Aanchir

All of the parts you have colored 37 Bright Green should actually be 28 Dark Green. Confusing, I know, since we usually think of "normal" green as the same shade as Bright Red, Bright Blue, etc. But it's actually one shade darker, and what we think of as "Dark Green" is actually 141 Earth Green. Brickset has set inventories that can pretty reliably tell you the official color names for the parts in a set. They're not 100% complete, since they're sourced from the LEGO Customer Service site which only lists the parts they have images for. But it's still a very useful resource for LDD building since it isn't user-generated. Of course, that doesn't mean it's error free (this part's name used to be listed as "Republic Gunship" ). Always be cautious.

My prizes arrived today. The envelope was tearing in some places but the sets inside were OK. I was overjoyed to find that one of them, Frost Beast, was actually a signed copy! Incidentally, is Frost Beast's designer Simon Lucas or Simon John Wilson? Figures that of all the designer names that could have been on it, it's one that belongs to multiple designers!

You removed the extra dot from the shortened URL but not from the hyperlink itself. So the shortened URL we see in your post is now correct, but the page it links to is incorrect. EDIT: Every time I try to give the correct link it just turns into the slideshow. That's kind of broken.

Ah, OK. Knee and elbow joints could be OK but they might require the arms and legs to be longer if you wanted to keep things versatile. One of the best things about LEGO robot and skeleton parts is their versatility. If you try to put too much articulation in a small space, then the spacing and connection styles can also become awkward. Mega Bloks can get away with it because they don't especially care about the figure parts ever being useful for anything other than those particular joints on figures. Plus, you don't want the joints to be too fragile... I'd say, keeping with the LEGO standards of quality, you couldn't likely create a figure with eleven to thirteen points of articulation at a size much smaller than three inches. Go much smaller and you'd have to get into increasingly specialized connection styles. Here's an example of a three-inch LEGO figure: Any of the joints in this could be switched out with ball joints, but the size of the figure as a whole would remain more or less the same unless you removed some of the points of articulation.

How new are we talking? It's hard to speculate because it's not clear quite how robotic the minifigures would be. Personally, I think unique robot minifigures with swappable arms and legs and all the same points of articulation as a classic minifigure would be ideal, kind of like the Exo-Force robots but with removable heads as well. I think ball-and-socket limbs are unlikely at this scale, but with the new mixels joints, I suppose the possibility exists. I would prefer if the minifigures still were stylistically comparable to the aesthetic Hero Factory has previously established: specifically, lots of smooth surfaces. The framework-like look of the BIONICLE minifigures was appropriate for that theme, but Hero Factory has established its own aesthetic which I'd argue can be scaled down to minifigures even more easily.

For a MOCist, the line is wherever you draw it. I know some MOCists look down on what they see as "abuses" of this freedom (for instance, cutting flex cable lengthwise or cutting it to extraordinarily short measurements), so it really depends on how you want your MOC to be perceived. There's a lot of merit to be had in finding solutions that don't require mutilating pieces in any way, but at the same time, flex cable is one of those few places where you aren't constrained by what lengths are produced in each color — cut it yourself with a straight enough cut at the right length and it will be almost indistinguishable from an official, pre-cut piece. For a set designer, I'm sure the cutting of flex cable and pneumatic tubing is discouraged in a lot of contexts (after all, they are able to cut them to an assortment of different lengths even before the sets are packaged), but not prohibited. The Seattle Space Needle set from the LEGO Architecture sets is the most recent set of mine that required cutting flex cable, and it needed its flex cable at a very specific length — it couldn't be just a multiple of eight millimeters like most pre-cut flex cable.

I think the real message we can get from Jamie's post is that the LEGO designers actually DO pay close attention to how their models are received by the community. The concerns Jamie was responding to weren't the kind that erupts into a huge controversy on every major LEGO blog. It was just one member's personal worries about the possibility of one of their building techniques being borrowed without informing them. But obviously it still came to Jamie's attention and he quickly showed up to lay those concerns to rest. I'm sure the LEGO designers are grateful that a community like the AFOL community exists to provide detailed, insightful feedback to every detail of their models, but we should also be grateful that the LEGO designers so value the opinions of the community and aren't just content drawing all their conclusions on what they do right or wrong from objective sales data.

