Haltiamieli

Well done, it's instantly recognizable (though frankly the painting is so iconic to Finns that you would be hard pressed to fail so utterly that it wouldn't be ) and well arranged. Maybe Aino should have a slightly less happy face in the middle part? On the whole Kalevala MOCs are a cool idea, maybe I should try something like that too some time.

Oh, shirtless orc. That would be nice.

I agree about the headdresses being too fancy (though I certainly would like to see them produced on some other more appropriate minifigure), but not exactly about the female shepherd being a very odd choice – this is Lego we are talking about, they are not doing historical figures per se, they are doing things that we as masses perceive to be historical. Regardless of the real historical authencity we do recognize an archetype of shepherdess, so it could very well be made into minifigure. And a female shepherd would steer farther away from biblical imagery than a male, which in TLC's viewpoint would probably be a good thing.

Congratulations, Yatkuu! That was a spurt of legends, earned with hard work.

But Series 6 came out in January, well ahead of St. Patrick's Day? I agree about the Bunny Suit Guy, though.

Yeah, sorry about confusion. That's indeed a new sword mold, modeled after Frodo's sword that is called Sting. Might be a nice short sword for custom elves. Didn't we hear about the Pirates of the Caribbean "battle pack" practically when it was first found on the shop shelf, so it is probably not impossible that the same could happen with LotR too?

No, it's the Gladiator's sword from the CMF series, though in a new colour. Sting, of course, is a new mold.

Is it still unkown what kind of torso design Théoden has under the breastplate? In Grogall's HR pic what little of it is seen looks like green with purple details?

Ingenious and nicely varieting MOCs! I too thought immediately about Dino Riders when I saw the new dinosaurs, though my own plan (if I ever have enough money to buy any of them) is to use the dinosaurs as fantasy mounts and beasts of burden for my orcs. Admittedly I'm slightly saddened that the Torosaurus, which was the biggest and coolest one out of the DR toys me and my brother had, has not been covered yet.

I would die for those figures to be made, let's cooperate. ...or maybe I'm not that fanatic, but they would be nice anyway. Most of those designs are rather more lively/creative/niche than the CMFs tend to be, though. Even the ones that have ended up in the CMF series have often been watered down/commercialized/simplified somewhat. Clearly these were drawn for the job application as examples of his wide range of design skills rather than as actual design suggestions per se (as evidenced by the use of other companies' IP). On the other hand we have seen so many of those realized (with some alterations) already that it seems inevitable that there will be (some) more in the future. But I suppose there's still some more obvious fantastical/historical creatures than the high elf warrior waiting in the line.

I personally am a traditionalist and like my minifigs yellow, but in the coming summer LotR, the first licensed theme that interests me, will put my faith on test. I have even already collected together all the flesh parts that I've accumulated from bricklinked torsos or licensed sets I've bought for parts, in anticipation of the theme's release. There's too many fleshy torsos that I could really change all the LotR people to yellows, so I will have to tolerate fleshies when it comes to LotR. I just hope I will otherwise stay true to yellow. Apart from tradition and non-interest in past and current licenced themes, I think (though this might be because of my opinion, not vice versa) that Lego's usual flesh colour does make the minifigures look a bit lifeless and deadish. Amen to that.

It is hard, very hard, but the AFOL community backed Modular Western Town is still the second most supported project at the moment, so I don't think it's time to despair yet. It seems almost certain that it will reach 10 000 votes sooner or later. At least last week the western town even got a few more new votes than the BttF DeLorean ahead of it.

Frankly I think even a cooper is too obscure as a craftman for the general populace and also fits too well into the "guy with a sort of apron and a hammer" category I proposed above, with fletchers and potters and whatnot. We might some day get a cooper workshop in some new D2C set in the style of MMV (or maybe as a Cuusoo product), but personally I don't see it as a real possibility for the CMF series, even a distant one. Any of those would be wonderful, but I suspect the latter two would be seen as too boring and/or religious by the TLC, though who knows. They can always surprise us, afaik we don't really know the exact stance TLC has towards religion in their sets. A medieval monk might be far enough removed from the contemporary world to be acceptable.

I have to admit that while I would personally welcome with open arms any medieval civilians in the CMF series, they would be rather hard to design so that they would be interesting to the masses. Some sort of farmer/peasant I think could be possible, with a torso design that would be somewhat passable both in modern and medieval farm settings, and with some new accessory like a (new) scythe or an animal (a shepherd for example would be nice, but certainly pushing the limits of the accessory size if a sheep would be included). Artesans, I fear, would just look like "guys with different aprons and hammers" to most people. I would love a minstrel/troubadour figure with a lute, or a herald/messenger with a trumpet.

