Blondie-Wan

Welcome to EB, and welcome back to the LEGO hobby!

I think they should reuse the old Nestle Quik Bunny head mold to make a Jaxxon mini figure. :D

Hey, Marcos, thanks for the info! And thanks also for keeping in touch with us here in general. You've created some fantastic models, and I wish I could get them all. I will definitely try to get as many as I can!

I mentioned Professor Frink six posts and about seven hours earlier, actually. And Sideshow Bob and Duffman would also be high on my list as well, though I hadn't mentioned them yet. But Frink is my absolute must-have from this line.

My #1 wish for this theme as far as characters go is Professor Frink.

Actually, the black Harry Potter hair has also been used for both Satipo and the Chauchilla Cemetery warriors in the Indiana Jones theme.

They used stickered torsos much more recently than those, for some of the Soccer / Football sets from the LEGO Sports line of the early 2000s. In these, stickers were used to give builders options for what country a team plays for, and/or what jersey numbers individual players should get. One example: This kind of use (to let builders "customize" their decorated elements by giving them multiple versions of stickers for the same pieces) has been seen on other, non-minifigure elements at least as recently as the late 2000s, for LEGO City Police sets (with black or blue "POLICE" stickers, and green "POLIZEI" ones), as well as the second version of the Republic Gunship from Star Wars (for different nose art for the vehicle).

A few years ago I saw Naboo Fighter Pilot torsos in the BAM kiosks - this version, from 2007's 7660: ... but apparently it's considered sufficiently "non-SW-specific"-looking as to be able to pass as a "regular" part, as TLG subsequently used it in a totally non-SW set, the following year's 10200 Custom Car Garage. More recently, though, I've seen the bicorner pirate hats with the Spongebob skull from set 3817 The Flying Dutchman.

I thought I'd made it clear I am prioritizing paying off debts and bills and such (doing so ahead of schedule, in fact - I make larger payments than required on my debts, so as to pay them off more quickly), and buying LEGO after those more important things are done. It's just that doing so doesn't leave me able to buy as much LEGO as I'd like, and naturally I try to stretch my dollars as far as I can. I see nothing wrong with that. And frankly, you don't get any say in what I "should" do.

Well, the first time since 2012, anyway, when they had Series 6, 7, 8, and Team GB.

Fantastic, Marcos! I'll be sure to show this to my pug-loving girlfriend.

Great-looking set! It appears to be one of the most playable CUUSOO sets so far, if not indeed the most playable one. I sympathize with those who wanted the Martian terrain retained in the original color, but if it was simply a cost-cutting move, at least they passed it on to us - this is the least-expensive CUUSOO set yet (well, at least of the four released outside of Japan, anyway - I don't know what the Shinkai 6500 set was priced at, but I suspect it worked out to a fair bit more than this). I'm definitely getting one of these. I just wish it were out a few weeks earlier - this would be an excellent Christmas gift for my girlfriend. Yeah, that's why the Imperial Flagship flopped. Who wanted an 18th/19th century-style sailing vessel in 2010? :p The mission is still current, isn't it? Isn't Curiosity still operating?

