AmperZand

Apologies if this has been discussed already or is widely known (except by me!) but do we have a European release date for the movie sets? I understand the movie itself is scheduled for late September, so I assume the sets will be out in the run-up to the film hitting theatre screens, but by how long?

I appreciate that the OP has a particular look in mind, but if you're willing to consider fantasy armour rather than sci-fi armour for your Batman, you have quite a few options. There's Excalibur Batman: Or you could MOC one from parts (sorry about the non-Batman stuff in this picture):

If you used an actual Sharpie, rubbing alcohol, A.K.A. isopropyl alcohol, will take it right off without damaging the print. Isopropyl alcohol can be tricky to find depending on where you live. If it's not easily available, try a clear sanitiser hand gel with "Alcohol Denat." as its main ingredient, Cuticura for example. If you're worried about long-term effects of any residual gel, you can wash off any excess with water.

I'm not aware of anyone doing a double bass. BrickForge do a violin though only one colour (dark tan) is in stock at the time of writing. I don't know of any modern harps, but BrickWarriors do a lyre in various colours.

@mocbuild101 I take your general point about more fruit being required. If you don't mind a bit of non-purity, BrickWarriors do bunches of grapes in a choice of colours.

@Eggyslav I don't think BrickForge do or have done a rapier. Do you mean BrickArms? They do one. It's cup hilt though. BrickArms definitely do a scalpel. LEGO, BrickArms and BrickWarriors all do syringes, not a surgical tool per se but something commonly found in a surgical theatre.

This thread got me thinking about what minifigure weapons and accessories don't exist, but really should. I don't mean re-colours of existing parts. I mean objects that aren't currently made for minifigures either by LEGO or a third party (BrickWarriors, BrickForge, SI-DAN, Kre-O etc) but would be particularly useful. What weapons/accessories would you like to have? For the purposes of this thread, let's imagine that 3D printing isn't an option and we have to rely on LEGO and injection moulding third parties .

LEGO make the umbrella pictured below. There are very few accessories like it with a curved handle. The reason is the shape of a minifigure's hand. If the handle were tightly curved (like the umbrella's) but the bar were uniform diameter (unlike the umbrella that has a tapering handle), the end of the handle would protrude between the 'fingers' of a minifigure's hand forcing it open slightly and stressing the plastic which could break the hand. You might be surprised by the accessories that have never been made either by LEGO or a third party. As far as I know, there's no candle for example. LEGO uses a white cylinder brick (pictured immediately below) but that's disproportionately large even for a system that often ignores scale. I prefer to use the string pictured, cutting it so that the grips are candles and the string, wicks. Pictures of umbrella, round brick and string c/o BrickLink.

I tried that when I originally got the claw, but it works neither aesthetically (it protrudes too far from the foot and therefore looks funny) nor functionally (the minifigure can't stand straight). I don't have a picture of it, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure what a micro changer is, but the grey claws came with a Kre-O Dungeons & Dragons gargoyle called Crull. It was in Series 2 of the blind bagged army builder packs.

They're the same part though obviously in a different colour that I used for one of my gargoyle's claws. Sorry to the OP for the digression.

@timecorridor If you're asking what can be used for a walking stick, LEGO uses a 3L bar which you can obtain through BrickLink. Alternatively, if you don't mind going non-purist and are willing to cut off the end, you could go with BrickForge's shepherd's crook. If you're asking if any EB member can sell you a suitable part, the answer is that they shouldn't. I'm not a mod, but my guess is that the rule about not being able to post in the bazaar does not exist to encourage you to post your WLTB messages elsewhere on the EB boards.

Do you mean the one pictured below? I tried that but found it too jolly looking.

I have two draconians (dragon-men) in my display collection: a red one using the BrickWarrior parts already suggested by @Darkdragon and a green one using LEGO for the torso and legs but Kre-o for the head, wings and claws. The Kre-o draconic parts were originally produced for their Cityville Invasion: Fire Station Dragon Attack set (A3248) but you can get them cheaply parted from the set on Ebay, e.g. here. Here's the official Kre-o picture, not my draconian MOC:

Thanks for the HH and robo-rocket likes I tried a number of different possible heads for HH, and that one was the scariest. The others were too smiley. Yes, robo-rocket's head is indeed from an NK bot. Well spotted! I wanted to create a robot, not an undead with a skeleton's head. The bot's eyes pick up on the rocket's rivets. There was an official Headless Horseman, or at least, someone disguised as one. He appeared in this Scooby-Doo set. If you think robo-rocket is creepy, you probably shouldn't check out these minifigures. Correct. It's a sage beard by BrickForge. I wanted to give the dwarf a long beard, but LEGO don't do one in red as far as I know. Even BrickForge don't do them in red anymore. I bought it years ago and just had it with my spare parts waiting for the day when it could find a new home on a dwarf berserker's face. Thanks, koalayummies! I'm getting grey airtanks for the astronaut. Hopefully, they'll arrive next week.

