Latest news about Lego animal moulds

[pinar]

1 hour ago, Roebuck said:

Welcome back 😅

Its your collection and your rules, so if you like Friends animals you can collect them, I personally do not 🙈 My wallet are happy I do not, or I would have been buying a lot of Friends sets.. Anyway its interesting to see the animals they get because they usually show up in a minifigs set within a few years and vice versa 🤔👍

I agree with “your collection your rules”. I wasn’t trying to get anyone to like them or anything. It’s just feels weird. The topic says LEGO animals, but Friends ones are ignored (DUPLO too :P ). I always prefer minifig-based animals, but even when I didn’t like Friends, I was amazed by the amount of animals they got. For me, it’s not about just collecting or liking a certain animal (or theme). It’s the history, evolution, timeline, etc. That’s why I’m bickering 😅 I meant no offense to anyone. Personally, I’d get excited if they brought back Scala and re-released those giant horses 😂

2 hours ago, williejm said:

Be careful what you wish for - they might start using Friends animals in City sets, rather than the other way around! 

Not City, but there’s a minifig-based set using Friends animals. With Minnie and Daisy, if I remember correctly. So it’s already kinda happening.

[Lion King]

It’s sooooo nice to have both brown seal and Jack Russel terrier! 
@williejm, you know I never call doe “Patricia Stag” :) i jsut cna’t see how soon that doe mold would show up in another set this year. 

1 hour ago, pinar said:

I agree with “your collection your rules”. I wasn’t trying to get anyone to like them or anything. It’s just feels weird. The topic says LEGO animals, but Friends ones are ignored (DUPLO too :P ). I always prefer minifig-based animals, but even when I didn’t like Friends, I was amazed by the amount of animals they got. For me, it’s not about just collecting or liking a certain animal (or theme). It’s the history, evolution, timeline, etc. That’s why I’m bickering 😅 I meant no offense to anyone. Personally, I’d get excited if they brought back Scala and re-released those giant horses 😂

Not City, but there’s a minifig-based set using Friends animals. With Minnie and Daisy, if I remember correctly. So it’s already kinda happening.

Yup! I love collecting animals form minifigure-focused themes - prehistoric, fantasy (Harry Potter, Ninjago, and Dreamzzz), realistic/extant, sci-fi. I won’t touch Marvel animals like those tired-looking dinosaurs. I will collect Pokemon molds and they are considered as “animals”  plus I love Pokemon.  My collection, my rules. :) No discriminations agaisnt your preference!

[Roebuck]

1 hour ago, pinar said:

Not City, but there’s a minifig-based set using Friends animals. With Minnie and Daisy, if I remember correctly. So it’s already kinda happening.

My Lego insider tour set had a Friends animal with the minifigs, was not happy with that 🤪 and a strange choice, but other than that the set in one of the better insider sets I think 🙂

[pinar]

1 hour ago, Lion King said:

I won’t touch Marvel animals like those tired-looking dinosaurs. I will collect Pokemon molds and they are considered as “animals”  plus I love Pokemon. 

Personally, I think Miles-Stego is sooo much better than the one coming with the Jurassic sets of this year. I also love the DUPLO Spider T-Rex. The others, not so much. But to be honest, I dislike them because of the mold, not the mash-up.

I’ve never been a fan of Pokemon, but I may get a few if they’re relatively easy to get. My “animals” include the stone gargoyles and the round plushies 😂 

33 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

My Lego insider tour set had a Friends animal with the minifigs, was not happy with that 🤪 and a strange choice, but other than that the set in one of the better insider sets I think 🙂

I really liked the Insider set with the vault. May be because it was the first one I had the chance to see more of (my friend had it). Maybe one day I’ll even have my own 🤞

[williejm]

3 hours ago, pinar said:

I agree with “your collection your rules”. I wasn’t trying to get anyone to like them or anything. It’s just feels weird. The topic says LEGO animals, but Friends ones are ignored (DUPLO too :P ). I always prefer minifig-based animals, but even when I didn’t like Friends, I was amazed by the amount of animals they got. For me, it’s not about just collecting or liking a certain animal (or theme). It’s the history, evolution, timeline, etc. That’s why I’m bickering 😅 I meant no offense to anyone. Personally, I’d get excited if they brought back Scala and re-released those giant horses 😂

So, I don’t think anyone here has an issue with people liking what they like or setting their own rules. Just as a bit of history the thread was set up as a guessing game when we have precious few animals, and, likely because most of us contributing regularly focused on them, was specifically about ‘City’ style animals.

