Latest news about Lego animal moulds

[lifeinplastic]

12 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Someday we might get them in moulds also 

Stop teasing me @Roebuck! I’ll be an old man by the time we get all the missing essential safari animals! 😩

[RichardGoring]

15 minutes ago, lifeinplastic said:

Stop teasing me @Roebuck! I’ll be an old man by the time we get all the missing essential safari animals! 😩

And you turn 82 next year, right? Right?!

[Roebuck]

12 hours ago, Lion King said:

Where do you find out?

Some interesting new prints? in one of the sets also:

[Black Falcon]

12 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Some interesting new prints? in one of the sets also:

Looks more like stickers to me.

[karrit]

Yes I do believe they are stickers also.  Too bad.  The first picture I saw I also thought they were printed tiles but can now see the edges of the stickers.

[hikouki]

On 7/3/2025 at 1:52 PM, Roebuck said:

Some interesting new prints? in one of the sets also:

Has that dog at the top tile ever been made into an actual piece?

Edited July 7 by hikouki

[williejm]

9 hours ago, hikouki said:

Has that dog at the top tile ever been made into an actual piece?

No. But it’s very close to the standard shepherd mould. I assume it’s supposed to be a Xoloitzcuintli (Mexican hairless dog). Also notable that they use the old style parrot … so maybe we shouldn’t read into this as anything portentous.

One of the things irking me of late in Lego animals is the exclusive moulds or prints that are limited to pricey licensed sets, making them horrendously expensive on the after sales market & not available on Bricks & Pieces.

It is a madness that something as simple as a black cat is so difficult to get hold of. Also seems weird that an animal species or breed (eg Great Grey Owl & Mastiff dog) can be subject to licenses

😤

[Karalora]

1 hour ago, williejm said:

Also seems weird that an animal species or breed (eg Great Grey Owl & Mastiff dog) can be subject to licenses

😤

Licensing conditions can be weird. There's certainly an incentive for the licensee to say "Promise you will only sell this animal in sets with our branding" in order to strengthen the public perception of a connection between that animal and their franchise. If LEGO starts producing the animal for the license when they didn't previously, they don't have much reason not to agree. They recoup the cost of the license by selling more of the licensed sets; if they can get people who wouldn't otherwise care to buy one just for the exclusive animal, as far as they're concerned that's a win-win.

Edited July 7 by Karalora

[williejm]

13 minutes ago, Karalora said:

Licensing conditions can be weird. There's certainly an incentive for the licensee to say "Promise you will only sell this animal in sets with our branding" in order to strengthen the public perception of a connection between that animal and their franchise. If LEGO starts producing the animal for the license when they didn't previously, they don't have much reason not to agree. They recoup the cost of the license by selling more of the licensed sets; if they can get people who wouldn't otherwise care to buy one just for the exclusive animal, as far as they're concerned that's a win-win.

Yeah, I mean, I get it - but it’s still pretty weird. Might go complain to Lego that it’s an infringement of my rights to have animals behind a Harry Potter paywall! 👻

[Roebuck]

4 hours ago, williejm said:

It is a madness that something as simple as a black cat is so difficult to get hold of. Also seems weird that an animal species or breed (eg Great Grey Owl & Mastiff dog) can be subject to licenses

It's frustrating indeed, maybe it has something to with them being named characters, but that is not the case with all?  I actually think this is Lego fault not the license holder, if they put one of them in a unlicensed set it might show up on PAB. I think that happed to the lobster 

[williejm]

25 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

It's frustrating indeed, maybe it has something to with them being named characters, but that is not the case with all?  I actually think this is Lego fault not the license holder, if they put one of them in an unlicensed set it might show up on PAB. I think that happed to the lobster 

. As usual the consistency on this stuff is non-existent. The lobster was a car crash introduction IIRC as it appeared in a City set but was then deemed licensed as it came in TLBM CMF. 

Owls are a point in case too - the brown owl has existed in and outside licensed sets, the great grey and snowy only in HP sets. Each of the smowls is different - one, being in a Friends set, is on B&P. All of the flying owls, save the tan monstrosity from BAM, are licensed only. Realistically only one of them is a bona fide ‘named character’. 

