AmperZand

As AFOLs, we see a difference between HP and Castle, and between SW and Space. But I suspect that LEGO has done its market research and found through cluster analysis that among kids and adults buying for kids, HP/Castle is one group and SW/Space another. While AFOLs are growing in numbers, kids are still by far the dominant demographic. LEGO has to respect that. So we might see the odd Castle or Space related set now and again (e.g. the forthcoming Castle Creator 3-in-1), but full blown Castle or Space ranges seem unlikely as long as LEGO does HP and SW respectively.

There isn’t a LEGO discount specialist store online or off that I’m aware of. So getting good deals will always be somewhat haphazard. You have to hunt around, be patient and allow for the possibility that a particular set may never be discounted. In the UK, the places already mentioned by @MAB are all very good suggestions of where to look. Zavvi is also worth a look (currently the Lamborghini Technic set is £100 off there). Note that there is a thread here at EB on UK deals though it isn’t always very active. One way to be aware of Amazon deals is through Brickset which has an Amazon discount tracker. It tells you what sets have the largest discounts and by how much. There is one for Amazon UK. I believe Brickset covers other countries as well.

I very much doubt the name is coincidental. The character seems to use - or even be made of - lightning, a phenomenon associated with clouds (though, admittedly, not mammatus ones). On the device I’m writing this on, two of the three icons for ‘lightning’ also show a cloud, namely 🌩 and ⛈. I suspect the character’s creator looked up cloud type names and thought ‘mammatus’ sounded suitable for a lightning wielding chief. Here’s Brickset’s picture of the minifigure with his lightning staff weapon: Pretty sure the character is male despite the etymology of ‘mammatus’. Great minifigure, don’t you think?

I’ve just been watching a bunch of YouTube video reviews of forthcoming Ninjago Season 14/spring 2021 sets. The main antagonist is called Chief Mammatus. All of the videos I have seen so far mispronounce his name. Mammatus is an existing word in English. It refers to a kind of pendulous, bulbous cloud formation. It’s pronounced mah-MAY-tus, not MAM-atus or mah-MAH-tus. It’s possible that the Ninjago cartoon will mispronounce it as well which would be unfortunate. Here is the minifigure as photographed by Brickset:

Thanks, @zoth33. Glad you like them! Murt’s head and torso are the same colour as Medusa’s which originally went with that tail piece. So it wasn’t much of a leap from there to the naga. I also have a modded Murt as an orc barbarian. I didn’t include it in the picture - maybe next time. Thanks, @Robert8. I try to imagine what minifigures will look like before I mod them, rather than through trial and error. The hunt-master and monk turned out just as I thought which is always gratifying. Thanks, @koalayummies. Appreciated. Yes, the monk’s torso is Minecraft. Well spotted! It’s from the recently released bee farm set. When I saw the cow’s hood piece in the Year of the Ox set, I first thought of creating a minotaur. But I already have several using either the BrickWarrior’s head or LEGO’s. I’m even using a BW one as a devil’s head (below). So I went with a cervine cowl-wearing Herne minifigure instead. I have a bunch of goblinoid mods I have been thinking of picturing for a while. Will photo and post them when I can.

@SerenityInFire, Cool minifigures! It looks like you gave them different faces to vary them which is a nice touch. Of the 700 or so minifigures in my display collection, no two are identical except in my platoon of Uruk-Hai. Among my Uruks, quite a few are the same. I’m not a fan of fleshies and even less so of using them among yellowies. But to each their own. One thing I would suggest is to keep your minifigures - and indeed all your LEGO - out of sunlight. Looks like you’ve got a sunny room there which is great for real people but not so great for plastic ones.

Don't know if this is OT, but according to Brick Fanatics, the order of the Vidiyo minifigures in each display box is: BACK Werewolf Red Panda Discowboy Cheetah Samurapper Shark Banshee Cheerleader Genie Alien Bunny Ice Cream FRONT In the display box, there are two side-by-side columns of 12 minifigures each as laid out above, for a total of 24 minifigures per display box. It is unknown whether the order above will be consistent across markets and over time. If you have acquired a display box, please let us know. If you're after specific minifigures, this method of identifying them has the additional problem that it only works with a fresh display box.

Edit: Ninja’ed by @Alexandrina! You can use an accent colour or two to draw the eye to key features or edges such as merlons, doorways or quoins. A simple example can be seen in this LEGO set. I recommend dark red and/or dark bley given the subject matter. Additionally, you can add texture to your black surfaces. Lastly, if you give your structure an interesting silhouette, that can also distract from too much blackness. With an undead theme, gothic architecture is the way to go. Imagine a black version of St Pancras Station.

Very nicely done with great attention to detail! Your scene conjures all sorts of scenarios. I imagine the young man running from the bear is the farmer’s son. As he circles the building, the beast collides with the baroness’s henchmen, mauling them savagely. Shocked but unharmed, the baroness stumbles back. The farmer seizes the opportunity to interpose himself between the rampaging beast and the noblewoman, fending off its blows until it retreats. In gratitude for saving her life, the baroness elevates the farmer and his family to freemen.