Much of the proliferation of other animals has happened since - be that Mohawks, dinos, zombies, Duplo, Disney, Minecraft or whatever.

I think it’s kind of natural for the focus to be the ‘standard’ city animals, as they’re pretty central to all the other iterations. 
I guess how I think about this is similar to my cutlery drawer: for the most part it’s one set of the same cutlery, but there are also odd one-offs and bits and pieces that either have some special, historic or sentimental reason for being there. Other people’s cutlery drawer will look different, maybe it’s all colour-coordinated, maybe it’s all random, maybe they never have enough spoons! Maybe they use cheap plastic knock offs! 

For me when I see a mixed bunch of Lego animals that’s mostly what I consider normal/City, but with one or two Friends ones mixed in, it’s jarring. I don’t like it. They don’t go. But I’m also aware that others don’t see it the same way. 

That all said, my own ‘rules’ have exceptions too - mostly with the chonky cats, Shetland ponies & corgis from the Friends sets, or the moulded characters from Disney sets. I also used to collect some of the Friends animals (such as penguins, squirrels) back when we didn’t have ‘normal’ versions, which I have subsequently replaced them with.

Also it doesn’t mean I necessarily rate all the animals that conform to my ‘normal’ either: for example I loathe the flying tan owl, and am quite ‘meh’ about several of the ‘baby’ animals. 

Anyways, just as @Roebuck will always long for a roe deer, @Lion King will be open to an eclectic chaotic mix of genres, @lifeinplastic will yearn for the ‘missing’ African safari animals, and @Aurore will have an eye to the animals that work for her magical mythical realms - you and your diverse menagerie are very welcome here @pinar

You might just need to love some of them a bit more to cancel out mostly-purist weirdos like me :)

 

 

[Black Falcon]

5 hours ago, williejm said:

It could easily be two or three years until a mould that originated as a patronus exists as a normal animal - that’s been true in the past. I do think the existence of a doe makes the arrival of a fawn much more likely though!

As I said, we can´t really tell. But with the winter village collection, advents calendar and so on there are plenty opportunities where it would fit well, that this or next year just seems most likely to me.

 

5 hours ago, williejm said:

Re the black pig: better pictures seem to show the ‘spots’ on its rump include a heart shape and something else. So there’s a good chance that it’s somehow printed to make it very toy-like, rather than useable as an animal with others.

Well I don´t know the model but they have to keep it like it is in the films. So bad for us I guess.

[Accio Lego]

As much as I’d love to see the new patronus animals in realistic colors ASAP, I’m not sure the doe really has much of a place in winter/holiday sets – at least not any more than anywhere else. 
 

The stag has appeared a few times in Christmas themed sets because its antlers mean it can masquerade as a reindeer. And contrary to what certain 1960s film productions (looking at you Rankin/Bass) want you to believe, female reindeer have antlers just like the males. 
 

That means the winter sets aren’t necessarily an automatic fit for the doe (and I’m fairly sure she literally wouldn’t fit behind an advent calendar door), so we might want to save our hopes for a proper woodland set (on the bright side, that increases the odds that she’ll be accompanied by a fawn when she appears). 

[williejm]

4 minutes ago, Accio Lego said:

As much as I’d love to see the new patronus animals in realistic colors ASAP, I’m not sure the doe really has much of a place in winter/holiday sets – at least not any more than anywhere else. 
 

The stag has appeared a few times in Christmas themed sets because its antlers mean it can masquerade as a reindeer. And contrary to what certain 1960s film productions (looking at you Rankin/Bass) want you to believe, female reindeer have antlers just like the males. 
 

That means the winter sets aren’t necessarily an automatic fit for the doe (and I’m fairly sure she literally wouldn’t fit behind an advent calendar door), so we might want to save our hopes for a proper woodland set (on the bright side, that increases the odds that she’ll be accompanied by a fawn when she appears). 

