Lyichir

It doesn't currently, and even once the technology is capable of matching Lego's quality, there's no telling whether fan-designed or printed bricks will necessarily reflect the quality and safety standards Lego aims for in their own bricks. It'll be interesting to see what effects there will be on the secondhand Lego market when 3D printing becomes available to the majority of consumers.

This is a common argument and one that I think deserves a refutation. Yes, Lego is a creative medium and one that is easily customizable. But Lego puts an awful lot of work into the stories behind their themes, and it's for a reason—the theme's pre-packaged story and characters are a jumping-off point for builders (especially kids) to draw inspiration from for their own creations. Yet, as this topic is revealing, these pre-formed stories only rarely include female figs in leadership roles (at least compared to their male counterparts). And girls and boys alike often want figs that they can relate to. Yes, a girl can swap Brickbeard's head with that of the female Pirate crewmate if she wants the captain to be a girl like her—but why should she be forced to change her figs around while a boy doesn't have to change a thing? The importance of diversity in Lego's themes only becomes more important in themes like Ninjago which have a heavy media component. A girl can put Nya's head on one of the Ninja, but that doesn't change what the Ninja look or act like in the TV show or graphic novels. In themes such as these, minifigures represent discrete characters, so while crafting your own characters and story is still possible it can put your story at odds with the one your classmates and friends are watching on TV and discussing at recess. There's absolutely nothing wrong with disassembling your figs and creating your own characters. But there's nothing wrong with leaving your figs together as the characters they were designed to be either. For this reason it's worth considering whether Lego's female fans are given as much choice between the two, or whether they're unfairly forced to do the former just to represent themselves in the themes they like most.

Yup. Duplo bricks are designed to be compatible with traditional Lego bricks, so that youngsters transitioning between the two can use them together at least until they have enough Lego bricks to build whatever they want. And I've seen lots of models integrating Duplo with Lego, especially for complex landscaping—using Duplo as an understructure is useful for efficiently building supports for large mountains or cliffs. Using specialized Duplo parts for their shape alone, on an exposed portion of the model, is done more rarely, but can occasionally be effective, and makes for a very unique model most of the time.

Thanks! There are three reasons I didn't include an enemy minifig. The first was that the scene I created worked better as a somewhat peaceful scene. The second was that I was running up against the limit of how many figs I could conceivably include, and didn't want to have to cut Nya (the least important character to the calendar as a whole, but also the only girl). The third was that I wanted to put this on Cuusoo, and so if it were produced as a set (possibly years later), I would want it to be easily adapted to that year's characters. In my early designs for the calendar I considered making the snowman a snow-skeleton, with the traditional stovepipe hat. I decided against that since it was hard to make a bony skeleton without just using regular skeleton parts (which would essentially be adding another fig), and because I was inspired by pictures of Japanese snowmen made of two snowballs with a bucket hat, and had to choose between a western snowman with a Ninjago twist or an eastern snowman (which would need to be more basic to convey the right image). I opted for the latter.

When you're making a large Lego sculpture of a Lego character, you need only multiply the width and height in bricks by whatever scale you wish to build at (the one you posted is at a 20x scale, so for instance her ears are each 20 studs wide and 13 bricks tall). For a large model like this (especially in such a relatively-rare color) you should also build it digitally first to make sure you use only what bricks are needed to make it accurate and sturdy, leaving hollow spaces inside and figuring out exactly how many parts you need in each color.

There still is. It's used on some of the Series 2 Mixels (alongside Trans. Light Blue). But unfortunately for blacklight fans, both Chima and Ultra Agents are opting for the more vibrant Trans. Light Blue.

Frankly, I don't see it happening. A Hasbro buyout would eliminate a prime competitor but as much as I'd like a Lego My Little Pony theme, such a buyout would probably be less valuable to Lego than it would seem. Look at it this way—Transformers and G.I. Joes are traditionally action figures. My Little Ponies are traditionally (for lack of a better word) fashion dolls. Lego doesn't really work with those kinds of products (not after themes like Scala and Galidor proved that Lego is better off sticking to building toys), so these brands' core products would fall by the wayside. And without that core product, would the brands themselves retain all that much value? And that's just the big names. Smaller brands (especially ones that are mostly incompatible with the Lego System, like Lincoln Logs) would be as good as dead. What we AFOLs who share a fandom for one or more of Hasbro's brands REALLY want is a licensing deal, not a buyout. And while the former is unlikely so long as Hasbro remains on a similar (if smaller) scale to Lego, the latter isn't exactly on the table either. Lego is a company that has over the course of many years learned to stick to its roots while at the same time carving its own path, and it could do neither with the acquisition of such a diverse and disorganized toy company.

