Aanchir

I think the fact that Friends is proving fairly popular, and that TLG is pushing it so strongly, is part of the reason there is a controversy. If it were seeming to be a flop then I'm sure many people who are worried about its implications would happily just watch it die. Any successes the theme has, though, will just continue to keep it within the public consciousness, and those who are dissatisfied with it from a gender-equality perspective will not be satisfied unless the issues they see in it are addressed. Also, I believe Clikits won a Toy of the Year award at one point, so it should be understood that such awards are by no means a measure of a toy's longevity or success, only how innovative the toy is considered. In this case, Friends is innovative just by virtue of being a girl-oriented building toy that actually tries to treat girls with some degree of creative dignity. Now, if it does win an award, then that perhaps brings the world one step closer to recognizing that girl-oriented building toys are a viable market, which is one goal I hope the Friends theme does bring about whether it proves to have staying power or not. The real measure of its success, I think, will not just be whether Friends sets continue to appear each year, but whether TLG's competitors in the building toy market begin to acknowledge girls as a suitable audience for their products.

Very nice designs! The resemblance is uncanny! And you used some creative parts to do it! Great work!

Tonight's episode of the Ninjago TV series, "Snakebit", was quite entertaining. Spoilers follow! Anyone else watch the episode? What are your thoughts and observations?

I don't understand this at all. There's nothing at all inappropriate for kids in this theme, unless you think themes with skeletons or stories involving death of any kind should be kept from kids within the target age range (7-14). Fantasy-Era Castle also had undead skeletons in it. And there are plenty of classic family films that include character deaths, and yet these are not deemed inappropriate for kids. As for the lack of historical placement, it's a fantasy story. Being able to be placed in one time period is completely unnecessary. Harry Potter can't be placed any time in human history either because while I believe it ostensibly takes place during the 90s, most historians would agree that a thriving society of wizards and witches didn't exist within this time period, nor did fantasy creatures like dragons and trolls. I personally think the Ninjago sets and story are excellent, and that it's possibly the best story theme since BIONICLE-- another theme I'm sure you'd scoff at, but which I enjoyed thoroughly since its debut in 2001 when I was ten years old. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Ninjago, whether it's the fact that you think the spinners are gimmicky and too far from the building that should be the core of the LEGO play experience, or the fact that you think story themes offer less room for kids to imagine their own adventures, or the fact that you think it has too much of a focus on minifigures (we're due for a total of around 35 this year). But saying it's a bad theme because it's inappropriate somehow or because it doesn't fit real human history is a little far-fetched.

Now, I don't feel too strongly about whether female characters in Hero Factory have feminine characteristics. They are robots, but one mustn't take that too seriously-- they are clearly meant for humans to identify with them, much like many other fictional robots like those in Transformers. With that said, I don't feel they especially need super-shapely female bodies just because they're female in story. I was plenty happy with Breez 2.0, who looked pretty much gender-ambiguous-- her products page animation on the Hero Factory website could make her look feminine just by giving her slightly feminine movements and having her sway her hips a bit. The new Breez set's product page animation makes this subtler, but her movements are still made more graceful than, say, Surge, and coupled with her somewhat feminine mask piece it's enough to make her appear female. The new Breez set is still plenty feminine IMO, even though her armor looks slightly less so with its more defined muscle-like armor plating. If you feel she should be more feminine, you're welcome to modify the set to your tastes, but I personally see no reason TLG needs to incorporate a buxom female chest in the official sets of this particular character. If we ever do get a character with a more obvious gender along the lines of Roodaka (although hopefully less of a blatant sex icon), then I'd welcome it, as there's no reason a curvy female-looking bot is automatically less realistic than a burly male-looking bot. But I don't think it's the least bit urgent, as I've been more than satisfied with the renditions of Breez we've had so far.

I'm fairly certain that map will show him the way to where the Fangpyre are entombed. The episode title ("Snakebit") and some of the comments I've read from people in countries where the episode has already aired suggest to me that the Fangpyre are awakened in this next episode. And anyway, something has to keep the plot moving towards its inevitable destination of all five Serpentine tribes being awakened.

