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BDP Series 9 Pre-Ordering open NOW!! BDP 2028 Wave 1 voting open NOW also!!
Jump onto BrickLink now to check out some new fan designs, or to order some of the finalists of the BrickLink Designer Program that are currently available.
The Series 9 finalists are open for pre-order as I type, and also voting is open for designs that could be shipped out to homes around the world in early 2028 (which is why they are calling it 2028 Wave 1, instead of series 12), as long as they get chosen as finalists for this wave of designs.
Firstly, the Series 9 finalists bring us a seaside Fisherman’s Village, a small Pumpkin Patch with a selling stall, a vintage style train station in the form of the Woodbrick Freight Depot, a Wild West Blacksmith, and the medieval Sleepy Dragon Inn.
The ‘Wild West Blacksmith’ is one of the series of wild west designs brought to us by llucky and his Lucky Town project, adding one more building to the town of his creativity. Again it is a well designed and appealing looking build. AU$349.99 is what you’ll part ways with to acquire this set.
The same cost will get you the ‘Woodbrick Freight Depot’, designed by Maria (aka mindthebrick) who also brought us ‘Old Train Engine Shed’, for those of you familiar with the finalists of past series. There are a few movable parts, including a loading crane, which is one of the features of the set.
The most expensive set this round is the AU$549.99 ‘Fisherman’s Village’, a town with 4 different structures (one is a lighthouse), and a raised boardwalk. This has two fan designers who have also created other Lego sets! With 13 minifigures and 2 boats and a seal you can bring the village to life. The set also includes microscale versions of a number of other nautical themed Lego sets (as well as ‘The Globe’ #21332 which was also created by one of these designers!).
The medieval offering for this series is the ‘Sleepy Dragon Inn’, priced at AU$429.99, designed by MarinBD. A neat looking building, which opens up at the rear to reveal the internal area which makes this set more special in my eyes. The ground floor has a small stage, bar, fireplace, and a nice staircase leading up to a mezzanine dining space. The upper/attic level has the sleeping quarters.
The cheaper option is the Pumpkin Patch at AU$79.99; as you can see Lego love their $…9.99 pricing. It is good to have the usual one BDP set below the AU$100 so that Lego lovers can get a hold of a BDP set without breaking the bank. This one is actually a cute little scene of, obviously, a pumpkin patch, as well as a stall, scarecrow, and Autumn coloured tree. Having pumpkins of various sizes and shades of orange, as well as the vines and flowers of the pumpkin plant, add detail and interest to this design. You can thank SofieBuilds for this creation, and it should inspire many more fan designers to try their hand at the BrickLink Designer Program, as Sofie has shown that with creativity and details, and not needing large builds, you can have your design made into an actual Lego set.
Which brings us to the 2028 Wave 1 submissions, with 421 designs able to be voted upon. There are returning designers (who as you have read above have had multiple finalist designs produced into set by Lego), and as usual there are many good ideas that won’t make it into the final 5. It is largely a popularity vote, though Lego do make the final decisions once they get the feel of the preference from the multitude of voters.
I will give you a few designs or designers that stood out to me, though there are quite a few good builds I was looking for some designs that were a bit different from the usual that are submitted... so perhaps more than a few will be mentioned below.
Two designs I like, mainly due to the fact that the designers have produced other nice sets in a series of BDP builds, are the ‘Japanese Canal Town’ (matches the ‘Sushi Restaurant’ from an earlier series, and can combine with it) and also ‘Forest Elves Tree School’ (another JonasKramm design, creator of the ‘Mushroom House’ and other designs in the Forest Elves imaginary world).
There are, of course, plenty of medieval designs to browse through, I do like ‘The Emerald Oasis’ by Willcox_Design and recommend checking out this, a few other medieval sets I liked were ‘Council Hall’, ‘Southern Merchants’ Trading Post’, & ’The Queen’s Birthday Fair’.
BrickHammer has 3 designs to vote for, including 2 very nice medieval options.
If you like the larger castle fortresses, bricc has designed a couple of castles you can check out.
‘Old City Docks’ could be medieval or pirate themed, and another pirate themed design, ‘The Shipwreck Tavern’, reminds me of ‘Pirates of Burracuda Bay’ #21322 but with a darker vibe which I like.
There are a handful of wild west designs, though ‘The Garden Of Well Being | Wild West Chinese Pharmacy’ is something a little different in that theme. ‘Bandit Hideout’ and ‘Sunset in San Gelo’ are more nice wild west designs.
TheForge has 4 designs submitted for voting, and though the buffalo’s are cute in his wild west option, my favourite is their ‘Brickford Prison’ which is much different from Lego’s standard City themed versions, and is something I haven’t noticed in the BDP before.
If you are looking for buildings to expand your personal city, then ‘Crux Corner Indoor Rock Climbing Gym’ has an awesome internal area, ‘Le HaussBrick’ is packed full of detail, ‘The Bakery’ is a cute small set option, ‘The Food Market’ is by proven finalist brickester, and others I felt deserved a mention are ‘The plant nursery’, ‘Victorian Home’, & ’Vintage Tea House’.
‘The Ice Cream Cart Terrace’ has no base and so could be added to any street scene, and ‘Melbourne Tram’ is a good Aussie influenced set; ‘Heritage Hangar’ has a bi-plane, and ‘Taste of Tuscany’ is a small vineyard.
For something a little different in your cityscape, there are 2 cool Steampunk designs (‘STEAMPUNK CHRONICLES - LAST TRAM TO MARS’ & ‘Steampunk Laboratory’), and for an apocalyptic theme there are a couple of designs by Owen87.
The space theme hasn’t proved too popular in BDP, but I do like the ‘Titan Rover’ in this round of voting. My adventurer pick is ‘Great Dragon Skeleton’, which has some moving parts with hidden characters and an interesting story to go with it. For an underwater build you must check out ‘Seamount Giants’, which has a large variety of sea-life around a coral reef.
The last couple I want to share are ‘The Labyrinth, a framed 3D artwork/optical-illusion of multidirectional stairways, and ‘Train Bookends’, which suggests a train-track tunnel that passes through your books (and includes 3 brick-built books, though you could add real books to this build).
There are many very good designers now submitting entries for the BDP, and there are also some standard designs in the mix, but only a small number of designers will have their ideas produced into an actual Lego set (especially when repeat designers continue to produce quality work that fans fall in love with). I like how the program pushes their ability and imagination, but I don’t like how great designers will get overlooked because they choose to design things in an unpopular theme or have a subject that might be too niche (or not hitting the mark with the common Lego fan). And I hope for our sake that Lego prices don’t continue to rise and make all these BDP just sit in our growing wishlists!
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