AmperZand

If you use a little bit of window cleaner such as Windolene on the part before applying the sticker, it gives you the opportunity to position it just right. Then carefully press out any excess liquid and air bubbles without displacing the sticker and you're good to go. Using window cleaner is a tip provided by LEGO. I've tried it and it works. Pet Peeves Zippers on costumed minifigures. They are unnecessary as you can imagine that they are costumes just as well without them and they prevent the minifigure from being used as the real thing, not someone dressed like one. Fleshy neck-lines on minifigures. As a yellowist, I find fleshy neck-lines annoying. Usually, the minifigure would look just as good with the clothes-line going all the way to the neck. That would allow you to use the torso with either a fleshy or yellowy head. LEGO going after bootleggers such as Lepin when they themselves have misappropriated someone else's concept without their permission and without compensating them.

Obviously everyone here buys LEGO and some of us even buy LEGO-compatible brands, but I was wondering if anyone buys toys that are neither. I came back to LEGO in 1993 through my hobby of collecting fantasy action figures (or 'dolls' as my fiancée calls them!). While I now have much more LEGO in my display collection than non-LEGO, I do still pick up the odd non-LEGO fantasy or super hero action figure now and again. In case you're wondering, I don't mix the two: my LEGO and non-LEGO collections are physically separate. I know that Jang, a prominent AFOL, buys other toy brands as he has reviewed some on his YouTube channel. So what non-LEGO and non-LEGO-compatible toys do you collect? Do you sometimes have to make tough choices between getting more LEGO and getting something else? How do you decide what to get/what not to get?

Yes indeed. I just hope that the candle and flame, lantern, wand, rat, Hagrid hair and torso parts appear in other sets, preferably small, non-HP ones. That way, they might be reasonably priced on the secondary market.

A-stonish-ing! - get it? Seriously, that looks really smart. I can understand why LEGO used purple - it's more eye-catching and appeals more to kids - but as an AFOL, I reckon grey is perfect. I have some vaguely similar minifigures but they're not painted and don't look as impressive as @Wardancer's: Apologies if my post is a bit thread-jacky.

In keeping with much fantasy literature/gaming, I classify most of the minifigures in my display collection as either good or evil. I have several merfolk minifigures already and all but one are followers of the CMF S7 ocean king and therefore on the good side. So when the merfolk tail part was released in black as part of TLBM S2, I decided to create another evil one. I imagine him to be a dweller of the depths where there is no light who only comes to the surface at night to raid or sink human ships.

Nicely done! Small suggestion: I would get rid of the apostrophe s after the author's name. I don't know about German, but in English and French, you include the author's name on the cover but don't ascribe possession, e.g. "John Smith" or "Jean Dupont", not "John Smith's", "by John Smith" or "par Jean Dupont". There are exceptions, but they're not very common and are usually for specific reasons.

I believe the bows for hairpieces in the Friends line, the bows for Daisy Duck and Minnie Mouse in the Disney minifigures, and the hat for Red Harrington in one of the Lone Ranger sets all use that pin attachment, but I could be wrong as I don't have any of them. There may well be others that I missed. Those are just the ones I know of off the top of my head - pun intended .

So the dragon costume guy and policeman are cool according to @just2good because they reference earlier LEGO creations, but the unicorn knight and cowboy costume guy aren't because they reference earlier LEGO creations?

Hmmm yes Brickset is currently showing those CMFs as having 9 pieces each and not the pictures above but these: If you count the pieces in each of those pictures the total comes to 9 if the balloon and cord are separate. I'm not saying that Brickset is necessarily right, just that both the Brothers Brick and Brickset can't both be right. One of them has made a mistake.

Perhaps. On the other hand, based on the piece counts for the two CMFs with tethered balloons on Brickset, the two parts are separate. So either the Brothers Brick are mistaken or Brickset is.

Has that been confirmed or were the two parts stuck together just for the demo versions at the Toy Fair to stop the balloons from going missing?

@jjb15 , In addition to the custom makers mentioned by @Stash2Sixx, I recommend: SI-DAN. Their body wear often doesn't fit LEGO minifigures well, but their neck wear, weapons and accessories do. They're well sculpted and made. My favourite place to get SI-DAN parts from is Minifig Cat . Very good selection, prices and service. Kre-O. This one is controversial because Kre-O makes their own minifigures (that look hideous IMO). Kre-O weapons and accessories are well made and mostly look OK. I have reviewed the BrickWarriors lute and katar dagger here on Eurobricks. Images of many third party weapons and accessories can be seen in my BrickShelf gallery (see link in my sig below).