If I were going to sell, sure, but I don't want it for that reason. I'm pretty broke, and have a hard time affording these things even though I want them badly. As I indicated, I currently have a bunch of Hobbit / LotR sets on layaway, and the layaway period ends tomorrow. As it happens, tomorrow is also a payday for me, so it would be easy enough to go pay off my layaways and pick everything up. Unfortunately, I do need money for other things, as we all do, and I'm debating whether or not to just cancel the layaways outright, or remove some of the items from them and just buy the others. This is despite the fact everything I have on layaway is clearanced, and they're all "too good to pass up" deals. My goal isn't to resell all of this stuff, but to gather a substantial, more-or-less complete collection of sets from this theme (or these themes, if you prefer), ideally including duplicates of some of the sets for army-building purposes. Frankly, if I could I'd love to get a whole bunch of copies of The Orc Forge, since it's one of the more useful sets for that purpose, in addition to containing a lot of useful parts for MOCing larger versions of the scene it portrays. As a rule, I don't sell my LEGO, though I often find myself contemplating doing so. I have made exceptions a few times in the past, but even those were mostly selling sets I originally bought fully intending to keep for myself, but on which I changed my mind when I found myself in desperate financial circumstances. I don't make very much money right now, but several years ago I was making even less, and about ten years ago I was unemployed for a while and had to live off of credit cards, eventually maxing out five cards. Over the years I've managed to pay off one after another, and I got those five cards down to two, one of which is close to getting paid off. Just last week, though, I had to get a new card specifically for healthcare costs, in order to cover some emergency dental work (I haven't had any health insurance for years, since it's been too expensive for me; with the recent healthcare initiatives in the US about which you might or might not have heard, I'm finally able to get it, but it won't kick in until next year, and I needed this dental work now, so... back up to three credit card balances, but hopefully not for too long). So, anyway... I'm not really keen to pay "extra" for a LEGO set, because I simply can't afford it; honestly, I couldn't even afford to buy nearly as much LEGO as I do if I had to pay full price for everything - the main reason I have so much is because I've gotten really good at finding sales, clearances, special deals and so on. In fact, assuming I were to get all the stuff I've got on layaway, I would have the entire first wave of (boxed, non-polybag) LotR sets (excepting The Orc Forge, of course) and most of the first Hobbit wave, including several duplicates, while having bought only one of the sets at full list price, and that's one the smallest and least expensive sets (Gandalf Arrives). If it weren't for the various sales and clearances I've been able to find, I might have just blown off getting into this theme altogether, simply because there are quite a few sets and so many of them are so expensive, but the clearances I've found gave me an opportunity to try to get it all, so once I found them I began trying in earnest to do so; the only problem is that by the time sets go on clearance, some of them get hard to find, and in the case of a "shared vendor exclusive" like The Orc Forge, it's pretty darn tough. Still, though, as tight as money is for me now, I'm at least doing a lot better than I was just a few years ago, and I'm able to indulge my LEGO habit to a point, but I also have to think of other things. I still have debt and living expenses and all that, plus right now there's also Christmas shopping, plus I'm about to start paying for healthcare which I wasn't doing before. So, no, I can't justify paying a premium for the set, even though it's important enough to me that I'd consider just abandoning the theme without it - especially since just not worrying about The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings would just mean I'd have more resources to devote to other themes that interest me, like Star Wars, City and so on (thank goodness I don't feel the need to strive for completeness with those themes! ).

I'm very interested in The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, but wasn't able to begin collecting the sets right off the bat. By luck I've been able to find most of the launch wave on clearance in the last several months, and have several sets on layaway, but of course The Orc Forge is a limited-edition item (at least here in the US) not carried at most stores. It's important to me to be able to get it, to the point I find my enthusiasm for the entire line(s) diminished if I can't, but it's hard to justify paying much above retail for it on the secondary market. I was therefore wondering whether anyone here knows of any copies anywhere for its original price. Note that this would include both US and UK availability; I have a friend traveling to England next month, and if the set can be had over there anywhere while it's no longer available here, I'll happily have her pick it up if I can (and yes, I'm aware the UK MSRP is more than the US MSRP, but that's fine; I just don't want to pay substantially above the MSRP in whatever country it's bought in).

I haven't had any Minifigures get scratched up. The only thing I'd consider a quality issue is the translucency and softness of the dark reddish plastic used for a couple figures, such as the S3 Samurai and the S8 Conquistador. But that's just a couple figures out of over a hundred, now, and only a particular plastic. I know people swap hands and arms out all the time, but FWIW I think they're still not officially considered to be removable. I certainly wouldn't take apart pieces that aren't designed to be taken apart and then fault the parts for the damage they suffer.

Ah, right. Thanks. I do wish we could search for projects in the Review Stage (and archived ones as well, actually). Anyway, the review batch currently being assembled will include: Sherlock Legend of Zelda: Iron Knuckle Encounter Japanese old style architecture The Adventure Time Project It seems a strong candidate, except for being something that would obviously be much larger and more expensive than any other CUUSOO set to date. That may hurt it, though of course we haven't yet had enough huge projects make it this far to be able to say whether they have much chance. This one will at least give us another test, to help us figure out whether they can make it. Of the three licensed projects so far, I think Adventure Time is easily the likeliest choice, based on brand fit, business case and production costs (i.e., requiring new molds or not - of course, it could easily make use of them if they were an option, but I think the project submitter has done a good job of demonstrating that figures made entirely from existing elements can still actually look quite nice, and sufficiently true to the source material).

Oh, and that's now Sherlock, Japanese Architecture, and Adventure Time... was there one more that has hit 10k this period, or am I misremembering?

The Adventure Time Project has attained 10,000 votes.

