Latest impact of other themes on historic themes

[zoth33]

The season 15 Ninjago sets have some interesting figs and pieces.  Especially for underwater fantasy type themes.  It has an Atlantis vibe to the season.  The New main bad villains look interesting and Wohira looks great.  The water dragon is very nice.  The fire dragon from the legacy sets looks pretty good too but I think I will mod that one.  Can't wait to see finalized images.  

[zoth33]

The Shang-Chi set has some nice figs and an interesting dragon.  I think it's a pretty neat set.  The torso's do look useful.  

[AmperZand]

Artwork for the forthcoming Ninjago Series 15 cartoon has been released by LEGO and the antagonists, especially the main one in the middle in the picture below, look pretty good as fantasy aquatic monsters. Of course, this is just art. But Ninjago's art tends to indicate closely what actual minifigures will look like. I hope we get dual-moulded tridents with tines coloured differently as shown in the picture.

Edited March 5, 2021 by AmperZand
Typo

[MAB]

Ninjago goes to Atlantis. It looks very similar to a hybrid of the squid warrior and the swamp monster from MF/TLM2/Scooby Doo. The squid warrior even came with the trident.

 

[AmperZand]

@MAB, Indeed. The lower body might be this piece from Disney’s Hades CMF. Not sure if it’s a re-use of the swamp monster’s headwear mould or not. Could be. It’s hard to tell.

[Robert8]

I'd like a reuse of the old squid piece rather than a reuse of Hades bottom piece. I feel that doesn't work 

[Aanchir]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Ninjago goes to Atlantis. It looks very similar to a hybrid of the squid warrior and the swamp monster from MF/TLM2/Scooby Doo. The squid warrior even came with the trident.

Honestly, both tridents and sea creature motifs (fins, tentacles, seashells, etc) are pretty intuitive design cues for water-themed characters or factions, regardless of theme. Compare with Turaga Nokama from 2001 (whose trident mold was subsequently reused in Alpha Team: Mission Deep Sea and Aqua Raiders sets), Gali - Master of Water's three-pronged harpoon from 2015, or the three-pronged spears that Nya carries in several 2018 and 2019 sets. If LEGO Elves had ever introduced a story arc with a mermaid faction, or Legends of Chima had introduced a story arc with anthropomorphic sea creature factions, the same sorts of motifs probably would have shown up in those themes as well!

In this particular case, I love how the sai piece carried by some of the Maaray Guards complements the trident carried by the figure that I assume is their leader. Additionally, the ornamental hilt pieces which we've previously seen used for a dragon motif on various Ninja weapons work just as well for a sea serpent motif on the Maaray Guards' weapons. All in all, the Maaray end up feeling very authentic to what I'd expect an aquatic enemy faction in the world of Ninjago to look like!

53 minutes ago, AmperZand said:

Not sure if it’s a re-use of the swamp monster’s headwear mould or not. Could be. It’s hard to tell.

I doubt it's the same piece — the proportions are very different (with the side fins protruding high above the head, and a short central ridge instead of a central fin), and the Ninjago TV series generally doesn't tend to stylize minifigure parts that severely. Plus, the leaked set pics seem to feature a white prototype sculpt closely resembling the shape of this figure's head on the poster. So chances are, it's a new mold introduced specifically for this wave of sets.

28 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

I'd like a reuse of the old squid piece rather than a reuse of Hades bottom piece. I feel that doesn't work 

The tentacle piece from the Squid Warrior is definitely what I envisioned back in 2014 or so when I was brainstorming a possible undersea faction of Ninjago baddies (after all, it's one of the coolest specialized leg pieces we had at that time), but I can definitely think of several reasons the designers might've opted for Hades' legs piece instead:

• Hades' lower body has a smaller footprint (4 studs by 3 studs) than the Squid Warrior lower body (over 5 studs by 6 studs), which makes it a lot easier to fit into a vehicle like the chariot from the Hydro Bounty set, or onto a throne, dais, or podium.
   
• Like the snake tail or ghost trail piece, Hades' lower body is taller than regular minifigure legs, which is a good way to give high-ranking baddies like this guy a more imposing stature than their footsoldiers/underlings — whereas the Squid Warrior lower body is the same height as regular minifig legs.
   
• Hades' lower body has flat, printable surfaces on the front and back, so the scaly printed textures from the upper body can continue past the figure's waist (as shown in this poster).
   
• And of course, the Squid Warrior legs piece hasn't shown up in sets in over a decade — depending on the reason for that, it may not even be available to current set designers.

All in all, as sentimental as I am about the Squid Warrior legs piece and the way it echoes the shape of the classic LEGO octopus from the Aquazone sets of my childhood, I'm honestly not bothered by Ninjago using this piece instead. Certainly it seems to suit this particular figure pretty nicely!

Edited March 5, 2021 by Aanchir

[MAB]

I think either base is fine. I'm looking forward to seeing the other baddies from this wave, they will pair nicely with the Atlantis creatures and some of the Ninjago movie guys heads. I never really got into the snake themes but this looks great.

11 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Honestly, both tridents and sea creature motifs (fins, tentacles, seashells, etc) are pretty intuitive design cues for water-themed characters or factions, regardless of theme.

Yes, I know, sea creatures often have trident, whether they are a sea god, Aquaman or fantasy fish monsters. My point was it looks like a very similar minifig to the one in Atlantis, so they will mix nicely.

