Mylenium

*lol* Too true, unfortunately... Mylenium

Not at all. I try to keep my LEGO collection clean & pure for MOC building and such, but I've had my share of Mega Construx models and one or two COBI. I'm also constantly tempted by some other stuff, but since I neither have the money nor the space to e.g. keep around a ton of modular buildings, that usually goes nowhere. Mylenium

Typically it takes two months before new pieces become actually available and aren't constantly marked as out of stock. The first few weeks LEGO are clearly holding them back for customer support cases. Mylenium

Not necessarily. You can build terrains wafer-thin if you know how they are supposed to look. They'll still consume tons of elements, but you can pretty much express a lot with a stack of three to five plates thickness. The problem here only is that unlike bending chicken wire for model train landscapes, building robust Technic frames to plug on your plate sheets is anything but intuitive and the slightest change of heart has major consequences and may require rebuilding large sections. The scaffolding for instance for your Hoth example would likely be quite a headscratcher, but i think ultimately it would be perfectly doable as a lightweight hollow structure rather than the heavy slope mountain it appears to be built as. Mylenium

You're kind of defeating your own point, though. We live in 2021, after all. Even if you're allowing for tolerances, there are simple ways to measure and calibrate these things within reason, not have these completely whacked out (mis-)representations LEGO uses. Point in case: It would indeed be perfectly possible to get "photo lab consistent colors" and quite easily so. Just sayin'... Mylenium Why would you that? Ignorance may be bliss, but there's always the chance that even the biggest jerk might have something valuable to say one day that you might miss by blocking/ ignoring people. You know, people just have to get along with one another even if we don't always agree and occasionally shout at each other. I can't remember ever having blocked anyone (except for obvious scammers/ frauds/ criminals) in 25+ years of roaming forums. In fact I find it often questionable when people are so quick to use such functions and retreat even deeper into their own bubble... Mylenium

It could be for a car, so in theory it could be for LEGO as well. Agree, though, this would be a tough case to win on any court in the world or even get a reasonable out-of-court settlement. Still, I'm totally with @Maple on this one - LEGO's mis-tweaking of colors and in turn misrepresenting them in their marketing and packaging has gone off the rails. To me it's unfathomable once you assume they could easily pay for the most expensive Hasselblad cameras, costly wide-gamut monitors and all that. Either they have completely untalented people doing this stuff, they really don't care or they intentionally screw with this. A good example for instance are the promo photos for the new Friends sets like the houseboat or the "glamping" scenery. The Medium Azure and Orange in some of the pictures look like completely different colors... Mylenium

Not really. That's just how it is. I have a half-finished mountain that has gobbled up hundreds of slopes, plates and bricks already and I might need to throw hundreds more at it. I guess it comes down to what you prefer, but coming from a painting and graphics design background the old rule applies: texture over color. Generally that's one of my peeves with the kind of mountains you seem to prefer strictly built from evenly distributed perpendicular slopes and such. The look unrealistic because they lack texture even if they may capture the overall shape. Of course there are practical limits, but I'm definitely more inclined towards more varied builds using diverse elements or at least playing around with thicknesses/ depths, smooth vs. studded and occasional color variations... Mylenium

Not just this year... To this day I don't get why LEGO can't manage to consistently render their colors. Since one would have to assume they have all the money in the world to buy expensive equipment and hire high-profile agencies, it really feels like they are intentionally messing around with this over some ill-conceived "lifestyle factor" or something like that. Mylenium

Some cool stuff, for sure. A lot of the slopes are very reminiscent of Mega Construx, though, even more so since they introduced more new shapes for the Hot Wheels Minis this year. At the moment the technology isn't there yet. It's way too convoluted to print even relatively simple stuff and the precision is not good, either, especially with the more affordable FDM printers. Point in case: Printing larger quantities of bricks would only make sense (to me at least) if the bricks came out of the printer ready to use without having to remove supports, edge bleed and other artifacts as well as having to drill out holes for the necessary precision and that sort of thing. If one is willing to go this route for a few unique custom parts or replacing a broken legacy peice then I guess it would be okay, but to me it pretty much comes down to the much-touted 3D printing revolution that was promised ten years ago has yet to happen, if it ever happens. Maybe we can talk about this a few years down the line, but currently even large industrial 3D printers simply are not up to the task, at least when we're talking the specific requirements associated with brick building. Mylenium

