Crowdfunding for BrickLink Designer Program Series 5 Starting Soon!

Pre-ordering of the Series 5 finalists of the BDP is on June 10th, 2025 at 8 AM Pacific time (or June 11th, 2025 at 1 AM AEST, where I am in Sydney Australia)… double check the times for your location or go to https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-5/main.page for a live countdown.

If you want to guarantee yourself one of these sets I highly recommend you are online at the start time, and registered with a BrickLink account prior to the start time… and have enough money in your bank account!

Some of these BrickLink sets have sold out VERY quickly, especially the designs by one of this series’ finalists SleeplessNight. This time he brings us ‘Adventure in Transylvania’, a vampire’s Gothic castle. The design has 4,056 total parts, so I’m assuming during the refining of the finalists designs those in charge have added parts to take it over the strict 4,000 part limit for submissions!

This finalist is the most commented on, showing its popularity, and telling me it is likely to sell out fast! One of the most talked about features of this design on the website is whether the vampire that pops up from the crypt will be included, as it wasn’t shown as a minifigure. But no need to fear, it’s inclusion has been confirmed and it was noted that it is classified as “part of the tomb mechanism”.

The amazing details in the architecture are what we would expect from SleeplessNight, and the castle can be opened or closed, depending on how you wish to play or display.

Measurements of the Transylvanian fortress are:

Closed - H: 45.2cm, W: 39.5cm, L: 37.2cm

Open - H: 45.2cm, W: 26.8cm, L: 57.4cm

Another past finalist, JonasKramm, has created a popular theme throughout the BDP series. His ‘Mushroom House’ sold out, and series 8 has ‘Mushroom Haven’ as a potential set (depending on the outcome of the crowd support and review process), so this series’ ‘Mushroom Village’ is likely to follow in it’s Tiny World of Wonders themed predecessor. 

These mushroom influenced architectural designs have an extremely high cuteness factor, and, even though in my humble opinion this particular design is probably not as good because there is a lot happening in the scene, it is still a playful set that should be collected if you wish to add to your collection of these designs. Having more of these JonasKramm designs will make for a beautiful and playable setup for all the Forest Elves that the sets will bring you. The ‘Mushroom Village’ is 42 cm wide and the highest flower is 29 cm tall.

The smallest of the series is Mictur’s ‘Popcorn Wagon’ with a total of 594 parts, 24cm long, 15cm wide, and 10.9cm high.

The wagon can be either on the display stand (a cobblestone street scene), or taken off for play and added to any city scene or amusement park, etc. The play features continue with the ability to turn a knob at one end of the cart to “make the popcorn pop”, as well as being able to “remove the steam engine for some periodic maintenance”. The designer has also been quite active answering questions or thanking comments from fans on the website (respect to the designer for that!), and has written: “I am planning to prepare a simple guide on how to adjust the model so it can fit winter village setups - I will share it closer to the crowd funding start.”

The ‘Antique Shop’ by designer ThatOneGuySteve, is a nice looking house that has been transformed into a store by its owners who live upstairs. The roof can be removed to access the upper level, or the entire upper level can be removed to access the ground floor shop with all the antiques that are on offer. The items inside include a record player, a sewing machine, vintage tableware, a black and white tv, a chess board, and a grandfather clock.

My guess is this one may not be the first to sell out, a little to do with the fewer amount of comments about the design on the website, but mainly due to interested buyers not knowing the exact size of the build and if it will fit in with their modular buildings. Either way it is a good design with the bonus of a pickup truck that is included to transport larger antique items to a customer’s home.

Finally, ‘The Thieves of Tortuga’ by another previous finalist, Krackenator, is probably the set I would want the most this series, though that’s not at all looking down on any of the other designs.

The reason I would prefer this set is that, yes, it looks awesome and is a complete little town, but also the colour scheme and period style could fit well with most other historical era (to some extent) if I wanted to expand on it. I also have a few pirate people from over the years, and a small pirate ship, but no pirate town of any sort… and this would suit that requirement very well indeed!

Having a complete town and keeping it within the part count (which just cracks the 4,000 mark, again due to those powers that be in the BDP) means that each building is only small, without rear walls or extensive rooms like a single structure could accomplish with the same part count. The cobblestone forecourt and wharves look amazing and contribute to the high piece count, as do the roof tiles, but it it well worth those parts for the detail it adds. The other thing I like about this design is the various ‘stories’ woven into the scene, like the water being poured onto someone below, the kid in the sandpit, or the bullet holes around the target showing someone is a bad shot.

It is also interesting to know that Tortuga is an actual island that was used by pirates during the 17th century, and the designer has recreated the lawless settlement using his imagination and LEGO bricks.

One of the repeated comments on the website regarding ‘The Thieves of Tortuga’ is that though it is a nice set, it is way overpriced, and the cost of all the BDP sets are more often getting this pricing feedback, with the idea of the sets being priced on part count, and sets with many small pieces seemingly achieve a smaller scale build yet still with the high price tag. Or the fact that these are limited runs being produced as well as proving to be popular, so it may be suggested that BrickLink, or LEGO, are pushing up prices because of this.

It has been shown that a number of people are purchasing these BDP sets purely to resell them at an inflated price too, making it all the more important to jump online early and pre-order any set that you definitely want to acquire!

Here is the series 5 link again, so you can look at these sets in more detail and make an educated decision about whether it is worth grabbing a BrickLink Designer Program set for yourself:

https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-5/main.page

PS - I might also suggest viewing the series 3 page and downloading the PDF instructions for any of those finalist designs that you were interested in building for yourself.

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