I think this is correct take. But who knows with Lego Logic. In theory a deer could pop up as a ‘background’ animal in a whole host of City sets., or they may specifically go down the Ranger/ wildlife route.

I still find it odd that they didn’t create a deer mould with separate/optional antlers in the first place.

Also - with real reindeer, not only do females and males both have antlers … but the females are the ones who keep ten antlers throughout winter. That means most traditional representations of antlered reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh should all be female. 

[williejm]

17 minutes ago, williejm said:

I think this is correct take. But who knows with Lego Logic. In theory a deer could pop up as a ‘background’ animal in a whole host of City sets., or they may specifically go down the Ranger/ wildlife route.

I still find it odd that they didn’t create a deer mould with separate/optional antlers in the first place.

Also - with real reindeer, not only do females and males both have antlers … but the females are the ones who keep their antlers throughout winter. That means most traditional representations of antlered reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh should all be female. 

 

[pinar]

2 hours ago, williejm said:

You might just need to love some of them a bit more to cancel out mostly-purist weirdos like me :)

Oh I have no intention of canceling out anyone. I WAS one of those “mostly-purist weirdos” until a few years ago. The change came with a personal enlightenment (which I won’t go into details right now). I respect every collector, animal or otherwise. I do, however, like - no, love - reading you guys bickering about animal stuff. I’m here, wondering when I’ll be able to get an animal I want, and someone’s like “Well, I went to the factory store this weekend, couldn’t find 20 pigeons, only 15” and suddenly I feel “Are you frigging kidding me??!” 😂 First world problems, I guess 🤪 

Joke aside, I just feel so lucky that there are people that care & geek out about this subject. For me, that’s finding a huge pond of drinkable water in a desert. Even if I don’t always join the discussion, it‘s always a pleasure.

[Lion King]

@pinar, I’m glad you like Miles-Spider and DUPLO Spider T-Rex! Although I agree with you taht young T-Rex from Jurassic World doens’t look that great, I will still get it for my collection. I kinda wish Lego could fix that young T-Rex mold or its color scheme. 

It’s okay that you won’t get Pokemon molds!  It’s pretty cute that I woudl put Pokemon into my modualr city! Plushies are big plus for me! Haha. 

3 hours ago, williejm said:

So, I don’t think anyone here has an issue with people liking what they like or setting their own rules. Just as a bit of history the thread was set up as a guessing game when we have precious few animals, and, likely because most of us contributing regularly focused on them, was specifically about ‘City’ style animals.

Much of the proliferation of other animals has happened since - be that Mohawks, dinos, zombies, Duplo, Disney, Minecraft or whatever.

I think it’s kind of natural for the focus to be the ‘standard’ city animals, as they’re pretty central to all the other iterations. 
I guess how I think about this is similar to my cutlery drawer: for the most part it’s one set of the same cutlery, but there are also odd one-offs and bits and pieces that either have some special, historic or sentimental reason for being there. Other people’s cutlery drawer will look different, maybe it’s all colour-coordinated, maybe it’s all random, maybe they never have enough spoons! Maybe they use cheap plastic knock offs! 

For me when I see a mixed bunch of Lego animals that’s mostly what I consider normal/City, but with one or two Friends ones mixed in, it’s jarring. I don’t like it. They don’t go. But I’m also aware that others don’t see it the same way. 

That all said, my own ‘rules’ have exceptions too - mostly with the chonky cats, Shetland ponies & corgis from the Friends sets, or the moulded characters from Disney sets. I also used to collect some of the Friends animals (such as penguins, squirrels) back when we didn’t have ‘normal’ versions, which I have subsequently replaced them with.

Also it doesn’t mean I necessarily rate all the animals that conform to my ‘normal’ either: for example I loathe the flying tan owl, and am quite ‘meh’ about several of the ‘baby’ animals. 

Anyways, just as @Roebuck will always long for a roe deer, @Lion King will be open to an eclectic chaotic mix of genres, @lifeinplastic will yearn for the ‘missing’ African safari animals, and @Aurore will have an eye to the animals that work for her magical mythical realms - you and your diverse menagerie are very welcome here @pinar

You might just need to love some of them a bit more to cancel out mostly-purist weirdos like me :)

 

 

Well said, buddy! 

