Faefrost

Looks good. The vehicle itself is interesting. The only thing I am not crazy about is the choice of astronaut helmet. The backwards rebel trooper hat just seems off.

The ABS is an educated guess since those look to be 3d printed. That type of printer that it looks to be normally would print either PLA ( not a goid fit for Lego parts) or ABS. I would suspect those are for personal use. Based on the resolution of his prototypes he is probably using a lower end home and hobbiest printer. The production rate on that would be real low. Not enough to create any stock to sell easily.

What are you talking about? We've had tons of buildings lately. Granted they have all been on fire being robbed or abandoned warehouses used for criminal enterprises... But we got building. You know as I actually write it out it dawns on me that Lego City might actually be more violent than a Grand Theft Auto game? Don't you mean "Zoo Police?"

Don't forget AC used trans black / smoke for their windscreens.

Oh I do LDD design all the time. And yes it can be good enough to illustrate the idea to others. But it's not good enough to sell them on the idea. To make them drool over it and crave to buy it. The built in LDD tool at their best still feel cartoonish. And that does not sell the idea well enough. Ideas isn't just about coming up with a good design. It's about getting other people to want your design. The better the presentation the more people will not only want it but will actively promote it and fight for it for you.

LDD based ideas can and sometimes are fine. But it all depends on the level of presentation. Ideas is not just about designing a great MOC or set. It is about SELLING that Idea. Just dumping a default LDD screen grab up there looks awful and does not attract attention. Even worse are the ones with those truly horrific LDD backdrops. If you want to do an Ideas proposal based on a digital design, STOP, Take an extra night, and run it through a rendering application like LDD2POV. Real or digital design do not matter. Quality of presentation does. And typical LDD presentation is on par with truly lousy photography.

More often than not those asking for it are displaying their Modulars via some sort of narrow shelf such as bookshelves rather than a more open plan table type display. The inside corner would allow the display to wrap around the walls.

I'd be careful with the Friends in Space jokes. Over in History they laughed at such jokes... Until news of the Elves reached their shores. Ever since it's like some little light just clicked off inside them. They spentlong hours debating what kind of Elves? Tolkien'ish? Classical Fae? Forrestmen with point years. Nobody expected "Keebler"

References in Ultra Agents. Would Solomon Kane's car basically being a police spinner from Bade Runner be on the list? Tremor has kind of a He Man character feel to him?

That large? There aren't really a lot of viable subjects that big. A new Falcon. A Death Star style take on Cloud City?

A couple are listed by what sets they were involved with on Brickset. I think MarkStafford, Jamie Berard and Adam Grabowski sp.?) all have some lists out there. It would really be nice to know who the teams were for various sets? It's always fascinating. For those sets we do know the designer on you can start to recognize certain things. And you can watch their work evolve over time with their art. I think of those that do have such lists Mark Staffords is the best for learning to recognize and appreciate it over time. (They are all excellent!) partly because he also adds some nice commentary to each listing that talks about his role in each design, the others involved, etc. just enough to give you a slight peek into the artists heads. For all three once you look at the Brick lists on Bricksets it becomes very easy to spot their individual design methods and quirks in other sets. The Lego Designer Videos are great for giving you a more detailed glimpse into the head of the designers regarding single specific sets.

Just a word regarding Doctor Who. Remember if They do not make a Dr. Who set there can be numerous reasons. The most likely and most basic is a failure to come to an agreement with the IP holder. There are a few things in this case that probably make this a more likely possibility than a less likely one. - the license holder is the BBC, which is a notoriously difficult licensing partner. They tend to randomly over and under value their properties, often having a poor understanding on their actual market value. They are essentially a government agency and tend to have a bit of disconnect from market forces. In this case figure given the public support and speed of support for the project on Ideas I would not be surprised to see them aiming high. - the BBC just had this license packaged up as a full complete long term toy line with their Character Builders license. They may be looking to sell it again in that manner. Character Builder did not do all that great with said license so Lego may not want it as more than a short run exclusive one shot. Handing it out as such would prevent the BBC from selling it as a broader license for a period of time. - if they agree on a license, chances are the BBC would wish changes to the project to reflect their current marketing. So figure they would be wanting a Peter Capaldi set. Which is not quite what was voted for. - there is still a lot of character builder product out there in the channel. I can't see Lego being in any rush to produce a similar set until that has a bit more time to flush out otherwise EBay and Legos CS lines will be filled with CB product. - Lego is likely not going to want to enter into a full Dr. Who retail license. The IP is not quite widespread enough to do well on the shelves at Walmart. Character Builder just did badly with it. Does this mean Lego will reject the projects? No. They may yet reach agreement. They do have better ties with the BBC now given the Top Gear license. The BBC may see a benefit in a one shot set. Who knows? But my point is if it fails, it is not Lego ignoring fan demands or fan voting. The license has pitfalls. It just may not be possible or viable, regardless of whether they could easily sell out 10,000 pieces. At the end of the day it is a complex business arrangement between 2 businesses that we really have little influence in.

