MAB

There have been many parts that you might think should appear in a regular set but have only ever appeared in a CMF, like the carpenter's saw, the serving tray for the waiter and waitress, the helmet of the two Roman soldiers, and so on. I guess it might be that those parts are still made in China and so only made for the CMF. So even if that arm part is new it might not appear in regular sets. It might also be a single molded arm and attachment rather than removable otherwise it might need two new parts. We'll have to wait and see.

I doubt GBC would sell very well. You need a lot of them to look good and they are the type of thing that look great at a convention but do people really want one running at home? Plus, I wouldn't want LEGO doing them. They are a fan creation and it would seem like LEGO are stealing the idea if they do them, and I doubt they would be as good anyway. Concerning vehicles in Technic, there is a huge range of subjects even though almost all are vehicles. Yes, there are cars (because they are popular and sell) but also multiple space sets, motorcycles, planes, helicopters, construction, etc. A lot of system sets also incorporate Technic parts these days to allow for movement.

I'd prefer to see official ones. I made a Sauron figure for LOTR but I'm glad they later did an official one. I hope they do the same for the Witch King and Gondor soldiers.

That isn't how it works though. They don't continually produce the CMFs as needed. You can buy blind by going into a store and picking up random packs. You don't have to scan them to identify them before purchase. The new packaging hasn't really changed anything. S1-2 had bar codes, the next few years had dot codes and feeling, then just feeling and now QR codes. They have nearly always been blind but identifiable. Sure they would. There are nearly always one or two army builders per series. That is way more than 1%.

I didn't get that view at all. It would be unworkable too, having to have two versions of sets, with and without instructions. It would probably also lead to complaints that the set they bought is missing instructions when they didn't realise. The alternative would be to have certain ranges or sets not have physical instructions at all but then consumers wouldn't know there is a discount for LEGO not producing instructions. And that does not really give a choice for consumers.

They look really quite good but a second coat might make them better. That is definitely a more chrome like finish than you get with airbrushed acrylic. When I do that, the effect is more like the (BL's name) metallic silver and gold finishes whereas that chrome looks much more mirror like. I might get one of those pens too now.

And army building. Plenty of people buy them as they want them, not to sell. They aren't rare, let alone extremely rare. They might be more expensive than other figures but they are not any rarer. Whereas other people really like army building with readily available CMF. I cannot really understand people that want to collect all the CMF, even though I once did it. Why collect and display figures that have nothing to do with each other, aside from LEGO telling you they are a numbered collectable series and go together. At least the D&D series have some connection between the characters so having a series to display might make sense, but no more sense than someone wanting an army where they customise the characters by swapping out parts. In a sense, LEGO do allow you to buy the ones you want, so long as you do a tiny amount of work. If you could order just the ones you want direct from LEGO and there were fixed production numbers, the sought after ones would be even harder to get. It would only work if they continually produced and replenished the sought after ones.

Maybe Shakespeare's torso and legs, any head and a tricorne hat but stand the figure next to a globe (from POTC or the minifigure head globe).

This won't be a problem unless you are heating your display cases to very high temperatures or exposing them to very low pressures. Both of which would damage the LEGO too.

They could also cover it in Valentine hearts and imagery. Not my thing, but I imagine that would be more popular with the masses than a mythological god. For the cat lover, I hope they break stereotype and make it male.

This is in the special interests > customisation section. Perfectly allowed.

Yeah, they are even more useful than the CMF gargoyle figure at that size. I imagine they will start appearing in many MOCs, not just in historical and fantasy gothic but also in Batman MOCs and even as little gothic statues in gardens.

Yeah, this looks great. The Gondor helmet really looks good in black. I'll have to get some of those dresses although I'll have to remove the neck and hips print.

Yes, it does. In some of the early series this happened, where apparently less interesting figures were expensive as they were not produced in such high numbers. Of course, the worst case is when an in-demand figure has lower production. Judging popularity must be difficult, as it is not just whether something is popular but also how many will people want? Some collectors want one of every figure whereas others want 10, 20, 50, 100, etc. Catering for army builders through CMFs messes up tge distribution.

