MAB

Most diagonal building reinvents the wheel in the sense of it all comes back to pythagoras. For a 45 degree wall, you can just about get away with 7^2 +7^2 ~ 10^2, so an 11 long wall fits on the opposite corner studs of an 8x8 plate. This looks similar to what you have although you wall is complicated slightly as you use SNOT techniques as well. There are some true pythagorean triples that work and then there is using equal but opposite handed triangles to get a wider range of angles to offset builds rather than walls.

It is not a particularly interesting room though, just grey walls, a tomb and well. LEGO have shown that they want their book nooks to be interactive in that you can expand them by opening them so the Balrog scene is fine for me. Redoing Balin's tomb (from Mines of Moria) and repeating a couple of the Fellowship minifigures from Rivendell probably wouldn't sell well. Whereas the Balrog gives something new for everyone.

I guess there will always be problems with a service like this, where machine calibration will slowly change. I imagine for many people slight offsets won't be an issue as it is just a bit of fun, whereas for others they will want a top quality product. It is probably cheaper to refund when someone complains than check every order before sending.

And on BL there is a clear definition of new. It is not used. As good as new is still used. I don't understand the difference in your descriptions of (mint in box, unopened) and (mint in sealed box) and that is why people should use the correct settings on BL. If the contents are not used for building then select new, and if the box is still factory sealed then select sealed, if everything is present then select complete. People using their own conditions such as MISB, MIB, 9.5, 5 stars, etc just complicate things as they are not defined on BL. MISB causes arguments over whether only the contents need to be mint, or whether it means the box should also be mint. And using it implies a guarantee that there is no damage to anything inside the box, which a seller cannot guarantee if the box is sealed. Which is fine and those people should not be using Bricklink. They can stick to current sets at retail stores instead.

If they were doing a Witch King Battle set, I would hope the minifigure selection would include the Witch King. But I doubt the form works for that scene. Replace the Balrog with a bigger fell beast. Replace one figure with 3 or 4. Add a horse. Add some ground for the figures to be placed. It is soon bigger than the book nook.

I have sold 1000s of new minifigures on bricklink. I open a set, remove the relevant minifig parts, and put them in their own ziplock bag. I've never felt the need for it to be assembled to be called a minifigure. For me, having all the correct parts in unused condition just as if you removed it from a LEGO bag yourself is the best you can have for the secondary market. When buying anything on the secondary market, there is an element of trust on the buyer's part and reputation of the seller. For customers that lack trust, they will have to buy full sets direct from LEGO or retailers.

I stand by my logic that adding further horses to a carriage doesn't add to the playability of the set. They become one object. The playability of a carriage attached to one horse is the same as attached to four.

The castle set is a playset and adding another 3 horses to pull the carriage would add to the cost without really adding much to the playability. If anything it makes playing with it harder unless they are rigidly joined together. Whereas the Santa set is primarily a display set so needs more than one reindeer for the effect to work. Quite a few people bought extras to make 9, a bit like the ringwraiths in LOTR.

BL orders are purged after six months. A record of the order will be in your emails. No, we aren't paid LEGO shills.

As he faces away from the viewer, you'd see the holes in Gandalf's legs.

If you know their value then presumably you've looked them up on ebay, bricklink, or other similar sites. So sell them there. If you want to get most value then you'll have to list them individually. Otherwise do one big lot and let it go for maybe 50% of the value so the buyer can do the work of selling them individually.

Wash things starting mild and progressively get harsher and stop when either happy or you've destroyed them. So water only, then with a mild soap, then with a little agitation, then a fabric washing liquid, let them soak, then very dilute bleach, then dilute bleach,... it depends what you want to achieve. They will never be bright white like new again unless you use a harsh cleaner that is likely to damage the coloured parts. As for torn holes, you can sew them, glue them, glue fabric circles around them, use fabric tape, tie string around the corner, or leave them and accept that they are old and battle damaged. Or buy replacements on bricklink.

Obviously we don't know what their plans are, but it could well be that when it comes to the Balrog scene, then we get this book nook or nothing. There is no evidence that they want to make smaller diorama sets (smaller compared to the ICONS sets) for LOTR, so getting in this unusual form might be the only option. It fits with the other book nook sets they are doing and the designer (or possibly LEGO) has made the decision to allow it to be flexible so that it converts to an open display piece rather than a closed box. Personally, I don't see the point of book nooks, so giving buyers a choice of how they display it is good. I wouldn't buy a set where most of the parts just form a box and you have to look into it very closely to see anything. When it comes to LOTR, I imagine they got the impression that kid style play sets were not popular first time around, and so they stick with more adult aimed sets and this means either big display sets or quirky things like the book nook. So long as they produce something, I'm happy enough that it can be adapted into something I want if I want to which is the same for the original play sets. I own them all from first time around, but all were adapted to my taste.

