Lyichir

The new spinners look funky. Looks like they feature balls around the edge like a lazy susan of sorts? And hey, Nya gets a spinner! That's a rare occurrence.

I love the texture you've achieved on the facade with the underside of the jumper plates!

Stop-motion is incredibly expensive too—and arguably even more time-consuming than faking it with CGI, which would present issues getting a TV series finished in time to tie in with the accompanying sets. But I think either would be far too time and labor intensive for that sort of TV production schedule. It would essentially require all props and scenery to be custom built for purpose, which I could only really see working if settings were small scale and liberally reused (more like a sitcom), instead of the sorts of varied and dynamic adventures typical for the kinds of themes Lego makes shows for. Without a huge amount of time and effort to devote to that level of production, you'd likely be left with something where everything that's not a literal set you could buy in stores would look plain and underdeveloped (and even the ones that ARE sets might have inaccuracies to their final product versions due to the animation pipeline and set production pipeline not syncing up, an issue that stylized animation can obscure slightly). Personally I'm not always the biggest fan of Ninjago-style CGI animation either (particularly how it tends to replace things like the gorgeous dragon sets with much less interesting-looking CGI creatures). But on the flip side, I ADORE Monkie Kid's dynamic and whimsical 2D animation, which trades strict accuracy to the sets for more vibrant and dynamic action cartooning.

Specifically the community center and community kitchen use a new 16x16 "L"-shaped one! You can tell it's one piece from pics where you can see the underside and because the plate cutout on the inside edge stretches all the way to the corner.

This YouTube channel is uploading some of the product videos of some of the new sets. The surfing function in the amusement park is even more impressive than I expected!

I'm digging the new ninja masks! Like the Ninjago Movie-era masks, they're two pieces, but unlike those, it looks like using just the bottom half will look better as a mouth covering only. Hopefully they work with a variety of hairpieces!

I was just looking at that. I don't think you could fit a fig under that (not even a babyfig), but maybe you could use it for some sort of covered sensor array or something.

Y'all... please relax. I know it can be frustrating when every theme but the one you're waiting for is revealed, but ultimately whether the sets are revealed tomorrow or a week from now it'll be just as exciting either way.

Realized I hadn't shared my thoughts about these sets lately despite practically obsessing over them. My favorite is Mei's dragon. It's just... perfect. I've pretty much built the whole thing on Stud.io, and the amount of amazing shaping to give it that wavy Eastern dragon look is unreal. Unfortunately, the U.S. pricing is bizarrely high compared to even the other Monkie Kid sets... The airship is slightly small (certainly not the most impressive ship MK and crew have had), but I'm okay with that. The price is reasonable and I like the use of those big airplane canopies for the envelope. The Azure Lion isn't as good as the incredible Ultra Mech from earlier this year. The shaping feels slightly off, and I sort of wish it had a cape like Azure Lion's minifigure form. The face looks great, though, and I do really like the enlarged scroll the mech holds in its off hand. And the Dragon of the East's palace... WOW! I love underwater scenery, and this does an amazing job combining that with traditional palatial architecture. The way it closes around the throne room is exciting, and I love how Monkey King's staff is included in its original role as a column for measuring floods! Minifigure-wise this wave is very strong—I'm extremely excited that the whole team is getting armor like Mei and MK had in the first wave, Monkey MK looks great, and the Dragon of the East Sea's court look fantastic (I wonder if one or both of their new headpieces might've been designed for Vidiyo).

Some really good pictures (including alternate pictures) here: https://bouwsteentjes.info/lego-city-zomer-2023-sets/ Most of the building sets are modular, which is really cool. The ski slope has a great interior that includes an internal lift to the top of the slope! The city center is gorgeous and combines a relatively simple modular design into a surprisingly complex layout. My sister notified me that apparently the comic shop includes a stickered Ninjago trading card tile—I've been keeping a list of Ninjago sets that have those but would've never thought to look in a City set! There's also a cute little microscale Temple of Airjitzu there. The car wash also has a surprising amount of functionality for such a small set, including a shaft to drop "suds" on the car as well as fans to dry it off in the back!

