Aanchir

The 16x32 "normal plate" is a new piece separate from the 16x32 baseplate (2748). The baseplate is available from Extended Mode, and is in the category marked with a picture of a road plate. As for the road plate itself, it thankfully ought to be the type that is on LDD (44336, with the 6-stud curb), although the correct decoration isn't available (as you mention, the decoration available is for the Dark Stone Grey road plates) The crane basket you mention is indeed missing from LDD. The lights should fit on the car roof just fine. Maybe the tools on the back of the cab are colliding with where the lights should go-- try rotating or removing those tools and see if the lights will attach properly. Not opening your file to look for other errors, but what color did you color the light grey parts? They should be 194 Medium Stone Grey, but they look like they might be lighter than that. Other than that, this is just an answer to the errors you mentioned. No, I'm not going back to correcting all errors on everyone's files here. I have neither the time nor the patience anymore.

What are people talking about, saying the bear has shading? I see dark patches, but if anything they make it look like a sloppily-painted prototype, or just a bad photo, not like genuine blending or shading. I expect if the final one has any printing, it will have printed eyes. Since this one doesn't have molded eyes I think that's a given. Which is a good thing, in my book-- I always prefer LEGO animals with printed eyes when possible.

Yep. The most noteworthy additions that didn't appear in Hero Recon Team are printed parts like Waspix's printed shell and the six transparent green Hero name badges. Both of Fangz's printed shells are on there, too, even though the preview image for the larger one in the bricks tray on LDD is dodgy. Annoyingly, the name badge shells on PAB don't have images for some reason. That should be fixed quickly, though. The same probably can't be said for the issue LDD has whereby transparent printed parts hardly show the decoration at all from certain angles, since the decoration as well as the piece itself is made transparent.

New update today-- Brick Version 434.1 The main changes I'm seeing so far are in Design byME mode. We have several new Hero Factory parts, including some with new decorations (all six transparent green shells with name badge decorations from the summer Hero sets-- pity decorations on transparent bricks still don't work too well on LDD). Decoration errors from before haven't been fixed as far as I can tell (examples: certain Hero Factory shells, the Coast Guard torso, etc.) Can't tell whether any new parts were added or old parts were removed outside the Hero Factory theme... I don't often build System MOCs in DesignByMe mode. But in the very least, the DesignByMe parts selection is now consistent with the recent update to DesignByMe's Hero Recon Team service at HeroRecon.LEGO.com. And perhaps the lack of updates in System parts hints at another update still to come.

I haven't seen any pics of the sets themselves, but I would expect the sets to make at least some use of each of these colors, all of which were added to the palette this year but most of which have been used rather sparsely. I expect most, if not all, of the other traditionally girl-oriented colors on the current palette will be used as well.

That's kind of odd, because for me the Toa Nuva have some of the closest color schemes to Hero Factory sets today: bright primary and secondary colors with plenty of black as a base color and metallic armor as accents. The main difference with the Toa Nuva, of course, is that the primary and secondary colors are very close together rather than having deliberate contrast, and so I suppose I can see how some people see a great difference between the two color scheme patterns.

Ah. Well, out of BIONICLE, I'd say the good guy/bad guy promos definitely have a monopoly on badness. Some of them were OK, such as the gold one fans identify as "Turaga Lhikan", who has a design similar to the brilliant 2006 Matoran sets. Even 6935 is a little bit cute. But 6934 is very ugly, with an imbalanced color scheme and an awkward build (6944 maintains the same build but with a bit more reasonable proportions and a better-organized color scheme). 7716 and 7719 aren't too great either. So for Worst BIONICLE/Hero Factory Action Figure, I definitely have to go with 6934 as the most outstandingly bad set design. I think it would be a very poor introduction to the BIONICLE theme.