At least some of them are readily available though. Likewise if you want a terrier dog, you can get a white one from CMF, a black one from BAM, or the presumably licensed named one from TLM2 CMF.

If you want a mastiff dog though - tough. 

I guess I don’t mind so much where the animals are in smaller sets, CMFs, or otherwise available at the lower end of the price scale. Ostriches and camels for example, though rare retrospectively, were both in 2/3 of the smallest sets in the Prince of Persia wave. 

[zoth33]

22 hours ago, hikouki said:

Has that dog at the top tile ever been made into an actual piece?

There is one that is very similar to it in black.  I have one in my collection.  

[williejm]

9 hours ago, zoth33 said:

There is one that is very similar to it in black.  I have one in my collection.  

That’s just the shepherd mould, which is what the dog on the bottom left tile shows 

[zoth33]

8 hours ago, williejm said:

That’s just the shepherd mould, which is what the dog on the bottom left tile shows 

Yeah that mold is way off scale wise.  I looks more like a doberman pinscher.  

[Roebuck]

CMF series 28 apparently are called "animals" according to leaks.
I fear it mean a lot of costumed figs, but if we are lucky we have reached the promised land of animal moulds in CMF

[SketchBrick]

2 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

CMF series 28 apparently are called "animals" according to leaks.
I fear it mean a lot of costumed figs, but if we are lucky we have reached the promised land of animal moulds in CMF

I'll be constructing a summoning circle to manifest a series of animal moulds and not just costumes 🙏

[Lion King]

2 hours ago, Roebuck said:

CMF series 28 apparently are called "animals" according to leaks.
I fear it mean a lot of costumed figs, but if we are lucky we have reached the promised land of animal moulds in CMF

I’m totally fine with animal costumes! Like Space Series 26 coming with two animals (alien penguin and robot dog), I think this next series might include at least one animal. I don’t think we will see fox or pigeon pop into this CMF seires since they already exist in City theme. 

If there is at least new animal mold, I am hoping for a saber—toothed tiger cub and woolly mammoth calf to pair up with saber-toothed tiger and mammoth costumes.  I hope mammoth calf is too big for CMF but I still hope for it lol.

[williejm]

2 hours ago, Roebuck said:

CMF series 28 apparently are called "animals" according to leaks.
I fear it mean a lot of costumed figs, but if we are lucky we have reached the promised land of animal moulds in CMF

The way it’s hard for us to get excited after so many let-downs lol 

[Lion King]

59 minutes ago, williejm said:

The way it’s hard for us to get excited after so many let-downs lol 

But you can have a furry costume club!

[williejm]

So … my ‘guess’ is that this will be a combination of animal themed figures, rather than solely costumes or figures with animals. That’s kinda how all themed ‘normal’ series have happened before. 

[Roebuck]

8 hours ago, Lion King said:

Like Space Series 26 coming with two animals (alien penguin and robot dog), I think this next series might include at least one animal.

Both where useless to me at least  What we expect for any series is around 2 animals (+-1) so if a animal themed series has only 1 that would be a huge let down, even if it's only costumed characters  If your bar is that low I am sure you will be happy regardless of what we get 

6 hours ago, williejm said:

So … my ‘guess’ is that this will be a combination of animal themed figures, rather than solely costumes or figures with animals. That’s kinda how all themed ‘normal’ series have happened before. 

That is possible, but even if the costumed characters do not have any animal moulds something like that should lead to a lot more animals than normal, right? What other way could a figure be animal themed than be a costumed animal or a normal fig with a animal accessory (there is probably a obvious answer to this that I have not thought about)

[Lion King]

11 hours ago, williejm said:

So … my ‘guess’ is that this will be a combination of animal themed figures, rather than solely costumes or figures with animals. That’s kinda how all themed ‘normal’ series have happened before. 

I don’t think that would be likely, Honeslty. Think about it, animal costumes have-themed sereis would have severa new molds (a few recolored existing molds, probably). At least one animal mold might be safe. 

Actual animal molds dressing up in costume would be cute lol

[williejm]

4 hours ago, Lion King said:

I don’t think that would be likely, Honeslty. Think about it, animal costumes have-themed sereis would have severa new molds (a few recolored existing molds, probably). At least one animal mold might be safe. 

