Aanchir

It helps being at college and only having a certain number of my sets so I don't have to worry about the parts getting mixed up with the rest of my collection. In fact, working with parts from sets is a great asset here at college because it means I can re-assemble the sets when it's time to move out after the semester, so I'll be able to verify that I leave with the same pieces I came with (plus those of a few sets that I buy over the course of the semester).

Also the "good guy" vehicles and the "bad guy" vehicles share emblems. The good guy vehicles are decorated with a sort of starburst emblem (example) and the bad guy vehicles are decorated with a toothy jaw pattern (example). I'm not sure how much I like this, since even in Ninjago the individual Ninja had their own emblems, and likewise for the individual Serpentine tribes. But then again, a rule of design many people often forget is that you shouldn't confuse the buyer. Having unified symbols for good and evil here is a strong means of helping the kids to understand who's on each side in the conflict.

Well, you did do a good job filling out the thighs, I'll grant you that. The legs of this MOC are actually pretty good in general; my main problem with them is that I don't feel they work well with this MOC, since they aren't proportionate to the torso and the heavy use of titanium metallic mostly ends above the abdomen. With that said, upon review the proportions of this MOC are better than those of several other sets that use this leg design, especially in the third pic where they create a sort of forced perspective to make him look even taller and more imposing than he already is. So perhaps I was too harsh in my first assessment. I still don't like this revamp better than the original set, since I felt the original set's simplicity was a pretty huge asset. But part of the point of a revamp is to expand on the original version, so by definition it's almost impossible to have a revamp that surpasses the original model's economy of design (part of the reason I don't tend to favor revamps over the original sets in almost all cases).

I think the yellow is supposed to resemble talons. Pretty wise decision IMO, keeps all the yellow from being concentrated on their beaks.

I think she looks pretty nice myself. Perhaps a bit sexist of me to say this, but I was worried that the animal faces would get in the way of her actually looking attractive. But here she looks pretty neat. The other eagle character is also nice.

Well, I doubt that would have fit within the budget. The drill is already a pretty sizeable tool on its own. The flick-fire missile was probably the most they could afford to add without raising the price point. With that said, that would have been cooler if it could have been managed.

OK, cool, that makes sense. I haven't seen the episode (waiting for the US airdate) so I was missing that key piece of info.

I haven't seen Episode 24 yet, so it's possible you know something I don't, but I had thought the Garmatron was just another Stone Army vehicle, and not connected with the weapon Garmadon was building. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As I've said, I'm fairly certain the Garmatron might have been that tank that appears here when the Ninja rescue Zane. It has some distinct differences from the Garmatron in the set, but that could just be a matter of it being based on a preliminary model, just like many things in the series (a particular example is the tread assault). It's a shame that we never seem to see it from any better angles, though, or it would be a lot more certain whether it was in fact the Garmatron. But the fact that its entire shape seems to be defined by the samurai motif is a pretty good indicator. On a side note, the release date for the next Ninjago DVD has been pushed back two weeks to December 11. Not that it makes any real difference to me since I was planning to wait for the full season to come out on DVD next year, rather than getting this one which is just "Darkness Shall Rise" through "The Stone Army".

So apparently the LEGO Hero Factory resealable pouches won an award. Very neat to see that this style of packaging is considered innovative not only for LEGO, but for the packaging industry as well. Even if they somewhat resemble Capri Sun packages: On a side note, this brings back memories of when the Toa Mata canisters won an award back in 2001 and when the Bohrok canisters won an award in 2002.

BIONICLE.com is a very interesting case, given that it was a tremendously long-term theme that accumulated a lot of dedicated fans. I'm sure the fact that the BIONICLE site's webmaster (Kelly McKiernan) happens to be a former admin of BIONICLE fansite BZPower played no small part in the decision to keep BIONICLE.com around-- after all, there's nothing like having somebody on the inside to vouch for you. However, there could easily be other factors as well. Suppose the BIONICLE section of the LEGO Message Boards has more activity than the Atlantis section? If that's the case, then it makes perfect sense for TLG to conclude that there will be more backlash from removing the BIONICLE site than from removing the Atlantis site.

Ummmm... I like the kneepads and the use of a Breakout torso shell on his abdomen instead of a 2.0 torso shell. Everything else just looks... cluttered. His color scheme is not nearly as neatly organized as the set's, his blaster looks like a train wreck, and you even managed to replace the set's decent proportions with the more absurd proportions of the Fire Lord style of build. Please don't take this the wrong way. It's very rare that I find a revamp that doesn't mess up at least one good thing the original set had going for it. But in this case I'm genuinely having a hard time coming up with any real improvements the MOC made on the original. I guess the range of movement and the fact that he holds his own weight (and his weapon's presumably enormous weight) are a sign of thoughtful design, but generally those are some of the minimum expectations for any MOC no matter what the subject or scale. Still, I guess if he came out how you wanted him to look, that's what really counts. I guess I should reiterate that I really like those kneepads. If we ever see another HF titan set using this style of leg joints, it'd be great if it were to use those elements in that way.

I agree, but the shape of the lime areas was pretty strictly defined by the Dark Brown and Sand Yellow parts I had in my collection. The lime actually works all right without the figures, but not so well in the final vignette. Still, I'm quite proud of what I could do with the parts I had, given what a hard time I had making an attractive-looking 16x16 base to begin with! Perhaps at some point I'll take a photo of the base without the figures.

I think if there were any smaller Speedorz sets than the ones we've seen in the first half of the year, then we'd have seen pics by now. However, there's nothing stopping TLG from introducing sets at a lower price point in later waves, like they did by introducing booster packs in the second year of Ninjago.

Why would it go against his character? He had melee weapons as a 3.0 hero that seemed even more incongruous with his traditional set depictions, and in the books at least he relies on his brawn just as much as he relies on projectile weapons. I think a drill seems perfectly suited to Bulk, even if a drill doesn't seem to be quite the same style of weapon as his teammates' melee weapons. The only problem I have with his drill is that it feels a bit tacked-on when it doesn't have anything built behind it other than a few small Technic connectors. At least Drilldozer had his "engine block" shell, even if that wasn't integrated that well with the drill itself.

49 Transparent Fluorescent Green is the official name of Bricklinks Trans-Neon Green/Peeron's TrNeonGreen. 311 Transparent Bright Green is Peeron's TrBtGreen and Bricklink's Trans-Bright Green in all cases from 2010 onward-- previous instances of that color, most of them in Duplo and various girl-oriented themes, are a different color, 227 Transparent Bright Yellowish-Green. Metalized Silver is in fact the correct color for the spears/knives (the higher Material ID number is misleading-- back in the day, chrome parts didn't even get their own Material IDs as far as I can tell), and 60169 Chain 16M is in fact the correct piece. Blended parts can be misleading for the people who compile inventories. Technically, the correct color for the blended elements of Barraki Ehlek is available, albeit without the Bright Yellow blending. Those parts should be 48 Transparent Green (Bricklink's Trans-Green/Peeron's TrGreen). It does look a lot closer to 311 Transparent Bright Green due to the color and the material, though. Since you clearly prefer using the Peeron database to the Bricklink database, let me recommend that if you have color questions in the future you first consult the Peeron Color List. It's not perfect (a lot of info is missing and some is oversimplified), but it cross-references the Peeron names and Bricklink names for various colors with the official LEGO names and numbers. It's the second-best color chart I know of on the internet, the best being Superkalle's LDD Manager software. Also, if you ever find yourself wondering about what color actually comes in a set, one of the most reliable sources is the LEGO Customer Service replacement parts server, which will tell you the Design ID (part number) for those parts (a useful tool, since Peeron and Bricklink often use placeholder numbers) and the Material ID (color). There are still occasional errors, like the Metalized Silver spears and knives from that Aqua Raiders set being listed as just 131 Silver (a non-chrome color usually, but not always, corresponding to Peeron's PearlLtGray and Bricklink's Pearl Light Gray), since back when they were released chrome parts didn't have their own Material IDs and were simply classified as a Design ID that specified a chrome surface treatment and a Material ID that I believe corresponded with the color of the material underneath that chrome treatment, though I may be wrong about that.

Hey, you're talking to a Hero Factory fan here... personally, while the TV episodes are somewhat badly-written, I find that theme a tremendous asset to the LEGO brand, what with its brilliant building system (knocks BIONICLE's out of the park IMO) and engaging story (the Hero Factory Secret Mission chapter books which started coming out this year put the TV episodes to shame, while the tongue-in-cheek Hero Factory FM podcast from 2010 had many moments of hilarity). Meanwhile, the lack of spinners for Ninjago this year probably has less to do with "not enough time" and more to do with "we don't want to draw attention and sales strength away from the Speedorz". If there are two lines of "kinetic/card game sets" at one time, then retailers and end users alike will often end up choosing between the two rather than getting both. Whereas if it's just the Speedorz, they can occupy the same shelf space Ninjago sets once did and hopefully gain attention from former Ninjago fans. Not to mention that the expense of writing cards that create dynamic gameplay and hiring freelance artists to illustrate those cards is probably reserved for the cards in the Chima sets.

Well, they're probably often going to be by people on the Creator design team, but that's been the case for years (Jamie Berard, Astrid Graabaek, and others have worked for both the Creator and LEGO Direct-to-Consumer teams in the past). Additionally, exclusive sets and the Creator theme have always had a similar design strategy: place equal weight on the end product and the building experience, and push the limits of what can be built using primarily basic parts and not relying on many extremely specialized molds and decorations. The Horizon Express demonstrates that pretty well, what with its cheese slope chevrons, brick built front slope, and lack of stickers for the exterior details.

Perhaps to avoid confusion with the website Brickset?

It's heavily implied. There hasn't been a press release as far as I'm aware, and I can't remember if we got any confirmation from the retailer's catalog, but let's look at the facts: Chima seems to be the major new release for 2013, since it's been hyped by Mark Stafford (who wore a 2013 shirt with Chima's trademark question mark icon at some UK AFOL events), given top billing in the retailer's catalog, and given a quite substantial size for its first wave. The Chima sets actively seem to be taking Ninjago's place in a lot of ways, with the card game/kinetic game featured in the "Speedorz" sets, the significant number of characters, many of whom get unique character art in one set or another, and of course many of the design elements such as the vehicles heavily defined by sculptural motifs. We also know that Chima will be getting a significant multimedia angle, since there will be several Chima books, probably including some written by Greg Farshtey (who wrote most of the BIONICLE and Ninjago prose stories and graphic novels). The only other themes we know of so far to be getting this amount of media are LEGO Friends and LEGO Hero Factory (the latter of which already has a TV series of a sort, if you count two to four episodes a year as a TV series). If LEGO Friends (the only other probable candidate out of the themes currently known) were the theme to be getting a TV series, there's very little reason to think we wouldn't know about it by now. The announcement of the LEGO Ninjago TV series came in April of 2011, just a couple months after the one-hour TV special (a.k.a. "Season 1") aired for the first time. We did get an announcement of an "untitled LEGO project" in March, but you'd think they'd be willing to disclose its subject if it wasn't based on a brand-new theme. Overall, while we don't have official news about a Chima TV series, I think it's seeming incredibly unlikely for LEGO's new TV series to be based on any other theme.

Thank you so much! That's very good quality for a first attempt, especially since I never did get around to getting screenshots of scenes where she wore this outfit. I am not currently in any situation where it's effective for me to print details and I'd want to have a Willie Scott legs assembly before I attempted to make the figure's torso, but you've done a good job so far and it's completely up to you if you want to work at perfecting the design. As far as I'm concerned, although the waist seems perhaps a bit too narrow (and the narrowing of the waist beginning right at the bust line rather than a few millimeters below, this is still way better than I could have made in that time on my own. Since I have Adobe Illustrator, there's always the possibility that I might try to make some improvements myself, but between LEGO and schoolwork I don't think I can make room for minifig customs in my schedule for a while yet. But I'm sure I'm not the only Ninjago fan who will appreciate your hard work! Also, DarkKnight7, excellent work on those Misako decorations! Those are brilliantly authentic, and I'll have to remember to consider printing out some of those if I ever do find the time to make custom Ninjago figs. If anyone else does print any of these Ninjago decals and use them, I'd love to see what they look like on the physical figs!

The figures haven't been the same since Ordeal of Fire, that's the thing. I, for one, appreciate that unlike with BIONICLE, the set designs in Hero Factory can end up with very unique appearances by actually changing the build rather than just introducing lots of specialized new molds each year. The helmet molds are still very specialized, but as far as weapon molds are concerned the sets are definitely moving towards weapons with appearances derived from their build rather than just the molds they use. Similarly, with the figures, nobody would confuse Evo or Surge from the Breakout series with any of the 2.0 or 3.0 sets even if you gave them the same helmet-- the ways the color schemes and existing molds are organized gives each a unique look. XT4 also stands out significantly from Waspix in his proportions and industrial-looking design, even though they have near-identical color schemes and very similar anatomy. Likewise, this series' Bruizer and Ogrum are entirely unlike any figures that came before them, and the new molds are almost inconsequential in giving either set a unique look. This isn't to say that BIONICLE sets were all repetitive. The Barraki may have had some of the most specialized armor molds of any series (what with their distinctive sea creature motifs), but their builds were wonderfully diverse and made them the first canister set series to eliminate clone builds entirely. Later, the Phantoka Toa Nuva, Glatorian, and Glatorian Legends made brilliant use of pre-existing elements to create unique character designs, which is quite a feat considering that the elements they were using were inherently far more specialized in their designs than the more minimalist designs of the various Hero Factory shells and beams. If Hero Factory does introduce new parts, I don't want it to be just an excuse to stop using the older parts which work perfectly well at what they do. Rather, I want to see more new parts that expand the range of the building system, such as XT4's 5x6 torso beam, Bulk's rectangular shell detail elements, the Super Heroes chest element, and the 3M Hero Factory tri-hole beam element from Stormer XL and Speeda Demon. These don't radically depart from the smooth designs of the previous Hero Factory elements, but what they do is allow for more diverse armor configurations for future sets.

Not really. I used to try and keep a list of parts that could be made without the decoration tool, but it has occasionally changed without my notice, and moreover it stopped being quite as necessary to use the decoration tool once LDD mode was introduced, featuring many decorated parts within the brick palette or accessible with the paint bucket tool. Someday I should try putting that list together again, but it could be tricky since nowadays the decorations palette doesn't even fit within my screen for all parts.

Personally, I would probably appreciate Scarox more if he were more like Waspix and XT4. Both of those sets, after all, had great economy of design, using the new building system quite well to create uniquely non-humanoid villains with great articulation and well-organized motifs. Scarox, on the other hand, has awkward articulation (four arms but no elbows on any of them), an awkward Technic construction on his back where there probably could have been dozens of preferable alternatives based on the HF building system, topped off with lots of awkwardly-organized motifs (gold shells on his legs, black shells as his hands, black feet, gold claws, and a bunch of parts that simply fail to match one another stylistically). Did I mention that he lacks armor on many of his limbs? Waspix and XT4 had a similar trait, but they pulled it off a lot better, perhaps in part because it was clear that the budget for those shells went towards lengthening their legs and giving them multiple limbs. Here, Scarox is also cutting corners, but for what? That horrendous Technic construction? It's possible that he has some hidden brilliance-- perhaps somehow that Technic construction actually does something meaningful rather than being merely a clumsy way of connecting extra limbs while using the HF building system as little as possible. But I'm currently not seeing much he has to offer. Breez is an OK design but nowhere near as brilliant as her Breakout depiction. Her skimpy leg armor and less coherent color scheme leave much to be desired. But I like most of the other aspects of her design. While she's alone in having a differently-colored mask than her classic incarnations, I think the silver-with-green-visor look works pretty well for her, and her weapons seem like they'd suit her fighting style. Additionally, the weapons have a very unified aesthetic. But the rest of the set's build isn't anything stunning-- neither extremely unique nor extremely consistent with her teammates, besides the single shoulder pad look which all of the smaller heroes share.

Whoa, incredible detail on the torso! I can tell the base seems to be a Star Wars torso, but are the rest of the details hand-painted? If so, that's some top-notch work! It's a very good likeness in general though I wish you could have found a better face for him... the face in the artwork you linked has a very confident look, and not as much of a scowl as the face you chose. But on the other hand, part of that could just be that the art style allows for a lot more expressiveness than the heavily-simplified look of minifigure faces.