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3 hours ago, Cyclone_37 said:

If you’re talking about the earth dragon it’s definitely much bigger than that, I’d guess more around fusion dragon size 

I would be surprised if it's that big considering the size of the ice fortress. Plus being a wyvern, not a true, quadrupedal dragon like the earth dragon could just appear bigger because it's more spread out and lanky.

41 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

As a long-time Bionicle fan, I've seen how much trouble some younger fans have with the concept of knees

I did not know that. That sounds depressing

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4 hours ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

I did not know that. That sounds depressing

I don't see why it should be. It's not as though this is somehow a new problem or an issue with "kids these days". Hand eye coordination and other visual-spatial skills that some adults might take for granted take years of experience to fully develop. It's similar to how a young beginner artist will typically have trouble drawing or sculpting a figure in a lifelike pose than a more experienced professional.

If a seven-year-old or eight-year-old can't reliably show you what a lifelike, balanced pose ought to look like in two dimensions when there's no actual weight that will make the joints shift out of position when they lift their pencil, you can't expect them to have an easier time achieving a lifelike, balanced pose with a figure that DOES have real weight and flexibility, and won't just reliably stay where you left it if somebody bumps against the surface you set it down on.

Another thing to point out about the whole articulation vs. stability debate — a lot of major action figure brands (whether they're premium-quality ones like Marvel Legends and Star Wars: The Black Series with three or more points of articulation per limb, or cheaper, more basic ones like the old "The Real Ghostbusters" figures that had no knees OR ankles) have to include a "some poses may require hand support" disclaimer on their packaging and advertising materials.

Because frankly, instability issues with bipedal figures are not unique to building toys. It's just that as @Lyichir pointed out, normal action figures tend to have much more securely fastened components than toys that are designed to assembled and disassembled over and over — it's no big deal if they tend to fall over, even if it means crashing off a high shelf.

For that matter, outside of toys, there's a reason why so few mammals besides humans spend most of their waking lives walking upright on two legs. It's the same reason that babies learn to crawl before they learn to walk, the same reason that elderly people are prone to falling over, and the same reason that making bipedal walking vehicles or robots in real life is so much harder than adding more legs or simply using wheels. A bipedal structure like ours is inherently unstable!

Most of the time, even standing upright on two legs without falling over or having anything to lean against takes frequent, precise adjustments in our balance. That's why you can get tired from standing for a long time even if you're not actually walking anywhere! So something like a humanoid toy or statue without intuitive, self-propelled movement like ours needs a lot more stability considerations than something like a model house or car that has a less failure-prone structure and weight distribution to begin with.

Edited by Aanchir

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wow I really touched a sensitive nerve here

the Clutch Powers minifigure is cool. Shame the rest of the figures are so voring. Aside from the blizzard Samurai which is kinda unique

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20 minutes ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

wow I really touched a sensitive nerve here

I don't know if you actually read @Aanchir's comment, but I'll give you a hint: it's not an emotional rant. Your argument is invalid. 

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1 hour ago, Exetrius said:

I don't know if you actually read @Aanchir's comment, but I'll give you a hint: it's not an emotional rant. Your argument is invalid. 

I think this post is off topic

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On 5/26/2019 at 7:25 PM, Thedarkmaster2 said:

These toys are not meant for toddlers, kids are the youngest audience. There' no reason for the lack of knees on smaller mechs or creatures, I'm sorry

TLG caters for larger age group including younger kids that can't be bothered by more points of articulation as already pointed several times. I know it sucks but as a company who wants to please broader audience (i.e. kids and parents), stability is a big factor in designing bi-pedal toys. 

If you can't grasp this concept, go read the replies of @Lyichir and @Aanchir once more because they elaborated this very well. Also, if you don't know them well in the forums -- they typically write very long replies -- it's not because they are emotional or something. Hahaha. :laugh:

 

On 5/26/2019 at 9:17 PM, obsidianheart said:

Can't you guys just mod some knees in?

Yes, this is one great advantage of any LEGO set -- we can just mod the knees. We have so many talented builders in the forum who share mods for all these no-knees mechs and robots.

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1 hour ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:

I think this post is off topic

I think so too. So is arguing over the presence of knees in mechs, I hope you are aware of that. 

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On 5/27/2019 at 2:29 PM, Ninjaguy99 said:

Ok Clutch Powers Minifigure is flipping AWESOME

Definitely, it is an upgrade from the original movie. 

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45 minutes ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:
On 5/27/2019 at 2:29 PM, Ninjaguy99 said:

Ok Clutch Powers Minifigure is flipping AWESOME

Definitely, it is an upgrade from the original movie. 