I think someone mentioned that this isn't likely a follow-up to Pharaoh's Quest because vehicles like helicopters are too modern. I'm not an expert on the history of aviation, so I'll trust their skepticism and assume this won't be a full-fledged Pharaoh's Quest sequel series (anyway, if it were, I'd expect TLG to play that up a bit more in the theme name and retailers' catalogs). But I'm still curious if the fig who seems to resemble Jake Raines might actually be Jake Raines. Even if it's not a true sequel to Pharaoh's Quest, after TLG brought back Dr. Brains in the Atlantis theme I'm not going to put anything past them.

My brother and I recently collaborated on a couple Hero Factory MOCs using the various parts we have here at college. Most worthy of mention is the female hero Sophia Blaze, whom I went on to build on LDD! The main image links to the full image and description in my Flickr photostream. Front | Side | Back | LXF File Each image on Flickr has descriptions of different details of the MOC. It would be tedious for me to list them all here, so just follow all of the image links to learn about some of the difficulties in making this MOC, particularly on LDD.

I don't follow. The resellers always buy from TLG. Whereas fans only sometimes buy from the resellers. Whether it's the resellers buying the figs to resell them or the fans buying them doesn't change how many figs are sold or how much money TLG is making. So why would TLG care whether resellers are profiting at the same time? With that said, TLG does tend to keep the figures moderately balanced. There are no figs that are ten times as rare as others, unlike what you'd likely encounter with trading cards. And the fact that they've basically gone back and re-adjusted the rarities every time they had only two to a box seems to suggest that 3-5 of each fig per box is what they've decided people will be satisfied with.

Well, it means all the elements they've rendered and programmed connectivity for. So basically, anything that is programmed into LDD in any way, shape, or form is in Extended mode, as far as I am aware (contrast with LEGO Universe mode, which is missing a great number of newer parts). The programmers of LDD have stated that it is their intention to add all part designs to LDD besides a small number that for whatever reason can not be rendered. But they are a long way from that goal. In the most recent update, of course, they made significant progress by adding many older parts including several outdated styles of hinges. So in the very least, we know that they were sincere when they stated their desire to work towards a comprehensive parts palette.

You can connect clip-and-bar hinges from a centered position, and in fact some of the problems with centering them have been fixed. For instance, 48336 and 60470 now connect from the center position without any scaffolding. For parts like 60478 and 63868, though, a scaffold is needed to get the parts centered. It's not hard, though. Just place two 1x1 plates with a three-stud space in between, and place the two hinge pieces on each of these (but not with the hinges facing each other). Then, use the hinge tool to rotate both on the studs of the 1x1 plates until the two parts connect. Incidentally, since the two hinge pieces start out at the same level without being connected, this would also help you avoid the problem you illustrated where the plates are not level with one another by default. Hopefully in a future update TLG will fix this problem just as they did with 48336 and 60470, but in the meantime, this trick should solve some of your problems. For more complex situations (for instance, if you want one hinge piece upside-down relative to the other) then you can use similar scaffolding to that in my Clip-And-Bar Hinge Template, although I really ought to update that sometime soon with hinge combinations like the one you were having trouble with. When I originally made this template, 63868 was not available on LDD, and TLG hadn't yet solved the problems with 48336 and 60470 (which now no longer need a scaffold). I do not yet have a foolproof way of aligning more complex hinge pieces... for instance, the sprocket wheel template immediately below my clip-and-bar hinge template is the best scaffold I've got for aligning Technic treads, and I haven't quite come up with a reliable system for aligning hinges on some of this year's Hero Factory parts (although in that case, I also haven't been in any situations where the centering of clips on those parts needs to be exact).

I think the re-structuring of the City theme is a change entirely independent of the Friends theme, kind of like how Star Wars battle packs are now going to include two factions each. Similarly, City seems to be abandoning the "two subthemes per wave" format in favor of an arguably more traditional lineup with vehicles and buildings from assorted subthemes. Consider that not only are there police vehicles next year, we've heard of construction vehicles and an ambulance. I don't think even a reduction of civilian sets would be enough to cause such a radical change, and thus I don't think the change can be ascribed to more civilian sets in the Friends theme. Regarding two police buildings in consecutive years, I think that's just a coincidence in that we happened to have a police wave in the last year before this shift. If this new theme setup had been implemented in 2011, then people would be criticizing two consecutive waves with fire engines in them. Now, what remains to be seen is how TLG maintains variety with so many different subthemes every wave. I expect that if this sort of lineup proves successful, we will see Police, Fire, and Construction every year in some form or another. But, as an example, there might be a dump truck one year and a bulldozer the next. So arguably this sort of theme setup might be able to cause fewer repeats than the old format, where just this year we had several different styles of police car.

