Lets talk color vomit

[Omikron]

I always tell it is for me and see them being jealous and approving.

[dr_spock]

Numbered bags and different color pieces do help when you're in a speed build contest at an AFOL convention. 

 

1 hour ago, Johnny1360 said:

That really made me laugh, everytime I buy LEGO the clerk says "would you like a gift receipt with that sir".

I'd say, "sure". 

 

11 hours ago, jrx said:

Similar to @thatrabidhobo: I don't need these glasses in daily live. Also I learned to live with it and to recognize colors correctly. I'll make errors with colors only when light is bad and I'm in hurry or not focussed. And I won't tell who decides color at home 

Don't know, but without it's cruel  That's the advantage of Lego Technic: You can tell the color apart very well (until now).

The older you get, it can get harder telling dark blue and black panels apart in less than ideal lighting conditions.  LEGO should take us older than dirt into account too.  Just like sets for 8-12 years-old containing Technic pieces...

41324-24 by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

 

[Bublehead]

@dr_spock, I believe that set is the only place to get a Technic 32L axle right now.  Thank goodness for Bricklink... I didn’t have to buy this set to get them.

[allanp]

@Bublehead

You say the numbered bags are for kids but I really like the numbered bags, maybe I'm just a big kid  

I fully understand that Lego technic is mainly for kids, the smaller sets probably only for kids. But I think the colour coding is to help the kids argument isn't entirely valid. I say this because adults make mistakes too even with the colour coding, and I've found parts are still hard to find even with the colour coding. I build many sets from days of old and modern times, the ease of finding parts seems to depend only on how many parts there are to search though, the colour coding makes no difference. A frustrating building experience, weather it's because parts are hard to find in a pile or because a mistake was made (using a 9M axle in place of a 7M axle which means you can't find the 9M axle when it's needed later on) is certainly something to be avoided as much as possible. I fully understand that to have a frustrating building experience for kids or adults is far worse than having unrealistic and ugly colours all over the place. And besides Technic isn't supposed to be about looks right? But to this I say generic colour coding isnt the best solution to this problem. Numbered bags (where there is one bag one, one bag two, one bag three, not five or six bag one's) is a much better solution. But if there must be colour coding, the BWE had very clever colour coding in some places where the yellow axles were used for the yellow hand railings. That was great. But why then do you need to use the same colour coding throughout the whole build when you can have an entirely different colour coding scheme in each numbered bag? With numbered bags you only have to search through and select the parts contained within one bag at any one time. So in bag one, 7M axles could be grey, in bag 2 they could be green (if you are building a green model for instance) and so on. This means all axles can come in all colours, just like all plates and bricks in regular sets can come in all colours, giving the designers more colours to choose from, meaning more flexibility, and it can remove generic colour coding and replace it with a more tasteful colour coding which matches better with whatever part of the model you are building. 

[Bublehead]

@allanp, actually that is sort of what I was saying when they provide 3 different colors of the same part for different steps at different times during the build, but unfortunately those colors don’t come in nice contrasting colors that match the model, they come in the standard colors they mold that part in. Such as the 3L bush with double pin comes in red, black, and light grey. 

To achieve economies of scale, It is imperative that TLG mold as many pieces of a common part as needed by their production schedule in the quantities of the colors required.  This makes a lot of what makes up the set molded in common colors. Specialty runs for specific parts in specific colors just for a single set are not common for common parts.  This is the reason for vomit even in very small sets. They reuse colors over again because they have a wharehouse full of panels in dark azure, so we get sets with dark azure panels the next year or two.  TLG has no idea how popular a set will become once they hit the shelves. They have statistical data and forecasts but the market is a fickle thing. Initial production runs might press all the panels for a set for 20k copies.  Yet initial boxing might only pack 10k of them leaving 10k sets worth in the warehouse. Sales for the model are weak and they kit no more. You now have 10k worth of azure panels to get rid of next year or 2H of this year or by 2H of next year.

