Faefrost

Honestly, for we AFOL types, the set is most interesting as a source for MOC details. The glowy horse being the big item, along with the nice elements to the figs and some of the details and trim on the chariot. This really is a set that you pull individual pieces from, or you are young enough to simply play with it. It's not much of a display set for we older types. Now as AFOL's if we get 2 or 3 of these we could do some interesting things. Take the skeletal horses and make a real horse drawn vanpire hearse. Take the chariots, strip some trim and stage a Ben Hur style chariot race. Things like that.

Since they seem to be going for that mid century main street sort of feel, I'm thinking maybe a Movie Theater. That would have some really nice architecture and brick work. Second runner up would be a nice stately Bank, but I don't think we will see that yet with Diagon Alley and Gringots still out there. Besides just think of all of the flexible possibilities with adding a nice period movie theater into your town or scene. Just by juggling around the marquee and movie showing. Indiana Jones. Disney. Imagine the possibilities with Star Wars? or joy of joys, "The Mark of Zorro" (Easily recreating the scene that led to Batman's beginnings, or the last major scene in Frank Millers Dark Knight Returns series. Oh the fun that could be had. Yeah I'm a nerd.) Just so many cool possibilities.

I am in complete and total love with that Baris Batmobile :wub: Also the Plymouth Fury. I love the Fire truck, but am trying to recognize it? Were you working off a particular prototype? Edit: Hmmm 1955 Seagrave? I'll have to look that one up. It just feels "tall" for a US Fire Truck. That double deck on the rear half is kind of strange for a US truck, as is the rolled hose. But the 50's were a very weird time in the US Fire service as they transitioned from the prewar trucks to the more modern and boxy ones. There were a lot of oddball experiments. All time? Probably the classic yellow school bus which has barely changed in three or four generations. After that the classic stainless steel Greyhound buses, and then probably the NYC buses? Maybe?

After the beach set and this one, part of me is semi hoping we see some more themed or army builder sets coming from recycled CMF's. Say 4 packs of Spartans, Romans, Musketeers, Zombies and Galaxy Patrolers? Kind of like they did for the Fantasy Kingdoms stuff awhile back?

Thanks

I think sets based outright on the comics can be a little tougher to do. The comics tend to have few truly well defined places, few well defined and easily recognize able vehicles, so at best you are looking to capture a scene. To get a recognizeable scene that will sell well on the toy shelf it almost has to be either based off a classic cover, or from a really famous story arc. We will see some, as they will be the only way to fill in some holes. But I think the bulk of at least the initial waves will come from whatever movies TLG has the license for. They can easily get a year or twos worth of releases fom the 2 Iron Man movies, Thor, Captain America and the Avengers (less so from Hulk sadly). Maybe fleshed out with a classic Clairemont/Byrne era Xmen Danger Room or Sentinals set and a FF vs Galactus set.

Well unless your goal is a full ensemble of named on screen Jedi. But that's really not so much an Army as it is a small scout troop.

I am in awe. I love how you took what are very clearly classic space type ships and designs and so super detailed them and made them work so well. Just incredible.

The picture shown in the AC thread was shown off by Marc Stafford, the TLG designer. He confirmed that it was early art, still set on earth, but that later in the design they had decided to move it to the Aliens world. This is further backed up by a teaser that was on the Lego AC web site indicating that next we would take the fight to them or something similar. The final kicker for my third point is that Galaxy Patrol figure. That armor chest piece was made with the intent of being used. What else would they use it for? We have the lead designer telling us what they intended and showing off unseen concept art. We have new elements that were clearly created with that production or something similar in mind, and we had some early and vague marketing teasers regarding it. While not legally binding proof, it's enough to support taking their word for it. Something was pretty far along in development that this art and elements were created for. It looks like it was cancelled just before production. ( the new molds were made). And whatever it was, there is a good chance it dances close enough to the Space Marines to cause either a conflict, or at least some extra debate. All of which diminishes the chances of this specific Space Marines project passing review.

