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ummester

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Everything posted by ummester

  1. ummester
    Very cool MOC.
  2. ummester
    Hi all - I designed this set idea in LDD. The full flickr album is here: https://www.flickr.c...57646375803421/ Anyways, I don't know if anyone has ran into this before on LEGO IDEAS, so I thought I'd ask. The project got rejected saying that the brand was not appropriate and needs to be re-submitted. I only thought the brand was appropriate because there are already 2 Terminator ideas posted on LEGO IDEAS. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/24420 https://ideas.lego.com/projects/61760 So, I removed the branding and submitted a project called AHK Chase, with no reference to the Terminator brand. Now it contains content or themes not appropriate, which it didn't before? It is also still listed as awaiting re-submission, rather than not approved. Has anyone experienced anything similar before? How do you contact the ideas moderation to find out exactly what the issue is and why other Terminator projects are active but this one can't be? MODS - if this should be posted in Embassy and not here, it's fine to move it. I wasn't sure where to post, as it's a bit of a Sci Fi MOC and a bit of an IDEAS question.
  3. ummester
    That's interesting rodiziorobs - I didn't know that and now it all makes perfect sense to me why and how the minifg became the flagship of LEGO elements. Of course LEGO bricks still feel nicer, build better and clutch with more power than the others :D And I agree that the LEGO female should be a thing onto itself and not so subjected to the scrutiny of real people.
  4. ummester
    I think the original is the best to minifg scale and the new one is the closest in accurate shape, out of the box. I only have the middle one and I've MOCed it to a very accurate shape, rebuilt it actually - probably not much of the original left :D But it annoys me that it is too big. One day I might get around tho trying to reproduce the shape accurately at the originals size.
  5. ummester
    Why don't they make water effects with smooth tiles and slopes, to better represent the texture?
  6. ummester
    By your own points raised above klinton - which I thought were very good, BTW, this comes down entirely to personal preference. Of course, as a generic face, the smiley can not cater for humanised characterisation - only human representation. Ultimately, as was raised in another thread, I guess it is TLGs purpose to make sales and more the parents purpose to define how their children play. If humanised minifgs sell, it's in LEGOs best interest to produce them and, if a parent wants gender neutral play for their children, they should supply the children only with smileys and blank torsos, rather than campaign for specific minifg design.
  7. ummester
    Definitely - the classic smiley and blank torsos are still available. Depending on the build, I also like to include specialised minifgs - look at my avatar:) He's currently my favourite minifig assembly because I just find he has character - he's the confident clown from a large piratical MOC, a combination of bits from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Prince of Persia and Pirates of the Caribbean. The crux of this whole conversation, I thought, was about finding the best way to remove gender bias from creative play for our children. I find the solution to that is supremely simple - remove gender bias from play elements, don't try to represent either - it's just too hard to keep everyone happy all of the time. Of course, LEGO found it was losing the female audience with that approach but I think the answer to this is supremely simple also - girls don't have the same biological predisposition to construction as boys. Yes, it's a generalisation - girls can make great builders and all women are entitled to the same employment opportunity as men - I'm just saying that, on average, there are biological differences that prevail and perhaps LEGO is a toy concept that will always appeal more to boys than girls, no matter what is changed, because it is based on construction.
  8. ummester
    Bricklink is more tailored towards filling a LDD MOC order, I find. There are some useful programs, like LDD manager, that can help with sorting part lists for large MOCs. A word from personal experience - try to over order. Unless it is a particularly large or expensive part, it never hurts to get extras and generally doesn't change the postage price or overall order price by that much.
  9. ummester
    More gender neutral is a solution to stop people passing criticism, one way or the other. I do think that there is too much emphasis on the minifg overall, that LEGO has become too humanised because of this. There was a totally non biased purity to the singular smiley face that was available originally - allowing the child to imagine the plastic representation of a human as whatever character they preferred. I used to imagine that some of my CS astronauts were men and some were women, depending on what Sci film, TV series, or book I was enjoying at the time. I feel the modern minifig does subtract from this allowance for versatility.
