Jargo

I don't like any of the vehicles. To me they look like stuff suitable for Hasbro's G.I. Joe Tiger force from the early 1990's. I do like the Dinosaurs though. The bright colours are a little off-putting at first but they may not be final colours. Compared to the immobile Dino island stuff or Dino attack or the studios Jurassic park stuff these are fantastic. As a City builder I'll be adding these to a natural history museum. A couple of Dino skeletons alongside and these will look great. Flappy wings on the Pteranodon. Excellent. Kids are going to lap this theme up. And that's what is important.

So the missing fire set is a portacabin on a truck? I read elsewhere that it was a 'fire transport'.

Ok I've now seen the pics and it seems to me that the Police and fire sets belong to a mountain region town rather than a city. Across all the sets there's only four spindly trees so it isn't really a forest setting and the police station looks very small country town. On top of which the police have a new logo on their shield badges so that makes it a different police force. They also have significantly different coloured vehicles. 4439 I'm not digging the huge helicopter. It seems incongruous for a small force to have such a large vehicle. Obviously kids will love it. double props and swooshability factor. It's not for me though. I think it looks better suited to a sea search and rescue set. 4440 The police station itself looks fairly decent and aside from the cell doors being external I can't find fault with that design. The rooftop lookout point is cool. Though it's those textured bricks in the foundations that'll probably sell this set to most AFOLs. The station car looks good, liking the 4x4s in this sub-theme but the helicopter with the station is weak. beefing this one up rather than having the twin props heavy lift 'copter would have worked better I think. And does that criminal up the tree not know bears can climb? 4436 has the cutest car ever. It looks like an electric car. Eco police out there in the wilds. 4437 Is worth getting for the 4x4 alone. I can take or leave quad bikes and without it in this set it wouldn't have mattered. The 4x4 is the draw. especially those red wheel arches. I love Lego for creating those. 4441 Has to be very preliminary in that photo. Both vehicles look awful. The criminals ride looks thrown together and the dog van is boring. Hope there's a lot of change to this set before it's released. 4209 Has a nice Jeep. The plane wings look clumsy and ugly. I actually prefer the one piece wings from the airport planes but obviously those would be too big here. something smaller, one piece or two piece with more studs would be nice. I can see myself getting this to convert to postal service plane though. 4427 A quad bike thing. Meh feh and pah! I like the fireman with the sooty looking uniform dirt. Hope they keep that look. It's cool. More dirty firemen Lego! 4208 What an odd looking vehicle. Reminds me of classic town stuff. I've never seen a fire vehicle like that. It doesn't grab me. I do like the black looking foliage pieces though. I hope they're black in the final set. 4431 Ambulance. Looks based on an American Mercedes Sprinter. I know some ambulance services still use red in their livery but most shy away from it because of the gory connotations. Green or blue is favoured more. This is a decent design and looks the part in scale but I'll definitely change the livery if I get this. 4434 One word, wheelbarrow. The sweetest motherlovin' accessory ever. The truck is pretty decent but Lego could have sold me a box of wheelbarrows and I'd be happy. Weird choice of minifig torso. this looks municipal so I'd have thought the orange hi-vis torso more applicable. no matter. It is a nice torso they've used and not too common. 4432 Decent looking garbage truck. Badly applied sticker I notice. I'm definitely wanting this. Contemporary design and much better colour than the last one Lego produced. There's room for both in my city though. 4433 Another great 4x4. Hope the blue Octan torso is a place-holder. trailer and bikes will only be interesting if the bikes are different colours. A red one and a white one would be good. I've had enough of orange off road bikes. 4435 Great caravan. Really like it. Shame it's towed by yet another yellow car. Would it really hurt to make one blue or green instead of the constant stream of red and yellow? And please not a red bicycle. Does Lego have a red bicycle surplus mountain or something? Enough already! Moaning aside the caravan is destined to join my camper van and become the start of a trailer park. And finally, big love to everyone who's shared the images. Thank you.

Please dont patronise members. You may be a moderator but that last sentence is so crass it makes me seethe.

