anothergol

I am " Your wish list is currently empty!" ..ah, I, KnightMicroWakz, wasn't logged in. Also, I'd like to make it clear that my wakz is of an average size.

it's the binding actually, 28684 (if you search for the alt 24324, you won't see it in black)

I've just seen their animation which is pretty well made I'm tempted to buy this one just for the car hoods that Lego has never done in LBG (*hoping* that it's fully color-compatible) Otherwise, my thoughts on their frame: ....too late! This would have been amazing before the introduction of Mixel joints and, a bit later, Nexo torsos. Today, I don't see much that can't be done with real parts. Perhaps the knee double-bar-joint is nice, but I've read about it snapping because it's a bit smaller than Lego bars. Finally: too expensive. I don't know which clone brand they use for the parts, but most likely "mybuild" only designed the frame, there's a clone manufacturer behind. In any case, this might be a 20 bucks Lego set, but for 20 bucks (& even there it would still be expensive), clones generally offer at least 3x more. Btw the sword is tile-on-a-clip, normally not illegal (Lego does it) but the way the clip touches the border of the clip is probably stressing the clip, in this case.

Magic wands now available in nearly all colors. Also the black book cover. And in all 3 colors.

Pretty sure Lego could be considered a luxury business nowadays, with street prices so so far away from production costs. The prices in a country are most likely simply what Lego can get away with. I live in Belgium, a neighbor of France & Germany. Sets are more expensive in Belgium, like up to 10% (while VAT is only slightly higher here). The other day I bought a kinder surprise egg (sorry US people, something you'll never get because of silly laws). I was surprised (..) at the quality of the toy (a Smurf dude). In the past, such toys were just 1 big lump of plastic, possibly badly chain-painted. But here it looked like multi-molded, perfectly clean seams, really high-quality stuff. And Kinder can put this in a plastic egg, with chocolate around, for 80 cents and still make mad profits. What's the price of a minifig blind bag again?

How is it nice news for you as a consumer? In the best case, instead of clones of existing sets, you'll see more & more original sets (or stolen MOCs) pop up, and IMHO that's not good for Lego that's stuck to its own internal rules & will now face competition with sets that will be better because 1. based on unpaid licenses (this is China afterall, it's not gonna change anytime soon) 2. based on adult licenses (which doesn't necessarily mean "for adults", but kids love Predator or whatever more than Disney's stuff) 3. based on stuff that has proven to be very popular with kids: war (tanks, etc) 4. looking better because less strict on the strength So Lego had unfair competition because of stolen IP, but ask yourself what is that IP really worth. Is it really "Ninjago" that sells? Also, ask yourself if Lego didn't replace the castles theme by that horrible Nexo for one reason: to one one more IP that they believe would have protected their sets, while they can't prevent any clone brand from releasing generic castles. And since Nexo flopped, what was it really worth? Perhaps Lepin would have sold more generic castles than Nexo clones, afterall. As for the sets themselves, if you think that the reason Lepin is so cheap is that they didn't have to invest in "R&D", then explain why Xingbao's sets are as cheap. LOTS of MOCers out there, it should be dirt cheap to design new sets. First because it's not a huge work, second because Chinese vs Danish salaries can't compare. Lego will still have competition, they could only dream of blocking ALL compatible bricks (and they've tried), but that's already lost for them.

Not sure it's "awesome" that it did that only with neon colors, but I've already asked to get some special colors for lights. But hey, perhaps instead of true lights we could get new "virtual" colors that have more of their own light. Talking about neon colors, right now transparent orange is very very dull, while it's rather hard to differenciate transparent orange from neon red with real bricks. I think that needs to be fixed.

Not much else new, sadly. Except this one not known in any set yet (in red). (and of course, not in stock) & also in red, the cowl from the popup book, not available

I meant fully tiled around, instead of using round parts. Like, this one https://ideas.lego.com/challenges/1b817aba-3990-4e6d-a17f-7a59a948d02f/application/f053e811-a026-48fa-bf7d-26ed15ae3203 Otherwise it's nice, I'm just not sure it'll be enough for the ADP.

The attachment is pretty nice. IMHO the rocket would have been better fully plated, and in typical red. I'm tempted to post my entries as well, the amount of MOCs popping up once they have made their choices will probably be big.

