koalayummies

I absolutely appreciate the math and analysis you did looking into the subject. Its a very pertinent aspect to the ongoing discussion of Ideas and is indeed interesting. Before Elysian brought it up I had never considered looking up how many total accounts there were and your work breaking down the number of total ideas ever submitted along with considering the nuances of multiple submissions per user is really insightful to the workings of ideas and all those who participate. It is excellent work.

From here on out, should the desire ever arise to participate in this thread again, I shall include disclaimers. For example the post that was responded to here would have been: lacking serious intent/not meant to be taken literally, i.e. facetious.

But the "Building Bigger Thinking" is a special for the 60th anniversary. I think what AmperZand was saying is that until the Diner the classic smiley was consistently in a regular ongoing minifigure-based theme (but no longer is). The Classic building boxes of random parts doesn't typically have minifigures, with Building Bigger Thinking being the exception.

Haha obviously! Thats rule #1. There have been a few comical meme-like builds where fans took the time to actually build out scenes and specialized vehicles consisting of: farm-police, arctic-police, deep sea-police, volcano-police...

@albertbalanza you win the whole thread! Congrats! Second that! This might be the first series where I try and get one of every figure.

Well it did work for me personally. I've always liked Lego trains but post 'dark ages' my interest in getting back into trains was entirely the work of the amazing MOC builders here. True that new sets will bring a lot more new interest (and are always welcomed as the train fans appear to have to wait half a decade between new official Lego offerings) but for me seeing what was being built here by individuals well beyond the detail and simplicity of the official product is what really sparked the interest.

You make some of the most excellent and realistic brick heads of very influential people and this is another shining example. Your various methods for making the hair in all of your builds is fantastic. Another great MOC brickhead!

Another wonderful and exquisite realistic room scene. Love the louvered closet doors and that vintage style suitcase is great. Amazing build and eye for scale.

This is going to be excellent and I can’t wait to hear how all of the great Eurobricks modular creators go about designing their fantastic works. You’ve done a great job compiling a list of some of the best modular builders here (and fantastic use of the @). Thanks for the mention, I’m really honored you like my builds. While I’ve only done two MOC modulars, so nothing close to number some of the builders here, I’ll share my process in any case which so far goes like this: First is the conceptual phase, simply brainstorming what type of buildings I would like to see in my imaginary town (as I don’t actually display in a layout). I come up with a loose idea of what the exterior and interior style will be, start conceptualizing a rough floor plan, what size footprint the building will have and vague facade ideas. From there I open up Lego Digital Designer and start laying down bricks. Like I’ve seen many describe as their process I start with creating some various facade designs based on what might go well with the building’s theme. Sections, colors, build styles, just experimenting. I’ve spent hours on a design only to delete massive sections or scrap the whole build and start fresh. Eventually something starts to work and move on to the floors and walls. I tend to only design when there is time (at night) and limit myself to roughly an hour or so at a time. The last two I’ve done were about a months worth of the digital work in this manner. Once the digital building is essentially ‘complete’ digitally (but far from the finished model I finally reveal) I’ll leave the digital build file alone for a couple of weeks only coming back to occasionally tinker with the design or tweak small things. I do this so that I’m not ‘too close’ to the project and can come back and see it with fresh eyes. If at the end of a few weeks I still like the design I’ll print out the parts list, go through all of my pieces and set aside what I have and order what I lack. Then I begin to build it in real bricks. From here it can go smoothly or like my bed and breakfast I can find myself disappointed in the design from the digital build and end up reworking a large amount of the facade. This is one of the drawbacks of designing digitally. Regardless of using the program a lot it still has its visual limitations and things can look very similar and sometimes even better in real life than the digital build or it might not look nearly as good as it did digitally. Along the way of building it with real bricks I end up changing a lot, especially on the inside. It’s a little difficult to visualize the interior space of the small rooms on the digital programs (and the camera angle manipulation is a tad clunky), but this is where a lot of great changes happen. Once the walls start going up its a lot easier to see what can be done with the space and physical bricks and I often rework much of the interior and adding a lot of the final detail. Once its completely built with real bricks I like to sit on the design again. Every so often changing a few things here or there. I don’t like to rush to share it which is a really hard urge to fight. Average time for my two MOC modulars was around 7-8 months from first digitally placed brick to final presentation on here but a lot of that is self-imposed breaks and waiting for pieces. Here's a hasty picture of a very rough looking bed and breakfast during initial assembly building from the digital file: The MODs are an entirely different process and as you can see I am what is referred to as a "messy builder":