A lot more pictures of the sets here it seems: https://bouwsteentjes.info/lego-friends-zomer-2023-sets/ (apologies if this is known already) It looks like the community center and kitchen use a new 16x16x2/3 L-shaped base for their floors. I love all the interior details! The sports center has a really clever "field" that you can swap out a net and goals to have the figs play either tennis or soccer. The stable has a modest interior with a cute breakfast nook and sleeping bags on top of hay bales. I think it'll look great next to Autumn's House. The news van has a cute interior too, with not just the broadcast consoles and equipment but also a small news desk. The alternate pictures of the beach amusement park confirm that all three functions (the spinning ride, wave pool, and squid shooting gallery) are driven by a single crank, which is real neat.

This 4+ construction set includes those new space-y wheels in a more classic black: https://brickset.com/sets/60391-1/Demolition-Site Some of the new Friends sets also include 1x2x2/3 curved slopes in Trans Yellow, which should be great for microscale.

Looks like every set has alternate models/modes (not all completely rebuilt but still reconfigured a bit). That's interesting. The new joint pieces are interesting, and I love the zaniness of the theme overall. If the series is good I may well end up collecting this.

Wow, the new set pic looks gorgeous! I'm a little torn—the last thing I need is another theme to collect beyond Ninjago and Monkie Kid, but this first set reveal is definitely pushing the right buttons to get me to like it. I wouldn't worry about that if I were you. Not because this theme is a guaranteed success, but because it's far from the first "big bang" theme to get this sort of up-front investment and I see no reason to assume it'd be the last.

A couple of potentially useful pieces in the new Donkey Kong sets! A new banana leaf piece and banana bunch piece for starters, plus the half-column piece my sister mentioned previously having potential for ship masts appearing in reddish brown for the first time!

I seriously doubt the reliability of a supposed leak that's two whole years out. I don't think we've EVER gotten that kind of advance knowledge of a theme, save for things like confirmed movie themes where the movie's release date is known well in advance of the Lego sets themselves. Personally I don't know how I'd feel about another Bionicle revival. On the one hand, I do love Bionicle, and it was a formative theme for me. On the other... I put a lot of love and energy into the 2015 revival that ended up being for naught. I don't know if I can go through that again.

Whoa, lots of news today! Loving the look of the new Bounty, the azure accents really make it pop (similar to the teal accents on MK's vehicles in the Monkie Kid theme). Seems to have less space below decks than the previous ones, so I'm hoping it makes the most of that space with functions instead. The Markets picture looks promising but honestly I didn't expect anything different for the successor to the previous Ninjago City sets. Otherwise it's a little too blurry to make out many details.

I think it can be a mix of both. I don't think the figs in this set would really be theft magnets, for instance, but building all four similar space figs at the same time at the start of the build could feel repetitive, and spacing them out makes the experience a bit more positive.

I think considering only classic subthemes to be "real" is part of the problem in considering the overarching themes "dead". There have been multiple space-related Creator sets (present/historical and futuristic alike), but if you're considering only things that fit into the narrow confines established by earlier space themes to be true Space, then of course the offerings that match those criteria will be fewer and farther between. If we get a full Space or Castle or Pirates theme again there'd be a pretty decent chance that those wouldn't merely retread the colors or iconography of their predecessors either.

All I can say to this is that it's very much not the case in the U.S., where clearances on larger adult-focused sets are still extremely rare. I wouldn't mind clearance sales like you seem to describe if they did exist here but apart from a few isolated examples (the Barcelona football stadium, Queer Eye set, Black Panther bust), 18+ sets over here seem to be holding their value and rarely seeing substantial discounts.

Neat idea for a fig—though I sort of wish they had a coat with sleeves or something instead of the vest as the normal minifigure arms don't look particularly "skeletal".

Wow! Great redesign. I'd never considered that trans-purple windscreens like this could substitute for the classic trans-blue, but based on these photos it definitely seems to work. Very nice details here as well, I love the interior hatch in the cockpit!

Oh, that's a lovely interior!

Realistically, animals that get a lot of use are the ones that are more likely to need mold refreshes as the original molds wear out. The chicken has seen quite a bit of use—it's almost 10 years old at this point!—so it's not too surprising that the older molds might be worn out and due for some minor improvements.

I wasn't an enormous fan of Mars Mission at the outset, but its appearance in Lego Battles for the Nintendo DS made me warm up to it. Originally I wasn't necessarily a fan of the conflict-driven storyline (too much nostalgia for Life on Mars from my childhood), after a while I began to appreciate the distinct appeal of Mars Mission's Giger-esque space horror aesthetic that the video game played up with the addition of creepy bases and outposts for the aliens. The human faction had several neat vehicles as well, though mostly they appealed to me for Technic functionality that I feel like the later Power Miners theme pulled off slightly better.