williejm

Just received a modest Bricks & Pieces order I had made a couple of weeks ago. Included in that were gorilla arms (for my two bodies needing arms), some smowls, frogs and printed butterflies. They have all arrived in greater numbers than I ordered - but with no clear pattern or logic. So I now have 11 left gorilla arms, and 12 right ones - when I ordered just two of each (and now the body is out of stock!) I also got 17 ‘free’ owls, and 29 ‘free’ butterflies. I haven’t even begun to count all the frogs but I know that my order of 2 magenta frogs has miraculously become 31! I guess whoever was making up the order couldn’t be bothered counting the numbers and just took a handful of each. I’m not complaining …

I’ve just received a B&P order that I placed a couple of weeks back - no complaints on the timing, but what I just received is quite bizarre. All the parts are there, but all of them have more pieces than I ordered, with no clear pattern as to why. It honestly seems like someone just got to the relative bin for each and collected a handful. As an example : I ordered 4 owls, and have received 21 2 of one of the printed butterflies becomes 16 4 of another printed butterfly becomes 19 I ordered a bunch of frogs in different colours, just 2 of each - but they vary from between 7 frogs and 31! Most bizarrely and unhelpfully, I ordered the separate arms for the adult gorilla; instead of 2 each if left and right, I now have 11 left arms, and 12 right. The enclosed parts list has the correct numbers listed, I can only assume someone was feeling generous and/or in a hurry when packing the bag

Top predators gonna top predate Everyone needs a cockatoo or two Bulldog in the leaked HP Privet Drive set looks to be a new face print, if the same colours as the existing one

Nessie doesn’t lend herself very well to a minifig costume

‘Monster’ is a slur.

If they legit did a placeholder series of just 12 colour variants of spacemen - it would sell better than anything else they could come up with

Their bones have been found in Scotland … so you never know

I’m sure they only come in ginger, black and blond … Fun fact, they were originally almost all black, when they used to be farmed in the Highlands, the ginger colour dominance we see these days is a relatively recent fashion choice.

Yeah they can’t be short of ideas … we can always give them some if they’re stuck!

Er and Russia … Scottish wildcat Scottish crossbill Highland cow 😂

Yeah I agree. Some very creative accounting going on here, and I hope they explain / show their working I’m follow-up posts. Looking at Africa, there are only a few Africa-specific moulds: namely two elephants, two gorillas, a chimp and arguably the camel and ostrich (though I’d say they’re also Asian). If you look to animals represented as African then you can add the printed rock python, bateleur eagle, and the white lions - and probably the chameleons (which I think are supposed to be Madagascan panther chameleons) and maybe an owl (if they can be ID-ed to species level, I think only some can, but I’d say both the grey smowl and the sand blue flying owl are supposed to represent African species) - but pretty much everything else from flamingo to crocagator, and monkey to penguin is more generic. I’m not saying that things like leopards or scorpions don’t exist in Africa, just that the versions we have could equally count as being from Asia, or wherever. Obviously it’s not my analysis, but I think it would be more helpful to have animals by continent broken down into unique moulds, unique colours/prints, and generic ones. Possibly even putting the small/ unprinted animals like spiders and frogs in another category, or ignoring them altogether. Out of interest … (and do shout if I’ve missed any) Africa-specific animal moulds are the two elephants, two gorillas and chimp (5) Asia-specific animal moulds are the new tiger and red panda. Also arguably the cobra, though it’s really only the print that ties it to Asia (but we only have it in one print). (2 or 3) Australasia-specific are the koala and the cockatoo. (2) South America-specific is I think just the toucan. (1) North America-specific is just the skunk, despite having a decent representation of prints and colours of other critters. (1) Europe - I don’t think any are specific Antarctica - none, since penguins also live on all the southern continents.

Same. Struggling to remember but I’m sure this already happened.

Ooh

This is really nice. I especially love the rock face incorporated into the base of one part of the castle. It’d be nice with some Highland cows instead of sheep though ;)

Zomg - Lego cancelled Easter! #woke Wouldn’t be surprised if the reddish orange normal legs appeared in a big set and become a chase part

Tips & Bricks taking a look at ‘contemporary’ Lego animals. Boffins here can have s field day with comments 🤣 https://www.instagram.com/p/DHErUuvuT7V/?img_index=6&igsh=enRqN3MzZmU4bXZp

The correct spelling is ‘Hielan coo’ 😝

I don’t really mind the ‘not quite real but adjacent colours’ of animals: think the same blue bunny was okay, as was the sane blue owl & the dark red one! Squirrel recolours I think would work are: white, dark grey, orange, & reddish orange at least: At this stage though it’s just *silly* that we haven’t had a brown bunny!

So very bored of the white bunny by now … and the squirrel is overdue a new colour too ;)

100% this. I also feel like my only true skill in life has become worthless

There has also been an explosion of Lego themes and types of sets in recent years, and the range and diversity of minifigures has grown exponentially. That was not the case accompanying early series, so they probably filled more of a hole at the time than they could in retrospect. Certainly also used to be the case that big retailers in the U.K. sold CMFs at competitive discounts even from the start of their run, you don’t see that now. I think people are more discerning about which figures they want for a bunch of reasons, not least the financial outlay as @MAB says.

Funny that Series 5 was a pretty solid series too - with some great figures, including the first ‘new in a CMF’ animal mould with the baby chimp!I feel like some of the early series’ ‘filler’ figures have a lot to answer for … maybe they should have moved to 12 per series sooner. I have quite a lot of pretty much all the past series, collected at the time, in storage … and stockpiled some figures. You’re never really sure what you’re going to want / need in following years, and whether any of them will be seen ever again. Have never really been one for selling them, but assume that I’d have the same issues you’ve mentioned.

I feel like kids didn’t care about that figure though - making it more easy for AFOLs to snag Yeah, I know horses for courses and all that - but if I find a ‘full’ box early on I deliberately leave at least some of the desirable figures in the vain hope that some bairn has a good day. At this stage in the release though - I’d take what I found in open boxes

The Spartan was still in the initial era of barcodes, but it was also only series 2 of CMFs, so I don’t think the hype or expectation was there from collectors in any way the same level. As I’ve said before, I think the Beastmaster is a new paradigm for CMFs, having a desirable army-builder figures, with a desirable army-builder animal - plus it is very appealing to the casual collector or kid (kids still get these right?) as one they’d want.

I’ve just remembered I was also bitten by a squirrel once. This may explain their hate-filled vengeance conflict