Lego colors - coming and going

[Maple]

When I was growing up purple was a super rare color that was only like a special edition. Now we have 10 shades of purple and blue, and pinks. It's really silly and not needed.

I'm hoping the new yellow is limited to some special parts like the torso we have a picture of.

And yes, sand red needs to come back and be in a mason brick piece. Coral is in a 1x4 mason brick on Decmber 1st so I doubt they will be canceling the color.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Maple

[Megbricks]

Just found where I saw the “rumour” about coral going away. It comes from someone who sells monochrome figures on BL and the comment was on one of my IG posts. 

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, Maple said:

When I was growing up purple was a super rare color that was only like a special edition. Now we have 10 shades of purple and blue, and pinks. It's really silly and not needed.

I'm hoping the new yellow is limited to some special parts like the torso we have a picture of.

And yes, sand red needs to come back and be in a mason brick piece. Coral is in a 1x4 mason brick on Decmber 1st so I doubt they will be canceling the color.

There are currently four solid pink colors (Light Purple, Bright Purple, Magenta and Coral) and three purples (Lavender, Medium Lavender, and Medium Lilac). There's also one transparent pink and one transparent purple. I really fail to see how that's too many, especially when you consider that substituting one of those for a lighter or darker shade dramatically changes the look of a figure or model, and the use of multiple shades together can often be necessary for parts or prints that require monochrome pink or purple detailing.

There are certainly more blues than those: Bright Blue, Medium Blue, Dark Blue, Medium Azure, Dark Azure, Sand Blue, and Light Royal Blue for solid colors, and Trans. Light Blue and Trans. Blue for transparent colors. Arguably Bright Bluish Green and Aqua also count as blue, though both of those get closer to the green side of the spectrum. Cutting some of these from Lego's color palette is arguably possible, though again, you'd have to keep in mind that having that variety allows for a wide variety of complementary color schemes and that several of the blues function as tints or shades of the others that can be essential for certain types of builds or printed decorations. Blue is also an incredibly versatile color range, considering how it stands in for all water, all sky, and a wide range of flowers in nature, not to mention the wide range of blues used in art, fashion, and design.

I don't really get why so many people seem so opposed to the color palette being as broad as it is. Back in the day Lego's color palette was indeed overly large, in no small part due to the fact that colors would often be introduced for one or two uses and never used again. That's not really the case anymore—nowadays most colors typically have a wide range of parts associated with them out of the gate, and there's very few current colors that I think are completely superfluous.

People often bring up the bizarre (to me) objection that every part (or "basic part", however that's defined) should be available in every color? But I have no idea where that notion comes from. It certainly hasn't been the case for Lego since the very earliest days. And while it is occasionally frustrating to not have a part available in a particular color, having every part available in every color would not only be impractical unless you pared down the number of parts AND colors alike to the barest minimum. And even if you did so, you would simply be eliminating the potential for growth (since releasing new recolors is a significant way in which Lego can make new sets stand out and be desirable even to those who already have a substantial collection).

[Pinnacle]

Reading this topic, I begin to understand the problems LEGO have with pleasing every possible customer. So many AFOLs, so many wishes. Speaking for myself,  The only colours I really want are Red, Reddish brown, Dark red, Tan, Dark tan, White, Grey, Black, Sand red and Sand green.

Bur others want to have as many shades of purple. Or all kinds of transparent parts.

But then with all the parts imaginal. Slopes, Plates, tiles, Arches, and so on.

It all depends on what type of MOCs one wants to make. 

Of course, how more colours, the better it is.  But has TLG the capacity, and do they have the will to make all the part forms in all the known colours?

That is the question.

[TeriXeri]

2 hours ago, Pinnacle said:

Of course, how more colours, the better it is.  But has TLG the capacity, and do they have the will to make all the part forms in all the known colours?

That is the question.

This goes both ways, more color is more choice, but at the rate LEGO is making and retiring parts I rather see more of the same colors instead of 100 colors with only a few parts of each.

Overall color is a complicated subject, as sets also nowadays often have bright colored "cores" of all sorts of SNOT bricks, for example : 

40498 Penguin (image source: brickset review)

Larger sets often have a bright colored core of sorts as well, usually a mix of technic/system.

Now, of course, those bright colored cores can allow some crazy creativity as well, making entirely different builds, but yeah, LEGO now is quite different compared to even 20-30 year ago, not just the expanded color/parts, but also build techniques etc.

