AmperZand

Great little MOC! Made me smile. I'm not a fan of fleshies, but apart from that, it really can't be faulted.

I'm not into LoC, but as a collector of fantasy monsters I couldn't resist getting Flinx's Ultimate Phoenix (70221). The phoenix in that set is a work of art! That said, it does have a few characteristics I'm not crazy about, so I modded them out. The changes I made are: SNOT'ed the neck SNOT'ed the body where Flinx normally goes SNOT'ed the tail SNOT'ed the wings removed the push-fire play feature, and replaced the blue pins in the talons with black ones. You can see the mods in the picture below apart from the replaced pins. Sorry about the rubbish photography. Any burning questions or comments?

Off the top of my head, the following official parts fit in the wrist hole: hands (obviously), hooks ( http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2531 ), mitts ( http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=bb591 ), boxing gloves ( http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=bb523 ) and claws ( http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=bb534 ). In terms of wrist-wear, I don't think there are any official LEGO parts. However, there are some third party pieces such as BrickForge's vambrace ( http://www.brickforge.com/store/product.php?productid=18513 ), BrickWarriors' vambrace ( http://www.brickwarriors.com/vambraces-pair/ ) and hidden blade ( http://www.brickwarriors.com/hidden-blade/ ) and SI-DAN's watches ( http://www.minifigcat.com/shop/home.php?cat=527 ). There are also various LEGO and third party handcuffs/manacles.

I put Flinx's Ultimate Phoenix last night and was wondering the same thing. I don't know the answer, but it may have something to do with the manufacturing process or some future functionality when used with an as yet unreleased socket. But I'm just guessing.

I picked up Flinx's Ultimare Phoenix (70221) yesterday plus a few BAM parts. I'm not into Chima, but am a big fan of fantasy monsters and couldn't resist the phoenix. It's magnificent! I put it together and modded it last night, and have added it to my display collection.

3. 1 4. 1 7. 1 Many great entries. It's really quite hard to decide.

Great detailing! What's the story behind the knight with the tam o' shanter?

Wow! That's really cool.

As already mentioned, if you do it gently, you should be fine. If any joints become loose, separate the pieces and give one part (usually the male one) a thin coating of Humbrol Satincoat. Allow it to dry for at least 6 hours and carefully reassemble. If it's still loose, start again. Usually, though, one coat will do it.

Do you ascribe personalities, ethics, ideologies and so on to your minifigs? http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=99494&st=650#entry2165072 The linked post above is about licensed minifigs, but it got me thinking about minifigs more generally - licensed and unlicensed - and whether AFOLs imagine their minifigs as having human qualities. In my case, I think of licensed minifigs and MOCed ones drawn from source material as having the personality, outlook etc of the character they represent. So Batman is a well-intentioned but troubled vigilante; Darth Vader is an evil slave to the dark side of the force.; the musketeers are as depicted in Dumas' books and the films inspired by them and so on. As for unlicensed minifigs and creatures, I class most as either good or evil with a few neutrals, and display them according to their faction. Within those groupings, I think of some as having particular loyalties, motivations or personality traits. For example, I have two knights that I MOCed at the same time many years ago. They don't look similar: they have different hair colours, armour and weapons, and clothes colours. But they somehow seemed destined to be together. They're both male and I decided that they were gay. Apart from the good/neutral/evil groupings, I don't define the personality of each of my minifigs - I have too many. Only a few are more detailed. I was wondering if other AFOLs think of their minifigs as having distinct personalities or if I'm alone in doing this. If you do, how do you decide what qualities they have?

Good question. I don't have much money to throw around at the moment. On the other hand, I know from experience that you can let opportunities slip through your fingers; sets don't stay in production indefinitely. So I balance the two by focusing on a) those things that are highest on my wants list and b) likely not to be on store shelves that long. I collect mostly fantasy/mythology/historical minifigs and monsters, so the CMFs are priorities. I splashed out on the S13 CMFs despite my indigence, but I'm holding back on Flinx's Ultimate Phoenix until I'm more financially secure and on the Lonely Mountain until I've cleared some debts. As I only get things with a view to adding them to my permanent display collection or for parts I may use for a permanent addition, I rarely make impulse purchases and when I do, they're always small.

Elmer's Washable School Glue is quite alkaline; it has a pH of 10.9. I wonder if its alkalinity might affect the sticker over time.