[Roebuck]

1 hour ago, williejm said:

I still find it odd that they didn’t create a deer mould with separate/optional antlers in the first place.

That is a good point, would probably work better with a roe deer, red deer have rather large sexual dimorphism. On the other hand Lego do not always care what size the animals are. My guess it was to save money on only making one mould
 

1 hour ago, Accio Lego said:

so we might want to save our hopes for a proper woodland set

A Castle forestmen set would be perfect for both red deer and even the fox, but that is not very likely unfortunately  If City make a wave like Playmobil Country we could get both farm and forest animals in it, oh well one can dream 
 

4 hours ago, pinar said:

I really liked the Insider set with the vault

Yes that is a nice one too 

[Lion King]

I wonder if we will see a deer family in one set? Deaf, doe and fawn. Like Bambi’s family. 

[williejm]

32 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

A Castle forestmen set would be perfect for both red deer and even the fox, but that is not very likely unfortunately  If City make a wave like Playmobil Country we could get both farm and forest animals in it, oh well one can dream 

 

29 minutes ago, Lion King said:

29 minutes ago, Lion King said:

I wonder if we will see a deer family in one set? Deaf, doe and fawn. Like Bambi’s family. 

If Lego would only listen to me (and clearly we have established that they don’t) then they’d have a wave based on National Parks/Park Rangers, or revisit the Forest Police idea - we now have the doe and the fox looking for a reason to be reused, and the raven and a recoloured wolf would fit right in too …

39 minutes ago, Roebuck said:

That is a good point, would probably work better with a roe deer, red deer have rather large sexual dimorphism. On the other hand Lego do not always care what size the animals are. My guess it was to save money on only making one mould

I’d advise you to go look at your Lego big cats again, note the same size mould used for different species and sexes, and get back to us ;)

The stag never was just one mould though was it? The antlers are clearly made of a different plastic and some degree of assembly has had to have happened - so they could have killed two deer with one stone, and made it separate to begin with. I know that largely they don’t produce animals that need extra parts, but they do with the cow, horses, elephant (and historically ostrich & camel) so … 

A similar idea could have worked for antelope, if they ever went there - they could have a generic body and interchangeable horns. 

[Black Falcon]

8 hours ago, pinar said:

I agree with “your collection your rules”. I wasn’t trying to get anyone to like them or anything. It’s just feels weird. The topic says LEGO animals, but Friends ones are ignored (DUPLO too :P ).

Duplo really got a nice wave of animals in the last years, especially the animals of the world sets, which all looked really great. Nothing I am collecting, but surely something I appreciate.

2 hours ago, Accio Lego said:

As much as I’d love to see the new patronus animals in realistic colors ASAP, I’m not sure the doe really has much of a place in winter/holiday sets – at least not any more than anywhere else. 

The stag has appeared a few times in Christmas themed sets because its antlers mean it can masquerade as a reindeer. And contrary to what certain 1960s film productions (looking at you Rankin/Bass) want you to believe, female reindeer have antlers just like the males. 
 

That means the winter sets aren’t necessarily an automatic fit for the doe (and I’m fairly sure she literally wouldn’t fit behind an advent calendar door), so we might want to save our hopes for a proper woodland set (on the bright side, that increases the odds that she’ll be accompanied by a fawn when she appears). 

I meant more in a nature than a christmas relation. Like including a manger, stag, hind and calv - though, maybe without the stag is more likely. And actually, since the hind mould is smaller than the stag one I think it should be able to fit in the advent calendar - which doesn´t mean it will be included of course, in the end we will have to see if and where we get it in more realistic colours.

And sure, it is just as likely that they first include it in an other city theme with european/american animals, such as red fox, deer, wolves - could bring us some other nice new animals too, like a badger for instance...

2 hours ago, williejm said:

I still find it odd that they didn’t create a deer mould with separate/optional antlers in the first place.

Well in the end they only do that if they think it has a benefit to do so, and likely there just isn´t any. I mean, the way they are done they are simply more stable to play and you couldn´t really use the antlers for anything else, though of course you could potentially include them in trees.

