In Your Dreamzzz: Exploring the Potential of LEGO Dreamzzz
When LEGO offered the entire LEGO Dreamzzz lineup to BrickNerd, we knew we wanted to do something different with them. To celebrate the boundless creativity of the sets available now, we shipped them to various talented AFOLs to play with and dream about.
What would they do with the sets? You will soon find out today (and tomorrow in our Dreamzzz Nightmare Edition). Let the daydreaming begin!
Isaac Wilder Dreams of Vehicles
Isaac Wilder is from Oregon and is a constantly evolving LEGO fan and builder. They can be found online on Flickr and Instagram. BrickNerd sent them sets 71456 Mrs. Castillo's Turtle Van and 71458 Crocodile Car to see what they would dream about.
71456 Mrs. Castillo's Turtle Van
Mrs. Castillo's Turtle Van was such a fun set to build, and I love the combined animal/vehicle aspect. I think a turtle and van go together well; the shape of the van lends itself to almost mimic a shell. The instructions include gorgeous art throughout to guide the process. I wasn't quite sure how much room there would be inside the van. Given that it's eight studs wide, though, you can bet that it'll be much more practical in terms of cargo space than a Speed Champions vehicle.
I wanted to find a way to make this set "come alive" and seep into reality, even if just a little. I chose to photograph it rather than rebuild or modify. Using a stand, my phone, and a Flickr post I remembered seeing last year as inspiration, I set off on my quest for the perfect image. Exactly 227 stills later, and the result is what you see above! (Below are some of the other 226 photos that didn’t make the cut, including a very special guest in the background!)
71458 Crocodile Car
The Crocodile Car set was another absolute joy to put together! It has more amazing art in the manual that directs the process with multiple building options. The vehicle’s features are very cool and add a lot of life; my favorite is the way the tail can be moved. The projectile shooter is perfectly placed as well! I really love the color scheme and the inclusion of neon yellow.
My modifications include some notable references to the retired theme "Time Cruisers." Dreamzzz reminds me of Time Cruisers with the interesting combination of elements and wild builds! (Can you spot the Jack Stone watch I included below?) My dad had a lot of those sets broken down in our collection growing up, and some of those pieces made it into my current collection. Time Cruisers was always super interesting to me and I can't help but think of that amazing theme when I look at Dreamzzz. I'm excited for the future!
Aiden Rexroad’s Tipping Towers
Aiden Rexroad is from Florida and is a character and creature builder. They can be found online on BrickNerd, Flickr and Instagram. BrickNerd sent them set 71459 Stable of Dream Creatures to see what they would dream about.
71459 Stable of Dream Creatures
I normally don't care much for modern minifigures, but this set has some of the most fun figs I've seen in a while and I love them. Z-Blob, Mrs. Castillo, the two Dreamlings, and not technically a minifigure, but the cactus character is also on the list. I instantly liked this set when I saw it because of how cozy it is, with the soft colors and country vibe of the build. I had a blast with this build because the whole model was broken up into sections, and the instructions told a story as you go, which I think is really creative.
I love the colors on this set, especially the light aqua with orange. Orange is generally hard for me to work with but I think it matches perfectly here as an accent color. On both my models I abstained from adhering most of the stickers, not because I don't like them, but because it opens me up to more options when building my own MOCs. If I want to add them later on, I still have that option too.
Tipping Tower of Dreamzzz
When looking at both the sets I was sent (more on my Pegasus Dragon Nightmare tomorrow), I thought since I was building a dragon, why not build a castle tower to go with it? Well, it didn't quite end up as a castle tower, but something even better. This model took direct inspiration from the set, with stuff like roofs and windows. I also took inspiration from the Lorax movie, which is the most recent movie I've watched with some cartoonish architecture.
The build started more ambitiously than I could continue with though. The ground floor is the only one with a furnished interior—doing the other floors would have run me out of pieces. After finishing the bottom floor, I knew I needed a repeatable design for angling the other floors, so I used the same design for the roof in the set which had pieces for all three floors.
Moving onto the other floors, I wanted to fill the build with lots of wacky details where I could. This not only could help me save on vital parts like wall pieces but also would add character to the model. So I added stuff like a balcony, varied types of windows, and hanging lanterns. On the third floor, I added a ladder instead of having a long fence, it was a part of my original thought process so I knew I had to get it in somewhere.
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Probably my favorite detail is the small roof overhangs that are at off angles with Mixel joints, I really wasn't a fan of all of them being straight out so getting odd angles was a lifesaver. To top it off, I had a similar roof to the set and threw in two trees instead of the one in the set. And of course I had to decorate it with my favorite minifigures from the set to make it their wonderful home.
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Tomorrow you’ll see how the tower fares against a dragon nightmare!
