Aanchir

New pic from the LEGO.com homepage! I hadn't paid much attention until now, but it looks like a lot of the characters in next year's sets have new face prints, with open-mouth smiles instead of closed-mouth smiles.

Just now noticing in The Brothers Brick's review photos of Misfortune's Keep that Monkey Wretch is a new mold with printed eyes! This is awesome since the LEGO monkey was overdue for an update. Here's the old monkey for comparison.

Well, we don't know how many scenes those screenshots were chosen from. It could be that there are plenty of scenes where the show does use the non-ultimate version, but the people compiling the screenshots for the website just didn't use any screenshots from those scenes.

Having seen what a good job they've done with the latest two waves, I have a lot of confidence the sets will look good. I'm excited to see how the Sonic Raider 2.0 will turn out, since LEGO did such a great job re-imagining the Destiny's Bounty last year. And Airjitzu Temple Grounds sounds very exciting, considering what an amazingly popular set the Temple of Airjitzu turned out to be.

I actually just now noticed that the "ultimate" versions of both Beast Master and Lavaria are different from their regular versions. The regular version of Beast Master has straps around his knees, the Ultimate version has kneepads shaped like Globlins. The regular version of Lavaria hasn't appeared in sets yet, but judging from the website she wears black armor similar to the Ultimate version, but without all the glowing cracks running through it and her torso. The regular version is probably what will be appearing in the summer sets. Based on these observations, maybe the "inconsistencies" between the "set version" of Flama on the character page and the animation screenshots and app version of Flama have to do with the yellow-orange version being the Ultimate version! That would also explain why in the animation screenshots and app she doesn't have shoulder armor — because she would have a neck bracket to attach accessories to her back instead. If that's true, then the yellow-orange version isn't an inconsistency with the sets, it's just based on a different version of the character. This also leads me to wonder if there's a second version of General Magmar. Have we seen any pics of him that look different than the "set version" on his character page?

Yep, Macy's plume is designed to fit in a stud hole because it's also used in black as a ponytail for Nadakhan from LEGO Ninjago and General Magmar from LEGO Nexo Knights. It's a pretty useful piece in its own right, even if it doesn't work so well as a traditional plume. It could be great hair for orcs/trolls/barbarians (actually, you could probably even use it as a plume on the helmets of the giant trolls, since those have a hollow stud but no hole for an ordinary plume). The Brickset review of Ultimate Macy does make a good point, though, which is that her VISOR would be more versatile for Castle building if it had a regular 1.5mm plume hole underneath the 3.2mm hole so it could fit other types of plumes. Bit of a missed opportunity there. More colors for the pyramid element could be great. Which colors specifically did you have in mind? I can see a whole lot of colors being useful for microscale building, either as pyramids or peaked roofs.

Ooh, I had seen that page but completely overlooked that shadow! Interesting... Thanks for the summer set info, just2good!

There are four. Burnzie, Flama, Whiparella, and General Magmar. Might also be new Scurrier or Globlin variants, who knows?

This is the piece. From the Fright Knights Bat Lord minifigure.

Yes, it does function as a towball with Mixels joints and other compatible parts. :)

Built Rey today. Fantastic design. Can't wait to start trying out new ideas with the pieces. Random observation — the textile piece she uses makes a great Turaga cloak.

That does look amazing! I really loved the first book so I'm really excited for this one.

Yep, that's the one! There are the three red ones, plus the two orange ones that Beast Master keeps on chains. All five are available in the Chaos Chariot set. :)

I think the torso print is fairly ambiguous, and the website has consistently referred to Flama as female every. single. time. (and not just with pronouns, but also nicknaming him/her "miss molten lava" and calling him/her an "overheated lady") Confusing a monster with no obvious sexual characteristics, in a boy-oriented theme, for a woman over and over again doesn't seem like an easy mistake to make. Whereas referring to such a character with male pronouns is a mistake LEGO has definitely made in the past (for instance, in some bios of Breez from LEGO Hero Factory). Maybe she's just a female character with a deeper than usual voice, and the writers of the app got confused? I haven't played the app so I don't know for sure what happened, but presently I feel like there's easily as much evidence for her being female as for being male, if not more.

Sometimes the animators have to work with preliminary versions of the characters (for instance, this might be why Pythor's arms in the LEGO Ninjago cartoon are purple while in the set they're black). Other times, the animators like to add "effects" in the show which are not possible in the sets (which is probably why Flama's entire body and the Scurriers' horns glow "red hot" instead of just being regular bright red).