 

Back in the 80s/90s didn't really mind the smaller color pallete as it meant there usually were more parts of the basic grey, white, black, blue, red, yellow, on the other hand it didn't allow the detail/realism seen today as even 25 year ago, brown and green parts were still quite rare outside of plant/special parts etc.

 

But yes, it comes down to what you said : It all depends on what type of MOCs one wants to make. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Tube Map Central]

13 hours ago, Lyichir said:

People often bring up the bizarre (to me) objection that every part (or "basic part", however that's defined) should be available in every color? But I have no idea where that notion comes from.

Do you do much building with real bricks?

As a MOCer myself, with real bricks, I sometimes get bored just working in the safe colours (see my post on page one of this thread) and want to try something distinctive. Then the fun really starts.

As an example, in one of my recent builds, I needed an interesting colour that went well with another, but needed availability of window frames, clips, and headlight bricks. If any was missing then there were workarounds but this affected other aspects of the build. I spent a week going round in circles on bricklink, eventually creating an insane graphic to help me get my head around the situation.

Anyone in this position won't find the "basic parts" desire to be bizarre, and it would be easy to compile an A-list of basic parts, and a B-list. Nothing fancy in the A-list, so many colours fall down on 2x2 corners and 1x3 bricks. Let's desire 20 colours with full A-list availability, and ten of these to have B-list availability too. Then it would be possible to just build with confidence, knowing that there won't be frustrating problems down the line. You've been there yourself I see.

 

[Lyichir]

9 hours ago, Tube Map Central said:

Do you do much building with real bricks?

As a MOCer myself, with real bricks, I sometimes get bored just working in the safe colours (see my post on page one of this thread) and want to try something distinctive. Then the fun really starts.

As an example, in one of my recent builds, I needed an interesting colour that went well with another, but needed availability of window frames, clips, and headlight bricks. If any was missing then there were workarounds but this affected other aspects of the build. I spent a week going round in circles on bricklink, eventually creating an insane graphic to help me get my head around the situation.

Anyone in this position won't find the "basic parts" desire to be bizarre, and it would be easy to compile an A-list of basic parts, and a B-list. Nothing fancy in the A-list, so many colours fall down on 2x2 corners and 1x3 bricks. Let's desire 20 colours with full A-list availability, and ten of these to have B-list availability too. Then it would be possible to just build with confidence, knowing that there won't be frustrating problems down the line. You've been there yourself I see.

 

I do build with real bricks from time to time—and even when building digitally I like to restrict myself to what's actually available most of the time.

That said, I understand the frustration—but I don't really know if that's an issue that can or should be "solved". I've always treated the substitution process—finding an alternative to a certain part or color that doesn't yet exist—to be an essential part of that kind of building. Realistically, I don't really expect that filling out every "basic" part in a particular color would ever be realistic given the wide range of parts that could be considered "basic" (with new ones introduced every year, making filling in those gaps an almost Sisyphean task). To achieve that, Lego would probably have to prioritize "common" parts and colors over newer or more unusual ones, which almost paradoxically would lessen the impact of each new recolor (since a new recolor in an uncommon color or part type has a dramatically bigger impact on the building possibilities with that part or color than a new recolor for a part that already is available in many other colors, or a new part in a color that has less part selection available). And even if that were ever done somehow, I feel like it'd have the unintended consequence of compromising one of the main draws of new sets for MOCists (that being a selection of new parts and recolors that hadn't seen use before that point).

Granted, I suppose my ambivalence to that issue in a broad sense might have something to do with the fact that I often prefer to work on sci-fi or fantasy builds, rather than building things from real life or an existing IP. When you're building something entirely from your head, it's far easier to come up with creative solutions to design challenges of that sort instead of being stymied by situations where only one suitable part would be "accurate".

[Mylenium]

On 11/9/2021 at 2:51 PM, Maple said:

When I was growing up purple was a super rare color that was only like a special edition. Now we have 10 shades of purple and blue, and pinks. It's really silly and not needed.

No offense, but that's the old "I only do trains, cars and Classic Space" argument I'm so sick and tired of hearing on so many forums. No, it's not what colors are available, it's what you do with them. Some people just seem to completely lack the imagination to work with those colors.

On 11/9/2021 at 4:58 PM, Lyichir said:

And while it is occasionally frustrating to not have a part available in a particular color, having every part available in every color would not only be impractical unless you pared down the number of parts AND colors alike to the barest minimum.

