Animal Sets?

[Grover]

Hopefully this is in the right place; the old TLG Sets thread is closed, so I'm not really sure where this goes.

I was thinking the other day that one of the things everyone loves are the Lego animals compatible with the minifigures.  We have packs of People at the Park, Fun at the Beach, and a collectible minifigure line... why not have something similar with animals?  One possibility would be to make a 'jungle animals' set with the panther, leopard, monkeys, parrots, etc. and another with 'forest animals' to include the mountain lion, bear, and other forest creatures.  Those could be themed to various geographic locations.

Another possibility would be to make a one-off CMF line of nothing but animals.  This might be more tricky, but I think would ultimately sell well.

Perhaps TLG doesn't want to do this because one of the selling points of their sets is a unique animal, but I think such sets would sell like crazy because many of the animals previously released (goats, bears, etc.) have no current counterpart (the black bear being an exception) and people are still buying these in the secondary market.

What does everyone else think?

[Digger of Bricks]

5 minutes ago, Grover said:

Another possibility would be to make a one-off CMF line of nothing but animals.  This might be more tricky, but I think would ultimately sell well.

I think Lego did something like this with the Friends theme for awhile, with several series worth of polybags that each included a unique animal and complementary build. 

You just know @Roebuck will be all over this topic. 

[Grover]

I know some people really like the Friends line, but the animals they have aren't really compatible with the normal minis, which is more what I was after.  There's a ton of duplo and cutsey friends animals out there, but I've never really seen a bunch of animals (gator, bear, goat, etc.) in a set or anything like that from TLG.

[Digger of Bricks]

Just now, Grover said:

I know some people really like the Friends line, but the animals they have aren't really compatible with the normal minis, which is more what I was after.  There's a ton of duplo and cutsey friends animals out there, but I've never really seen a bunch of animals (gator, bear, goat, etc.) in a set or anything like that from TLG.

Of course, so many probably do agree with you on that. And its not just animals, many feel that the presence of minidolls in that theme deprives us of so many needed and useful female minifigures.

15 minutes ago, Grover said:

Hopefully this is in the right place; the old TLG Sets thread is closed, so I'm not really sure where this goes.

Sure, why not? This subfourm really needs the traffic, as it is most underappreciated. 

[Isavarg]

I would definitely buy something like this, and it would be nice to re-release some of those old animals that aren't currently being made.

[Grover]

On 2/9/2018 at 12:03 PM, Digger of Bricks said:

Of course, so many probably do agree with you on that. And its not just animals, many feel that the presence of minidolls in that theme deprives us of so many needed and useful female minifigures.

Sure, why not? This subfourm really needs the traffic, as it is most underappreciated. 

I agree with you wholeheartedly: we definitely need more useful female minis.  I'm glad that the city line at least is getting more female figs, but there's a significant lack in other themes.  I don't like the mindolls at all; I take their hair off and throw the rest away.  I would be more inclined to use them if the were compatible with the normal minifigs, but they are not.  I think I saved one and took a picture of one of my dragons eating it. That's about the only use I have for them.

As for this subforum, it really is underutilized.  I think this is probably one of the places that TLG actually reads on the internet, and I"m not even sure how much that happens.  I know they have their own focus groups and whatnot, but it would be nice to see a little transparency into these ideas and suggestions going into a focus group.

Heck, if I had enough money, I'd buy one of each of the animals I'm talking about on BrickLink and turn it into an Ideas set.  Unfortunately, I don't have the $300 or so it would take to do something like that, as most of the animals are super expensive now ($35 for a goat??!).

On 2/9/2018 at 12:06 PM, Isavarg said:

I would definitely buy something like this, and it would be nice to re-release some of those old animals that aren't currently being made.

I agree.  Maybe we could come up with some lists for TLG to think about...

Already molded:

Avians:

• Crow

• Seagull

• Chickens

• Ostrich

• Parrots

• Owls

Domestic:

• Dog

• Cat

• Goat

• Rat

• Mouse

• Camel

• Cow

• Steer

• Pig

Jungle:

• Leopard

• Panther

• Monkey

• Parrot

• Cobra

• Frog

Forest:

• Bear, brown

• Bear, black

• Beehive (to go with bears)

• Mountain lion

• Snake

• Skunk

 

Strangely, TLG seems happy to make new molds (which I would think would be expensive), rather than just re-releasing old animals or parts in new colors.  Assuming that is the case, I'd love to see a few more things from them:

• More small birds (like the seagull and crow).  How about ravens to go with your English guard CMF?  How about some non-descript songbirds that could come in a small mold akin to the chicken?  You could use the same mold for blue, red, white, brown, dark blue, etc. for a variety of birds.

• Different dogs.  They're starting to do this with the bulldogs, chihuahua and the scotty.

• Squirrels and not the lame Friends ones either.

