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danth

Eurobricks Dukes
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Everything posted by danth

  1. danth
    Hmm I don't know about this. I think there is huge nerd crossover between SW and Marvel, and between Marvel and DC. It's all sci-fi with space ships and heroes with super abilities fighting bad guys. Harry Potter might have less overlap though. Then there's Avatar, but nobody cares about Avatar.
  2. danth
    Oh wow, that could be useful. That reminds me, there were some new (at least new to me) sloped pieces from Speed Champions I was excited about; the orange and grey ones here:
  3. danth
    I don't think this is true. I really do think minifigs back then were intentionally generic and simple. In the 70s/80s, Lego was a Building Block toy with minifigs. Now, Lego is an Mini-Figure toy with building blocks. More of an intentional decision, probably because fans of SW, Marvel, etc really care about the minifigs/characters first and foremost. So the minifigs have much more "detailed" prints. The CMF Space Police torso was certainly better than the green one I posted above. I wish the Space logo was a bit bigger though.
  4. danth
    I agree with this too. Little wrinkles here and there on random minifig torsos look silly. If a torso is supposed to represent a billowing robe, then sure, put some big wrinkles on it, but don't add little wrinkles just because. Lego minifig prints should be like iconography. They're never going to look realistic, and they shouldn't try to. Like the torso I posted above, the little "bump" in the seam line above the zipper pull breaks the clean look of the line and almost looks like an error. The vertical gray lines add nothing, and the weird gray shadow in the bottom right is just a distraction. And of course the belt is terrible and hides the bottom corner of the green triangle which is a bad choice IMO.
  5. danth
    I think you raise good questions. I'm fine with more liberties taken in SP2 and later themes. Just please, no belt loops. I really don't like this torso:
  6. danth
    Oh were we talking about official sets? That makes sense. Yeah, I don't see the point of Lego making a Neo Classic Space set. I meant more for MOCs. Sorry if I was not following the conversation. But anyway, if I made a Space MOC with rounded canopies, and someone said it was not Classic Space because of that, I might be miffed. But if they said it's more Neo Classic Space, it would be more of a compliment. Personally, for new Space sets/themes, I have no issues with rounded canopies. I mean, that ship has sailed anyway: Mars Mission, SP3, etc. I do prefer canopies in some fun color though.
  7. danth
    Thanks OS! If anyone's bothered by the curved windscreens, I will just say it's "Neo" Classic Space.
  8. danth
    If new designs with Classic Space colors and curved/rounded parts are called 'Neo" Classic Space, that might keep everyone happy.
  9. danth
    Yes, they could go "curvy" with spherical canopies. But would they? Many people expect throwback space ships need to be angular.
  10. danth
    I'm not sure how Lego would recreate the polyhedral shape of the Aerial Intruder's two side canopies. I can't think of any way to make them look right with existing parts. They don't seem big on making new parts or bringing back old ones.
  11. danth
    Fun! I like these three cars especially.
  12. danth
    Thanks for sharing what you thought of the set. I echo all of your praise. Now I'm wondering if I should have shown my nephew when he visited. He's kind of a rascal though, not sure I trust him around my Space sets! Tiresome, repetitive, dominated by the same people? Yes. Toxic, I hope not. I think the criticism is mostly because everyone hung all their hopes on this one set, which could never be all things to all people. We need more Space sets! I still want to hear what you think of the set!
  13. danth
    Sorry, just wanted to say I wasn't directing my comments at you or anyone else specifically. You don't strike me as gullible!
  14. danth
    Fair point that there are sets with many 1x1 tiles stuck to a plate. However those tiles are "leaves" in the build, i.e. there is no stud to build on top of them. They only need enough clutch to not fall off, not to support further building. I dispute that, for the reasons I gave earlier, but obviously have no proof. But it doesn't really matter, what I'm really saying: don't just buy into the Lego PR points without doubting them first. I gave a lot of reasons why they are probably exaggerated, and I didn't think about it very hard. I might be mostly wrong, but that doesn't mean a real manufacturing engineer couldn't walk in here and destroy most of Lego's PR stuff about precision/quality with even more accurate reasons than I gave. There's just a constant drumbeat on this website where people worshipfully push Lego PR on us, and it's really tiresome. This. I want to hear your hopes and dreams about future sets, I wanna see your MOCs, I want to see your reviews of sets you bought. I do NOT, ever, want to hear people playing fanboy PR rep for Lego. Because that always ends the same way: telling AFOLs they can't have what they want because Lego is some tiny poor company heroically fighting a Goliath of expense and engineering problems that no other company faces. Which is just not true. Not saying anyone here is doing this. But there are some people who have never posted a MOC, never talked about set building, never ask for anything more from Lego, but boy do they always show up to play PR rep like it's their job. Most people in this thread are NOT doing that; I think even for legit fans it's hard to resist all the propaganda without internalizing some of it and repeating it.