LEGO could easily do it and it would have almost no impact on their manufacturing process or logistics. You know, it's 2021 where it's all computer-based, not 1950 where some myopic granny had to sift through the storage containers. Just leave machine X run for Y hours to have Z millions of piece A, B, C... The more interesting question really is whether they could find uses for all those colored parts outside selling them directly to MOC creators and that's most likely where the wheels fall off the cart. I have little doubt that this is why we only see new colors on elements these days when they can be used in more than one set and it makes sense on a broader basis. And you even kind of see this every year already with "waves" of preferred colors rippling across the product portfolio.

Mylenium

[Maple]

2 hours ago, Mylenium said:

No offense, but that's the old "I only do trains, cars and Classic Space" argument I'm so sick and tired of hearing on so many forums. No, it's not what colors are available, it's what you do with them. Some people just seem to completely lack the imagination to work with those colors.

If nothing like that. I actually most of the colors LEGO makes. However how many yellows do we really need? I love Chima yellow, pale bright yellow is one of my favorites. I wish the Birch Bookstore was it. But the more colors we get the less parts we get for each color. Instead of adding new colors LEGO should use their imagination to work with the shades they already have.

Like it's rumoured that the corner hotel modular for 2022 will use skin tone in the build. I think that's a great idea. Expand the piece range more than expand the color range.

Of course as I saw that the new glitter colors and the dish pieces on the Marvel movie pizza slice space ship look amazing.

[TeriXeri]

I love the orange yellow as well, I personally call it Axl yellow as Chima retired before I came back to LEGO , and the color was used by the Axl character , also I think it looks great with Dark Blue 

Edited November 10, 2021 by TeriXeri

[KRS-3284]

I think the current color palette is fine. As many have pointed out, part of the fun and creative process of building LEGO is working within the possibilities and, yes, limitations of the current palette. One of the interesting things about colors is that they change depending on how you pair them with other colors, which adds another layer of creativity. For example, olive green may look different next to orange, earth blue, or dark red, respectively, and so on with every color. So, there are many interesting and satisfying choices. Some combinations may subdue a certain color and other combinations may bring out that color. 

What I do agree with too, though, is that it would be great to have more pieces available in more colors. This is also part of the fun of LEGO is when new sets get revealed there's always the possibility of recolours. 

If I were to pick a new color to add to the palette, I would add an off-white, perhaps something like eggshell or bone to give more options for architectural builds. Something between white and brick yellow or light nougat. 

Anyway, just my two cents. 

[koalayummies]

2 hours ago, KRS-3284 said:

If I were to pick a new color to add to the palette, I would add an off-white, perhaps something like eggshell or bone to give more options for architectural builds. Something between white and brick yellow or light nougat.

That would be cool. There is that Light Stone Grey they ran for just 6 years and only molded 39 different pieces in.

[Faefrost]

We should probably remember that the technology Lego uses now has radically changed. Up until fairly recently color was provided via pre colored plastic tablets from Bayer. So the limitations on available color were how many plastic silos Lego had and how much part storage capacity they had in the warehouses. 

But now .ost regular nkn exotic colors come from a color on demand system. Lego buts neutral colored plastic and injects the color dye themselves as the plastic is melted on the factory floor. The downside is batch to batch color matching is not the 100% perfection it used to be. Upside is they can easily maintain a much broader color pallett and produce what they need as they need it. Which is HUGE.

There are a few colors that are still done the old ways. I suspect the trans clear polyacrylics are one of them. Those pearlescent might be another or might involve a more elaborate color process. 

[Mylenium]

13 hours ago, Maple said:

However how many yellows do we really need?

More?! *lol*

13 hours ago, Maple said:

Instead of adding new colors LEGO should use their imagination to work with the shades they already have.

Let me put on my designer hat here: The first thing you are ever told when learning or studying anything in that field is to not let yourself be limited by the underlying technical processes. That doesn't mean you should not be aware of them, as actually getting a design ready for production is just as important, but that's just step two or three after the actual conceptual phase. And that kind of is the point: If I were a brick designer, I'd want as many colors for those bricks as I have Copics in my arsenal (or whatever fancy art felt pens one uses) even if some of them are just for tints and shades to simulate lighting and all that. Only after that I might think about paring down those 300+ Copic colors to my limited palette. Of course nobody who has ever worked in this field would start out with something utterly crazy that never could be made into a real model, so you may already just use a fraction of those Copics, but you may still want to explore alternate color schemes or whether your model could not look even better with an entirely new color.

