Kit Figsto

Just expanding on what @BacktoBricks said, the early 2010s seem to generally be agreed upon as one of the best eras, for a few reasons. 1) SW wasn't regularly producing as much new content, and the stuff that was coming out, with the exception of Rebels in 2014, wasn't the main focus for the sets. So, in 2015 most of the sets were TFA focused, in 2016 it was the same with RO, 2017 with TLJ, 2018 with Solo, and so on. For those that were fans of the movies, it was obviously good, but if you were more interested in sets from the prequels or OT (not counting very common remakes like Jedi Starfighters or Snowspeeders and stuff), that kind of stuff was put on the back burner. FWIW, I think a lot of those waves were very good too, but they were just wayyy less diverse. Conversely, in the early 2010s, with less new content, waves would be split between different properties. We did get stuff like a big AOTC wave in 2013, or some TCW waves in 2012 or so, but the waves were also a bit larger, so they could still include other stuff from the OT. 2) LEGO's building techniques at that point had found a really good, happy medium between simple enough to be fun to put together yet attractive visually. I absolutely adore some of the early 2000s SW stuff, but most sets from 1999 until around 2005 or so definitely don't hold up visually to anything produced after that era. They started to produce more and more specialized parts and colors in the mid-late 2000s, and by the early 2010s, it seems like they had just sort of found their stride as far as attractive usage of such pieces. Sets in like 2016-2019, at times, almost got too large and complex. X-Wings were running close to $90, the Slave I went from a reliably $50-60 ship to $120, Grievous' starfighter went from a $50 model to $80, and so on. Inflation is part of that, but the size and complexity of sets just went up drastically, at times unnecessarily. On top of that, we also started to get a lot more updated versions of figures. As much as I love the original Boba Fett figure, the new one (I still call it new, even though it's like a decade old at this point, ) is just so much more accurate. 3) For the most part, they found a really happy medium between remakes and new stuff as far as set content. Most of the remakes were also highly requested and major improvements, like Jabba's Palace or the Cantina. Pretty much the only super-requested sets that didn't get remade in this era were a TIE Bomber, Yoda's Hut and Cloud City (though we eventually got 2/3 of those). Part of the reason this sort of thing can't really occur as much is that most remakes now aren't really going to improve that much on their predecessors, because there's only so accurate you can make a set that's sellable. Plus, there's also fewer vehicles/locations from older content that both haven't been made and is actually feasible as a set. From the OT, it's basically just the Lars Homestead, Yavin IV, and the Nebulon B. There's more for the PT, but realistically there's still not a ton that's doable as a set (stuff like the Trade Federation Landing Craft, in my opinion, is just way too big to actually sell well). I do think there's some stuff that's a lot better today, like the UCS and especially MBS series (a $350 Cantina or Cloud City would've been a pipe dream at that time), but it was a great era to collect overall.

I agree, the January wave was pretty solid in my opinion too. We got the Mustafar duel, which had only been represented in set form twice before (once as two of the floaty platforms included in Anakin's starfighter, the last time we got a real rendition of the duel was 15 years ago), Obi-Wan's hut was the first representation of that set, and the Mandalorian Battle Pack was great. My only real complaint with the summer wave was the price of Grievous' starfighter. I will admit, if the Cantina hadn't come out, I probably would've been less excited about the year as a whole, but it was still a fairly diverse wave overall, with a nice mix of popular stuff being re-released and some more obscure vehicles.

Not to mention, pretty much every baseplate that was included in a set over the past 10-15 years didn't have any sort of road or specialized details. The only exception were police/fire stations, where there'd often be one or two smooth lanes used for garages, but the rest was just empty studs. Beyond that, pretty much everything was just plain old studs. That's a far cry from the 80s/90s town baseplates, where there were more intricate patterns or printings, stuff like the moon crater base plates, raised plates used in Castle/Adventurers/Pirates (among other themes), and so on. Heck, even some little $10-15 impulse buy sets would include an 8x16 baseplate, that hasn't happened in probably twenty five years.

The cockpit on this looks like something out of mid-2000s Exo-Force or something. The color itself doesn't look bad, the shuttle just looks really small. I was like 95% not going to get this set anyway, so I'm pretty indifferent about the leaks, but I definitely will say they haven't convinced me to run and buy this once it comes out. Hoping we'll get some more preliminary pictures soon-ish! Also, the fact that this image wasn't a catalog leak but looks more like a promo shot leads me to wonder if they are indeed going to reveal this in May when the show comes out?

If that is real, I truly do not understand how a photo can be that blurry. Like, I know the first round of pics are often blurry (I don't really get that either, I'm not complaining about the leaks, I just don't really understand how these pictures originate), but this is like "Picture taken while jumping off of a diving board" level of blurriness.