Sure, dragons can be bipedal, but I'm not convinced that just because two media representations (The Hobbit film and GoT telly series) portray them that way - however popular they are now - that that will have a lasting effect. Minecraft's Ender Dragon has four legs but I don't see that having much lasting influence either just because it's popular at the moment. What will last is the literature and games that have come to dominate the fantasy genre over the last generation or two, namely Tolkien's written works and games like Dungeons & Dragons. And in both of those, dragons are quadrupeds. It's actually quite hard to displace cultural representations which is why the way super heroes are portrayed tends not to deviate much longer term, e.g. Spider-Man who doesn't look very different now from how we was drawn in the 1960s. LEGO is your friend: http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?itemID=1456&colorID=7 and http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?itemID=1456&colorID=55

I'm not into the Simpsons, but I can see the appeal of this set. It has a huge amount of detail. It also captures the humour of the Simpsons. I love, for example, that Bart is graffitiing the side of the building. It's not that I support unauthorised street art - I emphatically don't - but I am pleasantly surprised that TLG is portraying it. I also really like the black bag used as a bin bag. Unfortunately, I expect they'll command a small fortune on the secondary market. From the CMF line, I have to get my hands on Bart's slingshot. What a great piece! Shouldn't be too hard to identify the Bart CMF by feel and I expect there'll be quite a few per box.

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=Dragon01 Sorry, Wardancer. If I ever get Smaug, I won't be drilling holes in it.

I have the brick-built Nidhogg dragon from 2005 (from this set: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=7017-1 ). It's bigger than the Fantasy Era moulded dragon of which I have two, the red one and the dark red one. I don't have Smaug. Which is bigger: the Nidhogg dragon or Smaug?

While it's true that wyverns only ever have two legs, dragons have variously been portrayed for centuries in Europe as either bipedal or quadrupedal. Like you, I prefer my dragons with four legs, but Smaug is no less a dragon for his missing forelimbs.

Great breastplate technique! Very creative. If you're into female warriors in a fantasy version of feudal Japan, check out Moribito: Spirit of the Guardian. It's originally a novel but has been turned into an anime.

I don't subscribe to JangBricks (or any other Youtube channel) but I do seek his reviews of sets in which I'm interested. He covers all the salient points and his filming is OK for the most part. Unlike The Brick Show, Jang is articulate and doesn't shout at you. In fact, Jang is one of my three favourite Youtube reviewers. The other two are Artifex and Brick Queen.

This topic has been covered in the EB forums before, but it appears to have been purged. It was quite some time ago. In most cases, the people that LEGO minifigures resemble are either famous in real life such as Marilyn Munroe or from fiction such as Sherlock Holmes. But very occasionally, they resemble non-famous real-life people such as the CMF British policeman that bears a striking resemblance to police constable Rob Thomas. The similarity can't be pure coincidence. The number on the CMF's collar, 1337, is the same as that on PC Thomas' epaulette!

So a magical emanation/conjuration? Thanks, GoldenChi. I didn't know that. It wouldn't actually have affected my purchasing decision but I'm glad it's not supposed to be a machine. Mandate, I agree that the phoenix is a brilliant representation of an avian form. I would go as far as to describe it as a work of art. I don't much care for the flick-fire missiles and will mod those out if/when I can get the set. If I do get it, it will go into my display collection which means it will stay there indefinitely. I'm curious what mods you did. Can you briefly describe them? I'm thinking of modding it myself, perhaps to make it more snotty. Amps

I don't know anything about the Legend of Chima story, but as a collector of LEGO fantasy/mythology creatures I was thinking of getting Flinx's Ultimate Phoenix (70221). I was curious whether the phoenix is supposed to be a vehicle or a creature. Any idea?

I agree in the near to mid-term, but taking a longer view, 3D printing has the potential to be a massively disruptive game changer. When high quality 3D printing can be done inexpensively at home or at least on demand by small, local companies, TLG may reduce its production and distribution of finished goods and instead sell designs and limited use IP rights. It's analogous to the trajectory book publishing is already taking: you can buy the book or you can buy the PDF and print it yourself. In future, I foresee consumers buying LEGO sets or buying the CAD file with a licence and producing sets themselves. The main problem for TLG with the latter is that every Tom, Dick and Harry with CAD skills is a potential competitor. Imagine a world with not a few construction toy brands (LEGO, MB etc), but thousands.

I seem to recall that this topic has been dealt with before, certainly in relation to large flying objects such as SW ships. Even if it hasn't, you may want to specify in the title of the thread that you mean flying objects/creatures. When I saw the thread's title, I thought you meant what kind of display units. To answer your question though, I mostly collect minifigures and creatures. I display flying creatures in one of three ways: The simplest method I use is simply to put them on the ground, i.e. not airbourne. If that bothers you, you may want to consider putting them on glass shelves. If you put grounded LEGO on opaque shelves and flying ones on glass shelves above them, you can create the illusion of flight. Ikea does shelf units that can take both wood and glass shelves. Use transparent LEGO parts to hold your creations aloft (see picture of my hawk-man below) Use thread to suspend your LEGO or wire to hold it out. I have a MOC giant bat and the LotR eagle hung using thread and a MOC dragon-man held out using paperclip wire. Hope that helps.

Very fun MOC! {tongue in cheek} I wonder if the Castle/Fantasy Era line rumoured for 2015 or 2016 will have an official set like this. I reckon TLC's core target market, i.e. male KFOLs, would love it, well, apart from the smooching. {/tongue in cheek}