I doubt the approval process had anything to do with the size of the fanbase. TLG already knows the size of the fanbase, since that's the only reason Minecraft made it all the way to the approval process so quickly (it accumulated the required 10,000 supporters needed to reach that stage in a matter of days). I think the approval process depended more on making sure that the license could be negotiated with the owners of Minecraft and determining what types of Minecraft products could be made as sets that would meet supporters' expectations. I'm not a Minecraft fan myself, and only know a bit more than the basics of the game. But I still look forward to this license, not because I want the sets myself but rather because it will essentially be the "testing ground" for whether the LEGO Cuusoo system is effective for producing marketable sets on a global scale. I am curious whether the sets made through this will be D2C (only available in LEGO stores, catalogs, and the LEGO Shop website), or whether they'll be made available to a wider range of international retailers. I'm expecting D2C personally, because the Cuusoo system has not yet been tested on this scale so I am not sure major retailers would be willing to invest in what they might perceive as a "niche" product.

I enjoy the Ninjago cartoon. The original one-hour TV special that aired in January of last year is available for free viewing in four parts on the official website ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ), and there are six two-minute mini-movies if you scroll down. The 2012 season's episodes are even better than the ones I linked, at least based on what I've seen. Episode 2 "Home" is one of my favorites. There's a lot of humor that some people might consider childish (in "Home", for instance, the Ninja get in a food fight), but I still feel it's enjoyable, and the uniqueness of the characters makes the show quite fun to watch IMO. The balance of humor to dramatic tension is similar to many of the saturday morning cartoons I grew up with, including those that like Ninjago fit in the "fantasy martial arts" genre including Jackie Chan Adventures, Xiaolin Showdown, and Avatar: The Last Airbender (although the Ninjago series is nowhere near the work of art that A:TLA is, so don't raise your hopes unreasonably high). Even if you don't end up liking the show, it's hard to hate the music of it. Several tracks of it can be heard at the website of Jay Vincent, one of the composers. Tonight (8/7C on Cartoon Network) will be the first airing of Episode 3, "Snakebit," in the United States. I'm really looking forward to it, although since I haven't seen it I can't vouch for it being as enjoyable as the episodes I've seen so far.

When you think about it, there's a big difference between Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. In the Harry Potter books and movies, there are hardly any important scenes where Harry himself isn't present, mainly because the stories are almost entirely told from his perspective (third-person limited rather than third-person omniscient). Lord of the Rings is very different. While it's obvious that Frodo is the overall main character, there are several scenes that follow separate characters in both the books and the movies. So those scenes, when depicted as sets, don't necessarily need to include Frodo to offer a complete play experience that's loyal to the source material. Now, some themes, like Pirates of the Caribbean, don't have this defense. In that theme's case, it's just that the most memorable scenes determined to make the best sets tended to feature Jack Sparrow. If the theme had lasted longer, other scenes not featuring the character might have shown up, in which case he might not have been in every set.

Everyone keeps going on about figs, which confuses me to no end. From the beginning I've been expecting something more sculpture-like like the previous two Cuusoo sets (Shinkai 6500 and Hayabusa). So a Creeper could be something very much like this MOC, or maybe something smaller so it could be a part of a full "vignette". Of course, it's possible TLG might make this more like a more typical "licensed theme", but I really strongly doubt it. As with the previous Cuusoo sets, I expect that these will be not so much toys as collectors' items, so as to take advantage of Minecraft fans outside the main LEGO fan community just as the Architecture sets and other adult-oriented products appeal to adult collectors who don't identify as AFOLs.

Kre-o isn't new, although the Battleship line is. There's a Kre-O discussion topic here. Overall, I don't see any obvious LEGO part ripoffs, which is a positive. Better than I could say of our first glimpses at the Transformers sets.

That robo-leg is AMAZING. Nice to have a specialized one of those rather than just a peg-leg like the Minifigures Series 3 Space Villain, even though a metal peg leg is cool in and of itself. The more cartoony monster faces are nice. While I preferred the "classic" look of the Collectible Minifigures versions, I have to say these designs definitely suit this wacky theme. I can't wait to see finished set designs!

