TheOneVeyronian

*raises hand* Me... I have 2 Skull Warriors, 2 Skull Bashers, 3 Skull Slicers, 2 Skull Scorpios and 2 MMvSG's. I still want to get a 3rd Skull Warrior In case anybody asks, I bought multiples for parts because, as parts packs, they're mostly really good, and we're unlikely to see some of the parts and recolours crop up again. Gotta have as many as I can afford to lay my hands on

To be honest, I'm really surprised that we still know nothing about the UK prices of these Battle Figures. A quick search on Google reveals nothing at all, and not a single UK shopping site lists them with pretty much only a week to go before release. It's not like these are under the embargo like the TFA sets are (yet the UK prices of those are known somewhat), and we already know the US and Euro RRP's, so why no UK RRP's? Not even my UK friends who get a little knowledge on things like this don't know anything It's just that I don't want to walk into my local LEGO Store next Friday (or go to S@H at 12:01am that day if I'm feeling lazy ) and find that Luke is £20 and Grievous is £40, which is what I really fear given the recent trends with similar priced System Star Wars sets If anybody finds out the prices, I'd really like to know them.

As it turns out, I found some Villain Packs on eBay for £10 (or best offer), and free postage. When I last looked they still had a few. Apparently in the UK (my country) but it lists the postage as "services from outside the UK" and won't be delivered until mid October, so I'm naturally cautious. Question is: should I risk/go for it, or hold out to see if it ends up being a GWP somewhere? I know it's definitely not a GWP in September anywhere, I've seen the European store newsletter for September and it's not shown there. But it might be an October or November GWP, who knows.

Thanks. I wonder why they are running the poster promos at different times though? The US offer for it went live yesterday, yet for those over the other side of the Atlantic, we have to wait another week. Suppose there is a silver lining to that though: our time for the poster promo runs through Force Friday, which is handy as I'm planning to buy some SW stuff that day (as is a lot of other people I take it). My question now is: shouuld I try and get the poster before Force Friday, or risk trying to get one on Force Friday when there might be a LOT of people buying SW on that day and the poster may go out of stock at my local store? Does anyone else think that UK/EU LEGO stores may run out of the poster on Force Friday?

I've found the same thing as well this year. Even if you pay full price for the sets, it's better value. There's a reason why I've bought extras of all the Skull Villain sets (aside from inability to buy the new armours directly from them), and a ton of Ice and Jungle Protectors from Tesco when they were £2.50 each. And if LEGO keeps up their incompetence with keeping BnP up to date with new parts (and, though I have some reliable and cheap-ish CCBS sellers bookmarked there that get new CCBS recolours in fairly quickly, Bricklink will no doubt be very slow in adding the new Bionicle parts), I'm likely doing the same with the 2016 sets too. Oh, and I just thought of something else I'd like to see in the 2016 sets (to add to the SW shoulder armour in black, Earth Blue shells and new feet): the new piston add-on in black (or even titanium metallic) would be great. I have some dark coloured CCBS mechs that could really benefit from the piston add-on in a dark colour. Silver is just too bright sometimes!

Seems like Argos is beginning to give up on selling Constraction altogether. They've suddenly gone from usually being the first to get summer wave Bionicle sets to not stocking them at all. And I fear that this is a trend that's going to continue into 2016, so if you want the 2016 sets in the first few weeks of January in the UK, LEGO Store is the best option. It's almost like Bionicle gets little love from the UK (btw, I've seen the sets in TRU and The Entertainer, but nowhere else). And on leaks: really, the only purpose they really serve for me is to help me gauge just how much money I need for next year's sets, which is helpful as I'm on a limited budget. I used to pretty much avoid studying prelims because there's something nice about seeing official images for the first time and being totally surprised by what you see. Heck, I didn't even have regular access to the Internet until 2012, so seeing the sets for the first time in an Argos catalogue always got me excited. So, yeah, I don't exactly mind if I don't see pics of the sets until official images are released. And with Bionicle, I don't even need to gauge my budget for it because I know I'll want it all no matter what, and I guess how much the sets will all cost together is quite easy to predict for me

Even though CCBS parts were removed from PaB quite some time ago, LEGO do continue to sell them through their Bricks and Pieces service, often at fairly reasonable prices, so it's really the place to go especially when you want loads of a shell that only appeared in a quantity of 1 in 1 set. Like PoE's trans-purple mace half for instance. It's a godsend especially when there are almost zero CCBS specialised Bricklink shops (that sell CCBS parts made in the last year or so that is) in my country, an those that do stock CCBS at all stock very slowly (seriously, I think I've emptied most of the UK BL stores of their 5M cup-cup bones, my staple MOC'ing bone ) The only problem I have with that is that I feel they've been incredibly slack with getting the summer set parts available for sale (not just Bionicle), and it doesn't instill me with much confidence that the BnP service will continue. This in turn has forced me to start buying multiples of sets instead Anyway... I'm still hoping for new feet, and Earth Blue shells. Give me those and anything else new will just be extra gravy

Is anybody able to answer my question? It feels like it's been completely skipped over - or does nobody actually know?

