Svelte

With my 4,000th post I do commemorate the Walrus' harem Om shanti om! I do like these saucy minxes compared to the official cross-eyed stumpy goblin in the Clone Turbo Tank set

I should take some pics if I have time this weekend. There's a more 'sandy white' tan too. Perhaps its different in US/ non US sets. I have to say, I think LEGO instructions should be labelled 'SAMPLE ONLY - PRODUCT MAY NOT RESEMBLE THIS WHEN BUILT' since the colours in the pages are always identical which almost never happens now in real life

Fixed! The low point of tan was in 07 in the 4954 Model Town House set, with lots of different shades for different length 1x bricks. I did find the 6754 Family Home somewhat better in this regard, although not perfect.

There seems to be a lot of that about. Too much, perhaps - I had assumed that the Imperial Soldiers had become extinct for that very reason

Well, I've seen issues in all the primary colours now. The only one that people don't seem to notice so much is black but I have found marbling in some parts from 2008. Generally I've found white has improved, which is what makes these obvious stuff-ups so disappointing batches so annoying. The 10198 Tantive IV did show creamy shades in 1x1 Technic bricks and 1x1 tiles, and the 2010 Star Wars sets using the 1x2 brick with grill pattern were some of the lowest I've ever seen. Yellow does seem a lot better than the low point from the middle of last year. Yet recent Toy Fair pics show LEGO is no better at producing the darker or newer shades in consistent colours. Look at new dark nougat arch/ brick side-by-side: Dark green is a little patchy too:

It seems to be the way of the future with LEGO generally - bigger and more detailed. I don't know why there seems to be dislike of Grevious - if you watch the movie, or cartoon, he is a flurry of limbs with malevolent, staring eyes, which is pretty much what you've got here This version is much more menacing and posable than the 2005 version, which is a good thing in my book I like Boba too, and it's about time he was updated. I don't see any particular resemblance to Mega Blox so this poll seems obviously biased I actually dislike the bulbously oversized AT-AT driver/ TIE pilot helmets in the Jan wave a lot more, and those stupid new Hoth headgear-and-goggles assemblages which look even worse and are seemingly designed at a different scale to regular figs. At least Grevious is supposed to be huge and awesome looking!

I built the 3182 Airport set yesterday and wasn't impressed, quality wise. In particular, the large pre-moulded nose piece was a creamy and distinctly different colour from the other large prefab white pieces that make up the rest of the body of the plane. The little door hatch piece was a distinctly creamy shade too. Having such a large and key part of the model in a different shade really detracts from the appearance of the plane and I don't remember the 2006 version showing such variance (although I will have to check). Yellow seems to have improved - the 1x2 plates were much better than the ones found in the bus in 7641 City Corner, but some of the 1x2 tiles were off. Blue had at least 3 shades, with adjacent 1x2 plates and hinge plates showing dramatic differences in colour, and the same 2x2 tiles in blue showing variance in shade even in the same part. It's not like the Airport is dramatically different from any other 2010 sets (Atlantis shades of red seem to run to at least 3 colours), but I was moved to add this latest post due to the effect that the creamy/ white mix had on the finished plane overall. I am finding it quite disheartening to open up these new sets and find a different quality problem every time I just wish someone high-up at LEGO would just admit 'You know what? Moving from pre-mixed colour pellets to doing it ourselves was a horrible mistake! What the hell were we thinking?' While LEGO is mixing their own colours, I have zero confidence that we will see any consistent improvements, full stop. As soon as they fix one obvious error, they make another one.

It's hard to tell with the proper sets anyway - that's what sucks about the Chinese move. The 'rings' are bagged separately. But I wouldn't be surprised if the complicated printed headpieces of the figs like the shark dude, manta or Squiddy came from China as well This image does show a torso with neck mark but it is likely just a mock-up anyway.

Here's a great way to army build Squid King figs - one with each book Cheap! http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/97814...p-Activity-Book

Thanks for the new pics, guys! Hopefully this means Disney will stop issuing takedown notices

Yes, the new female face with pink lips is in both the 3222 Limo and Helicopter set and 3821 Airport set. (I own both.) It is a nice face, a pleasing change from the standard.

Just from my experience (at least 20+ orders in the last few years), I tend not to believe this, mainly from the way things are packed, the names on the packing sheets, and that standard orders always tend to leave the factory (and thus charge your card) at approximately the same time of week, ie when that designated lot of international orders to Aus gets packed off from the Euro warehouse. I also don't see why so many boxes would come horribly crushed in their official LEGO outer cardboard box if they were coming from 3 suburbs away! I know. I meant a flate rate on the order total, not the actual cost you'd pay if you were shipping this through the regular post. If that was the case we'd all be paying a lot more, especially for large orders! In that respect, I don't mind paying shipping, it's the crazy system whereby new products or sale items don't get released simultaneously which means we have to pay double shipping if we want to get something on sale or when new releases come out. There's no real comparison here. Brett gets his sets either retail from the regular Lego warehouse in Australia and charges ordinary retail prices, or brings them in himself (like Exclusives) and basically adds the shipping on top anyway, and then redistributes them here. I understand how you feel, absolutely, and I resent those in Europe who complain about having to pay low shipping fees on top of the set, but either you wait for Exclusives to appear at a department store or chain, or suck it up and pay the shipping Maybe I've been an AFOL too long, but I'm kind of resigned to the latter. I don't like that they keep on increasing our prices for no real reason, especially when Europe and the US don't seem to suffer such increases, but I don't know how to effectively communicate to LEGO that they're losing business to the US just because of their price-gouging. Honestly, they don't seem to care much and obviously these sets are still selling in high quantities so they feel they can get away with it. Personally, for the Grand Emporium (to keep on topic ) I'd rather get a few crisp boxed copies from LEGO directly and pay a bit more (I find the ordinary surface mail too damaging when it comes to nice boxes) and then get multiples from a US Bricklink seller, deboxed, for parts and expansion.

