Dorayaki

That's overpraise. Minidolls are cute too, just IMO. Recently I've been working on how to make MOC minifigure based on Friends characters. I know nothing about decals and prints, so for the first step I simply found someone who print car stickers and order some to try. Though some of the colors didn't meet expectations this time, we can still see a physical sample. Decal Picture: http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

I mean what kind of minifigures the assumed CMF MMORPG series would have exactly. More mascot suit people, warriors, aliens and original ideas like previous normal series? Or the exclusive NPCs and villains who represent this game? If the result is the former, it's just another case like Panda Suit Guy (no offense). If it's about how MMORPG works, I don't really think TLC would make another CMF line with different format and sale period in order to promote this game. As long as TLC won't stop making CMFs, in the long run it's better to make the clicks follow the bricks.

It sounds very reasonable if we're allowing special themes without lacking of new things: more series in a year. It's still nice to see original series not discontinued, and we're going to have more CMF. Though I don't want to see multiple series coming together. Or the reason could be that TLC already had Simpsons in their schedule, but they didn't plan to make CMF Simpsons after series 12. CMF Simpsons would be teasers to the regular sets just like the CMF Lego Movie. I don't get it. If LEGO Minifigures Online meant to feature normal CMF, what's the difference between normal CMFs and the MMORPG characters? And what minifigures do you want to see in "CMF MMORPG"? Unless there are going to be original RPG cast as same as the previous Lego Universe NPCs in MMORPG, and the next series would feature those characters. It's nice to see such kind of characters become physical as CMF choices. And we've seen that some CMFs from the Lego Movie series are actually more like normal CMFs than specific movie characters.

Well, this Chinese company is nothing more than a copycat. They've also cloned the Superhero minifigures. http://www.aliexpres...1455440345.html http://www.aliexpres...1345055213.html One good thing of being a Chinese-oriented Taiwanese is, you don't have to deal with the fakes from China. Uh, though there are sometimes original China brick brand toys appear in local 7-11. If we have to find positive examples for Chinese brick brand, here is one: http://www.taobao.co...t/小魯班-粉色夢想.html While this company Sluban have copied some Lego products, they also own some original themes: Military, Three Kingdom and this Dream series. I don't think the buildings are better than Lego's Friends. These products are obviously girlier than Lego Paradisa and Friends (the amount of pink bricks are very horrible, honestly), but they still become part of their brand without any problem. Regardless of the terrible faces and hair, the skirt design is also an interesting part.

Are you implying "CMD"? So far Friends are trying to give more kinds of cloth prints, though in the first wave there were not too many choices. I don't think the City minifigures have enough diversity of clothes and hairpieces besides the police/fire uniforms and caps, too. What I'd like to see is to include more kinds of different characters that can fit in a Heartlake canon. There had been a teacher and a waitress, but the others are mostly teenage girls with some boys. I'd love to see adults of different careers that can create stories (eg, the mayor and the karate sensei from cartoon), or babies and kids that allow girls to babysit. I still don't think there are enough amount of face and expression designs that allow little consumers to create their own generic minidoll (while minifigures have enough materials that allow AFOLs to MOC), though they can obtain hairpieces from minifigure lines. For main characters, I think they should have different expressions in different sets just like licensed characters.

Nice to see a nice both the heroine and the villainess addition (but where's Crooler in 2014?) It seems that the froce of tribes are different this time which is the same thing TLG did with Ninjago.

That doesn't mean the version of Lois is bad-looking. I personally love the video game version more and I'm not sure this Lois looks like the Amy Adams. The problem of all Superheroines (except Batgirl and Wonderwoman) should be that two female hairpieces are obviously overused.

I really wish to see an update for Juno Eclipse that could be like The Unleashed Force (though not sure it would happen). One of my favourite is Red Harrington. Her hat, leg print and skirt piece all work very well. The ones I dislike are the Avatar characters, based on the fact TLG didn't give them Legoish designs and new hairpieces.

