Aanchir

I agree. Much more stylish than Lord Garmadon's extra arm connector piece. Of course, Lord Garmadon's looks quite impressive with Lloyd ZX's shoulder armor, which makes me wonder if that might have been considered when designing the piece. I wouldn't put it past the designers since they similarly made sure Samurai X and the new Sensei Wu minifigures had emblems printed on the back right where they would show through the sword holder on the ZX armor piece.

Yeah, that's sort of what I'm expecting too. I think the "brain slugs" are probably parasites of some kind and the Heroes' visors may be to protect against infection.

I was itching to listen to the music from the Ninjago City chase scene with the Great Devourer in the LEGO Ninjago TV series, and thankfully I knew where to go to find it. Enjoy "Taking the Bait": Now if only a copy of this without the dialogue and sound effects were available... I'd love to put this on my iPod with my other Ninjago music.

Because all-black models have less shelf appeal than models with more complex color schemes. A fully-accurate version of the Bat would thus have been largely unfeasible. I suppose some people might have been happier if a neutral color like dark stone grey (dark bley) were used as an accent rather than something as bright as was chosen, but I think everyone should be quite grateful that TLG chose a subdued primary color like bright blue for the accent color rather than their typical go-to accent color for Bat-vehicles, bright yellow.

It's definitely from the Exo-Force set 7700 Stealth Hunter which was the only set to include that part in that color, though the part didn't originate in BIONICLE or Exo-Force-- the mold was first used for the sword of the 2004 Knights' Kingdom set 8770 Danju.

I disagree. Rocka is at least less simplistic than Bulk in my opinion since his shield has blades coming off the sides. It's true that Rocka's sword is simpler than Bulk's drill, but the added complexity of Bulk's drill does nothing for its looks, as the Technic parts serve a purely functional purpose. In terms of armor styles the two are pretty much equal, with neither significantly more complex than the other. The thing that seems to make the 2013 Heroes more simplistic in appearance is that in general, they are more uniform than the Breakout heroes. Furno of course defies this, but Breez, Bulk, and Rocka have identical torsos, near-identical color scheme distribution, and large shoulder armor on one arm. Their masks remain distinct from one another, but each has a visor over top of it to provide a sense of uniformity. I have no problem with uniformity among sets. I loved the BIONICLE sets prior to 2006 which followed fairly strict color scheme rules, and had a similar liking for the 2.0 Hero sets which likewise followed strict color scheme rules (with variation only in the armor styles on their limbs). So this coming year's uniformity is not extremely off-putting for me. What bothers me about next year's sets are the ways in which some of the sets are not uniform but perhaps should be. For instance, Breez has poorly-armored lower limbs where the other sets do not, and has a silver mask instead of one in her primary color. If these things were amended I think she would be a much more appealing set. Even though I felt compelled to mod my Breakout version of Breez to look more feminine and cohesive, I still think the overall design of that set was much more refined than the new Breez set.

Haha! Brilliant place for a Ninja to be hiding. Great MOC in general too-- the cave mouth looks very natural and you kept the whole thing nice and compact.

Just picked up LEGO Hero Factory Secret Mission #2: Legion of Darkness. It was OK; not quite as entertaining for me as The Doom Box simply because the plot twists didn't feel quite as interesting and many of the villains simply lacked Core Hunter's unique appeal. Of course, I was only paying half-attention to some parts because I read it while I was on the train, so perhaps on re-reading it I'll get more out of it. Certainly it had good characterization for most of the characters.

Adding them to the first post would be great, but in the meantime Bricker.ru tends to be fairly comprehensive in this regard... they have all pics but the front-of-box pics. By the way, looking at that image, what are people's thoughts on the new helicopter windscreen? I've got mixed feelings-- the angles on it feel even sharper than on the classic helicopter windscreen, but at the same time it seems a sight better in some applications than the 4x7 Atlantis cockpit bubble that's been used so frequently on small helicopters in the past couple years.

Internal structures are brightly-colored for a reason-- it makes it easier for kids to follow along with the building instructions. Having seen kids and adults alike get parts mixed up while building even simple sets, I can fully sympathize with those who this choice is meant to help. It's a lot different than having random colors on the exterior of a set, though as I said the Bat's accents don't seem random. Given a choice between blue and yellow I'd choose blue in a heartbeat.

Looks like it, yes.

Also keep in mind that an all-black Bat would be tremendously unphotogenic, and would certainly not have extremely good shelf appeal. Note that all the Batman vehicles have some accent color, usually Bright Yellow. I think Bright Blue is a much better choice in this set because it maintains a certain level of "darkness" to the design and adds another level of contrast with the Tumbler. In general, I think this set is pretty good given the target age range and price point. The Tumbler and Bat are tremendously complex designs in TDKR, and most MOCs I've seen either are too big, too complex for young builders to build without frustration, or both. Brent Waller's is probably the main exception that still fits a minifigure, and I imagine that's the sort of scale TLG would have gone for if they had chosen to aim for a higher price point or smaller opposing vehicle. Even then, it has its flaws-- I imagine playtesters would have been disappointed that it doesn't have windscreens that Batman/Bane can actually see through, hence the probable reason for the set version's inaccurate windscreen design.