Never said it was off-topic. It just doesn't add anything to the conversation. Everyone's on the lookout for pics, so when they do turn up, someone's bound to share them. Speculating on WHEN the pics will show up won't do anything to make them come sooner. I like the blue police uniform. Normally, I'd think it was kind of redundant... after all, we got blue dress shirts for our police minifigures in 2011. But the 2012 police wave introduced a new police badge design, with a five-pointed star instead of an eight-pointed star, so it's good to have a blue uniform for the newly-branded police force. The dude in the apron looks appropriately messy. I look forward to seeing just what context he shows up in. The crook is neat. Leather jacket! It's only a matter of time before every escaped convict in LEGO City can have a different outfit! On a side note, this uniform doesn't have a prison number or anything showing, so it could just be used as a striped shirt with a leather jacket over it in LEGO City or another theme.

This is a fun little experiment of mine that I've been working on for quite a while. Anyone remember the BIONICLE Master Builder Set? Well, I've been exploring the possibility of something similar based on the Hero Factory building system. So far, I've come up with seven models that can be built from seventy-seven pieces. All images link to Flickr: Dog: Monkey: Hawk: Kangaroo: Turtle: Gorilla: Raptor: Each of these models contains between twenty and thirty pieces. The only piece that I used that does not already appear in sets in the correct color is a black rubber whip (61975) which I used for the monkey's tail. Inventory: Anyone think this merits a LEGO Cuusoo proposal? Or is it too much of a long shot?

Not sure what you mean by "almost all". The only themes we've seen finalized set pics from (other than the sets revealed at San Diego Comic-Con) are LEGO Friends, LEGO Creator, and LEGO Ninjago. All we've seen of Star Wars and Super Heroes have been blurry prelim pics and "escaped" minifigures, and we've only seen one blurry Technic pic. All we've seen of Legends of Chima is a book cover and a single "escaped" minifigure. Set pics for The LEGO Movie have been closely guarded. And we haven't gotten so much as a glimpse of the new Disney Princess theme. But if you want to know what waiting is, try being a Hero Factory fan. We are usually some of the last to see pics because most AFOLs don't give a flying feather about Hero Factory. Perhaps that might change this year, since it's rumored this year's sets will be minifigure-scale. It's impossible to say until pics actually show up. Anyway, it's only a matter of time before City pics show up. In the meantime, let's be patient and discuss what we HAVE seen or heard about instead of simply clamoring for new pics.

Good review. I'd wager the lack of a third "w" is because the ".com" tiles are intended not for web addresses, but for e–mail addresses. Still, some of the letter distribution is a bit odd. The third Q is probably just a fluke (easy for extras of small pieces like that to sneak in), but why no third r, s, i, or o? I also have to wonder if there might be different versions of this set for different markets. I suppose the many languages on the package make that unlikely, but some languages might need different letter distributions or certain letters with special accent marks (the old Key Chain Name Kit notably had a lot of letters common in Danish such as Æ, Ø, Å, etc). Then again, again, maybe the letter distribution is specifically geared towards web addresses, which tend not to use letters not used in English. All in all, it passes a few of my personal tests: it has enough letters and numbers to spell out my name, my phone number (regrettably, there's only one hyphen and no parentheses or slashes, so I could not separate my phone number and area code with anything but a space), my e–mail address, my deviantART address, or my typical screenname (Aanchir). Spelling out two or more of the above could present issues, but truthfully there's not a whole lot I would need to list as identifiers in any given context. Furthermore there's not a whole lot of space on the "card" — my e–mail address or deviantART alone would each take up at least three lines! That might be a bit of a flaw in the practicality of this, though obviously its primary function is to hold actual paper business cards (which you could print yourself or photocopy from the one provided), and the "brick card" is mainly in case you run out. Good review of an unusual sort of product!

I think it's inspired by the gold windscreens in the cartoon "Beware the Batman", similar to the Bright Yellow bat-insignia and Batman's suit. But I could be wrong. I haven't kept up with Batman lately so there could be some other media that used a similar-color windscreen.

In general, I haven't experienced any problems with the new joint style introduced in 2011. I feel more comfortable building with these joints than I felt with any BIONICLE sets since the beginning of 2005! Of course, some sets produced during the transition period can include older joints as alternates. My Jetbug set from 2011 had the older (brittle) Y-joints, and my brother's Toxic Reapa set from 2012 had Shadow Matoran feet with the older joint style. Later production runs of these sets corrected these issues, but it's still a bit of a mystery what those sets will contain until you open the package. Any 2013 sets should be 100% safe.

