Faefrost

Have you read up on this thing? It's really creepy as hell. It will not work without the kinect attached, the kinect is never truly turned off, keeps a running biometric profile of anyone who happens to walk by and filters nearby speech for identifiers to do things like learn people's names, and the thing listens for people's heartbeats. Oh and the console does in fact need Internet attachment and must call home at least once a day or it bricks itself until it can. Who designed this thing? Janet Napolitano?

Are these the parts that they cast in a solid color, such as black, then tumble through a "powder" mix the achieve the metallic coloring s?

That is fascinating, but it makes sense. Most of the families with kids tend to buy the smaller sets. Maybe one or two of the larger ones as a big centerpiece for play. Probably a total collection of bricks somewhere in the 10,000 range. An AFOL, even one just coming back into the hobby, will tend to gravitate to the larger more adult oriented sets. Their parts library will rapidly hit between 50,000 and 100,000. (Heck, Just spinning around in my desk chair I can spot 15 sets displayed on my office shelf each having well over 1000-2000 pieces.)

There is a video out there of David Roberts lecture on the subject. http://vimeo.com/48823145 It's truly fascinating and worth watching, both for Lego fans and as a superb look at a business.

Are you a classic SW fan? Do you prefer Clones or the Prequel Era Jedi? A good set for piece count and interesting figs and just overall iconic factor is 7965 the Millennium Falcon. It has 6 figs, which gives you all of the main original cast except for the Droids. It's a great ship with a nicely detailed interior. It is still on the shelves but is getting a little hard to find. If you want to fully round things out also throw in 9490 Droid Escape, which will get you the 2 Droids plus a pair of really gorgeous Sandtroopers. For really interesting figs look to 9516 Jabba's Palace. It might be a little expensive at list. But it often goes on sale for well below your price threshold. For swooshable fighters you can't go wrong with the 9493 X Wing, the 9495 Gold Leaders Y Wing or the 9492 Tie Fighter. Each has 4 figs, are great builds, and really stand out on the shelf.

Agreed. I don't think it will be anywear near the size of the Death Star or Imperial Flagship. But it will probably be something around the size of Arkham or Kingdoms Joust.

One reason I do hope they steal clear of Galen Marek, is I hope they steal clear of the video game and novel/comic interpretations of the Sith. The problem is so much of the EU interpretations of the Sith more and more degenerate into twisted and sadistic evil for evils sake. They get off on the evil. Your typical mustache twirling bad guys. Whereas the times we actually see Sith characters on screen, be it movie or television, their motivation and purpose is much more nuanced. They use the Force for purpose. But the purpose is not the use of the force. While they are not afraid of death or destruction, it is a tool and not something they actively seek out as a goal in itself. They simply operate under a philosophy that the ends justify the means.

Sam. He was the one ringbearer that was not corrupted by it, and freely chose to give it up without regret, doubt or the application of force. His courage and strength of will overcame the ring.

I think it is thicker than the normal $10 boxes? It just feels that way, but I don't have any small sets to compare it to?

My TRU had them on the shelf this afternoon.

I think if anything it there might be a slightly greater chance of seeing Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors from the pre lightsaber wielding days of the original Dark Forces game. They were mercenaries and agents of the Rebellion, which would dove tail into the time period. Plus while having Galen Marek in the show would not get we Lego fans anything new, we already have his minifig and ship. Having Kyle and Jan would almost guarantee we would get a Moldy Crow set!

I'm thinking we may start seeing a few sets for next Summers wave. Given the time period and their choices for art inspiration we can probably safely guess a few. - McQuarrie X Wing. When they say based on McQuarrie's art, this is the one picture they are talking about more than any other. The original X Wing concept art with the half circle D engine intakes. It's both new and a new take on a classic design. A comfortable degree of familiarity. It will be done and done early in the Rebels set cycle. - Tantive IV, like I said in the rumors thread. This is just about the last thing we see in Ep3, the first thing we see in ep IV. It is Bail Organna's ship, and he is one of the founders of the Rebellion. Plus Filoni and company already have the ship designed and rendered in their library. Even if they have to reskin it to match the newer art style, it is an existing asset. Figure we will be seeing this ship both in the show and as a set. On the plus side it will probably get us a Bail minifig finally. - Some sort of proto Tie Fighter or Darth Vader Tie Fighter. Honestly This sort of illustrates the problem we will run into with this show. If they do base it principally on Ralph's art, then we will not see a huge amount of new subjects for ships. Those early ILM and pre ILM nerds really did do a fantastic job of transferring his art to models, without too many compromises. And what compromises they made, TLG will probably have to make too. - A nice big Classic Galactica in scale with the ISD and with 10 minifigs. What? What do you mean I can't have that? But but? They promised me Ralph McQuarrie Goodness!!!! :cry_sad:

I'll have to double check, but I think the DK Ninjago Character Encyclopedia pretty clearly laid out that gruesome element of Pythors backstory (it's the little touches like that that let you know the story is meant for small children).

Nah! We normally start hearing rumors, names and set numbers earlier. We've been seeing pictures around October, and the sets seem to hit just before Christmas. While Battleship was a turd for Kreo-o I think they may do ok with Star Trek and G I Joe.