Another good source for interesting torsos and legs are the World Racers figs. Particularly the green team. They wear these unique jumpsuit racing suits with some neat and different sections of armoring. Since you are looking to do SP III, I would try and go for a sort of Buck Rogers tv show aesthetic for the civvies. Very bright or contrasts colors. No earth tones. Snug or tight fitting clothes. No ruffles or loose billowy looking medieval stuff. Go with distinctive or oddly colored hair or semi out of place hats. ( I can't help but look at that Monster Fighters bowler and think of a group of Droogie's) A good fig for assorted females is the CMF swimmer. The torso alone looks like a stylized black tank top, plus the face with glasses or goggles goes well for scifi. I have way too many of her, and have used parts from her extensively in my AC setup. The lifeguard and any of the surfers work as well. You can almost use he CMF rocker figs as is out of the box. The Mohawk dude and pink haired girl are just perfect to blend into SP3. While the pink skinned licensed figs don't work to well, you can easily make use of the non human ones for MOC's. The Star Wars or Clone Wars Bounty Hunters are great for this, especially heir heads. Aurora Sing, Cad Bane, Sugi, Embo, or even aliens such as Ayala Secura or Ashoka or similar look very distinctive when swapped to different hair and bodies. I hope this helps.

It's a great project. But I don't think we will be seeing this specific project produced as a CuuSoo crowd sourced 1 shot. If I am reading this latest guidelines correctly I think it will bump into a few hurdles, some subtler than we anticipate. The big one is obviously, it is a theme and not simply a set. While it is a fantastic theme, themes are obviously much more involved, and take well over a year to develop. They factor into long term planning and scheduling. I am not sure they are ready to cross that bridge from CooSoo yet. ( the western town will be a good test of this. If they choose to make just the Saloon, vs a huge set vs several separate sets. That may give us some idea of how far they will flex.) But the other problem is what that theme is, which is sort of undefined. Yeah, we all know exactly what we are talking about as soon as someone says "Space Marines" . We immediately picture Heinlein's, and Halo and Starcraft and Warhammer 40k, etc. but to have a production chance it needs more than that. A much more detailed story and adversary backing it. Plus tighter styling and design direction to add a bit more coherency. Right now we all look at those little red armored minifigs and drool. We all know exactly what they are and what the story is without needing to be told. It is hard wired into our little nerd brains. But as someone who has worked in design and production, it feels thin is all I am saying. It is a great idea, but based on their recent blog posts I don't think thre is enough there for them to run with yet. At least not in this exact form. Which brings us to problem 3. It's a theme, that may or may not bounce up against themes currently in some stage of development within TLG. Most tellingly is what rumors we have had involving AC 2 include some tantalizing bits about taking he fight out to the Aliens. Those Galaxy Patrol figs weren't created in a vacuum. Someone planned a use for those chest pieces. Which means there already is an armored space trooper element to a theme already somewhere in play. It may be on hold or cancelled. But it is still within internal design documents and plans. So they won't simply make the CuuSoo set anymore than they would "make Pirates" should we push through 10k votes. Finally the very concept of Marines dances a little close to some of Lego's violence concerns. Note that they named the rather obvious Space Marine minifig the Galaxy Patrol guy. I don't think hat was an accident of translation. That was to blunt some of the Halo'esque military nature of it. All of this makes me hope that yes we will be seeing an Armorred Space soldier type theme eventually, probably as the next space theme. It almost certainly will not be the project proposed on CuuSoo ( sorry HJM ) BUT a great deal of interest in the Space Marine CuuSoo project may communicate to TLG the level of interest in such a theme, and push it to the top of the scheduling heap, or resurrect it from cancellation. Does this make any sense, or am I babbling again?

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for this, if not please move or delete ( and sorry about that) I just noticed that Target, at least near me, started running a Buy One, Get one 1/2 off sale on Ninjago, Dino and Hero Factory from today until June 2. Presumably to clear shelf space for the summer releases. /sigh, and I just noticed that the darned iPad autocorrect added an extra R in the subject line

Some weird splashes of color work well. Some of the CMF's are great for this. I' m especially fond of the series 6 skater girl for the hair with the pink stripe and her black torso with striped purple sleeves. For mor subdued earth tones raid some of the licensed minifigs, particularly the non Stormtrooper/ clone Star Wars ones. The CW based figs in particular have some nice civilian torsos. ( politicians, bounty hunters, even some Jedi) you just have to watch them for pink fleshy parts. For more space scoundrel stuff try PotC, or Indianna Jones. For spicier but non military uniforms look at Alpha Team ( a great 70's scifi vibe with each having a different color sleeve) or agents. Plus while the actual Space Police minifigs are kinda look alike, the space crooks have a lot to work with.