Yeah, and on the other hand there's no "medieval window insert" for the 2x2 square window frame. Not a good situation for either building style. It would be great to get both those parts (I wouldn't have use for the window glass part, but I can understand many others would).

Series 7 is looking better and better. My initial "have to get" list is 9 minifigures, more than in any previous series I think. One question though: is there any backprinting in the swimmer's torso? I suppose there's a number, otherwise it could maybe be used for a black dress.

Cool campaign. I'm gonna be a bit different and admit that Bert and Ernie were the only ones I didn't recognize, as I've never watched Sesame Street and have very little knowledge on the Muppets (well, I've seen Avenue Q... ). I wouldn't have recognized Lucky Luke either if he was alone, I don't think he's that recognisable by the colours, but the Dalton brothers were an obvious giveaway.

The Lego Group would have bankrupted decades ago if they did that skewed market research. We have no reason to believe that they wouldn't give fairly comparable representations of different theme ideas to their surveys. That's the best way to play safe and not to take unexpected risks (they may deliberately take foreseen risks, of course). I'm pretty sure there exists a few Zoo theme pitches in the Lego archives - some mere sketches and some more fully developed. But such a theme has not yet (as far as we know, Lego is of course a few steps ahead of our knowledge) made it's way to the actual production. I'm not exactly as sure, but quite sure still, that sooner or later even that theme will have its day (and there will be much rejoicing). The more animal molds Lego chooses to produce for other themes, more easier it comes for a zoo theme to make it someday. Actually, I don't think such a theme has been a realistic possibility for that many years, the Lego seems to have changed their attitude towards (and their ability to make) multitude of specialised and detailedly printed animals. The time when the only printed animal was the horse and the other animal molds could be counted with one's fingers is not that far away, and it's been gradually expansing change since then. If I would be a betting man, I might make a small bet for a minor Zoo subtheme for Lego City in 2013. But only a small one. There's only so many City subthemes one can release in a year, and Lego also "has" to churn out new versions of the usual suspects like police, firemen and others. That's the way things are.

Well done. The only "problem" is that this set is very easily transformed to Kingdoms style and as such does not offer much surprises. But of course it is a very good and natural choice for a starting point for your series. It will be interesting to see how you do with the ones that need a little bit more tweaking! Changing the flickfire ballista to a catapult is a good choice, though. If I may offer some (hopefully constructive even if not noteworthy or helpful) critisism, I personally think that the red cheese slopes do look a bit out of place on the pillars. Those were dark bley in the Fantasy Era version, and both Outpost Attack and King's Castle use some amounts of dark bley details to break the grey wall syndrome. As it is now I think this one has a bit too little of that colour compared to them. Perhaps more controversially, I think it wouldn't look bad to add a bit more brown too, Kingdoms being in some ways more down-to-earth than its predecessor and to counter-weight the fact that bright red is rather more blatant colour than dark blue. My idea would be to try changing the red 1x6 plates and jumper plates (the ones with crossbows) to brown.

The funny thing about Gollum minifig is that if he would stand straight up he would probably be taller than normal minifigures instead of Hobbit size. Maybe not as tall as Woody from Toy Story, but tall anyway.

Of course it's separate. The same hairpiece is even used on Haldir too.

While it's not exactly honest to claim that there is no such things as housing or cafes in the City theme, it's not that far from the truth either. And even if the Star Wars films are already over-whelmingly populated by male characters and there's nothing Lego can do about that, I do find it slightly lacklustre that they have managed to put Padme, a core character of the prequel trilogy, in... three sets over the years? D'oh. I don't agree with all of her arguments, some may be even quite stupid or uninformed, but I don't think she deserves that sort of angry bashing either.

Nope, it was confirmed in 2009 that Jackson and Del Toro had changed minds and decided to scrap the idea of a "bridge film" and just do The Hobbit in two parts, even if there will be concurrent happenings included that are not in the book like the doings of the White Council.

Maybe mine? Very fitting set for a slightly fantasy-oriented castle world, I agree. Of the upcoming sets the Vampire Castle from Monster Fighters is quite a nobrainer, if your world has room for a dark "fright knightish" faction. The haunted house does look very promising too, whether it's Monster Fighters exclusive or a standalone set. I've been pondering about buying the 5766 Log Cabin and modifying it to a small medieval farmhouse. But I haven't yet seen it in any significant sale.

Buzz around this revelation is quite understandable considering that we've had plenty of info and pictures of the Town Hall to hyperventilate about for a good while now, but this is the first hint that a set such as the haunted house might be up for release at all, let alone there's a blurry picture too. Besides, there's 58 posts in this thread and 106 in the Town Hall official press release thread.