AmperZand

Clone O'Patra, Sorry about the further problem with the links. Please believe that it's driving me nuts. I tried right clicking on the pictures and posting them directly, but no dice. Why is it so hard to upload pictures to a post on the EB forums? It's easy elsewhere such as the RPG site EN World. Deathleech, I'm trying Brickshelf now, but it will take a while before they're publicly viewable if they get accepted at all. I'm not sure what level of impurity is acceptable to the Brickshelf censors. Thanks for your patience, Amps

Sorry, Alfadas. Didn't realise that would happen. I've just tried posting the pics directly into this thread, but the board doesn't have that functionality. If you can see the URLs below, you can copy and paste them into your browser. Sorry for the hassle. Amps

I'll probably get beaten up by the mods for posting pics that include verboten parts, but I've been wanting to create a custom Drizzt without heavy modding for years and this seems like the best way: http://www.enworld.o...1&d=1394678772 and http://www.enworld.o...=1&d=1394678774 Sorry about the rubbish photography. Hope you like the minifigs.

After years of wanting to do this, I finally made a Drizzt minifig. He looks very cool if I do say so myself.

Yes, indeed, don't forget the kitbashers. We're out there. :smiley: Incidentally, penzora is a .co.uk, not a .com and it's minifigforlife, not minifigsforlife with an 's'. Arealight (arealightcustoms.com) deserves a mention for their shaped female torsos and various Star Wars parts. One other that I would add is brickfortress.com . They do high quality articulated short legs. LEGO short legs are all static. As well as forums such as this one, a good way of finding out what third party parts are available is to go to reseller sites like firestartoys.com . They tend to be quite expensive though, so I visit their sites more for information than for acquisition.

I didn't mean to imply that 3D printing would revolutionise the production and distribution of LEGO in the near or even medium terms. I was thinking more in terms of years and decades. When the kids of today are themselves parents, I reckon that downloading TLG's latest set and producing the bricks at home, at the office or at a local 3D print shop will be commonplace.

For now, the kinds of 3D printers that most people can afford can't produce LEGO quality parts. That will change eventually. TLG will, in due course, have to sell programs for the most popular 3D printers so that people who want to can produce official LEGO sets at home. It's analogous to music sales. At one point, you could only buy recorded music in a hard copy format: record or cassette and later CD. Now you have a choice of hard copy, e.g. CD, or soft copy, e.g. mp3 download. I anticipate that there will always be demand for sets manufactured (not just designed by) TLG. There are some parents, kids and AFOLs who will just want to buy the finished product. But there are others, beginning with sets aimed at AFOLs, who will be happy downloading sets and producing the sets at home. I'm guessing that a secondary market will emerge of small companies that produce genuine TLG sets but manufactured on the secondary company's 3D printers. So there will be LEGO parts made by TLG but also official LEGO parts made by 3D printing companies.

I wish I had as many minifigs as you.

There's already a lengthy thread about this in the Community forum. If there's a friendly mod lurking nearby, perhaps the two threads should be merged.

You make a good point. LEGO is a premium brand and has done remarkably well to grow the way it has against the backdrop of an economic downturn in most of its key markets during the last few years. At the same time, the economic woes have meant that consumers have sought cheaper brands which has fuelled the growth of sub-prime brands such a Mega Bloks and a slew of Chinese clone brands. As the global macro-economic situation begins to pick up, sub-prime and clone brands will find it harder to compete as consumers return to formerly unaffordable premium brands such as LEGO. As has already been pointed out in this thread, Mega Bloks isn't well placed to improve its quality and become a premium brand. It is committed to moulds that only take inferior plastic. I suspect that retooling all their moulds to take the higher quality plastic, ABS, that TLG uses would be a capital expenditure that would fail any cost/benefit test. In other words, in the next few years, Mega Bloks will find it harder to compete and TLG will gain market share. What the leadership of Mattel is probably counting on is that the construction toy market will continue to grow rapidly. In other words, Mega Bloks' slice of the pie will decrease relatively but increase in absolute terms.

Sorry to be a party pooper, but vehicles in space don't "swoosh" or make "pew, pew, pew" sounds. In space, as they say, nobody can hear you scream.

Does anyone know John Smith in London? I have something that belongs to him and I can't reach him.

Great work! I especially like the way you've captured the gradation of the terrain from sandy depth, to rock, to grass. And the shark. Everyone loves a shark.

I don't know the definitive answer, but my guess is nobody does. When Dorling Kindersley produced a book about minifigs not long ago, they had to ask AFOLs for older minifigs to photograph. As far as I know, there was no single FOL they could go to for every minifig. I would even guess that TLG doesn't have every one in its vault.