Being extremely pedantic, I believe we got an Owen in the 2005 Sandcrawler, though I do agree that we still need Beru for sure! Great review, I've been considering the Razor Crest or a few extra 501st sets, so I might grab them to get this promo. It does look like quite a nice little set!

A CMF series would actually be amazing, and could actually sell well I think, since it's pretty cheap and would have appeal to casual fans who may not want to spend a lot of money on big sets. I highly doubt they'd make it, but three years ago I would've said there's no way they'd ever do a Looney Tunes one, and, well, here we are. I think a town square set could work if they included parts to change it over for the different eras, but the builds would mostly just be facades, since we only really see the inside of the cafe. I definitely agree that at the very least, we need an updated DeLorean and the time train.

I would agree for sure. I think the biggest detracting factor is that the franchise is never going to be re-booted, at least not with any sort of live action thing. The creators of the movie have said as much (and frankly, I think 99% of the series' fans wouldn't want to see a remake, there's no chance of them making a 4th movie with MJF's health and Christopher Lloyd being like 82 years old, and recasting Marty and Doc would be, well, awful), whereas Ghostbusters or Jurassic Park, despite being made in approximately the same era, have had reboots or recent sequels that keep people talking about them. That said, while the franchise's fanbase isn't as large as that of, say, Star Wars or Marvel, and it's not in the spotlight like those are, there is a super dedicated fanbase and collectibles from the movies seem to be in really high demand, because they aren't made on the scale of toys from SW or whatever. Obviously the CUUSSO DeLorean is an example, another one I came across recently was a phone charger for your car that was shaped like the Flux Capacitor and lit up when plugged in. It was originally like $15-20, it's been discontinued and now a brand new one can run almost $200. But, one of the biggest issues is that there's fewer iconic buildings that really have feasibility as a set. I think something like the Hill Valley Town Square, with pieces to change it over from 1955/1985/2015 could work really well, including the various iterations of the cafe, clock tower, and park, possibly the movie theater as well, Doc's garage would be neat but I don't know if it's iconic enough, and that's probably about it. Possibly a separate set for the skateboard chase in 1955 with Biff's car and manure truck. As far as vehicles, they could do a remake of the DeLorean, maybe Doc's truck, Marty's pickup truck (the Libyan national bus with the photo stand and Twin Pines Mall sign would be a great little set, but I don't think they'd make that), and of course the time train. There are definitely a lot of potential sets, and I'd LOVE to see literally any of those made, I just hope Lego feels the same way!

At this point, several confirmed reliable people have either hinted at or said we're getting the UCS AT-AT, if I'm not mistaken. Plus, we KNOW it's an $800 price point, and there's only so much they can even do at $800. The Falcon and ISD are currently on shelves, so those (or any variations, like a Super Star Destroyer) are off the table, which essentially leaves either a massive Death Star (which I think is highly unlikely while the playset version is on shelves, I know they're different, but realistically having two $500+ DS on shelves at once probably isn't a great marketing strategy), and even that I don't know if it would be $800, it'd have to be quite a bit bigger than the version out right now to justify a $300 price increase, and I doubt it's anything MBS because the Cantina will presumably still be on shelves in the fall, so the AT-AT is pretty much the only thing that is both popular enough and large enough to justify an $800 price point.

Meh, I'm not too upset about them not changing the R2 figure. Realistically, there's no way they could make a retractable 3rd leg at the scale of a minifigure, and having the leg always out would very majorly interfere with play features (like putting the figure into the astromech space in a ship or even just posing him in a neutral position). Plus, the figure isn't a focal point of the set at all, so people would probably complain either way ("Why are they putting this brand new figure in a $200 set???" or something). A chrome head would be nice but the pearl silver does it justice, so it's not one of those things that desperately needs an update, at least in my opinion. In regards to the shuttle, I'll reserve judgement until we get pictures, I guess. Sand blue sounds weird for sure, but looking at pictures of it, the gray-ish color does have sort of a blue hue to it, so I could see it being okay, sort of like the early 2000s TIE fighters. A TIE with blue accents sounds really weird, but in practice, it didn't look horrible, so I don't think it necessarily will be bad. The fin having studs on one side and antistuds on another...not sure on that, though. It sounds like it'll just be a few wedge plates assembled at a 90 degree angle, presumable with some markings on either side, but I can't really foresee that looking particularly great.

