Sven F

It seems like a bit of a narrow view. Creativity comes with time. He said it's been 30 years of dark ages, you don't start combining bricks in your sleep just like that. I think most people start by buying sets. On the other hand, a lot of people get hit by nostalgia and just think of the time they looked at a LEGO catalog as a kid and wanted to have all that stuff in the background, and now can finally afford it. It's not a crime. Good use of space and those trans blue round pieces, I saw them in our local pick-a brick but couldn't think of any use for them myself.

If lego didn't sacrifice their manufacturing (and other) complications and costs to make chrome bricks for a proper SW Nubian royal starship, I highly doubt they would do it for this.

One that springs to mind is Cardio Carrie from tlm Ice cream machine set, but she has a head band print on her forehead so might not work for what you need. I just remembered, all 3 minifigs from the LEGO Ideas Research Institute have double faces, one variant of which is upset / angry. although I found that most male screaming faces work ok on a female minifigure anyway. also Fabu-fan (she has braces) and is quite expensive.

putting bricks in the washing machine (inside a tied up pillow case ) gets rid of dust and dirt, but it won't de-yellow them. You are quite safe to put printed pieces in too, just try to avoid those made of soft plastic (like pine trees, suspension bridge, old truck grills, walkie-talkie, etc..) as they get roughened, white edges from washing. I also don't wash transparent pieces as they are extremely sensitive to scratches.

I just hope the black cat looks normal, without any green spooky eyes or some shit like that, and that will make at least 1 figure I could buy.

ser 1: I don't know, the space guy I guess. ser 2: snowboarder, not keen on the witch either. ser 3: race car driver, I have a box full of those from 90's sets and they are all the same. ser 4: i hate football, but i'll still go with the midget fisherman which is just silly and pointless ser 5: another snowboarder? and fisherman? ser 6: little dork with the honey jar ser 7: swimmer and the space armor guy ser 8: yet another snowboarder? ser 9: both space armor guys and cyclops ser 10: skydiver ser 11: climber and another space armor guy ser movie: mermaid, the rest have usable parts when you take the robot heads off ser 12: I really despise those space trooper, armor things. ser 13: female cyclops, even worse than the first one.

I use LEGO color names for generic colors on non-lego things. Like strolling through IKEA and saying "that sofa would look better in reddish brown"

Except many will not attempt to increase their skill, but instead have high expectations for a set to be released to satisfy their wants. Modulars and SW have brought a new niche of people into a world of builders and creators. They are called collectors, and they think in a slightly different way, not entirely in symbiosis with the real idea of LEGO. It is however common for collectors to become builders when the aforementioned frustrations are dealt with creatively and not expressed in the form of nagging about new sets on this forum.

Absolutely, I always found toys in general were always lacking in something that the creators probably thought wasn't going to be important or noticed by kids. Like LEGO in the late 90's with painted on headlights? you must be kidding! only if my eyes are painted on too. But... then again who buys all that barbie and hot wheels crap if there are no dumb kids around.

Yees, I like it. You need better lighting though or longer exposure.

That is a quite innocent way of looking at it, but I see it as a statement. Just like research institute was a bit of a feminist job equality statement. We can then have a lego melting iceberg with a polar bear set, or a gay couple getting married, or whatever moral correctness issues we want to advertise to the world, and I have nothing against any of it, except that LEGO isn't a medium I see fit for such things, in fact I see it as abusing the market. I want to see sets sold because they are good, fun, unique sets, not because they carry a message.

I think it's partly due to market research that shows kids like mildly scary things in recent years, at least from my experience, there is a big rise in popularity of Mattel's "monster high" dolls and this is just catering to the market. "Scary" is the first innocent step to teenage rebellion as it's a contrast to pink, yellow and shiny. I would be slightly but not overly surprised if this was actually named Halloween since that is a US thing, while the rest of the world still has some version of Dia de los muertos in October, not sure the whole monsters or costumes discussion has much point since such details vary around the world.

CMF's are great for sellers because they get almost as much for the accessory as they do for the figure itself. minifigure is a category on it's own and consists of: headwear head torso assembly w fists leg assembly A collectible minifigure is a set and comes with everything you would get if you bought it new. The problem is some sellers on BL put complete figures with accessories in the minifigure category and vice versa so its hard to manage your wanted list. I think sellers should write a note for parted out cmf's for unaware buyers as it could cause potential angry customers.

