Why lego still do this?

[El Garfio]

The part is in brick yellow, medium nuggat and in reddish brown (all better than grey)

But there are also this in brick yellow

Why they still want to add ugly grey patches to the walls?

[MAB]

Because of a combination of:

• they will be covered up
• the grey part is already in the set
• it makes finding the parts slightly easier (especially if similar parts are in the set)

[Toastie]

38 minutes ago, MAB said:

it makes finding the parts slightly easier (especially if similar parts are in the set)

and less >fun< to search for them. I do get the color coding approach. I don't get why they think kids are ... stupid. I know, it is not about stupidity and more about persistence. It may also be about AFOLs throwing the half-done build at the next available wall, because they can't find the so-hard-to-find piece.

I am color-blind, so all the coding stuff is totally obsolete, particularly because the colors in the instructions hardly meet the colors of the real pieces. Good thing is: The pieces have unique shapes. And time is relative.

Best,
Thorsten   

[Alexandrina]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

particularly because the colors in the instructions hardly meet the colors of the real pieces.

While this is true, the colours are remarkably consistent in the instructions year-on-year - I know I've sort of built up an eye now for all the current colours, whereas my mum (who only builds Lego with me on a handful of larger sets, and does nothing on her own) still frequently mixes up for instance black and dark bluish grey.

I don't think it's a case of Lego thinking kids are stupid, so much as Lego making the sets more easily accessible. It's frustrating trying to find a certain piece when there's a similar one in the same colour (I've recently been sorting a dismantled 10305, and the amount of times I've grabbed a grey 1x4 with 4 studs when I'm trying to pick out all the regular 1x4s is surprisingly large!) and using different colours for pieces which will be covered is a good way of alleviating this. It also means kids can have more variety in colour in their collections, which is a welcome thing. And as MAB said, the grey brick here was likely already in the set. In those instances it's more cost-effective to use another one than to add to the colour/mould combos the set uses.

[MAB]

18 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

It's frustrating trying to find a certain piece when there's a similar one in the same colour ...

It is not just finding it that can be a problem, but having to dismantle a build if you used the wrong colour on the inside and only realise when you have the wrong colour left for the outside.

[El Garfio]

But the pic is from Galileo gwp set (I think it's not a set for kids) 

And the result, as in other adult and/or expensive sets it's an ugly grey patch if you see the set from the back (as in some side walls of even modular buildings) 

If I want to integrate the Galileo office in a moc the first thing I'm going to have to do is to replace the grey parts for brick yellow ones 

We have grey patches even on Harry Potter's sets that could be exposed in window screens

It's a no sense that Lego is introducing new parts and colors to make the sets every time more realistic and we still have grey patches on the sets

[Mylenium]

They have their rules and elements that are invisible are basically a matter of "Be glad it isn't Coral!". They'll use whatever they think is good. I do get their point of making things more accessible and easier for occasional or new users, but yes, it often feels unnecessary.

Mylenium

9 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

the colours are remarkably consistent in the instructions year-on-year

Not really. Even in the same year the colors vary heavily. You can literally see how different instructions are printed at different times on different machines/ at different facilities. In fact even the PDFs often already show this, suggesting that their color management is all over the place or non-existent.

Mylenium

[JesseNight]

This is one of few things with modern Lego that really bugs the hell outta me.

I recently bought a 10300 Back To The Future Time Machine as my first modern Lego experience since 1995. It's a beautiful model, but the amount of ketchup and mustard stains (took over this term straight from the old PC building colored cables mess) makes me cry. Even more considering it to be an 18+ display model, and a lot of it being visible when displaying it with doors open or in the hover mode of the second movie.

Back in the 80s/90s, this was never done and colors were accurate and consistent for the most part. Car undercarriages were mostly black and gray and even with more confusing instructions, I never encountered anyone who had a problem building it.

"but having to dismantle a build if you used the wrong colour on the inside and only realise when you have the wrong colour left for the outside"

I don't want to offend anyone, but I see this being said a lot and it feels like people are too much in a rush when it comes to a hobby. The beauty of Lego is that a mistake like a wrong brick is completely forgiven and completely repairable without any lasting damage. And the building itself used to be the fun. I have to admit though, that things did change a bit when it comes to the amount of different colors...

[El Garfio]

I have bought the Burger truck and it's hilarious the choose of pieces in the interior, and the mix of strange colors

If you have time download the instructions and check them (it's good material for a new lego Halloween nightmare poster)

Edited January 6, 2024 by El Garfio

[JaBaCaDaBra]

Try to build the Disney castle 71040, you will be ROTFLYAO

[MAB]

15 hours ago, JesseNight said:

"but having to dismantle a build if you used the wrong colour on the inside and only realise when you have the wrong colour left for the outside"

I don't want to offend anyone, but I see this being said a lot and it feels like people are too much in a rush when it comes to a hobby. The beauty of Lego is that a mistake like a wrong brick is completely forgiven and completely repairable without any lasting damage. And the building itself used to be the fun. I have to admit though, that things did change a bit when it comes to the amount of different colors...

