badbob001

For those in the USA, do you have any preferred countries to order from? I've had good results with Germany, with orders arriving in about 7-10 days and the shipping cost is reasonable. I just tried Austria, which is next to Germany, so hopefully the results are similar. Or are there countries you would definitely avoid due to how long it takes? I've seen good parts selection from countries like Hong Kong, but I suspect it may take a month for those orders.

When I order from a store for the first time, I would check their recent user comments to see if there has been any recent activity and see if there are any common issues. Some may ship on the same day but some may take a week to take any action, but I try to understand that this is usually their hobby and they may be busy or on vacation. And even after they ship, the shipping time will vary with each country and eventually you may favor certain countries over others due to shipping speed. I'm in the US and I try to order from US store, but my main fallback is Germany.

I think a lot of people hate the idea of rare figures, such as Mr. Gold or rare figures from conventions. Being blind-bag is enough stress for a kids product, but let's not encourage adults from buying up all the inventory. The extra pieces idea will encourage people to collect all the figures rather than chasing after one rare figure. And even when you don't get them all or have extras of the extra pieces, you can always use them to build custom figures. With non-LEGO products, those extra pieces are basically garbage. And the extra pieces don't even need to be for an extra figure. It could be accessory pieces that are used with the figure it comes with but can be combined to form something else.

I wondered how LEGO was expecting this to remain a mystery. But I suppose as long as the figure is not printed in the sheet, bag, or box, then anyone that comes into their stores can potentially be intrigued by the 'mystery'. Of course, that person also needs to have no interest in LEGO other than buying it as gifts... and won't lookup LEGO information on the Internet. Now for the next series, how would we feel if they include extra parts of a figure within each bag and you have to basically collect them all to build these extra figures? I've seen this done with Marvel figures (non-LEGO).

Perhaps the CMF parts are sourced from many more countries than the modular buildings, which can lead to more opportunities for leaks. I think many toy leaks are from factory workers. LEGO now has factories in China and CMF parts can be sourced from there, but I don't think all/most sets are using those factories yet.

I don't think the the Mini Volkswagen would be considered directly part of the normal seasonal series, but a car-related seasonal series may be a good idea: Valentine's day: Couple in red convertible with picnic stuff in the back seat. Or Couple on a horse-drawn ride? Easter: Person with easter bunny costume driving a white car? Summer: Car with beach stuff. Much like the Volkswagen set. Halloween: Hayride truck with kids in costumes and lots of pumpkins. Thanksgiving: Car with the whole family, perhaps going to visit relatives? Christmas: Car with Christmas tree on top and presents in trunk. Would it be too frightening to have a car full of Santas, carpooling to malls? That or Santa on sleigh with a beefy reindeer on roller skates. For these to be minifigure-scale and be decent, they probably need to have more pieces (and priced accordingly) compared to current seasonal sets.

This looks so great and roomy. It's really hard to find dust-proof storage/display that is horizontal. Did you buy or build this cabinet? Is it three stacked on top of each other? How do you open it? Seems like the front doors would hinge up or down, but not sure how all that weight would be suspended or supported. IKEA has bookcases with glass doors but I don't think the doors will work well with the whole thing turned sideways.

But it's not really rotated. Her plate is the same width as the others. But the depth is doubled. So if you have them on display and have them all flush from the front, then they will look the same.

This may go well with another tan baseplate and the Fun at the Beach set.

I hope the set keeps the option for a closed-back not always opened like a dollhouse.

Would it be too soon to have Adventure Time brickheadz?

I understand the pink is for the brain, but what does the red represent? Underwear?

I think it's the Belle brickheadz that is turning me off from this series. The fully uncovered face looks like something from a muppet or any number of characters from Behemoth games. At least the Black Widow face has bangs. I just know that in the middle of the night, I will hear a sudden "MEEP" from the direction of my display shelf. If that reference is too dated for you:

It's a play feature for the eventual zombie brickheadz figure. I'm on the fence for these, but I'll probably get the first wave just in case I fall in love with them a few waves later and don't have to overpay for the previous waves. Besides, I need to order $75 worth to get that Lego Batman Movie polybag. Damn you LEGO!

Do you think this will be sold separately in stores later? I think some promotional items later turn up in Target.

Wow! That's cool. I don't think I've even heard of 'Bricks 'n Pieces'. My childhood brain is telling me that it was the smaller 924/487 companion ship that I saw and not the 928/497 one, but you know kids and their memories. :) I think the article made a mistake when calling the ship the Space Cruiser as that is the name of the smaller ship while the larger ship is the Galaxy Explorer. What, no google search in 1979? :)

Is there a website or even books that document the large-scale version of sets that LEGO creates for displays? Around 30+ years ago, back when Macy's in Manhattan had a full toys section, I think I remember a full-scale version of the 487 Space Cruiser hanging from the ceiling. I'm wonder if that existed anywhere else (or was I dreaming) and if there are any pictures of it.

That sounds like a great idea! Have you tried adjusting the door hinges to close up the middle gap? Also, is there enough clearance to put non-corner buildings on the shelves next to the door hinges?

It depends. If I'm building a new set, I can just empty the bags into a few shallow containers and comfortably build sitting before a table. But if I'm building a MOC and need to search my parts that are organized into little storage containers, I need to stand up and hunch a bit as I peer into or reach for each container. It can get rather tiring.

I completed my mirror build of Santa's Workshop via computer-flipped instructions and the one thing I forgot to account for are that certain pieces can't be easily flipped, like wedge plates and doors. But it was fun to figure around these challenges. I just added a poll.

Merry Christmas! I finally got around to building a mirror image of the Santa's workshop and combined it with the original. I originally got two of the set primary so that Santa has his full set of reindeer. I couldn't find a good way to combine the free Santa workshed as is, so I merged the interior into the second tower, which needed taller walls to fit everything properly. The arms raising Santa are from a Bandai Tamashii Stage Act 4 kit.

I'm building a second copy Santa's Workshop and am building it flipped/mirrored so I can more easily connect it to a normal build of it. For those of you that do such a thing, how do you do it? Do you use the normal instructions and mentally flip the build? Do you reflect the instructions off a mirror? Do you download the pdf instructions, batch convert each page to an image, and batch flip each image? I ended up using the last option but it was a bit frustrating because the pdf instructions from LEGO are low resolution and often too dark to make out colors and details.

It's too bad about the Billy, since it has the nice looking Morliden doors, which are full-length glass and very thin frame: (not my photo) IKEA use to offer thin-frame glass doors for other cabinets/bookcase systems but have since discontinued all of them. Grr. Now I'm wondering if I can take a 93" tall PAax frame and turn it sideways so I can hold 9 modules horizontally on each level, for a proper street look.. And the 22" depth will allow a full street plate to sit in front of each building. The only problem is that I'm not sure how I would cover this. Pax does have sliding doors with annoying frosted glass that will need to be replaced with regular glass or acrylic (not cheap), but I don't think there is an easy way to make sliding doors work when they are turned sideways (curse you gravity).

Can someone please confirm if the IKEA Billy bookcase can actually fit three full modulars per shelf? The specs says the shelves are 30 inches wide, so that should fit 3 x 10" baseplates.

"Human sacrifice, men and women living together... mass hysteria!"