1 hour ago, Roebuck said:

That is a good point, would probably work better with a roe deer, red deer have rather large sexual dimorphism. On the other hand Lego do not always care what size the animals are. My guess it was to save money on only making one mould

I don´t think it actually saves money, you still have to make a seperate mould for the antlers anyways ;). 

[Karalora]

I don't know about anyone else, but I usually think of deer/elk (as opposed to reindeer) as an autumnal animal rather than a winter/Christmas one. To be perfectly honest, the LEGO stag doesn't look very much like a real reindeer, and was probably used as one because the actual reindeer mold (for Sven from Frozen) was locked to that license.

[Accio Lego]

5 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

And actually, since the hind mould is smaller than the stag one I think it should be able to fit in the advent calendar - which doesn´t mean it will be included of course, in the end we will have to see if and where we get it in more realistic colours.

She’s smaller but not that much smaller. 
 

Remember, advent calendar fit is determined by what can be efficiently put in the cells by a machine (without risk of chronic jams) and then be easily removed out of a slightly smaller door, not what a human could stuff in that space. There’s a reason the largest animal we’ve gotten in the advent calendar has been a foal, and the doe is clearly much bigger than that. 

[Roebuck]

10 hours ago, Lion King said:

I wonder if we will see a deer family in one set? Deaf, doe and fawn. Like Bambi’s family. 

You know the original Bambi was a roe deer, so hope that come true 
 

10 hours ago, williejm said:

The stag never was just one mould though was it? The antlers are clearly made of a different plastic and some degree of assembly has had to have happened - so they could have killed two deer with one stone, and made it separate to begin with. I know that largely they don’t produce animals that need extra parts, but they do with the cow, horses, elephant (and historically ostrich & camel) so … 

A similar idea could have worked for antelope, if they ever went there - they could have a generic body and interchangeable horns. 

7 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

I don´t think it actually saves money, you still have to make a seperate mould for the antlers anyways ;). 

Save space then  Hard to know why Lego do what they do On that note, I believe I read that since the stag should be transparent they would not include extra parts so it could lover its head which is rather unfortunate since it would be a lot more poaseble with that function

 

4 hours ago, Karalora said:

To be perfectly honest, the LEGO stag doesn't look very much like a real reindeer

No I agree, looks like a American X-mas deer, a red deer body with whitetail deer colors 

[pinar]

9 hours ago, Black Falcon said:

Duplo really got a nice wave of animals in the last years, especially the animals of the world sets, which all looked really great. Nothing I am collecting, but surely something I appreciate.

Oh, animals of the world series were amazing!! Those always make me think we need similar sets in System. I got one of the big ones in clearance, and it turned out some DUPLO animals are better scale-wise than System. Besides, my 82-year-old kid (aka my dad 😅) loves them more than anything. I’ll definitely add this year’s hedgehog to the collection!

 

With all the doe/deer talk… we still don’t know where the doe will appear, right? And exactly what the bird patronus represents?

[williejm]

2 hours ago, pinar said:

With all the doe/deer talk… we still don’t know where the doe will appear, right? And exactly what the bird patronus represents?

Pretty sure we know the bird patronus is a flying phoenix 🐦‍🔥

[williejm]

30 minutes ago, williejm said:

Pretty sure we know the bird patronus is a flying phoenix 🐦‍🔥

Oh that’s cute. In my phone there’s a flaming phoenix emoji - but on here it’s translated as ‘pigeon & fire’ 😜

[Roebuck]

4 hours ago, pinar said:

With all the doe/deer talk… we still don’t know where the doe will appear, right? And exactly what the bird patronus represents?

My guess is the doe comes in the book nook set (in the same picture) and the bird is a phoenix in the big Hogwarts set (in the same picture) 

[Accio Lego]

New longhaired cat color and print leaked.
 

Unfortunately it will probably be IP locked out of pick a brick as it looks exactly like Mrs. Norris from the Harry Potter movies and she’s an obvious inclusion in the upcoming Easy Wing set. 

But that does mean the mold is getting used beyond the context of its CMF introduction, so hopefully we’ll see some other colors spicing up city sets or the BaM tower soon.