Actual animal molds dressing up in costume would be cute lol

Okay so, I’m not quite sure what you mean, but I think I disagree ;)

Firstly, at this stage, what have we to go on? I’ve seen it reported that Series 29 is ‘animals’, and seen others asserting that it’s animal costumes. Obviously we have seen leaks of two animal masks that may well be part of this - but I’d urge caution at this stage. Remember when the Marvel 2 CMF was told to us all that it will come with lots of accessories and extra parts, and be able to assemble a brick built Sentinel? That was just someone’s take, and extrapolated and repeated. 
 

Previous ‘themed’ series have been S14 “Monsters”, S18 “Party”, and S26 “Space”. In each of those, people made a bunch of hopeful assumptions, but in the end the series we got for each were pretty loosely defined, and not that coherent. 
 

Given that, I would assume that ‘Animals’ was similarly broad, and just as a Space series yielded an Android Nurse and a figure embodying a constellation, I would expect this to be a mix. So I’d assume costume figures, and, like Series 18 which gave us more costumes than usual, I would expect that we get more costumes than usual! But I’d guess that might be about half the figures, not all of them. Similarly, animals (new moulds and new prints, plus reuses) have become a key part of CMFs. We have also seen in the past costumed characters coming *with* an animal ( Elephant girl & mouse, Spider boy & spider, Fox costume & chicken, Cat & fish…) so there’s nothing to suggest that those things are mutually exclusive. But I’d guess there were some animal-focused figures coming with new animals making up more-than-the-usual number of slots. Then I think there are grey area figures, and the kind of left-field figures we have come to expect in CMFs … so we could well see something like a ‘boxing kangaroo’ figure (something that was alluded to far back in CMF history as a sparring partner for the first boxer we got). That might also stretch to ‘fantasy animals’ too.

Lastly on the issue of moulds - it seems neither here nor there which way they go with this series, unlike licensed series such as Simpsons or the Muppets, this doesn’t *need* a new mould for every head in each slot, for example. Roughly speaking these days we can expect to see about one new mould per figure, but that is spread across the series. With animal costumes, as has already been said, there are a bunch of parts that already exist that can be reused. A peacock costume could reuse the turkey tail and existing ‘feathered wing’ arms - needing only one mould for a head piece. Lots of other birds wouldn’t need any new moulds, and that’s also true of lots of other animals (we already have alternate arms as wings or fins, LOTS of head pieces, and about half a dozen different ‘tail’ pieces … there’s a lot you can do with existing moulds. In fact there are also a lot of people who missed out on early animal costumes, so revisiting some of them would not be unlikely either (just as S14’s monster rocker revisited the ‘Frankenstein’ monster from S4
 

So I’m going to double down on my prediction: assuming the series is called ‘animals’, I think it will be about half costume, about half animal-focused figures (eg zookeeper, pigeon fancier,  park ranger, K9 cop, eagle hunter), and with a couple of ‘left field’ ideas thrown in too. 
 

 

8 hours ago, Roebuck said:

Both where useless to me at least  What we expect for any series is around 2 animals (+-1) so if a animal themed series has only 1 that would be a huge let down, even if it's only costumed characters  If your bar is that low I am sure you will be happy regardless of what we get 

That is possible, but even if the costumed characters do not have any animal moulds something like that should lead to a lot more animals than normal, right? What other way could a figure be animal themed than be a costumed animal or a normal fig with a animal accessory (there is probably a obvious answer to this that I have not thought about)

That’s my assumption too. I’d also bet on either the new fox or the pigeon, or another animal that has shown up only once in CMFs to get a revisit in this series. Recoloured mouse or flamingo? 

[Lion King]

22 minutes ago, williejm said:

Okay so, I’m not quite sure what you mean, but I think I disagree ;)

Firstly, at this stage, what have we to go on? I’ve seen it reported that Series 29 is ‘animals’, and seen others asserting that it’s animal costumes. Obviously we have seen leaks of two animal masks that may well be part of this - but I’d urge caution at this stage. Remember when the Marvel 2 CMF was told to us all that it will come with lots of accessories and extra parts, and be able to assemble a brick built Sentinel? That was just someone’s take, and extrapolated and repeated. 
 