That's cheating. Can you e-mail the forest police to me too please

The new forest fire fighters in in the 2012 City sets might offer some different helmets. The only other fire fighter helmets I've seen come in a clone/cheap brand like Sluban or Enlighten. Those are orange I think but even more simple and plain than Lego's own. There's a piece lego did make that combined with makes something approaching jaws of life. But I agree that it isn't satisfactory. Classic purists might be ok with it but it's ugly and innaccurate. I know that somewhere I've doodled a jaws of life tool. I've drawn so many items I don't know where half of them are these days.

Weapons sell because Lego avoids them. That's indisputable. contemporary and historical minifig accessories sell because if you're a minifig fan you want stuff for them. Items Lego makes in bricks can be improved upon. Some people may be purists and are happy to make a lamp from a 1x1 round brick and 2x2 dish stuck on top while other people would prefer an accessory a minfig can hold that's more to scale. I guess a lot of us see minifigs as tiny action figures. it's a blocky world we create for them to inhabit but not everything need be so basic. I think there's a limit to how far you can accurise stuff before it starts to look odd but there's quite a stretch between sqaure block and that limit. Items like Aerealight's scooter sold by Brickforge is a grand example of design and function staying well within the limit. Whereas some weapons I've seen can push the limit. Be just a little too accurate and stray from the quasi-cartoon styling of the minifig universe. As I doodle things that seem like good ideas I often scrap them because it's quite hard to Lego-ise the item. Certain dimensions and details have to be lost for an item to look right but in losing detail you sometimes lose a sense of what it is you're looking at. Scale of an item affects design too. Lego's recent motorbike fairings are too big. those things look like tanks next to minifigs especially the street motorcycle. would it have looked better scaled down? Would it have just looked stupid? If you compare it to the classic motorcycle you see that Lego could have done some more work to make it work. just streamlining the front more to give a more slender shape and slightly smaller wheels.... As for my foliage designs/ideas, I wonder how many people would actually be interested. Are people really content with the Lego pieces and happy with an infinitesimal amount of conifers and spiky bushes and dreary flowers?

Aaaaah, I see. Red. Hmmmm.... Well it's a start.

Like the thread title says. If you were planning on creating custom items to sell in the same way as Brickforge and Brickarms, where would you aim your assortment of items? For example, there are lots of weapons and backpacks and harts/helmets out there but I would go in a completely different direction and tackle trees and plants and the more scenic elements. horticultural/farming accessories. wooden items such as logs and gate posts, water elements for rivers, pools and fountains/waterfalls. Even some stone items like millstones and wall panels. or thatched roof sections and wheat sheafs and hay bales. farm crops, hedges and bushes. I've even got some animal designs for various countryside settings. I've done doodles of 100 items I'd create. thought long and hard about what's missing from Lego's greenery and garden/farm/countryside selection of parts. I could probably mock them up quite easily but I don't have the finances or means to make anything. which is a shame but there you go, life sucks sometimes. It all remains a dream project. However, just for kicks and hypothetically, what would you create to sell? are there many niches that can be filled with custom items? Would you just create new versions of old Lego parts with better details and more realistic colours? Or brand new pop culture inspired things? Historical or modern? Practical or fanciful? Tell me

WHEELBARROW! Tan seems an odd colour. I would have thought one of the greys or black or dark blue. Still it's about time we got a barrow. Such a useful item. I'm dying to see it.

Blond, redhead? They could be anyone. The Lennon one with square glasses could too. Very poor items. A figure with the word Liverpool and the city skyline on a plain torso would have been better. Now people have a bizarre set of three businessmen with a band in silhouette behind them. Lame. Leaving Ringo out is probably what Ringo wants. He's the one who's shunned the Beatles limelight. Harrison and Lennon aren't around to havea say and McCartney is a greedy fame whore who would sell his own family to line his pockets and grab headlines. Hateful little man.

no there's a much bigger grainy pic. It's floating round. bound to pop up again regularly until the official pics appear.

Blacktron, Futuron and Mars mission got my votes. Blacktron is the coolest. Futuron is what I have most of. And Mars mission with better Martians and more emphasis on Martian life and less on crazy vehicles would be cool.

Some more brown baseplates. I'm expanding my farm bit by bit. I wanted a fallow field. Baseplates are getting so expensive these days.

Actually there are scorpions in the UK. In London you'll find many ground floor and basement apartments get small white ones along with the usual creepy crawlies you expect. Apparently they first came in via the docks. Probably hidden in big metal containers or similar. They're really tiny, about the size of a bee but still very creepy. They like to live at the edges of carpets where it meets the wall.