I would've somewhat prefered if they'd excluded his initials and darker-colored patch from his jacket print, but they're just so subtle that it's hard to complain. :classic:

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4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I would've somewhat prefered if they'd excluded his initials and darker-colored patch from his jacket print, but they're just so subtle that it's hard to complain

I mean they never made his minifigure before so. . . there wasn't much to base it on

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28 minutes ago, Thedarkmaster2 said:
4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I would've somewhat prefered if they'd excluded his initials and darker-colored patch from his jacket print, but they're just so subtle that it's hard to complain

I mean they never made his minifigure before so. . . there wasn't much to base it on

Well, as he appeared in the original movie, his torso print was pretty much an exact copy of Indiana Jones' torso print from then! :wink:

a7Hikx8NzIb31IR2TGeeY7Xzk8E.jpg

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pretty good news today for me as my local LEGOLAND discovery centre store has all the summer sets available and for sale now so I picked up the minifigure pack , ice fortress , Lloyd's titan mech , Lloyd's journey and the fire fang , speaking of the fire fang I cant stop looking at it without thinking of jafar in his snake form at the end of aladdin

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On 5/26/2019 at 12:24 PM, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:

Sad for us, but better believe it. They are kids toys after all and Ninjago targets even younger audiences, then probably many other themes.

What I don't understand though is why TLG doesnt bring out new, specialized pieces for bigger mechs. People described the problems above - I have them as well; with all my bigger dragons and mechs, the joints cannt carry the weight after some time. My firstbourne dragon now cannt even stand on its own. So if stability is so important - why doesn't TLG bring out new, stronger pieces for these big mechs? Maybe pieces that are not colour fixed as well and have more aesthetic potential. Other knockoff-brands do it as well.

Huh, i thought i was the only one.

From day one he was build,i always felt like the ratcheted joints of the hind legs are quite weak. He can stand and support his own weight, but a little bit of pressure on the rear or a "landing" and he will sit on his butt.

Funny thing is a long time ago i modified my Water Strider from the Ninjago Movie so the legs are attached with balljoints to the main body.With the help of those balljoint extenders with rubber inside the Strider can actually stand on it´s own, even in odd poses and on three legs (depends on the surface). But i still have it supported by a weird rickety looking tree.

As for Lloyds Titan Mech, i´m super exited for it and i hope someone will come up with a working and good looking modification for working knees.

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4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, as he appeared in the original movie, his torso print was pretty much an exact copy of Indiana Jones' torso print from then! :wink:

All the better then that they opted for a newer, more individualized look instead of just reused assets like the Clutch Powers movie relied so much on.

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4 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Well, as he appeared in the original movie, his torso print was pretty much an exact copy of Indiana Jones' torso print from then! :wink:

Truth be told, that's why I'm especially grateful they gave him a new one now that they have the opportunity, same as how I'm grateful that the physical minifigures of Shade and Ash were improvements on their original torso designs from the TV show.

There have been a LOT of instances where LEGO character graphics originally created for TV shows, video games, or direct-to-DVD movies have been mediocre, awkward, or even just lacking in distinctiveness, and it'd be lame for the physical minifigures to exactly duplicate those attributes purely in the name of remaining "screen-accurate". Especially when costume changes are so easy to justify in canon. :P

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13 hours ago, Lyichir said:

All the better then that they opted for a newer, more individualized look instead of just reused assets like the Clutch Powers movie relied so much on.

13 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Truth be told, that's why I'm especially grateful they gave him a new one now that they have the opportunity, same as how I'm grateful that the physical minifigures of Shade and Ash were improvements on their original torso designs from the TV show.

Of course, and like I'd stated, I find those characterizing torso details they've added to be pretty subtle, so they're hardly a bother! :classic: But, had they left the torso without those two extra little details, the print would've been tailor-made for a purist yellow flesh-toned Indiana Jones custom! :grin:

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17 hours ago, badchriss said:

Huh, i thought i was the only one.

From day one he was build,i always felt like the ratcheted joints of the hind legs are quite weak. He can stand and support his own weight, but a little bit of pressure on the rear or a "landing" and he will sit on his butt.

Funny thing is a long time ago i modified my Water Strider from the Ninjago Movie so the legs are attached with balljoints to the main body.With the help of those balljoint extenders with rubber inside the Strider can actually stand on it´s own, even in odd poses and on three legs (depends on the surface). But i still have it supported by a weird rickety looking tree.

As for Lloyds Titan Mech, i´m super exited for it and i hope someone will come up with a working and good looking modification for working knees.


I get the arguments brought before - that knee joints for example can confuse the target audience. But the more weight the mech/creature has, the more unstably it is anyway. So no knee articulation, even though we have perfect and actually stable pieces for it, but the other points of articulation are completely unstable? Firstbourne defacto cannt carry her own weight anymore. So why doesn't Lego go the middle route and bring out specialized pieces, that can maybe also look better but especially can carry 800+ pieces builds? Cheap toy brands can do it with big action figures as well.

 


So I built the summer sets already:
- Lloyd's mech looks amazing; closing up the cockpit was actually very easy (I just took a 2x2 cylinder brick as neck and built it up with curved roof pieces into the body. Mechs 3 times smaller took me longer to modify the open cockpits into closed ones)
- the colour swapping was a pain. Took me like 8 hours (and disassembling many sets) I swear every time that this is the last white set I buy. Lego pumps just more dark/light tan/brown pieces into sets. I don't mind these colours, but when there's so much grey and black anyway it tends to look super messy. It's interesting how little Ninjago's target audience seems to care about colour consistancy compared to the former audience of Elves (RIP)

- there's almost no articulation. Probably because of it's weight, it's built in a way - other than the forearms - you can bend it good because of the building techniques, but you can't actually move it, not even good flying poses. The wings themselves have perfect articulation, but I know already that in 1-2 years max. they will bend down automaticly

but it's not that I didn't expect this, it's a general problem with Lego's parts system - overall it's by far the best mech.
 