  10. ummester
    A controversial pachyderm. Raiders of the Lost Ark sets also had non Nazi, Nazi minifigs. What I think this idea needs are some allied troops on horseback - then it can be a reimagining of WW2 meets the battle of Pelennor fields - commentary on how Tolkien was inspired by world events.
  11. ummester
    Blondie Wan - PC values are Politically Correct values, toys that cater to concepts like sexual equality, ethnic minority representation and so on. It was suggested to me by a friend that this has become a stronger factor in how toys are marketed and purchased in the US. Personally, I don't care what the model is of - it can be a dinosaur, disabled person, panzer tank or flower bed - what I care about is it's aesthetic value - how interesting it looks to build and how good I think it would look on display. I will try and support ideas that I find extremely good, even if I don't find the build aesthetically appealing, though my preference is for how it looks and how I can imagine it sitting on display.
  12. ummester
    72 minifignick (2 votes) 32 yatkuu (1 vote) 74 SpaceySmoke (1 vote) 144 moctown (1 vote) 151 greg3 (1 vote) 203 viracocha (1 vote) 249 jaapxaap (1 vote) 26 msx80 (1 vote)
  13. ummester
    I think there might be a lot of US supporters Artanis - explaining the attraction to NASA builds. Also, a friend suggested to me today that the placing of PC values on toys might be primarily a US trend, which could also explain the attraction to projects with that slant. If you look around, there are some very attractive models up there, like these 2 (also not mine) which I would buy without hesitation, build and display but they just aren't supported. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/59212 https://ideas.lego.com/projects/572
  14. ummester
    Tyres are a manufactured (so an object), though leaves and rats are a naturally occurring. Rats are even mammals, exactly the same as us. My point was that humans are so human centric and marginalise other life because of it and that the LEGO community seems so minifig centric that it marginalises other aspects of the toy.
  15. ummester
    Do LEGO leaves look exactly like every possible combination of real leaves that occur in nature? Do LEGO tyres accurately represent real life tyres? What about the LEGO animals? Is every animal represented and are those that are represented accurate? A curved torso with breast shadows is a closer approximation of a human female torso then what the LEGO rat is to a rat - the LEGO rat looks like a possum and is the relative size of a cat or small dog to a minifigure. If we can be ok with an oversized deformed rat, why can't we be ok with female minifigs the way they are?
  16. ummester
    See I would say yes but compromised, legoman. Yes, each box is still a pile of potential creation but it isn't sold as primarily that now. But no, it's defiantly not destroying creative play - it is one of the few toys that still allows it. BTW - don't take offence anyone - I like LEGO but also like playing the devils advocate when mindsets seem locked in a certain way of thinking. It's creative discussion, intellectual building It's too easy for everyone to go - 'nah, the lady is full of it, LEGO is cool, how dare she criticize it!' Every opinion is valid and I think it is better to fully understand something than just blindly appreciate it.
  17. ummester
    I don't think the question with this is whether people are as creative as they want to be - sure, if AFOLs have more creative drives, they MOC more than those that don't. If a child is more creative, they will be more likely to pull a set apart and rebuild it than one that isn't. I thought the question raised (or criticism presented) was do LEGO sets now inspire children to create as much as they used to? The LEGO movie should certainly inspire children to create but do the sets, or are they tailored more to the idea of buy one, need them all? Collectible minifgs for instance. I personally don't think it takes a 'child expert' to work it out and agree that the article is more sensationalist than reasoned (wonder if she has even had her own children and played LEGO with them?). Yet it seems fairly obvious to me that LEGO has become much more of a collectible action toy following it's rebirth in the 2000s than it was before and that this structure would have effects on how much creativity can be packed into each box - Creator sets aside.