I believe even regular trans light blue glows faintly under a blacklight. I used to create awesome castles out of all my transparent parts and look at them under a blacklight when I was a kid...

This is Legoland Florida. Not only does it say so in the video title, but I myself saw this very show only two weeks ago when I went there for my birthday! It was a real treat—I love folks in giant minifig suits any day of the week, but put them on waterskis as well? Man oh man is that awesome.

We're absolutely not going to get a bear as a book-exclusive fig until there's a bear head mold. It'd have to be something from an existing tribe.

Did anyone honestly think Pythor was dead? Considering he was eaten at the same time as Sensei Wu (who survived being eaten by the Great Devourer unharmed) and is known to be able to turn invisible (aiding his escape), it seemed pretty much a given that he was somewhere waiting in the shadows. Really I'm mostly surprised that it's taken this long for him to make his grand re-entrance. Also, just to add to your death list, Kai's father has been dead since the start of the series.

I've tried creating "brick-built" versions of the relics on LDD. The "Orb of Titleist" is simple enough to make—just use two of 30208 with a tire (2815) wedged in the middle to hold them together. The "Scepter of Q-Tip" is also easy, even if it doesn't end up looking perfect—I used two 1x1 White cones with two of 58176 to round off the ends and a Light Stone Gray 63965 in the middle. A Reddish Brown 2x2 round tile serves adequately for the penny (although ideally it'd have a decoration to perfect the likeness). And the unnamed floppy disk is easy enough to brick-build, even though at a minimum of two plates thick it'll end up slightly thicker than it should be. The gum (used to catch Superman) can be depicted by a 1x3 tile in its unchewed state (seen as they're loading it into the cannon), but of course it's hard to make a chewed version due to its organic shape. I haven't managed to make the pen Bad Cop uses to draw his new Good Cop face in part due to the lack of a piece I want on LDD (the old version of 4868, for the cap). Others are even harder to fabricate. The "Sword of X-act Zero" is near impossible to make due to its small, thin size (as is the "Cloak of Banda'id" and the unnamed key). The "Polish Remover of Na'il" is pink, and the closest equivalent in Lego (Light Purple) lacks any good slopes for recreating the curved shape. And I've had great difficulty with building others like the staple remover. I can't think of many other relics (at least not ones I can confirm are in the movie rather than just the video game). But hopefully this can get you started.

I can't believe I almost forgot one of my favorites—"Princess" Unikitty from The Lego Movie! Although I suppose that one's debatable—she herself describes her "kingdom" of Cloud Cuckoo Land as having no government.

Didn't even think of her! Good catch. My brother just suggested Irina Spalko from Indiana Jones 4—as the leader of that band of Russian troops I think she technically qualifies. Licensed themes can be tricky—for instance, Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean technically took on a leadership role in the third movie, but since there's no minifig representing her at that point in the movie I don't think her fig would qualify. And what defines a faction can be vague—Does Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter count, during her time as Hogwarts Headmaster? It's definitely a leadership role, but it's hard to consider that a "faction".

Spinlyn (Spider Tribe leader from Chima). Queen Amidala (Naboo from Star Wars) Gypsy Moth (Insectoids, at least according to an old Mania Magazine) Arguably the Alien Villainess from the CMFs (If you interpret her, as I do, to be the queen of the Alien Conquest aliens) Those are all the ones I could come up with. That's not to say there aren't others.

I truly hope we get an update soon. The last update felt like it was too early for its own good, since it preempted a lot of the amazing new parts for this year. In particular, I had been anxiously awaiting the addition of the new Hero Factory minifig-related parts (because the new scale lets you MOC with an entirely new perspective), as well as the tiny ball joints in the Mixels and Chima Legend Beast sets (which represent a new and easy way to work complex angles into large models or poseability into smaller ones), not to mention other useful parts (the "bowls" from Friends, the fixed-angle plates from Ninjago, and others would be fantastic to work with digitally). At this point, I'm worried that our update may not be until summer, at which point other new, potentially useful parts will be available physically. I like to have new parts available digitally soon after their physical debut, so that I can find out which ones have the most potential for my models and by extension, which of the new sets I should get!