All that aside, I really don't feel that LEGO are overdoing it and that's why your "work with the shades they already have" doesn't really mean much to me. Some of those "weird" colors have been around for forever at this point and then the question becomes what you actually mean in terms of what point in time you would take as reference. 2006 would clearly be different from 1998 and 2018 when Coral was introduced would be different from what came before. I'm pretty sure you really don't mean going back to 1983 with just 12 basic colors. I also can only reiterate my point from a few posts up: To me it seems people are simply against new colors because they think it's technically super hyper complicated and they get aggravated when their preferred element doesn't come out in a given color. Lets be real here: Knock-off manufacturers can clone official LEGO sets within days and even produce those colors more consistently, so what can't LEGO do that those many times smaller outlets can? Some pieces not being available from LEGO in a given color really is more that they don't want to or don't feel the need due to their internal procedures and rules rather than a technical problem.

Mylenium

[Alexandrina]

On 11/8/2021 at 11:35 AM, Tube Map Central said:

I did a quick study of colour availability via bricklink. Nothing fancy, just the basic parts:

*message snipped for brevity*

And for the rest of the colours, good luck! Of course, this is even before we get to complexities such as slopes, side studs and clips ...

I definitely think Bright Pink needs to be on the list. It seems odd, to me, to disregard a colour which only seems to fall down on having 1x6 bricks and tiles, when 1x2, 1x3 and 1x4 in that same colour are readily available. There aren't too many situations where a MOC requires a 1x6 for structural integrity and two 1x3s or a 1x2 and a 1x4 can't do the same job.

 

Considering this topic more generally: I definitely think more colours is a positive, especially where they fill gaps that are difficult to do at the moment. Others have mentioned Sand Red as being overdue a return, and there's also a distinct absence of muted light green shades. Lime and bright green are both very... well, bright. I think a duller shade that's lighter in colour than the bog-standard green would be immensely useful for plant life. I'm looking out at my garden writing this and trying to work out how I could represent it in brick form, and the answer is that I couldn't, not completely. The grass is not bright, but it's distinctly lighter than my hedge - and yet my hedge is far too light to be represented by dark green. We have olive green as the darker equivalent of this, why not a light olive green?

[Mylenium]

2 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

and there's also a distinct absence of muted light green shades. Lime and bright green are both very... well, bright. I think a duller shade that's lighter in colour than the bog-standard green would be immensely useful for plant life. I'm looking out at my garden writing this and trying to work out how I could represent it in brick form, and the answer is that I couldn't, not completely. The grass is not bright, but it's distinctly lighter than my hedge - and yet my hedge is far too light to be represented by dark green. We have olive green as the darker equivalent of this, why not a light olive green?

Yupp, definitely a major gap in LEGO's color palette. One of my secret obsessions as a 3D artist was creating virtual plants and ever since I just look at every plant with different eyes. Outside Olive Green and Dark Green LEGO simply has no green shades that come even close to realistic plants and it's even more annoying since those two colors we could possibly use in real life mostly appear on semi-decaying plants, mosses, lichens, tropical plants or pine trees, making this problem even more apparent if you just want your average friendly European front yard.

Mylenium

[Lyichir]

10 hours ago, Alexandrina said:

I definitely think Bright Pink needs to be on the list. It seems odd, to me, to disregard a colour which only seems to fall down on having 1x6 bricks and tiles, when 1x2, 1x3 and 1x4 in that same colour are readily available. There aren't too many situations where a MOC requires a 1x6 for structural integrity and two 1x3s or a 1x2 and a 1x4 can't do the same job.

 

Considering this topic more generally: I definitely think more colours is a positive, especially where they fill gaps that are difficult to do at the moment. Others have mentioned Sand Red as being overdue a return, and there's also a distinct absence of muted light green shades. Lime and bright green are both very... well, bright. I think a duller shade that's lighter in colour than the bog-standard green would be immensely useful for plant life. I'm looking out at my garden writing this and trying to work out how I could represent it in brick form, and the answer is that I couldn't, not completely. The grass is not bright, but it's distinctly lighter than my hedge - and yet my hedge is far too light to be represented by dark green. We have olive green as the darker equivalent of this, why not a light olive green?

Sand Green sort of seems like it'd cover that "muted light green" territory a bit? Though it's not as close to matching the hue of olive green in the same way that, say, Medium Azure matches Dark Azure. So I could see how another color in that range could be beneficial.

[Alexandrina]

7 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Sand Green sort of seems like it'd cover that "muted light green" territory a bit?

It kind of works, but at least to me it feels more like a wintry green. I'd use sand green or the old light green from the 90s as lawn on a frosty January day, rather than spring or summer!