Agreed on both counts. I've got some sets (or parts of sets) that have been assembled since the early-to-mid '90s and they're still fine. For most of their lives, they have been stored in Really Useful boxes. ABS - the plastic from which most LEGO parts are made - is pretty resistant to acid. It's unlikely the acidity from decaying baggies would affect them even after decades. Even if it did, the acidity would affect the exposed surfaces of the LEGO first. It would make the LEGO parts rougher and/or duller before it affected the structural integrity of the ABS. So if a part feels and looks fine, it isn't suffering from acid damage. In theory, as @dr_spock says, ABS parts might be affected by esters. They wouldn't necessarily affect the appearance of ABS, so you wouldn't be able to tell your LEGO was affected. My guess is that the first affect would be to cause the part to deform leading to a loss of clutch power. An interesting experiment would be to take a whole bunch of LEGO parts, e.g. 1 x 1 plates, and store them in various liquids (and none) for a long time, say a year, in otherwise identical conditions to see what affect the experimental conditions had. You would want to control for colour and preferably batch of the parts - though those would also be interesting variables to test.

That's what you think! Just wait till the Legostapo bust down your door in the middle of the night and throw you in LEGO jail (like the one below), never to be seen or heard from again. I learnt a long time ago not to let others define my happiness (except where it would cause others harm). Even if the "LEGO community" disapproved of your building technique, so what? It's your LEGO. Do what you like with it.

I think the second set is among the 100 or so store exclusives sold in the US and Canada in the 1960s. Sorry I couldn't be more help. The best person to ask is @LEGO Historian.

The largest MOCs aren't always the best and I think your diorama exemplifies that. It's small but perfect: lots of detail, a stylish minifigure, a cleverly designed cresset and a novel use of the HP griffin! I also have some MOCed Greek heroes but not set in a cool vignette like yours: Greek hero riding pegasus and Greek heroes (picture right).

I have quite a few denizens of the deep - both good and evil - in my display collection, but only currently have a picture of the latest ones using parts from the Disney, Ninjago Movie and TLBM S2 CMFs. I imagine the skeleton-ghost as a soldier who died at sea in tragic circumstances. In due course, I hope to photograph all my deep sea dwellers. Feel free to post your purist and non-purist underwater MOCed minifigures in this thread .

At the risk of causing two threads to collide for which I apologise: post from CMF impact on historic themes thread.

With just a few parts replaced/removed, the S18 cactus girl and flower pot girl would make good plant-monsters. Not S18, but drawing on parts from the Ninjago Movie and TLBM S2 CMFs, here are some MOC denizens of the deep. I imagine the skeleton-ghost to be a soldier who died at sea in particularly tragic circumstances. Comments, questions and splashing sounds welcome.

Is it wrong to say the cowboy is hung like a horse? Seriously though, is the upper part of the dragon's helmet an articulated visor allowing you to open and close the dragon's mouth, or is that wishful thinking?

@MAB Until last year, LEGO were still using smiley faces as real ones in its Modular Buildings line (e.g. Assembly Square). They may have stopped doing that since Downtown Diner, but it may be premature to say that LEGO won't keep using it in other lines. As far as LEGO is concerned, I'm pretty sure they still consider it as a real face - just one they don't use much anymore.

Agreed! As a Castle/fantasy minifigure fan, I'm loving the dragon suit guy . Could be one of the best CMFs ever. The unicorn knight is pretty cool, too. I was hoping to use the spider suit guy as an actual arachnid monster just by swapping out its head, but the zipper down the front of his torso vitiates it . The cactus and flower pot girls can be turned into minifigs of actual plant-monsters with just a few substitute parts. Sure, it does. The theme is a birthday party. Most have come in fancy dress including the guy dressed as a policeman. That's why he has the LEGO set. It's a gift for the host.

A brilliantly executed multi-scene diorama. Fantastic in every sense! If I could change one thing - and I appreciate this is idiosyncratic - I would make the minifigures yellow, not fleshy.

I second (or is it third?) the suggestion of trying BrickLink. If you can't find the set at an acceptable price from a single BrickLink seller, you may find you can get it for less by buying the set's parts from various BrickLink sellers. The operative word though is 'may': when you factor in delivery, it could come to more. In 2014, I recreated a 1981 Classic Space set using parts I already had plus ones I sourced mainly on BrickLink from different sellers and it came to quite a bit less than if I had bought the set in its entirety in similar condition from just one seller. Of course, it took more time and effort, but I didn't mind that.

Clever use of the cattle horns as the ballista's prongs!