Aanchir
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Everything posted by Aanchir
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I personally have no issue with the skull warriors having bulky armor alongside bare bones. It helps draw emphasis to the boniness of the un-armored parts, while also keeping the figures from seeming like they're flimsy and unprotected from head to toe. To me, that's a win–win. It's not as though this is radically unlike past LEGO skeletons, either. The skeletons of the Ninjago theme generally had bony arms, bony upper legs, chunky knee-length boots, and thick armor on their upper torso and/or shoulders. That's about as close to Skull Basher's physique as you can get with a minifigure! On some levels, Skull Basher's design is also reminiscent of the Stalfos as they appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Plenty of exposed bone, but also some bulky armor to show that he's a real powerhouse.
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Personally, I feel like all those things Phantoka_Chirox mentioned were excellent design choices. The skeletal designs of the new villains are a big part of what makes them unique, the mask molds are being used efficiently instead of just wasting exclusive mask molds on characters who look plenty unique without them, and the color schemes are vibrant, unique, and eerie.
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Have you all seen the brick sculpture LEGO used to promote the theme at New York Toy Fair? http://www.brothers-brick.com/2015/02/17/lego-elves-at-new-york-toy-fair-2015/
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I think it's a little disingenuous to judge all "parents nowadays" according to one parent's crazy reaction. There are many parents who are overprotective. There are some parents who aren't protective enough. But I think most parents fall somewhere in between.
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Brickset has a really good review of 41072 Naida's Spa Secret!
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BZPower's report also includes piece counts for the constraction range, including the sets that weren't on display (though they aren't identified by name so we still don't know which character has which piece count). Luke has 82 pieces, and Vader has 159. So pretty impressive, but not as high as BIONICLE sets at the same price point. That's to be expected though on account of the head molds being so expensive. The largest set ($35) has 182 pieces. My best guess is that that one is General Grievous. Are those Dark Stone Grey 7M beams on Vader's upper legs? Finally, a color other than Medium Stone Grey for those! Luke's back is a bit bare-bones, unfortunately.
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Yes, but the seventh extra stud is a "true" spare and is not included in the piece count, even online. Every set with 1x1 round plates includes at least one spare that is not a part of the piece count, because otherwise a set with one too few could easily slip past the weight check without it being noticed. Same applies for most other small, light parts like Technic half-pins, eight-tooth gears, etc.
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The Protectors' instruction booklet inventories and the piece counts on the packages don't account for the extra studs, but the piece counts listed on shop.LEGO.com and in catalogs do (or at least, for six of them — the seventh is truly a spare and as such is not counted). That might indicate that the extra studs were a last-minute addition. In that case, it makes sense that Skull Warrior's package could be labeled with the "true" piece count even though the Protectors' packages were not. EDIT: And just to clear things up a bit, I just built Skull Warrior on LDD to the best of my ability. The figure itself (sans weapons) uses at least 53 pieces. The bow uses 30 pieces, the spear uses 5 pieces, and there are 12 ammo pieces. That all comes to 100 pieces. Add the bonus blended mask and that makes 101 pieces, leaving only one piece unaccounted for (which might very easily just be an extra pin in the torso like in Kopaka Master of Ice).
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Actually I'm pretty sure most of them ARE Spring Yellowish Green, since the current glow-in-the-dark color is a lot more white than those. It'll definitely be interesting to see if people can use those parts together with the Spring Yellowish Green Skull Spiders in MOCS.
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Slight correction — Stormer XL had one 5M shell with a sticker, even though 5M shells had been printed before. But that's the only example I know of where a previously-printed CCBS part was stickered. Printed 6M shells also came in Fire Lord in 2011.
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So apparently there's going to be a LEGO Ninjago manga?
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Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who knows "Major Nixel's" actual name (it's Bad Commander, in case any of you were wondering — it's mentioned in this activity book).
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ToyArk has pretty good Ninjago pics!
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Which of the 6M shells have blue on them? It looked to me like they're just Black with a Dark Stone Grey texture pattern on them. EDIT: Never mind, it is blue. But it's very subtle.
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Luke and Vader look amazing! I love the new shells for the lower legs, and the use of the 7M talon pieces to fill in the back of the lower legs (I had been experimenting with a similar technique myself but wasn't expecting to see anything like that in a set)! I also like that Luke's head attaches with a ball snap rather than a ball cup, which helps the joint feel less robotic. Hands in Light Nougat are a delight to have! And there is some clever (but simple) part use allowing Luke to holster his blaster and/or lightsaber. I'm glad to see the square and spherical armor bits from Hero Factory aren't discontinued. Those parts are fantastic! What does surprise me about these sets is that their age range cuts off at 12 instead of at 14 like all the $15–30 BIONICLE or Hero Factory sets. You'd think there would be MORE older fans interested in Star Wars figures than Hero Factory or BIONICLE figures, but I guess maybe the LEGO Group thinks the Technic-based action features in their in-house themes result in a more rewarding building experience for older kids. Why does it matter? I can see how you might get frustrated with certain character-specific printing, but those 6M shells have what might be the most generic pattern on any printed CCBS part EVER. I see no reason it would be any kind of limitation at all.
