IAmWillGibson

I've been stewing over Cuusoo quite a bit lately, and I'm not sure there's a unified point among those using it. Although maybe there is, and I'm just not getting it. Is it about advertising this one wicked model I've made, or is it about concepts and ideas for potentially interesting new directions for LEGO to take? I find myself not caring much for the licensing ideas [especially anything Star Wars related] and a lot of the really fancy models seem... silly to me. Like the Huge pirate ship that's front paged now. It's beautiful. It's a spectacular creation and a work of art. But to suggest it as a Cuusoo release is just silly, because there's no way at all it would ever be replicated, even if it got to 10,000. It would go through necessary reductions and and up as a Flagship-level boat. Which is still good, yes, but not exactly boundary-expanding. Looking at the Minecraft experiment, and how the final product reflects Minecraft conceptually but pretty much disregarded the suggested model entirely [which, really, is exactly how Cuusoo should work in reality], I wonder how different the sub and satellite models were from suggestion to released set.

No one on Cuusoo seems to like the idea... But maybe if I added a few dozen Stormtroopers, it'd get votes. Anywho, I really would like an official Graveyard type thing, because it's pretty simple and nicely modifiable in that you can make it "spooky" for the Monster Fighters theme, but could easily remove that gloss and have a regular, respectable cemetery for people who want that sort of thing in their LEGO town. I'm sure there are people that would. Although I think if LEGO went for it, it'd feature blockier stones of a more non-denominational style [read: not crosses] even though in my [limited] experimentation, crosses conveyed the idea far more efficiently and at the proper scale.

Cuusooing is hard. I thought I had a brainwave a came across an idea for a thing that hadn't really been handled THAT much, and has a big, cultish fanbase, and quite the massive number of fans on the Facebook, and was something I personally like quite a bit, which I was sure could be a perfect bit of kindling to start what could be a solid massing of supporters. But... how do I even get people to see the project? For some reason Facebook isn't presenting me with simple avenues of just posting the link for people to see. And how would i do that and not just look like a spammer, even if I knew what I was doing? The internet is hard, man. Cuusoo is hard. I think I'm too old for all this social networking.

It was the new one down on Dundas. I didn't contact LEGO because it was clearly an opened box and no error on their part, so I can't image they'd have any reason to help me out on it. I guess it couldn't hurt to ask, though. Speaking of Winners, I was at HomeSense [which is the same thing] looking for the City of Atlantis on clearance. There were two there, one for 60 bucks and one on clearance for 44, but it wasn't a sealed box. I took 'em both to a lady on the floor and said "Why is one on clearance and thew other not?" She gave me some dumb answer and said "Why don't you just get the cheaper one?" To which I replied "Because it's open. I don't know what's there and not there." And so she dumped the contents out to investigate, and there were a bunch of LEGO bags with numbers and such, but when I looked, they were clearly opened and re-taped and filled with sub-Dollarama-level Lego knockoff junk. She's like "Look, LEGO." And I said, "Lady, that ain't LEGO." Regardless, I didn't buy the City of Atlantis.

New Heights in Jackassery A Cautionary Tale So here's the situation. I was at an unusual Walmart last night, in Mississauga. It was a bit of a rush job, and I was feeling spendy and impulsive, and I found a Catwoman Chase buried on the shelf, the only one there. The box was a little crunchy, like maybe it'd been sat on, but what the hey, I don't care about boxes. I buy it and as is my habit when buying smaller sets on the go, I forgo the bag, open her up, and transfer the contents into my pockets for more efficient travel, tossing the box and receipt on the way out. And a little later, when I had a moment, I got to investigating what I had here, and I immediately noticed some weirdness. There were the instructions, two bags, the grey triangle piece, the the two parts of the cycle. Looked all well and good. But... fiddling around, where was Catwoman? Yeah, she was gone. Totally not there. How the crap could this happen? Investigating closer, I found to my shock and amazement, that the bags had been opened and then re-sealed. I'm not even sure how whoever did it did it, but they were. The seam along one end looked normal, but behaved a little differently, acted a bit crispier, and opened up pretty easily with a little tug. So I thought, dammit, someone bought this thing, removed the Catwoman, and then went to the trouble of gluing the entire package up again to return it. It got a bit weirder when I finally got it all open and inventoried it. It is officially missing Catwoman, her whip, the jewel, one 2x2 brown tile [oddly enough] and all the standard 'extra' parts, the 1x1 studs and stuff there always are. So someone clearly opened the whole thing, probably built it, and THEN decided to return it minus the Catwoman. That's... a lot of effort. And I'd almost respect the thief more if he'd just take the figure and been done with it rather than actually fondle every damn thing. Anyway, that was a bit of a novel, but there's a message in there: Avoid Walmart. Avoid less-than-perfect boxes. Keep your receipts. And if anyone has a Catwoman for trade, let me know.