[AmperZand]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

I think either base is fine. I'm looking forward to seeing the other baddies from this wave, they will pair nicely with the Atlantis creatures and some of the Ninjago movie guys heads. I never really got into the snake themes but this looks great.

Yes, I know, sea creatures often have trident, whether they are a sea god, Aquaman or fantasy fish monsters. My point was it looks like a very similar minifig to the one in Atlantis, so they will mix nicely.

I was thinking the same thing . If the figure in the middle of the picture in my post above is not too difficult/expensive to obtain as a minifigure, I will add it to the fantasy thalassic zone of my display collection. 

The association between tridents and the sea is an ancient one. It likely stems from spear fishing as it's easier to catch fish with a multi-tined hunting weapon than a single-pronged one. After passing through ancient Greek culture, the concept of the trident-using sea warrior was firmly established by the Romans who armed retiarius gladiators - who were meant to represent fishermen - with a tridens, a kind of battle trident.

   

[leafan]

Promobricks recently posted about some new BAM exlusives. The following Forestmen-esque parts may be of interest to some here:

On Promobricks they describe him as "Robin Hood".

[Aurore]

That BAM fig does look great, but neither the torso nor the legs are BAM exclusives... 
The torso is from Ninjago's Lloyd FS minifig and the legs from The LEGO movie's Battle-ready Lucy. 

 

[DaleDVM]

That torso and legs are very useful.  Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Alexandrina]

1 hour ago, leafan said:

Promobricks recently posted about some new BAM exlusives. The following Forestmen-esque parts may be of interest to some here:

How long do parts stay available at BAM stations, generally? As far as I'm aware all Lego shops in the UK are currently closed - certainly there are huge chunks of the country (including my area) from where you cannot reasonably travel to a Lego store under our current restrictions - and I'd hate to miss out on parts that got removed from sale before I had a chance to legally go and buy.

[leafan]

5 minutes ago, Alexandrina said:

How long do parts stay available at BAM stations, generally? As far as I'm aware all Lego shops in the UK are currently closed - certainly there are huge chunks of the country (including my area) from where you cannot reasonably travel to a Lego store under our current restrictions - and I'd hate to miss out on parts that got removed from sale before I had a chance to legally go and buy.

I'm not sure but you can find most of them here:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=BAM#T=P

Which was very useful to get the "Hexer" minigure parts for the Halloween selection:

[Alexandrina]

Just now, leafan said:

I'm not sure but you can find most of them here:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=BAM#T=P

Which was very useful to get the "Hexer" minigure parts for the Halloween selection:

I have used Bricklink before for BAM parts (the hair piece on my avatar, for instance, was Bricklinked) but not all pieces seem to find their way to Bricklink. There's a lavender Medieval torso from 2019 which I'm dying to get my hands on, but it's not on Bricklink.

[Frike]

Hey, at least you guys have LEGO stores where you live. It kind of sucks big time when the *only* option is hoping to snag a deal (that is not a robbery) from BrickLink primarily.

[zoth33]

7 hours ago, Frike said:

Hey, at least you guys have LEGO stores where you live. It kind of sucks big time when the *only* option is hoping to snag a deal (that is not a robbery) from BrickLink primarily.

You can't order online from Lego itself?

[timemail]

5 hours ago, zoth33 said:

You can't order online from Lego itself?

BAM items can't be ordered from Lego online in Australia (at least not where I can see).

That being said we had a store open up here in Adelaide (about an hour each way drive from me but that beats the previous combination of a 3 hour drive and flight) and it is not all it is cracked up to be anyway. In three months they have had only a really small selection of BAM pieces with no new ones added - it could just be a poor store YMMV. Bricklink is still where I need to go to get any of the exclusive items, and as a general rule I need to buy them from overseas as the Australian sellers never seem to have them.

[AmperZand]

On 3/18/2021 at 3:29 PM, Aurore said:

That BAM fig does look great, but neither the torso nor the legs are BAM exclusives... 
The torso is from Ninjago's Lloyd FS minifig and the legs from The LEGO movie's Battle-ready Lucy. 

 

Do you know if the head is a BAM exclusive? The face printing is great!

[gedren_y]

The latest Professor McGonagall has leaked. The brooch has finally been well rendered, making this fig a great boon to Celtic and Vikings MOC builders.

[zoth33]

7 hours ago, gedren_y said:

The latest Professor McGonagall has leaked. The brooch has finally been well rendered, making this fig a great boon to Celtic and Vikings MOC builders.

Yeah That looks much better and a welcome addition.  That fig will be quite useful.  

[Aurore]

14 hours ago, gedren_y said:

The latest Professor McGonagall has leaked. The brooch has finally been well rendered, making this fig a great boon to Celtic and Vikings MOC builders.

Oh yes her outfit is wonderful! It even has the scottish thistle on the back!

[zoth33]

The new Shuri outfit and the new chitauri head look great and I personally think they will be quite useful.  Shuri's face print is great too 

[Alexandrina]

The latest development on Harry Potter suggests that the chess set - previously thought to be the £250 D2C - is actually a £70 set, likely minifigure scale. There's the possibility of some decent Castle parts to make up the chess pieces if that's the case, so fingers crossed. 

[Seaber]

On 3/18/2021 at 5:01 PM, Alexandrina said:

I have used Bricklink before for BAM parts (the hair piece on my avatar, for instance, was Bricklinked) but not all pieces seem to find their way to Bricklink. There's a lavender Medieval torso from 2019 which I'm dying to get my hands on, but it's not on Bricklink.

Do you have a pic of the lavender torso?