Accio Lego

Given that series 22 was pretty much even - 5 male, 5 female, 2 indeterminate gender - I think it’s safe to speculate that Lego will go that route again. It’s one of the many reasons I doubt we’ll be getting an entire series of exact copies.

Exactly, I get why most people here favor the older end of that 44 year spectrum, but there are also plenty of people who’ll get nostalgic about the stuff that’s 20 years old or less. Add in the kids who’ll just want a fun variety and lego is going to want to pull a little bit from everywhere. And I agree that a straight of Ninjago figure would feel like a letdown - but given the archetypes lego usually uses in the CMFs, I can see them doing an accurate historical/multicultural version of a samurai/ninja/Japanese mythological creature. Basically, something that could fit into the Ninjago universe while also appealing to the collectors who like the historical minifigs we’ve consistently gotten.

I think it’s way to optimistic to think that every single character in the series will be a 1:1 recreation of an older classic character. And Lego is going to want to represent their entire run, not just the classic stuff - they’ve got 90 years to pull from remember. I think a more realistic list would look like: 1. New brick suit color 2. new animal costume (probably Lion or Crocodile, since they featured in both fabuland and chima) 3. Castle (realistic - either some sort of royalty or another knight) 4. Fantasy Castle (possibly an elf - perhaps with a baby dragon to reference the Elves minidoll theme (not to mention that the snow warrior from series 22 proves lego is absolutely willing to do nods to GoT)) 5. Gold classic space man/woman 6. Space sci-fi/alien 7. Pirate of some sort 8. Western (cowboy/girl etc.) 9. City (athlete) 10. City (profession/musician) 11. Bionicle tribute (possibly another costume) 12. Multicultural Historical (ninja/samurai to reference Ninjago is possible but I’d also love to see them do a more realistic Pacific Islander warrior as a nod to King Kahuka from pirates)

I find the fact that lego released an image of two of the Star Wars advent calendar gifts as part of yesterday’s Star Wars celebration rather interesting. Maybe they’ve done something like this for Star Wars before many years ago, but in the past few years as I’ve been following advent calendar news I’ve never seen a teaser like this posted on their official social media. I’d largely discounted the idea of getting any sort of advent calendar reveal at Lego Con because A) it’s too early, and B) a lot of people (including the parents/small children who are a large part of Lego Con’s target audience) want the advent calendar gifts to be largely a surprise, and Lego seems to be conscientious of this and refrain from pushing much advent calendar imagery on their social media. But with Star Wars already getting a teaser formatted reveal, it now seems within possibility that we could get the same thing for Harry Potter at Lego Con. Fingers crossed.

Lego hasn’t explicitly confirmed on social media that there will be a Harry Potter reveal like they have with Star Wars, but they did just announce that Evanna Lynch will be guest staring in the Harry Potter portion of the program. Some of Luna’s most memorable scenes in OotP and HBP take place on or just off the train, so who knows. I do suspect they’ll be focusing more on the summer wave though, because it’s really hard to believe that their US release being scheduled for the day after Lego Con airs is any sort of coincidence.

I think it’s more likely we’d see a completely new color like gold or silver - and if we see a ‘spaceman’ in series 23 I have a suspicion they’ll also do something a little more exotic than the classic smiley face for the head (like another alien or space woman).

Yeah, when you think about it, birds, fish, crabs, rats, even the newer squirrels and hermit crabs, would be great in PaB walls because they’re the sort of things people would want to grab a whole fistful of to add a little extra to any display. If they put (non snowy) owls out I’d grab a whole cupful and have my new Harry Potter sets just as covered as the old ones pronto.

Lego has absolutely used CMFs to ‘enhance’ sets coming out at the same time before. I’ve already seen people in multiple places speculating we’ll get a king in series 23 since there rather notably isn’t one in the castle set. And like you said, a new color of spaceman (or at least a character in a classic spacesuit) would be well within Lego’s normal pattern even without an anniversary. Pretty much every popular theme has more than one type of character that inhabits it, so the designers have plenty of choices. Personally, I’m expecting at least the speculated king, some sort of spaceman (possibly a space woman or another alien), a pirate, and some sort of Bionicle tribute - which covers the four themes that made the final vote on the Ideas poll. And no matter what there’s going to be at least one or two City archetypes, both because lego always puts them in the CMFs and because it’s a major long running theme. I’d also expect something on the more fantasy side of castle (maybe with some overlap with Elves, since Friends already has a lot of overlap with City?), some sort of adventurer and/or diver, a martial artist as a nod to Ninjago, and I can see them repurposing the usual animal costume into a subtle fabuland/chima tribute. And I’d be super shocked if we didn’t get a new color of brick suit - hopefully with a more interesting accessory than the green brick suit guy.

Not to mention that modern animals all have printing

So it looks like there’s a little black strut that can be attached to mount the Minifigure and his easel to the painting if you’re hanging it on the wall. So you can keep the Minifigure with the rest of the set no matter which way you choose to display it - very clever!

Yes, I found that myself after poking around a bit. But as I said in the edit to my post, there’s literally no reason for the info that a theme as big as Harry Potter getting reveals to be hidden away while Star Wars and Minecraft are mentioned with the other themes on the main page except a typo or some other misunderstanding.

