welfycat

The Elves sets are my current favorite theme. I love the colors and all of the animal figures. The Harry Potter series is my favorite that they have stopped producing. I love the castles and Diagon Alley was an awesome build. I also collect Marvel minifigures, but I don't care for a lot of the sets (many of them are vehicle oriented and I'm not really a vehicles person).

This is my No Face Fox, which I found in the Elves Bakery set. I actually rather like it. It does have the back/tail printing, so it's not completely blank. I took a picture of the fox with the face printing next to it for comparison.

This is really neat, I like how it offers a different perspective on sets and how it all links together. There were some things I didn't really understand, such as what the "most piece" sections were describing, and what it means by "average piece description length". It also seems like the zoom/brush mode area is the most interesting visual area, but it doesn't go wide enough to really look at themes over time. Great project though; great way to do something fun and useful for a class project!

This is just incredible and breathtaking. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. The detail is just incredible, and I absolutely adore the interior. Extra kudos for having Legolas take two Orcs at once!

Awesome! I hope you like them. I've found them to be really pretty sets, and great for both pieces and for building.

I really love the colors in the Elves sets and there are a lot of interesting pieces in them. I find some of the Friends sets less helpful, though some of the buildings have some good pieces for building modifications. I got a Creative Bucket last year and haven't really found it helpful for me, but this year the buckets do look better. I would go with Elves (particularly the trees and the bakery) if you like to do colorful landscaping.

My main constraints are money and storage space. I've gotten a lot better about not buying a set just because it looks cool or it's on a good sale, primarily because my Lego collection has overtaken a good portion of my bedroom. Now I have a wishlist, both for Lego sets and for Lego parts/minifigures, and for the sets I think carefully about whether or not I want them (are they in a theme I collect? do I really want the set or do I just really want the minifigs? what parts are in there and will they be useful to me outside the set?). For parts from Bricklink I make sure I have a purpose in mind for them. They typically are sorted by MOC in-progess list (Hogwarts Mega Castle, Ninja House, and Victorian Modular), so that way I'm not just buying whatever I fancy at the time. When I really need to restrain myself from buying something, I imagine an earthquake and how many pounds of bricks I will then be buried under (assuming my bedroom floor doesn't collapse). Currently my collection eclipses me in terms of weight, though doesn't quite double me yet. So, probably painful but not yet lethal. I hope.

This is absolutely fantastic! I love how it looks and it could very easily fit into an Avengerified city block. Great work!

Hi, welcome! I'm also near the SLC area, and a member of the local LUG. We already had our March meeting, but we'll likely be meeting again mid April. Feel free to check us out: http://www.utahlug.org

Yes, I like it a lot! The face shape really works very well! Awesome work!

I really like it! I think it does a great job of being identifiable as a Chocobo. I am not a designer by any means, so feel free to ignore these thoughts (I don't even know if they are feasible at all). Chocobos seem to have a longer face on top then on the bottom, so like with many birds their chin is essentially their beak, before the shape of the face recedes rapidly back to the neck. Either slightly elongating the top of the face or making the neck longer might create the same shape? The only other thought I had while viewing this would be potentially rounding the tails at the end (perhaps with the pieces that look like claws). I'd love to see your finished project when you have the pieces ordered! Good luck!

This is really neat. I love how the mine is beneath the farm and the town, and how there are some nice water falls too.

Yes, hopefully once Monday or Tuesday rolls around they'll have all their employees in and have the email confirmations out. I'm hoping that "waiting for new stock" doesn't mean they won't have it at all. I don't mind waiting for the 30 days, but I do want the Tower of Orthnac since they let people order it. Does anyone know what the difference is between "waiting for more stock" and "backordered" is when you look at your order on the S@H website?

I ordered the Tower of Orthnac, although it's currently listed as "waiting for new stock" on my order page. I also ordered Aira's Creative Workshop (which is backordered), and Iron Man vs. Ultron because I wanted the mark 45 version of Iron Man. I would have loved to gotten the Parisian Restaurant, but it's not in the budget right now. Hopefully by the time Bricktober comes around I'll be able to get that and the Detective's Office. I am glad I was able to order the Tower of Orthnac though, I was worried it would be sold out and retired by the time double points came around.