Remember that sets these days have many more parts for similar sized builds. It is very frustrating to have to take apart large numbers of parts to correct errors, and if the builder believes the error was made due to poor instructions, then they might decide not to buy LEGO in future. Taking stuff apart is not necessarily fun if you have to redo it all just to correct a mistake.

I built a couple of 1960s sets a few days back, and I made a couple of mistakes as I didn't spot all the pieces that were added in some steps. But being relatively small part count sets, such errors are easy to correct. While I would like to see more parts added per step in modern instructions, I do like that they tell you which parts are added in each step. I wouldn't like to have to do  spot the difference game on every step of a 1000+ part set.

[JesseNight]

I suppose I grew up with the "spot the differences" game  although more complex Technic builds did already have the used parts per instruction thing, so I do see your point there.

Still I feel like the crazy color variations shouldn't be necessary (or at least kept to a minimum), considering how clear modern instructions really are with the used parts listed and even highlighted in the picture where they go.

[Lyichir]

20 minutes ago, JesseNight said:

I suppose I grew up with the "spot the differences" game  although more complex Technic builds did already have the used parts per instruction thing, so I do see your point there.

Still I feel like the crazy color variations shouldn't be necessary (or at least kept to a minimum), considering how clear modern instructions really are with the used parts listed and even highlighted in the picture where they go.

I think even with parts lists and such, color variations help to tell which parts are which. Just as an example, bricks with side studs look like regular bricks from one side—if a section includes both, varying the color can make a huge difference in being able to tell which ones go where.

Recently built the Orient Express set with my dad and the use of brighter colors like azures for some of the plates or SNOT bricks on the internal parts of the locomotive was hugely helpful for being able to tell what was being added and where it needed to go in a complex, densely constructed part of the build. That went double for my dad, whose eyes are older than mine and needed longer to identify which parts he needed to dig out and where they needed to be added relative to what had already been built.

[MAB]

10 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Recently built the Orient Express set with my dad and the use of brighter colors like azures for some of the plates or SNOT bricks on the internal parts of the locomotive was hugely helpful for being able to tell what was being added and where it needed to go in a complex, densely constructed part of the build. That went double for my dad, whose eyes are older than mine and needed longer to identify which parts he needed to dig out and where they needed to be added relative to what had already been built.

Yes, and this is really only a (very) modern issue due to so many similar colour shades. Mixing up colours was never really a problem when the colour palette was very narrow.

Edited January 5, 2024 by MAB
Typo

[JesseNight]

That's true.

Thinking back, in the mid to late 80s we had only 6 colors for the majority of parts: white, yellow, red, blue, gray and black. There were a few exceptions like green for flowers, trees and baseplates, brown for minifigure hairstyles, and dark gray for railway sleepers.

Today it's totally crazy (in a good way), but what instructions I have seen so far were still fairly decent at showing the difference, like a sparkle for metallic or flat silver parts or a note under the instruction which non-standard color to use. It might be different on models that use all shades of a single color, like the Van Gogh painting with all the different blues in it.

[TeriXeri]

Especially noticed this recently in sets like the seasonal vignettes, where the bases are built up, and then tiled over, the internal parts use 1x1 and 1x2 plates of multiple very different colors from the grass or snow/ice in the final steps when things get finished.

Or the internal parts of a set like 40644: Piñata , which already has a ton of colors used, but the internal parts use greys, regular blue, red and yellow not seen in the final external parts, tbh with that set I did initially made small mistake as I mixed up coral and orange cheese slopes, and not the internal build.

 

I don't think it's that big of a deal, but for something like walls or rockwork, having similar colors would be nicer for MOCs / alternate builds.

However, sometimes those weird colors actually end up quite interesting for official 3-in-1 alternate builds (3-in-1 Pirate Ship has some really clever hiding of colors, to reuse them in the Skull Island (blue/tan/green coastline), and then the red/green hidden inside the Ship, which also happen to be at the same colors/side as real world navigation lights still seen in Ships / Aircraft (red = Left , Green = right) , which are then used for the Tavern. (altho maritime navigation on bouys/lights on locations can vary depending if they use IALA A or IALA B (which means Bouy colors are in reverse.

And yes, back in the day, before late 90s, there were a lot less colors, and even if brown and green did exist very long before that, they were not seen in regular plates or bricks much, brown got a lot more bricks with Western, Green was mostly seen via baseplates and plans, and then mostly via Octan and some other plates, but got a lot more regular bricks and slopes during the early 2000.

Orange got big with Arctic.

And then some colors were pretty much almost exclusive to Paradisa or Belville for their first appearances.

