Jargo

I'm in the planning stages of my city/town and decided to really limit the colours I use for buildings. ground floor fronts can be any colour but the rest of the building is plain and dull. I want a fairly uniform look to colours so that whatever vehicles and minifigs I put in the setup will have maximum impact. I won't be detailing buildings above the first floor. I think it can look a bit messy in big buildings if there's too much variation and detail. There'll also be a lot of repetion. a whole side of a street in the same building with just minor changes and whatever each building is used for displayed in the entrance way. I'm also only going to use dark orange, black, greys and sand green for rooves. Absolutely no red. After a lifetime of red roof slopes I'm done with red. I've also built up a library of inspiration pictures both other people's MOCs and real buildings and structures. It really helps to figure out what works and what doesn't and get a sense of different eras of building design. most towns have a good mix of eras and styles. Yeah, so I think simple is the best approach. uncluttered. don't forget detail like street furniture (lamp posts, signs, traffic lights, phone boxes etc) adds detail. it doesn't all need to go into the building facades. sometimes the plainest building has a charm that stems from the clean lines.

Thanks, not quite what I was looking for though. I guess I might have to wait until the movie comes out.

My dogs weren't interested in Lego. If it wasn't food they'd just sleep. apparently dogs like sweet tasting things and cats love bitter. so something with odour that the animals don't like placed near the Lego stash could work. I guess also not touching Lego with hands that have just touched food would be another angle. also with dogs, they like to get hold of whatever the owner last touched where the scent is strongest. so if you were touching Lego before you go out a dog left alone in a house could be attracted. I'm guessing the answer to cats urinating in bins is to put a lid of some kind on them.

Mill village converts to GBP£71.56 which is a bit too high for my budget. I might have to resort to just buying the new parts and downloading instructions.

Hahaha after the end of the world when all is laid to waste the landscape will be dotted with 7239 fire trucks and probably 7236 police cars as well.

amongst all the promo material floating around there are images of Kai in his non ninja clothes, Kane meditating underwater, and Cole mountain climbing but I haven't seen anything non ninja for Jay. Has anyone spotted anything yet? I only ask because I kinda like the non ninja look of the characters as well as the ninja outfits. I think it'd be interesting to have them in a set once the whole spinjitsu thing dies down. a full set of the four guys plus Wu and Nya in a non combative setting. I doubt it'll happen but I like the idea. and if it doesn't happen I'd like to customise some figs to get them so, if anyone spots a pic of Jay in a non ninja outfit, please share I'll be ever so grateful. thanks.

Well that put me on a downer. Way to kill enthusiasm.

Mmmm. I have 5 white, 4 black, 3 brown and the brown foal. I actually wonder if Lego will revamp the horse at some point with a more sculpted head. in line with the recent animal changes (pig, cow, chicken, German shepherd dog). If they do it would be the perfect time to change colours. I don't think I'd really want to see the demise of black and white horses but certainly mixing in new colours and really varying them throughout sets. fair enough if they decide that the dragon knights all ride black, or the good king and his men all ride white ones, I'd expect that for castle army forces. it's the sets like mill village and market village that need different horses. And I won't keep banging on about this but different sizes of horse would be good too. pony, horse, shire horse. Heck if the pony was small enough they could put out a gold mine set with pit ponies. Orinstead of pit pony, a donkey. Donkeys are cool. and peasants would more likely have had them than horses. just as heavy armour waring knights would have used shire horses. leaving horses and ponies for the more gentrified. So, remodelled horse. Shire horse larger than the regular horse all in varied colours to broaden the pallet. And a donkey because a pack animal is all round useful for castle and subthemes therein, plus other themes like adventurers and pharoahs quest, pirates and city farm. Sorted. Just got to convince Lego there's a need for them now.....

My partner instructed me the other day that I have to get hold of six chickens. No more. And I'm only allowed two goats. Apparently my ten cows, one bull and five pigs already take up too much farm space. I haven't reminded him that I have a horse stables too. And the arable land needed to grow hay, wheat, barley, corn, root veggies and so on. Brown baseplates rock. Lego should do a shire horse. Even if they only painted the hairy ankles on it'd be nice to be able to have dedicated work horses and have them separate from regular horses. Disappointing the dappled/grey horse didn't appear in the 2011 sets. Dappled/grey horses instead of white would be cool. Dappled medium flesh/nougat or dappled tan/dark tan could work too. Not to mention how cool a dark brown horse would be. Maybe it's time to retire the black, reddish brown and white horses for a while? what do you think, could next years sets have been better with new coloured horses?

I just noticed the PoP Dastan hair in tan on the peasant with the new torso as well. I wouldn't mind but I just got new eyeglasses. you'd think i'd be able to see. On the King's carriage, are the wheels tan? I don't much like the carriage but the wheels in a lighter colour look excellent.

It does look like the rear end of a cockrel. there again it does also look like photoshopped smoke. whatever it is won't be there in final pictures. the way the kingdoms logo cuts it off is bad composition. unless the kingdoms logo is actually hiding an element we aren't supposed to see and it won't be included. final pics will resolve the issue. I'd been staring at the feed buckets by the goats trying to figure out what they are and as soon as someone says bucket instantly I could see them. And now I want them so badly. minifig sized buckets instead of the massive bellvile ones. how cool. and three of them.