I hope we find out more about this Haunted House soon. I'm perfectly comfortable skipping the Ghost Train in favour of it if it comes with some of those tasty new ghosts. I love the idea of the train but I'm a bit ehh about the execution and I know the cost is gonna be too high for something I'm not in love with. Having said that, I also hope that it falls under the Creator line or something, because those always clock in at a good parts/cost ratio. And the house itself looks quite capable of being de-spookied, which is cool. I could see with a bit of creative use f bulk white to turn it into a big ol' mansion to have in the Christmas Village. Sure it's a little dark, but nothing a snowman can't brighten up.

Yeah, I remain big into this theme. There's lots to like, even though I already see a good amount of stuff I'm eager to change about these official models. The Hearse, for example, has that giant goofy sticker on it, and this might be the first time I consciously do not apply the recommended decoration. It's just... too big and silly. And I'm a fan of the bone engine, so, you know. Anyway, more guys to populate my Cemetery are fantastic. A while ago I made a gothic organ for my Vampire, which I will from now on assume LEGO was inspired by, 'cause I like taking credit. And as for continuing Monster Hunters, there is still the place all Horror media must go at some point: Cthulhu.

I can't help but wonder what percentage of the 10,000+ people who supported this will actually buy it. That's gotta be a tough ratio for LEGO to have to straddle. Sorta makes me question the entire CUUSOO platform, really. Although I don't think I like crowdsourcing as a product idea generating mechanism in general. It just seems so rife with potential badness. I mean, I can see why LEGO set the consideration threshold at 10,000, if only to keep them from having to review much of anything anything [because what will ever get that high?], but the real danger starts if and when they actually do. Because in order for anything to get close to that, it needs major saturation or exposure or whatever, people who will see and support, but those have to be people from outside of LEGO communities. I feel like such an absolutely tiny percentage of supporters will spend any money when something comes to fruition. I've seen this before where a creator becomes aware of some vote among fans about what license for a company to get, and the creator gets people mobilized and gets the vote pushed through, but those voting, while fans of said property, were not fans of the platform, so the produced product despite however many votes ended up being a flop. But then, LEGO doesn't guarantee they'll make whatever gets to 10,000, so maybe I'm just wasting my time pondering nothing.

Yeah, I'm generally pretty cool on Star Wars Lego, but Jabba's Palace is really nice. Although it's likely to be prohibitively expencive for me to ever get, but still. I can appreciate it from afar. I do have to say the reviewer guy seems like a bit of a knob, though. No offence if anyone knows the guy! I'm probably just jealous that he gets to be there.

I went slightly mental in the past few days, but the sales have been too hard to ignore considering the normal Canadian price on a lot of these things. I got lucky at Walmart. King's Carriage Ambush for 27 bucks, Woody's Roundup for 26 (nice set once you shrink it down to Minifigure size), Earth Defence HQ for 50, The Mill for 15, Fangpyre Mech for 15, Luke's Landspeeder for 12 and Mace Windu's Jedi Starfighter for 10. I'd thought I was going to try and focus on only a few specific themes, but... yeah. So much for that.

I'd like to add two more Minifigures to the list of those I'd be happy to part with, which are Jack Sparrow and Will Turner as they appear in The Mill set. I should also note my numbers there are just ballpark, feel free to make offers if any of these guys strike your fancy. I'd rather they find new homes than they live unloved in some box here.

I'm sorta feeling they might be Voodoo zombies. I dunno why... just a feeling.

This set still ranks as my most anticipated this year. Higher even than LOTR, which I'm a pretty big nerd for. Although it's odd a horror-ey theme doesn't have one of these.

