rob-cubed

I'd have been happier if the original figs with the house didn't look like they were high... Homer, Marge, Bart... all looked "off" in the eyes. The CMF line seems to have improved on the originals. The TV Show has seen much better days in terms of script and popularity, but this license still has some serious legs.

My picks are easy: 10228 Haunted House 10193 Medieval Market (close second) Even though neither are technically modulars, both are the right size and detailed enough to appeal to fans of modulars, and are just simply more fun to play with given their fantasy themes. The minifigs and run-down details on the Haunted House are really spectacular... it's the set that lifted me out of my dark ages. Medieval Market is a close second and deserves a place in any castle builder's collection. The water-powered smith's shop was a cool play detail.

I'm a graphic designer, so am particularly sensitive to color. The newer bley color is indeed slightly bluish-gray but it's a little closer to pure neutral than the old light gray. Same with dark-bley / dark gray. Both of the older colors are warm grays on the yellow side (vs red) which gives them their greenish tint. Personally I like the new gray, it's more compatible with other colors, but I'm happy we have more than one shade to play with. Mixing them looks particularly good on castle walls and roofs.

Outstanding work! Love the simplicity and clean lines of the exterior design. Great use of just a few brick types to create a very realistic-looking building.

Wow, this is fabulous work! Love the interior... you really captured the essence of the original building in all its detail.

I was disappointed 70812 didn't have an alternate build like the ice cream machine or plumber's van, so I made one. The thing I'm most proud of is the interior: the bump-out includes a prep sink and the kabob meat is on gears and really rotates by twisting a stud at the rear. The gears don't quite mesh up perfectly because everything had to angle to fit the space, but I couldn't resist trying it. Now Bob needs a truck to pull it around

Walking Dead puts LEGO in their zombie universe, I'm busy putting zombies in my LEGO universe. :)

Nicely done! You picked the best scene to build first... look forward to seeing more.

Welcome from another Blue Ridge (and LEGO) fan!

We can debate the quality of "off-brands" all day, but as long as LEGO won't touch these particular themes, I'll buy them!

Definitely one or two on the interior wall of the chimney, and at least four on the front wall in between the windows. All of the white grooved 1x2s are concealed around the bay windows and not needed either. The dark green stripes, especially the top one that ties into the black overhang roof, are also easy to replace with black and will save a few bucks.

I've bought used collections where a hinge had the same damage (bent), and on a white brick the stress from crushing is less obvious. As others have said, it was very likely crushed in the retail store or quite possibly in the mail on its way to you. LEGO is pretty durable but I've probably tossed hundreds of parts that have been damaged beyond use. In a poly bag they are more susceptible to crushing.

My guess is: within the final seconds of your auction there were one or more bidders who swooped in with a higher max bid... so you lost. It's frustrating, but we've all lost auctions like that. A nice set or lot with a good price will frequently have 2-3 or more people who submit bids in the final seconds hoping to get a deal.

Welcome from the east coast! I'll watch my grammar around you. Question: is LEGO a noun, a verb, or both? :) I figure if I can "Google" something then I can "LEGO" a building later tonight, right?

I've only ordered once from PaB, before I became a BL addict, and it took almost 7 weeks to reach the states. Depending on what you ordered you may be waiting a while! Most of my BrickLink orders arrive within three days unless from overseas. I've run into a couple people who are really slow or ship product that's not as described, but I've been very happy with mot sellers.

I bought a couple cheap LR sets just for the blues myself! Now I need some grays... :-) I think like other sets that have included military-style figs--like Indiana Jones and the Endor rebels from SW--they are prone to include them only if the set is licensed and they are appropriate to key scenes from the movie. Unfortunately I don't think our Civil War or even the Revolutionary war are considered kids' themes, even if the British Solider CMF did raise my hopes to see a Minuteman one day.

I'm going to put in my "no" vote. If LEGO produces a new part, it's either because: - It serves a very specific need - It's generic enough to be used in other builds I'm always thrilled to see new generic parts like the new "ice cream cone" but frankly the existing system is already pretty robust. There is a much bigger demand for custom-molded parts, and it's the licensed sets which rely on these that seem to drive the biggest profits.

My biggest complaint is the lack of minifigs (particularly torsos) on which to base modern soldiers. I can make my own vehicles/structures. Only a few sets (mostly licensed) have included minifigs with a military-esque uniform... and these have all gotten expensive due to high demand. I understand that LEGO will never explicitly focus on military themes, especially modern ones. It's their decision, regardless of the demand for them. But as long as they allow the secondary market to fulfill this need, I can live with that. I expect we'll start to see more and more custom pad-printed figs on blank LEGO parts or Asian copies.

Güten Tag, Jens! Welcome and I look forward to seeing your LDD submission.

As Mr. Burns would say, eeeexcellent! Itchy & Scratchy are must-haves. They make up for the lack of Sideshow Bob (we can only hope for Series 2).

Wow, just wow. So many nifty techniques and details here! Every corner is well-thought-out. Is $100 for a cup of coffee entrance to the VIP lounge upstairs?

I didn't realize they had been running competitions... thanks! Looks like the last one was from Halloween. I'm surprised they stopped. With the LEGO Movie out, it would've been quite appropriate to run a new competion around wacky vehicles similar to the official sets.

^^ Agreed, but with a caveat. Vector art is scalable and (ideally) smaller than raster... so it's usually a better export format for technical diagrams... but the output from CAD is often *very* messy and comes with huge file bloat. Tons of extra points, gradients, and odd bits that end up crashing Adobe PDF Viewer. I think the decision to rasterize is partly a copyright issue but also a practical one. I've had to clean up much simpler renderings that were just atrocious.

I can't speak to CC directly, but I just finished a Green Grocer copy. If you want it to be exactly like the original, you're going to have to spend a premium on a few of the rarer parts like the door and dark red roof slopes. If you want something similar and are willing to substitute, it'll be much cheaper. Green Grocer uses sand green 1x8s which are about $3US, but smaller bricks work just fine. In the end, I don't think I really saved myself much money vs buying a complete retired set. The shipping and time to source all the pieces really adds up. CC uses a fair amount of pretty common colors and shapes though, so that's a big plus.

I know it's something LEGO will *never ever* do, but I would lobby to change their policy on "controversial" themes like military sets. There is a huge demand for these, both from little boys and AFOLs. At all the brick shows I've been to, military MOCs are quite popular. And they make up a lot of the themes in the secondary market serviced by Cobi/Mega Bloks/etc. They should expand the CUUSOO program and encourage more fan submissions for custom MOCs outside of CUUSOO. Possibly run competitions where there's a winner every month who gets a small prize? As a web designer, I'm shocked they don't host a gallery of fan builds picked by their master builders. The beauty of LEGO is outside-of-the-box creativity, and I don't think they are doing enough to engage or encourage young builders to experiment on their site. The 3-in-1 sets are a stroke of genius in this regard.