Yes you can, as long as your purchases are made during the double points time period. If you don't have a physical VIP card, you can write down your VIP number and show it to the cashier when you check out at a physical store.

I absolutely think it's awful that is happening with your books (and your reviews!). I think a lot of time people who pirate things only see it as money that a big company wouldn't even notice rather than from an individual author or creator. I would hope that people within the Lego community would be aware of the amount of time, money, and work you've put into your books and respect that. I have bought one of your books in electronic format, and I often buy ebooks through humble bundle, and I also have quite a few physical Lego books. While I do enjoy having ebooks for ease of storage, I also like having the physical books for the immediacy and the tactile sensation of having them - particularly with books that rely so much on pictures. I think for many people there are advantages and disadvantages to either format. I think releasing a book as a physical copy only would make sense in many ways - although as other people have mentioned it won't stop pirates who scan books. You would likely reach a smaller audience but with fewer options for them to pirate it. Lego has the advantage of having a fanbase already as well, so there would be more of an audience for a physical book than for say a physical art book on a less known subject. I wish you the best.

Yeah, I keep checking S@H with crossed fingers as well. They don't have any in stock here at my local store either. The Easter set was sold out at my local store yesterday as well, so I did get a free shipping card from them and got one at S@H. So double points for me will likely be Tower of Orthanc if possible, if not, then The Avengers Tower and the Elves Treetop Hideaway.

This was gone within 45 minutes after opening today at my local store in Utah.

This is beautiful. I love how fluid the wall looks and how natural the floor seems with the different colors. The cabinet especially is gorgeous!

I would love to have a Lego goat and I, too, am sad that it hasn't been included in more sets. If they do a Castle 2016 series, having a farming or village area would be a great opportunity for goats and cows and chickens and things. :D

That is awesome. I really enjoyed Unexpected Gathering, it's one of my favorite sets in general (which I say without having yet built any of the modular buildings), and I'm definitely looking forward to Orthanc now. I haven't built Helms Deep, which does look like a very interesting set, but I did recently build Attack on Weathertop and I liked it very much.

Good to know. I am a LotR fan (rewatching the trilogy currently!) and I've been eyeing Orthanc for a few months now and saving up points for it. I'd rather get it in March so I can purchase it for double points, but I definitely don't want it to go out of production in the meantime. But yes, definitely Ornthanc before Parisian Restaurant for me, though I am looking forward to that one as well. I would think they would put the Avengers sets out in March, considering the movie is in April and the Helicarrier will be released to the public mid March, so hopefully the Quinjet will be out in time for double points.

Tower of Orthanc (fingers crossed they still have it available in March!) and the entire Elves set. Also the Easter set when it's available. Maybe the Parisian Restaurant, depending on what my finances look like at that point. I'm pretty much done with my Lego buying for Feb (ordered the Friends Lighthouse and Friends Hot Air Balloon yesterday, along with some more Stormtroopers so I would have free shipping). At this point though, Tower of Orthanc is my priority, though I might cave and buy it with points earlier if it looks like it will sell out entirely. What do you all think? Tower of Orthanc still available in mid-March? Or buy it sooner to be sure?

Another possibility, similar to the idea of a frame, is to screw/nail in two wooden (or metal, depending on how you want things to look) slats that have grooves in them that you can place a certain size of baseplate into. Another option, if you're looking to set mini figures and such up right, is a narrow L shelf that you could slide narrow plates (maybe a 2xwhatever) into to secure the minifigs. I hope your project goes well!

My collection is still relatively small (around 150 sets, plus a fair amount of bulk pieces), but I sort them into gallon ziplock bags based on theme (or by theme and year if I have quite a few of a series, such as Friends and Marvel Super Heroes). The gallon bags go into one of my clear storage containers (sadly I don't remember the brand offhand, but it's one with a flip top lid and it is wider than it is tall). The gallon bag approach makes it easy for me to find what I'm looking for as well as keeps the books from getting bent or torn. Plus, I already have the bags hanging around for sorting Lego!