So I know this is totally not worthy, but as it's the only original thing I've ever made that's even vaguely 'complete,' I CUUSOOd this thing! I figure, hey, there really isn't anything like it out there, so there might be some chance, right? Hit it up!

Hello, I don't have a huge batch of anything, but I currently have a sealed Grand Opening Minifigure set from the Fairview Mall Toronto location for sale/trade, as well as Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, C-3PO and R2-D2 from 8092 Luke's Landspeeder [including lightsabers] as a group. Based on average Bricklink prices, I'd be interested in around 100 dollars for the Grand Opening set, and around 20ish for the four Star Wars figures. Money or trade equivalent is cool. I'm specifically interested in some of the new Dinosaurs. I'm located in Canada. Thanks!

Not that this'll add much to the conversation, but I just checked, and Baby T-Rex will definitely not fit in this configuration. Neither will an owl, teddy bear, or bat, should you have considered those. A baby chimp, however, fits perfectly, although doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The train is boss. I wish it didn't come with the plane and cost less, but what are ya gonna do? Looks like I hafta start saving my pennies.

I've been seeing the Bricktober figures everywhere around here over the last little while, and in big numbers. It just bums me out because I remember someone on here somewhere saying they found them on the shelf, and they scanned at a penny [how they would have when they were free] so I got excited, but then saw they scanned at $2.99 and got sad again. Three bucks seems like a lot to ask for a figure that requires the homework these do. Now, if they weren't glued, I'd probably have bought a few.

I can't see a compelling reason for that but... good?

I've been fighting with the legs quite a bit and I can't seem to come up with anything that keeps the proportions this has. I'd be likely to go with this with these inverted as the feet, if only the claw things came in black. But then that has the effect of making the other limbs and tail look too small. But all in all, the more skeletal shape of these dudes have really grown on me in the last day and a half they've been standing on my desk. And he, Minifigures don't have knees either, so they fit in that way. Now to Bricklink the required parts to build about 25 more. For reference, I was aiming for the original, original Alien design, like here.

Now, these have been done many times before, and better I'm sure, but I set out to make a simple minifigure-scale Alien [Xenomorph for you nerdier people] that had all the features it was required to have, and still feel aesthetically appropriate when compared to a normal Minifigure. My goals always trend more towards "Make it look like what LEGO woulda made." Here's the result, which I made in LDD as it was easier to do it there than it was to get an in-focus photo. [i did have the parts to make two of these guys, and I think it'd be neato to make a bunch more.] So yeah. Simple as a pimple, but as that was the goal, I'm pleased. And easy to make in bulk. Now if only they'd make that t-bar in black...

I sorta hate the robot limbs... I think? Actually, no, I don't. I sorta hate them in this theme specifically. But then I always found Steampunk to be a very goofy quasi-genre anyways, and I prefer to not think of these guys as Steampunk. And with a few swaps here and there, they won't be. I mean, this is LEGO afterall. Swapping stuff is the point. The robot arms and legs will find a home on a more appropriate figure elsewhere in the collection, where these guys will all be non-cyborg Adventuring gentlemen like I want them to be. The monsters are still the bomb, though. Nice angry vampire to go with the happy S2 version. I just need more dudes to populate my Graveyard.

Kre-O IS Oxford. It's some sorta licensed licensed thing. I dunno. But, yeah, this stuff is all produced by Oxford, for Hasbro.

I only recently completed my Fellowship out of Bricklinked bits and bobs, and love it as I do... these guys will be a nice compliment. I'm glad I opted to make mine traditional Yellow and more "book based," which is to say not "movie accurate," thus making the collecting of this new group not a total redundancy. So yeah... I likes 'em. If I get the full fellowship remains to be seen, but I'm sure I'll have about 13 Frodos by the end of it.

I still find it strange that LEGO is trying to make figuring out which Minifigure you're getting harder, when it's flat rarity anyways. What percentage of collectors get all of them, and which only get a few? And under what rationale? I mean, MB still prints a code on their blind packs for the HALO figures, making it really easy to get whatever you may be looking for, but there's different rarities there. It's like the systems are backwards, man. Either way, 10 minutes of patience and I was able to get all 16 in one go. I just still feel sorta bad manhandling those packs I didn't buy.