I'm curious about what's being used for the outer ring of the mothership. The inside of it is lined with trans blue tiles and the outside has trans neon lime/yellow grille ones, but they appear to attach to the underneath of the ring via plates. The ring itself seems like a continuous black rubber track of some sort. Is it a technic part? I'm not familiar with technic parts. there is indeed empty space beteen the ring, cross struts and cockpit. the photoshopped light glare around the ship makes it seem like it's clear panels but it's definitely empty space. There's potential for modification to a more solid saucer hull. The old UFO quarter saucer panels some slopes and wing plates. I can see interesting MOCs forming in my head. And someone with more money and parts than I'll ever have is bound to supersize this at some point.

Nononononononono Power miners is horrible and has nothing to do with journey to the centre of the earth. to even suggest a connection is blasphemous. Power miners is more of a space theme anyway. highly unsatisfactory. Quest is set in the past. steampunk and weird science. legends and epic stories. much more than gaudy cartoon rock monsters and a bunch of lime green and blue bricks thrown together haphazardly. Quest has a bit of class. PM was a bad mistake.

That is lovely. The art deco styling is really nice. I sometimes think modular building have too much going on and the facades are too busy and cluttered but the simplicity and cleanness of this is refreshing. I'd be happy to have this in my city.

How about a journey to the centre of the earth sort of quest? It would offer potential for ancient ruins, weird creatures and outsized monsters and primitive troglodyte tribes. I suppose with creative thinking it would be possible to have part of the underworld a bit jungle like. There could still be golden treasure or precious stones artifacts like a ruby skull or something. then there's also the possibility of a cool looking mechanical mole with a big drill head and retractable caterpillar tracks. The scope is far greater than known ancient ruins. It could go any direction and do anything. alternately how about making it more like king Solomon's mine. again with the underground idea but only as part of the quest with the rest being above ground and involving african tribes and jungle trekking on elephants. a less exciting prospect I think but it's an area Lego have never ventured into. Obviously I'm not saying use the books as direct inspiration. That would involve copyright expenses but something along those lines could work. the lost world idea offers so much scope it could easily run to two waves of sets.

I still wish they'd used the longer toy story arms and legs on the Anubis guardian. It would have increased the awesomeness tenfold.

Oooooh me likee. Nice job. Count me in for the bowler and topper.

wonder if the other vehicles dock onto it? That would make it cooler.

I have no knowledge of Harry Potter beyond the first movie so to me this just seems like a cool build. IHowever it manages to evoke a grand space brilliantly without being grand. There's just enough of the architectre to let the brain fill in the empty spaces and see the whole hall. it's magical. very very well put together.

kids love blood and guts. green gloop and detachable limbs. I think people underestimate children a bit too much. Obviously you wouldn't make it realistic. possibly have a 2x3 panel over the alien with an x-ray image of the insides. the nasty looking implements are just dressing. an evocation of autopsy rather than an enactment of it. And in cute Lego minifig style it wouldn't look grisly anyway. No more grisly than skeletons or Harry Potter death eaters etc. call it an 'examination lab'. or 'Earth defense operations HQ'. something innocuous like that. the aliens would just have a big tank to hold humans suspended. noxious green or yellow. or purple. tubes and pointy probes. a suggestion of hostility without being graphic.

Imitation is the sincerist form of flattery apparently. Had this been a painted reproduction it would have been fairly unremarkable. to reproduce it with tiny bricks in mosaic form is both lunacy and admirable. But that is what great art is about. Look at many of the massive buildings created by Lego builders or those at Legoland parks and you could level the same question - "why?". I think 'for the joy of it' is a better answer than 'because'.

I'm just about to move all my lego from my loft into my bedroom. in the loft it's in those plastic drawer units sorted by brick type. Not having much technic stuff that's in one drawer, then basic bricks are sorted into stud width so one big drawer for two wide, another for one wide. plates are sorted similarly. As i'm a city fan minifigs are sorted by profession in click seal plastic bags and utensils/weapons in separate ones. foliage has a drawer and then there's a drawer each for windows, doors, fences and barred pieces, vehicular parts and round pieces. it's an annoying system. I can still never find what I'm looking for. Once the whole lot is in my bedroom I'll start over and break it down further labelling each drawer with a large picture of content type and a list of contents. Instruction booklets will be catalogued into big ring binders which will free up one of the larger drawers. And I'll free up space by having all vehicles on display rather than parted out. that's the plan. Of course my bedroom is the size of a postage stamp so we'll see how it works out... UPDATE: As I'm moving the drawer units down I'm sorting through them click-lock bagging stuff. My technic pieces drawer is a nightmare. I didn't realise I had so many axles and pins. In fact I'm discovering tons of stuff I didn't know I had. It's like christmas over and over again. So far I've managed two drawer units and I'm a third of the way through the stuff I'd previously divided up. still got loads more drawers, boxes and bags of stuff to sift through. It's going to be a good while before I can even think about building anything.

I think an alien autopsy set would be cool. using a recoloured hazmat suit from collectible minifigs, lots of horrible looking medical equipment and machines that go 'PING!'. Like a big glass sided sterile chamber with the the autopsy slab dead centre and a viewing gallery looking down on it where the Earth defense commanders watch impassively. and under the viewing gallery a holding cell for alien subjects. Of course just to balance things there should be an alien invaders human autopsy chamber too. Where they can do their *cough* probing...

a big box, a large plastic insert, very few bricks and parts and a hefty price tag.

At a quick glance it looks like a seige tower and a castle tower. Tiny pixellated images are very misleading though.