Grover

That's true! I forgot about the frogs. We also have a skunk from the CMF and now in the mountain set that's small. The larger animals being a selling point work for things like bears, as there are generally few of them, but cows? I wish that there were far more cows, as these are not rare animals. People would buy many, many, small sets I think, just to get more cows for their farms.

I agree as well. I would like to further point out that medieval buildings and castles are commonplace across Europe, so they actually are familiar and relevant in everyday life there. Personally, my favorite genre growing up was Castle, followed by Town (now City). I liked these because they were generic and allowed my imagination to make up stories and factions for the buildings that I created. I never bought the licensed sets because they seemed more like playsets to me. I then entered my dark ages and missed out on the Kingdoms, Vikings, and some of the other really cool sets, but I'm making up for that now via Bricklink. Although my story and others are anecdotal, I feel that not all children now are so affected by the pervasive media environment. In point of fact, one of my friends has 4 boys, ages 10-15 right now. All of them still love Lego. Three of the four, however, prefer generic sets and the 3 in 1 creator sets to everything else. The other loves the branded things (SW, etc.). I'd be interested to see how the focus groups are picked, what demographics (urban, rural, incomes, etc.) are pursued. I wouldn't be surprised to see that they were overlooking part of their customer base. For instance, we are discussing Lego here, but we must remember that we are a specific demographic: internet users who care enough about Lego to sign up and discuss it on boards.

As an organic chemist, I found this to be the most informative: http://icl-ip.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ABSGnlICLIP.pdf There are a number of flame retardant materials that are useful for ABS, and if you read the PDF, you can speculate on what TLG used to use and what they currently use. Looking up these chemicals by CAS number is the easiest way to find the structure. I kind of want to stick a bunch of old and new bricks into headspace vials, heat them up, and then run GC on them now...

On the plus side, you can buy the panther and the leopard on bricks and pieces individually. I also forgot the sea creatures, including the dolphin, starfish, sharks, octopi, and various fish out there over the years.

Trying to get building time is frustrating for me. My job soaks some 60+ hours a week on good weeks, and then trying to keep up the house, dogs, and family... I actually counted and average about 1 hour of build time a month. Good news is I've been collecting pieces. Bad news is I've been trying to build a small house for over a year now and it's not quite done yet. I have given up on trying to make contest schedules and am simply trying to get a single build done for my storyline. Soccerkid6 has been great with some advice on microscale, so I think I'm going to take a shot at that after my current build; hopefully it will be less time consuming. It is nice to see what everyone else builds--it's so inspiring!

I agree with you wholeheartedly: we definitely need more useful female minis. I'm glad that the city line at least is getting more female figs, but there's a significant lack in other themes. I don't like the mindolls at all; I take their hair off and throw the rest away. I would be more inclined to use them if the were compatible with the normal minifigs, but they are not. I think I saved one and took a picture of one of my dragons eating it. That's about the only use I have for them. As for this subforum, it really is underutilized. I think this is probably one of the places that TLG actually reads on the internet, and I"m not even sure how much that happens. I know they have their own focus groups and whatnot, but it would be nice to see a little transparency into these ideas and suggestions going into a focus group. Heck, if I had enough money, I'd buy one of each of the animals I'm talking about on BrickLink and turn it into an Ideas set. Unfortunately, I don't have the $300 or so it would take to do something like that, as most of the animals are super expensive now ($35 for a goat??!). I agree. Maybe we could come up with some lists for TLG to think about... Already molded: Avians: • Crow • Seagull • Chickens • Ostrich • Parrots • Owls Domestic: • Dog • Cat • Goat • Rat • Mouse • Camel • Cow • Steer • Pig Jungle: • Leopard • Panther • Monkey • Parrot • Cobra • Frog Forest: • Bear, brown • Bear, black • Beehive (to go with bears) • Mountain lion • Snake • Skunk Strangely, TLG seems happy to make new molds (which I would think would be expensive), rather than just re-releasing old animals or parts in new colors. Assuming that is the case, I'd love to see a few more things from them: • More small birds (like the seagull and crow). How about ravens to go with your English guard CMF? How about some non-descript songbirds that could come in a small mold akin to the chicken? You could use the same mold for blue, red, white, brown, dark blue, etc. for a variety of birds. • Different dogs. They're starting to do this with the bulldogs, chihuahua and the scotty. • Squirrels and not the lame Friends ones either. • Large birds: turkeys, eagles, and vultures (from any continent, really--some of the African vultures are really cool) • Deer - Either the roebucks found in Europe, or some of the big white tails found here in the US • Kangaroos (Yay Aussies!) • Sheep What else should TLG make, or add to a set that's already got a mold?