Previous ‘themed’ series have been S14 “Monsters”, S18 “Party”, and S26 “Space”. In each of those, people made a bunch of hopeful assumptions, but in the end the series we got for each were pretty loosely defined, and not that coherent. 
 

Given that, I would assume that ‘Animals’ was similarly broad, and just as a Space series yielded an Android Nurse and a figure embodying a constellation, I would expect this to be a mix. So I’d assume costume figures, and, like Series 18 which gave us more costumes than usual, I would expect that we get more costumes than usual! But I’d guess that might be about half the figures, not all of them. Similarly, animals (new moulds and new prints, plus reuses) have become a key part of CMFs. We have also seen in the past costumed characters coming *with* an animal ( Elephant girl & mouse, Spider boy & spider, Fox costume & chicken, Cat & fish…) so there’s nothing to suggest that those things are mutually exclusive. But I’d guess there were some animal-focused figures coming with new animals making up more-than-the-usual number of slots. Then I think there are grey area figures, and the kind of left-field figures we have come to expect in CMFs … so we could well see something like a ‘boxing kangaroo’ figure (something that was alluded to far back in CMF history as a sparring partner for the first boxer we got). That might also stretch to ‘fantasy animals’ too.

Lastly on the issue of moulds - it seems neither here nor there which way they go with this series, unlike licensed series such as Simpsons or the Muppets, this doesn’t *need* a new mould for every head in each slot, for example. Roughly speaking these days we can expect to see about one new mould per figure, but that is spread across the series. With animal costumes, as has already been said, there are a bunch of parts that already exist that can be reused. A peacock costume could reuse the turkey tail and existing ‘feathered wing’ arms - needing only one mould for a head piece. Lots of other birds wouldn’t need any new moulds, and that’s also true of lots of other animals (we already have alternate arms as wings or fins, LOTS of head pieces, and about half a dozen different ‘tail’ pieces … there’s a lot you can do with existing moulds. In fact there are also a lot of people who missed out on early animal costumes, so revisiting some of them would not be unlikely either (just as S14’s monster rocker revisited the ‘Frankenstein’ monster from S4
 

So I’m going to double down on my prediction: assuming the series is called ‘animals’, I think it will be about half costume, about half animal-focused figures (eg zookeeper, pigeon fancier,  park ranger, K9 cop, eagle hunter), and with a couple of ‘left field’ ideas thrown in too. 
 

 

That’s my assumption too. I’d also bet on either the new fox or the pigeon, or another animal that has shown up only once in CMFs to get a revisit in this series. Recoloured mouse or flamingo? 

I know what you mean. But I jsut dont’ think there wont’ be a a few new mold animals in Seires 28. You could see a few recolored costing animal molds in 14, 18 and 26.  Having budget to make new parts for costume minifigures.  I ahve sheen ONE recolored existing cat in Series 14, ONE fish in Series 18, and TWO recolored dog and penguin in Series 26. 

 

[williejm]

10 minutes ago, Lion King said:

I know what you mean. But I jsut dont’ think there wont’ be a a few new mold animals in Seires 28. You could see a few recolored costing animal molds in 14, 18 and 26.  Having budget to make new parts for costume minifigures.  I ahve sheen ONE recolored existing cat in Series 14, ONE fish in Series 18, and TWO recolored dog and penguin in Series 26. 

 

Series 14 was still pretty early in terms of animals: we weren’t really seeing the consistency we have seen in recent years from CMFs, plus this was the first ‘themed’ series - and that black cat was (and arguably still is) a pretty big deal on its own!

Series 18 gave us a new and so-far exclusive mouse, an exclusive recolour of the fish, a black spider reuse, and two different coloured balloon dogs. Where we see CMFs featuring ‘stand in’ or ‘pretend’ animals, such as plush toys, piñata etc. we often usually see less *real* animals.

Though I have no use for them, the robo dog and space penguin in Series 26 were unexpected, and the same is true of the various Spidey-fied animals coming in the Spiderverse series. To me that speaks more to the normalisation of animal accessories in CMFs overall. 
 

I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but I’m cautiously optimistic for the Animal series 

 

PS _ this is also where that challenge I set a while back to name the twelve animals to come in a Lego CMF where they’d be the last ever, comes into its own ;)