Well, to be fair, while the overall price might still be bad, the price per piece might be better since these sets use several more reasonably-sized parts, as well as more reused molds in general. And since an AFOL is more likely to look at price per piece than overall price, these still might be able to be a lot more successful among AFOLs than Ben 10 was (being a much-simplified version of previous action figure themes rather than on par with them in complexity). I agree that Ben 10 paved the way for current Hero Factory designs in a number of ways. It turned down Technic-based building in favor of ball joints and accessories with 3.2 mm bars. It was the first theme to implement new, sturdier ball joints in its part designs. And it had an aesthetic, much like the current Hero Factory sets, that could be compatible with System parts stylistically. As you mention, a brick-built dragon built with Ben 10 parts would fit in with minifigures a lot better than the BIONICLE-intensive Vikings dragons. Now, with that said, this Super Hero theme's success overall depends not on the AFOL market but rather on whether children invest in it. And that will depend on whether the heavily-stylized characters satisfy them. It's not like the superhero action figure market has consistently failed in the past when it attempted to give characters improbable armor and weapons.

I think part of what made Life On Mars so different from Mars Mission, though, is the same thing that would make it impossible to do a proper revival of. I, for one, loved the story. But I don't want to hear it all over again, nor would new stories with the same characters and settings be at all likely to maintain the same charm as the original.

To assume they're going to do that is to assume that the female audience is the only reason they kept those "civilian" buildings around at all, which frankly makes no sense. Paradisa and Belville didn't stop there from being "civilian" sets during those themes' lifespans. And furthermore, I don't think "Friends" will have any impact on City at all. The only reason people make a connection between them is because early info (before we had a name or even the faintest idea of what the sets would be like) suggested that when the foretold girls' theme did occur, it would be an offshoot of City. No information since then has even hinted at this. There are some City sets that girls are somewhat more likely to enjoy, like the 4WD and Horse Trailer. But boys are still the main audience for those sets. Girls also like the Harry Potter theme a lot, and nobody's suggesting that it will end because of "Friends".

Thanks for the review. I loved all three versions of Kopaka. 2001 Kopaka was pretty amazing, and I love his mask. It's got a great geometric design. One thing that initially bothered me about the Toa Nuva version in 2002 is that his mask suddenly looked more like a Hau in shape. I later grew to love it, but I think this may have somewhat shaped my later feelings on BIONICLE masks, in that I preferred them to keep subtle geometric similarities rather than just obvious stuff like "give it an eyepiece so they know it's an Akaku". The posability of 2002 Kopaka Nuva was a bit iffy. The fact that he lacked a wrist joint meant he couldn't really guard all parts of his body with that shield. But the double gear function was cool. And his tool's dual-function was one of the least awkward, in that it looked rather good both as a hand weapon and as a tool for getting around. Phantoka Kopaka Nuva was a favorite of mine. I loved a lot of the design aspects of the Phantoka... for instance, how each Phantoka Toa Nuva used a different shin piece, how they all had vibrant primary colors over a dark stone grey secondary color, and how their masks maintained subtle similarities to the original Kanohi Nuva. Kopaka's was actually my least favorite Kanohi among the Phantoka until I realized the forehead slope largely matched the old Akaku Nuva. I had a lot of fun drawing the Phantoka back in 2008, and I feel a great regret that I can't find that same sort of inspiration anymore, whether in BIONICLE, Hero Factory, or Ninjago. My BIONICLE art in 2008 wasn't anything phenomenal, but it's something I can look back on and actually feel proud of, rather than ashamed like I feel looking at some of my extremely bad earlier drawings. I wonder whether it's just a part of growing up that I'm suddenly less creatively-inclined, but I can't help but feel a sense of loss when I look back at how passionate I was about BIONICLE in those days. Even if Hero Factory excites me as much as BIONICLE did, I no longer have the stamina for some of the debates I took part in, the pages and pages of sketches I worked on, and the stories I imagined. In the very least, I still have my capacity to ramble for paragraph after paragraph. So I managed to keep some things from those days. Thanks so much for this trip down memory lane.

TLG doesn't reveal the specifics of their sales, really. But neither Hero Factory nor BIONICLE has been as successful as TLG's main sellers City or Star Wars in many years. I believe in 2002 BIONICLE was either TLG's most successful product line or somewhere up there. But I don't think it ever quite matched 2002 sales, even if it was still a major money-maker for several years.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say Standard Nepol from Galidor. Unlike all the other standard figures, he doesn't resemble the character he's supposed to. And unlike the deluxe versions of various figures, the changes to his design don't look even remotely cool-- he ends up resembling some cheap bootleg version of the proper figure you get in Nepol and Shimmel. Additionally, even among Galidor figs he's a pretty poor value. For the same price you can get any non-deluxe single figure set, despite this one being the smallest of all and the wrong colors. One might argue that piece count matters more than size in determining the value of the building experience, but I don't think anyone could tell me with a straight face that they would invest in Galidor for the building experience. They're action figures with an incredibly minor building component. You buy them for the characters, and Nepol wasn't the most interesting character anyway (I'd immediately jump for Nick, Allegra, Jens, or Gorm, if I were going for a single figure). I think anyone who gives the name of any BIONICLE or Hero Factory set here isn't looking hard enough at the more obscure parts of LEGO's history.

Ah, thanks. I mustn't have been reading carefully enough. Ah, well; underwater Ninjago it is!

We don't have a complete lack of prints. In fact, the Alien Conquest Earth Defense HQ introduces a new print for the 2x2 slope, showing a minifigure being "scanned". Since it is a regular minifigure icon rather than an obvious alien, this makes it a versatile print even outside Space themes. Arguably, I'd consider this a better printed piece than most U.F.O. pieces, since it's not as specific to a sci-fi context. I've become quite fond of the system that has been established in many recent themes, where broad, flat areas get stickers and smaller, more versatile, or less smooth parts get printed. I also don't get the same feeling of low quality from stickers as you do. In fact, I feel that stickers can give the impression of more of a "hobbyist's toy", in that applying the decorations is part of the assembly process. With that said, if TLG ever starts making me paint my own pieces, I'll be one of the first to protest. I also like contrast in color schemes, but I think bright orange and bright yellowish green have enough contrast in hue that they didn't need too much contrast in brightness. Also, the orange was mostly an accent color compared to the lime green, and the heavy use of dark stone grey, medium stone grey, and black helped tone down the colors significantly. Really there weren't that many vibrant colors in Power Miners compared to some older Space themes-- the difference is that Space themes would tend to have only one bright opaque color and one or two vibrant transparent colors, whereas Power Miners tended to use Transparent Brown or just plain Transparent for its windscreens. Some M-Tron sets are about as vibrant as Power Miners sets, especially in some box art where the vividness of the fluorescent windscreens is raised to almost nauseating levels. And some Classic Space sets had a downright confusing number of transparent colors used for the various details. Good to hear. There are some people who are extremely opposed to any colors that didn't exist in the days of Classic Space. I'm never very fond of the theories about TLG using themes to "use up" things. Especially considering that TLG's colors today are in the form of dyes added to uncolored granulate during production. So TLG would have no reason at all to "use up" any colors unless they were discontinuing those colors from the palette entirely in the near future. I highly doubt that TLG wants to discontinue Medium Lilac, Bright Reddish Violet, or lime in the near future, as they are rather frequently used, if not as much as more classic colors. And they certainly would have no reason to discontinue Bright Yellow and Bright Blue (two extremely common colors) or Dark Azure (a color that never appeared in sets before this theme).

