Latest news about Lego animal moulds

[Agent Kallus]

DC has a weirdly large amount of Gorilla supervillains, I wonder if that part will reappear in a batman set.

Glad to hear of Red Pandas, one of my favourite animals, alongside goats. Now if we could get some sloths that'd be great, they could even reuse the friends part just with more realism in terms of colours and printing.

6 hours ago, lifeinplastic said:

 

Junior Lego Set Designer: Red Pandas huh? That’s going to be a tough one to integrate into a City set, particularly as they live in coniferous forests rather than the  jungle environments we were planning for the summer…

 

I mean Red Pandas in City is a lot more realistic than the current city space subtheme .

[Darth Shadowthrone]

Do we think we're likely to get one Red Panda in the small set, or two? They're slightly bigger than an Otter IRL but not so big that I'd rule out getting two of them on a tree together 

[RichardGoring]

They did two dual moulded monkeys in a set (which are expensive to produce), so I'd assume it would be the same formula of two animals.

13 hours ago, lifeinplastic said:

Junior Lego Set Designer: The usual suspects over at Eurobricks are moaning about the lack of animals in the recent winter City releases, boss.

Senior Set Designer: *Sigh* Go fetch the Current Random Popular Animal Generator…

(Current Random Popular Animal Generator flashes past Llama/Narwhal/Meerkat/Wombat, etc before eventually slowing down and stopping on Red Panda)

Junior Lego Set Designer: Red Pandas huh? That’s going to be a tough one to integrate into a City set, particularly as they live in coniferous forests rather than the  jungle environments we were planning for the summer…

Senior Lego Set Designer: Nah, make it a small set and stick a quadbike in it for good measure..

Junior Lego Set Designer: A quad bike? Not sure if that’s realistic, boss. I mean red pandas are quite shy animals and we just tried something similar with the otter sets which are now retired after just one year.,,

Senior Lego Set Designer: *Glares* I said give ‘em quad bikes…

[Roebuck]

11 hours ago, Darth Shadowthrone said:

Do we think we're likely to get one Red Panda in the small set, or two? They're slightly bigger than an Otter IRL but not so big that I'd rule out getting two of them on a tree together 

We got 2 different new seal moulds in the last one, so I exspeckt 2 maybe even a adult and a juvenile if we are lucky 🤓

[Darth Shadowthrone]

1 hour ago, Roebuck said:

We got 2 different new seal moulds in the last one, so I exspeckt 2 maybe even a adult and a juvenile if we are lucky 🤓

Getting a baby red panda as well is a great idea! Red pandas are so popular that a baby would definitely up the cuteness factor as well 

[williejm]

9 hours ago, Darth Shadowthrone said:

Getting a baby red panda as well is a great idea! Red pandas are so popular that a baby would definitely up the cuteness factor as well 

It would certainly be in keeping with the recent trend. Pretty much all ‘larger’ animals now have a specific ‘baby’ counterpart (cow, horse, bear, big cat, elephant, crocagator, turtle, seal) as well as some smaller ones (sheep, pig), and we know that the upcoming gorilla follows suit. But not all of the medium to smaller animals do (dolphin, monkey, otter, skunk, shark, most dogs) nor any of the birds, or the ‘reindeer’. So I think it might be a coin toss as to whether we get a specific baby Red Panda, or get one or two in the set. 

Might be worth looking at the trend in numbers of new moulds in recent anima-focussed waves. The older jungle theme only gave us a new big cat, and a tarantula (2). The Wildlife rescue theme gave us two elephants, monkey, male lion & cub (5). The Arctic/ocean theme gave us new orca, big turtle, seal and baby seal (4). Other associated animal moulds have arisen in other themes or CMFs which are complimentary and have been reused, of course (small turtle, skunk, otter, hare, bunny, owls, toucan, python etc)

So if we assumed 4 new animal moulds as reasonable  - then that would be the gorilla, baby-rilla, red panda plus one other. In recent years they have tended to be more generous rather than less generous, but it’s also worth thinking about how and where any new moulds would be usefully reused. 

I’d personally love a baby red panda, but would be more happy for a new mould to give us another new species.
 

 

[Classic_Spaceman]

1 hour ago, williejm said:

So if we assumed 4 new animal moulds as reasonable  - then that would be the gorilla, baby-rilla, red panda plus one other. In recent years they have tended to be more generous rather than less generous, but it’s also worth thinking about how and where any new moulds would be usefully reused. 

Looking at it this way, the fourth slot is pretty clearly a tiger cub rather than a baby red panda. 
 

[Darth Shadowthrone]

27 minutes ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

Looking at it this way, the fourth slot is pretty clearly a tiger cub rather than a baby red panda. 
 

The tiger cub shouldn’t be a new mold tho - I imagine there’ll be quite a few reprints like the adult tiger and presumably the crocodile and some of the potential birds as well 

[williejm]

1 hour ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

Looking at it this way, the fourth slot is pretty clearly a tiger cub rather than a baby red panda. 
 

