Thomas_w

I really like the U-wing. The concept art from those leaked book pictures were so evocative of old-school sci fi ships, really nailed the OT style I think. The other Rogue One sets are sort of underwhelming I feel. The black imperial shuttle is neat, but its going to be so expensive, after the recent Rebels Tie Fighter / A-wing set I think the licence "gouging" is really putting me off the bigger sets.

I just posted to this effect in the Recent Purchases thread. The carbon chamber was a great opportunity for new blue suited Lando! Its funny because there is a great version of Lobot from the "Planets" series a few years back but not a new Lando in sight...

It was my birthday last week and my good friends bought me the Carbonite Freezing Chamber set. I passed up on it earlier this year as I already had a Boba Fett figure, but I have to say I really love the Ugnaught and also the Han Solo carbonite slab. The mechanism where you lower and rotate the slab into the chamber is really well done and not having much technical Lego I was really impressed with how it was achieved. The actual selection of figures seems a bit odd though, well really I mean the inclusion of Boba Fett. I feel that this would have been the prime set to include a new version of Lando with a more detailed torso and cape piece. A few years back there was a version of the skiff with Boba and Lando in that funky guard outfit so its not like a reasonably priced Boba Fett hasn't been around before. It just seems like a glaring mistake to me. Obviously people go nuts for Boba, I don't find increasingly detailed versions of him that enticing, personally.

I am a masochist, I dump it all in a pile and then spend hours searching for bits. The only set I haven't done this with is the Death Star, where I dumped each box individually!

They are in the facebook gallery I linked to!

Where is the tank thing they put all the captured ghosts in? I would have thought that would be a key feature!

https://www.facebook...65038402&type=3 big image

Yes they are in WHS in Cambridge, and so I assume the rest of the country.

The zombie business man is how I feel every morning before I cycle to work. If I don't get that coffee I am a gonner.

The Facebook page for LEGO has got some nice high-rez images of all the new guys. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153113050468403.1073741894.6665038402&type=3. I think my favourite is either the FLY or perhaps the gargoyle. I think the Banshee has transparent hair, which is cool.

I watched it and it was quite good, but overall I thought that the people making the documentary were trying too hard to make the company and AFOLs seem "weird". There were loaded questions they asked employees such as "do you think this is like a cult?" that obviously 100% no employee would ever say yes to, but the response "its like a family" then sounds odd, like the employee is afraid to say "yes it is like a cult" when in reality it is probably that they do not want to risk their career. Another part was when they tried to make the company seem overly secretive by showing the grates coming over the design shop windows... Like any company would risk displaying products 3 years from release to a documentary team. My impression was the people who made this were trying to spin what was essentially normal corporate stuff into something sinister. There were plenty of interesting harder hitting stuff they could have asked about, for example, why are almost all of the designer candidates white young males and if they think this knocks onto why there are so few deviations from the standard set of white male dominated action hero themes (not unique to Lego as a company, endemic to the world). The most / least surprising thing of all that underneath all the fun google like exterior, Lego is just like any other huge corporate entity... not really the most shocking thing in my opinion.

There are two that stand out in my mind, one for nostalgia and another for the build quality. The nostalgia award goes to the Landspeeder in the recent Mos Eisley cantina set, its a great little model and takes me back to 1999 when the Star Wars Lego sets were first released with my first set being the original rendition of the speeder. The most recent version is fantastic and really shows just how good Lego have got at translating these vehicles into sets. My second choice would be the X-wing from a few years back (9493). Its probably the most iconic Star Wars ship and I think the designers really knocked it out of the park with this one. It was my first big Lego set in a while and I was amazed at how the nose of the ship was realised in Lego form, if I remember correctly there are hinges under the hood that create the very "un-Lego" like angles needed. The way the wings can be locked in either position is also fantastic using the rubber bands. An honorary mention goes to the A-wing from a couple of years ago. The A-wing was always my favourite ship in the Rogue Squadron games and I actually had a Kenner action figure scale toy of it when I was a boy. I got the Lego version of it in a sale primarily to get Admiral Ackbar, but I ended up loving the little ship as well.

This is an amazing bit of work, I can really tell that is is based on the old Wolfpack castle. Perhaps next you can make an update of the smugglers cart (keeping the blue colour scheme!) to go with it? I am surprised by the number of people who recall the Wolfpack and also say it was their favourite theme. I always wanted to have the castle when I was little, and after I discovered Bricklink my first purchase were loads of those cool figs. If I was to have one single bugbear about this creation, it is that the hoods worn by your 3 "main" characters aren't the brilliant peasant cowls that the original guys have. It doesn't take away from the fantastic creation you have built though .