I saw the rumor too but wasn't sure how legit it was, it seems to make sense, though. Apparently 10290 is slated to be a Creator Expert set with release in the fall, which would be in line with the Batmobile/Ecto-1/Bond car, if I remember right, so in terms of famous movie cars, the DeLorean is probably next on that list in terms of fame. The only other ones that are probably equally as famous are the Jurassic Park Jeep/Ford Explorer, KITT, Herbie, and the A-Team Van, but a van or SUV in this scale would be really big, I think the DeLorean is probably more well-known than KITT (although KITT could have some neat features) and they've never done anything Herbie related, plus there's already been a large-scale VW Bug recently, so it might be redundant since it'd basically just be a re-color without any additional features. Couple that with the fact that they've kept their licensing with Universal and did the BTTF Dimensions sets, it seems more than plausible. I may or may not get it, it depends on the price and how good the model looks. I'm a huge BTTF fan, but I've never been big on the large-scale models, I'm more a fan of minifigure scale vehicles. If nothing else, though, I'm happy that there are still sets, because anything to continue the BTTF license, in my opinion, increases the likelihood of more minifig scale stuff in the future (as much as I like the Cuusoo DeLorean, let's be honest, almost a decade later they can do a lot better, and prices on that thing have gotten stupid. I'm lucky to have gotten it when it came out, but there's probably tons of people who can't get the thing because of how ridiculously expensive it is on the secondary market.

At least here in the US, it seems like stores have finally started to get their supply chain under control. I still have yet to see the TIE and Imperial Shutter, but stores near me have finally had the X-Wing and Trouble on Tatooine reliably in stock, and plenty of the 2020 summer wave sets. I saw Grievous' fighter for the first time in a while today, and stores have had ample supply of the AAT and 501st Troopers. Just hope that this carries over to the summer wave and they can get the supply out there, because clearly the demand is higher than ever.

Most of the pieces are molded heads or minifigure parts. I think a lot of it is just that these figures are too niche of characters to go into sets. Plus, new molds cost money. Most of the time, when we get a new molded part for a figure, it's either something that will be re-used a lot, or a fairly popular character. For example, in Star Wars sets, characters like Bossk or Zuckuss have gotten new molds despite being somewhat irrelevant characters, but most fans of the movies know them and would be enticed to buy a set with those figures. They can also be put into the Slave I, a popular set that sees a lot of re-releases. However, when it comes to stuff like Cantina or Jabba's Sail Barge/Palace aliens, those sets aren't regularly getting released, and when they do, they kind of have to include the important figures, so there's only really room for one or two non-main characters. The UCS Cantina is kind of an exception because it had like 22 figures, but normal sets don't contain that many figures.

I agree, I think they'll continue. Speed Champions sets are relatively inexpensive, have appeal to both kids and adults (whereas Racers was probably more kid focused, and at times I feel wanted to be a competitor to Hot Wheels with the Tiny Turbos and stuff), and clearly there's good relationships with many of the licensees, since they've done Ferrari sets for years now and have recently done larger scale Ford, Mercedes, Porsche, and Dodge sets. I wouldn't read too much into it, I don't think anyone working for Lego can reveal anything. Since they haven't publicly given a Speed Champions June release date (at least not that I've seen, and this is true for every product prior to its release), I'd guess this employee either truly doesn't know when the sets are coming, or more likely, they do know and are just giving a non-answer.

The dome looks really good, there's a side by side pic with the 2012 version and the new one looks much less blocky. I also quite like the Homestead build.

I think the re-releases are mostly coincidental and due to the fact that there wasn't regularly produced new content. With the MTT, the first one coming out in 2000 was because TPM was still relevant and the set didn't make it on the initial wave, maybe because they didn't have concept art for it, or maybe weren't sure what role it would play in the film (plus I think most of the larger TPM sets didn't get released until 2000, if I'm remembering correctly). In 2007, we got a small TPM wave, with the Naboo Starfighter, Sith Infiltrator, Jedi Cruiser, and MTT in the same year. 2014 was probably just because it was due for a re-release and there was nothing new being put out beyond Rebels, which seems to be one major example of a SW line not selling well. Once the sequels + Mandalorian + TCW S7 and all came out, the large price point sets probably either went to sets based on those properties, or stuff that they want to have on shelves most of the time, like the Falcon. The Gunship and AT-TE were similar, they came out in 2002 with the release of AOTC, came out in 2008 because the Clone Wars movie was released and they tied in there, and then 2013 just happened to be when they did the big AOTC wave. Since then, I just don't know if there's been space in the lineups for two additional $100+ sets. The Turbo Tank probably hasn't seen a release since 2015 for a similar reason, since it's a $100+ set and that price point was seemingly allotted to sets based on the newer movies. I'm hoping now that there's a bit of a lull, we might finally get them again. There's no new movies for a bit, and it seems like they don't always go for big sets from a TV show unless it's almost guaranteed to be a hit (the demand for the Razor Crest was there clearly, same with Gideon's Cruiser, I feel like the Bad Batch Shuttle and characters being previously introduced means that it should sell well), means that they may not go for $100+ sets from Kenobi or Andor right away, which might leave space for a Gunship or MTT in the lineup.