[TeriXeri]

Sand green for grass really makes me think of Minecraft , Taiga/Mountain biomes (soon to have different names in 1.18, but anyway, cold grass)

[Modeltrainman]

6 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Sand Green sort of seems like it'd cover that "muted light green" territory a bit? Though it's not as close to matching the hue of olive green in the same way that, say, Medium Azure matches Dark Azure. So I could see how another color in that range could be beneficial.

I used a lot of lime for my layout. I've been trying to tone it down...

[Mylenium]

9 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Sand Green sort of seems like it'd cover that "muted light green" territory a bit?

In part yes, but most of the time not. Since it's basically "oxidized copper", I'd only use it for mimicking patches of arctic lichen or similar and some cactus/ succulents species. It's also a very "dead" and cold color, so it's hard to not have it overwhelm everything when used in larger quantities. You can even see this to some degree on LEGO's official botanic sets. Those Sand Green 32 L Axles look kind of weird and make the flower bouquet look like it's been standing there for a few weeks already...

Mylenium

[ShaydDeGrai]

I've been at this long enough that I still recall how excited I was when they introduced things like tan and sand green.  For the first decade of my Lego playing experience, I could count the number of colors in my collection in on my fingers with digits lefts over.  Earth Blue and Dark (Brick) Red were fantastic additions in my mind.  Finally, I could start drawing from a color palette that made me feel like an artist rather than an adult playing with kids toys (don't get me wrong, the classic red, blue, white, yellow, black, clear with green pre-fab trees were great, but the expanded, less in-your-face-Beyer-primary-color selection just opened up a new world where I didn't need to stretch my imagination to a land where bricks and coverts were the same shade of red and dessert sands could be mistaken for cheap mustard stains.

I look at my daughter's collection (mostly drawn from Friends, Trolls and assorted Disney sets) and realize she has more color variety in her parts than I do, even though, by shear volume, I easily have her beat by over a million parts.  On the downside, though, we really can't build anything of any real scale with a monochrome color palette in most of those wonderful colors.  They are great for accents but many of them fall flat on the basic-brick-variety and volume scales.  A Classic bin of exclusively contemporary colors in classic form factors (1x2's, 2x4's, etc) would help with this.  The palette is broad enough now you could even give bins particular color themes "spring pastels",  "special dark",  "color explosion", etc. 

on the more AFOL side of things, I remember being enamored with the 21050 Lego Architecture Studio ( well, the concept and the parts, not so much the price).  I wish they had taken the basic concept and turned it onto an "Adult Creator" bin under the guise of "architecture"; lower the price, sell the book separately (as, while I liked the book I don't need - or want to pay for - six copies of it) and just bundle up a large number of very useful parts in limited color options.  The original 21050 was basically a box of white, just do the exact same thing for Tan, Light Bley, Dark Bley, Dark Red, Sand Green, Pale Yellow, Nugart, etc. (each color variety sold separately) as core "architecture" colors (say 1000 parts in commonly used, very versatile form factors) padded out with another couple hundred plates and tiles in accent colors (clear, trans-light blue, black, white, brown, green - the usual sort of things one might use for windows, water vegetation, etc).  I think it would have been a nice way to buy a "buildable set" worth of a particular color without having it come off as a box of "random" parts.  This might not be an effective way to market bulk buys of _every_ color in their (now extensive) palette (sorry fans of pink and pearlescent gold) but I could see it working for fans of Architecture and Modular Building style MOCs for some of the more "mainstream" colors.

[Megbricks]

Some information on new dots bracelets for 2022 are starting to emerge and one is called Neon bracelet…. Could it be that yellow….?

[TeriXeri]

16 hours ago, Megbricks said:

Some information on new dots bracelets for 2022 are starting to emerge and one is called Neon bracelet…. Could it be that yellow….?

Seems likely.

Also some 2022 City memory cards showed up, with what looked like neon yellow fire helmets, and a vehicle with a neon yellow upper half (I assume european color styled ambulance)

Edited November 18, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Megbricks]

5 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Seems likely.

Also some 2022 City memory cards showed up, with what looked like neon yellow fire helmets, and a vehicle with a neon yellow upper half (I assume european color styled ambulance)

Woah i didnt see that. In Canada some places (Québec province at least)  have fluorescent yellow ambulances but i doubt its based in us :) i remember seeing yellow ambulances in europe as well. This is very exciting. I will try to get access to these pictures:)

Edit: found them… interesting….