Well, part of the reason the LEGO fire helmet looks so old-fashioned is because that's the way that kids are going to perceive them. It has to be remembered that LEGO City isn't strictly based on real life, but also based on kids' perceptions of real life. And a lot of things aimed at kids featuring firefighters go for a "retro" look to the helmets. Just look at Billy Blazes. It's the same way fire stations are always red and white (except, of course, for the more adult-oriented Fire Brigade) and robbers in LEGO City always wear prison stripes. It's what kids expect, and as such it's what kids demand. I hear that during play testing kids will sometimes even cry if a model presented to them clashes with the way they perceive the subject matter.

That's what Metallic Sand Yellow is-- a dark gold. LEGO color names aren't as intuitive as most fan names, though they have a sort of internal logic if you pay close attention. For instance, LEGO also has a color just called Sand Yellow, which AFOLs tend to know as Dark Tan. The fact that the two colors are related is why this Makuta MOC's Sand Yellow hands so closely match his Metallic Sand Yellow Kanohi and armor. A while back I put together a BIONICLE color chart as an LXF and corresponding Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. It doesn't directly cross-reference with Bricklink and other AFOL naming systems because that would get confusing (Bricklink tends to conflate a lot of colors-- there are at least three very distinct colors which Bricklink collectively refers to as "Copper"), but it does have useful notes and timeline information so that there shouldn't be any confusion about which colors are which.

Why is the Avohkii being Metallic Sand Yellow a problem? Unless you were hoping that it was a color that was still on the current palette...

Check out this video interview with Jay Vincent and Michael Kramer by JAM Music & Effects! They reveal some of the planning and work that went into creating the score for the Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu television series. Also featured in the interview are short clips of Jay playing theme on banjo and Mike playing the Green Ninja theme on flute!

I don't know. Besides the scale and the fact that a lot of them lean forward, most of the motorbikes we've had have been very unique (Skull Motorbike was a "chopper", Kai's Blade Cycle was more of a stylized racing bike, and Lasha's Bite Cycle hid the front wheel under the snake-shaped body). This one in particular has a tread instead of a front wheel, which gives it a very original look. The "Technic pin hole" gimmick was really only ever meant for attaching multiples of the same set together, usually to make an arena for the spinner sets. Thus, the reason why attaching different 2011 sets together would usually not have them line up in any logical way. The reason it was abandoned was probably simply that TLG realized people weren't buying and using multiples of the same set that way, hence why all "arena sets" in 2012 were based on the simpler (and far less expensive) Technic-based arena layout. If you really want to attach it to the Spinjitzu Dojo, it would probably be worthwhile to mod both sets anyway, since having the two very different architectural styles connecting directly to one another would be quite jarring.

No way to know. Perhaps some of them are due for release in upcoming sets we haven't seen yet, like 2013 Ultrabuilds or Summer 2013 Hero Factory sets. Perhaps some of them were produced for preliminary versions of sets that didn't make it through focus group testing. In any event, I strongly doubt parts being produced for the Master Builders but not ending up in sets is a rare occurrence. Plenty of Element IDs are assigned to parts that have not appeared in any sets, such as Toa Mata eyes in Phosphorescent White (pre-2006 glow-in-the-dark), Toa Nuva legs in Metallic Sand Yellow (the color of Takanuva's Avohkii), or 2001 Matoran parts in all sorts of colors they were never released in. These are just the examples I've found by sifting through Element IDs one-by-one on cache.LEGO.com, but there are probably dozens of examples every year. It's probably just a matter of set designs changing before the eventual release, and that doesn't at all mean that we get the rotten end of the deal, as there are probably just as many examples of preliminary sets using already-existing parts but being upgraded with new, unreleased parts before they go to production.

Not really. I don't normally expect incorporeal entities to appear on the box art for sets, especially nowadays when a typical design rule is to include a conflict in each set. Why stick some bizarre villain that can't be accurately built on a set's box art when it'll do nothing but distract from the villain characters that are actually included? And let me be honest: while I love the spinners in terms of aesthetics and function, and I hope we'll still get card-style art for the new costumes, at least on the back of the packages, I don't particularly mind not having any new spinners in sets. I've rarely gotten a character in a spinner set when I could get them in a model set instead. Even with the cards and spinners, a spinner set invariably feels like I'm getting less for my money-- and if you judge by piece count, that's almost unquestionable. Also, hopefully the lack of new spinner sets might mean that we see more recent spinner sets like NRG Zane and Lloyd ZX on store shelves longer. It's doubtful, though, since that shelf space will probably be put towards Chima sets. Yep, as I understand it there won't be any new waves after this one. But that's fine by me-- the show is concluding this season, and I see no reason to stretch the theme out until sales can no longer justify more than a modest budget for the conclusion, as was the case with BIONICLE. Also, it's hilarious that we're generalizing the TMNT sets already, having only seen one that as I understand it is about as good a likeness of its subject as most of the Toy Story sets.