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Correction: the term "titan" actually hasn't been used officially since 2006. In 2007 they started officially referring to those sets as "warriors", which makes sense considering there's nothing remotely "titanic" about sets like Lesovikk or Mutran & Vican. Anyway, I'm impressed with these new sets! Some of them have some mighty impressive piece counts. Amazing box art too!
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Just wanted to share that ToyArk has LEGO Elves pics from New York Toy Fair in this gallery.
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I don't know if they have any real-world meaning, but they are the characters that since 2011 have been featured on the costumes of the individual Ninja. From top to bottom are the characters featured on the costumes of (from top to bottom) Kai, Cole, Jay, and Lloyd. So here on the new "tournament outfits", they represent the Ninja's team in the tournament.
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REVIEW: 70728 Battle for Ninjago City
Aanchir replied to WhiteFang's topic in LEGO Action and Adventure Themes
Good review, but when you say this has all the main characters but Kai, you're forgetting that Cole isn't in this set either. He can be obtained in the Hover Hunter and Thunder Raider sets. I got this set for Christmas and find it amazing. One thing I love about it is that it actually feels marginally livable. No bathrooms like we might see in a dollhouse-style theme like LEGO Friends, but it does have a kitchen and a single cot to sleep in, which needless to say is more than most LEGO castles end up getting! I wonder if the inclusion of these kinds of livable details might have been in part to appeal more to female Ninjago fans. After all, judging from the LEGO Friends, Elves, and Disney Princess sets, those kinds of "creature comforts" are important to girls. And according to the writers for the Ninjago TV show, the show's viewers are around 30% female, so it would be good form on the part of the set designers to consider that audience when designing sets for the theme. I feel the same way about some of the other design changes for last year's sets, like the introduction of new female characters and the ninja getting costumes that show their beautiful bishounen hairstyles! I've been keeping up with Ninjago fan art on deviantART for years and it's amazing some of the drawings the theme's female fans come up with. It's good to get a sense that that segment of the fan community is appreciated despite this being mainly a boy-oriented theme. I love the brick-built dragon head in this set. It feels very ornamental and decorative. The angled roofs are also quite elegant, and the rocky foundation feels very powerful. The play features in the set are also quite nice. Overall, I feel like the LEGO designers have really been doing a great job with this theme in recent years! -
The what now? I hadn't heard about a new visual dictionary. You mean this book? I hadn't heard that it was supposed to come with an exclusive fig... Normally exclusive characters in visual dictionaries and character encyclopedias tend to be main characters in new costumes, but the Friends and Legends of Chima Character Encyclopedias have included minor or secondary characters, so I guess if we are getting any new book-exclusive figures this year it's sort of up in the air.
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That map on the back of the instruction manual is AWESOME!
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You may be forgetting one thing — typical computer monitor resolutions during G1 BIONICLE were a LOT different than what they are now, and the G1 versions of the site were not scalable. So even though things on those versions of the site might seem smaller now when you look at a cached version, back then they were designed to more or less fill an 800x600 screen (back then, still quite common). The G2 BIONICLE site, by contrast, IS scalable, so the content is designed to fill your screen no matter what its resolution. If the content seems larger, that might be partly because you have a larger screen. My current screen resolution is 1440x900 — one and a half times the vertical resolution of one of those old monitors! So it's no wonder a site scaled to my screen will appear larger than a non-scalable site designed to accommodate much smaller screens. The new site is also designed so that it can be viewed on a mobile device, in which case clickable objects have to be big enough that you can "click" on them by tapping the touch-screen (and if you think clicking a tiny button is hard enough on a touch screen as an adult, think about how a young kid with less hand-eye coordination might feel). Now, there are definitely some bugs in the current site design. For instance, on my 1440x900 computer screen, when I click an image that opens a pop-up information box, the text in that info box is not visible unless I zoom out on my browser. But all things considered, the layout of the old G1 BIONICLE sites simply would not work as well today as it did back then, because the Internet and the ways people access it have changed. This new site layout is part of the LEGO Group's ongoing efforts to adapt to those changes. It's certainly a lot better than some of their previous attempts at mobile-friendly site designs (like their Hero Factory Brain Attack site).
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The Elves teaser site is now updated with an 85-second trailer, which is probably what was supposed to be uploaded yesterday when the full 22-minute mini-movie turned up (since it has the same header text). It's also been added to the LEGO.com videos page, though for some reason some of the older character videos seem to have been taken down from that site, perhaps by mistake.
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They'll be available in America next month. It's on the March LEGO Store calendar!
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Yeah, I actually read an interview in BrickJournal saying that that's one of the big reasons LEGO often uses transparent parts for treasures like the LEGO Atlantis treasure rings, the moonstones in Monster Fighters, or even the energy crystals in themes like Power Miners and Rock Raiders. Transparent colors convey a sense of magic or energy, especially when they're a bright or fluorescent color that looks "glowy". In the new BIONICLE sets, I think the transparent parts help the characters' limbs (and the Protectors' masks) look like they're pulsing with elemental energy (kind of like the transparent limb pieces of Toa Inika Jaller and Matoro). It's a pretty cool effect. And some sets have used it in interesting ways, like how CHI Panthar and the new Pohatu each have one normal arm and one "energized" arm that they use for attacking.