Pleased to see I was right about the spaceship—Unikitty's seat flips up and reveals additional play space underneath. Super-sweet!

How big is the building on top of the baseplate? It sounds like your LDD is crashing because of the number of polygons it's having to render. When a baseplate (or any part on LDD, really) has bricks on top of it so that the studs aren't visible, it doesn't render those studs in an effort to ease the graphical load. But baseplates, being large and covered with cylindrical studs, are loaded with polygons when nothing is built on them. I think when you're moving the baseplate out from under the model (which, depending on size, may be pushing LDD's rendering capabilities close to its limit already), LDD is having to render all those studs as you move the baseplate around, and thus crashing under the load. I can't think of an effective solution for your problem if this is the case (I'm no expert on rendering, and in my answer I'm only applying facts I picked up from more knowledgeable users). Perhaps if you copied a portion of your building into another file, deleted it in the original, moved the baseplate, and then finally copied the portion of the model you removed back into the original file, it would work? Or maybe if you lowered your graphics settings temporarily while you moved the baseplate it'd work better. Hopefully someone who understands more about LDD's polygon limits can add their two cents.

If so, there's no need to wait on Ultra Agents for that piece—it's already out in several of this year's Chima sets.

If I had to guess as to which character will be released with the new encyclopedia, I'd guess Lloyd, Kai, or possibly Zane. Zane is less likely due to already having three appearances in this year's sets, but a more golden-themed Lloyd or a second version of Kai would both be viable options. As nice as a more obscure character like Dareth, Cyrus Borg, or the other suggestions would be, book-exclusive figs are almost always primary characters, and those three ninja are the ones who most fit the bill. I'm still holding out hope that we might see a D2C Borg Tower set later in the year, possibly including a pre-Overlord Cyrus Borg or Nya in her new non-Samurai attire.

I wouldn't be surprised if Lego already IS passing at least some of the benefit on to the consumer. Keep in mind that the price of oil has been increasing in recent years, and consequently the same has been happening with the cost of plastic. The costs saved on production probably go more towards keeping the prices for the end consumer relatively stable than toward actively lowering prices for customers or toward lining employees' or executives' pockets (neither of which would help to keep the company afloat in the long term). That won't work forever, though, so I hope Lego has success in their pursuit of a high-quality and sustainable replacement for ABS...

I wasn't referring to creating your own original subjects that didn't appear in the movie, but rather to creating an original model of a subject from the movie. For instance, Batman's Batwing from the movie is massive and fragile—impractical for release as a set, in other words. But if you could create a smaller version that maintained a similar shape to the one in the movie (without copying the movie version brick-for-brick), I don't see a problem with that going on Cuusoo (besides the fact that Batman would make the set essentially doubly-licensed). But there are plenty of other large models from the movie that could be redesigned and put on Cuusoo in such a way—the Dog, Lord Business's "mothership", Emmet's Apartment, and so forth. I personally have even considered doing so with Emmet's apartment, since trying to fit the much larger interior into the modular-building-sized exterior is quite an interesting challenge.

You could conceivably create sets that aren't identical to things from the movie. For instance, the Sea Cow set never appeared as such in the movie itself (it only appeared at a much, much larger scale, and in microscale). But it's true that if you submit a set design that's based strictly on a design from the movie, you're gonna have a bad time.

I like it, but with the added orange it starts to look a bit more like a Nex machine! I also feel like the lack of silver and titanium metallic detracts from the mechanical appearance.

There's no need for insults. The only reason I specified HIS Toys R Us is because I don't know what country he's in or whether his situation is the case in other Toys R Us locations (I've been into one locally myself but I didn't remember whether the Technic sets were available). Rather than extrapolate to the entirety of Toys R Us (since for all I know his local one could have simply run out of Technic sets), I limited my assessment to that member's specific situation. I never claimed that the possibility I suggested was the only possibility, nor did I claim that anyone else's assessment was invalid. I was just pointing out that the chances of Lego halting its focus on media tie-ins next year are slim to none given their history of success. So next time I'd appreciate it if you kept your cheeky comments to yourself.