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LEGO Digital Designer 2018 update

With all the LEGO news and new sets coming out at the beginning of the year, I neglected to mention one important piece of news for LEGO fans; LEGO Digital Designer has been updated at the beginning of February with over four hundred new parts! 🙂

As we discussed previously, LEGO is planning to retire LEGO Digital Designer, however due to major outcry from the LEGO fan community, they decided to keep the software running until they have something else to replace it with. The software no longer gets updates and bug fixes, however new parts are added from time to time. You can read more about these changes here: LEGO Digital Designer – The End is Near…

The last time we got an update to the software was at the end of 2016, with LEGO Digital Designer 4.3.10. During 2017, LEGO added a large selection of new parts, and it was frustrating for LEGO fans that they were not able to use them for virtual building. However, with LEGO Digital Designer 4.3.11, pretty much all of the new parts released in 2017 were added to the database. The image below by LEGO fan CM4Sci nicely lays out most of the new elements.

LEGO Digital Designer is available both for Mac and Windows operating systems, but please read the minimum system requirements before downloading the software. You can find the download page here, and the support pages and user manual here.

Please also note that LEGO Digital Designer has three versions; the Basic Version that includes currently available pieces and colors, the Mindstorms Version for building with Mindstorms elements, and the Extended Version which includes the largest selection of parts (both current and retired) and you can select any color you want (even if they are not available). In general, the Extended Version of LDD is most useful for LEGO fans, although you will have to double check the make sure the parts and colors are actually available.

Since the future of LEGO Digital Designer is uncertain, it is also a good idea to try out some of the alternatives. Some of them are quite similar to LEGO Digital Designers, while others are more powerful but require a steep learning curve. BrickSmith utilizes the LDraw library and is created for Mac users. LDraw is for Windows, Mac and Linux. MecaBricks is a browser-based software and is similar to how LDD works. MLCad is also based on LDraw and is a very powerful CAD system for Windows and Linux. And Stud.io by BrickLink is also very similar to LDD and works both on Windows and Mac, with the added benefit of being fully integrated with the BrickLink marketplace.

What do you think? Do you use LEGO Digital Designer? And have you tried out the new parts selection yet? Are there any interesting pieces that you have noticed in the database? Or are there any issues that you ran into? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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Pacific Rim Uprising, the sequel to the 2013 film, Pacific Rim, was released just a few days ago. While it doesn’t have the originality, artistry, and sheer awesomeness of the first film, it does provide good follow-up entertainment for fans. Pacific Rim is particularly interesting for LEGO fans, because the LEGO building system lends itself to creating giant robots and monsters destroying entire cities. You may remember the epic Kaiju attack scene by OliveSeon that circulated around the internet a few years ago (see below), and there are many more. 🙂

Building huge monster Kaijus and giant humanoid mechas called Jaegers out of LEGO bricks is just incredibly satisfying. If you search for LEGO Pacific Rim, LEGO Kaiju, and LEGO Jaeger, you will find many examples of LEGO fans recreating scenes and characters from the movie, like this collection of Jaegers by Moko.

The Pacific Rim-inspired mechs by chubbybots are also excellent examples, and he also provides video-tutorials for many of his creations via his YouTube channel, so you can build along.

And, you don’t have to have thousands of LEGO bricks to build mechas and monsters either. If you have a smaller collection, you can use micro-building techniques, or even a couple of well-chosen minifigs will suffice – as exemplified by Leonardo Ho in the picture below.

If you like building mechs and monsters, Pacific Rim provides plenty of material to work with. The monsters in the film are quite diverse, with all kinds of interesting shapes and colors, and the mechs also represent several different technologies, styles, armor, weapons, etc. If you are interested, there are many reference pictures from the movie, as well as examples by LEGO fans. For example, for Pacific Rim Uprising, Brick FORCE Studios recreated the entire trailer in LEGO bricks. In the video-player below, you can find the LEGO version of the trailer, the original movie trailer, and a side-by-side view of the two trailers. So many interesting scenes here!

I’m actually surprised LEGO didn’t pick up the license for the Pacific Rim films. LEGO designers like working on mechs and monsters, kids love them, adults love them – it would have been a perfect match. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, but this doesn’t mean you can’t build your own scenes. And, there are some LEGO sets from other themes you can use as starter models for your own Pacific Rim-inspired LEGO creations. The LEGO Ninjago Movie line in particular is full of interesting mechs that you can customize and repurpose, and they also have very good articulation and play-features. And there are also some good mechs in some of the LEGO Super Heroes sets. You can find a good selection at the Online LEGO Shop.

What do you think? Are you a fan of the Pacific Rim movies? Have you seen the new film yet? Did you ever recreate any of the mechs, monsters, or scenes from the movie with LEGO bricks? Or do you have some favorite recreations from other LEGO fans? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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