Indeed, when you have Darth Vader, Palpatine, Tarkin, the Joker, Galactus, etc., Sideshow Bob failing to kill anyone (aside from that one Treehouse of Horror episode) is nothing. I'm hoping that they do Moe and Barney (and Lenny and Carl) in non-bar situations as well as Homer in more variations of clothes in future. If they do a set with parts based on Mr Plough, or Pin Pals, or Be Sharps, or Homer and Barney as astronauts, or Homer's workstation, etc., there is plenty of scope to introduce the bar characters.

The ultimate driver for any business is profit, but that doesn't mean that is the only thing they care about. They care about quality in the sense of they need to keep quality to an acceptable standard so that people buy the product and the business thrives. A small mold mark on a piece is not going to put off most people that buy LEGO. I doubt very many children that play with LEGO care. I doubt most adults that buy LEGO care either. Sure, you can complain via email or letter about a pip mark being visible. You can make the ultimate stand and refuse to buy LEGO if you want. Either way, I doubt they will notice any difference given how many adults and children will continue to buy LEGO as it is not an issue for them. This is not an issue like the brittle colours were, where LEGO was receiving many complaints and having to pay to send out replacements. Personally, the existence of pip marks is way down the list of things wrong with LEGO that I would never complain about it. I rarely see set reviewers even mentioning pip marks, whereas they do bring up other aesthetic issues such as common parts not existing in the right colours (ball joints for example) which can detract from the look of a set.

An opened up book nook can still a book nook if you design it to close again. And that is the constraint the LEGO designer had compared to the MOC, that whatever they designed had to be foldable. With most sets, a good fan designer can do better when they have no constraints compared to a LEGO designer with constraints. You end up comparing different objects.

They aren't LEGO though. Yes, it is possible to MOC a building but for most people, producing printed parts and 3D resin printed heads at home to go with it is not possible. Even if LEGO want to stay away from alcohol, they could do Moe and Barney in other situations.

I used to collect monochrome figures and much of the fun there was actually the hunt for parts, the joy of seeing a new figure with a missing colour hands or arms, rather than the displaying of them. But that was killed by LEGO doing Everyone is Awesome as it sort of took monochromes away from being a fan creation into the mainstream where you buy complete figures to display, and partly due to the nightshift parts when large quantities of previously hard to find parts were made available. I feel the same about the way Classic Space figures are going. When they are pumping out yet another colour to add to the rainbow of minifigures on display so many people seem to have, it feels like it has become a "buy the whole collection" type collectable rather than introducing a new colour to define a new role in a building set.

Do you have permission to sell these from both LEGO and Lucasfilm? That is going to be your biggest problem.

Clean off the corrosion and maybe solder a new wire if the contact has broken.

They aren't generic historical torsos though, they are parts from licensed figures and so often cannot be sold in other sets or on PAB. Unless they are reused in other sets (like Pippin's scarf torso) or LEGO makes a mistake and sells them on PAB for a while (like they did with Dain's torso and Saruman's dress piece a decade ago) then it won't be possible to buy them cheaply.

If LEGO want to keep them around then they can choose to keep them around. They can decide to do exclusive battle packs with them in, or just keep them in stock for PAB. I wouldn't want them to start shoehorning well known unlicensed minifigures into licensed sets.

No dual molding for the legs is really off-putting if they are seen from the back or side as the colour design doesnt continue. That helps the choice for me, I’ll go torso only and use plain legs or other generic print legs. Using capes is an alternative cover up but becoming expensive.

There is obviously a difference based on the size of display. If displaying a large diorama at a convention then chances are you need a big army whereas displaying typical MOCs that fit on shelves at home, you can get away with far fewer figures especially bearing in mind that often you'd have at least two factions if it was a battle type scene. I don't know where the crossover between the two is ... maybe it is the point when you go from measuring in studs to measuring in feet or metres! Some of the large convention sized displays people have are amazing and need big armies to look good, but even then the display itself has to look good and not just be loads of troops aligned on a plain grey baseplate that looks more like a vendor's stock than a display.

I'm similar in that my biggest MOCs tend to be usually 64x32 so I find 16 of any faction is enough to depict a battle in that size. Although most of my MOCs tend to be smaller vignettes about 16x16 or 32x16 and there usually 4-6 of each is enough. I usually aim for about 20 to future proof against breakages or increased desire. I once collected over 100 Roman soldiers and never used more than 16 at a time. So sold off the excess when prices shot up.