You might get charged that way, but I never have There's no such thing as 'cross border fees'. Every set sold via S@H to Australia includes GST which LEGO pays directly to the government. I find that highly unlikely, from the way every order I've received has been packed and labelled. The only thing that happens here for regular orders is that they get shipped to a courier company who then delivers the package. Express orders go direct via DHL rather than using the intermediary courier company. Shipping is calculated separately and as a flat rate no matter what you order; I don't think it has any bearing at all on S@H Exclusive prices.

I bet it's priced at $49.99 so you have to buy something extra to get the freebie Overstocked Airport sets at Myer sounds like a $99 special offer sale in the next few weeks to me Is anything due in March? Or is the next wave all April stuff (Atlantis, Power Miners, Farm set etc)?

The 10210 Imperial Flagship was released in Jan at GBP140 and EUR150, and now so is the Grand Emporium, so it looks to me as if LEGO has set that amount as the new pricing benchmark for large Exclusives in the UK market. It's possible if sales drop dramatically they will reduce the price, but I find that rarely happens They are willing to admit they've made a mistake when they set things too low, but not when they set them too high (Like the oddness with the Town Plan repricing in Jan last year)

The UK has had a price advantage over most non-US markets for the last few years. That's not news to anybody. It looks like LEGO is finally addressing the imbalance, albeit in a somewhat drastic way. In Australia, we've also had 2 price jumps in the last 6 months alone for the Fire Brigade. It jumped from the Green Grocer price of $AUD250 to $AUD280 and in January to $AUD300. The Australian dollar has remained consistently strong so there seems no justification for this increase considering the price has remained static in other markets. That means the equivalent price for Australians to buy either the Green Grocer has been about GBP140 for the last 2 years or GBP 166 for the Fire Brigade, so you won't win any sympathy from us

The green stand piece is a favourite of mine, and actually pretty cheap on Bricklink. http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?itemID...4&colorID=6 I bought a heap with the idea of using layers of the pieces as foliage in a tree, but I haven't got round to that yet

I'm just grateful they went all-out with the Castle rather than cutting corners just to meet a designated arbitrary price point of under $US100 bucks or something similar Is $US129.99 a record for a non-Star Wars licensed set?

It's the same one as in the new World Racers sets I agree with your remarks about the clever scale of Hogwarts looking 'bigger on the outside' - a great technique and quite revolutionary for an official LEGO design. The Burrows looks to be one of the nicest house parts building packs ever (outside of a Creator set, and even better than most of those) with its assortment of dark red roof slopes, medium blue shutters, tan *and* white windows, lots of pieces in dark nougat, 2 dark tan bushes, the detailed kitchen, even flowers and a pig! Amazing! Is there a story reason why the roof cap slopes are in dark bley rather than in dark red? I really love that almost all these sets are combo deals of action scenes - The Burrows is made a whole new level of amazing by including the burning fields scene and characters, Hagrid's Hut is more exciting with Aragog (I also like the design better but hate the sticker), etc. Dobby's release is fine for an entry level set with 3 characters - for the lowest price point I don't see how people could expect much more. With Indy gone now, I'm really glad that we have another licensed line with amazing general-use figure parts too, especially from the Burrows set It's a bit sad that the most common printed item looks to be a 1x2 tile with sock (as found in Freeing Dobby and the Burrows, and no doubt elsewhere as well) but I guess it's no surprise these days. It doesn't bother me any more than it does in any line, it's just sad when you go back and build sets from 2001-2005 where it seemed almost every unique piece was printed.

This year's Technic sets look really over-decalled as well I still think 7709 wins - there are 27 individual stickers for 'bullet pock mark effects' alone

Happy Birthday Mr Ras-amatazz! Go Aquarian Domination month - woo! I'm watching you He's only a day older than he was yesterday!

World Racers does look ludicrously over-stickered, even by recent standards. The Speed Racer sets were also super-stickered, but my gut feeling is that the most I've ever encountered was in the Exo-Force 7709 Sentai Fortress:

I don't know how a vote on Series 2 could be accurate considering we've seen only half the figs and a dodgy prelim image, but I've removed Series 1 from this poll since the other one has almost 300 votes.

I don't think the seller has them in hand, since it says 'shipping beginning of March' And wasn't that grogall's pic, anyway? Sneaky!