps some of the lore will pass unnoticed. However, for those who are not DnD or Medieval theme fans, it might not be worth it at all.

As a toy photographer, heavily invested in fantasy themes, I love all the different backgrounds and characters that come with the set. It feels like there are so many storytelling possibilities, so many moments to capture, and it has so much potential for modifications. You could add your own characters for the story, add a few more treasures and traps, or create your own adventure.

[freethefigures]

All this talk of the recently announced and soon to released LEGO D&D set had me thinking back to the NINJAGO sets from 2020.

One of my first reviews for @brickcentral was for the Skull Sorcerers dungeon set in that wave and it very much felt like a Ninjago spin (pun intended) on a D&D type tabletop game.

It had a medieval fantasy slant, ninjago spinner dice, magic weapons, orc and goblin like enemies serving an evil Sorcerer and a set of game rules. Back then I was sure that would be the closest thing we ever got to an official LEGO D&D set. Who knew!

#toyphotography #lego #legophotography #minifigure #dnd

[freethefigures]

The Failed Escape.

A shot for the Brickcentral activity this month which is all about making your minifig smaller in the frame. That's something I didn't often do so thought it would be fun to try.

#lego #toyphotography #legophotography #minifigure #brickcentral #toy photography #legomania

[freethefigures]

Turtle-y Awesome

This Michaelangelo is a part die-cast part plastic action figure that's quite simply my new favourite toy (alongside the Leonardo from the same range- not pictured here).

They don't come cheap but you can feel the quality in them. Anyway, I'm going to try and take some more photos of these guys and do a full feature on them.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #michaelangelo #toy photography #toyphoto

[freethefigures]

Absolutely love this build!

<ATLAS Unit 02>

Dark grey means strength, and Aqua stands for flexibility. With so many thrusts on the back pack, this Atlas is meant to be very swift and mobile while fighting.

The shield also comes with beam cannons along with beam saber. I think it has lot more potential to carry more weapons, which could be in the future projects.

[freethefigures]

Circles of Confusion

It was a Sunday afternoon and Tess had ventured into the woods to take a photo of a toy. All of a sudden she was surrounded by out-of-focus points of light, was she under attack by these ghostly aberrations? They were everywhere but didn't seem to have any purpose or meaning. They were just there. Once the fear subsided, Tess did the only thing a toy photographer could do in this situation. She adjusted her figure on some moss and took a photo, bokeh and all.

#toyphotography #lego #legophotography #minifigure #brickcentral #toy photography #legomania #bokeh #bokeh photography

[freethefigures]

The delivery of this dazzling dragon-like dude revitilised my desire to dust off my camera and my review writing hat. You can check out mote photos, some videos and my ramblings at the link.

#toyphotography #dnd #mythic legions #toy photography #action figures #action figure photography #dragon art #dragonborn

[freethefigures]

She's a Fun(gi(rl)). That's a good joke, yes it makes sense, shut up! 😅

#toyphotography #lego #legophotography #minifigure #brickcentral #legomania

[freethefigures]

Dragons Den.

This was inspired by a cool photo I saw in the mythic legions cabal FB group by a chap whose name I can't remember. Ill update with his name if I can find it again! Anyway, He used this massive Blue Dragon figure alongside a D&D miniature in a really nice shot.

The "massive blue dragon" figure is called Aracagorr from the most recently shipped Poxxus wave of #mythiclegions. He's impressive, I'll have a review up soon.

I've been super inactive with my camera for the last 12 months or but I found the urge and the time again recently so you should be seeing more of me here. I've also been updating my website and will continue do that going forwards.

#toyphotography #lego #legophotography #minifigure #dnd #dnd stuff #dnd character #mythic legions

[freethefigures]

Fearless.

The Man and The Woman without fear in a couple of shots together.

Loads more photos (and one video) of this Elektra Daredevil figure in my review of this Marvel Legend.

#toyphotography #action figure photography #marvel #daredevil #elektra #elektradaredevil #epictoyart #marvelcomics #matt murdock

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I finally got round to building this set that I got when it first came out. Another reminder I should never pay full price because I've seen it reduced loads since then. Anyway, I do like this Tie Bomber. I wish it was slightly bigger, more in line with the older star wars vehicles but I understand rhey have gone smaller to keep these non UCS sets more affordable.

Anyway, I built a very quick and basic background for it, I probably should not have been so lazy and added some greebling

#starwars #toyphotography #lego #legophotography #minifigure #brickcentral #legominifigures

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Marvel Legends: Elektra Natchios Daredevil.

I wrote a short review for this Marvel Legends figure over on my website and took a load of photos of her to go with it. Check it out at the link below

Let me know what you think if you check it out.

#toyphotography #marvel cinematic universe #marvel characters #marvel #daredevil #kingpin #elektra #epictoyart #toy review

[freethefigures]

What happened to Spider-man?

This was a shot I took for a "Noir" theme with a group on IG (collababunga!). I took this opportunity to try and capture rain with 1:12 figs rather than lego.

Here's a short video showing the set up.

#toyphotography #action figure photography #skeleton #mezcoone12collective #noir #spiderman #atticus doom #epictoyart #rain

[freethefigures]

Another couple of pics from the Ninjago shoot I did for @brickcentral and LEGO.

#toyphotography #lego #legophotography #minifigure #brickcentral #legominifigures #ninjago fanart #ninjago #ninjago kai #ninjago nya