 

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1 hour ago, Kim-Kwang-Seok said:


I get the arguments brought before - that knee joints for example can confuse the target audience. But the more weight the mech/creature has, the more unstably it is anyway. So no knee articulation, even though we have perfect and actually stable pieces for it, but the other points of articulation are completely unstable? Firstbourne defacto cannt carry her own weight anymore. So why doesn't Lego go the middle route and bring out specialized pieces, that can maybe also look better but especially can carry 800+ pieces builds? Cheap toy brands can do it with big action figures as well.

 


So I built the summer sets already:
- Lloyd's mech looks amazing; closing up the cockpit was actually very easy (I just took a 2x2 cylinder brick as neck and built it up with curved roof pieces into the body. Mechs 3 times smaller took me longer to modify the open cockpits into closed ones)
- the colour swapping was a pain. Took me like 8 hours (and disassembling many sets) I swear every time that this is the last white set I buy. Lego pumps just more dark/light tan/brown pieces into sets. I don't mind these colours, but when there's so much grey and black anyway it tends to look super messy. It's interesting how little Ninjago's target audience seems to care about colour consistancy compared to the former audience of Elves (RIP)

- there's almost no articulation. Probably because of it's weight, it's built in a way - other than the forearms - you can bend it good because of the building techniques, but you can't actually move it, not even good flying poses. The wings themselves have perfect articulation, but I know already that in 1-2 years max. they will bend down automaticly

but it's not that I didn't expect this, it's a general problem with Lego's parts system - overall it's by far the best mech.
 

 

Regarding whether Lego can come out with sturdier joints, the problem is that once you pass a certain level of "firmness" in the joints, the legs themselves are likely to come apart when trying to pose the joints themselves. Joints that are "too firm" might also be perceived by many buyers as a quality defect, if kids who buy the sets have trouble positioning them, attaching them, or removing them. As I mentioned earlier, for MOCists of large mechs, pretty much the strongest option is using gears with worm gears for the joints, which allows for fine-tuned poses with extremely high rigidity. But for kids, the amount of time that kind of system takes to move from pose to pose is pretty much incompatible with fast-paced roleplay—I used to be frustrated even by the worm gear-based articulation in the Throwbots/Slizers sets, and in those the only joint that used those gears tended to be the "neck".

Personally I really don't mind the color variation in sets. It adds to the appearance of mechanical complexity/intricacy even at a small scale, makes the building process go more smoothly with less time hunting for specific parts in a sea of similarly colored parts, and helps make models feel less monotonous. On top of that, it just feels better to me to pour out a bag of differently colored parts that go together into a cohesive model—the transformative experience of creating order out of that kind of chaos feels fundamental to the Lego building experience.

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I can't remember having to buy 3 different armour/suit variants in a single wave before. I thought we were fortunate to only have 1 variant from the previous wave... but I think the trade off is that this current wave will have 3!

Below is the minifigure distribution for the June 2019 wave.  I just created this  to compare what  minifigures are included in each set as I usually go for the low hanging fruit first, e.g. the cheapest sets to complete my desired minifigures. 

47971147758_0ccc73a390_b.jpg

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5 hours ago, makoy said:

I can't remember having to buy 3 different armour/suit variants in a single wave before. I thought we were fortunate to only have 1 variant from the previous wave... but I think the trade off is that this current wave will have 3!

Below is the minifigure distribution for the June 2019 wave.  I just created this  to compare what  minifigures are included in each set as I usually go for the low hanging fruit first, e.g. the cheapest sets to complete my desired minifigures. 

This is really helpful, thanks! I collect all the Ninjago figures and was really scratching my head with this wave having two different versions of FS suits for only certain ninja, and the frequency at which they appeared in sets. Thanks for making it all clear in a handy chart!

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1 hour ago, legozebra said:

This is really helpful, thanks! I collect all the Ninjago figures and was really scratching my head with this wave having two different versions of FS suits for only certain ninja, and the frequency at which they appeared in sets. Thanks for making it all clear in a handy chart!

You're welcome. Take note that Zane Cole and Nya only have 2 variants as they don't appear with any "Spinjitzu Slam" ... I wonder if they will appear in promotional item again. 

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Great chart! I'm kinda worried by the lack of full spinjitzu slam variants of Nya and Cole, just because Dragon Master Nya got shelved. 

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3 minutes ago, Umbra-Manis said:

Great chart! I'm kinda worried by the lack of full spinjitzu slam variants of Nya and Cole, just because Dragon Master Nya got shelved. 

Oh speaking of Nya.... I don't know if she can ever catch up with the number of costumes since she is always behind in some way. Technically she didn't get any chance to be in that dimension so.... Maybe not ever?

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