MAB

The cheese slopes fit nicely under transparent domes... You could add those on the top of your build for a sci-fi look and still see the uranium. You can see how to do it in, for example, the Heartlake Grand Hotel set, where a yellow cheese slope is used as ... cheese!

To me, the vidiyo containers are a bit like the pods they did a couple of years ago. Of little use for MOCs but kids still like them to carry around a few parts and a minifigure.

An iceberg wouldn't make sense with this set. The ship is on a stand, rather than in the sea. The stand might also help with the "does not float" issue. They don't depict it as floating in the box art so might not require that warning on the box.

I also don't think it is right to say old themes are driving sales. City, granted, is old and can be traced back a long way. Obviously Star Wars and Harry Potter are driven by the licenses and while SW is old some of it still gets sets based on modern media. I don’t think the same can be said for HP. It was a theme 20 years ago then disappeared for a long time. And what they are doing with it now is quite different to the early days. Creator Expert is reasonably young but has shifted massively recently now being about 50% license and object dependent not like the early days of Cafe Corner or Palace Cinema or whenever you choose it starts. If the new style sets such as the licensed sets and cars and football stadia and so on got moved out, I doubt Creator Expert would be as strong. Similarly Technic is really quite heavily license driven now with large realistic models. Rather than being driven by old established themes, I think it is driven by modern and licensed twists on established themes. If sets were released looking like they did 20 years ago, I doubt they'd be in the top 5.

The statement they make in the report is ... All market groups delivered double-digit consumer sales growth which was driven by excellent execution and a diverse portfolio which appealed to builders of all ages and interests. Top-performing themes included LEGO® City, LEGO® Star Wars™, LEGO® Harry Potter™, LEGO® Creator Expert and LEGO® Technic. I doubt they are going to go after "high value" customers only given they have picked out that the current portfolio covers a diverse group of age and interest. I think they are just highlighting that targeting adults and non-traditional LEGO interests works and they will continue to do so, but not at the expense of kids.

I would imagine one minifigure, one smallish tree, a little bit of scenery (a couple of bushes) and one chimp. On a base using half the parts in the set.

I don't think it matters too much unless you are German and buy most of your LEGO direct from LEGO. Supermarkets and toy stores will discount their LEGO ranges to sell it. If LEGO put their RRPs up to match France, NL, etc and stuff doesn't sell, it will be discounted according to the local market. It may take a little while to stabilise but the prices will be reduced if not enough people buy.

They don't say it is not performing well or on a decline, just that it is no longer in the Top 5. It could well have sold better than the same time last year but not increased as much as other themes.

I don't find it worrying. The Creator Expert range has expanded and so it is not surprising that sales have gone up. It may have taken a Top 5 spot, kicking out another theme, but that is the only thing it has done to other themes. It has not affected the number of other themes or the number of sets produced in other themes. I cannot see them dropping Ninjago or Friends or Creator (3-in-1) to concentrate on Creator Expert. They are different markets.

Yeah, I used to do the same decades ago. Lego was mainly for the bricks and wheels, playmobil and old plastic soldiers for figures, cheap farm buckets for animals, ... everything got mixed up. My kids do the same now although they have way more minifigs than I had (and they were fixed arms/legs ones).

Harry Potter is still huge with tourists wanting to get their photo taken at King's Cross and shop in the various Harry Potter themed shops near me. Even when there are so few tourists around, those shops are packed. It wouldn't surprise me if HP sticks around like Star Wars, with lots of movies, characters and scenes to draw from.

There is, but it is much harder to do than for LEGO. Especially for kids. Although the mystery / blind bag figures are significantly easier to pull apart than pre-assembled ones. They are very different toys though. The Playmobil one is a big boat that will always be a big boat. There is no construction aspect involved in it. That is great for kids that don't want a construction toy and instead just a story telling set. Whereas kids that like construction and like building their own models won't like it as much.If you want large numbers of animals, you can of course go even cheaper if you buy a bucket full of one piece moulded animals. That is what we used to use alongside LEGO when I was a kid. The playmobil ones are somewhere in-between. They are molded to be more realistic looking than lego but still have articulation unlike one piece ones.