Actually, not so - in fact, none of them are officially named "Collectible Minifigures," but just plain "Minifigures" - we're the ones who use the word "Collectible" as part of the name. It's not part of the official name any more than "Classic" is really part of the official name of what we all call "Classic Space" - to TLG, it's just Space. Note, too, that the official Minifigures minisite doesn't list the minifigures for The LEGO Movie, just as it doesn't include the Team GB ones. The LEGO Movie Minifigures are instead listed with the rest of the sets based on The LEGO Movie. While the concept of random, blind-bagged minifigures is obviously a variation on the core concept of the Minifigures line, TLG apparently considers these minifigures part of their overall The LEGO Movie line, rather than the Minifigures line. If you're a collector, your collection is "complete" or "incomplete" depending upon whether you're trying to get all the so-called CMFs (including Team GB, TLM, and The Simpsons, along with any other such "special," "one-off" series they might do in the future), or just the ones who are part of the actual Minifigures line (i.e., the numbered series) (not to mention one's own personal collecting goals, such as trying to get all the City-appropriate figures, or all the ones from classical antiquity).

I'm not so sure, actually. Of course his staff in the movie is a mostly-eaten lollipop, with a little bit of candy remaining to make the head of the staff, and the staff in the physical sets is topped with one of the Moonstone elements that debuted with the Monster Fighters theme... but Monster Fighters came out just last year, and would have to have been developed largely at the same time as the movie's preproduction. I've been wondering whether the part might therefore actually have been designed in conjunction with the production design for The LEGO Movie, intended from the beginning as the piece that would be used for Vitruvius' staff, and Monster Fighters simply got to actually use it first. Certainly the resemblance of the uneaten bit of candy in the movie to the actual LEGO element is pretty close; I suspect it's no accident. If so, it likely would hardly be the only time a part was specially designed for a particular role in an upcoming set or theme, but some other set or theme actually got to use it first - for example, the Minifigures Series 9 Forest Maiden's hair was pretty dead-on for Princess Leia's hairstyle in the Ewok Village on Endor, and many here considered it evidence that an Ewok Village was actually coming (as indeed it did, and indeed Leia used the same hair).

Ooh, funky new plant pieces in Battle on Saleucami! I'll have to get some of these, as always, though my mercilessly pummelled bank account is grateful there aren't that many OT sets. I'm also still irked about the needless changes to perfectly fine minifigures like the extant Rebel pilots, but oh well.

Oh, I'm sure the fact that not one but two Ghostbusters projects achieved 10,000 votes apiece (and in the same review period), while still other Ghostbusters projects continue to attract votes, has succeeded in getting the LEGO CUUSOO team's attention (they've acknowledged it in their comments, even). It's a popular franchise hailing from the same time period as Back to the Future and enjoying a comparable amount of enduring popularity, and it's reasonably family-friendly - there are a few adult jokes here and there, but nothing too adult for TLG, I think (nothing worse than some of what's in some other franchises they've built whole themes around) - and it doesn't really require special new molds (even if it could use some, just as could everything else). I expect it to pass review on brand fit, business case, etc. - indeed, with regards to the business case specifically, it's probably one of the stronger contenders. I therefore fully expect a Ghostbusters set to come out of that review batch; the only question is whether they'll choose one project or the other, or find a way to combine both (personally, I'd expect the less-extensive model of just the car and four characters only, rather than also including the firehouse station, Slimer, etc., but you never know...).

Oh, yes, I do know about the requirements of license holders to ensure their products fall within certain acceptable parameters of what characters and other visual elements look like; I was asking more whether or not the S11 elf hat was indeed close enough to Link, or at least certain versions of Link that have appeared over the years. Despite loving videogames, I'm not actually particularly well-acquainted with the Zelda series - I haven't ever really played it, though I do still have an NES and intend to get around to starting the series one of these days - so I don't have the same level of familiarity with the character that fans do.

I hear http://www.lego.com/ and the various sections it supports are worth a peek. ;) Eurobricks is my primary fansite. I used to frequent From Bricks to Bothans, but eventually sort of moved over to EB since it better covered my overall LEGO interests, though I do still consider Star Wars particularly important to me. For years I've tracked my collection using Peeron, but in the last couple years it has seemed to be updated more sporadically and also contains an increasing number of errors and whatnot, and it's becoming less useful, alas. I'm thinking of using Brickset a lot more, and it's already starting to become my default place to look up sets.

Assuming the molds are the main sticking point for Zelda, and that the most critical one involves Link's headgear, what about the Holiday Elf from the current Series 11 Minifigures? Could that be considered close enough for the character (perhaps when combined with custom hair print on the head), or would he truly require a new mold to be fully recognizable? Also, I see the Japanese old style Architecture set made it to 10,000 votes. Congrats to taxon55, and best of luck. I was mulling over supporting that one myself, and had wavered only because it would obviously be an expensive set I'd have trouble affording, and even though there's no real committment associated with CUUSOO support I personally try to support those projects that I'm really quite sure I'd buy (and I try to leave honest estimates of how much I'd pay, how many copies I'd buy, etc.), but I'll definitely try to get this one if it makes it to the product stage.