Both the concept and execution are excellent! Great stuff

Looking at the initial images from Perseverance, I wondered if renewed interest in space exploration generally and extra-terrestrial environments in particular might stimulate LEGO to release a new Space theme (not SW, not City). The moon landings of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s as well as the wider space race was why LEGO developed CS. Could current fascination with Mars be the impetus for CS 2.0?

Thank you, Robert, for your kind words - praise indeed from someone as talented as yourself. With regards to the 'twists', I guess I must be twisted! If anyone is interested, I just added a picture of my latest fantasy minifigures in this thread.

Here are some of the latest additions to my display collection using recent parts. I use 'recent' quite loosely: some of the parts came out almost a year ago. But when you've been collecting minifigures as an AFOL for 28 years, a year doesn't seem like a long time! Back row from left: carnivorous plant, Krusty the Orange Spaceman Front row from left: Herne the Hunt-Master with hounds, witch, were-cheetah, naga, elderly monk Unusually for me, they are almost entirely purist. Herne's antlers and armour are third party as is his cloak though LEGO does do one in a similar colour I believe. Apologies for the inclusion of Krusty the Orange Spaceman. I realise he's sci-fi, not fantasy. He wasn't supposed to be in the shot. He just floated in unexpectedly. I guess he photobombed me. What can I say? Questions? Comments? Classic spaced out?

@Shroffy123, What cracked? The spears? If so, just buy a bunch of spears on the secondary market. They’re widely available and pretty cheap. There was a known issue with reddish-brown and dark red bricks/plates and minifigure hands snapping a few years ago. LEGO eventually changed the formula and newer parts in those colours are no longer particularly prone to cracking. If not the spears, then what? Pictures of the cracked parts please!

I agree. I couldn't see a way of improving the minifigure so it has gone into my display collection as sold. Having said that, I don't always equate detailed or realistic printing with better minifigures. Some, such as Classic Spacemen, are brilliant in their simplicity; a case of less is more. Thank you very much for your kind words. Appreciated. I have been asked by PM and through non-EB channels if the conch shell I used for the hermit crab is third party. It isn't. It's this LEGO piece from the PotC range. I was already using it as decoration in my display collection's thalassic zone. Now, the shell has an occupant!

Very historically accurate A fun trio and eagle! I especially like the choice of shield for Washington. The Lincoln one reminds me of the title character from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

The texturing of the surfaces is masterful as is the shaping of the structures. LEGO at its best!

@Roebuck has already provided the answer and a picture (), but you might like to know that last year’s GW is the same size as the undead shark from PotC. @Itaria No Shintaku, Thank you very much for the information on the forthcoming animals. Much appreciated! I have an OE elephant in my display collection and its legs aren’t loose. I got it on the secondary market about 15 years ago. It was listed as new condition and I think it was; it wasn’t played with before I got it as far as I can tell. Since I got it, it’s just been standing on a shelf, being tormented by monkeys

Deleted original post as a mod has moved the posts above to this thread where they belong

Sunlight (and heat) are not the cause of discolouration, merely catalysts. It happens to all ABS though not always at the same rate (even within a given set). Assault on Hoth is getting on to five years old, so some degradation is to be expected. You can easily restore the whiteness of LEGO using hydrogen peroxide and Vanish Oxy Crystal White. I used it on parts needed for a 6927 All-Terrian Vehicle re-build back in 2014 and you can’t tell the difference between the new parts and the whitened old ones:

Although the N was very small, the following study suggests that LEGO therapy is as effective as art therapy in reducing stress among university students: Building Blocks and Coloring Away Stress: Utilizing Lego and Coloring as Stress Reduction Strategies among University Students. Margaret Shields, William Hunnell, Melanie Tucker, Annie Price Journal of Health Education Teaching 11 (1), 24-31, 2020

I'm in the UK, so don't know which sellers send internationally from the UK. Best international prices to Vietnam including postage are probably Hong Kong, Australia and the US. If you find a part you're particularly after, BrickLink allows you to select whether the part is new and if sellers ship to your country. It's then a matter of looking at feedbacks, both positives and negatives. If a seller has thousands of positives, they probably have a large selection if there are other parts you're looking for. And if they have no or very few negatives, they are likely trustworthy. I have bought through BL hundreds of times since 2006 and have only had a handful of bad experiences. 99% of BL orders I have been happy with - and I'm very fussy.

When I first became a VIP, there were no online accounts per se. You provided an email address if you wanted to but there were no online accounts as they are now. I created my online account as soon as that became possible. There may be differences between countries in the timing of the introduction of the VIP scheme and accounts. LEGO is aware of the issue. It just doesn't care enough to do anything about it. I asked someone who knows more about the technical side of the problem than me and he said that it would probably only take someone at LEGO a few hours to put it right for everyone in my situation and would not mean VIP or Ideas being down for other people, only possibly for a short time for those like me. I wouldn't mind my VIP account being down for a few hours if it meant I could take part in Ideas votes.

Worse: if, like me, you were among the first lot of LEGO VIPs, you are excluded from any Ideas vote/participation including this one. It’s probable that the first cohort of VIPs are older and, as you say, more likely to vote for Castle (or CS or Pirates), not Bionicles, thereby introducing a bias in the latter’s favour. At the margin, that could make a difference.