Love these fig designs. I don't have remotely enough expertise to find errors in these fig designs-- in my opinion, they're wonderfully diverse and appealing, and they resemble the characters more than enough to be recognizable. My twin brother pointed out when I showed him the pics that the ring piece could potentially be useful for stud inversions.

Copper, for the most part, is no longer on LEGO's color palette (there are still lacquered copper parts in some sets, like for instance the axe blade in the Ninjago Skull Motorbike, but no "pearl" copper parts in today's sets). Anyway, the parts you feel looked copper seemed pretty plainly Warm Gold (Pearl Gold) to me-- I've taken photos myself where Pearl Gold looks about that color, and it's not far off from the "true" color of the parts. It also has to be considered that preliminary photos/renders have a tendency to be somewhat crappy and misleading-- for instance, I don't think those Surge and Voltix parts are gold at all, but more likely Transparent Yellow (a color both parts will likely have existed in). If those gold parts were in fact copper, they'd have to be the copper color 189 Reddish Gold, which hasn't appeared in sets since 2006 at the latest.

Also note that a "build your own vehicle" feature is easier in a racing game where the weight distribution can be a genuine factor in performance. Also, LEGO Racers vehicles had a relatively standardized scale. Games like LEGO Batman couldn't easily replicate this feature for anything much larger than those vehicles. And it would surely be difficult to program such a feature. Even LEGO Digital Designer, TLG's dedicated brick building software, has occasional bugs. Put something like that in a console game where the finished model has to function as a playable vehicle, and the bugs could easily make the LEGO building and play experience less enjoyable for users than the real thing, which could reflect badly on the company's core products with some users. It should be noted that LEGO Universe did have a building component to it, and it was criticized a lot for being awkward to control and for that awkwardness getting in the way of creative building, which is probably exactly the sort of criticism TLG wants to avoid in their licensed games.

What? How is the name Lloyd a symptom of running out of ideas? I'll admit it seems a bit odd to see a name as... Welsh... as Lloyd in an otherwise mostly Asian fantasy world, but with very non-Asian names like Jay, Cole, and Zane used already, it's not especially out of place. So the only thing all that bad about the name is the fact that it's such an obvious pun.

Okie-dokes. I understand your reasoning. It's true, my concept for my Breez modification was originally done in front view on graph paper, and as such, I didn't really consider the "rocket boots" as an addition to the height. I can see how you feel the set has more realistic proportions in various ways. I tend to measure the various limbs from joint-to-joint, center-to-center in both drawings and MOCs, so I measure the upper legs as starting from slightly above the crotch. In truth this worked quite well in BIONICLE, where canister sets tended to use the Toa Metru hip piece which has a crotch about 1M below the "hip joint"-- but in Hero Factory it doesn't work quite as smoothly to measure the legs this same way. If Hero Factory had the torso shell extend 1/2M-1M lower than the bottom of the torso beam, I agree, the Breez set would probably look plenty proportionate. The upper legs on my MOC are only 1M longer than the lower legs, which I think works fairly effectively. I suppose I could increase the length of the lower legs by 1M, and in fact I did this on an LDD mod of the Rocka set, whose leg armor really wouldn't work well if the lower leg beams were as short as on this model. But I prefer the overall look of my Breez mod, which I suppose is just personal preference. In general I wish LEGO constraction sets would try to have the upper and lower legs the same length or the upper leg longer. And I'm very glad that the new Hero Factory building system has made joint lengths a lot more flexible than in BIONICLE, where for a canister-set-sized figure you were typically limited to 5M or 7M upper limbs and 7M or 8M lower limbs unless you went with a totally custom design. It also helps that Hero Factory sets and MOCs aren't obligated to use the same joint pieces for arms and legs, as many latter-year BIONICLE sets and MOCs did.

I imagine the reason for the blue shorts could have easily been focus group testing. Unlike the Joker, who kids would have a hard time recognizing without his purple suit, I can easily see kids preferring the Hulk with non-purple pants, even if it is a classic attribute of his comic book depiction. It should also be noted that Joker only had 6M shells and 6M shoulder shells in purple, no 5M shells. Hulk already has his fair share of recolors, so it's possible that TLG's designers decided that the budget for the Marvel constraction figures was better spent on more essential recolors, like Hulk's giant fist pieces or Iron Man's various gold elements.