  15. danth
    C'mon, Lego doesn't make sets like that and neither do MOCers. Regardless, the clutch of 1x1s have to be strong so they'd stay on.
  16. danth
    I've heard only good things about Cobi and Megablocks in recent years from people like Jang and others, but it sounds like it's not universal. I don't have any recent experience. I've heard Mega used to be a lot worse. You sound like you're much more knowledgeable than me on this, and I certainly could be wrong. I can explain what I mean more specifically. Some of what I'm saying relies on the premise that it requires more force to pull apart pieces with more stud connections. I think that's fairly uncontroversial but I could be wrong. Let's say you have a concept of 100% clutch, where any more tightness and you're liable to have problems putting pieces together or separating them after. And let's say you're manufacturing a 1x1 piece and you want to make sure the clutch is going to be strong so the piece doesn't just fall off with a single stud connection. If you target 98% clutch, and have precision such that the variance is 1% clutch, then you should be safe, since you can expect 99% to 97% clutch. Good clutch either way, and not too strong. But you have to be very precise. Now let's say you're making a 2x8 plate. You can get away with less clutch per stud since you will have multiple stud connections (up to 16) i.e. it will take more force to make your plate connection fail. So you target 80% clutch (maybe your anti-studs have a slightly larger inner diameter). In this case you can get away with a lot more variance, even 5%, because who cares if you actually get 85% or 75% clutch on some studs? That's still not too strong, and with 16 connections it's okay if one is slightly weak. The above "sounds logical" to me but that doesn't mean it's true. I'm sure you're right about errors not stacking in a good way. But I think what I'm saying is slightly different: more connections means less required clutch which allows lower precision. Which is based on absolutely no expertise or data, I admit. But I feel like there has to be some truth to my thinking, even if it doesn't totally pan out.
  17. danth
    It wasn't out of context. And what argument I make isn't really your choice is it? I don't buy this at all completely. It's just partly PR. Almost all toys must have pieces that fit together nicely without gaps. Almost all of them have some form of male + female connectors that snap together. Take apart any toy and you'll see them everywhere. Lego studs & anti-studs probably require more precision than those of course, any other part of a Lego piece, but even that only matters on small pieces that need to have good clutch with only a stud or two. Once you get into something like a 2x8 plate, you have 16 studs and a little imprecision here or there cancels out and probably even improves clutch. And of course there are many pieces that have mediocre clutch anyway. I think you're downplaying the precision required for all the ball joints and Technic connectors. Almost all Lego pieces are reused in various sets, and there are many cheap Lego sets. Lego has more mold-reuse than literally any other toy and even when one wears out, it's cheaper to recreate an existing mold than to design a completely new mold. Also let's be real. We're talking about mostly rectangular blocks here. These molds aren't nearly as complicated or expensive as something like a large vehicle mold you'd see in an action figure line. So while I agree that Lego does require more precise molds in some regards, it's exaggerated, and the cost of that precision is mostly recouped through part reuse & design reuse and the molds being pretty simple in geometry anyway.
  18. danth
    Quoted for the juxtaposition. Bionicle had so many new specialized molds and yet saved the company. I mean toy companies makes thousands of new molds every year, that's how they have new toys to sell. For Lego PR peddlers to claim poverty all the time -- "poor wittle Wego just can't afford these all big expensive molds" -- cracks me up.
  19. danth
    Whaaat? You haven't built it yet?
  20. danth
    It is! It's out-of-this-world amazing.
  21. danth
    @Lion King was talking about a Pirates theme wasn't he? How are pirates supposed to interact with a sunken Atlantis? Pirates never had deep sea diving equipment.
  22. danth
    Maybe we need a "critique of Lego set design" in the General forum. It seems to be its own topic not specifically related to the Galaxy Explorer. I have some general thoughts on it, but I'm done talking about it in this thread.
  23. danth
    The Legends version of Main Street had a different hair piece for the woman minifig and also omitted the largest molded tree. Basically a case of going 98% of the way and calling it good enough.
  24. danth
    I have to agree. With a little bit of sadness, since it is cool to be able to get vintage sets brand new for cheap. But for every reason you gave above, new & improved interpretations are probably for the best.
  25. danth
    I bought some of those sets at Toys R Us. If I hadn't luckily stumbled upon the fact the Legends sets were happening on some Lego forum, I would have had no idea. They did NO marketing for those sets. I remember some fans were miffed because certain hair pieces were simply replaced instead of doing fully faithful reproductions. Also at least one set (Guarded Inn) was sold in a black and white box which was basically self sabotage. I.e. this was more of a TLM bungle than proof that people didn't want old sets. Castle and Pirate fans are crazy, there is no way those sets (the Castle ones at least) didn't sell out. I wonder if the Legends sets had low production runs. I only ever saw them at Toys R Us. Of course that was 20 years ago, when old molds weren't really that old, and maybe just needed a metaphorical dust off vs. the full on resurrection they would need now. Also these were post-SW and Space was the only missing Legends theme, wow what a mystery! 😒
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