Mylenium

Nope, they don't. This alleged color preference is utterly nurture, not nature. It's a cliché that arose some time in the late 1960s when suddenly these colors were excessively used by Mattel et al for girls toys. You can even see this in historic doll houses etc. - before a certain point pink and other "pastel" colors didn't exist or were used in different contexts like traditional pastel "lead green" for wallpapers. It's really an industry-driven bad trend and you can easily disprove it. There are parents and kindergartens who raise their kids without all this nonsense and keep things "neutral" in Sweden for instance. Those kids don't gravitate to any specific color if they have never been influenced to learn those false sterotypes. Of course one could argue that because these days it's impossible to escape this madness due to media overflow and kids easily becoming jelaeous of other kids and wanting the same toys there's a self-amplifying trend here, but in the grander educational ansd socio-cultural context kids have no natural inclination to value some colors higher than others. Mylenium

...could be just as stressful for some, though. ;-) Mylenium

Or boring? Times are changing, obviously. E.g the Emma from Emma's Art Studio (41365) doesn't even use a single splash of her traditional Lavender. Well, but then they didn't have a chance to actually see it yet unless they bought the Pop-Up Party Bus, do they? The more the color is used, the more the kids will simply get used to it and adapt. And not to put too fine a point to it: That pastel color thing is merely that "princess syndrome" driven by the adults, so to kids it doesn't really matter, anyway. For all intents and purposes, those heart boxes could be any color and kids would like or dislike them just as much in equal measure as if they were in harmonious pastels... Mylenium

Thanks for that info! I don't mind. For the time being one can never have enough of those colors and that alone is incentive enough to at least buy some of the sets as a parts source. I also like the animals and little bits like the black sausage in some sets. that should be useful for detailing my own creations. Actually they'll just look like the striped pattern of a lighthouse, a beach chair, a beach towel or whatever you would imagine. I believe that is the intention. That has been going on for a while already and I'm actually welcoming it. In the end the lack of distinction across sets always has been one of my key criticisms with Friends sets. It's almost easier to get an army of cloned Emma, Andrea or Olivia minidolls than it is to get a squadron of actual Star Wars Clone Troopers. Not really an issue, or is it? They are printed, after all. I tend to think the intention is merely to give some differentiation and incentive to actually buy the sets. Care to spell out the name? Mylenium

I wouldn't put it that way. For me there are simply practical limitations. I don't have the money to buy every set ten times, don't have the space to keep too many models around assembled and of course I don't want to open up a Bricklink store to sell off leftover parts. Therefore I rather buy sets from other lines, usually stuff that has a certain complexity, looks nice to keep assembled or at least contains good parts for custom builds. Unfortunately 3in1 models rarely fit those criteria, which I often regret myself. You know, it's really that "I would love to build this model, but I don't want a ton of extraneous wheels, hinges etc. floating about afterwards." I mentioned in this thread already. Don't let this discourage you, though. Perhaps it's really just a matter of persisting and trying for the right model to come along that would compell people to dig more into your stuff. Mylenium

Pretty awesome! I'm not into steampunk-ish stuff usually, but this made me grin. Mylenium

Lovely! The only thing I'd change is the yellow/ dark purple egg. Somehow its colors don't quite fit with the others and it stands out too much. One of the pastel-y colors (pale yellow, light aqua etc.) in place of the yellow might feel more harmonious. Mylenium

Never had any of those and I'm in particularly puzzled by a big part like the Sand Green wedge getting mixed up. Unfortunately I had to get in touch a ton of times with support for replacing parts with quality issues, but that seems to be a whole other dimension. Mylenium

Sure. What I've been saying all along. Mylenium

Oh, please! That's the same lame argument over and over again. For the life of it: LEGO's primary business is selling plastic toys. Or are you trying to tell me that they are actually a super-secret space science company only doing that brick stuff on the side to finance their projects and they need to set aside extra resources and personnel? It's their everyday thing and they sure should know how to plan their contingencies and processes! And if you think LEGO have it tough, then please have a look at any reasonably complex industrial manufacturing process where millions of parts need to be managed to just build a single machine. Sorry, but you are inflating this argument just for the sake of it. Yes, logistics and production planning cost money as does the actual production, but if there were any truth to your "it's extremely complicated", then literally nothing ever would get done anywhere and we'd not be living in an industrial age. Seriously: Having a hundred different figure heads is no different then dealing with a hundred different types of screws. Unless you are telling me LEGO are grossly incompetent in managing their supply chain, then this is literally nothing. It happens millions of times every day in millions of companies across the globe. Mylenium

