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Having watched the speed builds on Youtube - - - I've no interest in the subject matter, but the Systar Starship and the Pop-Up Party Bus sure have amazing builds! And lots of great new parts, too. The bus has six 2x1 modified plates with axles for small wheels and six new studs-in brackets, plus those awesome flat-plate gears and the UCS Slave 1 canopy in a new color. The Systar ship is built studs-forward with lots of inkwell plates to attach the balloon side panels. Props to the designer of those two sets - they're far and away the most ingenious 2019 builds revealed so far. Can't wait to see what's next.

Oh, I like that better. It fits the character of Benny better than the cargo hauler (since when does Benny care about coaxium and brutish armor?) or the rail train (too twentieth-century). The big yellow windows on this train match the big, inviting yellow windows of the 78-79 CS bases. They give the same message of come and stay a while, and check out our new equipment! The windowless Conveyex gives the message of outta my way or imma run you over.

Gee, I think that's the best update to Ideas in a long time!

I like that locomotive better than your other CS train. It looks more like a spaceship, less like a box, while still looking like a real-world freight locomotive. I guess Benny & Co. had to go back to their old train after Toby & Co blew up the track for their super-secure armored train?

From a perspective of color theory, I agree with the choice to use gray floors in the upper stories of the building, but I sure wouldn't want to live there! That poor guy has to suffer through the sounds and smells of the vet just beneath him and the garage beneath that. There's traffic noise from the gas station at all hours, or well after usual business hours anyway. He's got a bare concrete floor, a bare steel bedstead, and a cramped toilet stall where the kitchen pantry should be. To top it all off, the lack of window shades or a door mean that he has neither privacy nor the ability to effectively control the temperature of his apartment. I don't mean this as criticism of the set designer, because I think I understand the reasoning behind the design choices, but man - what a low-rent apartment! It's a good thing everything is awesome in Bricksburg, because otherwise that young man would move out as soon as he could scrape up the cash for a better place.

Fair enough. I can accept you not liking WoP from that perspective, and so forth. Like I said before, I'm not the greatest fan of that project either. It was just the bit about assuming it's a bad-faith joke because ugly-tourist-folklore-kitsch that bothered me.

I previously said I wouldn't continue to reply in this thread, but here's another post anyway - A few years back, I spent a couple years in Argentina. 99% of my time was spent with poor and middle-class folks well away from tourist zones, but I did make it to tourist sites and shops a few times. Yes, the merchandise for tourists was somewhat exaggerated, but apart from the price and maybe the quality of the materials it really was pretty much the same as the folk art and local kitsch that real people had in their real homes. As a man of English heritage who grew up in the middle of the United States, I can't claim any deep knowledge of Hispanic culture and certainly not of Peruvian culture, but based on my experience in Argentina I'm inclined to believe that these Peruvian retablos are at least "authentic" enough that real Peruvian citizens probably have them. Maybe they don't come out all the time; maybe they're a seasonal thing; maybe the more jaded elements of Peruvian society dismiss them as tourist kitsch; but I doubt that they're nothing but a tourist trap. By analogy, consider the tourist kitsch of Texas - it may be more displayed more prominently in the homes of wannabe Texans in other states, but that doesn't mean nobody in Texas puts a Lone Star flag on the wall or a King Ranch brand on the coffee table for decor. OK, that's my two cents. We can agree to disagree on the artistic merits of the Wonders of Peru; let's not make this a tempest in a teapot.

Supported! That's a fantastic build there. Lots of good features, nicely detailed, not unreasonably large, stable enough to be built in all real parts, and with a family-friendly story and seasonal tie-in! Good luck!

Ah - part/color combinations that don't exist, that's a problem! I always try to use real color combinations in a digital build just in case I can find the cash to order the parts someday and build it IRL. So far, that hasn't happened:( Good luck making yours happen, even if you have to color the parts yourself.

