Karalora

Okay, you know what? I owe it to @Robert8 to say something more substantial than my usual one or two line gushing, so I'm gonna give an opinion on each of these and then, if I feel up to it over the course of the next two months, I'll do the same for all the previous waves. Get ready! Electrician: Always nice to see women represented in the trades! (If I have one recurring frustration with LEGO, it's that the reliance on instantly recognizable archetypes often leads to some unfortunate gender stereotyping. They're getting better about it though.) I like the detailed torso and leg printing of all her tools, and the lightbulb emblem so you can immediately tell her job apart from other blue-collar workers. Tea Partier: A March Hare to go with the Mad Hatter from a previous wave! (But how are we going to get the Dormouse?) Your Wonderland characters have me wishing LEGO would address classic children's lit in earnest, with their own unique aesthetic, instead of just making a handful of Disney character minifigs. Wild West Lady: I already gushed over the bustle skirt, but in general this is a character type I think we need. We've had a couple of named characters in a similar vein from TLM and the Lone Ranger, but I like the extra potential implied by a less specific CMF character. Enchantress: Where would the fantasy genre be without them? I love her hair, the book prints are awesome, and good re-use of EAP's raven! Combined Mecha: I'm about five years too old to have been into Power Rangers, but I love the design anyway. The "inside view" on the head is an inspired touch. Koala Boy: Definitely a costume option TLG should look into. Koalas eat eucalyptus, not bamboo (that's pandas), but the leaf shape is similar enough to work at that scale. Evil Mermaid: As already mentioned, this is an archetype that has long been on my personal wishlist. The more severe-looking fins work really well with the character, though I'm not sure I'd give her a spear. Maybe a black trident? Sultan: I already praised that ornate genie bottle in the teaser image, but the whole fella is just as good! That unique robe piece is just specific enough to really bring across the character's cultural origins. Parade Dancer: CARNAVALE! LEGO gave us the Carnival Singer already, but I think I prefer the over-the-top feather accessories of your design. Bem brasileira! (I Googled that translation, please don't @ me if it's inaccurate.) Plague Doctor: Hm. Not sure about this one. You know LEGO prefers to avoid politics and this is a clear reference to current events and I'm obviously just joking, he's great. It blows my mind that you managed to re-use the Magical Girl's wand in such a different context! Comedian: That loud checkered shirt print is a gift from the gods, all by itself. The hair, the chicken (what is it with stand-up comedians and rubber chickens?), the fact that he's clearly laughing uproariously at his own jokes...the real social value of this guy is that he shows us we're not the cringiest person in the room. White Chess Queen: The dual swords. It's all about the dual swords. Obviously the most powerful piece on the board should also be the most heavily armed, that's just logic. And I love her face, which would work very well for a Halloween ghost or other supernatural entity. White Chess King: You seem to have copied the Queen's text again for his parts assortment, but he speaks for himself anyway. White side complete! We're almost ready to play! (Say, any chance of getting red chessmen to expand the Wonderland cast?) Steampunk Explorer: She is adorable. One of the joys of the steampunk genre aesthetic is that we get Victorian fashion influences without the regressive social attitudes (since steampunk itself is a creation of the modern era). You know this gal has her own airship and she's flying it to another planet! Golem: I think I would have gone with more of a clay texture than stone, but either way this guy is a terrific fantasy army-builder. Maybe he works for the Enchantress? Olympian Archer: Apollo is a welcome addition to our growing Hellenic pantheon! Just don't play discus with him...

I'm practically drooling; these are so awesome! I'll say it again--why can't yours be the actual ones? I very much want an Evil Mermaid/Siren for my collection (in the meantime I've made do with kitbashing one out of existing parts), and I didn't know I wanted a 19th-Century bustle skirt until you designed one!

Choosing the same release date as an actual CMF wave, bold move! Series 22 is pretty good, but given your history and TLG's, I know which one I'd prefer to have (hint: it's not the one we're actually getting). That genie bottle alone is a keeper!

About the only ones I'm not interested in are the City blue-collar workers and athletes. I started getting into the CMFs in part because I was trying to find characters for my Disneyland-themed MOCs, which made me hunt down a wide range of historical, fantasy, and science-fiction characters, and it just snowballed from there.

Oh sure, there are plenty of ways to potentially use that set (as well as some others like Hogsmeade) in your WV, I just don't think it's a slam-dunk and it would be nice to get something more intentionally designed to be a big hub for the village. For that matter, I'm not crazy about private residences being part of the WV. I feel like it's supposed to represent a public setting, with the townsfolk gathering to do their holiday activities. I picked up the Cabin way back when, but I only built it a couple of times before I went "nah" and parted it out into my larger collection. I'm not terribly interested in Santa's Visit this year for the same reason.