But all of this comes from SOP of being a manufacturer of a product. These concepts are very common in manufacturing. They are the same concepts we used when I worked at Grimes Aerospace designing aircraft lighting components for Boeing jumbo jets and US military aircraft. And a lot of this information has been shared by the designers in many different videos online. Especially addressing the colors and their reuse and why the color matrix will NOT be filled in any time soon.  It also means, if you like using a part in your models a lot and in a variety of colors, buy them while they are in production!!! Lego warehouses a lot of parts, but once they are gone, it requires a new model usually to get them repressed again.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Bublehead
Typo

[JonathanM]

The problem with numbered bags is it only works for the first build. After that you've got a nice big pool of a few thousand pieces again.

The recolours help the latter and the former.

[LucyCol]

13 hours ago, Bublehead said:

 

Actually 90% of Lego is purchased by grandmothers  

Sounds about right in my house 

[aminnich]

sorry to bring this topic back... but we need to talk about the newest Chiron leak, it is a perfect example. 

The exterior of the model is nicely colored... but if the leaked images are official WOW.  

Here is what I notice:

Yellow 3L axle

Orange 180 degree connector

Orange pin 3L with stop bush

Blue pin with pinhole

light green 5L beam 

Blue perpendicular split 

White 1L pin connector 

Then some others that aren't quite as jaw-dropping color vomit.  

I don't get it... Come on TLG

[Bartybum]

I don’t think it matters. The gears are hidden, who cares what colour they are?

[Ngoc Nguyen]

But those colors create visual disharmony ans discomfort during the build +.+ 

I dont have problems with inner "Technicolor" because, as you guys say, they are gonna be hidden anyway. I even like the colors of the inners of 42070. They look a bit garish but lively.

But, the inners of 42083 is too much to handle. There are black 5L liftarms already and they still use lime? They usually use neutral or dark colors to distinguish, so the parts dont stand out too loudly. Lime, orange, and blue are just too much.

There are also LBG pin with bush, then also oranges. The argument about ease of differentiation doesnt hold up here.

 

Edited May 28, 2018 by Ngoc Nguyen

[Omikron]

Easy fix - don't buy or continue to whine. If you don't like it just don't pay TLG with  your money to show them that they need to change something.

TLG can sustain couple of AFOLs leaving the hobby because TLGs reasoning will still be strong despite your feelings about it.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

6 minutes ago, Omikron said:

Easy fix - don't buy or continue to whine.

Nobody said it was easy *take out wallet to buy lego and still whine* 

[Omikron]

That is exactly what children do, whine, complain but still doing what they are told to do. So TLG wins this one.

[andythenorth]

I am potato/potato about most of the colour barf. 

Don't like it?  Don't buy it.  Bought it and don't like it?  Rebuild it. 

I don't have the kind of insecurities that are threatened by a bit of colour coding in instructions. 

BUT that lime liftarm in the Chiron.  

That's just poor taste.

 

Edited May 28, 2018 by andythenorth

[mahjqa]

2 hours ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

There are also LBG pin with bush, then also oranges. The argument about ease of differentiation doesnt hold up here.

Yes it does. The LBG pins are for styling and exterior. The orange ones are for the inside and the mechanics. 

With the mechanics, exact placement of the exact right part is ESSENTIAL. We're talking Lego Technic here, not Lego A e s t h e t i c. If someone mounts a rearview mirror wrong, the car will still work. If only a tiny single part of a gearbox is misaligned, that gearbox will malfunction or just simply seize up. 

So, where it's important, there is color vomit. Where it isn't, they use whatever color works best.

[agrof]

I am on the fence with color vomit. I see the point of it, in some cases it is even fun, but I have serious concerns about it's actual use. Sure, it helps in build with color coded parts, and I wouldn't do other way for young children.

But for Technic range from 12-99... is it really helpful to improve the cognitive abilities? Is it really harder for a teenager to distinguish parts only by form and not by color? I don't think so. Many teenagers are able to repair their bicycle, moped, so should we expect color coded metal parts in real-life counterparts too ? (Imagine a real gearbox with full color of gears, bolts, bearings...)

You may say, those parts can be used in smaller sets too, but no. There is no gearbox, clutch for youngsters, they wouldn't even have patience to build such complex things (there are always small geniuses, but as exceptions, no examples needed, we talk in general).

