meliander

The key difference is that Creator 3-in-1 are open from the back, while modulars are complete buildings with 4 walls. But you can always mod the creator buildings, by adding missing walls, adding floors, etc. Architecture wise, I don't see any problems. There are plenty of streets with old and modern buildings in real life.

I'm pretty sure Lego knows what adults (AFOLs) want. Because otherwise, they wouldn't had picked the Pirate Bay to begin with. Ideas or not I'm sure that we will see both Castle and Pirates come back when they think the time is right, but they probably won't focus those themes on adults because they never do. And I personally would very much appreciate the new look like what they did with Fantasy Castle back in the day, rather then re-hash of old classic sets. And mentioned above - the ship from the Creator line is a much better testing ground of whether kids are interested in pirates and pirate ships than the expensive expert Pirate Bay. Baracuda is a nice nod to AFOLs, and I hope that sometime in the future we will see a Western set through the Ideas project, too.

Your modulars and the tram station are some of the best MOCs I've ever seen. Can you share some tips on how you come up with such fantastic design and color schemes? Are you basing these on real-life buildings or this all come from imagination?

You can also try to start with building just a residential house (a townhouse in your case since you want to build a NYC-like city). What I found when doing my first modular is that making modular buildings is not easy, there are a lot of aspects to them that you need to learn experimentally during the building process, which can quickly become overwhelming. This is just what I discovered from personal experience. The examples posted above are great and I'm pretty sure those are not the first buildings that those creators made. So I would start simple and then ramp up and maybe try to avoid looking too much at how other people build them. What worked for me is finding a couple of photos of buildings that I like and trying to recreate them with Lego, choosing what details to include and what to leave out, how to scale those details properly in the lego form and which parts to choose to depict them. I must say that I'm not a professional by any means, just sharing what I discovered works for me.

@AmperZand @vermontcathy Thanks both!

@vermontcathyI'm thinking to do the same, but how to buy a box? I'm seeing only separate bags in Amazon and Walmart online. Does Lego sell them in boxes?

I'm going to buy two and I'm going to be broke. And I'm going to be happy about it. And with awesome classic sails and not brickbuilt nonsense.

Fantastic build! Do you have more pictures from different angles? Would love to know how many parts are there in this model? And also curious how difficult it was to get all the pieces physically?

Couldn't agree more. The elephants look cool but those giant cartoony eyes...

Anyone else thinks that Tyler and Amy's builds though high quality start to get predictable and kind of the same thing in every episode? Also, their overconfidence is something that turns me off. Like every episode they are literally saying to the camera that their builds are the best. I really liked what Sam and Jessica built on this week's episode, and I think the deserved to win this one. Their creation was unique and had character to it, while Tyler and Amy's is just clean and slick like a frame from a Disney movie or something.

@Brandon PeaYou can also part it out on Bricklink, but order the actual pieces from Lego directly if you don't want to deal with the multiple stores on Bricklink. If you go over 35 with your order they will ship for free. Also for the current sets, I find bricks and pieces (and Lego PAB) usually cheaper than Bricklink. But you will have to wait until they bring the Bricks and Pieces service back (it's currently shut down due to the virus).

Because it's our childhood:) But seriously, I think it's just the aesthetics of Ninjago that appeals more to the younger audience. I don't see anything interesting in this theme and I don't care about new molds if they are useless for me. I like more realistic themes, and even if there is a fiction/ fantasy twist, I like when it is done moderately and consistently. A mishmash of motorcycles, katanas and robots - it's just not for me. However, I can see how the theme can be appealing to those who like this sort of thing. I don't mind this theme at all. If it makes money for Lego - that's great.

I would like to have old grey colors (light and dark) come back in addition to modern greys, or at least some more variations of it other than bluish. The rest of the colors seem fine to me but I wish they did something to minimize the yellowing of the bricks.

Fantastic design. The car looks great, too. Do you plan to build it irl? Those windows with shutters look rare. I'm building a house myself in Stud.io right now and I could not find any modern window pieces with shutters.

Hey @Nurkas You can look into these sets: https://brickset.com/sets/10909-1/Heart-Box https://brickset.com/sets/10913-1/Brick-Box https://brickset.com/sets/10914-1/Deluxe-Brick-Box I have one of the older boxes from 2017 and it was a good source of general bricks for my daughter (4 y.o.). That being said, she uses 1/10th of our collection anyway, and small and simple builds bring her more joy than large ones for some reason. I already started transitioning her to Lego System.

Thanks very much everyone for all your answers. It was very interesting to read! Bricklink is a lifesaver, yes. I will have it in mind when I'm ready to sell my collection. Which probably won't going to happen unless I really have to. But yeah, it seems that only space is the most significant deciding factor in our passion. @Brandon Pea Yes, his collection is mind-blowing! I'm sure his youtube business pays for it though since he is doing it full time! :) @dr_spock I know what you saying lol. At this point, I think she gave up already. But we do have a budget, so I'm trying to not go over it (even though sometimes I have to get something on special Lego credit lol, especially when a set I want is retiring) :)

The question I'm starting to ask myself more and more these days, especially when buying new sets. I'm in my mid-30s and definitely have more sets than my younger self could ever imagine having, so I fulfilled my mission. And I'm not really playing with it besides admiring a small part of my collection that is currently on display. Most of my sets are parted out or not assembled and if I have some free time to build MOCs (which is rare) I build them mostly in Studio. But at the same time, I can't imagine stopping buying new sets. Sometimes I think my collection is worth something and I'm investing. But then I realize, it's not really the case. Used Lego is very hard to sell other than in bulk so it's not really about money. I'm sure this has been discussed here before, yet I'm curious how folks are dealing with this if anyone can relate.