I hope this doesn't turn into more seasonal CMF's My town can only take so many santas and carol singing cops.

The whole "democracy" system of amassing a certain amount of votes to attain something is very open to abuse in general, and when this system is implemented to the internet and served to a very superficial general (non-lego fan) public that clicks their days away to pretty things on the screen, you get inadequate results. Today its all about going "viral" you need to get your message heard, and in order to achieve this, it either has to hit you on an emotional basis (wheelchair ramp? really?? why? ) Or it has to be licensed by something else that is already popular (big bang theory, dr. who, etc..) I think a lot of sets are getting a lot of attention for the wrong reasons, and a lot of votes from people who would never actually buy the set anyway, they just have a habit of throwing buckets of likes at everything that sparks their brain butterflies. You can sense that every Ideas set has a very cautious first production run. Somewhere someone in LEGO knows that generic votes are hardly a reliable sign of popularity.

I don't know if I was really "special" like my mommy said, but as a kid of about 10, I hated helicopters, boats, planes and all that useless stuff they put into every other city set. I bought them anyway because they always came with something else I wanted so i ended up with a city that had too many crossroads, 50% of the population owned either a boat or a helicopter and every 3rd guy on the street was a policeman. They were all homeless because there were no residential buildings. And I wasn't an AFOL then, I was just the target audience for city, and it DID bother me then, still does today.

Next review seemed pretty obvious it's either going to be the maze or the piano, but now I'm not so sure. The maze game is maybe the most finished looking product and very original idea, but seems like LEGO gave up on board games and this is kind of similar, It's the type of thing a lot of people like, but don't actually buy. I would probably find it interesting, but my novelty attention would die in about 5-10 minutes, and on the shelf it goes. The piano seems like a good AFOL display model, but only as either a theme like architecture or a set of a couple instruments like the birds set. Just the piano on it's own, as a one time thing, don't think so. The rest of the stuff I find highly unlikely, except maybe the museum. IMO It's got a couple of things going wrong for it though, apart from the obvious large parts count and size, I think it needs more color, it's too monotone in appearance, if you look at all the existing modulars, they all have a dominant color, but still a good balance that makes it look a bit more like LEGO, and less like a sculpture. And the third minor thing; what's with the "creator expert" in the title? Ideas is a theme on it's own.

Until TLG labels it "retired" from "sold out" it is not officially retired, but in practice, things that have been sold out for months usually don't ever come back, and judging by the message they put with it encouraging you to look into newer sets from ideas, I think it's pretty safe to say it's retired. The coordination of production runs and estimated popularity with this set seem to have been done quite poorly, not sure if this is due to underestimated sale forecasts, their own limitations or investor snaching. I had to get the set from bricklink while the price was still relatively ok, I am not sorry, but it was a slightly underwhelming set once you see there is nothing particularly special about it, especially the generic minifigures. The CMF ser.11 scientist and ser.13 paleontologist work well as substitutes for two of them though.

a pink teddy bear would make the whole thing worth it for me. I would forgive the whole horrible series, just let me have the teddy.

I agree, though the next 2 years were even worse. I have about 10 sets from that catalogue, including that train and its just at that time they started with the painted on headlights on cars, and just oversimplifacing designs, it was especially bad for the city theme. I stopped buying lego completely after that year, and it took me 16 years to get back to lego.

Because kids. It is now official, Friends sets have become way more advanced than city. Maybe something to do with girls being a bit more mature in general?

I wasn't expecting that tram to be spectacular (the color was a turnoff anyway), but I was at least hoping it would look as good as the old blue one. The blue one looked much better executed, although still underwhelming. A proper tram would have to be a stand-alone set, preferably not in the city theme.

If this turns out to really be a series, that will be an even bigger disappointment for me this year than the 2nd run of Simpsons, and I actually like the Simpsons as a show. Spooky Girl from ser. 12 was one of my all time favourite minifigures ever, but what I see here is just terrible. I'll take the cheerleader's hair piece and witch's black cat and I'll let the rest be picked off the shelves by kids while I wait for the regular CMF's to return.

They definitely got better with age, but the series that had most figs and parts that interest me, was ser. 10, but it's also probably the most town biased series, so I see why it doesn't have a wide appeal.

Depends what you consider "fan" They all like LEGO, they support it, but they wouldn't buy it for themselves. My mom started buying the Simpsons minifigs, then I helped her to collect all 16, but she probably would have just bought a random blind bag here and there if I didn't encourage her.