With GS just trickling off the shelves let's hope that they have something truly spectacular in development. Figure that Benny's SSS and the Exosuit reminds them that there is a market there. Not to mention GotG being the years highest grossing movie.

Jurassic World, or has Top Gear been "officially" announced?

The new helmets have been confirmed by enough people in the SW production to be legit. They just warn not to be too surprised. There are apparently a lot of new Helmets in different planets and environments and they claim we have not seen the "main" regular duty Stormtrooper'ish ones yet. The ones we have seen are real, they just may not be seen or used a lot on screen. Think of them as likely more like the Snowtrooper or Sandtroopers.

That one is kind of unlikely. It is bordering on a more adult focused license (The only truly Adult specific line Lego offers is the Modulars). Further, while it is a hot show in the US, does it have any international following outside of the US and Canada? Does Europe even know what it is? Asia?

Ah yes, I forgot Eris's Eagle Interceptor. I keep being tempted to MOC up a Buck Rogers Thunderfighter to go with it.

I figure I am not alone in this. How many of you will look at sets in one theme, such as a theme you don't really collect or build in, with an eye towards how easily they can be moded or moced into a theme you do work in? Or which ones work well with almost no modification? So here's todays question or discussion point. Which current sets, sets you can mostly still find on the shelves can be used to MOC or MOD to fit in with one of our Classic Space or More Modern Space Themes and Sub Themes? And how do they fit in to your vision of your Space Explorers? Parts? As is? A good starting point? Colors? etc. So anyway here are the ones that are topping my list for best "non official" current sets that slide nicely into Space. 1. Benny's Spaceship Spaceship spaceship - Ok yes excepting the minifigures this is pure 100% prepackaged new classic space. But above and beyond that. It is a great starting point for more new classic style MOC's. Every part in the set is a space part. For Space MOC'ers one of these is not enough. 2. City Arctic Theme - Honestly pretty much ALL of them. I weep when I see these for the classic space moonbases that might have been. (Well and can be if you like Orange). The modular tubular labs are everything we wanted from space back in the 80's. We may even be able to rebuild some in blue and light Bley. Some of the vehicles are great as well having a shaping and styling that make for great ground support. Combining 2 of a given vehicle togrether could easily give you something that blends with the AC EDF trucks. Plus the inconography. That Arctic symbol is real close to some of the space symbols, such as Ice Planet. 3. Star Wars - While Star Wars does not typically blend well with Space, occasionally we get some useful stuff. This year it is mostly things that can be broken down for MOC's. The Droid Tri Fighter might make for an interesting starting point for a new Blacktron Fighter. The Police Gunship has a lot of Space Police going on with it (and it really is not very Star Wars ish) and the 75042 Droid Gunship could be an interesting starting point for some sort of Planetary Skimmer. Or a Space Police Patrol Copter. 4. Ninjago - 70721 Kai Fighter can be turned into the start of something MTron'ish without too much alteration. Just as its predecessor Jays Stormfighter made a superb AC EDF heavy fighter. Or if you prefer with a few color changes and swap outs you can finally give the Galaxy Squads Red Team a real vehicle. 5. Marvel Super Heroes - The big one this year is the Milano Spaceship. All those wonderful blue, bley and yellow slopes, wedges and curves to make wings and shapes. It's a little too comic book ish as is for Classic Space. But the colors are too good to ignore. 6. DC SuperHeroes - Any Batman set will have some parts that can go towards Blacktron, with the masterpiece being the giant Tumbler. Although an expensive parts pack to experiment with. I look at it and see the potential for some massive Blacktron ground vehicle ala the MTrons MegaCore Magnetizer or The Ewok Sandcrawler. 7. Ultra Agents - 70163 Toxitas Meltdown has some interesting bits to it, with a lot of interesting yellow, some wonderful trans neon green windscreens, and even some useful figures and accessories. The lab portion would fit in any space base. It even has an airlock. 70162 Infearno Interception is just neat. The main build of the car is just so classically SciFi from Tron to Blade Runner that I can't not mentally include it in my space setting. I figure the head of the Space Inteligence Agency tools around in it in style dropping off data on Alien Threats and Blacktron incursions. Pretty much no moding needed for it. It also fits in real nice with SP3. 8. City - besides the Arctic stuff (which I swear just had to start out planned for space?) there is one little City Polybag that is just fantastic for bringing any spaceship scene or display model to life. The 30229 Repair Lift. The little 1 man service boom used to refuel, re arm, repair and otherwise get your space explorers back out there It really is astonishing how much it can add to a landing pad scene. Trust me and grab a few. So does anyone else have any favorites that can convert well to service with the Benny's?