Alysa Kirkpatrick’s Art Dreams
Alysa Kirkpatrick is from Chicago and is a builder of LEGO art, life-size exhibits and fantasy. They can be found online on Flickr and Facebook. BrickNerd sent them set 71461 Fantastical Tree House to see what they would dream about.
71461 Fantastical Tree House
The Dreamzzz Tree House caught my eye when these sets were announced—in the past, I’ve built an alt build of an elves treehouse, so I liked the idea of each part of the treehouse having its own story. The new blue parts look amazing, and I look forward to reusing them in new MOCs.
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These new sets have stories that are in the instructions. The artwork and stories are a nice touch to give more character and backstory to the different minifigs—and make me more amused with the different mushroom characters. This Dreamzzz set has an interesting component where you can build one of two ways at the end—you could go with conflict of peace. I took the peaceful route.
Peace Among the Trees
Inspired by the Dreamzzz Tree House’s giant blue parts as feathers, I wanted to make an even more peaceful version of the tree where nature has reclaimed the world. I wanted to do it as an homage to the magic that speeds forward time that Ms. Castillo uses in the story. I tried to use as few parts that were not in the set (~less than 20 parts not from the set used) to build my MOC. The hollow cube, the fence/ladder, and the signs are the only things left by humans.
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I wanted to play around with a tree growing out of the hollow cube showing organic nature growing from the hard-line shapes coming from minifig-made creations. The mushroom people and mushrooms have since taken over the fallen cube and are using it and the tree as a playground. The three blue feathers pay homage to Ms. Castillo’s time magic staff, which also has three blue feathers.
Joey Klusnick’s Dream Takes Off
Joey Klusnick is from Goshen, NY and is a Master Model Builder at LEGOLAND New York. They can be found online on Flickr and Instagram. BrickNerd sent them sets 71455 Grimkeeper the Cage Monster and 71460 Mr. Oz's Spacebus to see what they would dream about.
Doubling Up on Dreamzzz
I built Dreamzzz sets 71455 Grimkeeper the Cage Monster and 71460 Mr. Oz’s Spacebus, and each is great for their own reasons. The Cage Monster makes nice use of the new barrel-shaped joint in combination with the big macaroni piece to give us a decently playable and poseable brick-built figure with room inside for a minifigure prisoner. The stark white spiral-horned skull head offers an interesting contrast to the shadowy colors in the rest of the body.
The Spacebus, on the other hand, is bristling with techy details like boosters, blasters, lights, and launchers, and it almost goes without saying that this is a highly swooshable ship. It reminds me of classic spaceship sets from throughout LEGO’s history of space themes like the Life in Mars Solar Explorer and the Space Police III Galactic Enforcer. This set makes me hopeful that the Dreamzzz theme will continue to go in a direction that will satisfy LEGO space fans.
A unique new aspect of the Dreamzzz theme is that you choose one of two ways to build the final stage of the sets. That seems to be strategically designed to encourage kids to do a bit more modification to their sets. It also serves as a reminder that you can add any number of details onto the main core build, which is what inspired me to do an alternate/combination/modification build of these two sets with that same concept at heart.
I decided to build a space dragon bursting out of the fuselage of the Spacebus, which I feel follows nicely in suit with other Dreamzzz sets that stick creature appendages onto a vehicle body. The selection of limb pieces in the Cage Monster were easy enough to attach to the Spacebus, and it made for a fun challenge to build a dragon head around the shoulder armor piece with the eyes printed on it. Overall, my dream was to create a version of the Spacebus that had been possessed by a nightmare spirit, similar to the Shark Ship, using only pieces from these two sets.
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Once I had accomplished that, I drew from my own parts collection to build a flying space knight body for Z-Blob to fight the space dragon. The Z-Blob mech is another one of my most anticipated sets in the Dreamzzz theme, so I wanted to make a smaller version of that set with a techno-medieval twist. I had so much fun plunging into the world of Dreamzzz with these sets and the MOC that they inspired, and I think many other builders will feel the same.
On a side note, I was so excited to get right into my alternate build that I forgot to get pictures of the original sets before I started tearing them apart. I only realized I still needed to do so as I left for the airport for a trip, so like a good AFOL I just brought them with me! The Spacebus especially seemed like an appropriate accessory to my high-flying adventure.
It was nice to kill some time at the terminal reassembling these sets, and I proceeded to swoosh the Spacebus around as I did a little photo shoot at various locations throughout the airport. I even got a couple compliments from strangers on my cool LEGO set, but most gave me odd looks.
We’ve seen what a few builders can dream of, but what will the nightmares bring? Stay tuned tomorrow as we explore the darker side of LEGO Dreamzzz…
DISCLAIMER: These sets were provided to BrickNerd by LEGO. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors.
What will you dream about with the new Dreamzzz sets? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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