Metanoios

I also hope they make a new beard mould (+ bald head) for him which would be the best case scenario. But if they had to reuse a part I think they might recolour the Filch hair and give us just one smaller white new beard piece or printing (which wouldn`t look all that great). The text on promobricks implies that we get the Monkie Kid head phone piece recoloured in dark tan for the ear muffs, because the text says the students wear the ear muffs around their necks. So they seem to have at least a budget for recolours for these books. The McGonagall could even come with a new printed dark green skirt piece since they originally had designed hers for the Great Hall set, but after play-testing with kids they decided to give her legs instead so that the kids could sit her on the table. This was mentioned by one of the designers in a 2018 brickset interview for the first wave

Judging by the article on promobricks and the builds they mention that come in these books I assume they are actually a combination of the classroom (in one book "half") and small builds like armchairs, trunks and closets for the common rooms on the other side of the book. The promobricks article mentions those side bulds, specifically the armchair for Slytherin, closets and book cases for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and the closet and trunk for Gryffindor. There is no closet or book case for example in the green houses or an armchair in the potions classroom in the movies, but they make sense in the common rooms. Further details like portraits, rugs, emblems and windows are added through stickers. If you compare the concept with the Disney books you get a pretty good idea how they could look These book sets are for smaller children as gifts and incentive buys. A few hundred pages ago we discussed the themes appeal towards girls and these are for younger girls (and boys) to collect. Not every set is geared towards you as an AFOL. This is a toy for children, too. The designers even added Flitwick in a new and desirable variant so that we as adult collectors also get something out of it

I got the Iron Man mosaic in Germany for 85 € (including taxes) this weekend (RRP is 120 € or rather 117 € because of the temporary retail tax cut but that will be gone in January). I'm waiting for the Beatles one to go below 80 till I buy it

Just wait a few weeks and they will be discounted below 85

The promobricks article mentions a brown, dark orange book cover for the Transfiguration/Gryffindor book (dark red looks sometimes like reddish brown in photographs) . The other 3 are in house colours though they don't specify if it's green or dark green for Slytherin, for example

These are a bonus wave and are targeted towards a different audience. The mosaic is released with the next line-up of ART mosaics and the books are intended as gifts/impulse buys The next main wave of sets will be in June with regular sets. There could be a store exclusive set in the winter wave but the exclusives don't get leaked this far in advance. Like the 4 sets in the Ninjago 2021 Season 13 wave suggest there might be a fifth store exclusive like Unagami's dragon last year

Marcos Bessa mentioned a Fat Friar easter egg (not in the form of a minifig) in an Instagram Q&A a few months ago. I imagine he was alluding to some of the sticker art work that we are getting in these House-themed classroom books. I think they will reuse the Disney Princess book moulds but in more earthy/darker colours and minifigs instead of micro-dolls

And the new head print for the Daily Prophet photographer which matches Karkaroff better than the photographer himself (Black heard vs grey beard, angry expression and so on). The speculation is that they have designed the face print for Karkaroff but released it with the DPP. It's not like Lego hasn't a history of reusing face prints but why did this character get a face print that isn't even all that screen-accurate?

Krennic from Star Wars. You can still get him as a really cheap key chain in some Lego store. You just have to remove the chain and metal rod, then you can use the head and white cloak just like on a normal minifig

Yes the dark blue hat, torso and robes were from BAM. You can still find them in some Lego stores if you ask the staff, because they have unopened BAM part boxes in the back, or you can order them on Bricklink (just search "BAM").

Finished Diagon Alley today. I love the set and it's design, yet I made some slight modifications while builidng it. A simple one was the mascot of WWW which in the Lego version has only plain black plates as eyes. I exchanged them for the printed 1x1 plate from Ninjago City which is white with a black square in the middle to give the eyes more realism and depth. I also improved the colour mismatch on the hand a little bit. Currently working on a QQS mod and a Malkins MOC.