Thanks for the replies everyone. I had totally missed the Storm head out. It actually might be the one to go for in this case. Hopefully as times change and more women and different skin tones are included in these types of licenses (Star Wars and Marvel I am looking at you!), Lego will hopefully follow suite and give us a few more tones / female options to pick from. One would expect if Lego makes some massive headway into building market share in Asia and India then this would happen more rapidly!

I've noticed on this forum some members have a sort of selfie minifigure that they use to represent themselves in the Lego world. A while ago my partner went to work in Vancouver for a year and I gave her a minifigure version of myself to keep with her, while I had one I made resembling her. People thought that this was very cool and recently a friend of mine asked me to make a version of her, my problem is that she is of Indian descent. I understand that Lego started producing flesh coloured figures to represent real people, my suspicions are that making Lego Lando might have catalysed this change and I have to say I do like the flesh coloured heads. However, I am finding it hugely difficult to find a head to represent an Indian woman. The closest I can find is this version of a Clone Wars character "Stass Allie" She unfortunately has purple eyes making it pretty much unusable for any real person. Part of me is embarrassed to return to her and say I am sorry but the biggest toy company in the world doesn't have a head that could represent you based on your skin colour, but I know really this is a reflection of society at large. Lego seems to make licences based on what is popular for children and this lack of diversity in the minifigures is only really a representation of characters in popular media. To get to the point, is there any head that can represent my friend? Any custom site that could do this?

I grabbed the VW campervan and also the new creator series Dragon / Scorpion set. Love me some double points.

I really love Jang's channel on youtube. He seems like such a chilled out guy and he really does make fantastic reviews and also fantastic MOCS. I really wonder though how he can afford so much Lego and to devote such a huge amount of his time to the hobby. He always has every new set and makes tonnes of bricklink orders. Really I am just jealous that he can do it and I can't!

Oh my! This advert is so amazingly cheezy and 90's. Such a cool find.

Its a very cool model of a Tie Fighter and I have to say I do like the cockpit. The blocky nature of it doesn't bother me at all, I actually think it looks really slick built up in layers like that. However, I don't think the Tie Fighter is interesting enough to warrant such a big detailed model with its corresponding price point. I couldn't see myself wanting this over the most recently released £50 Tie. I wonder if this one is "to scale" relative to the figure? That would be quite cool if it were the case.

John Lewis online has Bennys Spaceship for £56!

My worry is that Lego will over stretch itself and like in the early 2000's will produce too many special moulds and lose focus on the basic bricks. My personal opinion is that there is too much focus on exclusive minifigures and I feel that often the minifigures take too much focus in the sets. I am also increasingly wary about the amount of licensed themes that are produced and then ditched. This approach has obviously paid off hugely for Lego and is unlikely to change, but sometimes I feel like a lot of the charm of Lego is being eroded away by complex molds, prints and minifigures.

I think I am going to buy my girlfriend the VW camper van. As for myself, well perhaps one of the smaller pirate sets or maybe the Rebels tie fighter if I have enough money left over.

Ave Caesar!

My girlfriend bought me the Death Star as a present in December, so I currently for the first time have enough VIP points to actually get something. Next weekend I plan to head out to Milton Keynes and spend them, I think I will probably use them to get one of the smaller Ultra Agents sets. I am very jealous of all who acquire enough points to get the Tumbler or a Modular House for free. If it isn't too rude to ask a question, is everyone spending thousands of pounds/dollars/euros to get so many points, or, as I suspect are there bonus points or ways to get more than 1 pt per £ ?

For years whenever anyone asked me what I wanted for my birthday or christmas I always jokingly said Lego Death Star, knowing that it was crazily expensive and noone would buy it for me (but with the slim hope someone would). While not a Christmas present, my girlfriend surprised me with a Death Star for my very own to celebrate the passing of my PhD viva in December. I was completely blown away by it. I have finally got round to opening it after travelling at Christmas and immediately regretted emptying everything into a big pile. It took me two hours to make all the figures, let alone start construction. I sneakily grabbed the Death Star Troopers set to get those cool gunners for when I have built the super laser. But in all, an awesome result!