Flickr pro is a bit expensive for what it is, though. I mean, you can generally get unlimited hosting for half that price these days (ok, hosting services then raise update prices once they hold you by the balls, but still..)

Bricksafe sounds ok on the paper. Browsing is no Flickr, though. (it's also proud to be "family safe", not exactly something I like, but that's just me)

Flickr is pretty unique in that it's THE place for Lego. But it's soon gonna be limited to 1000 pics for free accounts. While it's a lot of pictures (that I haven't reached myself since 2015), it's not exactly future-proof anymore. Of course paid accounts aren't limited, but I like to think of Flickr as a future-proof online repository, and it might not be the perfect solution anymore. Is there better, though? Instagram? I started on MOCpages, but the website is technically a bit lacking, and images were overcompressed. Maybe.. Bricklink itself (yes it does have a personnal gallery)? On the other hand, the internet being the internet, do MOCs even exist anymore after a week? On Flickr I'd say yes, through people's favorites. Other than that.. (I also like that Flickr isn't (doesn't seem to be) censored btw. I mean, it's hosting porn, so it's pretty safe as for freedom of speech. Probably only matters for a minority in the Lego community, though. But Flickr isn't something Lego, being the total opposite as for censorship, could own itself. I mean, imagine a Flickr stripped from MOCs of tanks, temples, bars, etc)

Yeah their stability check is total BS right now (& I don't even think it could be made to work. It'd have to take part weight, gravity, clutch power [in a big database] & other frictions into account - they will never be able to achieve that). Fortunately it's not required for submissions. It's not required at all. Here I've just created groups for the stuff to be built together. They also hint that various colors for hidden parts are welcome. What I don't know however is if the unique lots count matters. I have recolored some hidden parts to reduce it, but really I don't know if it's worth it.

Talking about guns that aren't, when I was a kid, Lego didn't have any gun yet (I think), and in the space theme, this was every minifig's gun: While Bricklink is less hypocritical about it & calls it "Minifig, Utensil Space Gun / Torch", I just love its official name (B&P / LDD). It's "BUTT". Just that, BUTT. In uppercaps. It's not a gun, it's a BUTT!

Even SF guns are forbidden? Damn, my entry has an optional Gatling gun attachment for the mechs :) Well, it's optional.

Well to be fair, Peter Reid got his project done, and JK already got two of his. But I lost faith last year when "Wonders of Peru" reached 10k.

It certainly is, it's just that Lego's standards as for sturdiness have changed. While sets of my childhood were bottom-up, very fragile builds, today's sets focus too much on sturdiness, to the point that it becomes boring to waste every first & second bag on structure alone. But hey, kids can then toss them around. And it's probably the father who builds it, seeing how Lego always puts minifigs in the first bags, so that the kid has something to play with while daddy is busy. Keep in mind that Lego assumes the ball-joints will get loose, puts them in ovens, etc, & that's most likely why they only use them in light Constraction characters. Of course knees don't need ball-joints, but if you start bending knees, you then need ball-joints for the feet anyway, and you still end up with a stability problem. With new parts, IMHO 1 ball joint with friction extender would work for most of Lego's mechs, but again, only when they're new, and Lego takes into account that hinges get loose. As for knees however, I find myself making more mechs without articulated knees. *However* IMHO the problem with, say the Hulkbuster or Ninjago mechs isn't so much that it has unarticulated knees, it's that they're in a boring, standing-up pause. I have no problem with mecs without bendable knees when they're locked to the He-Man pause, which some Lego sets have. This pause can mean "wrestling" as much as "standing up" IMHO, it's perfect. Perhaps not when placing them into vehicles but that's another story. I've made this one with no bendable knees (well, perhaps no knees at all), but I have no problem with it because it's locked to the He-Man pause, which is what I've locked most of my other mechs to anyway (& being an adult, it's not like I was playing with them).

I find the LDD rather solid, I've had it crash, especially when pivoting linked parts, but never when saving a file.