It did seem like it should have been in the first half of this series. Very different tone. I'll have to renumber my files so it appears before Curse of the black spot. Or just never watch it again. Cofbs was another weird episode. it too wouldn't really have worked as episode nine. although as an episode it was a lot more fun to watch.

Supervillain's underground base of operations: Various levels, monorail transport train and central area of control. All inside a mountain. One side of the mountain would have a small submarine in a dock accessed by way of a lifting section of mountain. Another side would have a beach and a stylish minimalist beach house. The top of the mountain would house a hidden helicopter landing pad. Also included would be a luxury yacht with hidden speedboat escape craft in the bow. The interior would be greys and whites and blacks with splashes of a bright colour. The mountain would be earth tones with patches of greenery. Minifigures would include the supervillain, his bodyguards, a bunch of crazy scientists, a female with mad fighting skillz and some nondescript cannon fodder workers in uniforms. The purpose of the underground base would be the production of invincible battlebots powered by rare lunar gemstones stolen from museums and private collections around the world. With his battlebots the Supervillain will have global domination. Unless there is a man, a hero, who can gain access to the underground base and sabotage the battlebots before they are deployed... There you go. That's my insane wish set.

Night terrors was rubbish. Aside from being a rude and useless interuption in the overall series story arc it had one reference to the series right at the end just sort of tagged on. There was zero sense of jeopardy or scares. the dialogue was poor and lazy. the explanation of George just glossed over in a hurry and it just felt patronising as a whole. I really hope they don't let mark gatiss write any more episodes.

You don't ship to the UK.

I have a folder on my laptop into which I dump endless pictures of interesting architecture and landscapes, mechanisms and machines, textures and shapes. All to give me inspiration at a later date. I also do a lot of doodles before I build. playing with geometric shapes and patterns. Blocking out possible ways to approach a building or vehicle or section of terrain. It's never what I end up building but it just gives me a nudge in a direction. then once nudged my imagination and fingers take over.

You get an intercity choochoo to Liverpool Lime street Main line station, then it's a reasonably short walk downhill through the city centre to the Liverpool one complex. through a couple of streets and past some lovely buildings. Liverpool is a fairly small city. or at least the centre is. there's a couple of cheap hotels on the dock road not that far from Liverpool one.

When I was a wee lad I didn't let anyone but my two brothers touch my Lego and I kept a record of every piece they borrowed making sure to get it back. My mother would have crucified us for taking it out of the house. Even now I don't like to let people near my Lego. My partner likes to build houses but I can't help but hover around making sure no parts get lost or misused. Even my puppy knows not to go near my Lego. He's sniffed lots of it but after he tried walking off with a trans yellow 1x2 brick he quickly learned that it wasn't his to play with. I'm very selfish and protective of it all as a result of that early parental strictness. A I get older and older I find I can live without many things but I can't bear to be parted from my Lego. I even sleep in my Lego room. Just me a bed and all my Lego.

I think Freema Ageyman cooked her goose when she signed to do Law and Order UK and ducked out of becoming a Torchwood regular like RTD had planned. And I doubt Moffat wants any of the old crowd for his vision of DW.

I was born with a 2x4 brick in my mouth. Well not literally but my older brother had Lego when I was born in 1968 so it's always been a part of my life. This I think is the first set I remember. Or at least my earliest memory of lego besides red bricks is the trailer from this set.

I get the feeling there will be no more Torchwood. Russell T. has said he wants to move away from science Fiction and Starz have said they don't want to do Torchwood without RTD. Also with John Barrowman begging to be involved in the 50th anniversary series of DW it seems he's making a last ditch attempt to keep hold of Captain Jack. Miracle day is weak television despite some shocking moments. It lacks excitement, it lacks any science fiction and is sloppily put together. It's also too long to carry the story. It feels like those old DW stories they spread over six episodes with nothing happening but lots of radiophonic workshop music and creeping around. Best to let Torchwood bow out now really. Meanwhile Moffat has turned DW into a completely bonkers show with great story arcs and a sense of fun and dark humour. Creepiness and a good balance between something for the family and decent science fiction. I wasn't overly impressed with Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor but this series has really turned out well.