I like to MOC my favourite minifigures from each new CMF series and improving existing minifigures in my display collection with new parts. Here are my MOCed series 17 CMFs with a few friends. Thanks to @K_Tiger for the idea of the headless horseman using the highwayman. Apologies for the rubbish photography. Any questions or comments about these minifigures?

MOCed minifigures from this series, minifigures that have benefited from S17 parts and "friends":

The only time I've been inside the Leicester Square (central London) store - on its opening day - they had two BAMs, one on each floor. The two BAMs didn't have the same parts. If you wanted to get some parts from one BAM and other parts from the other, I'm sure that would be fine.

Cool! I especially like the way you have captured the texture of the walls and created the roundels on the floor. Great work!

The vet is easy to identify from her hair while the Frenchman can be narrowed down from his beret and dog. I didn't come across any chefs, so don't know for sure but should be feelable from her tart and whisk. It wouldn't be weird to ask the staff at the LEGO store for help identifying them. I've been helped to identify minifigures before at the White City/Shepherd's Bush store - even when I didn't want any help! How much help they can offer will depend on how busy they are. Weekday mornings are generally a good time to go. Expect to queue to enter the Leicester Square store; 30-45 minute waits aren't unusual. There are no waiting times at the two Westfield stores (White City/Shepherd's Bush and Stratford). The Westfields have another advantage if you're CMF hunting: they both have branches of WH Smith in the same shopping centre. So if you don't find the CMFs you want at the LEGO store, try Smith instead. CMFs are usually kept behind the till, but if you're an adult and you ask the staff nicely if you can stand next to the tills and feel the packets, they are happy to oblige.

I was at the LEGO store in Stratford last Thursday and, unlike some CMF series, they said they wouldn't be selling S17 ahead of the official street date. TRUs and WHSs were breaking the street date from at least yesterday (30 April) in the London/Surrey border area. They only seemed to have one box at each store. That may be because that is all they had (or were willing to put out) or because they had had more boxes but had already sold so many packets by the time I got there that they were able to consolidate what was left into a single box. I have a feeling it was the former. I managed to pick up all the ones I wanted then: elf, dwarf, highwayman, retro spaceman, fairy girl, rocket boy, hot dog seller and gladiator. They were £2.99 each but I had a voucher for TRU so got a small discount. Same here. I didn't come across many rocket boys and I also had to double check the corn cob guys. There didn't seem to be many dwarves left either. That could have been chance of course but it could be a regional effect. The concept for the S17 dwarf originated in the UK in the mid '80s so is possibly more deeply culturally rooted here than elsewhere.

Not a paper cup! Use a clear glass jar without a lid. Make sure you have at least enough H2O2 to cover the parts. The Oxi will froth quite a bit, so you don't want to go crazy with it. The volume of Oxi equal to a few 2 x 8 bricks should be more than enough. You can always start with a small quantity and add more as required. The froth will likely spill over the lip of the glass, so you'll want to put the glass jar on a tray or in some kind of container. Note that the H2O2 and Oxi mix is toxic if ingested, so you'll definitely want to keep it away from kids and pets. Also, you probably shouldn't use the jar again for food/drink even after you have cleaned it.

I don't have any S17s yet but Jang addresses that very question in his Youtube review. At about 45 seconds in, he says they're green, not bright green. The husk is bright green though. How did you do the corn and other non-standard icons in your post?

No, you don't! You can't just say you had something great happen and not tell us what. Enquiring minds want to know! Yeah, me. Post number 1234. Woohoo!

"Awesome" is used far too freely these days, but this MOC really is deserving of being called awesome. It's fantastic! Will it be on display in London at any point? Have you considered contacting the Houses of Parliament/Palace of Westminster to find out if they would like to display it? It sounds daft but you might be surprised.