MAB

I find this series really quite weak overall. I went for President Business as he has a nice torso and legs that can be reused, and bonus points as there is no flesh print on the torso (arms can be switched out) so can be used for fleshies. Accessories are all weak, so I went for the punk cat.

Yes, I understand there is more creativity in the overall designs when there are less constraints about source material, but then there is also creative use of parts to make sure something looks like the source material for licensed sets. Then there is minifigure design. Although I like the traditional minifigures, I probably prefer the licensed ones more.

Yes, and more to the point I wouldn't want to lose either of them. It would be detrimental to the hobby to have no in-house sets just as it would be to have no licensed sets.

I think they look good but, like with custom prints on LEGO parts or third party minifigures, do worry about them affecting the marketplace. I would have been tempted to change the designs from LEGO's so you were not producing what can be considered fakes of the real thing but customs that look just as good. If someone wants to make their ship look good and isn't a purist, customs designs are just as good. It's like the fake minifigures on ali express. I don't mind the ones that are designs that LEGO didn't make. Whereas I wouldn't buy the ones that LEGO did make. I guess the thing here is would you buy a fake part made to look exactly the same apart from the LEGO logo that someone else has molded or 3D printed rather than use other genuine LEGO parts to solve the problem? By substitute do you mean substituting using genuine LEGO, or substituting using fake parts produced because the originals are expensive. Something similar happened with parts of the UCS MF (rigging and dish).

No, there isn't. There are licensed themes that I love such as LOTR and Hobbit, some I find OK such as Star Wars, some where the minifigures are OK but not the sets such as Superheroes and some I don't really like at all, such as Minecraft, Angry Birds, etc. There are also unlicensed themes I love such as Castle and Creator Expert, some I find OK such as City and some of in-house one-offs such as Monster Fighters and Alien Conquest, some where I like the minifigures and some I don't like at all. I find it quite pointless to compare licensed sets to in-house sets. It is like comparing all green fruit to all red fruit. There is huge variety within each category. I like some of both and I don't like some of both.

I prefer both.

The list is also on LEGO's website, though the replacement parts page for individual sets. In fact, that is where brickset gets the lists from.

So they'd take the minifigures from classic space, the ship designs from classic space and the colour scheme from classic space.

I find the same thing. Anything in a LEGO box at the chain charity shops tends to get marked up at ebay prices. Whereas the one-off local ones have better prices but incredibly rare to see any LEGO in there.

The fourth section of the body (not including the head) doesn't appear to move up and down as much as the others. I don't know if it is the minifigure that has been placed to low to keep it from dropping down as low as it can, but that part makes it looks unnatural. The other parts seem to move more, and mostly in order.

Yeah, you can get a surprising amount of detail into a small space that way. One improvement for the edges / border is to use plates, then tiles to top off. Not only does it give a studless, smooth border, but gives the edges extra strength. If you use bricks, they risk popping off and the cheese slopes falling out. I like the way you have built it to stand upright held in place by the 2L cheese slopes - I've done quite a few as floors and you don't need all that extra engineering underneath!

Unprinted parts (when not available in retail sets, but are available printed) often show up in BAM. I guess it is LEGO's way of getting rid of excess not needed.

Presentation is important too. And to be honest, I find your presentation really quite poor compared to the others. Take the red roof one, for example, and look at the images: The first image, yours is an awkward angle hiding lots of the actual build, lots of distraction in the background of crumpled sheets, seems to concentrate on the roof (boring!). Whereas the other one, is quite joyful - bright colours of the balloons, shows the house "in motion", sets the scene with the minifigures and garden, full frame and no distracting background. I know which one I would investigate further just from looking at those images. Isn't Up about a house that takes off, lifted by balloons? That is captured perfectly in their first mage. Yours doesn't show this aspect of the movie at all. Of course, their house is too small for the minifigures, but this is typical of LEGO sets - they have the important feature that their house flies and looks the right scale compared to the mass of balloons. Then the other images don't get any better. In fact, you literally waste space. Look at the size of this image - you use under 10% of the image area, making the actual image hard to see and the crop job done on it is really bad. If you want to hide the bad background, light a flat white sheet well and it will almost disappear. Don't use a badly lit crumped sheet that appears grey and distracting, then leave part of this in (edges and around the balloons). Fill the frame! Compare this to a similar shot from your rival, where they fill the frame: Their figures vs yours: Then you go on to show SEVEN images of chairs - again all tiny compared to the size of the image. Do you think this is a key selling point of your submission? I cannot understand why you'd include seven images of something so boring. Presentation counts. As for the one with no balloons, it is presambly this one: I imagine it is popular at the moment and hence highlighted as it is a nicely presented project that is also interesting build techniques. Sure it has no balloons, and so is missing out on telling that part of the story (and why it will probably fail to attract enough support) but it is full of interesting details for the walls and roof, compared to yours which appears to be really quite standard 1xX bricks to build walls, with plain plates used for the roof. This one is really nicely designed and looks like details have been thought about - compare with yours above, theirs is superior in both design and presentation.

Yeah, and was doing some good work. Unpaid of course, which seems to be the problem. They have lost three decent admins in the past month or so.

For anyone else wondering ...

2x2 can be cheaper than 1x2 because more people want 1x2 bricks for their buildings. 2xX brick built buildings remind me of what we used to build as kids in the 1970s.

Very nice. The plume for spilled wine is great. The only bits I don't like are the sand green in the vegetation - they look a bit bright and not very organic shaped compared to the dark green and olive green parts.

One of the main volunteer catalog / inventory admins that was doing a lot of this work has resigned: https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1123830

While it is a nice addition, I doubt a flat silver monochrome will ever be complete due to the hands. We have enough (printed) torsos and arms, but the hands are nearly always DBG or occasionally LBG.

As to people hating them, I think the question "Would you prefer to have Friends sets / Elves sets with minidolls, or for them not to exist at all?" is probably the most pertinent. I somehow doubt the existence of these themes is stopping particular minifigure based themes being made. If there was reason for LEGO to make boys' Elves sets (meaning minifigure based elf sets), at the same time as mindoll Elves sets, they would have done so. I imagine they didn't due to competition - not necessarily competition between the minifigure and minidoll sets, but between minifigure based Elves and NK. Although relatively different subjects, they would both be in-house fantasy. No doubt LEGO has sales data when they release similar types of competing sets at the same time (such as PQ and AC, and Ninjago vs Chima, Ninjago vs NK, etc). Minifigs are too. Some people believe minifigures have killed "proper" LEGO sets. That LEGO should be only about building with bricks and not about collecting minifigures.

Or (in the case of minifigure parts) they have been in BAM sections of the LEGO store. I have found a few parts in the past that were unprinted versions of parts that had only been available as printed parts in retail sets.

If you haven't been actively promoting it, you've done very well to get that far. I guess that space is a hot topic and the moment, and it is selling itself.

I imagine it is coincidence.

If you mean this part, it does come in black. There is something about that eye. No matter which view you look at, he always seems to be looking at you.

Yes, a real beauty. Do all the parts exist to change him to a black cockatoo?