I'm glad you support my idea. For Chima, though they don't share appearances with traditional minifigures, I'm not sure they would also look good as minidolls if they don't get new body desgins (that are more masculine for guys). Disney Princess is still a question mark in my mind. I believe that Disney classics is able target at a wider range or customers rather than simply young girls (whom minidolls were made for), and we're not sure how this license them would progress.

Wow, definitely one of the best additions to a Christmas occasion. I suggest that you can add more layers but try to make the shape thinner.

Usually licensed video games reuse old phyisical hairpieces instead of inventing new parts by themselves. One of the most surprising hairpieces from recent characters would be Gwen Stacy IMO.

Police and Fire series repeat just too many times. The stations and cars are diferent but after all their functions are still the same. In Friends, even that TLG do rehashing, they can nominally endow each individual character with one bedroom, one family house and one villa. Also it should be more weird to have multiple police stations in one town than have multiple restaurants or households. The reason why other subthemes of City like Farm and Railway isn't renewed as frequent as Police and Fire is mostly that they have more potential (in other words, profitable). For now I believe Friends have more choosable elements than City, until that City can make something innovative, and I'm happy to see that Friends can introduce some extraordinary interests to the target customers. Agree. Neither do I think Friends have to invade or replace City. I would be very wonderful if they're able to compensate each other. For faces, I don't think the minidolls characters have shown variable and vivid expressions. In the cartoon story, Lacy often shows mean face and Jacob sometimes looks toil, but these don't show in any Lego Friends set. Both minidolls and female minifigures should try to create more expressions, ages and personality. Those female minifigures from collectible bags have done a really good job. There are grandmothers, hardworking ladies and fierce warriors who can shout at guys.

I think it's hard to find which kind of reference TLG can use in their designs. In Castle or Space, they can easily come up with a kind of historical or fictional creature to use. However, when we want to make a realistic military theme, which kind of reference can we use? Religious organization? Terrorists? No, both could violate the rule of TLG's guideline for the market and those groups would be offensed. The most possible way is something like Octan from The Lego Movie, who secretly owns a private army and plans to take over the world, and it doesn't reflect on any real-world groups. Or if there are good movie licenses with "safe" military materials (eg, the green army from Toy Story, or the mentioned Indiana Jones), TLG can still do it by getting them. I guess toys are still good with adventure and fun rather than politics and violence. The latter could be some kind of interest of AFOLs, but not for kids for educational reasons.

Indeed. No to talk about other royalty crew from Cinderella's castle, it's weird to lack Rapaunzel's mother in her own house. Even if there would be more Rapaunzel sets in the future, I can hardly think Gothel fits in any other scene. What I feel bothered in both this Disney wave or Friends sets is, the included "minidolls" are fewer than those "minifigures" who share the same price and size of their product, because we seldom see other licensed products include minifigures fewer than three and none includes only one. Or maybe this "castle" was somewhere Cinderella went on honeymoon. So far there are no minidolls of secondary characters or antagonists in this wave, though Merryweather is going to be in Duplo sets. Mulan would be more with this problem since her story is all about army.

I'm not sure it's correct to remove minifigure projects. Some projects do have low quality, but in a negative sense, it's resulted in that only TLC can decide which license can be collectible minifigure bilnd bags (Simpsons) but Cuusoo members can't (Disney, Muppets, original themes etc). Though the project owners can still make actual buildable things with the minifigures, some minifigures only fit in sole ideas more than traditional sets.

So the Toy Story minifigures should had been much different than what we have, not to think about the green army . I don't think that's the case. If we need to make human characters at the same time, we can simply include them in a different set. Unless you really want to see a human minifigure playing muppets.

I'm not sure Luna's blouse was that classic, but I'd rather see her uniform in the train set. Speaking of Hufflepuff, I still don't know how come a quawizard tournament would end as biwizard tounament.

I've said in the OP: "I like Friends and minidolls as independent products, but they would..... " The problem isn't about whether the own designs of minidolls/Friends are good or not. As said, the problem lies in TLC more than consumers or targeted group. MOD techniques aren't doing with this problem.

Yes, very obviously. Your review deserves being reposted, but it's sad to see few people had asked you. Maybe you have to put watermarks or custom bricks in these pictures in future waves.

