AmperZand

@Scott, CM4S, vriverajr3, Yoha, Alcarin, Nagyzee and The_Creator, Variously, you are making false assumptions leading some of you to ad hominem criticisms. A few facts: 1. The staff at the store knew my intentions and have known for over a month. They ordered an extra box for me on top of the number they had originally planned. When I return the few minifigs my friends and I don't want, it should take the store's stock *above* the quantity they had forecasted. 2. In any event, the store most likely won't be running out of S10s. They have been selling S8s and S9s uninterrupted since those series came out. It is highly unlikely they will run short of S10s. 3. The store isn't in a residential neighbourhood, near any schools or otherwise in an area where there are lots of kids. I doubt a single kid was deprived of S10s because of my actions. The adults who buy for kids from that store don't look like they're on missions to get minifigs; they look like they are making impulse purchases. If, somehow, a kid didn't get an S10 as a result of my actions, it almost certainly wasn't a minifig they had expected and therefore not a disappointment. 4. There are other stores within short walking distances that also sell minifigs. 5. I will be returning some minifigs to the store. I could sell them online for a profit but will forego that profit allowing others to buy them from the store I got them from at the RRP. 6. The store is not in the US. It's in the UK. Amps

I bought a sealed box and took them home. I've been using a torch in an otherwise dark room. Works a treat! I'll be keeping most of the S10s or trading them with fellow AFOLs (including one who also posts at EB). The rest I'll return to the store I bought them from. I'll be leaving an indication of what each packet contains if the store's staff want or removing them if they don't.

@8BrickMario I'm using a combination of three methods: CM4S's back light, feel and dots. I maneuver a small part to the bottom centre of the packet and shine a light through to identify the part. Most of the time, that tells me right away what the minifig is. If the part is one from two minifigures such as the mug, I feel for other parts such as the grandad's newspaper or check the dots. The librarian has a distinctive set of three dots arranged triangularly on the right side; the grandad doesn't have that. I find the combo method faster than any single method alone. I'm calling the combined approach DoLF (Dots, Light & Feel) and the act of doing it DoLFing!

I bought a sealed box of S10s in central London today.

I bought a sealed box of S10s in central London today.

Do you mean a loose connection between the legs and torso or do you mean the articulation at the hip? Either way, you can use satin coat to tighten/stiffen them; the only difference is where you apply it of course. I have had good results with other minifigs using Humbrol. I haven't got my hands on any S10s yet so can't comment specifically on the Tomahawk Warrior.

Which town & branch? The reason they keep them behind the counter is that they get half inched. If it's a quiet time of day and you look OK, the staff will probably let you feel through the bags if you ask. The WHS staff at the branch near my office even let me take the box away from the counter, though they don't have S10 yet.

Thanks for the link, CopMike. That is indeed a useful and well-written article. I haven't got my hands on S10 yet, but with previous series, I used the same tactile methods described at the link. However, when I was seeking multiples of the same minifig, I combined feeling for minifigs with looking at the dots. Once I was sure that I had felt a particular minifig correctly, I narrowed down the search for duplicates using the dot pattern. Saves a lot of time.

Great review, WhiteFang! Lovely pictures and very informative all round. I didn't know, for example, that the Medusa had double-sided head printing. I'm glad she does. I don't think it has been mentioned thus far, but a natural pairing for a picture would be the Decorator and the Plumber. Also, I don't think that the Warrior Woman sits particularly well with the Aztec Warrior. The reference to her as an Amazonian has nothing to do with the Amazon River or region of South America. The name Amazon was the appellation given by the ancient Greeks to a fabled tribe of all-female soldiers. The New World was unknown to the Europeans of antiquity. Returning to the S10 minifigures, as a collector of fantasy minifigs, I'm thrilled that TLG is producing such a cool-looking Medusa, but disappointed that there are only two per box.

@Commander Red Hat and Brickington, It's not exactly the same thing. That other thread was a wish list albeit with suggested parts (that may or may not have existed). What I'm talking about are minifigs you actually MOCed ahead of something being announced by TLG using LEGO or third party (e.g. BrickWarriors, BrickForge and BrickArms) parts. Oh, I forgot a few from my own list: - Cyclops - Musketeer - Mermaid Amps

I was curious what minifigs you have created that TLG has also brought out as a CMF, especially when you predicted TLG's minifigs before their announcement. I created the following before TLG announced the same trope: - Good knight - Evil knight - Zombie - Fairy - Gnome - Evil dwarf - Elf - Barbarian What about you? I don't set out to anticipate TLG. It's just that there are some core tropes particularly in the fantasy genre which is my main focus. Incidentally, I don't know if this thread belongs here or in the Special Lego Themes forum. If it should be in the other forum, can a mod please move it? Amps

Do I get a prize for being the first person to guess that S10 or S11 would contain a character from the Commedia dell' Arte? Admittedly, it wasn't quite the right character, but I was right about the ruff. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=72066entry1340777

