A new type of Ideas set is crystallising, so Blocks dons some mining hats to explore the wonders of nature in 21362 Mineral Collection with Dario Del Frate and LEGO Ideas Creative Lead Jordan Scott.
21362 Mineral Collection captures the natural world in a new LEGO Ideas set. 10,000 fellow brick fans voted for Dario Del Frate’s concept, which has now been adapted by the LEGO design team as an official model and is available to buy from LEGO.com.
When chemical molecules are exposed to intense heat, pressure, and other environmental factors across millennia, the results are an incredible variety of crystals and minerals. There are four distinctive types of crystals – covalent, ionic, metallic, and molecular, with those terms referring to how the molecules bond together. These then create more than 5,700 different minerals across the world. It’s this range of natural forms and colours that inspired LEGO fan Dario Del Frate to try and recreate these organic shapes using LEGO bricks.
“Instead of just building minerals that I liked, I based them on the available bricks. I wanted to incorporate the whole spectrum of colours,” explains Dario, who had submitted the idea once before. That time around it was rejected due to the amount of recolours required, so he made adjustments. “This second time around, I was just keeping an eye on the new bricks released and the new elements that came out in transparent colours. That’s why I went for violet, orange, red, green, and gold for the pyrite. Basically I wanted to have a colourful set that would be appealing.”
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Dario chose to represent minerals in their raw forms. Many crystals are polished for jewellery or display purposes, but these mini builds celebrate the natural appearance of the minerals. “I wanted to have raw ones on a rock matrix, which basically where they form over millions of years,” continues Dario, who is extremely passionate about geology. “The polished weren’t as appealing. I love raw mineral displays in museums, like in the Natural History Museum, and that’s where I got a lot of my inspiration.”
“I also think it helped with the accuracy of the minerals,” says LEGO Ideas Creative Lead Jordan Scott, who delved into the wonders of geology as he made this idea a reality. “Creating them in these rough forms lends itself way more to LEGO bricks than it does if you’re trying to do the refined polished ones. Those are very smooth and round, which is very difficult to achieve in LEGO bricks, especially with transparent pieces. So having all of the angular, rough parts, really lends itself well to this type of build.”
It also helped with researching the crystals as there are many natural minerals on display in museums that have been photographed as part of geological research. “Some minerals are very, very iconic,” says Dario. “The rhodochrosite is based on a real piece that was found in a mine in Colorado. It has all of these small quartz growths around it that make it an extremely rare mineral. But if you go to the Natural History Museum in London, there’s this mineral room called The Vault, which has these rare minerals and the rhodochrosite there is almost exactly the same as this one [in 21362].”
In the original submission there were two different crystals, black tourmaline and emerald, that are no longer included in 21362 Mineral Collection. “With the black tourmaline, it was made mostly in black with a little bit of transparent blue, which would have become lost on the black Ideas packaging,” explains Jordan. “So that’s why we switched to the watermelon tourmaline instead. There’s so many different types of tourmaline that I have come to appreciate, yet the watermelon one gave this really beautiful transition from green to pink. Yet that then took the spot for the green colour, so then the emerald just felt like a duplicate. We needed this blueish kind of tone and when researching minerals, we came across fluorite, and it has this really incredible shape and teal colour. So that’s why those where changed and we talked with Dario about it to agree on these new additions.”
If you’re looking to delve into the wonders of geology when 21362 Mineral Collection releases on October 1, 2025, then consider purchasing it via our affiliate links to help support the work we do at Blocks.
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