I think a few analysis have mainly revealed that the licensed price increase is mostly a myth, or is so negligible as to be nearly invisible to the consumers. Price per gram licensed and unlicensed sets come out fairly closely. Especially once you get past the $29 mark. What differences there are with the more commonly compared licenses such as Star Wars and Super Heroes really seems to be more mold costs for less reuseable unique character parts. And if I remember correctly the Pirate Ship did not use any of those save Gimli's helm and beard (which is so bloody common in LotR sets that it doesn't really qualify as unique). So I figure that this ship will be about the same size as the LotR one, at least in weight and rough part count. I figure the Pirates one would strip out most of the detail greeblies in favor of more brickwork to give it a deeper hull and add at least one more bow piece. So probably very close to the hull structure of the Brickbeards Bounty or the Black Pearl. Actually thinking on the BP wasn't that at the $90 price point? If so that makes me a little more hopeful for this one. It's still just going to be a bathtub with no separate decks. Not at that price point. I'm most fearful of the sails and masts. I somehow sense that they will be flimsier than the BrickBeard Bounty. Hopefully they won't be as bad as the LotR ships masts and rigging. I see no issues with using some newer style headgear for variety. (When did people start wearing bowlers?) someone should point out that that wide brimmed floppy hat from the CMF Scare Crow would also work well in Pirates with different printing. Using the new shooters does not immediately offend me. Provided we get one real cannon. I've been looking at them trying to figure out some other uses for them lately. Swivel guns or as the basis for light cannon seems a reasonable option. Plus it's a play feature.

The first rule of licensing... you do not talk about licensing or license contracts ever. Or almost never. Doing so can reflect badly on the licensing partner or have unintended effects on other business arrangements and future partnerships. It is just standard business practice. And there are good valid reasons for doing it. Typically when they do talk about licenses it will be in vague non specific terms. ie "actual specifics will very from license to license and each license will define the build to minifig ratios" etc. They will never say "For LotR we must have X and Y and must always include Z". For a similar reason they cannot say yet that LotR is officially retired. Because it is technically tied to the Hobbit license and we have a forthcoming Hobbit wave. Talking about discontinuing the LotR line can and will have a negative impact on sales for the last Hobbit wave.

I hate to shatter some dreams, but I kind of suspect that we will only get JW related sets. There is a good chance that The IP holder has kept the movie licenses narrow and separate. So Lego might have the new JW and KreO may yet still have the older JP. This would not be the first time we have seen this sort of thing. (Notice how we never have seen any Iron Man 1 or 2 sets?)

$90 USD is the same price as the LotR Pirate Ship, so that should give some idea of set size. At that price I am most fearful of the masts and sails. Figure something simpler and more skeletal than either PotC ships or Brickbeards Bounty.

Also regarding Battlepacks and pure Army Builders. Chances are that is NOT Lego's call. The absence of Army Builders and the inclusion of named characters makes a great deal of sense when you look at it from the perspective of the License Holders. Remember they also sold a specific Army Building license. Ie the miniature gaming license that Games Workshop holds or held. Any terms of Legos license would be specifically written to not risk a conflict with or diminish the value of that Games Workshop license. Hence, no Battlepacks.

I wonder if the custom Starfighter might be a"Darth Vader"ized Eta2 Interceptor? There has always been tons of art from that floating around.

Why not? I mean Space Police has done well for them a few times. Hmmm? Castle Police? Shake down the Peasantry for taxes? Pursue yon knave Robin the Hood? Using a medieval helicopter gunship.