As far as I know, this show takes place after ROTS, so Anakin wouldn't really work there. Regarding the sixth figure, it seems best to just temper expectations. IF Rex and Fennec are major parts of the show, and the show does well, it's reasonable to hope that they will eventually come as figures if not in this set, but since all that we know is it's just five figures, treat anything more as a bonus.

I've been out of the CMF game for about two years now, I think the most recent ones I bought were the classic Mickey and Minnie from Disney S2 (although in hindsight I do regret not grabbing the Johnny Thunder lookalike from series 19). Most of the licensed ones just didn't appeal to me (still holding out hope for a Star Wars one, though!), and some of the un-licensed figure choices are cool, but I'd rather just save the money, none are "must-haves." I've got mixed feelings on this one, I think. I think the figures look really great, they're clearly Lego to me (sometimes the super specialized molds look more like clone brands or action figures with minifigure bodies), but I've never been huge on Looney Tunes. I think my favorites are Speedy Gonzalez and the Roadrunner. If nothing else, I'll maybe get the Roadrunner because I love the car, and the character was sort of a part of the iconography for it.

The brush is by far the greatest use of those car wash bristles I've ever seen. This thing is incredible.

Where would the fun in that be?

Hi! I was messing around on Stud.io a lot lately and have been working on a bunch of purist customs of the most famous lineups of a few bands. I'm quite proud of how some of these came out and thought they might be worth sharing, even if they're not the most impressive customs ever. There are definitely a few figures here that could be improved upon, but the minifigure part library on the program isn't the full catalog of parts ever, so I was a little limited. I did cheat a bit with one of the torsos, since it was perfect other than having a yellow skin tone that I couldn't edit, so I had to photoshop that into a flesh color, then put it back into Stud.io, but other than that, all I've done is just re-color existing parts that Stud.io lets me do. See if you can guess who each band is supposed to be! #1, probably a bit easy to figure out. The figure on the left is supposed to have ripped jeans, but apparently the rendering engine doesn't like those. #2, also probably somewhat easy. The Qui-Gon head isn't perfect, but it's the best I could find, so it'll have to do. #3, pirate torsos work great for these guys! #4, should be a little bit more difficult. #5, finally, I think one of the figures should be a dead giveaway for the band. I have a bunch more ideas still to make, so if people seem to like this one, I can post those here as well. I thought this would fit into the Special Lego Themes forum, since I found a few similar builds here, but forgive me if it's in the wrong spot.

I feel like at this point, unless it's one of the handful of proven, credible IG leaders (Falconfan, Landino, etc), it's best to just assume anything you see on there is BS. If you go onto #legoleaks, 95% of everything there is a mix of stuff entirely unrelated to LEGO, random MOCs and things that people (for some reason) have started using that tag for, or stuff that "news" accounts just repost from the reliable leakers and/or stuff from this forum, promobricks, stonewars, or other blogs. I'm not saying that the ISD is true or false, I'm just saying to probably take any rumor with a grain of salt unless it's someone that you know is both reliable and is an originator of leaks, not someone that just reposts leaked info.

In fairness, I don't really know what else there is to cover from current production US cars. They did a Mustang GT in 2016, which I suppose could use a re-make, but they've already done two versions of a late-model Camaro, we've had multiple Corvettes plus another one coming, I believe this GT will be the second one, and there's currently a late-model Challenger on shelves. From the US brands that they have licenses with, I don't really think there's anything else worth making. Maybe a Dodge Viper, but it's been out of production for a number of years now so I don't really know if it's relevant as much. And to people that are fans of American cars, most of them seem to skew towards older stuff anyway.

I'm guessing since it's the Heritage GT, which I believe refers to the new one(?), it would be paired with the high performance version of the new Bronco. From what I can see, that Bronco is basically the trophy truck version of the Bronco, so I'd assume they're paired as two different types of Ford race vehicles.

I guess this is sort of related, but I was wondering if anyone has a solution to dusting sets that are left out? I've had Cloud City on display for a while and this thing gets super dusty, probably partially because there's a lot of sections that are black and dark red, so they show dust very easily. I was going to probably take off the top layer of parts, wash those off to get all of the dust off (just because some gets trapped around the studs that I can't really get off without a rinse), put it back together, and then get one of those air duster keyboard cleaner thingies for future use, but was wondering if anyone has a better solution. Part of it might be my display space, I've got Cloud City on a lower height and closer to a window (it's not going to get sun faded just because of the angle, though), whereas I have my Mos Eisley set up on a higher shelf without as much light coming in and have had very little issues as far as dustiness. That may have something to do with it?