It feels more like a fertilizer processing station or one of those things where they dry clay or pre-process ore in a smeltery, not an actual chemical plant. What specific production process is it based on? Mylenium

...but then again, we return to the original point: Are minifigs needed at all in many sets and if so, how many of them? In this particular case I think it's utterly a moot point. People who have that kind of money won't make much of it either way and others can only be frustrated onlookers that have to buy the figs from the secondary markets. This set is insofar not relevant to the discussion even as the value of the minifigs really represents just a tiny fraction of the whole. If you were to make a point, the smaller HP sets would be a better example or for that matter e.g. some Ninjago sets that are stuffed to the brim with figs. Mylenium

Or perhaps Bricklink's categorizations are quite generally inadequate? You know, the signs of an old system cracking and bending under its own weight and lack of innovation and better care being unable to accommodate these types of grey areas. Just sayin'... Mylenium

Yupp, sometimes reviews feel like a minifigure wank job... ...but then again, a lot of times it's just "standard" faces like the infamous angry clone face in Star Wars. And to be honest, I can't really see the value in having mutliple variants of emotional states on the same figures. As I wrote further above - kids probably don't even care or have difficulty to swap out heads or even rotate them, so to me this is another thing solely catering to collectors. Say what you will, but I don't think the minifigure stuff is in any way driven by their actual play value. I appreciate that LEGO are of course putting some thought into this, but more or less in many cases it seems a pointless exercise. That and of course it still seems a cheap and lazy way to make more money. You know, modifying one of those print templates in some cases literally probably takes ten minutes. Mylenium

Yes/ No/ Perhaps. That would be like opening that old can of stinky fish on what sets people actually want, but let's not go there again. ;) My point more specifically being, that I sometimes can't shake the feeling that someone at LEGO is gleefully rubbing their hands at how easy it is to make money with minifigs. It seems to have to come to a point where re-combining existing figure parts and selling it as a new one with only slightly modified printing is too easy. To me that feels a bit lazy at times in the sense that minifigs may be favored over other aspects of a set... Mylenium

Sure, but that doesn't mean that most minifig collectors suffer from genuine clinical OCD. I'm gonna say it again: The biggest problem with the minifig craze in my view is that LEGO are all too willing to feed the frenzy because it makes them tons of ca$h. Unless they dial it back you can't exactly fault a completionist for going batty over that one missing figure in his collection. The rest is just a matter of personal view. I may not particularly get the hots for minifigs for the most part, but I totally get the appeal to some. As @Aanchir said, it's not far fetched to assume that it is therapeutic to a degree, makes you feel good and also counts as an achievement if you have hunted down that super rare figure and your collection is complete. Whatever makes them happy... Mylenium

If you don't mind a bit of curvature, the small wedge slopes (29120, 29119) and a curved slope (93237) or the matching separate curved slopes will do miracles. It will only be a bit tricky to get an acceptable attachement in the middle and I'd definitely only use this set against a full plate as a marquee, not standalone, but it would be about right in proportions and only slightly taller than 3 studs. Mylenium

They were still pretty good, though, IMO. I still regret not having snatched up the Corner Deli when I had a last second chance for a good bargain because back then I was too obsessed about Technic only. If they could at least bring back those little city houses, I'd be a much happier AFOL. If they bring back the bigger, fully formed buildings then even better. I consider the latter unlikely, though, as it would make too much of a dent in the Modular Buildings series' sales, especially in a year like this with the not-so-well received Corner Garage. Would be a nightmare for LEGO if people passed on the expensive models in favor of rather buying multiple smaller houses. Mylenium

Actually not entirely. If your brain isn't wired in a specific way, you cannot be truly creative. It's a common misunderstanding even in the creative and media industries where this "learned creativity" is pretty widespread - people may be able to re-create specific styles and apply their academic knowledge, but not come up with something fresh entirely of their own. Same for kids. I've been surrounded with teachers, psychologists, sociologists and other people of that ilk all my life and they would probably contend your argument, too. You could throw an entire stack of minifigs at some kids and they just don't know what to do with them, not even being able to recreate and reenact scenes from their everyday lives. So to sum it up: You have to have the genes just as you have to have an understanding of your surroundings and a willingness to learn to develop true creativity, though of course that in itself would be an endless field for debate on how much each part matters... Mylenium

