AFOL designer program

[SylvainLS]

Well, the real announcement has eventually been posted: https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1106293

And you can read details and FAQs there: https://studio.bricklink.com/v2/build/afoldesigner.page

[Holodoc]

7 minutes ago, SylvainLS said:

Well, the real announcement has eventually been posted: https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1106293

To sum it up, it looks like an ideas V2 to me. But for a limited time only and with crowdfunding.
Maybe another chance (also) for rejected ideas-ideas?

It raises more questions than it answers.

I have to sleep a night on it.

[Chiaroscuro]

Rejected Ideas projects are still property of LEGO for at least two years, so no, I guess they won’t have a second chance.

[SylvainLS]

And projects must be new.

[3D LEGO]

Holodoc,

I really think this deserves frontpage news. From what I have read, LEGO is partnering with Bricklink to offer a special 60th anniversary program for LEGO fans. Using the current available TLG brick palette (IE what is in stock/production at LEGO facilities.) combined with the newest version of Studio, v2.0, that will have said special TLG brick palette, AFOLs can design, create and submit projects for consideration. Note that established or previous IP or LEGO themes are out. (No 7740 remake.) In short, TLG is supplying the bricks, brick pallet, production and judges. Bricklink is supplying the software, platform and crowdfunding.

Below are the guideline criteria from the aforementioned page: https://studio.bricklink.com/v2/build/afoldesigner.page

Quote

AFOL Design Program Selection Criteria

Creativity, diversity, originality

We want to celebrate the creative power of the LEGO brick and the richness and variety of AFOL designs across the world. Here are some guidelines to get you started on the right track:

• Attempt to communicate something through your design. Good technique, innovation, and other artistic skills are essential, but a clear expression of your idea is the most important.
• Winning designs will be chosen from a wide spread of topics and themes. It is to your advantage if you can produce a design that is unlike any other submitted.
• The design you submit needs to be your original idea, not a copy of another idea. It should also not be related to – or share major design characteristics with – existing or past intellectual property (IP) or LEGO themes.

The building experience

Building instructions will be drawn up by BrickLink Studio 2.0 staff after models have been selected for review and successfully crowdfunded. However, we also encourage designers themselves to consider the following points during their creative process:

• Models should not only be visually attractive but also fun to build.
• Strive to make good, creative use of the enormous palette of parts available.
• Using a variety of colors on hidden parts of the model can help users follow the instructions.
• Step information can be stored in the Studio file and will be taken as a suggestion by our staff.
• The finished model should be structurally stable. The Studio software has an onboard clutch power test feature to help locate weak points.
• The target age range is 18 and older, so feel free to make use of advanced building techniques. However, please avoid connections which unnaturally stress the bricks.

Element constraints

To help regulate the scope of this program, we are placing the following limits on element usage. Each submission should:

• Consist of no less than 200 and no more than 2000 bricks.  Selection will favor a spread of model sizes across the entire range. Designs falling outside of these parameters will be prevented from uploading on the submission page.
• Be built with only the subset of currently active LEGO elements outlined in the contest palette in the Studio software. This excludes all Duplo elements, sticker sheets, and many other elements that are not bricks, as well as printed parts that are closely linked to a particular theme. Non-palette elements must be removed from the design before the submission process.
• Contain a balanced element composition that does not overly focus on aftermarket value and does not artificially elevate the brick count (for example, by substituting several smaller elements for a larger one, or filling interior spaces with unnecessary bricks).
• Not contain an excessive number of LEGO Minifigures (no more than 1 per 250 pieces).

Please note – we reserve the right to replace any part in case of an error in the Studio parts list, a supply chain problem from the factory, or any other situation where the palette becomes partially unavailable.

