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MAB

Eurobricks Archdukes
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Everything posted by MAB

  1. MAB
    It is not just LEGO, it is youtube content in general now. Most of it seems to be produced for "feeding the algorithm" to generate revenue. I wish there was a way to block certain creators permanently when viewing. There are plenty of third party individuals selling complete sets for not much than their retail price.
  2. MAB
    There was this MOC from years ago. I reverse engineered some if it and used ball and sockets to give it a bit more motion, and he was not a bad little Gollum action figure. It might be that LEGO finds that a $400 set sells just as well as a $250 set. $250 is expensive and if someone is willing to drop that much on a set, they will probably be willing to drop $400 on an even nicer one.
  3. MAB
    Same here. I am a long term collector and have all the original sets, so smaller sets don't interest me too much if they don't add anything new. Looking at what has happened to HP, they repeat so many small sets, even if they are not necessarily repeats. A bit of Hogwarts plus a Harry/Ron/Hermione and someone else. That works where many smaller sets are bought by/for kids. Then the more adult oriented high end sets. Without the large kid fan baselike for HP or SW, I cannot really see a similar model working for LOTR. Hence keeping the adult focused sets but not the kid ones. Yet we possibly would not have got LOTR at all if it had not been for The Hobbit.
  4. MAB
    They already are. Brickheadz.
  5. MAB
    I think the reason pop culture and pop art works in LEGO is the reason this one does not. They have the general shape of the Mona Lisa correct and it probably cannot be bettered at this scale. Yet it, and especially the face, doesn't look right. The blockiness and narrow colour palette makes this look more like a pop art version of the original. It looks such a jumble of styles, more Picasso than da Vinci, but then it also has touches of the 'Jesus monkey'. I doubt many could do better at this scale, but then the question might be should they do it, when it doesn't look particularly good. I'm glad it is not a mosaic. They have become so common in LEGO form now, they are just badly pixilated images at low resolution that happen to be made from LEGO. I guess it is nice they tried to get shaping from parts, but for me, it just doesn't work so well.
  6. MAB
    I find those articles are mainly clickbait opinion pieces trying to drive traffic to his YouTube channel. Luckily they can be turned off now, while still keeping access the designer insight articles. When they first started they were tagged as designer insight when there is little to no insight in them.
  7. MAB
    It is not ancient. It was a month old at the time and was last posted in 7 days before you started a new thread on the same topic.
  8. MAB
    I've seen those on similar sized MOCs before. They are too short and thick. I think it looks better without whiskers than having ones that don't look right.
  9. MAB
    The minifigures, at least Saruman and probably Grima, and the stickers are quite important for that set unless you just want a bare tower.
  10. MAB
    I'm similar. I tend to aim for 16 figures now for an army of one type, plus one for a leader. I find that is a decent number to depict most scenes I'd ever want and was perfectly doable in the past with the original wave of LOTR sets, bolstered by CMF figure parts. My first big army was the S6 Roman, I collected just over 100 but never actually used most of them so sold off most keeping only the ones I'd use. I also did it with an Uruk-Hai army up to about 50 a decade ago (they were in a cheap polybag here, as it was a newspaper freebie), but never used most of them.
  11. MAB
    Having photos can help too. It is not hard to take and store photographic records these days.
  12. MAB
    As above, but depending on your skills you might also consider drawing with permanent markers, possibly with stencils. I've found painting regular building parts that are going to touch others leads to scratching the paint. Even worse if you do it anywhere near a studed surface.
  13. MAB
    This is probably more about the format of the review rather than anything to do with the theme. For a youtube video to be successful it has to resonate with a particular audience. If you want than fan-boy likes, the creator has to be overly positive about it so it matches their expectations. Whereas if it is something AFOLs are meant to hate like Galidor, then reviews/discussions tend to be overly negative, whether the creator has ever played with them or even seen them in real life or not.
  14. MAB
    I don't think it would be too hard. The difficult part is deciding whether to go microscale or minifig scale. My preference would be minifig scale given what has gone before. A mixture of micro and minifig scales would be the worst option. If going for minifig scale, the just need the appearance of a few levels, even if the levels are not real. Selection depends on what scenes they want. Probably a low level with a bit of wall and a gate and Grond or a fellbeast, the courtyard with the white tree and something to represent the great hall, a slightly higher build with the beacon. The levels don't need to be realistic heights. Just small offsets can help give the impression of different heights.
  15. MAB
    True. Just like Rivendell doesn't need to be a scale model of Rivendell, Minas Tirith doesn't need to be everything seen in the movie.
  16. MAB
    There was a follow up ...
  17. MAB
    It really depends what definition of minifigure scale you use. It will not be minifigure scale if you define it by the dimensions of the location (tower) by the dimensions of a person. However, it will (hopefully) be minifigure scale in that minifigures can interact with the build. Orthanc, for example, is clearly not minifigure scale based on the height of the tower compared to the height of a minifigure, but it is minifigure scale in that the interiors are designed around minifigures. I also consider that both a display and play set. I hope Barad Dur is similar.
  18. MAB
    Nice idea. I remember drawing figures similar to that in Maths class!
  19. MAB
    To me, these 40 or so years apart are similar. They are more similar than they are different. If any LEGO fan from then picked up a modern figure, they'd recognize it as being similar to those of the past. Whereas these ones, I'd call these different. The new ones are just updated to modern standards mainly because the old ones were not particularly detailed. I think they are more in line with what modern collectors expect. I don't think I'd buy into modern LEGO if it was producing decorated parts that look like they were designed 40 years ago. But I prefer modern sets to use modern parts and modern design techniques, even if they are based on nostalgic sets of the past. Similarly if I want castle figures, I want them to be made with today's design standards even if sometimes the detail goes a little too far. If I wanted an old design, I'd build the old set. I'd feel LEGO was being quite lazy and that I was being taken for a ride if it just re-released old sets using only old parts without improving on the design at all.
  20. MAB
    Castle minifigures look like the old designs, just with small updates. The colours used in new Castle sets is also similar to those of the 80/90s. Same with Pirates. Blacktron Cruiser is close to the original but so is the Forestman Hideout.
  21. MAB
    That page also contains Dungeons and Dragons, Snow White, Lord of the Rings, Vikings, Pirate Ship and Eldorado Fortress. This is just advertising showing other stuff that is slightly similar to try to get you to look at as many of their products as possible and purchase them.
  22. MAB
    I use the 32+1 drawer cabinets for minifigure parts, and also one for technic parts. They are pretty good quality, although they were only £7.99 when I last bought them. For building parts, these drawers are not really big enough.
  23. MAB
  24. MAB
    The vintage macaroni bricks can be offset, unlike modern ones. So you could use those to create a 4x4 circular cross section cane. Plus it would have an open core to run cables through.
  25. MAB
    For me, the value of older sets is that they are old and vintage and have survived rather than the play value. We have seen with bricklink, people want age appropriate parts to restore their sets. They tend not to want to use modern parts to restore an old set. If LEGO were to re-release vintage sets instead of modern updates, I really wonder who they are for. They are not for the vintage collector and they are not for the modern kid. That leaves the nostalgic adult that remembers the sets but doesn't care about authenticity. No doubt there are reasonable numbers in that group now. But as they don't care about authenticity then design changes to use modern parts should be fine. However, I prefer what they did with GE and LKC, scaling them up to match the growth in the builder.
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