• Large birds: turkeys, eagles, and vultures (from any continent, really--some of the African vultures are really cool)

• Deer - Either the roebucks found in Europe, or some of the big white tails found here in the US

• Kangaroos (Yay Aussies!)

• Sheep

What else should TLG make, or add to a set that's already got a mold?

Edited February 10, 2018 by Grover
Adding animals to the list

[x105Black]

The core concept here, small sets with animals based on geography, is itself a great concept.  I don't think it is likely to happen, however.  LEGO knows the appeal of these animals, and want to keep them relegated to the sets as a selling point.

They did it with Friends, but there were a limited number of those, and they were very small boxed sets.  I did purchase a few of those, as I'm a big fan of the LEGO animals myself.  I liked the little bunnies the most, the baby bunnies are just adorable.

If they were to do this, I wouldn't expect much more than 1-3 small animals in each set.  The likelihood of getting larger animals is pretty small, so bears and cows might not appear.  Still, that's not to say that they couldn't.

In all, I'd say that while this would be great, just releasing sets with animals in them more often is a great idea.  They have been doing this, as evidenced by the Jungle sets last year and the Arctic sets this year, along with an increase in animals through CMF and People Packs.  I'd like to see that focus continue, and there are so many sets they could produce with the animals that are already available.

[Grover]

On the plus side, you can buy the panther and the leopard on bricks and pieces individually.

I also forgot the sea creatures, including the dolphin, starfish, sharks, octopi, and various fish out there over the years.

[Roebuck]

The more animals in sets the better is my philosophy, but Lego know a lot of fans are crazy about them so they use them as selling points. We will probably not see a small set with a cow or a big cat, but frogs and snakes are common in all set sizes, it is a pattern to the madness
But last year was maybe the best year ever when it comes to animals (see the link bellow), so I would say things are looking good in the years to come, even tough we probably will not see a animal cmf or minifig sized animal focused sets any time soon We have been there a long time with duplo, minidolls have been "flirting" with it, but no zoo yet and minifig sets still have long way to go

 

[Grover]

That's true!  I forgot about the frogs.  We also have a skunk from the CMF and now in the mountain set that's small.

The larger animals being a selling point work for things like bears, as there are generally few of them, but cows?  I wish that there were far more cows, as these are not rare animals.  People would buy many, many, small sets I think, just to get more cows for their farms.

[x105Black]

6 minutes ago, Grover said:

People would buy many, many, small sets I think, just to get more cows for their farms.

That's a good point, and I agree it would be great.  I think LEGO will continue to put things like cows into bigger sets, because people will still buy multiples to get the cows.

[Grover]

For me, having a herd of 50 dairy cows when they only came in the Farm set back in the 2000s and now the cows are $35-40 on the aftermarket?  I can't afford that, so have to turn to BrickForge, etc.  Lego is losing money on me and probably many others who would buy these animals as well.  I also have no problem with Lego making some unique designs for cows, etc. and putting them with larger sets so that they have some appeal, but then making a different stamp (spotted vs. unspotted pigs, or jersey vs. holstein cows for instance) available in larger packs.

Also, how about some Lego sheep?  I think a shepherd mini with a bit of landscape and fence piece, plus 2-3 sheep would be an awesome small set or polybag.

[x105Black]

Well, as I said, it would be great.

[Aanchir]

Big and/or pre-assembled animals like cows, horses, bears, and monkeys are expensive and offer little in the way of a building experience. LEGO doesn't just relegate them mostly to bigger sets to make those sets sell better, they do it because the big sets have enough cheaper bricks to offset the cost and add enough building to balance them out. Even the LEGO City "fun at the…" people pack sets have an unusually low piece count and limited building experience for their price due to their large number of uniquely printed and pre-assembled bricks — just imagine that applied to animal pieces that are even bigger, share molds and prints with fewer sets, and involve less actual building. Plus, people already complain about some LEGO animals being "Playmobil-ish" — how do you think they'd feel about animal packs analogous to the collectible minifigures that involved NO building?

The Friends animal packs were a great resource for getting animals, but they were also invariably small, single-piece animals (most of the molds for which also appeared in other sets) coupled with 30–45 other bricks. Even then, like minifigures or mini-dolls, the animals seemed to eat up more of the budget than similar-sized bricks might, given that the animal packs had lower piece counts than the similarly priced and packaged Mixels sets.

[Grover]

I understand the worries about costs.  TLG is a company and thus needs to take these things into account.  However, I think there are two camps of the animals: Those that want to see brick built animals and those that feel the animals are like minifigures.  I am in the second camp.  I don't mind brick built animals like are in some of the creator sets, but I prefer the animals to be like minis: horses, bears, cows, etc. molded.  I don't think this makes it too much like Playmobil.  Playmobil makes entire structures out of single pieces seemingly, reducing the buildability of things.  If we want to build animals, why have minis?  We could build them, too.  Thus, I look at animals and minis as characters.