Wow... I was lied to yesterday... on my birthday I think I'll regress into other hobbies until the SW constraction sets come out. All these embargos, and now with me having zero faith in any leaks, it all gives me no reason to post here for now At least I can still cling to that hope that Earth Blue shells finally become a thing. As well as new feet. And chances to get those SW shells and add-ons in new colours.

If you don't mind me asking: Do any of the sets appear to use parts that originated in the SW ultrabuilds this year? Like the shoulder armour etc. I read that the leg armour isn't there, but am wondering if any of the other pieces make an appearance. And what colour schemes do each of the sets use? Any sign of Dark Blue anywhere on any of the sets? (I've been wanting Dark Blue CCBS shells since 2012 and all we got was a lousy Skull Spider in that colour ) (apologies if these have already been asked and answered, it's my birthday today and I'm in a bit of a rush to be in other places so haven't had time to read everything )

For the record, I haven't seen the battle pack anywhere to this day, and I've checked several LEGO Stores in my country. I may make a visit to the LEGO Store in LEGOland Windsor at the beginning of September, as they tend to stock battle packs like this (in plentiful quantity) and they had the last LoC one out earlier than it's release date. If I find it, I will post it here I'm still wondering when the Target minifig cube will come out actually. Sure, I can't get it in my country, but it won't stop me from trying to get one.

I have a quick question: there's still 3 LEGO Star Wars movie posters to be given out with S@H purchases, isn't there? (Ep. 1, 2 and 3 ones). Does anybody know when each of the remaining three will be available in the UK? I know Ep. 1 poster is a freebie in August (this month), Ep. 2 poster is a freebie in September and Ep. 3 poster is a freebie in October, but what weeks will you be able to get each one?

Personally, I hope next year's Toa use the SW shoulder pads and shin guards, I think that and new masks would be enough to make them different enough for me to be interested in them (I'll take gunmetal and black shoulder pads any day of the week). I can definitely visualise Umarak using those particular SW parts at least though, I can just picture him as this sleek looking Dark Hunter type being with quite a different aesthetic to this year's villains. For my wallet's sake, I hope Nexo Knights doesn't have Ultrabuilds (Constraction is quickly becoming less affordable to become completist in thanks to the expansion of Ultrabuilds and more sets per wave), though I agree that the SW parts may fit better for those characters, so if there are any, I hope there's plenty of recolours. More Earth Blue please!

Sadly no sightings of these in the UK yet - had a look in TRU on Sunday but found nothing (I was hoping to find some of them there because, well, it's my birthday this week ). I can't even find any information on UK prices for these sets anywhere, even my friend who tends to know more about upcoming releases than most of us doesn't know. What kills me is that we already know the GBP prices of the TFA sets being released in the same month, and those are supposed to be on a much stricter embargo than these... Also, is it possible that these Constraction figures could be released on 1st September, or are they being released on Force Friday (4th September) despite them not having any ties to TFA? For some reason I'm hoping to find them early, because trying to fight through the inevitable crowds to get them at the LEGO Store on Force Friday will be like suicide for me

Hold on a minute... am I seeing things, or is that Black 8M shells on Vader's upper arms? If so... The middle part of the shell on Vader's upper arm seems elongated compared to the middle part of the shell on Vader's upper leg, which I know for definite is a 6M shell. However, the more I look at Grievous; legs, the more messy and incoherent they look. Nothing a few simple mods and extra tan shells couldn't fix, but still I'm still wondering how much these are all going to be in the Great British Pound... I need to see how (un)affordable two of each set (big fan of Star Wars, so I'm going to need one of each to keep together, plus another one of each to cannibalise for parts) is going to be

Well, I wasn't expecting these to be put out on the shelves early (thought they'd have the same embargos that the TFA stuff being released in September would also have - I mean, we don't even have any GBP prices for these yet!). I might just have to go investigate my own local TRU to see if UK TRU's have followed their French counterparts. Also, very peculiar that they only seem to have the three cheapest sets on the shelves - I wonder where Obi, Vader and Grievous are? I can't unsee that now. Every time I see Luke now I'm going to think of "Bionicle Barbie". And I don't even like Barbie