There are a couple bone colors that are more plentiful than others. Black, Bright Red, Dark Stone Grey, and Medium Stone Grey top the list. I would not mind more bones in colors that there are currently just one or two varieties in, like Bright Yellowish Green, White, or Bright Yellow. I also wouldn't mind bones in Bright Blue... In fact, more variety of Bright Blue parts in general would be a good thing.

Presumably the kind the Breakout heroes carried. I don't mind Thornax-style launchers, though, especially when they have some kind of decoration like Splitface's laser. They don't look like any realistic modern weapons, but I often like to think of them as some kind of futuristic railgun, with an electrical current propelling the plasma sphere between the two prongs at high velocity.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not illegal because it uses hinges for all of its non-90-degree angles. In fact, any stud to anti-stud connection can be used as a hinge, so even two 1x2 plates stacked on top of each other at a 135 degree angle are not connected illegally unless they're pushing up against adjacent parts too tightly. Illegal connections have nothing to do with whether a model adheres to a strict grid design, and there are hundreds of sets that use hinges to deviate from a rectangular grid. Additionally, every brick has certain tolerances of stress it's designed to withstand (after all, if there weren't ANY forces being exerted between connecting pieces, there'd be nothing to keep them connected tightly). So not everything that has parts in compression is "illegal". But there are a handful of connections that you don't have to be an engineering major to tell that they stress the part excessively, like the "Technic pin inside 1x1 round brick" example I mentioned above.

I personally like having options. An all-black skeleton can look quite nice, but so can a skeleton that alternates between multiple colors (for instance, black torso, medium stone grey or dark stone grey upper limbs, and black lower limbs). Colored beams can also help keep a limb without a shell from looking completely bare (CHI Cragger from this year's Legends of Chima sets is a good example). And finally, black beams can be extremely valuable for the sake of keeping a figure with primarily black shells from looking flat and boring. When doodling things on LDD I like to explore lots of different color schemes for the shells and beams alike. I do, however, agree that every bone should be available in black. It's extremely frustrating that 7M "B" beams are currently only available in Medium Stone Grey, because it means any model with those beams has to spread that color evenly throughout the model. As I said, I like having options, and black is always a good "neutral option".

Depends on whether Mega Brands still has a license for that franchise. If they do, it's off-limits to the LEGO Group.

I don't know where title "Destroyers" came from. One of the sources I recall gave the name of 70726 as "Destructoid" which seems like a more realistic name to me, since it's actually distinctive. And I agree, it'd be great to see how some of the functions of the Thunder Raider work. Sadly, escaped minifigures probably won't tell us anything about the sets as a whole, though. After all, these would likely have escaped from factories as individual parts, rather than as complete and packaged sets.

The anime eyes perform an important function: they keep the design aesthetic for the animals consistent with the design aesthetic for the figures. I appreciate this design choice, for the same reason that my favorite animals for LEGO City, Castle, and Pirates are the ones that have beady printed eyes much like modern-day minifigures. Not sure what makeup you're referring to... most LEGO Friends animals have nothing of the sort, unless you're referring to their eyelashes. And those, I feel, are just another part of the aesthetic. As for the shape of the LEGO Friends animals, it, too, is consistent with the design of the mini-dolls. Don't get me wrong, I love when the LEGO Friends animals are marginally consistent with LEGO City, like the bunny rabbit, hedgehog, or poodle. I feel like all these would need to fit in with LEGO City is different eye prints. But at the same time, LEGO City and other minifigure-based themes tend to use a more blocky aesthetic for their animals that would look terribly out-of-place next to mini-dolls. I feel like the LEGO Friends horse is one of the worst animals in the theme, what with its massive size and complete lack of posability, but at the same time I don't think LEGO Castle horses would work in LEGO Friends at all. Designing animals to fit the aesthetic of both the LEGO Friends mini-dolls and the classic minifigures would be a formidable challenge, and not necessarily one that would benefit LEGO Friends as a theme.

Well, this one would probably be translucent rather than transparent on account of the material. I actually like the look of the various translucent weapons myself, even though some — like the red Chima blades — are practically opaque. They were never actually making that as far as we heard. The only "news" we got is that Universal was in negotiations for the screen rights (along with a few names for their intended writers and producers). There have been no subsequent news articles to tell us whether those negotiations actually went anywhere. I agree to an extent, but I actually loved some of the goofiness of previous villains. Their over-the-top personalities and compelling design motifs together gave them the feel of comic-book supervillains. Giant monsters don't tend to have nearly as much literal personality, though hopefully there will still be a certain amount of "personality" inherent to their designs so they don't feel too generic.