Yeah, sure. I'm not going to pretend it would be much different - if the A-model isn't an eyecatcher, it's usually difficult to get behind a set until you see how someone else has built something nice from it. Just saying that the situation with the B and C models could be a bit better on a generic level. Actually I felt that Building Bigger thinking was much closer to that. I even wrote that in my dirty little blog (https://myleniumsbrickcorner.wordpress.com/category/lego-sets/building-bigger-thinking/). The sets were more versatile and the parts supply in them felt generous and useful because unlike the 3in1 sets they also included more unusual parts. I really wish they had pursued that line more and merged it with the Classic and 3in1 for some sort of better "Basics" line that would appeal to children with its many options, but also give older, experienced people something by offering good parts and allowing to build more complex stuff as well. Mylenium

Hehe, it's not that I wouldn't want a pilot, but I don't need a mechanic and a bomb loading crew to go with it. In the end, to me at least, it's often that I feel I'm paying for extraneaous minifigures that have nothing to do with the main model, which I guess would be most people's who are not too much into minifigs main peeve. They are not opposed to the occasional minifig that makes sense in the given context of a set, but they may not like being flooded with them and LEGO thus unnecessarily inflating the price. I also think sometimes it's a bit misguided in that LEGO perhaps are trying too hard to maintain the illusion of a "play set" by stuffing it with minifigures, when a lot of them clearly aren't... Mylenium

I wouldn't put it that way. To me it's usually more a case of where I can get behind the idea and concept of a secondary build, but the possible execution still tees me off. It's often that I don't like the color then, with odd stuff peeking out that would have required elements to be colored differently or that I think a different color scheme alltogether would be better. Similarly I often feel that LEGO did not even consider including some more extra parts for the alternate builds. Or to put it differently: The 3in1 sets perhaps should be more based on a healthy average of the models included in terms of parts and sophistication instead of how it is now where all of the alternate models kinda feel forcibly derived from the main build in a "you have to make do with the parts you have" manner. A good example for this is for instance the latest Deep Sea Creatures set where a few more slopes to add yet another segment to the squid model would have made a noticeable difference even if those extra bits were never used on the main shark model... Mylenium

Yupp, agree. Though I don't collect minifigures, I would occasionally be willing to splash some cash on a select few figures for their whimsy and fun factor to feed my inner child, but digging through the bags always puts me off and I leave it be for good as I'm not inclined to buy them from those scalpers that un- and repack them, either. Mylenium

Yes, though it ties into your "use of preexisting parts" argument: Many 3in1 sets only contain a very limited number of parts that I would find useful for later custom builds. To me it's that old gag of potentially ending up with a larger pile of ball joints and weirdly shaped wedge plates than actual conventional bricks and straight plates. That ratio gets even worse when you buy a set more than once to do all alternate builds at the same time, assuming they are even worthwhile enough. That's one of those other things - the secondary builds often feel inferior and thus diminish the original intent and merit of the 3in1 line, very much like the B models in the Technic series these days degrade and devalue the sets because they are so lackluster or even downright terrible. Don't get me wrong - I really like some of the 3in1 sets and I'll definitely buy e.gf. this year's new house boat, but there's not much incentive to buy it twice or three times for the aforementioned reasons, which I guess is what LEGO would like us all to do and what may have been the original thought behind the series to some extent. Mylenium

Not sure if that's really an argument. I for instance have like four or five Emmets from TLM2, though I basically merely bought three sets, a polybag and a magazine. The level of redundancy is already extremely high since despite slightly different face prints they otherwise look the same. I've also complained about the ever same, identical-looking Emmas, Olivias and Andreas in LEGO Friends sets more than I would have liked. LEGO are certainly going overboard with including the same figs in every set at times. Therefore it seems to me they need to be smarter about their distribution across different sets or at least provide more diverse and distinct variations of the same figures to provide more incentive to get and enjoy them. In your Minecraft example I'm pretty sure they could at least have offered some alternate prints based on custom texture packs and mods for instance, I would imagine. Mylenium