Itaria No Shintaku, I should have clarified that the question would be on the country/culture the respondent most associates with a person that looks like a particular minifig. It wouldn't be a question about where there are the most people in a particular line of work. You might even want to ignore or attach a negative weighting against an answer for the respondent's own nationality/culture to reduce bias. For example, if a Frenchman says the nurse is French, you don't count that answer (or count it less). But if the French respondent says the nurse is Greek, that counts (in full). Amps

At the risk of making a heated discussion even hotter, might I suggest an alternative, if somewhat impractical, method of assigning nationalities? An opinion poll. Not of CMF collectors or even of FOLs, but of the general public. You would have to survey an equal number of people in each country and/or control for the respondent's own nationality/culture. A survey of this kind would resolve the disputed nationalities. Do you...? A. Agree B. Disagree C. Think AmperZand is completely nuts! D. Other (please explain)

I know it's just a bit of fun that shouldn't be taken seriously, but I'm surprised the parachutist has a speed rating in his official profile of 4/5. Surely, he deserves a 5. He looks like he's hitting terminal velocity.

Hello, LuxorV, Hope you're well. Can you please index the thread below in the Tutorials section of the Minifig Customisation Index and Guidelines thread? http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=42306&st=0 A guide to turning fleshies yellow merits indexing. It's extremely useful to those of us who can't stand fleshies, includes know-how that isn't obvious and describes techniques that really work. Thanks for your consideration, Amps

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I'd just like to mention a method I found to make yellowing fleshies with a Sharpie permanent. It's basically the same as jFox's method above, but instead of using a spray, I use liquid satin cote applied with a paint brush. You just have to make sure the part is washed, dried and untouched before you yellow it with the Sharpie and then make sure the Sharpie is untouched and allowed to dry overnight before putting on the satin cote. My preference is for Humbrol. I tried it on a test piece and it really works. Once dried, the satin cote protected yellow doesn't come off no matter how much you rub it with your fingers. The unprotected yellow, in contrast, comes off easily. I wish I had the means to post a picture of my yellow fellowship of the ring minifigs with Legolas's ears yellowed, but unfortunately I can't. If anybody out there wouldn't mind posting the picture for me, please PM me and I'll e-mail you the picture.

Very nicely done! I bet that if I showed your MOC to a LotR fan who wasn't a FOL, they would think it was an official set released by TLG. My only issue with it - and I appreciate that this is my idiosyncrasy - is the use of fleshies. Minifigs of hobbits should have yellow heads, neck-lines and hands.

Excellent MOC! I have seen the only extant historical suit of armour made for an elephant. While not exactly the same, the armour in the MOC is entirely plausible historically speaking.

Ryman is doing the packs of Sharpies that contain the yellow one for under a fiver. That's the best price I've seen in the UK. If, like me, you're a fleshy-hating FOL, you'll already be aware of the usefulness of yellow Sharpies. The other colours in the pack have uses unrelated to LEGO, so they needn't go to waste.

Having read through this thread from the beginning, I should point out that there is a level of purism that's even more 'pure' than mentioned thus far. There are collectors, especially of older sets, CMFs and polybags, who won't even swap/add/remove TLG elements between sets. For them, it doesn't just have to be 100% LEGO parts, they only construct/display sets as TLG designed them. I don't subscribe to that level of purism, but it is out there. In fact, I kit-bash and use third party elements from BrickForge, BrickWarriors, Brick Arms, Brick Fortress etc. I even customise a tiny bit by sometimes removing print from LEGO parts and other times yellowing fleshy ears and neck-lines.

My three favourites are: 1. Medusa - have been waiting for a Gorgon for years. I'll have to give her a long bow and quiver in keeping with her serpentine tail. Was watching the original Clash of the Titans again on telly just the other day. The medusa scene is a classic! 2. Amazon - can anyone say Xena Warrior Princess? 3. Mohican - for parts My least favourites are the painter and mechanic. As a collector of mostly fantasy/LotR/medieval minifigs, these aren't even useful for parts. The baseball player's and colonial's heads will at least come in handy.

Probably not much consolation or particularly helpful given the anonymity afforded by the Internet, but you do have intellectual property rights to your MOCs both in the pictures (copyright) and the MOCs themselves (design rights). I find all kinds of IP theft sickening.

Gandalf the brick, Good topic! Might I suggest that we list set names/descriptions as well as numbers? Not everyone knows set numbers off the top of their heads. I certainly don't. :~) Anyway, yesterday I got: 30056 Star Destroyer 30051 Mini X-Wing 30080 Ninjago white ninja with gold sword-wings 30165 Hawkeye and equipment 30111 Harry Potter with staff, spider and jars

@Ed3n I wouldn't pay a fortune for a minifig either. But if kept safe, it will likely last longer than the buyer. Even if it doesn't, by the time it deteriorates after several decades, 3D printing will probably be so advanced that you'll be able to reproduce damaged elements. 3D printing may undermine the investment value of any minifigs but will likely mean that all minifigs you buy now or have bought in the past will be enjoyable your whole life. It's possible that minifigs will be discontinued and TLG go out of business (or have to change its business model) when the world's supply of oil (and therefore ABS) becomes uneconomical to retrieve. But I doubt that will happen in your lifetime even if you are young now and live to 120!