Love the new character pages. We get a good look at many of the characters, and also some new and interesting details about their personalities, hobbies, etc. Flama's design uses a lot more red in the set-like render than in animated depictions, but I actually like that as it helps her feel more consistent in design with the other lava monsters. I also think the transparent shoulder armor adds a lot to her design! Magmar, Whiparella, and Burnzie also look awesome! I do wonder whether General Magmar's name might change between now and his appearance in the sets, similar to Mouldron/Moltor, since Magmar is a Pokémon name and may be trademarked. Also, looking at the bios, apparently the King's Soldiers are robots! That's a surprise!

Maybe it could be that LEGO intends to use this color combination on another set in the summer? Or maybe for some reason the gold+tr. bright bluish violet combination just didn't look good on this piece in practice. On the plus side, Onua and Terak both have more than enough purple that the lack of it on the crystal add-on doesn't make their color schemes feel washed-out. What bothers me more is the lack of that jagged crystal motif on Onua's weapon. All the other Toa have that motif on their masks, weapons, and armor, but Onua only really has it on his mask and armor. Maybe if either the drill piece or the saw-blade piece had been purple it might've been enough. But just the cone and the ammo aren't enough to really convey that crystal feeling to the same degree.

I don't think that's entirely a fair comparison. For starters, one's talking about molds and the other's talking about prints. When it comes to molds, LEGO introduced two very complex new helmet molds in the one Ant Man set they've done, neither of which has been used since, so I don't think there's anything "lazy" about the way they approached that. Presumably they only used older face prints for the Ant-Man set because they had face prints they thought were a good fit. No point introducing brand-new face prints you won't use again when there are ones already in production that will work just fine. Not doing new face prints probably freed that set's budget for new printed parts up for things that matter more, like the wing patterns of the ants or the costumes of the three minifigures. The Nexo Knights characters do get a lot of new molds AND new prints, but many of those are parts that are going to appear multiple times across multiple sets (and in the case of the knights' face prints, probably for multiple years). By contrast, other than the reused faces, none of the minifigure parts from the Ant-Man set have shown up again.

This is Flama. I don't know what the new source for Flama's gender is, but when Flama's bio was still listed on the monster map on the Nexo Knights website, it unambiguously referred to him/her as female (that bio is still there if you view the page source). "The fight in the Hill Country Villages is the hottest battle around. Not only is it taking place on the very edge of Lava Land, Jestro’s monster armies are joined by the scorching Flama. She is made of molten lava and will light a fire under my knights. I hope they can stick together and help each other cool this overheated lady down." The design is fairly ambiguous, so I think I'll need more clarification on where this new info is coming from. It's not like LEGO has never misidentified a character's gender on their website, but this isn't just a case of an incorrect pronoun. The person writing Flama's bio for the website obviously was strongly under the impression that the character was female.

I think Lewa's arms are a pretty nice design. Perhaps not the optimal design for posability, but it certainly gives me ideas for MOCs and it's nice to see something so creative yet not as clunky-looking as Kopaka's upper arms. I don't yet have Lewa, but I built his shoulder and leg designs shortly after we first got clear pictures. I certainly wouldn't want to see this construction on EVERY Toa, but on Lewa I think it's pretty neat. Perhaps what could be ideal would be to construct the shoulder joint itself more like Kopaka's shoulders (with a ball cup on the torso and a Hordika neck on the arm), but leave the overall upper arm construction the same, if that makes any sense.

I find the furry side outward looks best, because the other side is shinier and has a rougher texture, which doesn't result in as pure a color (if that makes any sense). It's especially noticeable on my Obi-Wan figure.

I'm glad they at least kept his big shoulderpads. But I agree, I wish his chest were wider and he weren't so tall. I'll definitely be aiming to make some changes in a revamp.

I think it's a blended piece and not a printed one, kind of like the Erlenmeyer flask piece from the collectible minifigures.

Everyone talks about the jester hat from the TV show as if it's a whole new design. Other than the lack of the pom-poms on the ends, though, it's really not. It's just the regular-shaped jester hat which changes shape to reflect his "mood". When he's acting innocent/"not evil" it reverts to its normal shape. Not that it would be a bad thing to get a jester hat with the tassels pointed up like horns, but it's weird to hear people consistently referring to it as "a new jester hat" — it's like if people kept talking about how Ninjago should introduce figs of the ninja with "the new legs", meaning legs with the knees bent and no holes in the back.

Are you referring perhaps to the hourglass? Oh my gosh, I hadn't thought about the possibility of using the 3D catalog app! Unfortunately, it still won't work for me, because I live in the U.S., and the 3D catalog app isn't available over here. But if somebody who can use it could take some screenshots of the sets using that app, it'd be much appreciated!