I prefer moulded creatures to brick-built ones, so was never super fond of the Vikings monsters. That said, I do have the Nidhogg dragon from set 7017 in my display collection. I also thought that the Viking helmets sat too high on the minifig heads. They were designed that way to accommodate the horns but I would have preferred a smaller horn and attaching pin, similar to how plumes connect with helmets in the Castle line. To answer the OP, a return to a fantasy version of the Vikings would be cool. But a new line based on Greek mythology would be even cooler.

LEGO addiction can be a matter of lack of money and/or lack of space. I set myself limits on both fronts so things don't get out of hand. On the financial side, I'm fairly strict about limiting myself to core interests, specifically, fantasy/historical and super hero minifigs. I'll sometimes go crazy and get a large set for its minifigs, but only once or twice a year. Occasionally, I'll MOC a building or vehicle but as I don't deconstruct what I make, I'm very careful not to build anything I don't intend to keep. As for space, my fiancée has ruled that my display collection be limited to a specific location away from public view. That suits me as it means that my minifigs and other MOCs only get touched by me.

As far as I know, sets are the same with regards to the inclusion/exclusion of a separator. Country makes no difference. I bought that set from a Lego brand store in the UK and I don't recall it containing a separator. Where is the picture from?

I have about 5 of the orange ones. Don't use them much as most of my MOC'ing is minifigs. However, with other MOCs (building, vehicles, base plates etc) they can be quite handy. Vee, quite right about them not being free. I would have pointed it out if you hadn't. By the way, the paraphrasing of Pascal in your sig is cool. Amps

I haven't heard much about that either but, yes, I believe that Kreo D&D is being developed as a game akin to the 1983/2007 game Crossbows & Catapults ( http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2129/crossbows-and-catapults ) with the addition of cards, that is, special powers for the characters. The game doesn't interest me. Although I'm a keen RPGer and AFOL, I've never sought to combine the two hobbies beyond thematic links (fantasy, superheroes). Kreo D&D, from what I can tell, isn't an RPG; it's a wargame with toy projectiles.

Kreo, the Hasbro-owned clone brand, has recently released a Dungeons & Dragons line in the US (and Canada?). As a fan of fantasy, I'm excited by this development. I wish, of course, that D&D had been released by TLG, but as Hasbro owns D&D, there was no chance of that ever happening. From the pictures I have seen online, there are good and bad aspects to the Kreo D&D line. On the positive side, it does mean that there will be some reasonable quality parts that are compatible with LEGO but that TLG don't/can't make. It also appears that a lot of the Kreo D&D minifigs (i.e. kreons) will be available individually or in small packs, so you won't have to pay a premium on Ebay to get them because they've been parted from larger sets. Of particular interest are the Drizzt and Eye of Grumsh kreons which I fully intend to cannibalize for their parts. On the negative side, I'm not a fan of kreons. Yes, they're more articulated than LEGO minifigs, but they're also butt ugly. I'm also disappointed that almost all of the creatures are humanoid. Of all the varied monsters D&D has produced/redefined in its 40 year history, Kreo has decided that their D&D line should be almost exclusively humanoid. The only exceptions are some spiders and a mimic. You would think that in a line called Dungeons & Dragons, that there would be at least one dragon, but there isn't. Still, I hope this line reaches the UK where I am soon. I haven't been able to find a UK release date yet. Do you have any intel on its UK release? From what I have seen of other Kreo lines, it can take up to a year between a US and UK release. What are your thoughts about Kreo's D&D line? Note to mods: Please feel free to merge this post with an existing thread if appropriate. I just thought that as it deals specifically with D&D, it merited its own discussion.

Build A Minifigure. It's where you select a head, torso, legs, hat/hair piece and one tool or implement. You can get the minifigs singly or in a 3-pack.

I've been to LEGO brand stores in the US, the UK and France and have found the service to generally range from good to excellent. The worst experience I ever had was when a cashier tried to bend (almost fold) a baseplate to fit in a bag and didn't understand why I objected. The best experience was when a shop assistant offered on the phone to search CMFs for the ones I wanted ahead of my arrival.

Exactly. What the article inadvertently suggests is that a generation of counter-stereotypical gender socialisation hasn't worked. Boys and girls still have different toy preferences that, by and large, fall along gender stereotypical lines. Could it be that the reason for the divide is biological? I have argued elsewhere on EB that is indeed the reason and there's mounting evidence to suggest I'm right. As seen in the article, the socialisation school of thought in contrast relies on anecdotes and supposition. Proponents of socialisation can rail against Mother Nature all they like. It won't make any difference and marketers including TLG's know it.

$69 in its opening weekend? That's not too hot. I think you mean $69 million.

Before getting to your post, I thought of coinage too. If one limits oneself to four-letter words per the OP, then "unum" which appears on most US coins is a likely contender. On the other hand, I suspect "salt" may have been printed more times. It's an ingredient in so many foods and, as has been mentioned, English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. I don't speak Mandarin or any of the Chinese languages, but I don't think a word from one of them would count as, strictly speaking, they use ideographs, not letters.