MAB

I use mainly fleshies in my MOCs, so I like fleshie CMFs if they have decent heads and hands. But the problem with superheroes is the masks or other weird face prints. I think the DC one had maybe two unique plain-ish fleshie heads and they were not that different to existing ones. And most wear something on their hands so they don't even have fleshie hands that can be reused.

The Uruk-Hai blade in pearl dark grey appears in unlicensed Ninjago, Monkie Kid and Hidden Side sets as well as in licensed LOTR/Hobbit (and one SW) sets. The copper one also appears licensed themes (SW) as well as mainly Ninjago. The pearl dark grey may well have once been licensed, but clearly is found in unlicensed sets now. Maybe they didn't update it in their database.

Personally, no. I'd use two existing half arch pieces plus a filler in the middle to make it an odd length, if that is what you meant by bow. I'm OK with customs for minifigure parts, but only those.

It might be that they have only catalogued based on the parts that appear in retail sets. For example, dark blue heads have been sold directly by LEGO in the past but not appeared in retail sets.

Obviously it will be Pirate Centaurs from Outer Space ... pirates, fantasy castle and classic space in one car crash of a theme.

It's an interesting point, but I imagine it is what many BL users want. There was huge outrage when BL decided to add brickarms parts to the catalogue, so they could be added to wants lists, be compared between sellers and have prices of sales recorded. It was probably more than 99 to 1 people complaining to people supporting. Many people claimed things like Admin Dan would have been spinning in his grave at what they had done and didn't even realise that they had always been allowed to be sold there when it was run by Admin Dan as custom items and just were not in the catalogue. It is a pain as I used to sell brickwarriors and brickforge parts there, although I reckon less than 0.1% of my sales were non-lego parts. At the same time, Brickowl was profitting from it by attracting new users by making it clear they were pure LEGO only, and that no custom items could be sold there, only genuine LEGO. It is a bigger issue for things like capes where people used to sell fakes/customs individually or list minifigures that were missing these but added fake ones (or customs, or clones, or replicas, or whatever you want to call them). But of course these items are often exactly the same size and shape as LEGO ones and were not only infringing LEGO's IP, they were also keeping down the prices of genuine items and may not have been safety tested. LEGO cannot allow the sale of items on it's bricklink site to be sold if they are not safety tested. LEGO knows all the items that are allowed are approved for sale with full safety testing. For third party items, it does not know this. Similarly it cannot vouch for painted or modified items, that may have dangerous paints or sharp sections, and hence these are also banned now. It is also difficult to allow some custom parts. So for example, if they allow brickarms, why not brickwarriors and brickforge. And if they allow those from American companies, why not Chinese companies too? And some of those parts will be modern warfare related items, which is something LEGO does not support so it would seem odd for them to take a stance against it by not manufacturing their own modern warfare items but allow third party modern warfare items to be sold on a LEGO owned site. So while it is a pain that we cannot sell / buy good* customs, I think the reason is clear why. *Good as in not infringing on LEGO's parts, such as the various brick arms/warriors/forge items.

I doubt there will be much castle-ish in the Creator set, aside from the colours of the parts. Creator sets tend to concentrate on brick-building rather than theme specific items, so while the pirate ship got the odd cannon and cutlass, the parts do not really scream Pirates! at you. I imagine the same will be true of a castle based Creator set. If we're lucky we might get a new torso print but I doubt much else that is new and unique.

A lot of it comes via Germany/Netherland/Belgium. The DPD routes are opening up again so even though there will be delays, they seem to be getting through now.

I'd hope that LEGO fails to win any protection claim based on that, especially when a company is already using and can prove that they have been using for some time something that LEGO later invent for themselves. They do. Sometimes it is 1, sometimes 2, sometimes 5, sometimes 20 or 50. However, a store can always refuse to sell their stock if they wish to keep it on the shelves. Most stores won't refuse a full priced sale though, as their intention is to sell it rather than display it.

Is that kitchen real? It looks too clean! That would be a great way to hide ugly but functional table legs, much like some people cover columns/supports with LEGO.

Minecraft / mojang posted it in their social media.

That was a long time coming! Its nice to see pictures of the technique, I was wondering how to do this myself a few weeks back.

Mega Construction had cmf style Minions series, and went on for 10 or more series, although they were smaller than LEGO cmf series. They must have been popular enough to go on for so long. It is probably too late to cash in on them now, but I wouldn't totally rule it out as lego are not always on the ball as to what is currently hot.

What does it matter? Fantasy era and Atlantis have not been on the shelves in ages. So there is no internal competition between themes. Plus if people find elements of Atlantis in a different theme, surely this is a good thing, as it means people wanting the return of that theme at least have something they can buy to partially satisfy them. Atlantis was essentially a space theme but set underwater anyway, so drew inspiration on prior sets when it came out. If they know a particular style of set is popular no matter what the theme, then I think its great that they bring those ideas into long running themes. If collecting old variants of 2x4s or Star Wars figures or Modulex or monochrome minifigs or CMFs or every colour of a particular part or 200 of the same minifigure makes someone happy does it matter? Shouldn't they be allowed to show off the collection that they have created just as much as someone that has created a build out of common bricks? Plus LEGO knows their product is collectable. They often market it as collectable, emphasising the collectability over rebuilding it into something completely different.

I don't think they are copying the past as such, just using traditional heraldic colours and insignia. Same as above with the violence, they still release minifigures with swords and so on. It is possible to have sword fights without death. None of the figures have serious injuries printed on them. The odd scar, but no gory injuries or blood.

You could of course do a 16x32 box instead with two 'lids' and double the volume of the box for the same height. However if you want to replicate an existing thing, then it won't work.

Have you not seen the new Gardens set? I don't think they have run out of ideas. As to the smaller sets, they are giving people what they want.

In that case, any use of a 1x1 cheese slope on a stud should be illegal!

Yes, exactly that.

Why not have the board to be the lid then? You could even have a 16x16 box with four "lids" which lift off to make the board.

That 186 seller is in Hong Kong, where there is no official LEGO store. They have probably come through the HK certified store that has different rules about promotions. They may have even sold them direct to the customer without being part of a promotion.

Why does it matter which set has the largest parts count? Yeah, the OT X-wing has had two similar versions in 2018 and 2021, plus a much smaller trench run version in between. I'm fine with that, it is one of the most popular ships of the franchise and should be on the shelves at all times. If someone owns the similar 2018 set (or the 2012 set), they don't have to buy the 2021 set.

I wouldn't hinge it. I'd use a lift off lid, held in place by studs, like floors in a modular building, with tiles to lower the clutch to make it lift off easier.

Yes, my answer was based on the LOTR movies. As to the nudity issue of the amazon series, I doubt it will be anything like Game of Thrones. On set nudity is different to see scenes. Show an image of a semi naked woman's back, and she needs to be comfortable with on set nudity. Show a man skinny dipping in a river, and he needs to be comfortable with on set nudity. If I could buy genuine uruk cmfs for £3, compared to fake ones for £1 then I'd go with the genuine ones. I have got a lot of koruit Gondor and dwarf soldiers but I only use the armour, on genuine lego figures.

Why should sci-fi space be based on real exposure? If you want realistic space, then there are the City space themes. Any new space theme should stay away from realistic space travel if it is already covered by City. And while no one has had experience of alien combat, no-one has had experience of astronauts travelling to other planets let alone building bases on those planets. So Classic Space was a fiction too.