Interesting that most of the sets in this newest wave of Elves revolve around dragons. While it's really nice that dragons are becoming more widespread throughout LEGO sets (and TLG must know that dragons sell and do appeal to girls, I think they're trying to bleed my wallet dry with all these dragon-centric sets ). I would sincerely hope that the adult dragons are at least partly brick built and will look normal enough to blend in with all my other dragons in my so-called "Dragon's Den" area of my display (I don't want them with enormous cutesy eyes or overly weird proportions for instance). Nonetheless, I'm normally quite anti-girl-targeted themes, but this time round, I think I'm going to have to make some room in my budget for these Elves sets because they sound really promising to me so far. Basically, put a dragon in a set and you'll have me hooked to whatever it is

Interesting, some names for next year's sets! I'm intrigued by the Creatures. They really sound like Rahi but with individual names (I agree with whoever said "pets" really, creatures with names just scream pets / companions to me). Also the Toa seem to be called "Unifiers" - I wonder what possibly they could be unifying? Elements? Also, could Umarak be a good guy or an evil guy? Where's the rumoured Toa Ekimu or is it possible he's just in the Sumemr Wave instead? These names throw up a lot of questions but no real answers. And I think Kopaka and an Ice Creature will turn up in this wave... well why not? The only thing I don't like is we've got the same Toa - I hope they're significantly different in appearance from this year's Toa - even if they represented them in dark colours I'd be fine with that... Gali would give me Dark Blue shells if that was the case I swear to God, if he is a Titan and they call him Kopaka XL...

I too am also hoping that LDD doesn't get the shaft... as somebody who doesn't have the space or money to maintain a loose brick collection, LDD is a valuable tool to me as it allows me to build and plan my MOC's, then buy the bricks I need for them. Even if they decided to make it a paid program purchasable through their online store, I'd have no qualms paying for it if they at least kept the brick libraries up to date. But yes, I say that the brick updates this year are unusually absent so far, and nobody, not even LEGO themselves, seems to be able to explain why. And that really is my key point where my frustration lies: lack of information. Everybody at LEGO seems to be dragging their heels and looking at their feet about it. I for one am itching to get the new Bionicle parts, as I am involved in an LDD collab project and many of the new moulds would have been useful to have. And because I MOC primarily in Constraction, LDD is really my only option.

My interpretation is the polar opposite, hence I used hands (except with Kalmah's tentacles, I regarded those as part of his anatomy!). Though the canon suggests they don't have fingers, I do wonder how they even managed to hold their squid launchers? Particularly with Carapar, where in the story he has two claws but he can remove one to wield a Squid Launcher. Because that's his tentacles, which are a part of his anatomy. That part is just tentacle in both the set and the comics. Giving him a hand there would have just looked odd In response to your other points, I was copying the original set's colour schemes (where Pridak's arms are completely white), which is why some of them can appear rather monotonous. If I gave myself more free rein to completely overhaul their designs, I might have put more transparent in or mixed their colour schemes up a little, but I wanted to remain faithful to and even mimic their original sets. It's part of the reason why making Carapar gave me such a headache actually, though his armour IS marbled Bright Light Orange in the original set, it don't look much like it at all

Does nobody here like these at all? Not even a single vote in the poll? Given the lack of interest in almost all my MOC's posted here in the past 3 months, maybe I shouldn't post any MOC's of mine here anymore. The lack of interest in MOC's here in general recently is very discouraging. What's happened to this forum?