I know some people really like the Friends line, but the animals they have aren't really compatible with the normal minis, which is more what I was after. There's a ton of duplo and cutsey friends animals out there, but I've never really seen a bunch of animals (gator, bear, goat, etc.) in a set or anything like that from TLG.

Hopefully this is in the right place; the old TLG Sets thread is closed, so I'm not really sure where this goes. I was thinking the other day that one of the things everyone loves are the Lego animals compatible with the minifigures. We have packs of People at the Park, Fun at the Beach, and a collectible minifigure line... why not have something similar with animals? One possibility would be to make a 'jungle animals' set with the panther, leopard, monkeys, parrots, etc. and another with 'forest animals' to include the mountain lion, bear, and other forest creatures. Those could be themed to various geographic locations. Another possibility would be to make a one-off CMF line of nothing but animals. This might be more tricky, but I think would ultimately sell well. Perhaps TLG doesn't want to do this because one of the selling points of their sets is a unique animal, but I think such sets would sell like crazy because many of the animals previously released (goats, bears, etc.) have no current counterpart (the black bear being an exception) and people are still buying these in the secondary market. What does everyone else think?

Glad Nexo is out. Didn't really find many parts in the sets that were in colors decent for my MOCs, and didn't like the theme. I'm hoping for a return to traditional castle themes or medieval fantasy inspired themes. Lego seems to be into making a lot of new molds now (which I find odd since the molds are so expensive to make), so maybe we'll get lucky and they'll make some more RPG type fantasy monsters, like gnomes, giants, lizard men, beholders, gorgons, etc. Probably holding out too much hope, but I think that's more likely than an awesome adult-themed castle modular line akin to what the City has now. I am hopeful there will be some castle again soon.

Another awesome build. The detail on the ship is great, but I think the thing that I love the most about it is the water. Not only the fish jumping, which are great, but the texture of the water makes it seem like you can see depth underneath like real water. Did you use different colored plates underneath? White and something else, I assume, to get the lighting to bright underneath?

As I mentioned with one of the other posts, I'm usually not a big fan of the CMF line, but these are great. They really feel like they go together. The color choices you made make everything seem to really fit like it's all part of one geographic or cultural area.

I love it! I think this should be the next Winter Village set, although it doesn't have modern cars and such. Love it and the story that goes with it!

Really beautiful. I love how your stuff is always like a painting come to life in Lego. The whole thing feels very elven. Awesome job!

I think this may be one of my favorite builds from this contest. The colors are awesome, and very artistic. The dragons head tavern/inn is spectacular, and the whole thing behind a town wall is great--it really adds to the texture if you ask me. The parade is awesome, too, and everything is open enough that you can see it but still detailed enough that there's always something new to see when you look at it again. Fantastic!

Very nice! I love a ton of the techniques that you have done, not the least of which include the sand green tiles on the roof, the dragon, and the level of detail. Unlike some of the others, I like the slanted wall. I like the tiles you stack into the arches to form the cobblestone-keyed arches. My only criticism is that it's almost too busy. Not quite, but almost. I think if you had tried to add another layer of texture it would have detracted from the overall effect. Personally, I don't like the Chimia faces, but that's not really a criticism as much as a preference. Thanks for sharing! I look forward to your next build!

Really beautiful creation, like all your other work. I really enjoy seeing what you build. The color choices are great, and the clean lines of the houses are great, especially set at random angles as they are around the base. The only thing I'm not convinced of is the stream: I think you did a great job with that stream technique, although I'm not fond of the technique itself. Do you and your bother belong to a lug? I'm curious where you get so many of the unusual colored parts, such as the olives and the dark reds. The trees are gorgeous, but there's no way I could have anywhere close to that many red and dark orange pieces to make more than maybe one tree.

I'm usually not a big fan of the CMF custom stuff, but I really like yours. The series that you have seems to really go together, yet still has disparate enough to have seemingly multi factions. Awesome!

Love the sails! The color pallette is great. I can't believe the time it must have taken to do all the rigging. It really adds to the detail and realism. The only minor criticism is that the rail looks like it could use more support. Nitpicking, I know. I love it overall, though! Thanks for sharing!

Great job! I really like the sails, deck, and the removable floors. I love the old school monkeys. The whole thing looks good overall. My only (small) criticism is that there is something that looks a bit off about the perspective. It might be the rocks that close to the ship (as the ship might be grounded), although I realize that's probably due to size restrictions, and the rocks look great in and of themselves (especially how the water splashes around them), or maybe the ship sitting so high out of the water implies a very deep draft. Keep up the awesome work!

Very cool. I always like seeing tutorials, and you and your brother are two of the best builders out there, so I've been enjoying reading the tutorials on your blog!

Thanks! I'll be interested to see what it is!

