fred67

I read this the day you wrote it, but only looked up Anansi today - I don't get it. I'm not sexist, but if the mythological figure appears as a man, it seems "spooky girl" is an fairly odd twist.

I just supported that set minutes before perusing new posts at Eurobricks - it's a really nice set. In fact, I visit Ideas maybe once a week, and I browse the new submissions until I get to ones I've already seen. Often, I support ZERO sets. Today I supported five sets - I think that's a record for me. There's just a lot of recent submissions that are really cool, and while I think a few of them might be on the small side, they were really creative, unique, and good quality builds - something that's often severely lacking on Ideas.

New leg piece? Only way it would really work and look right... they might try to fake it with regular legs with a print on it, but that would look terrible.

Just in case you didn't know and might care, Brick Warriors has some neat things you could use to make those kinds of figures. The demon accessories with the lizard accessories could create a pretty cool dragon warrior (they sell that lizard head, too). For the record, they have harpies, too, and Brick Forge has a lot of cool accessories, including centaur bodies. I know we're talking about "official" LEGO and CMFs, but I just figured if people are interested (and believe we'll probably never get these things from TLG), then these are good options.

I figured, in some cases, a new print might be relevant. I don't think it's either one of those, though.

No more trades; unfortunately I'm mostly leaving the world of LEGO.

OK, then, game on... I want to think it's not a part from 14, because that would be too soon and I think people would complain. OK, AFOLs would complain, kids wouldn't care, but in trying to find something unique that could be reused, that limits it to things like accessories, possibly head pieces, and, in this case, the "stands" for the specter and banshee. But I'm not seeing anything that really works in S13. In S13, there's not a whole lot there that seems to apply to mythology/folklore. Maybe: In S14: So, I stuck to things that were fairly unique. I skipped things that didn't seem to apply to mythology or folklore (like tiger lady's head piece or the monster's guitar). I don't really see anything about S13 that screams "mythological," so I'm going to throw out two things that struck me. 1. What 8BrickMario said. 2. Headless horseman. Since 2 is folklore (and not even really), I think 1 is a lot more likely.

True. So again, without straying too far off topic, it's why my display is by series instead of theme, because after a while some figures could be lumped into any of several different "themes." So I stopped trying and just displayed them by series. I think I'm one of the few people that was excited about the S14 werewolf just because it tied in with the lumberjack - and you could even include the Little Red Riding Hood. All those figures that get counterparts become more interesting to me.

I don't have anything to offer that hasn't already been said - I think the idea of mixing castle and zombies is quite cool, and I'm just wondering if you're a fan of Xanth.

Very nice! I love the Batman version. How stable are the arms without the usual connector()?

What JFox said - I don't know that it counts as an accessory, but those jumpy things are just ridiculous. I'd throw them away if I wasn't obsessive compulsive.

Not really; not without extra software ("brickficiency"). I don't normally use Windows, so I can't use it. One thing I do is look for the most expensive item on a wanted list, and just search for the cheapest one of those; when I go into that store, I click on the "show items in my wanted list" link to see how the rest stack up. I might do this for several stores, in different browser tabs, trying to find a good combination. If your list is large, it's a lot more difficult. I actually don't start with searching for items for sale, I go to the price guide and click on the link to the store with the cheapest (usually new) one of what I want.

I had a small container I made of LEGO to store 1x1 round plates until they got to be too much.

Yes, you'd need one a lot bigger than what I linked to.

An "advanced" point and shoot with both automatic and manual modes is a good cross between the basic point and shoot and the expense of a DSLR. You can learn a lot about exposure and timing with one, without have to be an "expert" to take good pictures. If I had the money, I'd get an entry level DSLR... but I don't. The other thing that is really important if you're going to shoot LEGO inside is lighting and a tripod. Tripods do not need to cost much - the one I have has a built in level and was still only about US $20. Lights don't need to cost much - I get work lights like these: 100 Watt bulbs, and you can clip or tape on vellum or even just plain paper to diffuse the light (use a full sheet and let it bow out in front of the light so it doesn't get too hot). I also have a very inexpensive "pop up" light box that, I admit, I don't use often enough. Now, I admit, a lot of the pictures I post are garbage - but it's because I'm too lazy or short on time to get all of this stuff out and set it up, and I have very little room for doing it - so when I want to post something quick I use my phone and flickr app to get it up online right away, but if I was going to do a proper review, or a thread showing off my MOC (or an Ideas submission), I'd break it all out and set it up properly.

I've been hesitant to reply in this thread because I like so many of them, would rate a good number of them as a "10," but for so many different reasons. One of the things I tried to do at first is build vignettes for the figures... but there's just too many. Without going into a long, detailed story, I did make this: When the S8 diver came out, my jaw dropped - I regret that I still haven't made a proper vignette for it, it really deserves one - I just can't think of one that doesn't include a boat with a pump, and I can't think of how to do that in 8x8 vignette, especially given that I have a divided shadow box with 12 sections designed to hold baseballs; I could do 10x10, but can't get the height I'd need. Still, it's one of the ones I really want to do. The other reason it's too hard to choose is because some of the older ones that were cool to begin with, become even better - the Pharaoh was great, but it was just a Pharaoh - what do you do with it? But then there's the mummy they added.... suddenly you can make a pretty neat vignette with it. But it didn't end there - they followed up with Cleopatra, and more recently the Egyptian warrior... the value of the sum of these figures together is much greater, IMO, than the figures separately. The elves - I loved the elves, one of the few "army builder" series for me; I think I have around 15 of them. But I loved them not just because hey, elves, but because I was a fan of Fantasy Era, and they made a mistake, IMO, by skipping elves. But even the elves became better, IMO, when they released the evil dwarfs.... which I also army built. The musketeer is OK - but three of them together are awesome! The witches, too (same deal... one is OK, three is great). Army building Egyptian Warriors, too... but don't need quite as many, just enough to make a proper guard for Pharaoh. Then, of course, are zombies. My favorite horror/sci-fi genre, I can't get enough of them.