Yeah that’s a reprint, not a new mould slot :)

[lifeinplastic]

Just saying that new harbour sets would be a perfect opportunity to get some sea lions.

[RichardGoring]

I originally wondered whether the harbour would have animals, but then figured it would more likely focus on the functional/industrial aspects of it. Maybe an unprinted crab, but even then it would seem a bit out of place.

[williejm]

1 hour ago, lifeinplastic said:

Just saying that new harbour sets would be a perfect opportunity to get some sea lions.

Or, more likely,  reuse the seal

[hikouki]

All these new moulds are very much welcome. But I wonder why a red panda made it to the mould factory ahead of an actual panda.

[Accio Lego]

51 minutes ago, hikouki said:

All these new moulds are very much welcome. But I wonder why a red panda made it to the mould factory ahead of an actual panda.

I mean, as the Weird Kid who decided that red pandas were superior back when I was ten I’d argue why not? Red pandas actually went by the name panda before giant pandas were referred to as such. Depending on the mold it’s possible that lego might also be hoping to reuse it for a raccoon, although while the two species share some similarities red pandas have a slightly different body shape and a much longer, fluffier tail. 

Edited January 19 by Accio Lego

[hikouki]

2 hours ago, Accio Lego said:

I mean, as the Weird Kid who decided that red pandas were superior back when I was ten I’d argue why not? Red pandas actually went by the name panda before giant pandas were referred to as such. Depending on the mold it’s possible that lego might also be hoping to reuse it for a raccoon, although while the two species share some similarities red pandas have a slightly different body shape and a much longer, fluffier tail. 

Oh the red panda is very much welcome...but just wondering why we've already got an animal suit panda but not the actual.

[SketchBrick]

14 hours ago, williejm said:

The Arctic/ocean theme gave us new orca, big turtle, seal and baby seal (4).

We also got the new polar bear cub! So it's 5 in total - I'd be hoping for 5 this year as well :)

[Roebuck]

11 hours ago, RichardGoring said:

I originally wondered whether the harbour would have animals, but then figured it would more likely focus on the functional/industrial aspects of it. Maybe an unprinted crab, but even then it would seem a bit out of place.

Would be surprised if there are not any animals looking at City the last few years

4 hours ago, hikouki said:

All these new moulds are very much welcome. But I wonder why a red panda made it to the mould factory ahead of an actual panda.

Typical Lego However I think a panda family will show up in a Chinese new-year set soon

[Lion King]

8 hours ago, hikouki said:

All these new moulds are very much welcome. But I wonder why a red panda made it to the mould factory ahead of an actual panda.

So they could save budget for Lunar New Year by recolor IG panda mold?

[williejm]

7 hours ago, SketchBrick said:

We also got the new polar bear cub! So it's 5 in total - I'd be hoping for 5 this year as well :)

Oops. My marine bias is showing.

8 hours ago, hikouki said:

Oh the red panda is very much welcome...but just wondering why we've already got an animal suit panda but not the actual.

I mean, a recolour/print on existing bear moulds would work

10 hours ago, Accio Lego said:

I mean, as the Weird Kid who decided that red pandas were superior back when I was ten I’d argue why not? Red pandas actually went by the name panda before giant pandas were referred to as such. Depending on the mold it’s possible that lego might also be hoping to reuse it for a raccoon, although while the two species share some similarities red pandas have a slightly different body shape and a much longer, fluffier tail. 

Nothing weird about it. Plus giant pandas are just useless at most things - so trust them to take an age to show up in Lego form ;)

Edited January 19 by williejm

[Accio Lego]

On 1/19/2024 at 5:57 AM, williejm said:

I mean, a recolour/print on existing bear moulds would work

For the cubs maybe, but not the adult 

[williejm]

12 hours ago, Accio Lego said:

For the cubs maybe, but not the adult 

Disagree. If the big cat mould can cover so many species, so can the bear one ;)

[Accio Lego]

3 hours ago, williejm said:

Disagree. If the big cat mould can cover so many species, so can the bear one ;)

I’m not saying the bear mold isn’t versatile. Polar bears, black bears, sun bears, sloth bears, spectacled bears, even grizzly bears/brown bears. I’m just not sure the current mold really works for a giant panda. The legs and neck are too long and a giant panda’s face is much rounder and shorter than the current mold. 

[SketchBrick]

tandnbricks says we are getting a new croc recolour in the summer jungle line :)

[BrickBob Studpants]

42 minutes ago, SketchBrick said:

tandnbricks says we are getting a new croc recolour in the summer jungle line :)

I hope olive green  Surprising we haven’t had one in that colour yet, given the Chima crocodile sets

[Lion King]

1 hour ago, SketchBrick said:

tandnbricks says we are getting a new croc recolour in the summer jungle line :)

Hope it’s a pink crocodile!