jxu

Something else of note is that even though Jang denies being Gnaj in the Beyond the Brick interview, he holds Gnaj in high enough regard to list the channel on his "Feature channels" list on his page (the only other non-Jang channels listed are Beyond the Brick, Sariel's Bricks and Pets, and just2good, all very popular channels)

I thought for most sets (not old ones), sellers make more money selling parted out. For example, if I bought the Marilyn Monroe set and sold all the pink and medium azure tiles individually, I think I would profit. The drawback being it is much harder and takes much longer to sell individual parts.

At first I assumed it to be just an unaffiliated parody account. However Jang has shown he can take himself not seriously, such as in HALL OF JANGS video, and the voiceovers of recent Gnaj videos have a very similar sounding voice to Jang's except pitched higher, so I'm starting to believe that if Gnaj isn't Jang himself, he has help from Jang. What are your thoughts?

I have genuine Lego sets with 1x1 and 1x2 pieces that have the sprue right in the center of the logo. I think your parts are genuine.

Another possibility, depending on how much earlier compared to the official release was, is that some retailers accidentally sold them early. I believe there were instances with the Osprey where some stores accidentally sold them early (though only by a few hours).

£8k is not an unusual amount for large sellers. You have to remember, some people do this as a full-time business, buying Lego sets in bulk from higher up in the supply chain than regular consumers like you and me who buy from retailers or in small quantities. And if he chose to part out for minifigs, which according to my very brief mental estimation can make a profit, then of course he would not have 73 sets for sale, because they have been parted out. I wouldn't assume they are counterfeit, especially since the seller has such a high positive feedback rating and overall reputation.

Ok I think people are reading too much into my comment about "old Lego" which was off-topic anyway. I'm not under the illusion that Lego is first and foremost a toy company, or that they run on some kind of morality system or produce high art. As long as Lego doesn't sacrifice other sets to make these mosaics, I have no real problem with it. @koalayummies I don't think that the display pieces can't be art, but for my personal taste (again not imposing on others), these really are more boring than 3D display sets. The nostalgia is not the main point and I shouldn't have brought it up because it's off-topic. And I think you took misinterpreted my "display pieces" comment. My point is not that display pieces are bad (in fact I love display pieces), but that Lego claims that you can make your own mosaics, but it's pointless to buy these sets to do that especially given the limited palette and tedious piece placement and price. As tedious as building from instructions is, making your own mosaic with actual parts would be 10x worse. @ShaydDeGrai good price analysis. At my local Lego store they have the large Pick a Brick cups for $16 and I estimate I could fit several hundred 1x1 round plates in there at least. Pretty much every set comes with a few spare 1x1 pieces and if you buy many sets those can accumulate too. Not to mention you can buy those small 1x1 plates new and in thousands at once on Bricklink for 1-2 cents each (at least for common colors). This means you could part out the pieces for half or even less of the original cost like you said. The Marilyn Monroe one might be worth it for the rarer pink and medium azure tiles. I looked up the Sith one and black pieces make up the most common color by far, and those are very cheap. However to part it out below just buying the whole set requires buying from multiple stores which can add up S&H. I think that only applies to "display sets". There are quite a few Lego City sets over $100 as an example and they are great for taking apart and building other stuff. Rebrickable has some really nice alternate builds like for the Liebherr Excavator. Also many expensive sets come with minifigs that are very versatile for use in other builds.

Well some people on Bricklink are doing the same: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?M=sw0981#T=S&O={"iconly":0} One guy has 73 minifigs If you can buy sets in bulk, you could probably make a profit parting out and selling rare minifigs and pieces by themselves.

More broadly, "old Lego" and "modern Lego" are relative terms, but it does seem like the LEGO Group is leaning more heavily towards licensed products nowadays. I want to emphasize there is nothing wrong with owning or liking licensed Lego products, and Lego has produced some incredible licensed sets. But I think AFOLs really appreciate when Lego steps outside the licensed product world to bring some really creative products, like the ship in the bottle, the grand piano, or the old fishing store. It's refreshing and to me it makes me feel the same creative wonder I had as a kid, building something I never even thought of. Anyhow, the mosaics are surely targeted to adults, because I'm sure if my parents got me this when I was a little kid, I would say something like "Thanks, but this doesn't feel like Lego... I'm supposed to build something!" I can't be too critical of the company trying something new, but deep down I really wish they would do something new by releasing ten Ideas sets

I understand owning a Lego Mosaic for the display value and because it is a LEGO product which has some novelty. And the LEGO Group can expand their portfolio and make money. But it feels very against Lego in spirit. At least my idea of Lego is using small interchangeable pieces to build up interesting 3D models for play and display. Not only is the build incredibly tedious (which some people actually enjoy), the design is lazy and uncreative. Something feels so un-Lego-like about buying a box, pouring out 3000 1x1 round pieces, and arranging them on a flat baseplate. And if you want to make your own design, you might as well design it first on a computer, or you'll be spending hours placing and removing studs. Who's really going to buy these sets to make their own design? These are display pieces. Now for my view I'm sure to get a lot of flak for: the LEGO press release describes these as a “new canvas for creative expression… designed for adults who pride themselves on their love of pop culture”. Something about this statement seems so off-putting. Being proud of loving pop culture is plain intellectual laziness. I don't mean it's bad to be a fan of Star Wars or whatever. But seeing your love of pop culture and consumerism as some kind of achievement is silly. Ironic that Warhol's subversive depiction of blatant repetitive commercialism itself becomes blatant repetitive commercialism without a hint of self-awareness. Why create something new when you can just rehash and repackage what's already popular? Again, I'm not saying these are bad products. Just they are boring. I too can design a mosaic with 5 minutes of fiddling in Photoshop and messing with a limited color palette.