90639. There's also another one of this part in LDD mode that looks like a decorated transparent shell in the parts tray, but when generated it's a decorated shell in Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange. Not sure what the causes for these problems could be. Normally the images in the parts tray tend to match up just fine with the parts they generate.

I didn't base my proportions on the mask at all, I based them mainly on the combined length of the head and torso (although the proportions on my model also work according to the size of the head underneath-- I almost never use the mask as the basis for models' proportions). Now, human body proportions are something there's a lot of disagreement about. Most systems for measuring them for drawing, etc. simplify things in different ways (and of course the systems will vary depending on the style and purpose of the drawing). But the system I'm most familiar with has the crotch about halfway up the total height of the body (sometimes slightly less), the knees about a quarter of the way up the total height of the body, the wrists just below halfway up the total height of the body, etc. And the proportions of my model are designed according to this. A similar proportion guide to the one that I have typically based the proportions of my models on can be seen here. Note that in this illustration, like in my modification, the shins are shorter than the thighs, the legs are about the same length as the combined head and torso, and the overall figure is around 7-7.5 heads high rather than 8 heads high. Again, the main problem I have with the set is that the legs are too long relative to the torso to seem "natural" to me. But what looks "natural" can be a matter of perception so it's understandable if your system of measuring proportions is different from mine.

I haven't. No Samukai card either, but that's more excusable because he simply does not function on a spinner.

I've gotten used to the proportions I have used in my art classes, actually, wherein a human figure's head and torso are about half the length of its body. Even in your image, the "crotch" of the Breez set is too high compared to the human figure it's being compared to. Her knees are also far too high, which I tried to fix in my mod. My modded version's knees, compared to the knees of the human figure in your picture and the knees of the Breez set in your picture, would be at almost exactly the right height. I mean this as no insult to the Breez set or to your taste in sets, but I think in the length of the arms and legs there is room for improvement. The 2.0 and 3.0 heroes had pretty reasonable proportions except the usually exaggerated width of the shoulders, which doesn't bother me much. The new Breez set is almost the same proportionally as Jetbug, a set which I loved but which was far from realistic. Anyway, your image seems to be a human figure with slightly idealized (8 heads high) proportions. There's nothing wrong with those, but my concern is more with making sure the torso is proportionate to the legs and arms. Whether the figure stands a classical 8-heads-high like these new 24-module-tall heroes or a more realistic 6.5 to 7.5 heads high like the 2.0 21- and 22-module-tall heroes makes no difference to me as long as the body proportions are within reason. So for me, the new Breez's proportions, with the wrists dangling below the crotch and the feet high above the head when doing an exaggerated forward kick, is a dangerous step towards the proportions we got used to with latter-year BIONICLE sets like the Glatorian. Even if you don't see any problems with the Breez set itself, you should understand why I am concerned about what the larger Hero sets might imply for the future.

My changes were mostly pretty subtle. The proportions were the main things I was concerned with: I kept the shoulder spheres, but shortened the shells they are attached to so that the lower arm could be shortened without the shield and upper arm shells colliding. All the shortening I did of the legs was in the lower legs, since I feel that makes her look more proportionate. I also removed the shell from her lower right arm-- I'd have kept the bone pieces white if I could have, but white 5M Hero Factory beams don't exist. It should be noted that shortening the legs this way causes a slight collision between the shin armor and the feet. On LDD it works fine though, and in real life it works fine if you pose it correctly-- it's just posing it that way on LDD is extremely fiddly and I don't consider it a worthwhile use of my time when the collision doesn't cause any problems in terms of loading or viewing the model.

Great figure. He's very well-armored, and those System lightning bolt pieces work great as details. That torso shell used for his back and tail kind of upsets his silhouette from the front, though. Not sure what could work better there.

It airs at 7:30 on Friday evenings as well. There's a schedule here if you click the text reading "Wednesdays at 8/7C"