Edited January 5, 2024 by TeriXeri

[JesseNight]

That alternate builds story is very clever indeed.

I really miss almost all bigger builds coming with an alternate build like they used to.

[SpacePolice89]

On 11/5/2023 at 10:54 PM, Toastie said:

and less >fun< to search for them. I do get the color coding approach. I don't get why they think kids are ... stupid. I know, it is not about stupidity and more about persistence. It may also be about AFOLs throwing the half-done build at the next available wall, because they can't find the so-hard-to-find piece.

I am color-blind, so all the coding stuff is totally obsolete, particularly because the colors in the instructions hardly meet the colors of the real pieces. Good thing is: The pieces have unique shapes. And time is relative.

Best,
Thorsten   

Have you noticed that new instructions use very similar colors to represent black, gray, dark gray and white? At first I thought my eyesight had changed but then I looked at older instructions and there all the colors are very clear and easy to tell apart. I recently had my eyesight checked and I have perfect vision and see all colors. My dad has problems to tell green and blue apart but see all the other colors.

[Lyichir]

4 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

Have you noticed that new instructions use very similar colors to represent black, gray, dark gray and white? At first I thought my eyesight had changed but then I looked at older instructions and there all the colors are very clear and easy to tell apart. I recently had my eyesight checked and I have perfect vision and see all colors. My dad has problems to tell green and blue apart but see all the other colors.

I haven't really had that problem. And black at least always has white outlines (especially helpful for telling it apart from other dark colors like dark brown or earth blue).

[SpacePolice89]

2 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I haven't really had that problem. And black at least always has white outlines (especially helpful for telling it apart from other dark colors like dark brown or earth blue).

I've heard similar complaints before but I can't remember where. Maybe it's just that new instructions are darker in general. I found this on Reddit:

 

[JesseNight]

I don't know if it differs per manual... But when I look at the BTTF DeLorean, a 2022 model that mixes a lot of light gray, dark gray, black, some white, and some metallic silver and flat silver pieces here and there, and all of that on a (guess what?) gray background... I cannot complain.

White is... really white. Light gray is just light gray. Dark gray is dark with a black outline. And black is really black with a white outline. And knowing the DeLorean car fairly well, I can tell any other color has no business even being there 

Flat silver and metallic silver are a bit hard to tell apart from each other on small pieces in the instruction picture with no other info available.They are however given a sparkle on the parts needed picture. First time building a set it's easy, based on the bag number it came from. In case of parts from the same bag that can be mixed up, the instructions seem to have a note when a special color (like metallic) is used. But instructions where it's obvious based on bag numbers do not, therefore I tend to add a note (like a post-it) in the instructions on first build so I won't be confused later. So far only very few cases where it wasn't obvious to me based on how things are supposed to be looking though.

Edited January 7, 2024 by JesseNight

[TeriXeri]

It's pretty obvious many sets have like structural colors for easy building, and then other parts for visual outside appearance, and LEGO doesn't seem bothered at all if they use 5 colors of the same part even if like 2-3 colors are even visible in the build, even on small vignette builds I found pink or purple 1x1 and 1x2 on the inside, while the main final appearance is just 2 greens (on a set like Easter Rabbits Display from 2022) and that set uses.

That said, the 2024 seasonal vignettes suddenly seem to have a lot lower parts counts (100 less compared to 2022), as the bases are only just 1 plate thick, so a lot less places to hide small odd colored bits. 

Edited January 7, 2024 by TeriXeri

[capathmo]

If The colors are completely hidden in the final model, then I don't mind them.. it's nice to get different colors for mocs. If they show in the final model, that's a different story for me. I would prefer if they labeled the colors used in the instuctions, as part of the corner picture indicating which pieces to look for, as part of the step. At least they moved away from the black pages that were used for a while in the instructions.

[JesseNight]

Interesting that you mention mocs... I remember as a kid, I loved having many different colors but never had enough bricks in the same color for my mocs.
I remember this one time, I wanted to make a big space ship with about all the parts I had. The model turned out nice, as for colors the outside would have put El Garfio's Burger truck's insides to shame 

Of course that was pre Bricklink and even pre internet so it wasn't as easily solved as today.

Edited January 15, 2024 by JesseNight

[TeriXeri]

Recently got some 2022 and 2023 Classic theme sets, and noticed how many colors of 1x1 and 1x2 SNOT bricks they make now, in many colors "themed" for the set.

has been made in 26 colors now

has been made in 35 colors now

So LEGO can definately make those fairly basic parts in many colors if they wanted to.

And then the standard Masonry brick, which is used for decoration is only made in 16 colors so far.

Of course those SNOT bricks are used for far more then just internals and especially in those Classic sets they are meant to make funny characters with the included eyes etc, and are useful for car headlights and what not, just surprises me how many colors they are made in compared to some other purely decorative bricks like the masonry or palisade bricks.