Community is important

The AFOL Designer Program is not just about creating cool designs but also about building community by sharing those designs. In the interests of including as large a community as possible, we ask that you please avoid depictions of:

• Political subjects, political symbols, campaigns, or movements
• Religious references including symbols, buildings, or people
• Sex, nudity, drugs, or smoking
• Alcohol in any present-day situation
• Swearing or profanity
• Death, killing, blood, terrorism, horror, or torture
• First-person shooter video games
• Warfare or war vehicles in any modern or present-day situation, or national war memorials
• Large or human-scale weapons or weapon replicas of any kind, including swords, knives, guns, sci-fi or fantasy blasters, etc.
• Racism, bullying, or cruelty to animals

Put your best foot forward

• Your submission description should highlight what you feel are the most attractive features of your design without getting into too much detail. Please write in English only.
• Provide at least one good cover image of your model, either a photo or a render. Use a plain, uncluttered background that doesn’t distract from the subject. Please do not submit screenshots.

3D LEGO

[Digger of Bricks]

Hey @WhiteFang, I kinda think we should frontpage this... 

Bricklink - Your design can become a limited edition 60 Years Anniversary set!

Quote

After we posted a teaser about the AFOL Designer Program, we closely monitored the conversation surrounding it. It was fun to read what you all thought this program would be. So what is it exactly? In case you missed it, BrickLink and the LEGO Group are celebrating 60 years of the LEGO® brick with the AFOL community by realizing unique designs with truly original themes. Through this program, your design can become a limited edition 60 Years Anniversary set!

How does the AFOL Designer Program work?

The program will have three main phases: 

1. Accepting entries - To give you some time to think about what you’d like to design, we will begin accepting entries on September 18th until November 18th. Your designs will not be displayed publicly during this time. The LEGO design team will review your submissions made with Studio 2.0, and up to 20 finalists will be selected.
2. Crowdfunding - Selected designs will be announced and displayed for crowdfunding beginning February 2019. You will be able to pre-order designs at this time.
3. Release - Successfully crowdfunded designs will become a limited edition 60 Years Anniversary set exclusively available on BrickLink. We will begin shipping orders April 2019.

Why should I submit my designs?

Besides being able to share your designs with the AFOL community, designs that are selected for realization will also be reviewed and produced as limited edition box sets. On top of that, BrickLink will pay 10% of total sales revenue to designers for all successfully crowdfunded AFOL designs including pre-order. You will retain full IP rights for non-selected designs, meaning you can freely use your original designs for any other purpose after the event.

Even if you aren’t a designer, we’d still love everyone to get involved! You can share your ideas with the AFOL community in the Studio 2.0 forum. 

Ready to get started?

The AFOL Designer Program requires that your designs are submitted with Studio 2.0, which has improved functionality and new features for this program (new features will be available Sep 18th). A building palette made specifically for the AFOL Designer Program will be included so that you are able to focus more on the design itself. Next, check if your design is stable with the all-new stability check because we want to fall for designs, not have them fall apart. Then you can export breathtaking images and even create building instructions for your designs!

 

[Johnny1360]

So these will be official 60th anniversary LEGO sets available only from Brinklink? With limited availability, these should become some highly sought after sets. 

[Venefic]

Does this mean the Bricklink will supply the bricks and ship directly from their headquarters or is that LEGO's role? Just trying to figure out shipping wise the estimated expenses. 

[Mylenium]

With that tight a schedule, probably not much will be coming of it.

Mylenium

[Holodoc]

Thanks for posting the rules of the new program.

Still I think it's another ideas-site.
There are quite a few ideas on their way to 10.000 votes which will never reach that sum (like this expired one , this or this). I for myself would like to see those ideas at the AFOL Design Program as well, but these are excluded. Too bad.

And it will be online just for a couple of months? You have to upload everything until November, 18th and it will be a anniversary set in 2019.
I see what Bricklink is planing with it (and it's no bad thing about it): They want the AFOL to switch over to Stud.io V2 where you have a closer link to BL order service. Clever. But why not?

 

I have merged the topic with the other one and moved all to the digital tools subforum.
I apologize if it's a bit confusing at the beginning.

[anothergol]

Maybe it's just because you oversold it through the teaser, but it came out a bit disappointing for me.