I've not had more than a few pounds at a time, and I haven't ordered bulk and quite some time, either, but when I cleaned I used the colander in the sink method. Mild dish detergent, let them soak (the colander fits in a larger container), agitating them a bit. Pull out the colander, rinse well, dump them on old towels in some convenient spot; I do pat dry them a bit to try to avoid water spots, but then leave it to thoroughly air dry overnight. I don't stickered pieces this way, I will gently clean them by had. I have not washed any chromed parts, so can't comment on it. As far as the "brush controversy" goes, I use an extra soft toothbrush on stubborn parts that have gunk or really packed in dust in tight spots. I don't think I've ever scratched a LEGO piece doing that, but then again, they're used at this point anyway, so usually aren't exactly perfect to begin with. As far as tumble drying in the dryer .... NO!!!! It kills me how people can get NEW pieces from TLG S@H PAB that are all scratched up because they're packed loosely and just destroy each other on the trip to the buyer's house. I can't imagine what tumble drying would do.

Which would, no doubt, be incredibly offensive to them. Don't get me wrong! A Ganesh or Shiva, or Buddha, whatever - I think those would be cool, also. I would build a suitable display for them and I think it would be really neat. However, 90% of the figures are going to be played with by little kids. Picture Shiva in a shootout with the CMF gangster or something. That would be offensive. Likenesses are not the problem (if you're not Muslim, anyway); but statues of Ganesh, Shiva, Buddha, Kali, etc., are all done in reverence... they aren't play things. I am aware there are dolls of all of these figures, but I don't think they're in quite the same vein as LEGO....

256 CMFs in 40 inches of shelf space. Sometimes I just stand there and scan through them... sometimes I see one that inspires me to make something for them. At the same time, someone thought that putting them on display was a waste, and what would people like me do when we got to series 50. Well, a 5x5 arrangement of these boxes would be pretty darn impressive, if you ask me. I also have a number of TLM figures that I didn't display - did not collect them all; nor do I have TGB or Mr. Gold. I'm still quite happy. I always loved the display... like I said, I can just stand there for an hour sometime and just scan through all of them. They are a bit tight, but they all have their accessories and the color coding even helps me some times. I do army build the right figures - elves and dwarves, for two, and I have MANY duplicates loose in a drawer that I've got ideas for.

While finishing off Kwik-E-Mart: Master and Commander: Far Side of the World - great movie. Then Independence Day was on TV, followed by Cast Away. Yes, it took me that long to build Kwik-E-Mart (in fact, I'd started the day before).

Why? They did some random birds, why wouldn't they do the car?

Skirts. There's always a gap. It should be one stud longer to overlap. EDIT: I agree with the scimitar. It's too big and cartoony, and I understand why they used it for fantasy castle, but they should not keep using it.

I see things a little differently... although I don't want to go way off topic, either. Every single series has had hits and misses - the first five are no different than the second five (or more). For every one you call "the best," there are ones in the first few series that are better. Spartans, Zombies, pharaoh and Cleopatra, Hazmat Guy, Mad Scientist, Elves, the hockey player... I don't see a "golden age" of figures. Every new series that comes out, in WhiteFang's reviews, people rate the latest above average. To quote the Esurance commercial, that's not how this works... that's not how any of this works! Average is average - just because there's a few figures someone likes, they vote the series above average. I think we just get hyped up and excited over the new series and, when if finally gets here, it's the best thing ever! Just saying - I think perspectives are skewed towards "new" and "exciting," but all the series were new and exciting when they came out.

There's over a billion practicing Hindus in the world, let's not start anything by calling their gods a "myth." I would stay to stick with dead religions, but I also like the idea of things like vampires (whose mythology predates Bram Stoker, as greden_y stated). Other similar ones would include things that have been done, like the banshee, but also will-o-the-wisps (don't know how that could be done, though). I guess you need to make the distinction between "folklore" and "mythology," or ask if you even want to do that, because it's a fine line and folklore is fun, too.

Well, the problem with both reddit and the brickset forums is that the forum software is terrible. The "bazaar" forum here would work much better, the forum software is a lot cleaner, but there's just not a lot of interest here, it seems. That said, reddit is quite active, and I've already got one trade and two pending. For the first time in about 50 trades, I've finally gotten ripped off - by my first trade on swap.minigifureseries.com. I've deleted all my inventory there and won't be back. Luckily it was a low value trade. There is a way to report that a trade was not successful, but nothing to "blame" or "shame" the other user. Once I said it was unsuccessful, the trade completely disappeared. That site is really terrible.