And THIS is a quote from the actual lego website: “More official set reveals than last year! Expect official reveals from some of your favorite franchises. From LEGO® Super Mario ™, LEGO Star Wars™, LEGO DOTS, LEGO Marvel, LEGO Minecraft® AND brand-new Minifigures (to name a few), there are more official reveals than ever at LEGO CON 2022.” No specific mention of Harry Potter. The ‘to name a few’ bit leaves things open ended, but that’s likely just to leave them wiggle room (and probably more related to the ‘new colab’ they’re hyping to reveal). They aren’t promising any Harry Potter reveals, so we shouldn’t be surprised if all we see is stuff promoting the summer sets like last year. EDIT: alright, after poking around a bit more I found the other pictured quote mentioning Harry Potter in a Q&A drop down at the very bottom of the same page I got the longer quote from. I still think we need to be skeptical about it though, since the only reason I can think for a theme that big to be mentioned in a Q&A drop down and not the main page is ‘typo’ or ‘whoever wrote the drop down info thinks bringing in Chris Rankin and showing him the yet to be released Percy minifig counts as a reveal, and the person writing the text on the main page knows if doesn’t’

While I’m just a skeptical about this year’s Lego Con as anyone else - I feel compelled to point out that Harry Potter isn’t one of the themes that Lego is promoting new set reveals for. Unlike last year, where we were left guessing on which themes mentioned in the trailer were getting official set reveals, this year there’s a specific list and Harry Potter isn’t on it. There’s definitely still going to be Harry Potter content (the info page promises footage from the Studio Tour), but Lego isn’t trying to dress up any of the Harry Potter stuff as a reveal - it’s just going to be hyping the summer sets. Which makes sense, since they’re set to release the very next day in the US (clearly Lego is trying a new marketing strategy).

I know everyone here is probably pretty apathetic about Lego Con - but this year one of the themes they’ve promised reveals in is ‘Minifigures’ and that can only mean series 23! Which means we’ll either get the reveal on June 18th or it will leak/be officially announced by lego beforehand like literally everything from last year’s event. And for those hoping for series 23 to be anniversary themed - Lego is claiming that Lego Con is going to kick off the celebration of their 90th. Could this be linked to why series 23 is get a months-early reveal in direct contrast to the recent trend of so-late-they’re-already-being-found-on-shelves? We’ll have to wait and see.

It’s likely a retailer exclusive - as in only one retailer other than lego will carry it. Here in the US that’s usually Barnes & Noble or Target, I have no idea which retailers lego partners with in Germany though.

Honestly, that’s kind of exciting. It means there’s a chance we could get her in her Ministry battle outfit. These two heads continue to be baffling despite the fact that we know exactly who they’re for.

For Tonks it could be an alternate head from Grimmauld Place or something from the advent calendar or accessory pack (40577 is still unaccounted for) although the D2C isn’t entirely out of the question seeing as Tonks escorts him to and from the station a couple of times in the books, and I’m pretty sure she’s there seeing him off in the OotP movie. So while that’s unlikely it’s still possible. We should probably wait until the reviews for the June sets come out before we assume it’s anything other than an extra head in Grimmauld though. With Voldemort there’s far fewer options. Pretty much only the accessory pack and advent calendar. I’m leaning towards accessory pack, since the advent calendars have been pretty good at staying almost entirely festive and cute over the years (plus, I’m expecting this year’s to be either Hogsmeade or Grimmauld themed, they’d be stupid not to do that while the respective sets are still on shelves). I could definitely see an accessory pack of the OotP ministry atrium duel, since the location itself is being released as a DH1 set this year and he actually does stick his tongue out while conjuring magical fire in that scene. The other three characters in that scene are Dumbledore, Harry, and Bellatrix, so hopefully if they’re going that route they’ll be using the rest of the new print budget to upgrade Bellatrix’s head and skirt pieces.

The detail pictures for the Monkey Kid set are up on Shop@home and the Harry Potter Grim is definitely better at passing for a regular dog than the ‘Celestial Dog’ from the Heavenly Realms set. It’s got yellow and white markings on its face that are a nice little reference to Chinese art styles but are a far cry from natural looking.

The leaked images on Instagram look like the Dumbledore from last year’s Chamber of Secrets set and the black robed Voldemort from the graveyard set. Makes sense since those are the most recent (non-gold) versions of both characters.

Looks like Dumbledore and Voldemort are being added to the keychain line

Yeah, I could definitely see Lego doing another set like this with Flitwick, Sprout, Umbridge/Lockhart, and Slughorn

Extreme sarcasm ;) But, unusual choice of brickheadz lineup aside, we’ve actually gotten pretty decent representation for Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in recent years, both from lego and other merchandise producers. I imagine the choice to put Moody and Trelawney in the Hogwarts Professors set has more to do with the designers wanting to offer a fun variety of builds as opposed to not caring about Flitwick or Sprout.

No… Luna Lovegood’s in that house with the blue crest with the bird on it (what kind of bird is it supposed to be? Meh, doesn’t matter) So that means there must be at least 3 houses…

Yeah, gotta agree on the Brickheadz. The Hogwarts Professors are really good, and I’m glad that lego is doing a quality set for those who do collect them, they’re just not my thing. And honestly, even if the unprinted legs are a downgrade it’s just nice not to get yet another student we already have several of in the polybag.

Definitely like the direction lego is going by adding these new skin tones. The real question is - will they retcon what color they use for Cho after making 4 inaccurate ones? I guess it’s a toss up on what’s more confusing - a character’s lego appearance being suddenly revamped or all the fans having a ‘wait, are they doing a book-accurate Padma?’ moment every time they see a Cho minifig.