Hey all! If any of you have been following my Flickr, you would have known this topic was coming from all the MOC's I've been posting there for the past few days But anyway, I present to you the fruit of my latest MOC project, codename CCBS, or Creepy Creeps from Below the Surface. Or basically, the Barraki but remade in CCBS (pause for inevitable groans). The Barraki have always been my favourite of all the Gen 1 villains, it's no secret. And Takadox will forever remain my favourite G1 character. So I thought it was high time I gave them a complete CCBS overhaul to celebrate that fact. It pretty much started by making a CCBS Takadox, but it soon escalated into me wanting to remake all the warlords in CCBS form. I wanted to keep as close to the original set's appearance as possible, down to replicating the limb lengths and colours in the right places, but doing that only using CCBS parts (aside from the head, weapons and sometimes the feet). A full gallery including alternate views of all models can be found here. So, without further ado, time for some pictures, complete with descriptions taken straight from Flickr: Takadox: Here is my favourite of all the Barraki first of all: Takadox! In some respects he is the hardest of the Barraki to replicate in CCBS, due to the only Dark Blue parts in CCBS being Skull Spider masks and zero Trans-Fluorescent Blue CCBS parts. I still really like how he turned out, even if he now wears Skull Spiders and has a lot of his Dark Blue replaced with Black. Pridak: Here's the second Barraki in the series: Pridak. Out of all the CCBS renditions, Pridak is probably the closest to his original set appearance, given his waist articulated torso translates very well into CCBS. I also tried custom built feet to try and replicate his original feet. I was going to use the original feet but then I saw the Protector feet on my Master Wu Dragon and immediately saw the similarities, so brick built them. Ehlek: Here is the third Barraki: Ehlek! He was originally my first Barraki set. This Ehlek is probably a bit bigger than his original incarnation due to using 2 CCBS bones instead of a Technic liftarm for his body (a technique I'd used on Takadox as well). I was going to use Ehlek's original feet for this, but I didn't have any in my collection so kinda had to settle for Beast feet given I couldn't find a custom solution I liked. Mantax: This is Mantax, who probably has the most unique build of the 6 and thus was a little challenge to get right. If you look closely, the shape of the original build is imitated in CCBS using a blend of Takadox's CCBS build and a 9x9 torso. This is probably one of my favourite of the builds as I think it almost perfectly replicates the original Mantax build. Kalmah: Here is Kalmah, the first of the two Barraki with a more standard humanoid build (or "the Inika build" as I so often see it termed). I have tried to replicate the general shape and colour segregation of the torso in the original set as much as possible here, even if it has resulted in Kalmah perhaps putting on a little bit of extra weight I probably would have put more dark red shells on the sides of the torso, but I ran out of dark red shells as Kalmah relies heavily on dark red in his colour scheme. Carapar: Finally, here's the last of the Barraki: Carapar. He was always the strong and armoured one out of the Barraki, so I made sure that was reflected in his CCBS iteration. The colour is perhaps the most difficult to get right, given that Carapar's marbled olour was uniqque to that set. I eventually settled with a combination of Pearl Gold and Keetorange, the Pearl Gold since it is the closest match to Carapar's head colour, and Keetorange because, well, he featured that colour in the original set. Carapar is also one of the few models I've made to incorporate a Technic function, pushing together two Technic bushes on his claw causes them to open, then the claw snaps shut when you let go. Well, hoped you liked looking at my renditions of Barraki in CCBS. Comments and constructive feedback will be much appreciated. Also, don't forget to throw in a vote for your favourite revamps in the poll (it's multiple choice by the way), and feel free to explain your choices in a comment

I'm trying to make some of the 2015 masks in blended gold / trans, and transparent varieties that LEGO haven't done. So far I've only made moulds for the Gali, Tahu and Skull Spider masks and have only tried to make them in transparent, because my money at the moment could only stretch to buying clear Crystal Resin and 100ml of silicone moulding paste. Still need to buy some coloured varieties of resin, but don't want to invest lots of money into coloured resins until I've perfected the casting technique

But I don't think having blended versions of the villain's masks would make much sense in the way that having a blended Tahu or Gali mask would, because we don't have blended versions of any Skull Mask. But all I can say is: 2016 may or may not fill the gaps in the masks that 2015 left. It's too early to say for definite that we won't get a gold Scorpio mask or a promotional transparent mask or a blended mask or a [insert colour or effect here] mask. I still remain vaguely hopeful we'll get official versions of these masks Yes. I guess the reason we got a gold mask instead of black is probably for that tiresome argument that "gold feels more exclusive and special". Even though gold has got to be one of the most overused colours in Constraction

Sadly I can't offer any advice with casting in ABS as I've never attempted it, but funnily enough I'm also attempting to mould custom Kanohi using silicone moulds, and I'm using resin casting methods instead, which is relatively cheap (well, the resin I'm about to suggest retails for £12 for 150ml and the silicone paste I use is another £12 so it depends on what your definition of cheap is ) and definitely easier than casting with ABS. If you ever want to cast translucent pieces in the future, I can recommend Pebeo Crystal Resin to do a good job, if you can wait the 24+ hours it needs to set that is, and you may have to repeat it in order to get a complete mould (though that might not be a problem with a Miru). It sets completely solid and the end result is very durable. Similar resins should do solid and pearl colours, and my advice would be to do some research into how to mix your own colours so you can try to match LEGO's colours as much as possible. But if you want to use ABS then it's really as emilstorm says, and I'm sorry I couldn't be of much use. Either way I wish you luck in your project and would like to see what you can get out of it. I always love to see custom Kanohi