First, it's only a counterfeit if it's not made by Lego & has "Lego" written on the part. But I doubt you'd then see the difference, and I doubt that such parts even exist, so you're probably talking about clone brands. In hundreds of BL orders, never had any clone brand, but if I had and they fooled me, well I don't even care then. I only once suspected a LBG mini-lever rod to be fake because it was not like others, its base had no mark, and wasn't fitting properly. But nope, I checked, and levers of that era were just like that. If you got clones, I suppose you bought used. There the problem is much more to get dirty parts with food or poop on them, than getting clones. And if you're talking about minifigs, I guess you could call those counterfeit, indeed. You should definitely report such shops. A shop selling clone brands as used is just one that doesn't care enough, but a shop selling fake minifigs has more chances to be doing it on purpose.

I'm excited about the D.Va & Reinhardt set, first because I like mechs & they're both nice (especially D.Va's), second because I like anything LBG, and not only we're getting a nice new (I guess?) shoulder part, we're also, 14 years later, finally getting a LBG version of , while the DBG hasn't been produced for years & has become quite expensive. (hoping that the part isn't silver coated, it's hard to be sure from the pics)

But it doesn't matter, the highest number I gave (57) applies to a MOC that was in the top 3 on Rebrickble for some time, & still is in the top-selling page. Thus it's safe to assume that even if the top 2 ones have sold 10x more, which is most likely the highest amount anyone's MOC can aim at, it's -still- a meaningless amount at the end of the day. And it also means that the vast majority has done worse. Yes, it can pay for parts, it's beer money. It's cool to have, but in no way "profitable", thus is has to remain fun. Pretty much the same deal with Lego Ideas, which is a lottery version of Rebrickable. In any case I'd never advise anyone to "work" on a Lego project beyond the point where stops being fun.

But we're talking about less than 10 MOCers at best here. Even if they were selling thousands (which I seriously doubt, it's probably a few hundreds at best), it doesn't change that Stud.io has added a tool for these few MOCers alone. I don't think that my free MOC got a lot of downloads btw (while it got a lot of views), the main reason I made the next ones paid was to track the downloads, not really for money, which is beer money. *perhaps* BuildBetterBricks are making a living, but these are also selling full kits. Perhaps Brick Vault's business works, but it's their Youtube that works & they added a side business. Perhaps Powerpig's kits do sell because they generally make the news, but they're full kits. But I believe that instructions-sharking is such a small niche that it can be called non-existent. Btw, have you yourself ever followed instructions from not-a-kit? (and I'm not talking about inspecting someone else's 3D project here, that does make sense for learning & editing purposes)

Oh I am on Rebrickable too, but define "many". It's not about views, I have thousands of views there too, just like on my Flickr. Making MOCs isn't pointless, they're definitely seen. It really is about instructions. I have 2 MOCs featured in the "top selling premium" for a couple of months now. So it's safe to say that the numbers I'm gonna give will be what most people can expect at best, because 1) anything that's not on that top-selling page will obviously do much worse, 2) they're both Star-Wars related, thus get viewed/searched. Ok let me check: First MOC: 12k views, 57 downloads Second MOC: 7k views, 21 downloads & I have 2 other cheap MOCs that did respectively 4 & 3 downloads, because not SW-related. I also have a free one (the only one for which I bothered to make proper instructions, ironically) for which I can't easily track the downloads, I'll have to check that. So, to any MOCer here who wanna start sharing instructions, think again. Unless you're a big Youtuber & you can promote your stuff (a couple do), you will be spending hours on something that won't be viewed by thousands like your pictures are, but by a few, possibly less than 10. If you found fun in making instructions, why not.. but you probably won't have fun doing it over & over only for your own eyes. And to prove my point that people don't wanna download instructions because gathering all the parts is painful & costly: the long-time top bought MOCs on Rebrickable are.. alternate builds for existing sets. For this niche of a niche, yeah, instructions do make more sense. And again, nothing here surprised me, as I never have downloaded instructions myself. I watch people's MOCs every day, I would totally buy sets for many of them, but I wouldn't gather the parts myself. Instead, I buy sub-par official sets, because it's easier & cheaper. Like everyone does. But again, this might change in the future, with China. Lego hardly (& rightly so) cares for adults, that's a niche to take for clone brands. The best "Lego" sets I've bought.. were by Xingbao. Lego wouldn't have produced them, because based on old & adult IPs, and because MOC-like built, but that's totally what I'm looking for.

I would have preferred it vertical, with studs hole at the bottom, though (OR flat, but cut & with no studs on top). Here it's new studs to cover. But hey, still good to have. no it's really a new part