I had a lot of fun with old LEGO.com games like Junkbot, Beltz, Dreamz, and World Builder. I'm in the process of recreating in-game builds with Studio and will most likely buy the parts to create them. I've considered joining a local Lego user group, but like you said now is not a great time for in-person meetups, and I am kind of busy right now with work. But as I get more involved with the adult Lego community I do hope to go to some meetups or expos in the future.

Thanks @Murdoch17 for the detailed response. I used LDD looong ago but got bored of it and later I heard it was officially discontinued. The introduction of Studio is amazing and I was pleasantly surprised how usable it was from the start. Studio gallery has many very nice builds, but otherwise lacks functionality from Rebrickable such as following builders and tracking which builds have been liked (afaik). On the other hand, it does sometimes feel like Rebrickable is trying to push their paid premium options, though that's a small nitpick and I support builders being able to sell their MOCs if they desire, because some are just that incredibly good. Personally I think community run sites are more appropriate for sharing creations than image sharing sites like Flickr, but I think it's popular with photographers so there's already a large community built up there. I'm also vaguely aware of old user groups like LUGnet but I much prefer the structure of web forums. I have not used Lego.com's Bricks and Pieces because I'm so used to browsing Bricklink. I checked it out today and it doesn't look like a good shopping experience right now: 5-7 weeks to be delivered, very common pieces out of stock, the prices are more expensive than new pieces on Bricklink, and the UI isn't convenient for selecting many pieces. I also have a local Lego store with the Pick a Brick wall but I haven't used it yet.

For now I decided to submit to Rebrickable. I noticed Studio Gallery had many 3D model downloads disabled "due to copyright" even if they were original creations. Rebrickable seems a lot better in this regard.

Incredible detail work and to have no studs showing at all. I'd love to see how the smoke was achieved.

To me, this is the true World Builder

Just a few days ago I went to the LEGO store in King of Prussia mall. Pick a Brick wall was done by asking an employee to get the bricks. I was most surprised to find the NES in stock and I was very tempted to get one, given that it is on backorder on lego.com and hard to find. Quite a few large sets like Hogwarts, Lamborghini Sion, Statue of Liberty, Liebherr Dozer were in stock. I think I saw the Barracuda Bay set in stock too but it might've been a different pirate ship (bad memory)

Which one appeals more to you? Some people like Star Wars or other franchises, some people like trains, some people enjoy large technic sets, some people enjoy expert sets, etc. As someone who is interested in roller coasters from playing games like Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, the roller coaster set looks cool but I just can't see myself buying it for nearly $400. The build looks repetitive and I would want something based off a real coaster, even if it was just a generic wild mouse. Even at 4 thousand pieces, something about it feels too simple. (As someone who played with a lot of Technic, the supports look like they could be achieved with 1/5 the pieces.)

True. Can I put an old technic 9V motor in there? :P

In the past month I've contacted Lego support twice about replacing old parts and it took them 1-2 weeks to respond and send me parts. Not great response time but I'll give them benefit of the doubt for having reduced customer support during quarantine.

Love the arrow pattern. Feels like it was made for lego plates

There are instructions online so if you're ok with a few different colors you can Bricklink all the parts

Is there any significant difference between different sites for posting MOCs, such as Rebrickable, Studio Gallery, or in pictures on Flickr/Instagram/forums such as this one? I saw Rebrickable had an interesting Premium MOC functionality and looks more developed than Studio Gallery but all other functionality looks the same.

Hi, I'm jxu. I'm a current grad student who has recently rediscovered my hobby of Lego. I have a few technic and regular sets from the mid 2000s as a kid, and I came back briefly in 2015-16 to build a Skeleton Clock by @KEvron (showcase video of the excellent design). Recently I was reminded of Lego again because of a Creator set from a generous coworker I found in my closet I had forgotten about, and my recent project of finding all the pieces around my house to finish my old Technic 4WD Truck (I eventually found all but two). Incidentally, that is how I found out about the forums: I forgot the set number so I searched "technic truck blue" in google images and came across this post in a thread complaining about the lack of blue Technic builds. I have no formal engineering background but I have always been fascinated by mechanical devices. When I was in elementary and middle school, I would spend lots of time playing physics flash games, making clocks and analog calculators, and also playing classic LEGO.com Club games like World Builder and Beltz. I also had built a few robots in a summer camp using Mindstorms RCX, and I had a Mindstorms NXT set at home that was a ton of fun to program with. This Lego candy machine by MMAP was one of my first inspirations (he was a famous twisty puzzle Youtuber, and that is another hobby I've gotten back into). I know the very basics of Solidworks so maybe I'll try to get into 3D printing. I can't say I was ever very creative when it came to making nice looking builds with non-Technic bricks. Nowadays I hope to recreate some Lego models from the old LEGO.com games and start making my own creations.