Aanchir

I didn't realize LEGO World was so soon! If they do show the new Ninjago figs, please be sure to get pictures! When you say "Season 2", do you mean the Serpentine/Great Devourer arc ("Rise of the Snakes" through "Day of the Great Devourer", or the Lloyd's training/Stone Army arc we're in currently ("Darkness Shall Rise" through "The Ultimate Spinjitzu Master")? I ask because Wil Film seems to consider the former Season Two and the latter Season Three, but Cartoon Network considers the former Season One and the latter Season Two (i.e. they don't count the pilot and mini-movies as their own season). If you want to see the Serpentine/Great Devourer season, all the episodes are available for free, legal viewing on the British Ninjago site.

Yes. This picture makes it clear that Leonardo is Dark Green (Bricklink's Green) and Michaelangelo is Bright Green. Based on this and the poster I think we can safely assume Donatello will also be Bright Green and Raphael will be Earth Green (Bricklink's Dark Green).

I believe you're right! My impression of the Temple of Light just became a lot more positive! It's not a matter of which one makes more sense. Kai's glider just seemed more imaginative in that it used a lot of parts not normally used to create a jetpack (for example, the bucket from Kingdoms, the ray gun from Minifigures/Alien Conquest, and the snowshoes from Arctic/Orient Expedition). In contrast, the only particularly unique part use apparent on Jay's glider is the use of two katana as wings, which don't look nearly as nice as the larger swords used as wings on the 2011 ninja glider polybag set. I mean "eyes" as in "the eye patterns on the vehicles". Like the previous two years' vehicles, the Stone Army vehicles are sculpted to resemble a particular motif, this time a samurai helmet with a demonic-looking face. The greatest quantities of Bright Yellowish Green on these vehicles appear as part of this motif, representing the eyes of the samurai.

Yep, I agree. I've modded mine in several ways-- making her lower legs one module shorter (it kind of reduces ankle posability but makes her ankles seem a little less emaciated in front of a light-colored background), narrowing her shoulders by two modules, shortening the upper arm shells to 3M, shortening the lower arm bones to 5M (which sadly means they can't be white on my Breez) and making her thigh armor symmetrical (which I see you've already done with yours). Phenomenal photography by the way. Really shows the set in a great light.

The 2008/2009 BIONICLE vehicles were pretty great, but I'd personally rather see things like the 2010 Hero Factory vehicles. Which isn't to say I want to see more bikes, but I'd like to see some things that fit into more conventional sci-fi like a hovercar (or just a HF-style car for that matter), more varieties of spacecraft, etc. A mech of some kind would also not be a bad thing, although the problem with that (as demonstrated by the Exo-Toa) is that a moderately-sized mech tends to require its pilot to have a fairly generic build.

I meant 2011. Sorry, I guess I've got 2013 on the brain. Looking forward to tonight's episode. It really sounds like it should be interesting. Of course, we're sort of getting off-topic in discussing the episode itself here, when it relates more to the TV series discussion topic. I'm warming up to the Stone Army vehicles. They have a lot more consistency than I had given them credit for, while still being very unique from one another. Perhaps the build isn't as brilliant as the snake heads on the Serpentine vehicles, but it seems as though they'll feel a bit less redundant than some of those did. There are places I think they could improve, though. Namely, less lime outside of the eyes and red teeth on the upper jaw of the Garmatron. As for the Ninja vehicles, I'm still a bit iffy about those. Cole's Power Drill looks a bit better here than on the box, so I'm a bit more open to that now, and of course I've always liked Kai's mech. But Jay's jetpack just doesn't seem as interesting as Kai's from the Rattlecopter or Zane's glider from the 2011 polybags. And Zane's ice speeder, while imaginative, is still a bit unorthodox in that it has no visible means of propulsion.

Perhaps because they were trying to go for a very new and different aesthetic for the 2013 sets so they didn't feel redundant. Thus, circular shields for most of the Heroes. Granted, the only "new shield" is Furno's, and the Hex Energy Shield would be very small on him. Breez uses the saw blade piece from XT4 and various System sets, and Bulk and Rocka both use the shield from the ultrabuild Captain America set.

Well, not necessarily. There are probably plenty of well-intentioned mothers who try to steer their girls away from things they consider too stereotypically "girly". And truth be told, it's good for girls to have a voice telling them they don't have to like "girly" things when they will be inundated with messages to the contrary from advertising and from their peers. At the same time, the idea that girls being conditioned to like "girly" products makes any such products harmful to girls' development is a bit of a stretch. After all, boys are conditioned with similar messages all the time, and few people object to that. Moreover, once you get past the colors and gender ratios, LEGO Friends really isn't very limiting in its message to girls, at least no more than other themes are limiting in their messages to kids in general.

Agreed on this point, though I think it is worth noting that opinions on Scarox could change if it becomes apparent that the Technic mess on his back serves some purpose other than a clumsy way to create attachment points for his extra limbs. Perhaps somehow it allows his extra limbs to fold back behind his body like Brutaka's fold-out blades (doubtful, but possible). The main reason I dislike his design is that the Technic seems superfluous, and additionally it seems very much as if corners were cut in the rest of his design (i.e. reduced length and articulation in his arms, reduced armor on his legs, just to allow for this pointless complexity. I know a lot of people like Technic connections, and on sets like Witch Doctor it can work well, but complexity for complexity's sake is no substitute for genuinely thoughtful builds. As for Scarox's value as a parts pack, I can't see much of anything interesting on him besides the 4M warm gold shells, warm gold blades, and Tr. Fluor. Green claws. So even in that respect he feels inferior to XT4 who had rare 7M "B" beams, a new torso beam, feet that were new in bright yellow, and a saw blade that was new in silver metallic. Overall I very much want to believe there's some hidden value in Scarox's design, because currently the helmet and recolored parts are the only things that makes him remotely interesting to me, and his flaws seem inexplicable. But I'm just not seeing any reason why the designers would create a set where any really thoughtful design elements would be hidden behind clumsy proportions and seemingly thoughtless connection methods. Perhaps it's just bad photography, but if so it really sets a new low for Hero Factory packaging and promotional images.

It doesn't differ in terms of complexity (although getting side, front, and back prints to match up at the edges might be more difficult than matching top, front, and back prints for all I know-- even some of the top-printed minifig heads I have are a little uneven at the margins). It's just that different surfaces would probably require different machines. Since TLG now has the ability to do wraparound head prints though I hope it's not too long before they make use of this.

Scarox and Waspix both are bug-like villains with four arms, which is still more of a resemblance than I can see anywhere on Pyrox-- unless you're talking about the helmets only (and looking at the pic of the bag rather than at the out-of-package pic where the difference in the helmet is obvious), in which case I can maybe see where you got confused? It seems like overkill to call one set a rip-off of another based on the helmet alone, though, when the rest of the sets have almost no resemblance to one another. Anyway, even looking at the packaging pic and ignoring the lower jaw, Pyrox looks much more like Malum than Waspix IMO. Same color scheme, eye shape, and twin horn motif. Personally, I love Pyrox's weapon. It's not huge, but it's unique-looking and the design feels very energetic. His color scheme doesn't seem too inconsistent to me either, but then, I felt the same way about Voltix.

My god... I know very little about TMNT, but the fig is awesome-looking and the NYCC skateboard really solidifies this as a memorable souvenir of the event. Hope everyone lucky enough to have this fig really appreciates its value, on a sentimental level as well as in terms of aftermarket value.

No, Alfred has front, back, and top printing, like some Sports, Power Miners, and Avatar: The Last Airbender figs. It gives the illusion of printing on the sides of his head but in fact requires only those three print surfaces. As such it wouldn't work for Captain America, Bane, or Spider-Man. To be perfectly honest I'm curious why side printing on minifigures is not being used more widely if it was able to appear on the Lobot fig. But unless a LEGO designer like Nabii can fill us in with a reason, I imagine we'll just have to wait patiently for TLG to make wider use of this new innovation.

I also don't think they look bad. But I do think they look like they don't have as much that will make them stand out in years to come as the 2012 sets did. Some interesting functions definitely would have helped with that. And yes, pre-2013 Ninjago sets had loads of unique functions. In 2011, there was the hilarious slamming-skull function on the Skull Motorbike, the slicing-through-bamboo function of Ninja Ambush, the chomping skull function of the Turbo Shredder and Skull Truck, the gear-driven hidden weapon racks in the Blacksmith Shop, and perhaps most impressively the splitting-apart function of the Fire Temple. In 2012 there were the flaring-blades functions of the Blade Cycle, Storm Fighter, and Tread Assault, the flaring wings function of the Destiny's Bounty and Ultra Sonic Raider, and the flapping wings function of the Ultra Dragon. That's not even getting into successful features that were repeated multiple times like the whipping-tail feature found on the Earth Dragon, Fangpyre Truck, and Ultra Dragon. Ninjago definitely isn't getting a bad end-- it is, after all, getting a decent-sized wave of sets (bigger than the final wave for Exo-Force at any rate) with some unique motifs, and it looks like the TV series is moving towards a great conclusion. I definitely agree with your assessment that they're probably catering to the fans of the theme more than to new buyers, and that might lead them to focus on more role-play-oriented sets rather than function-oriented. However, I still feel that the ninja vehicles next year don't really have the same "cool factor" as this year's vehicles, with the exception of Kai's Fire Mech which makes great use of Hero Factory elements. I did feel that the Serpentine vehicles were a lot more cohesive-looking than these Stone Army vehicles. This did make some of them feel a bit redundant in terms of build, but at the same time it's almost hard to recognize the samurai motif on the Stone Army vehicles due to the inconsistent builds and somewhat disorganized color schemes. It'd help if, for instance, the parts meant to evoke a samurai helmet shape were all the same color. By the way, I love the mountainous backdrops of next year's sets' packaging. They definitely contrast strongly with the orangish, dusty-looking backdrops of the 2011 and 2012 sets (though I loved the variety of backdrops in those years' sets, like the junkyard for the Fangpyre Wrecking Ball, the bamboo forest for Ninja Ambush, and the Ninjago City skyline for Epic Dragon Battle). It'll be cool if the website gets reskinned to match.

Wait, don't you mean Scarox? I have no clue how you could even draw a connection between Pyrox and Waspix. And yes, Scarox has a lower jaw, but it's not like it's hinged or anything, so I don't see what makes that so special. And anyway, it's not the things that he has in common with Waspix (or for that matter, XT4) that make me dislike him. It's the fact that he fails at everything Waspix and XT4 succeeded at. His shrimpy-looking arms are not remotely fearsome, his colors and motifs are patchy-looking in their distribution rather than evenly organized, his legs scream "boring humanoid" on a set that calls for anything but, and his body seems to involve some mess of a Technic construction rather than something simple and cohesive. Overall I think he's the worst villain set of the wave by far.

And the blunt shooter on the Garmatron, and the minifigure catapult in the Golden Dragon set, and the flick missile on the Samurai Bike. There's probably also a Technic gear function in Cole's Power Driller. Still, not many truly innovative action features as far as we can see. It makes me wonder if the designers had as much time to work on these ones as they did on the other waves. At Bricks Cascade earlier this year, Kevin Hinkle erroneously said that Ninjago was ending after 2012, but he later clarified that that was simply the last he had heard and he had since learned that there would be one additional wave after the 2012 sets. This makes me suspect that initially, the sets may have been intended to end after 2012, and as such, the designers were forced to draw inspiration from what they knew would be in the show during its final season, rather than having longer to brainstorm possible function-intensive sets that could be worked into those episodes. Alternatively, it's possible that they'd simply decided that kids weren't digging the functions. Or perhaps the designers were simply spread too thin, what with Chima being the high-priority item for most of the adventure theme designers. Whatever the case, it is a real disappointment to see the functions on the wane next year, especially when the two previous years had such brilliant functions throughout.

No, mine are just fine. Same goes for my Lloyd Garmadon.

I can definitely agree there. That's the main flaw that stood out for me when I first saw pictures of the set.

I don't think it looks so bad, and the placement of the eyes on the Golden Dragon and Ultra Dragon feels more consistent with the other dragon heads. It should also be noted that the Ultra Dragon's head doesn't look nearly as bad in real life as it does in official images-- the version in the official images has a large black and dark brown blob for an eye, while the actual piece has smaller black eyes with an almost indistinguishable dark brown rim. (the overall change is that all the black shapes but the eye itself are changed to white and all the dark brown except that directly touching the black eye is changed to reddish-brown). Overall the heads of the Ultra Dragon look magnificent side-by-side, and the Golden Dragon's more distinct eye printing looks like it may end up even better. On a side note, that official image I linked of the Ultra Dragon makes the preliminary Earth head's eye look a lot more flattering than the box art does. If the dark brown had been changed to Reddish Brown or White and some Dark Brown were added somewhere else on the head, like above the teeth as in the case of the other dragon heads, I think that version would have been ideal, since it would have black elemental patterns behind the eyes just like in the case of the other three heads.

I love this model! It's an incredibly accurate likeness of the source material using parts and building techniques that would be realistic for a set. It looks nice and sturdy, but still maintains the unrefined robotic look of the Mecha Tanks from the show. The minifigures are phenomenal. Their arm printing seems a bit too detailed for what could be managed in a set, but it adds to the accuracy-- and anyway, making a model suitable for production as a set is the LEGO Group's job! The one change I would recommend is making the printing on the faces a little bit less intricate-- currently there are some very, very thin lines, and I think something more along the lines of the Avatar: The Last Airbender or Exo-Force themes' figs would look better. The torsos and legs look just fine, though. Best of luck to your Cuusoo proposal! I've already given it my support!

Ehhh... still looks like Tr. Bright Green to me. But it's hard to differentiate the transparent green colors in most of these images. It's tough for me to tell as well. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say his right arm is probably attached to his back somehow rather than directly to the shoulder joint on his torso beam. It wouldn't be unprecedented-- Nitroblast and Drilldozer both attached parts to the back in that fashion, although those were used to add support to the arms already connected to the shoulder joints rather than as the arms' primary means of connection to the body. I had originally thought Bright Red, because we've seen that Bright Red 2.0 torso shells exist even though they have never appeared in sets. They are present on the designers' part shelves I shared a picture of earlier in this topic, and since other parts like the Earth Green 2.0 torso shell are used in next year's sets, I wouldn't be at all surprised if other 2013 parts were present in that image. However, on a second look I'm thinking the torso might indeed be Dark Red. There seems to be a major contrast between the torso armor, shoulder armor, and mask and the spikes on his hand, the Technic connector on his tool, and the flame elements on his tool, all of which are almost certainly Bright Red.

I've also been impressed by the frequency of updates to the Ninjago TV Tropes page. I update it occasionally myself, but I'm always impressed to see that so much editing is already done by more experienced tropers than myself. On that note, gotta go add Misako to the characters page.

Actually, the vest did appear without printing in Cool Silver, Drum Lacquered (Bricklink's Metallic Silver) in Power Miners. I'm more inclined to believe my brother's suggestion that the reason for the printed tactical vest is that the designers simply thought a bulky separate vest piece was unrealistic and unnecessary for the City theme when printing has always worked just as well for all other form-fitting clothing.

I think they're just inside a sort of a brick-built "saddle". Anyway, I can see why a lot of people prefer the Stone Army to the Serpentine, since the Stone Army minifigures on the whole are a lot more like traditional minifigures in their design. For starters, they all have basic minifigure heads. And even with their incredible detail, they all have simple dot eyes with little sparkles, just like "human" minifigures. While I did gradually warm up to the many different eye styles of the Serpentine (especially since apart from color scheme those were one of the main unifying features among each tribe), I do tend to prefer simple dot eyes in most cases.