Yes! The stuff the AFOL MOC with trains is really inspiring and hands down some of the most detailed and realistic scale model style Lego building. Especially seeing the photos from the Lego shows/gatherings with massive collaborative fan-built layouts blending trains and city. I'm sure it not only attracts new adult Lego train fans but plenty of wide eyed kids. Even if Lego isn't providing the type of sets one wants, keep on MOCing.

There's no reason to get snarky or rude. I could have said your lack of understanding of business, profit motive and how it all relates to what Lego is doing, was laughable, but I didn't. As was already stated, you personally not considering a theme to be original is semantics, an accurate definition is: theme based on an original idea vs existing license or intellectual property. Instead of issuing a full response to someone who cannot be bothered with reading the entirety of a post, I'll just wish you the best of luck with that same old tired broken record complaint. Good luck, I'm sure if a small but repeatedly vocal group of the AFOL that constitute 5% of Lego's sales (who aren't even the target market) keep endlessly complaining amongst themselves then they're bound to change and accommodate you at any moment.

Was pointing out that yes, licensed is becoming more and more prevalent and 'taking a bigger piece of the pie' despite the fact that the relative amount of original themes have remained comparatively steady over the time period mentioned (whether one personally defines those cited themes as original content is a manner of semantics and using a consistent definition for example: themes based on an original idea vs existing license or intellectual property is more accurate [even if the themes aren't what one wants, I'm not enamored by all of the 'original themes' either]). Am also aware of the type of themes being discussed (and again was also mentioned in the post) as its not exactly an unspoken subject among AFOL, on the contrary its mentioned and discussed on a regular basis, there are a number of ongoing and frequent new threads on the subject and yet I agree and would like to see the return and changes many yearn for. The reason why I segued to MOCing is because it seems no matter how much its desired, discussed, repeated and debated (bring back classic space, pirates, castle, viking, historic etc), like has been said; licensed content is taking over and we (AFOL) are probably not going to change TLG's mind seeing as we only constitute a single-digit percentage of total sales, so might as well make what we like with what is available instead of waiting, wishing and hoping for Lego to listen and finally cater. One of the few positive takeaways.

What do you mean by 2017 had only Nexo and Ninjago as themes? Regardless it looks like the number of original themes have actually remained fairly consistent through that period but licensed themes have grown significantly in relation. Using the same source Brickset: 2009 (because thats the year with 479 sets listed) (not including brickset listed 'themes': 'advanced models', books, gear, games, miscellaneous, power functions, promotional and seasonal). Original themes: Agents? Architecture, Bionicle, Bricks and More?, Castle, City, Creator, Duplo, Education, Mindstorms, Pirates, Power Miners, Technic = 13 Original themes and 3 Licensed themes (Indiana Jones, Spongebob, Star Wars) 2017 (not including brickset listed 'themes': 'advanced models', books, dimensions, gear, miscellaneous, power functions, promotional and seasonal). Original themes: Architecture, Boost, City, Classic, CMF, Creator, Duplo, Education, Elves, Friends, Nexo Knights, Ninjago (non movie), Technic = 13 Original themes and 12 Licensed themes (Brickheadz [most are licensed], DC Superheroes, DC Supergirls, Disney, Marvel Superheroes, Minecraft, Pirates Caribbean, Speed Champions, Star Wars, Lego Batman Movie, Lego Ninjago Movie). If I've messed anything up let me know but it looks like nearly the same number of original themes through that period but the licensed themes have gone up significantly in proportion. So licensed themes have a larger representation but original themes are still present in consistent representation (even if its not specifically what one wants). As to the distribution of sets per theme I'll leave to someone else. Just more reasons to MOC, the stuff the fans of neglected themes make is far better than anything Lego would produce anyway, looking at what the Pirate shipbuilders, Historic theme landscapers, Train builders and scale modelers make they're some of the most amazing things built with Lego.