What does quality mean? Quality of parts, quality of design of sets, size of sets? A Sauron minifigure with ten bricks to nake a tiny Barad-Dur would probably be a poorly designed build but the quality of minifigure parts would be the same as the big set. And if put in a polybag, would sell 1000s. Similar for a 100, 200, 500, 1000, or 2000 part set. They will nearly always be less quality than a bigger set as the designer can do more with more parts. The original Council of Elrond set is poor quality compared to Rivendell, but in terms if value was pretty decent.

Now LEGO is a bit more grown up than it was a decade ago, I'd hope they do a CMF series again and include Moe, Barney, Skinner as the big three that were missing, then maybe Lenny and Carl. Sideshow Bob would also be good. Obviously lots of other side characters they could do but the first three were huge omissions compared to what they did make.

He was a generic merman king. He is obviously based on mythology (whether Greek or not, other ancient people had similar myths), just as Disney's King Triton is presumably based on the mythological Triton, Poseidon's son. There were also mermaids in Greek and other mythology. Disney borrows a lot from many myths. Yes, I imagine it is that a groom is just too boring by himself compared to modern characters and probably too long since the original bride to make much sense now. There were so many male suit parts and top hats, I sold all my brides with a groom, plus LOTR rings years ago. They were always a good seller. II'ma bit surprised they haven't done another minifig set like 853340 for a bride and groom. I know they've done the brickheadz relatively recently. Maybe skin colour is more of an issue these days, if people want more realistic customizable skin tones for their wedding (as possible in the brickheadz) and that is not possible for minifig sets without swapping out heads, hands and of course skin printing on the bride which cannot be changed. Or maybe because they don't want to offend others outside of traditional male/female couples by having male and female in one set, again like brickheadz where you could buy brides and groom separately.

It is funny, there seems to be two groups presumably based on results rather than the principle. Those that get the ones they want as they scanned and found them and those that cannot find the ones they want as other people found them first. So much like the feel method, the dot codes and the bar codes that were used to identify CMFs in the past. Just quicker.

They already exist, they are just not legal copies.

Isn't it down to reducing the maximum thickness in a part? Thicker parts take longer to cool. Thinning the thickest part means slightly faster processing times so more parts can be produced.

For your own use, you can do what you like so long as you don't sell them as genuine parts in the future. I've successfully done a chrome job on lego parts using an airbrush. Clean the part really well removing the old chrome if there is some, then airbrush an acetone and water mix and let dry. Then a couple of coats of dilute primer (25% water ), then 3-4 coats of dilute metallic paint. It works well for minifig accessories where they are not going to scratch against other parts but wouldn't work well for brick surfaces where the parts will scratch easily when placed together.

And more expensive since people buying from other retailers would get tge same content. Plus then lego would beed another subject fir a GWP to make it attractive to buy early from them. A lot more than seven people Ideas, BDP, Chinese NY, Lego store, holiday sets and GWP. Employee gifts and Inside Tour sets are really the only limited ones these days.

If they had included the fell beast set inside the Barad-Dur set, then there is no incentive to buy the set on release and you might as well put off buying it for maybe two years if you don't intend to build straight away. And even if it is exclusive to LEGO on release, it could become more widely available later and so open to discounts. So no promo set on release would mean people waiting just to see what happens later, whereas a decent promo gives the incentive to buy early.

It might be that there are other reasons for increases in sales (if they have gone up, I don't know). Three full sets per box probably helps but I have also seen a large increase in people wanting one set discussing buying a complete box and selling the other sets, and resellers (whether LEGO resellers or anything resellers) buying multiple boxes to put away for investment based on past results. I saw one reseller on facebook (doesn't appear to have much experience with LEGO) with what appears to be 24 boxes of each of series 25 and 26. I imagine they are going to be sitting on those a while for their "guaranteed profit". There will always be winners in the CMF series, but investing in all of them especially at RRP seems to be becoming even more of a bubble than it was. I makes me wonder how many millions of unopened CMF there are out there. All good for LEGO though. It depends how they are marketed. Speed Champions sell well so there is money in racing cars. If these are small matchbox/hotwheels size cars done well with licensed prints on a couple of parts and with the promise of future collectability (marking bags or boxes as series 1), they could be a good money spinner. Car based polybags have sold well in the past, if marketed that way then they could be popular. But if dine as a short run CMF series, probably not.

I doubt even they know. They used to make large numbers of parts for the build teams so that they didn't run out and the parts that didn't get used were sold off. There have been lots of parts in colours that never appeared in sets discovered this way.