  18. ummester
  19. ummester
    I can't remember what it's called when they pull a wooden ship onto shore and tip it on one side to scrape the barnacles off - but there was a cool scene based around that in Black Sails that would be an interesting, if difficult, MOC to make. The boats and township were kind of standard though, they weren't designed with the visual appeal of the props in Pirates of the Carribean. The Title sequence, however, was very piratically artistic and may inspire some MOCing:
  20. ummester
    One other thing on this, re Ole Kirk Kristiansen being called a philanthropist in the article - no, he was not, he was a businessman for his times. Funny though, next to the corporations of the 21st century, he was positively philanthropic. This is the issue, not LEGO itself, I think - the world has changed in a way that doesn't allow LEGO to be a pure toy of creativity for our children. I would not be surprised if some of the conflict in the LEGO movie is derived from the business conflict the LEGO board has regarding it's product. LEGO isn't destroying creative play - it's trying to hold onto it, in a world that is geared towards suppressing a child's imagination with consumption of franchises and products.
  21. ummester
    I would say that, in price per plastic, the minifg might be a larger source of profit for LEGO than bricks, if each minifig piece sells for approximately 42c, vs 10c for other pieces.
  22. ummester
    The article isn't entirely wrong. LEGO adapted to succeed. It can be reasonably argued that, as a business, LEGO had to sell some of it's creative 'soul' to profit, by tapping into the franchise market. It's a business - it has to make money. But I do feel that in trying to keep up with the modern market place, LEGO has had to compromise the purity of it's product. It's probably more the fault of the way society has evolved, than LEGO itself. Re the LEGO movie - I do find that it's values do not totally align with the marketing of sets. The message in the film is clear - praise construction and creativity, all creativity - AFOL creativity should inspire child creativity. Yet LEGO sets, including those from the film, are often tailored for collection.
  23. ummester
    Phase 4 - all sexuality is removed, we go back to the 70s minifigs where the only hint that a minifig was a girl was longer hair (but it could also have been a boy with long hair). I appreciate how your daughters play Slobey and think that that is how it should be with LEGO - the child's imagination and creativity should be utilized. Eventually they will stop being silent - when the outspoken become too ludicrous for them. NB, I can be outspoken so don't consider myself fully part of the silent majority, though I know people who definitely are, both men and women. Eventually the silent majority of men and women will go - We've had enough! Men are men and women are women - we can respect and appreciate our differences without having to be precious about it and we don't need to involve our offspring by projecting our insecurity onto a toy. The minifig is not meant to be some kind of reflection of social values - it is meant to be a collection of humanoid parts for a construction toy, so that human elements can be included in a build. The licensed minifig is a representation of a character from a given franchise, the sexuality of which is determined by the characterizations in that franchise. There is something really sad about adult humans imposing their political values onto little plastic figures. On a personal note with this, I find it bad form when LEGO Ideas is being used as a platform to pander to it. I could put up a project in which the disabled, lesbian astronaut from an ethnic minority conducts a peace mission for NASA and get support - this upsets me because it means the supporters are thinking more on social values than project build quality or idea potential.
  24. ummester
    This is the point where it gets interesting kibosh. I agree that an adult shouldn't feel bad if their intention is to build the set, use the parts, or as discussed, appreciate the packaged set as a potential future build. If the only reason the adult is purchasing the set is to turn a profit - then I would always argue the adult should feel bad about it because they are removing a potential sale for play or build from either another child or adult. Of course, you don't know that the next buyer will not be an investor either, so the argument can be made by an investor that they are just getting in before another investor does - however, if the whole investment mindset was removed from the LEGO equation, then everyone could build and play more equally. As already discussed here - if collectors weren't prepared to pay ridiculous sums of money for a toy, then investors would have no point in buying to hoard. So, ultimately, I would say that both investment and collection miss the point of a toy product entirely, from my point of view and fully agree with the logic in feed's post that shows TLG marketing strategy re-enforces both mindsets. On a personal note - I have thought about it. I've seen LOTRs sets on sale, which I have no desire to build or own but know they have unique minifgs. The thought to get the set, put it in cupboard and sell it for a profit to fund my MOCing down the track has crossed my mind - but I stop myself as I believe it is not the decent thing to do.
  25. ummester
    I agree - but it's still good to know how much that art is going to cost you to build for yourself :) It's as I suspected though - LEGO is an average of 10c US per piece. When you are looking at building a large MOC, be prepared to spend $100 US for every 1000 parts from Bricklink (plus postage).
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