anothergol

Still pretty vague, until real examples of what they're after. I'm guessing things like robotics stuff, removable stickers for lego, third-party motors, lego adapter to whatever other kit/system.. What I'd like to see (or eventually produce myself) would be extended Lego parts, which is nowadays limited to guns & weapons. I understand the minifig market is "bigger", but I would like to see things like that 2x2 tile with (SW-related I believe) engraved gribbling (I wish I could find back a picture of it). 1x1 to 2x2 tile gribbling, Lego doesn't have enough of that IMHO. But I also understand that no one would use anything non-Lego. Still, with 3D printers allowing for cheap prototyping, and Stud.io now having a part design tool, it's the perfect time for things like this.

Well, during WIP I was using a T-bar but done another way & it wasn't good. If you use a 1x2 technic brick with an axle hole, the T-bar won't be inside deep enough to hold well. If you use a brick with a small pin only it will wobble, and if you put a stud with hole, we're getting into "illegal" builds, as the technic hole is a little higher & the round plate will hit the part above (not detected by the LDD). So these are still ok & working solutions, but ultimately less good than the pistol IMHO. Also ideally I would like to attach the 2 halves together, but I couldn't find a way to (there's a way using brackets, but in a way that doesn't work at all with real ones). Perhaps when 1x1 downwards brackets will exist in DBG there will be a proper way.

Hi, Looks like a good idea, if you managed to fit it, it's great. I had tried nearly everything the LDD could do, but 1x1 brackets didn't exist yet when I added that lip, and they still don't exist in the LDD (in which I still maintain the model), so it's definitely something I hadn't tested. So if the back is still solid (which is critical, since any energy applied to the side panels must go through the spine to the head's ball joint securely), well it's perfect. Here I didn't have much problems with the lips falling, but it probably has to do with 1x1 round plates not always having the same clutch. Well you'll see you will have more troubles with the new studless roof design, I see you went for that one. And also the back splitted lip of the body (the ones attached to the pistol), I still haven't found any better solution for that one. Oh and the ski's under the body, those bloody things keep moving, but here too, haven't found anything fitting better (used to be shovels, but those are too narrow).

yeah, but it must be peanuts compared to sets. They're not even LISTING Bricks&Pieces anymore. In the past, it was well hidden, but you could still find it in the "bricks" category, but it's not even listed anymore. Now you've got to use the "missing any pieces or instructions?" link. In short, only Lego nerds like us even know about B&P. If it's like 0.2% of their income, it'd still be a large amount for a Bricklink seller, but should Lego care? But obviously B&P has to be there, since it's just an extension of the missing parts support that they have to offer, anyway.

It's still IMHO less time spent, because it's only time to build with fake bricks, but zero time modelling, texturing, etc. The only reason for existing shows to be less expensive is probably that you can easily find artists out of 3D schools that will easily fit in a team, whereas doing what was done in the movies required new talent & research. But now that Lego movies have proven not to be that much successful (anymore), it's talent (& tools) in the wild that'd better be used in shows (unless they're still making movies). In any case, tools & knowledge can still be recycled into shows.

It's normal, you can obviously get better results with an infinite palette of parts in all possible colors. The only advantage of building with real parts is that you can make better pictures of your entry, and even here it's only when you know how to make good pictures, or it's worse than renders. Plus, renders in Studio nowadays (or Mecabricks if you can bear it) are pretty good. So.. just start doing 3D. It's not incompatible with making real builds.

To me, minifig scale can mean from as high as 1:25 to as low as 1:50, which means that a model could be twice the size of another and you could argue that both are "minifig scaled". But the common 1:43 means you're judging according to minifig height, which is very wrong IMHO. Take any model kit around 1:45 and put a minifig around it, it just doesn't match. I think the best is to judge according to the head size, it's the head that gives the sense of scale. And yes, that makes minifig midgets, which is fine. So the best match in my book is around 1:30. And if we have to judge minifig scale according to Lego's own sets & minifig accessories, then it can vary even more.. Minifigs are almost chibi, short with chubby limbs & head. And thus you can't assume the scale by the height. To prove it further, there are numerous examples of MOCs using minifig helmets on much taller bodies, and they do fit, and IMHO the scale of those bodies is the true "minifig scale". Or you could also view it as a style, the scale alone not being enough to make something match minifigs. But then anything made for minifigs has to be designed as a caricature.

