mrklaw

Not sure why the negative comments about the jet. For a £10 pocket money set like the cruiser I think it looks great. Helicopter is ok too (not so keen on the boat) The jet has a nice chunky look and works nicely as a baby companion to sonic boom. Next to the Fast Flyer it'd look a little chunky I guess. If I had any criticism, it'd be that the bottom is too basic and open. I'd happily sacrifice the landing gear for a more sculpted bottom (ooer) To be honest these would only interest me as stocking fillers for the kids!- for myself I like the larger sets like sonic boom or cool cruiser. I think Lego are on fire with this years larger creator vehicles

Im sure some aspects of blind bagging are frustrating if you want 'x' amount of a particular character. But that's blind bagging for you. Not unique to Lego at all, so there must be some popularity. I expect the majority of purchases are as gifts or impulse buys at the checkout, and are bought randomly. So army builders and those spending 20 minutes feeling all the bags I would expect to be a (vocal) minority

I have a couple of the 16x 0.3 organisers for small special pieces (snot bricks, cones etc), they are really useful :) and having kids the lockable lids help prevent accidents. They do nice dividers for their 4 and 7 litre boxes too. The US sorter has 7 deep ish compartments and you can put 1 in the 4 litre box and 2 stack in the 7 litre. Thethere are the shallower hobby trays that stack 2 in the 4 litre boxes and have more compartments, so maybe useful for smaller pieces in lower quantities. I have a couple of their tower units with 4 litre boxes in. In the UK at least you can configure almost anything - nearly ordered a 3x8 (so 24 boxes in a connected set of drawers)l check here for the kinds of things they do Link

that stanley stuff looks great but its really expensive here in the UK

I keep my technics sorted separately from 'vanilla' lego - it has a 7 drawer unit to itself. - big technic. Beams 7 holes and up - small technic. Beams 5 holes and fewer - misc technic. large turntables, tracks etc. - two drawers of small parts - each compartmentalised for bushes, axles etc etc - wheels etc. - one spare drawer (oh the luxury!) which is currently being used for breaking down sets into before sorting away

its official - link UK only, £1.99 per figure, set of 9 characters - available at retail from July 1st. Brawny Boxer, The Stealth Swimmer, Relay Runner, Judo Fighter, Tactical Tennis Player, Flexible Gymnast, Wondrous Weightlifter, Horseback Rider and Agile Archer - I expect the Lego stratford store will do quite well with these :)

Yes, both still available. Shipping isn't a problem but is expensive. I figured out it'd be about £65 for the two together to the US. I have numbers at home I can post later where I think I broke them down separately, but call it roughly £30 postage.

which two of these three? Town Hall, R2D2, Pet Shop? I already have one Pet Shop but I think I want another so I can have the two house halves together (one is a bit lonely), and mod the second shop into a different store. I don't have a Town Hall but it doesn't particularly appeal to me as a build - I'd be buying it more for having it in my collection (Pet shop, Fire brigade, cafe corner, grand emporium). But it might make a nice standalone addition not in the street, maybe build a fountain/park in front of it.

Put the items in a little wanted list, then search against that? You can have a bunch of wanted lists, so it's easy to use temporary ones for what you're describing

RC VW? Do you have a link? Tried searching but couldn't find anything. RC R2 might be difficult. You'd need two motors and even the M motors are pretty big. Is there a blue or white light brick?

Congrats. I think this has a good chance of happening, Lego have a selection of buildings to choose from. Price/piece count might be an issue, previous sets have been relatively small, but the pieces are fairly standard. I just hope they don't try and turn it into a city sle 'simplified' building. Also, as Lego have said they'll only produce one building, I'd at least like alternative instructions either from Lego or the originator, so we can buy multiple sets and convert them into the other buildings with a few extra bricks here and there

those parts were quite a lot bigger though.

This is perhaps a broadening of the topic, but this infuriates me. Like you say, not unique to Lego, many other toy companies do it - produce toys based on PG-13 material that is clearly aimed at a younger audience than is advised to watch the movie. This puts pressure on parents who perhaps buy those toys, to then take their kids to see the movie. Hey, there was a toy so it's probably an 'ok' pg-13 right? It's all part of the pressure movie studios can put on parents. I would prefer that toys can only be marketed to an age appropriate for the subject. If you have a pg-13 movie, you should not be selling your toys to 7 year olds. Back to Lego. I think they really need to consider where they are it he market. They cannot continue to court AFOLs with expensive exclusive sets while continuing to insist they are a '6-11' company. lots of their core sets have building guidelines older than that. So is it just the themes? Why restrict your product in such a way?

