RoxYourBlox

Great review and photos; I especially liked the pointers about new/rare elements! As for the set, I like the color palette enough to use it in a future MOC. The shape of the building is interesting, and I agree that Friends sets aren't simplistic. However, I recently chose City Pool (as ugly as it is--see "A" below) over Pet Salon for my daughter because of the content. After introducing soon-to-be classic sets like Olivia's House, City Cafe, and Olivia's Treehouse, Lego seems to have gotten itself into a rut with (A) tan-walled, magenta-roofed buildings and/or (B) pets & salons -- as is the case here. I'll pass until "Summer School." ;)

The prices are roughly similar to pick-a-brick. Filling out the form is not an obligation to purchase. They'll send you a quote. That said, it's better to try for yourself than listen to speculation on a message board.

Yes. Submit the web form, and get a receipt. A few days later, customer service will email you whether the queried parts are available. Then, call them by phone to place the order.

50 bricks per lot.

I have used this service as an alternative to find in-production parts not available through pick-a-brick and/or at a lower cost than bricklink. Customer service will place a limit on quantities as they are directed; the limit is normally 200 bricks per lot, but that was lowered to 50 during the holiday season.

The colors, texture, and variety are outstanding! As good as the model looks rendered, I think you'll find it will look that much better in real life. And welcome!

Very nice! This is sure to become a future classic! Is that a red or dark red baseplate? Red hasn't been issued since 1978.

I think the issue is that the magnets can rotate within the buffers and frequently need to be reset when rearrangning cars. In the event of a weak connection, first separate the buffers. Next, lift the end of car 2 while car 1 remains on the track. Finally, lower buffer 2 directly down, lightly scraping buffer 1. The click you'll hear is likely the magnets rotating to an ideal configuration.

Disappointed with Lego's focus on bright primary or secondary colors for Creator 2013, I am pleased to see the abundance of muted colors in this set. Looking forward to HR images!! Thanks Grogall!

Line them up as you like, then place the tower on its side against a glass- or laminated-top table. Press down, and you're done.

Goodbye, Cuusoo!

Best prediction(s) I've read so far! I was going to say the same.

Lego is a unique hobby because it doesn't require you to wait for the company to release an annual product as you've described. As fans, we can bypass Lego, build some great models, and share the virtual files. Lego's advantage as manufacturer is being able to set a cheaper price than what it'd cost us to collect a set brick-by-brick. And that's really where Cuusoo should come in. If there were a collective effort by modular building enthusiasts to funnel a campaign for 1 great model per every couple review phases, there's the potential to treat ourselves to an extra modular set per year.

Great idea! Seconded! Somehow, ReBrick is much better at rotating content on its top page than Cuusoo. Also, I suspect GlenBricker's Review uses a linear model to project 10,000 votes, whereas an exponential equation might be a better fit. Top page exposure and traffic would skew the results.

9136 pieces. BL prices can vary, but you could make a rough estimate by the piece count. The 1x2x3 black windows are hard-to-find at the moment. Personally, I would have liked to try sand red or salmon as the primary color with a dark blue roof and brick yellow (tan) trim, but that'd require some bricks never produced. So, I swapped the color palette of the completed LDD file to try a few different looks. Medium nougat produced an effect too similar to my Pumpkin Factory, and dark red was just too dark. Eventually I settled on a reprise of my daughter's favorite colors, as seen previously here. Perhaps there's a better combination, but with the MOC being so expensive I wanted a guarantee that 1 person in particular would be happy with it.

I agree on ShaydDeGrai's points. However, my worry is not that great ideas wouldn't reach production; it's that great ideas will be noticed within Lego, who would have more than a year to develop a similar idea before the vast majority of Cuusoo projects have a shot at reaching 10,000. If/when the Cuusoo project would hit the 10k mark, then Lego could reject it based on grounds that it is too similar to their set. I don't think this is Lego Cuusoo's intention, but I do think they need to do more on their end to make this process less restrictive to the "average Joe" (i.e., less about having a friend in a convenient place and more focus on the idea).

The chimney is only 1 brick wide, so although his feet will fit, he tends to get stuck. He'd better lose weight before the holidays! It would dwarf any other modular side-by-side, but it's less imposing next to the 48x48 university.

B-OM-33E Fountain Castle (frequently called "Daddy’s Dorm" at our house) flickr set ~ .lxf file Inspirations: Chateau Les Fontaines Big Villa Until next time!

I hope that Lego produces this set as a Boilermaker Special train with a Purdue Pete minifig rather than just Pete stacked together with 2x4's. Glenbricker's model is more universally appealing.

The creator line continues to be a favorite of mine! The robot looks as cool as the samurai mech and is an improvement over the last Creator robot which included the light brick. The eagle and white sports car are also superb. The house is a bit of a disappointment; several sizes of dark blue slopes were already issued in the Apple Tree House and Diagon Alley. Part of the draw of Creator is to add parts in new colors to your collection at an affordable price.

To me, the Purdue project is (indirectly) disheartening for 2 reasons: - It continues to be evident that an artist needs to gather an organized effort to pass a project in a timely manner. (This part is not easy because not only do you need to get a fanbase not interested in Lego to be interested in Lego, but you also need a few other Lego fans to altruistically volunteer to promote your work.) - Only a minority of supporters stay to vote for anything else. This is not really Cuusoo's fault. The people of the world today almost exclusively support their own interests. It is not even a matter of time, money, or connectivity; it's a mindset of indifference. :( Re: the recent(?) survey, it has only started to pop up for me this week, too.

Honestly, I hadn't considered the math--it's persuasive enough such that today I rebooted a couple projects. As for your second point, the .lxf file for the university was already freely available, and a bill of materials can be generated within LDD.

First, thanks for the support! I hit 100 over the weekend. :) However, the boost that I had anticipated from the non-AFOL community by promising to donate to charity during breast cancer awareness month is less than hoped. I've considered making a .pdf flyer to pin up on bulletin boards at a few local coffee shops, yet I hesitate... Why does Cuusoo require self-promotion? Shouldn't the website be able to implicitly drive votes for deserving projects in a timely manner? Self-promotion would seem to require an incentive. The incentives currently are: + 1% of sales + See your idea re-imagined and produced as an affordable set by Lego However, these rewards are offset: - How much is the aforementioned 1%? To what extent would it compensate for the cost of materials and the time invested to design the prototype? How would the compensation compare with that generated from selling a custom kit with instructions and parts collated through bricklink? - Unless the project was presented as a virtual file, the creator would own a prototype. Furthermore, the prototype likely would be more elaborate than the final model produced by Lego. Social media sites such as Flickr, Facebook, MOCPages, and ReBrick currently offer an outlet to share your creations and receive feedback (i.e., stoke your ego). Therefore, what becomes the value in seeing your idea produced by Lego?

This sounds like a case of an employee browsing the internet, curious like the rest of us. Also, the postcard looks like a colorized black-and-white photo.

Edit: Beaten to it! (Note to self: Don't spend 30 min composing a message.) While Eurobricks was down, I stumbled upon a MOC that resembled the description from the person who overlooked a Lego store employee's computer (my apologies if I miscomprehended the story). Here's a yellow Palace Cinema with a recessed opening and 4 adjacent doors: Here are some other historical Palace Cinemas: