Aanchir

Here, but it's blurry. It's mostly identical to the 2011 one except for the addition of 330 Olive Green, the removal of 208 Light Stone Grey, and the replacement of 294 Phosphorescent Green with 329 Glow White.

Good review. In answer to a couple of your questions, yes, Transparent Light Blue was used in HF before (but just once, for the original Preston Stormer's two-colored ice weapon), and yes, that claw piece on his sword has been used before (but only this year, in various Legends of Chima sets). The new Preston Stormer set is a great design, with nice symmetry, a well-organized color scheme, lots of armor including back armor, and neat weapons. I'm not entirely happy with the helmet chiefly because of how narrow the eyeslit is, but I suppose it's better than having it extend out past the sides of the protective visor. His upper legs also feel kind of bony, though it works all right in the context of the finished model. I think if his back armor were attached a half module from his torso beam, rather than a full module, his torso would feel a lot more solid. But it's an easy fix. Thanks for the review!

Look forward to seeing you! I'll be at Brickfair VA this year as I have been the past few years. I will definitely be exhibiting some of the Hero Factory models I've built this year such as Kit Martello and Koboldon, and possibly some of my older models like Rise of the Dread Colossus. I look forward to possibly picking up some parts at the vendor area. I will also be exhibiting some art at the BIONICLE tables. You might recognize me by my badge, which I don't plan on changing too much this year.

Good review! I really like this set and feel like it easily measures up to the previous King's Castle, which was itself a beauty to behold. It's simple and iconic, but at such it should meet the expectations of any kid who's getting this as their first LEGO castle. It's got lots of great features like a dungeon, treasure room (I imagine that's what the empty room behind the treasure chest is supposed to be — not sure why the instructions put the chest in front rather than inside), throne room, and catapult. It is modular, and improves on the modular system in the last King's Castle since the openings of the towers all face inward, meaning it will look complete in pretty much any configuration. At the same time it is compatible with both the last King's Castle and the new Gatehouse Raid. I'd like to see LEGO take this idea even further, perhaps creating an evil castle based on the same modular system, or creating new modular expansion packs for the castle that include details to make it "livable" such as a library, a banquet hall, a luxurious bedroom for the king, a smithy or armory, stables, etc. These are unfortunately the sorts of details that LEGO castles almost invariably omit no matter their size. For example, I can't think of any LEGO castle with bedrooms and a banquet hall besides some iterations of Hogwarts Castle from the Harry Potter theme. Having grown up on books like David Macaulay's "Castle", it frustrates me a bit that LEGO has never really succeeded in making a castle that is totally well-rounded, balancing its functions as a military stronghold and a home for its inhabitants. I have not collected LEGO Castle sets for many years, but I will try making modular expansions to this castle myself on LEGO Digital Designer, and I hope other Castle builders will also be inspired by this modular system to create their own expansions. With now three sets adhering to this system, there's more of an incentive than ever before for AFOLs to explore it further! Overall, I love this castle in terms of its iconic, formidable look and exciting color scheme. It has a substantial piece count that will make it valuable even as a parts pack for castle building elements, such as the wall panels that have defined LEGO Castle building for decades, the 4x4 facet bricks and 10x10 octagonal plates, the 1x2 masonry detail bricks, and of course plenty of basic building elements. Overall, I hope this reboot of LEGO Castle will lead to a renaissance of medieval sets and MOCs, and if the artistry and versatility of Kingdoms was any indication then there are plenty of new directions LEGO designers can go with this this new iteration of Castle!

Actually, since Breez's thighs are six modules rather than five, the other variety DOES come in red (Drilldozer and Raw-Jaw both used it, and possibly other sets I'm not remembering at the moment). This is a very amusing photo series! I look forward to seeing the next installment!

It's not that mean-spirited as long as it ends up in the hands of SOMEONE who appreciates it. The eventual owner won't get the sentimental value that comes from having won it as a prize, but if they're willing to offer more for the signed set than they would for an unsigned version then they presumably still recognize the value of the signature.

It works better in a lot of ways because of its geometries. The new one will be centered between a pair of studs, the old one would not. Of course, the old one also had superior geometries in some ways (a plate would fit betweeen the "hook" and the side of a brick attached to the studs). Which is superior depends on what kind of application you need it for, but evidently LEGO designers prefer the new one's geometries.

It's probably an icon to appear under your name in your posts, like the Hau, "LDD Builder", trophy, and Ninjago lightning icons I have.

Well, actually, the Alien Conquest and Galaxy Squad sets used Dark Azure, not Medium Azure. Though Medium Azure shows up in other themes, too, particularly the Medium Azure bike which has been used a couple times in LEGO City if I'm not mistaken. I grew up in the 90s myself and luckily didn't have to experience any of that kind of bullying firsthand, but there was still a lot of elementary-school sexism going on. I agree that I'd like to see society move past that. I also did feel some pressure to be "masculine", such as when my dad managed to shame me into no longer watching Hamtaro, a cute and funny shoujo anime about talking hamsters. I feel humanity needs to accept that a lot of what we consider "girly" isn't rigidly so, but at the same time that liking feminine things isn't something anyone — boy or girl — should be ashamed of. And that idea's never going to sink in unless parents can be progressive enough to accept it for themselves and pass it on to their kids.

The feet are fairly stable. His toes don't contact the ground enough or have enough friction with the foot for him to stand on his tiptoes with both feet, but with at least one foot flat on the ground and his weight balanced between the two feet he can balance effectively. Sometimes after a lot of handling the ball joints on the ankles pop off the axle, which was not a problem on the original model we used this foot for back before the contest — on that model, the legs had a two-beam structure rather than a single-beam structure, so there was no need to use additional ball joints to connect the leg to the foot. Regardless, this occurrence is rare and easy to fix. I considered adding a weapon but decided against it in favor of the smaller claw, which then became the defining trait of the pre-transformation version. The smaller claw was another design I borrowed from the earlier MOC I linked above. I'm glad to see so many people like the face! That was basically what started the MOC. I was looking for good face ideas and discovered how nicely the Savage Planet spiked detail element worked as a faceplate over the brain's eyes. Lyi then came up with the jaw and a way to attach it to the brain so the face held its shape.

Possibly different molds in different production runs of the set. This sort of thing is common among sets and figures that are released during a transition between an older mold and a newer variant. For instance, some of my Ninjago figures have heads with the newer (solid, recessed) stud and some Ninjago minifigure heads with identical printing, from sets released the very same year, have the hollow stud.

Before and After Brain Infection: Koboldon Entry Pic Topic EDIT: Corrected link formatting.

My entry for the Before & After Brain Infection contest. For full disclosure, I built both models with the help of my twin brother Lyichir. Click through any of the images to see them on my Flickr photostream. In their natural form, Koboldon are tunnel goblins with a diet of metallic ore, which they mine for with their powerful, shovel-like claws. They are reclusive, but generally not aggressive. But once the evil brains landed on their home planet, many were mutated into grotesque, hulking fiends that burrow beneath cities, reducing buildings and infrastructure to rubble. Can any hero stand up to the might of Koboldon's radioactive power claw? More pictures: About the MOC: Lyichir and I came up with the foot design for a much larger model a few months ago, and we decided a bestial foot design like this would be perfect for this contest. The head was designed in an effort to create a brain-infected head that looked as detailed and fearsome as any of the official 2013 villain faceplates, but which had a unique character of its own. Lyichir had the idea to use Transparent Bright Green (the same color as the brain) to highlight areas most heavily affected by the mutation, and I designed the power claw with that in mind. Comments, questions, and criticism are welcome! Hope you enjoy this MOC!

Keep in mind that this is just a projected forecast, however, not a set-in-stone gameplan. Things can change. BIONICLE was originally going to have movies in 2009, 2010, and 2011, with 2011 being the final year for the theme. However, poor set and media sales in 2009, and a general desire among the set design team to move onto something new, led to the theme ending with a small wave of sets in 2010. LEGO is sometimes ambitious with their new themes, but generally they try to plan things out so that if sales DON'T meet expectations, they can shorten the theme's lifespan without too much of a loss. Personally, I think Legends of Chima has been more than successful enough so far to continue in 2014 and maybe in 2015 if its sales continue at this level. But the scale of the theme may be brought down a notch in future waves. Legends of Chima started big, as is traditional with "big bang" themes, but just look at LEGO Atlantis as an example of a "big bang" theme that started big and continued on a much smaller scale in its second year.

Well, they are occasionally used in other themes. Medium Lilac (Bricklink's Dark Purple) was used in several boy-oriented sets, such as Danju, Dark Panther, Smash 'n' Grab, Voltix, most of the skeleton and snake vehicles from Ninjago (though on those it was an accent color, not the primary color), and the raven vehicles from Legends of Chima. Alien Conquest also used Medium Lilac as an accent color and used Bright Reddish Violet (Bricklink's Magenta) on all the alien uniforms except for that of the commander. Light Purple (Bricklink's Bright Pink) isn't used much in boy-oriented themes, it's true, nor is Bright Purple (Bricklink's post-2004 Dark Pink). Neither are the two lavender colors. But most colors widely used in Friends have also been used for various minifigure parts and accessories, particularly in the collectible minifigures. I would love to see more widespread use of the various colors used primarily in girl-oriented themes, particularly as a Hero Factory fan. Bright Reddish Violet (Magenta) is a nice bright color that would be great for action figure sets. The lavender colors are also terribly underused outside LEGO Friends. And from what I've heard, LEGO does test prototypes that feature these sorts of colors with focus groups when possible. But generally outside of LEGO Friends, sets with these colors just don't do as well in focus group tests as sets in more traditional colors. I'd love to see this change, though.

This is just because the molds for ordinary minifigure heads have been replaced with a solid-stud variant, whereas the ones in China for the CMFs still use a mold identical to the one with the three holes in the stud. There are a couple other examples of Chinese variant molds that are identical to a part that has been replaced in regular sets... for instance, the katana in the CMFs and the 2011 Ninjago spinner sets has an octagonal hilt guard, while the ones in other sets have had a more rectangular hilt guard since around 2010.

Depends. Last year at Comic-Con, there was an actual Ninjago panel. I don't think anything like that is on the schedule this time around, though we should keep close tabs on what kinds of things LEGO is planning for the event.

It's opaque, surprisingly. I wouldn't have expected them to make it a different color since the "translucent" one is about as close to opaque as you'd ever need anyway, but the instruction booklet and its Customer Service page says they did. (contrast the page for Worriz's blade). Neat that the brain is opaque as well. The grayish-brownish Tr. Brown (Trans-Black/"Smoke") color could have been neat too, but might not have felt quite as eeeeeevil as this one does. The way the bag is packed is interesting. It's different than the usual "polybag sets" that you see as gifts-with-purchase on LEGO.com and at LEGO stores. I wonder if the parts inside have anything to do with their decision to go with what looks like a sturdier bag. The sword is a bit plain, being more or less a smaller, recolored version of Furno XL's, but that doesn't make it a bad design, and it offers a decent selection of parts. Overall, very cool for the first non-standard Hero Factory set to have exclusive parts (other than, depending on your model, Hero Recon Team).

I think that on the whole the brains look a lot better with their normal translucent look than they do with full, glass-like transparency. On the actual brains, it's easier to make out their brain-like texture, and the red plastic on the inside doesn't show through except where it extends to the outside, like the eyes and spines. I suppose it's a moot point though since none of the rubber materials LEGO uses have can have that kind of glassy transparent look to begin with.

I'm pretty disappointed in this set, personally. Rocka himself seems way too tall and bony for his own good. Sure, he still has decent proportions, but those come at the expense of him being very poorly-armored for his size. What makes this most frustrating is that he and the jetpack could easily have been designed to be smaller, and thus the jetpack would also be more compatible with other heroes. It seems to be like something I've been seeing to a great extent with various Hero Factory sets: the figure's height varies according to the set's price point so kids feel like they're getting their money's worth, even if the set already has a fair value in parts. There's no reason why this HAS to be the case, but for a kid you expect more expensive figures to be bigger, regardless of whether they already have more weaponry and armor than their smaller counterparts. The medium-sized Breakout sets had this issue to a certain extent, and Rocka here has it even worse. It's a real shame too, because this year the medium-sized heroes were in fact reduced in height by one module, which made their proportions a lot more bearable. The jetpack is nicely designed, if not especially streamlined. Its function seems all right, though I somewhat wonder why the launchers are designed to aim downwards when the wings are spread and in the horizontal position, and upward when the wings are retracted and in the vertical position. It would seem that the reverse would be much more intuitive: have the launchers facing forward whether the wings and figure are in the vertical or horizontal position. Overall, this set doesn't especially excite me, and while the same was true of Speeda Demon to an extent, I doubt I'd warm up to this set as easily. But that's OK. Saves me some money to spend on Dragon Bolt, Stormer, and Surge.

To be fair, it's almost certain that Ninjago drew inspiration from Beyblade (which was the previous "battle top" franchise to see that level of success), and that Chima drew inspiration from Thundercats. But different people draw the line at different places when it comes to what makes something a rip-off. Some people are very picky, and to them, anything remotely derivative is a rip-off. To others, it's not a rip-off until it's illegally trying to sell the exact same product under a new brand name. The term "rip-off" gets tossed around somewhat haphazardly among younger kids, because they haven't been exposed to enough media to understand that everything is, in a certain sense, derivative. There aren't really any new ideas besides the ones you make by blending or juxtaposing the ideas that already exist in the human consciousness. That's the whole reason sites like TVTropes exist: to catalog those ideas that get shared around, revisited, or rediscovered over and over again. Just one example that came up recently: to a kid, Hero Factory may seem like a rip-off of BIONICLE because it has mind-controlling parasites, because they have not become aware of the many decades of media exploring that concept before either of those themes existed.

I don't think there are any limits on what pieces you can or can't use as long as you're using LEGO elements. This is a raffle, after all, not a competition where a clear winner will be decided according to the quality of the design.

Yesterday I discovered that Michael Kramer put some of his Ninjago tracks on his Soundcloud last month. Check them out here! "Taking the Bait" and "Falcon Chase" are tracks I already knew to be outstanding, but there are some tracks there I never got to enjoy outside the context of the original episodes.

I think this set's conversion function is ingenious. Much better than many earlier "land to air" conversions in LEGO where at least one mode or the other felt incredibly awkward. Here, the flight mode doesn't resemble any real-world aircraft and doesn't look entirely aerodynamic, but the important thing for me is that if you were to look at the flight mode without having previously seen the land mode, you wouldn't automatically recognize that it transforms into a bike. For me that's a big part of any transforming model: each mode should look like the model was designed with that mode in mind. I wish you had taken photos of the flight mode from more angles. But otherwise this is a great review!

Someone on Brickset inquired at a LEGO store and learned that the new shark (which has gills and some other differences) IS being produced, but it was not produced in time to be packed into the first batch of Coast Guard sets. I'm certain if sharks appear in any 2014 sets they will be the new variety, and chances are later production runs of the Coast Guard sets may have the new sharks as well. Currently, though, the new shark is not available in any sets.