I have a strong feeling, that people pick up things from the interview and skew their opinion towards their initial reaction on this entire theme. I've been positive about this all the time and the fact of collaboration with Nintendo and what can come out of this much more heavily outweighs my personal thoughts on the current theme being presented. And let's get this out of the way from the start - yes, as an AFOL I would prefer a simple system based Mario theme. However - if this is how it's going to start - let that be. I'm actually quite curious and would definitely buy some sets to try it out with my daughter. Now, this is how I see the answers of the TLG designer, and I hope that some of you share the same feelings, if only at least for the sake of smoothing out a stream of negative reactions: Would you say, at least the more expensive sets, are good display sets, as well? Well, we will leave that up to our fantastic community like you guys to decide, but I can assure you, some very iconic sets are coming. He obviously doesn't refer to the trailer video when he says about iconic sets. He doesn't say - hey - that was an iconic level from Mario 64 or something. He hints that something very recognizable and great is coming. This leads on to the question: Do all sets have a digital component, or are there differences? LEGO Super Mario is the only character that has technology inside, but all sets will feature the action-bricks that he can interact with. Imagine this scenario - huge Super Mario figure can interact with other sets. Hidden Side can use AR feature. Does he say that big Mario is going to be in every set? I read it he is not in every set. Does this mean we don't have minifig in these sets? Who is going to buy a set with a number of bricks which is totally useless without that big Mario figure? I'm sure - if not minifigs, there is more to those sets individually than the stack of bricks that can be used only if another set (with big Mario) is purchased. Do the sets contain new elements that were produced especially for the new theme? I already spotted the big green tube element, for example. Are there more? There are many, many new elements for this line. The green tube, the Koopaling shields (on the back of Bowser Jr. for example), and most important: the new modular system with rounded corners. This was probably the second biggest challenge we faced: how can kids very easily change their levels, without rebuilding the entire thing from scratch! The modules (such as the rotator platform, Bowser Jr. tower and Piranha in Tube, are build on the 8×8, 6×6 or 4×4 rounded plates, under which a 2 wide plate can go underneath. Isn't that exciting at all? Will we see a Mario or Luigi minifgure in the future, as well? Unfortunately I can’t answer this question at this point in time. This is the most interesting question in the interview. Think about it this way. If this whole collaboration means that minifigures for Mario and Luigi are not coming, what's the point of hiding this now? Keeping that a secret? For me personally, it is tough to imagine a scenario, that TLG is holding these exciting news off and then decide to announce: Hey, we don't have the mifigures at all! What you've already seen in that trailer is pretty much what you get! So at that point in time, we just didn't want to spoil the fact that there are no minifigures what so ever. And lastly: We have been working very closely with a special design team from Nintendo for the past 4 years. Again, I can’t talk about any possible future products at this stage, but we do look forward to a continuous relationship with Nintendo! A couple of pages again I made an assumption that this is a long story because Nintendo is not an easy licensing partner to team up with. Even if we don't see minifigures with this particular product line it doesn't mean we will never see them. I don't want to get anyone's hopes high, but trying to see all this at a different angle. And I will repeat myself here - these 2 companies working together for years wouldn't be possible if neither of them had planned something big coming out of this relationship.

Here is my speculation on this. So as usual, take it with a grain of salt. Nintendo is one of the most bureaucratic companies in the videogames industry. Singing up with them and being able to use their IP (and not just any IP, but their biggest and most valuable IP) is a very very big deal for any company and most likely took more than a year to develop, so my hat goes off to TLG for making this work. This is why I didn't believe at first that it would be sets - I thought they are announcing a Lego Mario videogame. Now that I learned it's not the case - and there will be sets + videogame, I do not, therefore, believe that this is a one-off come-and-go Lego theme. My guess is that it is the start of a long relationship. Especially if it will have somehow digitally connected to Nintendo Switch - Nintendo would not invest their time and effort and connect their most valuable franchise to something they don't have big plans for. And I don't think that it was rushed to replace some in-house theme like Monkey Kid or anything else that was dubbed as Leaf - this is not how it works with Nintendo at all. It was kept a good secret, unveiled on the right day and it will come out on the day it was originally planned to come out. Regarding the new IPs, like Zelda, Donkey Kong, Splatoon and others - I guess it all depends on how Mario performs, but I very much hope that it does very well. The franchise itself is a gold mine of ideas that can be turned into sets. Odyssey alone with its vast diversity of worlds (from the magical underwater kingdoms to the moon, from real-world NY-like city with humans walking along with cartoon characters to dinosaurs) - all this can supply ideas for many years to come. And unlike, for example, Star Wars where the designers have to follow specific guidelines on the ships and make everything close to how it looks in the movies - for Mario - they can really unleash their creativity and come up with fantastic and colorful sets. Lego and Mario are so close in their tone, target audience, and light-heartedness that they just scream to be together.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good figures and new molds for Bowser and other non-minifig scale characters. And for good number of sets and not cmfs. Also just a thought that big Mario figure from the teaser can just be a bigger version of Mario or something (after he eats a mushroom) :)

Guys you sure they are teasing sets and not a Lego Mario videogame? If these are sets, I am excited like a baby.

I guess they will announce one with City summer wave.

@Carbohydrates Haha, I just looked at the picture of the Triple-E! This is crazy!

This is very informative, thank you for the pictures

Glad you liked the set. I'm going to pick it up, too :)