The Corner Garage does do a good job of looking like any number of red-brick buildings downtown in the relatively small university towns in my state. It just looks more like an aging building in the smaller, poorer college town in the middle of the state than like a freshly renovated building in the city a couple hours north that wants to be a tech hub, that's all. As such, it doesn't really fit the brightly painted, bustling hub of cinemas, banks, shopping centers, and restaurants that AFOLs have been building in their basements for the past ten years. Put it on another block or across the street and it'll work just fine. That said, it's a very low priority on my wanted list.

It's nice to see you've finally got your Classic Space mansion built IRL. The dark red roof looks a lot better than it did in the render. I can't wait to see it with the walls and everything, too. May I ask if your brother has an account on Eurobricks or Flickr? I'd be interested to see how his building style compares to yours.

Great build, great presentation, well-deserved prize. Do you plan to order parts so that it can live on your desk someday?

There do seem to be a lot fewer newly popular projects on Ideas in the last few months, don't there? I imagine that's because Ideas has had enough time to develop as a platform that those users who know how to create an appealing model, present it well, and attract the necessary exterior social media support already do so regularly, and those users who regularly visit Ideas but aren't as skilled in digital representation or promotion have decided there's no point in submitting a project, even if think it would make a good set, because they know they don't know how to promote it. At least, that describes me. That leaves the submissions dominated by children's builds that meet neither set standards nor AFOL MOC standards, with a small group of high-quality projects submitted by the likes of Alatariel and JK Brickworks, and very little in between, by which I mean newly uploaded quality mid-sized creations by new builders. What do you (all) think? Does this match your perception of the Ideas environment? How might Ideas be changed to give those "in-between" builds more of a chance?

See, I just can't get on board with an outlook like that. If you want to believe that successful projects you don't like are only successful because they're backed by organized pranksters or political organizations with which you strongly disagree, that's your choice. Of course, I have no solid evidence to prove that such is not the case, but I think it's highly unlikely that Ideas is pervaded, infiltrated, etc., by the like. Occam's Razor applies here - if a project gets 10,000 votes, the simplest explanation is that people like it. As for the question of technical merit in the Peru project, it's quite clear that the artists put a lot of effort into it. No child would build such an intricate map of Peru on the back face, and the bold, simple lines and shapes on the interior back wall and inside front covers match the typical style of the non-Lego source. Furthermore, they created custom minifigure skins, which is not a trivial task in a digital build and render. The interior design style is simple and blocky, yes, but not out of place for Lego. The building style may be a simple, bottom-up brick build, with all studs exposed, but that doesn't mean it is totally without merit. Not every Lego set, nor even every Ideas set, needs to use the most advanced building techniques. What matters to me is that, relative to the building style the artists chose, they executed it well, with good proportions, good color blocking, and a layout that nicely displays each section of the build. I did not expect the Wonders of Peru to pass the review, because of its relatively limited regional appeal and possible technical issues with keeping the walls and roof stable in a physical version, and, yes, because I've come to expect more complicated builds from Ideas, but I do not dismiss it as completely without merit, and a probable joke. I don't think I'll continue to reply in this thread, though, because today's posts have already pushed this thread to the first page of Google results for "lego wonders of peru." It's not fair to the creators of the project to have it show up as "the best of the worst Lego ideas" on Google.

2 - Part of being an adult and recognizing the complexity of the world, I think, is that it is possible to "play both sides of the same coin," or at least recognize that competing opinions usually all carry some degree of truth. It is quite possible to consider that the Emerald Night is a beautiful set and a strong effort by Lego, while also conceding that it is a mass-produced children's toy! At 1085 pieces and an RRP of $99.99 USD, it was quite reasonably priced when new, even if it does command silly money on the used market now. 3 - Buyers of the Modular Building line, to which you refer, complain about mediocrity just as much as you do. I'm sure many of them hold just as high an opinion of the Emerald Night as you seem to hold of the Modular Buildings. Conclusion: We can hold firm opinions about something without, like Thanos, snapping at the other side. For myself, I admire the Emerald Night a lot, but I also concede its flaws and agree that I would rather see a wholly redesigned locomotive with more accurate proportions and mechanics rather than a direct re-release.