It's too restrictive: limited part palette, and most importantly, projects have to be (fully?) new. This is sad because there are a ton of MOCs out there that would count as "new", as not many even have seen them. I hope you will reconsider this btw, or at least, allow past projects to be improved & updated for today's palette & count as "new".

So as a MOCer I'm not that much interested. As a buyer, you also don't tell about costs. If we can expect the usual 10cent/part, that's ok, but if it's the double, I don't see myself buying either. Especially if it's shipped from foreign places (you don't tell about that either).

This is also a bit of news that may be hiding something very bad, as TLG partnering with Stud.io might also mean that the LDD is dead for good. You know what would be great, an "LDD emulation" mode that would fully emulate LDD's workflow (especially mouse control), because right now Stud.io is usable, but still nowhere near the LDD.

1 hour ago, Mylenium said:

With that tight a schedule, probably not much will be coming of it.

3 months is a lot, especially when the projects can be 3D-only, you can fully use those 3 months & not reserve 3 weeks for BL seller (or worse, a month for normal B&P delays) problems.

Edited September 13, 2018 by anothergol

[Mylenium]

Well, in my little world September 18 to November 18 is just two months. I've also laid out some more thoughts on my blog:

https://myleniumsbrickcorner.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/afol-and-bust/

Mylenium

[anothergol]

38 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

Well, in my little world September 18 to November 18 is just two months.

oops :)

Well even 2 months is ok, it's generally the time for Lego contests out there. Also safe to assume that it's gonna get the same 95% of "6 year-old designed it & dad put it online" crap as in Lego contests.

Trust me, for having been in & having monitored several Rebrick contests, people have managed to put up great stuff in no time.

I don't agree with your analysis that it's too short because it requires figuring out Stud.io, btw. If I make an entry, there is no way I'm gonna use Stud.io, not in its current state. I'll do it in the LDD & import it in Stud.io, it's pretty easy.
It definitely is an advantage that it has to be digital, as I wrote, it cuts off several weeks of ordering & waiting for parts. With Bricks&Pieces, not even a full month ahead is safe.
Sure, it's not suitable for those building straight with real parts, but we're still A LOT using digital tools.

I also think that 2500 parts is quite a sane limit.
Crowdfunding, why not, it all depends what avg price per part will be applied, and I'm suspecting it's gonna be high.

I'm more disappointed because of what this news could have meant btw. I was expecting a real collab with TLG, like TLG opening a BL store, or a "Lego Ideas of parts", with Lego producing parts in often requested colors, which BL does know about thanks to buyer wishlists.

This thing, to me, looks a lot like the previous TLG contest about MOCs to be displayed in their new house. It's a temporary thing for Lego's anniversary.. why not.. but it's not the "big" announcement we were expecting.

Edited September 13, 2018 by anothergol

[Mylenium]

1 hour ago, anothergol said:

I'll do it in the LDD & import it in Stud.io, it's pretty easy.

Not in my experience. Depending on what parts you use and how they are transformed this can end up all as a jumble.

1 hour ago, anothergol said:

Well even 2 months is ok, it's generally the time for Lego contests out there.

It still depends too much on how much time you can devote to this. There's simply that crazy little thing called "your other life" sometimes getting in the way. At least I couldn't see myself hacking together something in this short timeframe that would make for a set I would be willing to put out there publicly. I like to take my time and verify that a model actually "works" and I can only spend so many hours a week with LEGO. I'm pretty sure that other people feel the same.

Mylenium

[Bob De Quatre]

Seems like a Ideas V2... but I may still enter some new little things :)

[anothergol]

2 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Not in my experience. Depending on what parts you use and how they are transformed this can end up all as a jumble.

Yeah, but this has improved a lot. Way less things to fix after importing in the latest version. I wish it was all perfect, though.

 

2 hours ago, Mylenium said:

It still depends too much on how much time you can devote to this. There's simply that crazy little thing called "your other life" sometimes getting in the way

Sure, it's not for everyone. All I'm saying is that there will be good entries (among the crap), judging from the entries in most Lego contests. Personally, I do have the time, but I don't enjoy being under pressure.