Pretty interesting if it's true. I guess we'll ahve to wait and see... Mylenium

Pretty much all of LEGOs elements produce 60/ 33/ 18 degree and so on angles when used directly due to their length ratios. as suggested, you will have to create some way of adjustment or fake it. If you're not too strung up on doing this with Technic elements, hinges and ball joints can work great to do some of that stuff. For Technic you can often fake it by inserting extra 2 L elements on one corner to get a fake hinge and offset the beams enough to disguise any inaccuracies. Mylenium

Yes, it's nice to see that LEGO begin to recognize their skin color more and more as a regular color useful for other purposes as well. Mylenium

Well, that could be seen as LEGO coming to their senses... When Coral was fresh, they've thrown it into every package, be it just as some hidden 1 x 2 tile. Same for Dark Turquoise. Just look at how much of those colors is in the failed VIDIYO series. For a while it appeared as if they were going out of their way to produce every element in these colors, which is funny, considering how LEGO do not care to do the same for other, more mundane colors. It seems to me they are doing the same for Neon Yellow - saturate the market by producing as many pieces as they can in this color so people can't complain and then probably down the line in two years or so considerably dial it down. Mylenium

But so is pale yellow, which kind of is my point. Again, I'm not against the new color, but rather the total substitution and abolition of pale yellow, which funny enough is and has been the default color for EMTs for 20 years or so here in Germany (before it was that old beige/ ivory). Point in case: In many situations pale yellow would still be more appropriate than neon yellow, even more so since this stuff is highly regulated and the emergency services can't apply those markings at whim. Mylenium

Why would they do that? It's not that every emergency vehicle is driving around in neon colors and the pale yellow is pretty appropriate for a lot of "non-critical labeling and demarcations", as it's called in norms and standards papers as they e.g. apply to fire trucks. Should they throw in the Neon Yellow for warning vests and some elements? Sure! But should they fully use it as a substitute for other established colors? I certainly hope not... Mylenium

Sounds like they're going out of their way to give you a bad rep. This piece can be had for a few cents on Bricklink even from some HK-based outlets, so I'd simply offer them a buck for their trouble and advise them to order it from there. Mylenium

In part yes, but most of the time not. Since it's basically "oxidized copper", I'd only use it for mimicking patches of arctic lichen or similar and some cactus/ succulents species. It's also a very "dead" and cold color, so it's hard to not have it overwhelm everything when used in larger quantities. You can even see this to some degree on LEGO's official botanic sets. Those Sand Green 32 L Axles look kind of weird and make the flower bouquet look like it's been standing there for a few weeks already... Mylenium

Yupp, definitely a major gap in LEGO's color palette. One of my secret obsessions as a 3D artist was creating virtual plants and ever since I just look at every plant with different eyes. Outside Olive Green and Dark Green LEGO simply has no green shades that come even close to realistic plants and it's even more annoying since those two colors we could possibly use in real life mostly appear on semi-decaying plants, mosses, lichens, tropical plants or pine trees, making this problem even more apparent if you just want your average friendly European front yard. Mylenium

More?! *lol* Let me put on my designer hat here: The first thing you are ever told when learning or studying anything in that field is to not let yourself be limited by the underlying technical processes. That doesn't mean you should not be aware of them, as actually getting a design ready for production is just as important, but that's just step two or three after the actual conceptual phase. And that kind of is the point: If I were a brick designer, I'd want as many colors for those bricks as I have Copics in my arsenal (or whatever fancy art felt pens one uses) even if some of them are just for tints and shades to simulate lighting and all that. Only after that I might think about paring down those 300+ Copic colors to my limited palette. Of course nobody who has ever worked in this field would start out with something utterly crazy that never could be made into a real model, so you may already just use a fraction of those Copics, but you may still want to explore alternate color schemes or whether your model could not look even better with an entirely new color. All that aside, I really don't feel that LEGO are overdoing it and that's why your "work with the shades they already have" doesn't really mean much to me. Some of those "weird" colors have been around for forever at this point and then the question becomes what you actually mean in terms of what point in time you would take as reference. 2006 would clearly be different from 1998 and 2018 when Coral was introduced would be different from what came before. I'm pretty sure you really don't mean going back to 1983 with just 12 basic colors. I also can only reiterate my point from a few posts up: To me it seems people are simply against new colors because they think it's technically super hyper complicated and they get aggravated when their preferred element doesn't come out in a given color. Lets be real here: Knock-off manufacturers can clone official LEGO sets within days and even produce those colors more consistently, so what can't LEGO do that those many times smaller outlets can? Some pieces not being available from LEGO in a given color really is more that they don't want to or don't feel the need due to their internal procedures and rules rather than a technical problem. Mylenium