Being bought out by Disney does not alter those contracts. They were part of the assets and liabilities of the sale. Disney cannot simply void or alter them outside of what the original terms were. And Disney is unlikely to do that. Chances are they were privy to the contract renewal in late 2011. It would have come up while Disney was doing its due diligence. If they had any issues they could have requested a simple change to a shorter time span instead of a full 10 years. The Lego SW deal has been extremely profitable for all involved, plus Disney has had a good pre existing working relationship with TLG. The combined "Lego Star Wars" is a highly recognize able marketing product in its own right and one that they would be hesitant to radically mess with. The only real danger to the license at this point would be if Disney does in fact buy out Hasbro. We do not normally hear anything about the Winter SW waves until late summer. Late July or August. My speculation is that we will probably see more of a concentration of late TCW sets and EP3 subjects, mixed with some OT stuff for the Winter Wave.

I discovered the secret to preventing those turned up corners on the corner Modulars. Replace the longer tiles on the outer edges with 1x2's. the curling comes from the material differences between the ABS tiles and the Styrene base plate. The long tiles pull or create tension on the baseplate because of the materials difference, in much the same way that pavement or rail lines will buckle and deform in high heat. Switching to the shorter tiles effectively adds some expansion joints.

If you are having trouble managing your studies because you are falling into isolationist and obsessive compulsive tendencies, you really need to get true professional help. The issue isn't Lego or online gaming or collecting bobble head dolls or whatever. The issue is the fixation and how you respond to stress. The help you need for that cannot be found on the I telnet or in the Lego Community, only face to face with a professional. As far as your desire to become a Lego Master Builder. That's great. But to really do it right, and give yourself the best chance, step back from the Lego. Take courses in industrial design. Architecture. Art. You go to two of the best schools in the nation for this sort of thing. Learn how to build things in general. That will make the Lego that much better. Also in furtherance of your goal to be a professional with Lego. Practice being a minimalist. You design some nice impressive MOCs, but that's not the secret of what TLG looks for in a designer or a builder. It's designing within a tight set of parameters and budget. Practicing for that may be helpful to you. If you say you are getting back some balance and some free time with your studies, great. Than tightly limit how you use it. Get yourself a timer. Give yourself no more than 30 or 60 minutes a day to design something with a set limit piece count. Be it 20 parts, 50 parts, 200 etc. that might help you bring structure to your studies and your hobbies.

For painting Lego parts the real secrets are going to be getting the paint as thin on the parts as possible to minimize the paint getting in the way of the connection points. Thinner coats will also reduce the chances of chipping and flaking. If you have an airbrush, this will be the best tool for this. Otherwise there are a few tricks to help get reasonable results out of rattle cans. To begin make sure all parts are clean and dry. Decide if you want to apply color to each individual part or to do it in larger sub assemblies. Start with a plastic bonding paint. Krypton Fusion or its Rustoleum equivalent. You are not limited by the colors of this paint as this will mainly be the base coat that other paint can stick to. This stuff is a powerful lacquer paint. Do not use indoors. Use a mask. This paint will etch the plastic so it can grip. Regular paint will not stick to ABS and will flake off. - if you have an airbrush, decant the paint and spray it on through the airbrush. Go for this layers until the part is covered. - if you don't have an airbrush put the rattle can in a warm water bath for a half hour. Once fully heated shake extremely well then apply Let the paint fully cure. Not just dry to the touch, but completely bake on and bond. (A day or two). Once cured you can apply your preferred modeling paints, should you choose. Just don't mix enamels and acrylics. Same process, thin coats sprayed on. If you wish to do metal effects there are some wonderful paints and products that will do that. The three main ones are Alclad paints, Testors Metalizer Paints and a product called bare metal foil. Of these only use Alclad or BMF for Lego. Testors Metalizer looks amazing, but the final paint surface is too fragile to long survive Lego handling.

I think the only named major characters from the OT that haven't snuck in a TCW appearance already are Han, Luke, Leia and Lando.

I love how you got the shape of the ship so perfectly done. Outstanding. The official set pales in comparison.

One of those bizarre little bits of Marvel History. The Jessica Drew Spider Woman is not only not attached to the Marvel Spider-Man license. She was actually created as a strange counter to that license when it was held by TV producers. In the 70's The Marvel Characters She Hulk, Spider Woman and Ms. Marvel were created to block the then in production Hulk and Spider-Man Live action TV shows from creating said characters on screen themselves, and then holding partial or full rights to them. (Ms. Marvel was more to block DC from exploiting or expanding the Shazzam Captain Marvel characters when they bought out those licenses.) So Spider Woman was held completely separate from Spider-Man in the Marvel universe for quite awhile. That's why the Shield backstory.

I stopped by the local Lego store today, and noticed that the Chima section seems to have shrunk on the shelves to be if anything, smaller than the Ninjago shelf space. Granted this may expand again when the next wave of sets hits, but it was kind of startling. Even more startling is that I didn't notice any Chima sets in the display cases, and the big Chima cut out characters had been exiled to an empty storefront on the far side of the mall.

They were all on the shelf at the Lego store today, so if they aren't up on S@H now they should be soon.

I don't think we will ever not see OT sets, so long as the license is still going on. Certain key iconic things will always be represented. It will just be a question of how much per release wave. We will probably not be seeing a lot of PT sets after the next winter wave. TCW sets are probably done and will be replaced by Rebels sets. Assuming the release date doesn't get pushed back (2015 seems awful close), we will start getting hammered with Ep VII stuff summer 2015. But I bet they will still hedge that bet with some Iconic OT sets, just as they did in '99.

Hmmm? I wonder if these guys would be about the right size to pilot UCS scale fighters?