Zeya

If I had a big attic or basement I would have considered storing them nested or flattened in boxes. But I have a small house; homes here don't have attics or basements due to earthquakes. I kept mine for a little bit. But I realized I was simply running out of valuable space, so in the recycle bin they went. What I do is cut out the theme name on the box (e.g. "Atlantis", "Pirates") and slip that into the cover of my instructions binders. That way I can tell which binder is which on the shelf.

That shiny gold chrome color. I've been in love with the little Pirate doubloons since I was a kid. I'm stoked that the POTC sets will have new gold bars. It just gets me excited for some reason and I still feel a little bit like I have real treasure when I look at it.

This website has scans of old instructions, if that's all you need: http://www.brickfactory.info/set/index.html Of course if you want the original instructions for a review (photos etc), then I wish you luck.

Okay I'll change my guy's torso then. I'll just make it plain black. Minifig stuff can be so awkward in LDD. When I made some official sets (forestmen), I swear I spent half the time of the build trying to get the figs to match the instructions as closely as possible. About to turn over my part of the build...

Are torso prints frowned upon? I noticed that all of the figs are lacking prints, and I'm wondering if I should follow suit. EDIT: Oh wait the soldiers have torso prints. I guess it's okay then.

How to build a scale model of your childhood dream car with Legos This was just published today. You can tell this guy put a lot of planning and effort into making F1 cars out of Lego. He's got spreadsheets and uses MLCAD... Pretty impressive stuff. I think everyone in this section will want to read up on it.

I don't like any of those weapon pieces in the blacksmith set. I think they might be preliminary though, since they all have strange grooves and indentations. I like how there is a blank armor chest piece. That will be great for making a generic knight fig in a MOC. And yeah, looks like this set includes a chicken and bucket (I wasn't sure at first). I think it's also funny how some of the box art for the blacksmith imply that the knight is ambushing the blacksmith. But then you can turn it into the blacksmith selling the knight some arms. Like maybe he started out attacking and then the blacksmith turned it around and out-witted him into buying some of his wares, lol. I'm liking the functionality of the mill. I'm really looking forward to building that one. And I've been thinking, it seems like Lego has taken a bit of a twist here. They took the Dragon Knights and gave them a bit of a wolfpack feel to them, especially with the carriage ambush set. It's starting to seem like the Dragon Knights are pretty decentralized and using some guerilla warfare tactics. But then... they do have a prison, which is a strange structure to have while lacking a home base. I'm hoping that we will see an exclusive S@H set for Kingdoms. What do you guys think? Is that a possibility, or would we have heard about it by now? To my knowledge there isn't much info out there on new exclusives this year; the only thing I've read about is the larger City space shuttle exclusive.

At TRU yesterday, I got: 6754 Family Home - $65 (Just one on the shelf in good condition. I thought this was long gone from shelves!) 5891 Apple Tree House - $45 2824 City Advent Calendar 2010 - $35 (I didn't want it because I think it's pretty weak, but my girlfriend wants to save it for Christmas later this year.) My girlfriend took a stab at modeling our house with the Apple Tree House pieces, while I made the model #3 of Family Home. Valentine's Day fun!

Thanks for the info! He's referring to this sentence by the way:

Ah okay, I see. An error happens that says to enter "16" as the amount you want to buy. That's kind of weird. I was freaking out for a second, thinking about quitting my day job and selling collectible minifigures on ebay.

What? He's selling a full set of 16 s3 figs for something like US $13, if I'm doing my math right (2.30 * 1.2 + 9.74). What's the catch here? Are they lacking accessories or something? This might be the first international store I end up buying from if this is true.

Has anyone bought an entire box online? If so, can you share your experience (cost, what website etc)?

I just checked it out. That's a pretty neat marketing toy. I wonder what happens when you get them all. Heh, I bet you end up matching dozens of tennis players before you get an elf, just like in real life!

Cool, thanks for letting us know. What set was it, by the way? I can't imagine a set staying together for that long. Was it stored away in a box somewhere?

I did a bit of research into this recently. I was worried about grip loss because I wanted to store my bricks stacked. (I really like to keep everything organized. Stacking bricks for storage means that they take up less space, and it's easier to get many of the same brick all at once.) Anyway, what I found was that keeping bricks stacked does not have a significant or alarming effect on grip strength. This is assuming that the bricks are stored at a reasonable temperature. Real harm happens at high temperatures; heat makes plastic bricks prone to warping. But simply keeping things stacked (i.e. keeping a model together for a long time) isn't a worry and won't make your bricks unusable. Sidebar: UV light can change the color of bricks over time. There is another thread about that somewhere.

I think this is worth cross-posting, considering the circumstances. I made this thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=51842&pid=922306&st=0entry922306 ...because I stumbled across a new Pirates publication. I mention it here, because it's almost certain to introduce new lore and character names for Pirates. Here is my original post:

I'm really wondering why they're printing this long after all Pirates sets are off the shelves. It's not like the book is going to sell Lego sets. You'd think they would make a Pharaoh's Quest book or Atlantis.

I was browsing around Barnes & Noble's website (they're a book store in the USA), and stumbled across this book called "Brickbeard's Treasure": http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Lego-Pirates/Hannah-Dolan/e/9780756677077/?itm=4&USRI=lego+pirates It says February 2011, so it must be new! I know there's that other thread trying to catalogue all known Pirates theme characters, so I thought this would be of interest.

This is probably a good time to link to the dedicated storage and sorting thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26213&st=270 There's a lot of talk about containers and organization over there. I recently got a cabinet like the one you linked there that I talked about recently in that thread.

Yeah that's how the lamp sphere is in the Winter Toy Shop set: it's kind of loose so you can spin it around. I like it too. Sidebar: I have to say that those winter sets are really quite lively, detailed, and interesting builds. Nice unique parts like that and pieces you don't see in every set, used in interesting ways. I can't wait for next winter's set. (They better have one!)

Well, take a look at this image. This is the lamp post from the Winter Toy Shop set. My link Two of those pieces you linked come together to form a sphere. Well, actually there's a hole in the bottom big enough to fit around part of a 1x1 cylinder brick. I'm pretty sure these are the molds they're using for the new globe.

USA Only (I assume. Maybe also Canada?) This is kind of an obscure discount that not everybody can use. You have to have this "Passport Unlimited" card (LINK) to get these deals. I have this card through my company (large corporation), and had it at another company too (large corporation). The deals I found are basically 10% off Target.com orders, and 5% off Barnes & Noble orders. (There weren't any discounts for TRU, Lego Stores, Walmart, or Borders.) Here's some info I copied from the website with some pertinent details: Well, it's something anyway. Maybe the B&N discount can piggyback with the PotC preorder deal. Or maybe not. EDIT: Oh and it looks like with Target.com, spending over $50 on an order will get you free shipping on certain items, and it looks like most Lego sets over $20 tend to qualify for free shipping. So the 10% discount should be pretty nice for buying larger sets that aren't on sale/clearance.

Will little fire pieces fit in the exhaust pipe of the jetpacks?

What shows, exactly? Can you fill in a noob on what the major Lego conventions are as well? Which ones does TLG set up at / participate in?

It's a reflection in his visor. Those images are rendered on a computer. Real plastic probably won't reflect quite like that. They made it look extra pretty for marketing purposes.