If you DO make the Grand Emporium bigger in terms of its footprint, please take advantage of the opportunity to add an additional set of escalators. Even if there's no functional issue with the set itself, a real building with only one escalator connecting any two floors would have an obvious problem — you could get up or down, but not both! I think the Grand Emporium is definitely a big enough set to look decent in a modular layout. I've never known a whole lot of buildings that have the same retail store occupy more than three floors, though that may be in part due to the prevalence of shopping malls in the United States during my lifetime. But if you're willing to buy more copies and expand your Grand Emporium, by all means, do so! Just don't go so far that it looks like a skyscraper compared to everything else in the layout!

I dabble in both kinds of building. I often like to challenge myself with a very specific piece count or parts palette, and I love the challenge of trying to build something to resemble a potential set. But if a MOC is looking particularly good and I can't find any way to "finish" it without using dubiously-legal building techniques, I am usually not afraid to forfeit the challenge for the sake of what I see as a more elegant MOC. My Hero Factory Canine Buddy, Koboldon (both forms), Sophia Blaze, and Blacktron Concept all stuck mostly to parts and building techniques that might be at home in an official set, though only the first and the last of these were designed specifically to resemble potential sets. Delwyn Buckler is constructed with feasible parts and building techniques, but an actual set might have more exposed studs and simpler building techniques. Kit Martello and Bogwaddle have parts held in only by gravity/compression: it might not TECHNICALLY be illegal depending on those parts' specific tolerances, but it's definitely something that would not be approved in a set. And Cyril Starlight and Natalie Breez (custom) use very definitely illegal connections. So as you can see, my MOCs tend to cover a pretty wide spectrum. It should be noted that even official LEGO designers don't eschew connections that leave parts slightly compressed in their own MOCs. And no builder can possibly know all the details of what would be acceptable or unacceptable in a set — for all you know, that part that hasn't been used in a while might have been discontinued due to serious structural flaws, not just no longer being necessary. Why build things to resemble potential sets, then? For the challenge, of course. I don't think MOCs should be judged positively or negatively according to whether they're set-like. Even if some models' fragility or illegal connections make me cringe, the model should be judged according to the context in which the builder constructed it. If it was meant only as a display piece, then it need not be held to a high standard of structural stability. At the same time, ANY MOC should be judged positively for achieving what it set out to achieve, and as such MOCists who set a challenge for themselves and meet it deserve praise for that achievement, even if you think the model could be better without adhering to that MOCist's constraints.

This is not technically an illegal connection. Illegal connections are specifically connections that could cause damage to the parts (i.e. deform them or make them lose clutch power) or could be exceedingly difficult for a child to disassemble. The connection you illustrated is neither — although it wouldn't be very tight, since the plate is only attached to one of the two bricks, none of the parts are in compression or difficult to disassemble. Sticking a Technic pin in the bottom of a 1x1 round brick is a good example of an illegal connection. Although the ends of a Technic pin are designed to flex so they can snap in and out of a Technic hole, putting one inside a 1x1 round brick forces them to remain compressed, and as a result this can (in the long term) warp the end so it will not snap tightly into a Technic hole in the future.

Quite unscrupulous (the "Green Ninja Avenger Costume Deluxe" is particularly blatant), but it's good to see that Ninjago's been successful enough for generic costume manufacturers to want to capitalize on it! The quality of the costumes seems fairly decent (the shoulderpads look nice, for instance), so it's a darn shame that the company manufacturing these couldn't enter into an actual partnership with the LEGO Group to produce authentic licensed Ninjago costumes. I'm kind of surprised we haven't seen more complete, official Ninjago costumes. Back in the first half of BIONICLE's lifespan there were a number of slightly shoddy-looking official costumes based on that theme. You'd think Ninjago costumes would be even cheaper and easier, but maybe LEGO is trying to step out of that market. There are, at least, some lovely Ninjago Character Hoodies which I wish came in men's sizes! In terms of unofficial costumes, I've seen lots of lovely parent-created costumes on Flickr and other sites! It always makes me smile to see how many kids love Ninjago and how many parents love their enthusiasm for it.