Sort of semi interesting set, but $90! Bah! Is Palpatine leasing office space at Tokyo real estate rates?

Where the policy fails is the stores can restock merchandise that has been returned as sealed and unopened. If the seals are intact they can restock them. And there really isn't any feasible away around it. Simply not restocking sealed returns costs too much for the merchant. It costs them merchandise with a slower reimbursement. The best we can do is be very cooperative with the stores loss prevention officers. Let them know what is going on. They have the resources to investigate and get the police involved when ready. The worst thing you can do is to attempt to confront or follow a suspected lego thief. Dont play Scooby Doo. Just let the nice retired cops from Loss Prevention do their jobs. It really does work. As far as protecting yourself. Look carefully at the sets you buy. Do the top and bottom seals match? Do they seem to be the same tension? Is one much looser than the other? Ive found that the fake / recreated seals are often not as tight as the originals. I hope this helps.

Every place I go they still have them, but they have mainly switched to the single serving pod types like Keurig's. So they look a little different.

Personally I'm waiting for the mobile police comand center with hibachi. Cause all that coffee really gives you the munchies.

If you purchased them from the same store then let them know about it. Ask to speak to a loss prevention officer, and show them what you found. While you will never hear about the outcome, they do take this stuff seriously and will investigate. Chances are if they are from one store, or from several local stores than there is one dude doing it, and he has worked out a trick. It's not like there are numerous Lego minifig gangs out there. If you let them know, they will catch him. We also sort of brought this on ourselves. We are so disdainful of the older glued boxes with the thumb tabs. But those prevented this perfectly.

Sadly it's not the fig. It's the character model from the show, that is the root cause of that. While CW's art style takes a little getting used to, most viewers do eventually acclimate, except for Padme. There is just something so weirdly grotesque about her animation model. It' s like one of hose creepy big head Bratz dolls. Add to this the normal Lucasfilms approach to dressing Padme, ie that she is a coloblind schizophrenic, and you get the result that we see. The minifig tries to do what it can from this starting point. But it ain't much.

Very nicely done. I love how the central body and crew compartment is shaped. My only critique is how the flow of the design feels like there should be something broadening the profile right around those forward engines. Some sort of forward wing or control surfaces. Just something to bring it out to roughly even with the rear stabilizers. Or maybe angle the tail fins down a hair more to narrow them? Otherwise the flow of the ship feels a little tail heavy when viewed from above. That is a truly spectacular ship. And nicely done with LDD ( I am a complete LDD newb who can't get the thing to stop resetting the brick colors every time I blink.)

Just think of the girls we could pick up in Minsk with a truck like that? Nicely done. I like it. But don't Lego rules mandate that any sci if subject must either have 4 flick fire missiles or transform into a giant mutant spiky hair driven bug robot?

You're not alone. I was planning on getting Helm's Deep to add to my fantasy MMV shelf display as a castle ( I missed all the good castles during my dark ages ) but I keep looking at it... Then going and looking at the Vampyes Castle. I think I like the Vampyre one better. Plus including it adds far more drama to my little village.

They were all basically the same house. It was a standard creepy haunted type house on the Universal Studios backlots. Exterior shots of it were used for a number of movies and shows, the most famous being Psycho. I think it was also the Munsters 1313 Mockingbird Lane house, or the Aadams Family house.

Ok that is cool. Well done, and certainly very different.

The big eyed Spiderman is an effection dating back at least 13 years now in the comics. It is most often seen in Marvels Ultimate Spiderman series and Mark Bagley , Stuart Imoen and David LaFuente's art. (with Bagley being the main). Since the animated show is based on Ultimate Spiderman and this art it reassembles it. Since this Lego set is based on that animated series, it in turn is based on that same art style. It serves among other things, to avoid any licensing claims with Sony regarding their movies. Plus as I said it reassembles Mark Bagely's art, a man who is one of the most prolific Spideman artists ever. I think only the Romitas may exceed him. Caps wings may be a technical issue. The printing system may not be able to do the sides of the head easily. The Wolverine mask thing is rob ably a combination of reasons. His headpiece is complex and unique. He is very distinctive and familiar without the hat. Almost more so. They already had an acceptable Wolverine hair piece. So no real compelling reason to re engineer something new yet.