Lyichir

It's certainly too early to tell what all will become available through the Animal Crossing theme, but there's a possibility that some characters could provide torsos that could be useful for historic themes. Characters like Ankha, Chops, Elvis, Klaus, Knox, Lionel, and Sterling are a few examples of villager characters with history-inspired outfits.

Oh, absolutely. It's not like I was writing any stories with it or anything, they're just my interpretations of the characters.

It's mostly a matter of the philosophy of the modular series. They focus on clever building techniques using existing parts, rather than needing new "bespoke" parts designed specifically for them. And unlike a licensed Ideas or Icons set, there's no "requirement" that they accurately represent an existing intellectual property, so there's no situations where a brand-new part would be the only satisfactory option.

That mini Z-Blob robot is SUCH a cool build for a magazine gift like that. It's cool that the next one is gonna be a suited-up Cooper, too, since the helmeted version of him is otherwise only in the Crocodile Car set.

Yeah! I also thought about the possibility for new bug/fish molds. I wouldn't be surprised to see some existing ones like the butterfly or shark, but there are some others that could earn their spot in a set like dragonflies or the highly sought-after coelacanth! New fruits are also a possibility—the teaser shows the existing apples, cherries, and oranges (represented by the classic Bionicle ball joint in orange), but most Animal Crossing games also feature peaches (which have only ever been represented by printed tiles in the Monkie Kid theme) and pears (which I don't think we've ever had an equivalent of in Lego) as common fruits!

The issue with this kind of conspiracy theory is that AFOLs have pretty much made every possible subject for modular buildings under the sun. So when Lego announces their next modular building, it shouldn't be surprising that a fan model has done it in the past. It honestly gets a little tiring.

It was technically "new" but shared with other themes released at the same time. A common, versatile mold being "borrowed" from other themes that have budgeted for it is possible, but a bespoke mold being developed specifically FOR the modular is far less likely.

Adorable!

With the recent reveal of the Animal Crossing theme, I sort of wonder if we'll see any animal molds come from that. While most mammals/birds/reptiles in the series are your (anthropomorphic) neighbors, another major feature of the series is catching realistic fish or bugs either to sell, to display in your house, or to exhibit in the game's museum. I could see the sets re-using some existing molds like the butterfly (ideally including some new decorations) or many types of existing sea creatures, and some creatures like ladybugs could certainly be represented by other printed parts as they have been before, but it would also be cool to get some new molds for things like dragonflies or the elusive (and valuable) Coelacanth!

Oh wow! I'd been resistant to getting the Wildflowers set sinc the vase we were using for the earlier bouquet was running out of room and I was worried the colors might clash, but these look gorgeous together!

This is unlikely. If anything, the lack of direct Chima character cameos or appearances since the merge is probably simply due to not wanting to confuse audiences with essential lore from a separate, non-current TV series. That said, it wouldn't be entirely surprising to see a surprise reappearance of Chima characters at some point—after all, this is the series that brought back Clutch Powers after almost a decade of irrelevance.

I am bad at picking favorites, especially since so many of the non-licensed themes I tend to collect have such great villain figures! Agents, Nexo Knights, and Ninjago in particular stand out to me as themes where major villain characters tend to look amazing and even more minor villain characters often have fantastic designs.

To be honest, Agents stands out to me as one of those themes that doesn't necessarily NEED written-out lore, because the character and set designs are so evocative. Each set from the first year is framed as a "mission" with a pretty effectively laid-out play scenario, and the villains have very obvious "gimmicks" that establish their roles and the kind of threat they're meant to represent. For example, Break Jaw is depicted taking control of predatory animals, Gold Tooth is depicted stealing gold (armed with his signature golden gun), and Doctor Inferno is of course your basic mad scientist archetype, making doomsday weapons and giant robots. I feel like the second year's sets were slightly less clearly defined, without the same mission structure building up to a climax. My "headcanon" for some of the characters includes that Doctor D. Zaster was a failed clone of Doctor Inferno whose body was made of congealed slime, and that Dollar Bill was Doctor Inferno's financier, turned to petty crime himself after Inferno's doomsday plans failed to turn a profit.

One animal type I'm really hoping for is rhinos since my favorite villager, Merengue, is one. I think a CMF series would be fantastic, and a recurring series like the Mario blind boxes might be the only way to even come close to representing even a fraction of the animal villager characters from the games (413 in the latest entry!). Luckily most villagers could re-use head molds, though there are a few who have unique accessories that would require dedicated molds (Julian the unicorn has already been shown, meaning that Lego isn't averse to those sorts of unique villagers). One nice thing for fans of other themes is that apart from the heads, most fig parts could have very general usage for custom figs—so far the outfits look nice and the legs seem to be mostly unprinted (including the more recent mid-length legs in new colors). Of course, figs aren't the only important thing about a theme like this. I'm really hoping for the sets themselves to offer a wide variety of customization. Luckily, the Mario sets bode well for this with sets like the "Maker Packs" that are focused almost entirely on expanding and decorating the basic sets. I'm hoping this theme follows suit with interchangeable brick-built furniture.