No offense, but that's the old "I only do trains, cars and Classic Space" argument I'm so sick and tired of hearing on so many forums. No, it's not what colors are available, it's what you do with them. Some people just seem to completely lack the imagination to work with those colors. LEGO could easily do it and it would have almost no impact on their manufacturing process or logistics. You know, it's 2021 where it's all computer-based, not 1950 where some myopic granny had to sift through the storage containers. Just leave machine X run for Y hours to have Z millions of piece A, B, C... The more interesting question really is whether they could find uses for all those colored parts outside selling them directly to MOC creators and that's most likely where the wheels fall off the cart. I have little doubt that this is why we only see new colors on elements these days when they can be used in more than one set and it makes sense on a broader basis. And you even kind of see this every year already with "waves" of preferred colors rippling across the product portfolio. Mylenium

Not really. I often find that there are at least five other ones missing that I would like to see. And it's not like other manufacturers in that field have less colors, even the ones not aping LEGO's color palette. COBI has just as many, with the only real difference being that most of them are different shades of greens, browns and greys for their military models. That's perhaps closer to the truth. Regardless on which side you are, the problem is not how many colors there are, but the availability of elements in those colors. Personally I'm not even concerned so much about every brick being available in every color, but more mundane stuff like flower and leaf elements for instance. Really eludes me why LEGO just can't produce a bunch of them and sell "Seasonal Plant Decoration" packs or something like that. Absolutely! Bringing back Sand Red and a lighter grey would be very useful. Personally I'd also love to see some real natural greens and perhaps one more shade of brown. Mylenium

The ice rink looks nice, but I'm not too sure about the vignettes. Generally, though, the sets feel a bit repetitive. Mylenium

Yeah, I figured that later in the day. ;-) Mylenium

Yes. It appears that this is just an auxiliary loop to tighten up the yarn that was accidentally filled when the thread slipped out. It should have been capped off by the sprue clippers, anyway, so it's a fun little curiosity item. Mylenium

Huh? https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=3020&in=S&colorID=220&ov=Y I bought three from the sets listed there and have a whopping 10 such plates. Why would they do that? They just announced the leaf element (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=32607#T=C) in Coral in one of the "Encanto" book sets. And of course it's likely that they'll keep using it as "Day Glo Orange" for rescue vehicles in Friends, City and so on. Such rumors make zero sense. Again, makes zero sense. Sure, LEGO went overboard with this in the 1990s and early 2000s and got burned, but these days one would have to assume that whenever they introduce a new color, they have a long-term plan. That's most definitely true for Dark Turquoise, which is now being used regularly (almost too much again already) and it certainly applies to Coral as well. Therefore if they decide to introduce yet another color, it's definitely going to stick around. And you have to see it from a practical standpoint as well: Why would they navigate themselves into a corner by not producing sufficient quantities of elements in a given color or being unable to do re-issues of sets a few years later? They're certainly not going to invest two years or whatever into researching a new color - from how it would integrate with other colors to how people like it to its chemical properties and production prerequisites - to phase it out after only a few product cycles. Similarly, the logistics with their suppliers would be affected. Sure, they can easily buy 50 tons of pigment X on the market, use up every bit and forget about it, but where is that even logical? Not really. Coatings like Metallic Gold, Metallic Silver, your beloved pearlescent effect, Glow-in-the-Dark White, glitter inlays and so on would technically constitute new colors, anyway. They have their own item numbers and SKUs as well as their own shelves in whatever warehouses. It's not like they are pulling out a "plain" Trans Medium Blue piece and throw it into the tumbler when they need a fake waterfall for a Friends set. This is stock produced in mass production runs. And in the year 2021 with computers managing all this, anyway, who cares? If you run out of space, just build another warehouse with fancy automatic/ robotic storage units. Possible, but if it does than most likely not for the reasons alluded to by the OP such as one color needing to go in favor of another. I consider it more likely that they're having issues with the fluorescent pigments or something like that. Mylenium