For your first point, Lego rejected it before even looking at the license (going by their information), so we don't know whether it would be difficult. They re open to licensed sets so licensing doesn't scare them. For your second point - if size is an issue they should give piece count guidelines, like nothing over 1000 pieces. If all we are going to get from cuusoo is little mini models, I'm going to lose interest pretty quickly. As long as a model uses in production parts with no demand for new moods or colours etc, production shouldn't be expensive, it's just packaging. And these will be small runs, probably mail order only, so not a big risk

So, it's ok to license POPULAR pg-13 material that breaks lego's guidelines, as long as lots of people have seen it and it'll make lots of money? The very definition of double standards I think. Seems like the guidelines are a handy list of excuses. I'm not opposed to that list, many companies have similar ones, I'm more frustrated by the inconsistent application of those guidelines by Lego And why would it matter if the license is dead? It's cuusoo, a project designed to get niche models made for smaller audiences, not to seek out the next huge Lego product range to sell millions. Edit: Come on. It's clearly a Geisha. Everybody knows its a geisha. So Lego can get around things by simply renaming them? In that case a companion' should be fine ;)

At least the guy who submitted Serenity has said he'll release the instructions if it doesn't pass, so fans can build it anyway.

Rufus, in your opinion, does the scale of the head lend itself to smoothing out the head using curved/sloped bricks? and how about adding PF? Model looks a little smaller than I'd originally thought so it might be difficult. i'd be happy to remove most of the other internal 'pop out' bits if I could add RC PF to it. reading your review, this part has me very close to hitting the 'buy' button I got this same feeling when building the VW Camper and it was fantastic. I have sets I like the final look of more (imperial shuttle, Space Shuttle), but they didn't give me the same enjoyment during building.

It doesn't rely heavily on those themes. One of the characters in an ensemble show has a dubious career, but that isn't the main driver of the show at all. I'd say her interactions with Mal are more important (they clearly have a chemistry) Of course he can. My point isn't that he shouldn't, its that Lego are getting free publicity from these licensed sets when clearly they are going to get turned down on 'appropriateness' grounds. Lego are using the community to get free PR and then turning around and saying 'no'. By letting people know earlier (eg after 500 votes, do a quick 'theme suitability' test), then you are less likely to get the community build up a head of steam and then get frustrated.

nah, built in shiatsu foot massage :)

Come ON Lego, sort yourself out and work out what cuusoo is. Firefly is a western/sci fi adventure show, no more 'adult' than most mainstream tv shows. If you are going to take this tack, we'll never get anything considered except pg-13 stuff. It's ridiculous, especially as pointed out, you have to be over 13 or 18 to even submit or vote for a set, so all votes and projects will skew higher than 6-11. And their own sets go up to 16+ (granted for build difficulty thou) If they are going to be like this, tell projects early, so they don't build up a head of steam. Firefly and the Winchester both got good exposure through the actors etc tweeting about it, and even talking about it on TV. So Lego gets PR exposure for free, then refuses to do the projects. They can't have their cake and eat it too. If the themes aren't age-appropriate, then Lego shouldn't want Simon pegg etc talking about Lego in the context of Shaun of the Dead on TV

Thanks for the merge. It's an interesting discussion. Doe the town forum only allow sets/MOCs that would fit in a minifig scale, or does it allow anything (like cars) that thematically fit in a town setting?

First, I'd be tempted to split out original and licensed into two separate streams on cuusoo, so that original MOCs get more focus. Second, I'd recommend not fussing too much. It's early days and I expect things will settle down over time and good MOCs will bubble up. Thirdly, and perhaps slightly provocatively, what is the prime driver here? Being able to self-promote is an important part of the mix on cuusoo. The nature of the beast is that you can't just rely on havi a great model then sit back and wait for the votes to come it. You have to spread the word. Not just on Lego sites, but enthusiast sites for the theme you are developing. Maybe see if you can physically display your model at a relevant show. Licensed products will generally be easier to promote, as you can try to get actors etc retweeting about your model. But all facets of life have active fanbases, you just have to dig a little more for some of them.

Isn't that almost the entire point of cuusoo though? To support niche sets that appeal to a relatively small audience. Enough to justify a small production run but not a full line like their other sets. If you don't like it, carry on supporting the projects you do like, and perhaps spread the word to help get support - like those existing supported projects have.

A sound brick would have been perfect. R2 is famous for his beeps and boops. I'd previously written this set off, didn't interest me at all. But those photos look really good. I still would prefer wheels or even PF, and light/sound bricks (which would be difficult/impossible to MOD, we'd nee Lego to produce them) So I'll wait to see what people do with him - I think he'll be the most modded UCS set ever :)

Well done. Love this set and I think it has a decent shot at being made. Biggest question mark for me is whether Lego have a size limit.currently produced sets are quite small