Something that occurred to me today is that since Animal Crossing has more emphasis on real-life holidays than your average video game series, it could make seasonal sets like an Advent Calendar a possibility.

Are that head and torso print new? I don't recognize them, and quite like them.

I dunno, I feel like there'd be potential for several types of Splatoon sets. You've got your basic multiplayer stages (for which I think taking small portions and making multiple 1v1 sets might be the best option for the sake of variety), a "hub" set with shops, Splatfest concert stage (for which there's been multiple varied ones throughout the series), a Salmon Run set, maybe even a set or two based on parts of the single-player campaign (like a boss battle with DJ Octavio). One of the things I've been trying to MOC lately is the Splatsville concert stage from the newest game, since that has some built-in "playability". The stage is split into three independent hovering "floats" that combine into a boat-shaped performance stage—very toyetic even if that were the only function, and I could imagine adding even more playability with rotating platforms built into the stage so the characters could "dance". Making custom Lego amiibo is a fun idea, and one that I've considered (though never acted on) with the Lego Mario characters. When I was considering it I was thinking using brick-built bases using the square Mario base pieces, which I figured would be simple and compact (with the "gap" in the bottom where plates can be used to connect the bases seeming like a perfect spot to attach an NFC tag). Using Dimensions bases seems like it'd be slightly more complex... I thought about the potential for tiny Pikmin using those Dreamzzz bodies just the other day! It'd definitely look great, though perhaps you'd want to have Pikmin figs have a little more articulation since one of the main gameplay interactions is having them grab objects and carry them, something that the Dreamzzz Dreamling torsos wouldn't be the best at. I hadn't even considered the Pinocchio head, which'd be great for red Pikmin—though you'd need some sort of ear piece for the yellow ones.

The problem with that sort of release date is that, if you want something to be a Christmas gift, releasing it that close to Christmas is a recipe for supply issues—and supply issues can lead to dissatisfied customers. There's a reason holiday-themed sets like the Advent Calendars or Winter Village theme are typically released several months ahead of the actual winter holidays. Also, from Lego's perspective, having something big and exciting to lure folks back into stores even after Christmas is more useful than releasing a big set in a month when demand is already going to be really high whether or not there's a new Modular on shelves.

Something similar to either that or the Trolls heads might be ideal, since it'd allow hair/headgear to be exchanged while still getting the proportions closer. Though I'm not sure either existing style of head would be quite right proportionately, which might necessitate something more theme-specific. And of course the drawback to that is that while you could ideally have compatibility within the theme, compatibility with classic minifigures would be diminished (even if the torsos/legs could stay the same).

Yeah, if we do have an early reveal I imagine it'll just be because a bigger, more expensive modular could use a bigger lead-up (so that folks who weren't anticipating a higher price tag can start saving up sooner).

Built the Dry Bowser castle set the other day! Honestly a LOT of fun—and I was prepared to be a little disappointed since it was following up the incredible Bowser's Castle set from the first year. But while this one is definitely less cohesive, a lot of the individual functions like the swinging cage and exercise equipment are really fun, and the "core" of the castle (with the opening jaw, chains, and hidden room) is surprisingly impressive on all fronts.

Speaking of Chinese holidays/festivals, happy belated Mid-Autumn Festival! I realized today I've never actually tasted a mooncake... gonna have to try that someday.

I'm a little confused what you mean by this... according to the National Museum of Denmark, it doesn't sound like the Vikings were any stranger to dyed clothing. In general, antiquity tends to have been more colorful than a lot of popular depictions would have you think. On a purely aesthetic level I like the use of color for the Viking outfits in the set as it helps keep them visually distinct from each other and from the largely earth-toned buildings they reside in.

The rumors of an Animal Crossing theme combined with my recent fixation on the game Splatoon 3 have had me thinking about the possibility of Splatoon Lego sets. It's one of Nintendo's newer franchises (compared to decades-old ones like Zelda or Mario), but it's very popular worldwide. Positive aspects of the franchise that I think would lend themselves well to Lego included plenty of unique settings and worldbuilding, colorful, customizable characters, and a distinctly cartoony, kid-friendly approach compared to other games in the shooter genre. Drawbacks/challenges include that the fluid, ink-based gameplay might be a challenge to adapt neatly to a physical brick-built medium, and the characters' cartoony, non-human proportions potentially being hard to adapt satisfyingly to traditional figure types. I dunno how likely it'd be overall. I've had little success with my attempts at MOCs relating to the franchise but that might be as much due to my ongoing "builder's block" as anything else. But I'd definitely be interested in a theme like that if Lego could pull it off!

Oh, this is cute! Love the use of metallic parts for his belly!