I've been considering about it. If you guys think it should be a general topic and discussing all the themes together in Licensed theme forum won't violate any rule, I don't have opinions but I also have to alter the OP. Maybe. I think The Lego Movie would be an important part of this topic, but I'm not sure it would live till that day.

IMO licensed and non-licensed video-only characters are different in some ways. Licensed characters are established by the original license owner, and they would still be part of the story even if they don't show up in Lego franchise or physical sets. The non-licensed characters created by TLC could be used for many different needs and purpose in their media works. Their appearances and parts are particularly designed. Its range of discussion could be bigger than the licensed one. I'm not sure if this thread should be comprehensive since it wouldn't fit in the Licensed theme subforum. Or should it be moved to Special Theme subforum?

Sorry, I've said that non-licensed Lego characters wouldn't be discussed in this thread. Unless other opinions think these should be put together.

Some replies suggest to include non-licensed themes in the single thread, so I changed it. If you have more opinions about it, please inform me. I was worried about that this topic is kind of similar with existed ones (DC/Marvel Hero/Villain, etc). In this thread you can only suggest the characters who had appeared in any official media work of TLC (video games, commericals, etc) and you're with their Lego designs. You may not suggest licensed characters who only appeared in the original story but not in Lego adaptions. Licensed themes: There could be tons of usable characters in each license, but usually we know that not all of them can do well with scenes, physical designs or playability. Since the very first Lego Star Wars game, Video games and special animation video begin to show more and more prototypes of licensed charactes, which proves that some characters do have good potential as a physcal minifigure. However it often turns out that they would probably never appear in our real life. One reason could be that many video games only come after regular sets, which only have one or two waves, and these characters can't have a second chance. The exceptions belong to Star Wars and Superheros who is still ongoing, but sometimes the physical design would be different from the game version (maybe better, worse, or have own supports). Non-licensed themes, video games and misc.: As time goes by, TLC attach greater importance to the power of media. The beginning was some web series in official websites, then original games such as Lego Rock Band, Lego Battle. After the video games, TLC come to MMORPG, though failed once, it would start again in the next year. Seeing the power of established stories of TV shows, TLC also try to make original animations, from DVD-OVA (Clutch Powers) to TV shows (Ninjago and Chima). Eventually they come to the realm of film industry and is very eager to market their brand with The Lego Movie and its products. From the non-licensed part of Lego media world, we can see that TLC try to come up with really cool ideas inorder to make these games and animations attractive. They often include more elements than the licensed media works and these elements are closer to how creative Lego can be. However, most of the designs and parts originated from media works also seldom become physical, with some excpetions like Kai's hairpiece. One problem of action themes is, TLC only make the battle scenes constisted of mechs and heros but the other "static" characters can hardly fit in any product. We're not sure if the upcoming The Lego Movie would also have the same problem. The themed sets we've seen only contain main protagonists and generic citizens, though some special characters have joined the CMF series. Judging from both their roles and non-physical appearances, which licensed and non-licensed characters deserve to be physical in your mind?

The original Winter Village Toy Shop is still a classic to me. I think the building (excluding the tree) catches the spirit of a Xmassy theme. Others are okay but less holiday-like. My second favorite goes to the Post Office. The office, van and gazebo are very original, though there are still flaws like OP said. Market is a debatable addition. I think it's creative to come up a set without a major building (thought not many AFOL's wish). However it's not really winter/holiday-like, and I don't think it looks close to what a real tradtional market is.

In a narrow sense, adding female minifigures should be for gender balance, not for rarity or price. I'm happy to see female construction workers and criminals. I seldom collect more than two of the same minifigure to build army, so I seldom care about it. The major reason why female minifigures are often few in a box is usually that they come with new or exclusive parts (most recognizable one: hairpiece), and they are usually more complicated than than men's. But I admit I'm not happy to see all ladies beside Wyldstyle are rare. They added four Wyldstyle mostly because she is set to be massively produced in regular sets. Maybe TLC intended to do so, or maybe not. Unfortunately it's not Playmobil. But since this is based on a movie, it's more about how many heroines have important roles in this story.