While setting up my village over the course of this weekend, I decided that what the WV line really needs is something as grand as the Monster Fighters Haunted House set, which is always the focus of my Halloween LEGO display. The Home Alone house might be slightly trying to fill that role, but it's a licensed set, not part of the WV branding, and doesn't share the same aesthetic. I'm thinking of something more along the lines of a big department store (for Christmas shopping) or on the fantasy side of things, a North Pole castle.

I know bag-feeling is not actually cheating, hence why I put it in quotes. It's still discomfiting to see a display full of crinkled, abused bags.

Mine were a little curled on one side, but there was no creasing and the stickers were still firmly stuck to the sheet and worked fine. Mishaps occur in shipping and if you bought two boxes at the same time, they were probably part of the same shipment and subjected to the same sort of handling.

I prefer blind boxes to blind bags because it makes it so much harder for people to "cheat" and get the figure they want. It's supposed to be random, folks. It's very disheartening to approach a CMF display and realize that all the bags are crinkled up, meaning someone else got there first, snapped up all the good minifigs, and left the remainder in that gross condition. If you're not willing to participate in the lottery then go to Bricklink. Don't ruin it for others.

Our Robert8 has a way of creating minifig concepts that we never knew we wanted.

That would be awesome!

Does the phrase "Santa as army builder" make the prospect better or worse?

These two don't have "classic" black-and-white versions. They were introduced in color--Donald himself in 1934 in "The Wise Little Hen" and Daisy in 1937 in "Don Donald" (under the name "Donna Duck" and sharing Donald's voice). Just a little Disney trivia for you! Yes please! There are certainly enough theme park characters to fill out an entire set--or even two! The Haunted Mansion alone could probably fill up half of one.

Dia de Los Muertos

Once again, they all look SO GOOD! Frida Kahlo was a nice surprise!

Oh come on! Go and make me a liar, why dontcha?

You're new, aren't you? It's going to be a surprise. He drops a couple silhouettes in the early announcement, like just now, and you can often guess from those (Gamer Girl and Storm God is my guess), but he won't actually name them ahead of time.

Oh she is ADORABLE! I've never been into the Brickheadz but I might have to pick her up! She could be a stylized statue for my village!

I'm gonna go ahead and say that first question is them feeling out what sorts of themes and elements we're interested in, so go ahead and check everything you'd like to see incorporated into sets, even if it's not a big interest outside of LEGO!

This is absolutely delightful!

I wasn't asking for the forum's permission to have it done, I was asking how we would all feel about such a move if it did happen. Are the local Indy fans solely interested in replicating the existing franchise or would we enjoy a LEGO-based expansion of it?

What would any of you say to licensed Indiana Jones sets that weren't based on specific events and scenes from the films, but instead posited original scenarios implied to be from his various off-screen adventures?

Interesting stuff. I should probably confess that I am predisposed to be skeptical of research into the supposed psychological differences between girls and boys, especially if it leads to the conclusion that girls and boys should be treated differently. Do you know whether the researchers studied solo play or group play or both, and if they studied group play, whether they examined only single-sex groups or included mixed groups? I ask because girls and boys are socialized to play in groups very differently, and I wouldn't be surprised if this carried over to their solo play. (I can explain my reasoning further but I don't want to hijack this thread to grind my particular axe; maybe I'll start a new thread.) I would also be interested to know which minifigs were offered as possible self-insert characters. A classic City minifig with the dot eyes and simple smile gives a child far less to work with in terms of potential personality than, say, a Hermione Granger minifig. I would also question whether girls found minifigs unrelatable because they are "blocky" vs. because this all came after decades of LEGO aggressively marketing itself as a masculine toy.

The difference between boys' preferences and girls' preferences is a) less pronounced than you might assume and b) painstakingly trained into children rather than innate. In my experience, here's what you need to do with a toy in order to make it appeal to little girls: Put female characters in whatever narrative there might be. Show girls playing with it in the advertising. That's it, really. Pink and glitter and frills and conflict-free scenarios aren't for the girls; they're for the retailers (who want every family to buy one set of toys for the sons and a different one for the daughters so that they end up buying more toys overall) and the parents (who may have Certain Ideas about what is proper for a little girl to do).

Yep, they are taking steps to minimize the segregating effect, and I appreciate it. It's certainly a far cry from when Friends was initially released and the TV ads deliberately omitted the phrase "you can build" from the copy, presumably under the assumption that the notion of building anything would be off-putting to the dear little feminine flowers.