Fantastic! There is a lot to like about this build: the irregular base, the use of advanced techniques for the round edges and trees, the color choices, the level of detail in the stones by using all the plates, and the separate island of foliage and tree off to the left. This is even more impressive considering that you have really pulled yourself up by the bootstraps (so to speak) by working so hard to teach yourself and innovate techniques to do what you wanted. Very well done! I also appreciate that you were able to do this without being in a LUG. The number of olive green and dark orange parts available show your perseverance in procuring these parts. A lot of people say "you don't need a big collection of Lego to build great things". While that is technically true, I find it to be disingenuous. As you have determined, you need a collection of the right parts. You could not have built anything like this by buying the 'classic' bulk Lego buckets; a lot of folks get these parts through the LUG program, which is great for them, but it is not realistic for most of us to get parts this way. It's inspiring to see someone like yourself who has gone through the trouble to gather the needed parts the hard way and come up with this amazing build. Congratulations on such a great build, and doubly so for the way in which you did it!

Thanks! I took a look through the Samsonite sets on Bricklink, and I think that the top box is a mix of several sets, mabye the motorized truck set, as it has the tow truck and the semi-truck, but it seems to be missing pieces. The second box I never found it exactly, but this is the closest that I was able to find: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=450-2#T=S&O={"iconly":0} The bins are similar and the pictures on the side of the box look the same. I was unable to find the same large pack that I have, though. Thanks for your help! It appears that second box I have does not have an entry on bricklink or brickset, so it will be interesting to find out what it is eventually.

I recently picked up some old Lego sets, mostly from the 1960s. Two of them, however, I have been unable to identify and I was hoping someone out there might be able to ID these. The first set came in a white cardboard box, and came with a number of instructions, some of which may or may not have been part of the set, and I don't know how complete this set is. The real find, however, was this set, in a plain cardboard box with 5507 stamped on the end. When opened, it was a set still wrapped in the cellophane (although it had split in a couple places) Any help would be great!

I don't miss Bionicle, Hero Factory, or a host of other lines, and won't miss Nexo Knights or Ninjago either. I don't even miss the classic space line, but then again, I don't like much music that was made since about 5 years before I was born, so I am somewhat of an anachronism. I do, however, miss the classic castle line, and enjoy the city and creator lines. That background aside, I think that Lego did somewhat of a disservice to the Castle line (and still does something similar with City). In my opinion, the designs were stale. In the City line, if you look back over the years, there's always a police station, always a fire station, there's been a lot of police and fire trucks, and there are some sorts of sports vehicles. Even back to the late 70s there are Coast Guard stations and what not. The Ferry that's out now has a counterpart from almost 40 years ago, and many of the designs that we see and think are new actually have previous incarnations. For City, I think this can work all right, as we live in a world of mass produced things now, and we expect to see slight variations on similar vehicles and buildings through the years. Real-world police and fire units update their vehicles and stations, etc. On the other hand, the medieval world is somewhat frozen in time. A castle is are not built anymore, so we do not see continuous variation in these structures. Similarly, horses and knights in armor aren't going to change year to year like City themes, as these are part of the past. Given this, I think that trying to put out the "King's Castle", which has been put out with even the same name over and over since its original inception circa 1984, is less appealing and somewhat stale for kids. Since the first blue roof castle, there has even been little change in the design in my opinion. Some of the classic castle heyday included some non-castle dwellers, such as the forestmen, and the wolfpack. Getting away from the reuse of old sets was a great advancement in my opinion--the Forestmen's River fortress and particularly the Mill Village Raid and the Medieval Marketplace were outstanding. I think that Lego getting away from rehashing the same sets would be highly beneficial to a classic castle line; in particular, some examples that come to mind are peasant houses, a cooper, a tanner, a cathedral or other medieval church (although I can understand the reluctance to produce a religious set), a quarry, a small dock or port, a fisher (with or without boat), town guards, and some town sheriffs chasing brigands. Personally, I really enjoyed the fantasy element to the castle setting (unfortunately mostly during my dark ages), and wish that we could have more dwarves, orcs, trolls, and other races. A few castles, towers, and sets of siege equipment are good, but I would suggest changing these designs to cover different terrains, different shades of grey, tan, black, and brown, and even a few of the wooden palisade fortresses (similar to some of the Viking sets). Different areas for castles, including Russia, Spain, France, and of course the British Isles, would be another source of variety as well. My particular complaints with NK is that they have few pieces that are useful for castle building. Many specialized pieces in blue, trans orange, etc. Good for some space things, maybe some volcanoes or something, but not really enough grey/bley/brown/greens that I use for castles and medieval settings. When the Angry Birds theme has more useful pieces, I submit that it is not a real castle theme.