Edited September 13, 2018 by anothergol

[Exile Phoenix]

My key piece for this relates to this part of the FAQ:

Quote

The LEGO Group has started the AFOL Designer Program to celebrate AFOL creativity. Part of the program involves collaborating with others to realize more AFOL designs in small quantities. A key priority is that the AFOL Designer Program will promote initiatives of interest to AFOLs. Therefore, the  AFOL Designer Program is currently being tested. Depending on the outcome, the Program may be more broadly implemented.

Yes, it is currently for the 60th anniversary, however from a business standpoint with it being Lego providing the bricks, it replaces a small portion of the current secondary market for bricks which is people making sets from instructions they purchased with used parts, in addition to using their existing molds more, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was implemented as an annual-type thing.

The only really big downside is that by removing existing and previous Lego themes, it rules out all of the remakes/stylized continuations of old themes like Blacktron, while also removing licensed IP like star wars, which means I expect to see a lot of buildings and scenes.

[Holodoc]

16 minutes ago, Exile Phoenix said:

The only really big downside is that by removing existing and previous Lego themes, it rules out all of the remakes/stylized continuations of old themes like Blacktron, while also removing licensed IP like star wars, which means I expect to see a lot of buildings and scenes.

What did you expect? They didn't do that with ideas - for a reason. And TLC continues to not allow that with the ADP either. Why should they resurrect old themes when they could create new ones? In other words we never would have seen Ninjago if TLC just sticked to the old themes. And of course they can't allow to have new creations on other peoples (licensed) IP.

Yes, I also would like to see great renditions of older themes and I also would like to have a monorail back, but that is another story and not what the ADP is made for.

There is still room for great other MOCs. Just look at the great planes in this topic here.

[Exile Phoenix]

11 hours ago, Holodoc said:

What did you expect? They didn't do that with ideas - for a reason. And TLC continues to not allow that with the ADP either. Why should they resurrect old themes when they could create new ones? In other words we never would have seen Ninjago if TLC just sticked to the old themes. And of course they can't allow to have new creations on other peoples (licensed) IP.

Yes, I also would like to see great renditions of older themes and I also would like to have a monorail back, but that is another story and not what the ADP is made for.

There is still room for great other MOCs. Just look at the great planes in this topic here.

It was what I expected, just a downside (to me) as there is a lot of creativity to come from re-imaging or scaling content (which I tend to enjoy), since things such as architecture or scale models should fall under other people's IP also.  I expect we would have gotten something such as Ninjago eventually, as Lego does keep themes going (City for example) even while introducing new ones.  They also have come back to a couple with them being re-imagined a little (blacktron and space police for example).

Did you intend to link to a topic with planes in it?

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, Exile Phoenix said:

Did you intend to link to a topic with planes in it?

I believe he may be referencing the Sky-Fi themed work of JonHall18 and Fredoichi I shared on the previous page of this discussion topic:

 

[Exile Phoenix]

54 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I believe he may be referencing the Sky-Fi themed work of JonHall18 and Fredoichi I shared on the previous page of this discussion topic:

 

That makes more sense, I had completely forgot that those were in this topic so when I saw the here I assumed it was a link (which I tried clicking a few times before realizing it wasn't one) instead of saying this actual topic.

I'm interested to see what ends up being the 20 selected submissions, and if we end up with any duplicate designers

[Modeltrainman]

I have to try this!

[Holodoc]

4 hours ago, Modeltrainman said:

I have to try this!

That's the spirit!

[Digger of Bricks]

By the way, for anyone who uses either Studio or Studio 2.0, what sort of themed selection does the software offer as far as minifigures go? According to the FAQs, Studio 2.0 offers "a good selection of ordinary non-themed LEGO Minifigure parts" for the contest. Are non-licenced CMFs amongst them? 

Edited September 15, 2018 by Digger of Bricks

[SylvainLS]

They offer what they could get and identify from LDraw.