I believe, that this level of poke-yoke does not introduce new territories in education, but rather creates step back. Less thinking in order of instant success, accessible for everyone, no thinkering needed, no learning curve, no improvement in tenacity implemented. Speaking of other fields of life, I experience the same. Yes, it is productive, but seeing the last 5 years in my profession, we must redefine such basic things, which were trivial for everyone before. Why? Because people can not think. People are served in most field of life with easy-to-process informations, so why they should think - how should they learn to think?

Just an example: wooden pallet production, I defined 3 nails to fit a wooden support on the pallet. We are at sample production, the guy (who works with nail gun, should have some relability and judgement ability not to cause injures) shoots the nail where is no crossing pallet board underneath - in front of my eyes. Solution: I had to add 4 nails note in the drawing, to be sure, at least 3 will be functional. I have also countless examples with white collar people... Using / referring industrial standards for easier and proper communication? Forget it...

All in all, I don't think this level of color coding as we have today is progressive. It  is successful to reach broader market, but for a very questionable price - in my honest opinion.

Edited May 28, 2018 by agrof

[JimDude]

As was evident from my last post, I am a staunch defender in favor of TLGs decision to colour code stuff as wildly extensively as they're colour coding it now, even though I may personally regret it a little bit under the full realisation I've reached that conclusion with my rose-tinted glasses-on-the-past on.

That said, the lime beam in the Chiron is mindboggling.

Except that it's not.

It has me convinced that research on the Porsche has shown that this type of set is hot with non-LEGO builders. I mean people, adults mostly, who'd never even think about buying LEGO, let alone going ahead with it, but do make an exception to get sets of 'cool cars' (as an aside, I'm sure it also happened to the Apollo rocket for example, which is not surprisingly totally off the colour coding scales). These buyers don't even care that it's made out of LEGO, but TLG will have to make sure that they too are able to build these things. And they're even 'worse' than kids from the regular target audience, because they're not building for the challenge of building, and certainly not for the sake of building LEGO in itself; they're building to get their display piece done.

[agrof]

@JimDude Might be correct, but I stand my opinion. Also in my family and friends, there are many who just got back to LEGO thanks for their kids, and they also do find the color vomit annoying. This generation (35-50) had their time with LEGO, and had no problem with building less color back than. Are children from today less clever / creative / skillful? I don't think so, and that's why I think it is a pity not to let those skills to improve - even if this whole color coding is meant in good faith...

Edited May 28, 2018 by agrof

[kolbjha]

On 5/25/2018 at 5:07 AM, Bublehead said:

@dr_spock, I believe that set is the only place to get a Technic 32L axle right now.  Thank goodness for Bricklink... I didn’t have to buy this set to get them.

According to BL, there is also one of them in 10253 Big Ben (still not retired), but the price... Unless you want to get the Big Ben anyway.

Edited May 28, 2018 by kolbjha

[aminnich]

7 hours ago, Omikron said:

Easy fix - don't buy or continue to whine. If you don't like it just don't pay TLG with  your money to show them that they need to change something

I'm not complaining, just having a conversation with you guys about something that I find extremely odd and offputting. 

[Appie]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet in this topic, but 

Edit:

(cut, @Bublehead already mentioned it) 

Edited May 28, 2018 by Appie

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Or maybe, in the real Chiron there's a lime component in that place.

[Appie]

Could also be true 

[thatrabidhobo]

I don’t consider what we have seen of the Chiron to be color vomit.

The green lift arm appears to be solid reference to attach the gearbox and suspension to a completed build of the body.

The blue cross blocks are simply using the same pieces that are to be used on the exterior.

Most of the colors of the gearbox are existing colored pieces for easy identification and to visually separate functions.

Im all about that last part because I’m not a advanced builder, or even mediocre, but I still like discovering all the cleverness and thought processes that goes into advanced builds.

Look at it this way... the official sets are paint-by-numbers for those of us who can’t create but want to recreate.

[Maaboo the Witch]

I'm fine with the chromatic splat in the Chiron. When assembled, the car looks neat and tidy on the outside. The multicolour is used for ease of construction, like in the Star Wars UCS sets. Great! 

The 42080 is another matter entirely. It's a total mess all over and looks wrong. It doesn't even look appealing.