I'm on board with that. Add me to the list of those that prefer trains sans-PF. Nothing wrong with the trains that have them and they should absolutely still have PF trains but like @Toxic43 and @Bricked1980 I too prefer to remove the motors and just push the trains (if I'm 'playing' at all).

Yeah I understand. I just figured that since Garmadon is essentially a terrorist, has little regard his employees safety (frequently shooting them great distances out of a volcano) and doesn't appear to care about efficiency (a failed invasion every day for quite some time) that ducted propellers would be lost on a guy like that.

I was wondering why I couldn't find the other thread specifically on the Unikitty CMF, for some reason that thread and a bunch of others were all renamed to "Q" with all the original content deleted. This was a thread for the Unikitty CMF in the other place in discussion. (and looking back I said basically the same thing, that the 1x3 brick and Unikitty are the two best characters ). Note, I don't want to interject as to whether its Licensed or Special Themes, just tell me where to be! Yaaay!

Excellent work on that mockup! Some creative construction and I can deeply appreciate testing out and proof of concept. Also that is really cool that he will be in your area, the signing would be really hard to pass up. Definitely share any photos and conversation you have if you go!

Excellent points (and to be perfectly honest I don't mind all the variations of Batman or Garmadon etc, they're pretty fun and have given us some new parts and prints). And I completely agree on the second part, Roberts designs are fantastic and seemingly endless. There shouldn't be much of an issue to come up with fresh designs and characters like that, I'd like to see nearly all of his ideas in real plastic.

Yeah. I'd venture a guess that about 5% of those accounts are the people who think they're so funny submitting the type of stuff that winds up in the best of the worst of ideas.

The repetition you speak of in the regular non-licensed series CMF (that has been going on for 8 years) is also present in the licensed themes and the repetition and frequency is even more offensive. Numerous repeat characters with slight variation and of limited use in the same series and repeat series in one year, so the diversity of characters isn't exactly there, they had to grab at straws to make Batman happen by pulling out sexual assaulter and prostitute characters from somewhat obscure batman material, in addition to the half a dozen variations of batman himself. Batman CMF: 6 bat mans (bat caveman, inflatable duck ring batman, rock star batman, lobster batman, construction bat cat man, pink fairy batman), Harley quinn, joker, Robin, Batman CMF 2: dolphin batman, mermaid batman, batman fanclub, harley quinn again, joker again, Robin again Ninjago: Lloyd the ninja, Lloyd the kid eating cereal, Garmadon evil, Garmadon flashback, Garmadon pajamas... If they come up with an updated pirate or classic knight its not as bad as if they made outer space batman or pirate batman or classic knight batman or batman taking a dump or batman performing a field sobriety test or Tour de France Batman. I can't wait for Lloyd doing laundry and Lloyd parties too hard and rehab Garmadon, Olympic Garmadon, garbage man Garmadon...

That looks amazing, absolutely fantastic work. I love seeing Lego mosaics, beautiful work and thanks for sharing.

Aka: garmadon, Garmadon, GARMADON! 70656 Modification goals: Make it a little cleaner Make it a little meaner Reworked the jaw, much of the hull, very minor changes to the feet, eliminated the various different color bricks and color of bricks showing through the various gaps. Tightened up the gill spacing and closed various gaps. Added pelvic fins and a minuscule second dorsal fin. Tried a number of different builds for the hull including using the similar but lower profile/thinner sand blue piece from the Piranha Attack set but wound up liking it more using the fatter looking back/original large pieces. Armaments: cheek-mounted missiles (especially effective against those using "butt torpedoes"), quad machine guns make it like shooting fish in a... well you know, and rocket-propelled rusty harpoons. And of course keeping the very fun leg and mouth functions completely in-tact.

Here's a bunch of inspiration with lots of variations:

Nice but the 4081 Lamp Holder connection to the 30367 Final Brick connected in that manner is out of system.