That's BS, because the Lego shop is online. Thus the only thing that differs, is the country's VAT, but it doesn't differ that much between european countries. It's pretty much around 20% everywhere in Europe, give or take a few % which does not reflect the existing price differences. You may say that Lego has to pay his employees, and the charges here are very different between countries, but again it's an online shop, I'm pretty sure that the Lego shop doesn't require employees in every country, just support in a couple of languages. Being in Belgium, if I call Lego I end up speaking to French support (which is fine). And I'm pretty sure that Lego only has one basic office for the whole Benelux, like many companies do. Sure, Lego must have offices in major countries, for distribution, but it's not linked to the Lego shop, other than the fact, *and it's most likely the real reason* that they don't want to compete with local stores. This is also why Lego can't lower the prices, they have to sell at "market" price, because that's how things work, stores won't buy from you if you're selling yourself at lower than market price (or why would they buy?). BUT this is 2019, European borders are far away now, and they pretty much don't exist since everyone buys on the internet. It doesn't matter if Lego doesn't wanna compete with local resellers, because Amazon does (with the help of Lego). So yes, Lego could TOTALLY make european prices uniform, and not hurt resellers more than Amazon already does. It's how it's gonna end up, anyway, they're just lagging behind. And local stores will disappear just like Toys R Us. It's just on its way. That's also why the Lego shop focuses on gifts & exclusives, it's the only thing they can do without being in competition with/pissing off resellers. But again, Amazon.. the time local resellers can make that much money for the only reason that they know all other local shops are gonna sell at street price as well, are gone. And I don't think there's anything related to "laws", only business, and Lego does what every company does, but times are changing.

Ah indeed, I hadn't spotted it! ..but that set is already available, I was told on the phone that it was to be released in a future set. Strange.

Just placed a phone order, from what I was told it's quite possible that B&P would work again today or very soon. Couldn't order this one that's in no announced set yet, though. The good old fez, in LBG! Edit: ok, looks like the shop has changed a bit. The pointless pick a brick seems more usable now (or was it already updated?), but still no sign of B&P. Seriously, what is the point of pick a brick? It's like pick a brick walls, but without the cup filling for cheap, which is the only advantage of brick walls.

Germany & UK are just "1/5" of Europe.. & Lego is popular pretty much everywhere, if I can judge by where BrickLink sellers are. Still, it makes no sense. If the website is broken, it's broken for everyone.. I don't see why it would be working for these large countries only.

Great. Now new parts are indeed listed, and most of the world can't buy them. I tried to trick the system, but as soon as you pick a country in the list, it takes you to the shop of that country & switching empties your cart :( Like the system would be working just for 3 countries.. how stupid. "our website is broken, but not for german users"....

but are they? I'm really not seeing anything new. Also I was pretty sure that parts had some "appearing timestamp" linked to them, that they were already in the database, only not visible by us until the due date. Fact is that Lego's support people do know a lot more than us about new parts, they know in which sets they're gonna appear & when, and they're probably looking at the same database, only with higher level access.

Blueprint if you wanna have fun, Studio if you wanna/need to produce "pro" instructions. Studio in general is a good investment of time, because I'm afraid that the LDD won't be updated anymore. As far as I hate Studio, it's still second best IMHO. Also good for great renders.

Blueprint is easiest, while Studio produces the best quality (like genuine Lego) instructions (but the workflow works backwards IMHO)

Really? I have a list of all the new (non IP-based) parts I'm interested in, none of them has been listed yet.

That used to be the case, but since late 2018 (I believe), nearly all parts appear the day sets are released. That's for common parts, but licensed parts hardly ever appear at all, or rather randomly.

Lego just has to open a Bricklink shop. Bricklink works (amazingly). Bricks&Pieces has been broken since its creation (ironically the only time it worked smoothly for me, is when it stopped working for everyone & they closed it)

I've been toying with Bricklink's part designer btw, and it's pretty good. But the question I asked myself was, who is it for? Decals on parts, yeah, but custom parts? This is where this program could be REALLY interesting, if it ended up producing custom parts designed in that app. I doubt it would ever be done, though - even if the costs of making molds is probably not what it used to be, it's most likely still too expensive to start producing parts for a niche audience.

Can someone translate all that gibberish to something understandable by us humans? Yeah it sounds like made for.. -third-party Technic motors & stuff? Does it really make sense, isn't it like saying Lego's ones suck, or Lego is late to the party? -third-party lighting? I imagine yes, as Lego has never been interested in lighting -third-party minifigs? I doubt it - licensing troubles ahead -third-party minifig accessories? They're all contemporary weapons, so I doubt it :) -third-party system parts? I'm all for it, but no one does that. Or are they talking about programs for schools & such?

Yeah as he wrote, you have to clone (C) the submodel, and then in the instructions it will appear as "x2", as long as both are in the same step. Also note that you can move the "x2" in the page design, even if it doesn't have a selection rectangle around it. It also means - I believe - that you cannot do a "x2" assembly and then use the second instance later in the instructions, they do have to be in the same step. (or maybe I missed something)

you mean Indiana Jones? (which was itself "inspired by" older stuff btw)

MOC instructions is really a niche - if your MOC is very successful, at best a few hundreds will build it. That's insignificant compared to the 10k votes you need. Very few people are interested in instructions - not because they're not interested in MOCs, but because gathering parts is painful & not fun. So I'd say if you find your fin in releasing instructions, just do it. As written above, Lego only has a rule against selling them. Now, keep in mind that you're restricting yourself if you suggested a buildable idea, considering that recolors are acceptable in an Ideas project.

Looks more like a temporary theme, like Ultra Agents was, with some digital gimmicks as required these days. But not being backed up by a TV show, it means it's not supposed to be very big. I'm not much interested in it, but it looks a lot better than Nexo Knights. Of course it's nothing original, it's a mix of old classics, but Lego has rarely been original.

you mean the few germans/english/americans who can access B&P & still happen to have their VIP showing?