There's definitely an ugly Technic assembly behind Scarox, but I can't see any evidence that it's much more than a lousy way to attach his additional limbs. The series as a whole is using more Technic than usual for many things, though, and in a lot of cases that's a good thing. Just not on Scarox, who's ugly enough without exposed Technic that seems to serve little practical purpose. Anyway, I guess I might as well share this 5616x3744 image here, even though it's not directly related to 2013 and not quite as impressive as it was before we saw pics of the new sets. It's row after row of the part shelves in the LEGO design headquarters in Billund, but what's noteworthy is that there are many elements in colors we haven't seen in sets. First pair of shelves: 2.0 Hero Core (92199) in Earth Blue, from the look of it. 8M Fire Villain engine block shell (92215) in Silver Metallic. Lots of them preliminary Breakout plasma launcher lower halves (90564). You know, the ones that are shorter than the Thornax Launcher but have two connection points. These will probably never show up in sets except perhaps as a different mold since they have the same Design ID as the regular version, as evidenced in an older version of LDD. 3M shells (90641) in Bright Green (Green Lantern ultrabuild's primary color), Medium Lilac (Joker ultrabuild's primary color), Transparent Fluorescent Reddish-Orange (Trans-Neon Orange, probably from Bruizer and the new Bulk), and Transparent Blue. 4M shells (90640) in Tr. Blue, White, and Titanium Metallic (Gunmetal). 5M shell (90639) in Medium Lilac. 6M shells (90638) in White, Bright Red, and Tr. Fluor. Reddish-Orange. 8M shells (90636) in Black, Flame Yellowish Orange (Keetorange), and Titanium Metallic. 6M "C" shell (90650, the type from Breakout Surge, Breez, Furno, and Rocka's shins), in Tr. Blue. 4x7x5 "T" shells (90649, the type on Drilldozer's chest and shoulders) in Tr. Fluor. Reddish-Orange, Bright Yellow, and what could be either Medium Stone Grey (Light bley), Silver (pre-2011 silver) or an off-color Silver Metallic. 5x8x3 "T" shells (90652, the 2.0 torso shell) in Bright Red, Bright Green, Dark Green (Mata Green), and Earth Green (Metru Green). The Bright Red one is seemingly going to appear in Pyrox, and the Earth Green one in Ogrum, but we've seen no signs of the Bright Green and Dark Green ones. 2.0 Hero feet (90661) in Medium Lilac. Second pair of shelves: 4M "A" beam (90611, ankle/wrist) in Medium Stone Grey. 6M "A" beam (90608) in Medium Azur (Thornraxx's new color). 7M "A" beam (90607) in Medium Lilac. 6M "B" beam (90616, knee/elbow) in Medium Stone Grey. 7x9 torso beam (90626) in Bright Orange (Mata Orange). 9x11 torso beam (90623) in Bright Red. That's it for Hero Factory parts, though there are also some System parts like the never-released Ninjago spinner "boost" element intended for characters with short legs, a 6M chain in Transparent Fluorescent Green (Trans-Neon Green), the Ninjago Snake Staff in Silver Metallic, and the white-printed rock wedge (94867) in Transparent Fluorescent Blue, never released in sets but visible on some prototypes Mark Stafford has displayed for Zane's snowmobile in the Ninjago theme. Always neat to know that even if we haven't gotten some of these parts in these colors in sets, TLG's designers have at least at one point been open to the possibility.

The simplicity of the heroes is so-so. I don't like sets that are needlessly complex-- to me that's just a lack of design economy-- but I do have to say I preferred the Breakout heroes in most respects. They had a lot of things other than just their helmets and weapons that made their designs look unique, and they were typically more well-armored than some of this year's Heroes. Not to me. But I suppose we'll see when bigger pictures come out, or perhaps when the actual sets start showing up.

My original post where I said the female firefighter was wielding an axe was misleading. I should have specified that I was referring to this image and not this one. That was the reason for lightningtiger's confusion.

Even if you're not happy with this concept, I have to say the colors and shading are phenomenal.

Not just in Ninjago-- Scarox also has them in gold. Because they're an action feature that is generally unobtrusive and doesn't require any kind of bulky launcher. I've never had a problem with the current style of flick-fire missile, as they're basically the easiest shooting function to incorporate well in any set (and as such, also the easiest shooting function to remove or replace without affecting the look of a set) and generally far superior to the many ridiculous styles of flick-fire missiles they replaced. I imagine it's just a new torso style. The Exo-Force arms aren't long enough to wrap all the way around the body, and you can see on Bulk's image where they seem to attach.