Brickadier General

What an excellent twist on the Miniland "theme." The brick-built shields are a really nice touch!

Hi Gary, This is a great opportunity, and I'm really, really looking forward to the prospect of a hardbound English collector's guide (and I understand you can't guarantee that). You are more than welcome to use anything I have shared online (https://www.flickr.com/photos/29934333@N02/). Whenever I can, I scan stuff to share with BrickSet. Since you have an early toy section, I have two items that were "copycats" (or the other way around) of LEGO's early plastic toys. One of these is a clown keychain with tongue that sticks out when you press a button. The other item is a game of stacking clowns (made by Noma, most famous for Christmas lights). If you think it would help you please let me know.

I'm interested in purchasing magazines that were published for LEGO's employees (preferably English). LEGO Review (known as LEGO Revue in Germany and Klodshans in Danish) was published in the 1980s and 1990s. This was replaced by LEGO Life magazine (in the late 1990s or so, it would seem). I'd like to build a collection of these magazines because they are a great historical resource and are fun to read. I'm interested in buying any issues you might have. If you'd like to bundle other stuff together, I also collect LEGO brochures, catalogs, kids magazines, etc. Hoping that someone out there has these...

I sympathize with some of your points, mainly the lack of variety. Friends minidolls currently don't lend themselves very well to MOCing. I made a Friends diorama set in the early 1900s and set about to use stock Friends parts. Making the figures look period correct was not very easy with the given Friends parts. I also felt like there aren't many male figures (or at least male figures I could use for my MOC). I like the minidolls but wish they had more points of articulation. I'm assuming these were left out for quality reasons. Still, it would be nice to have more posing options.

Oh man, so many good figures to choose from. However, the toy maker is probably my favorite. Really clever looking! Speaking of toy makers, it would be really nice if they released Ole Kirk as a minifig with a pull-duck...

There are many nice details in this little scene; In particular, I love the clothesline. The color scheme of the wagon is appealing, too. The green roof with gold accents works quite well, and makes great use of the larger pieces often used for an airplane roof. Good job!

Great house! It definitely feels very "cartoony." The hammock hanging from the trees is particularly interesting. What did you use to make the hammock?

Whoa, nice work on the Batcave! It looks like it'd be a lot of fun to play with for hours on end. Love that you've included Bartman. haha

Nice mod. I really like the use of black & yellow plates to make the "caution stripe" along the car. Good work!

For the most part, I'm ok with stickers because it means more MOC parts! Printed parts are nice when you get them but have more limited application. All of my stickers get filed away in a "giant sticker bag." They pretty much sit in there for years unless I can find an appropriate MOC to use them in.

You did an excellent job with the contours of the giants face. That was the first thing that jumped out right away. Great build overall!

Counterfeits flourish on eBay; they are just too difficult to regulate. When one seller gets taken down, 3 more take his/her place. Counterfeiting of actual sets in China has been an ongoing problem. Back in the early 2000s, Enlighten was doing 90s LEGO sets, ripping the box art from LEGO. In China, I think this too is difficult to regulate. I can totally see why this is happening, though. It's been a few years now, but I lived in China and remembered coming across genuine LEGO. Back then, it was retailing for around 30% higher than my home in the U.S. If you consider the purchasing power of the average person in China, a LEGO set is akin to the "Ferrari" of toys. It's a luxury product that few can afford. In come the countereiters...

I'm really liking that Batmobile. It was the first thing I noticed in your picture. The blending for the greys with black works surprisingly well for a bat-vehicle and definitely make it more interesting to look at. Very good job!

All the details...this looks so wonderful! I am particularly interested in how you did your vehicles. You used some interesting non-traditional solutions to creating certain parts of the car (like the crossbow for the grille and hood ornament of the one vehicle). Gives your build even more character.

The rarest LEGO item currently in my collection is this 1940s convertible. Plastic is fantastic, but wood is also good. ;-)

Looks wonderful. Love all the little "greebly" details like the use of the claw accessory and bucket handles. They really give your model a lot of character.

I'm always impressed by people who take on these big building projects and are able to see them through after several years. I can't really go beyond a few months, at most, because I worry about such projects never getting completed. It takes a lot of dedication.

I guess a lot has changed in the past 5 years. I was living in a small city and couldn't find LEGO anywhere in town. Plenty of fakes, though. It seemed like more LEGO was readily available in Shanghai and Beijing. But maybe this has changed? Good that you are able to get decently priced LEGO over there. I think U.S. prices tend to be among the lowest, so the difference in price was pretty noticeable. I miss 29 kuai dinners, though...

Here's a question...How many of you have bought these rare color parts, only to eventually see them later appear in sets. I have owned a bright light orange bicycle for at least 5 or 6 years and think I paid $25 USD. It had NEVER appeared in a set...at least, not until this year. Thanks to this year's LEGO Friends set, Party Train, the bright light orange bicycle has been made available to the public. A part of me kind of wishes I had sold it last year...but I still love it. There is a medium blue bicycle (and a few other weird colors) bicycles on BrickLink for over $200 - With the possibility of a potential future release, there is no way I would pay that much. I need some security...like if the parts were made in retired colors. A turquoise bike would be awesome. The other thing I bought that eventually wound up in future LEGO sets were dark blue kepis. The kepi is the hat worn by the soldiers in the Wild West sets (not the cowboy style hats). In 2008, I bought them in dark blue and red. For a long time, they were considered non-production...until the Lone Ranger sets came out. The soldiers had dark blue uniforms and kepis. I cross my fingers and hope the red kepis are safe. Anyone else experience this? I can't be the only one.

Thanks guys! Sorry for the late reply. I forgot to "follow" the topic and didn't see them until now. Admittedly, I have never watched Batman Beyond before, so I had to look up that Mr. Freeze. He is basically a disembodied head, right? That's pretty wild!

You were able to see it? Wow, nice! I lived in China for about a year (2010-2011) and remember LEGO being quite expensive - something like 30% more expensive than in the U.S. Hopefully having the factories in China will help lower these costs because those prices were too expensive for the average person in China.Interesting note about having to share the blueprints. Weren't the collectible minifigures made in China? That would help explain the rise of counterfeit minifigures.

The Café: Brickster Bistro (When I saw hip, I thought hipster, so Brickster is a play on that) The Family restaurant: Stack & Snack (You build your meal and eat it. hehe) The Mezzanine: Unique Culinary Secrets Dang, there's the "stack." I swear I didn't look at yours before replying. I think there may be many "stack" names. I was originally going to do "Stack-A-Snack" for the Cafe, but a snack is smaller than a meal. So I used the verb form of snack for "to eat." ("Stack & Snack") Stack-A-Lunch sounds really good.

I looked forward to every release, but my favorite in terms of building experience was birds. That was a really fun build for me.

Nice job on the airship. It has a Final Fantasy (video game) type of feel to it, but in the traditional Friends color scheme. I like it!

Another great representation! I think you could almost build this in real LEGO bricks, though maybe green instead of dark green. You can find a few sellers selling wagon wheels in strange colors. I've seen red and green, but not dark green. I find it interesting that this is known as Locomobile. There was also a U.S. car company called Locomobile, and they made steam powered cars at first and then switched to gas. Here is another 1909 Locomobile.