I made a few more custom minifigs (to populate Diagon Alley and other parts of the wizarding world)

Yes dark blue and regular yellow

Then please explain why the Lego City theme (which is unlicensed) has sometimes the same ridiculous prices licensed Star Wars sets have? The prices for city sets are inidcative for their pricing policy. The Star Wars license is an annual fee they pay for the whole product range. It doesn`explain why the Grievous starfighter (16.4 c price per piece) is now so expensive while other sets from the same theme like the 501st Battle pack (10.5 c price per piece and offers more minifigs for less than half the price) are reasonably priced (still high but not as ridiculous). It would make sense to have the license fee evenly spread across the theme or use a few flagship sets (that will be highly sought after) to price slightly higher. But General Grievous starfighter is not appealing, offers only repeated minifigs and has not an iconic build just a small starfighter that was on screen for less than 45 seconds.

The world doesn`t only revolve around America, there are other time zones as well

On other news for random wizard minifigs to populate the alley: there will soon be new useful printed pieces and recolours available at the BAM Minifig station in Lego stores. The wizard hat with hair (same as the DP photographer) recoloured as a dark green/black (picture quality isn`t the best) hat with dbg hair and a dark-wizard-style black torso print with a matching unprinted black skirt (the newer version that the CMF Dumbledores and Sprout use). Looks like it will be part of the Lego store exclusive Halloween minifig pieces this year

16 year old kids would have been born before 2010 otherwise they wouldn`t be 16 and this is a set for 16+ "kids", Lockhart came out in 2002. Lego sets have a shelf life of 2 to 3 years. So a 16 year old would have been born in 2004 and thus when that character was available

Even if you`re interpretation is what they meant to say, the sentence with the new and exclusive characters would be wrong because Lucius and Lockhart are not new characters. Lucius was in quite a few sets (with a better face print) and Lockhart was also in 2 (with a more accurate sand red outfit).

Don`t know if anyone finds this as funny/insulting as me: on the product page if you scroll down a little bit https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/diagon-alley-75978 there is a picture of Lucius, Florian, Lockhart and DP photographer and the text beside it says Four new faces—only in this set Well that sentence is a plain lie. There are only three new faces in this pic, Lucius`s head isn`t new or only in this set. In fact it might be one of the most used fleshy heads (besides angry clone) That sentence is giving me an angry clone expression.

First of: Marcos is the one on the left and behind his back in the lowest shelf is the clock tower. Top left is the prototype of WWW. I think the person you mean is Djordje (designer on the right) and behind him on the top shelf (right hand side) is a larger, earlier prototype of Flourish and Blotts. There is no Gringotts or Borgin and Burkes in the video with the Phelps brothers

The window problem for Madam Malkin`s can easily be solved by using the Assembly square window technique with the transparent garage door panels sideways. This is also advantageous because you could see the minifig dresses more clearly in the window. Just don't curve the window panels, just leave them in a straight line. I would use tan windows for Eeylops with tan and dark tan stonework/greebling mixed. Roof technique like the one on Fortescue's but in medium nougat or you could use a lot of nougat and medium nougat 1x1 slopes Arch above Madam Malkin`s is purple. I would go with purple for the frames and dark blueish grey for the larger stonework sections up to the first floor

You can reduce the required shelf space by 50 cm (half of the length) and the depth of most shelfs is deeper than 26 cm. So you can display two "modular" shops side by side at once and if you should get tired of Flourish and Blotts and QQS, you can just flip both or one of them to get a new assortement of the street. So I think it is acutally quite useful to have this display option

The back to back option is pictured as an official display option on the last page of the fourth instruction booklet (WWW). Both of us were right in the end that the designers made the conscious decision to even change some of the earlier prototypes (exclude one floor on WWW) so that the buildings would fit back to back

Sorry the first sentence is referring to another prototype (WWW) which can be seen in the designer video on the shelf. The pic I posted is from the press release from Lego

It is pictured in the instructions but it also part of the lifestyle pictures from the press release, e.g. on https://www.stonewars.de/news/lego-harry-potter-75978-winkelgasse/