I also buy. About 50:50. And what about you, continually protesting against BL? What reason do you have to continually knock a site used by many for decades as a source of retired sets and new and used parts that are often not available elsewhere? Most AFOLs that buy retired sets and/or buy individual parts for MOCs know and use BL. You have commented many times about people stealing parts and resealing boxes. Yet how many times has it happened to you? Or how many times have you received fake parts? In over a decade on BL with 100s of purchases, it has happened to me 0 times. If you have a special secret source for retired sets where postage is free and the prices are lower than those on BL, feel free to share it. In this thread you stated: I have spent quite some time and effort trying to create a different building on my own but I could hardly build anything. To me, that suggests that you are no good at doing MOCs - if you could hardly build anything after spending quite some time on it. If now you have changed your mind and spending time on something else is more valuable and rewarding to you and you no longer spend time on doing them, it suggests you do not enjoy doing MOCs.

Yeah, sometimes you can just tinker slightly with an old design and change something minor. And sometimes you can rip it apart and start again to incorporate something new. Either way, to me, if it was good enough to be displayed then it was finished at the time. Especially for MOCs that are not published but are more just for personal use, there is no time stamp on when they are "released". So good enough to display is as good a definition of finished as anything else!

I see it like software, just add a version number. Are Windows or MacOS or Ubuntu or Redhat ever finished? They were ready enough for release many times but frequently improved upon / updated.

Plastic is relatively cheap - the cost is not really in the plastic used but the processing of it. I can buy a bucket with 20x the plastic in those three figures for £1. I can also buy a pack of 50 badly moulded toy soldiers for £1. Playmobil figures are assembled in factory or use parts that push and clip together. They don't need to be very high tolerance, unlike lego where the legs or head would fall off if tolerances are out. It is the difference between being being essentially fixed figures or ones designed to be taken apart and reassembled many times. So the molds can be used way longer than lego's. But the pricing, I think is just down to what the market will pay. If that pack of three was £10, it probably wouldn't sell as well. Playmobil is premium compared to pound store toys, but is still often seen as just a play toy whereas lego is seen as even more premium as it is both building and play. That you can change lego figures provides a reason for the feeling of getting more for the price. Of course, they are also compatible with the lego system, which can be built into whatever you want. Whereas playmobil is not really customisable, so it is high quality and premium compared to cheap moulded toys but not as premium as lego. I think it helps that you can pose lego figures, whereas playmobil are more like lego's minidolls in Friends. Partially posable, but the legs and hands are a bit static looking. Playmobil started doing collectable blind bagged figures soon after lego. They priced them at £2 here, the same as lego CMFs were at the time. Their price has stayed the same whereas lego has gotten away with raising it to £3.50. I think that is probably down to marketing. Kids and adults collect the lego CMF. The number of people that collect the playmobil versions is way smaller. In the store where I see them, the playmobil figures often sit at 50% off not moving. Whereas the lego figures sell very fast at 50% off (and that is probably closer to what they should be in the first place). I don't buy cmf now aside from maybe one or two per series, the pricing has gone way over what they are worth to me.

It is not really any more political than LEGO doing the American Saturn V, Mars Rover, Space Shuttle and Lunar Lander yet no Russian spacecraft.

There are essentially three types now. Purist monochromes from retail sets, wiped monochromes from retail sets and made especially for collectors out-the-backdoor parts.

A finished MOC can often be improved some time later when there are new more appropriate parts or you learn a new technique. But if you enjoyed displaying it all that time, it was still finished enough.

There is nothing expected until 2022.

You could always go non purist and use brickforge's spill / splat piece. It is available in many colours for toxic spills, milk, pee, ...

Concerning pricing, remember that playmobil consists of large parts that tend to be clipped together in the factory. They don't need anywhere near the precision or tolerances of lego's building system. But it is interesting how playmobil seems to be following lego (and many others) down the licensed toys route rather than sticking with generic themes.

Remember he is no good at doing MOCs and doesn't buy retired sets, the two main uses for BL. And doesn't like people profiting from selling LEGO, or charging for postage.

If it is going to be built in light bluish grey, be prepared to pay a lot for the bricks.