Something else I've learned from the Space issue of Brickjournal, in an interview with a Classic Space designer, is that once the other colors of astronauts were introduced, they were given role-based rather than faction-based meanings. According to Jens Nygaard Knudsen, "The original two colors were explorers, yellow were scientists, blues were technicians or mechanics, and I guess the black were warriors, but we were not allowed to make a big deal out of this. We were not allowed to make war." Based on this, I guess we can conclude that by the time other colors were being introduced the "competing factions" idea had been abandoned entirely, replaced by the spirit of unity that so many people associate with Classic Space today.

I disagree about the most recent iteration of Space Police. True, it has a much more obvious "police" aspect than previous versions, with typical police car color schemes and gang-based adversaries far less organized than Space Police's traditional enemies (usually spies). But it kept the "prison cell" gimmick that had been at the theme's core since the very beginning (something I didn't even know about until the revival-- I had never gotten any Space Police sets but the smallest ones in the first two iterations). SPIII also was chock-full of references to older Space themes. So personally, I think that by keeping the most consistent design elements of the original Space Police theme, it was a perfectly valid revival, but even if you disagree it was definitely a respectful homage to the original line. Now, this may in part stem from how I feel about adaptations and re-imaginings in general, whether in the form of movies, TV shows, or LEGO themes. I feel loyalty to the source material is often overrated, and while it's always a major bonus if a loyal adaptation can be pulled off, I also respect a complete re-imagining that maintains only what the new author considers the fundamental elements of the source material. For an example, the most recent Batman films are stylistically very different than any previous interpretations, with much grittier and more down-to-earth portrayals of the franchise's iconic "theme villains". But I appreciate them just for variety's sake. It's fun seeing someone else's perspective on a franchise, and if they don't have the talent to make their own vision enjoyable for people in general then another author can always come forward to give their perspective. Anyway, I agree that Blacktron is a lot harder to revive than Space Police was, since it was really "just a bad guy theme". The modular sections of the first iteration could maybe be compared to the spherical, interchangeable "escape capsules" of the second, but it's still not as consistent a concept as the three Space Police iterations, which shared their primary gimmick. Ice Planet could be worth a revival, but I just don't like the theme quite as much as I like some other Space themes. Which is odd, since I believe an Ice Planet set (Ice-Sat V) may have been my first LEGO Space set, and I have fond memories of building it. The concept of Spyrius just interests me a lot more in this day and age.

I think this is a fairly nice advent calendar. As weak as some people may feel the mini models in this set are, I think many of them are quite excellent for their size and piece count. And even if you feel accessories for the minifigures would have made more sense, keep in mind that the vehicles are one of the most iconic things in the Star Wars films. Replacing the iconic vehicles with obscure accessories wouldn't exactly sell many advent calendars. I like that what accessories there are have been chosen to fit the minifigures in the set. Of course, I think the "accessory racks" and other things like the Christmas tree are some of the weakest parts of this advent calendar. All the things that are designed to go with the minifigures (besides maybe the mouse droid) are awkward-looking, including the Christmas tree. And the walking chair is incredibly obscure to be included in the set, although I guess it's not all too obscure since I've actually heard of it! The minifigure choices themselves are a bit odd. There are two Imperial figs, two Separatist figs, two Rebel figs, one clone, and Santa Yoda. I guess it's fairly balanced between good and evil, but I feel some of the Separatist figs and minis depict minor characters and vehicles compared to the iconic ships of the Alliance, the Empire, and the Republic also depicted here. Maybe that's just a sign of my waning interest in Star Wars, though... After Episode II I had a hard time keeping track of vehicles, and to be honest I can't think of any much more "iconic" Separatist ships besides Vulture Droids. Anyway, thanks for the review. I can see how there's a little something for all types of Star Wars fans here. Some people will buy it for the figs, and some for the minis. And there's a good balance between OT and prequel content. Of course, I can also see how some fans might not see anything desirable in this set, preferring to save their finances for the more expensive but also more complex sets that are typical for the Star Wars franchise.

I think it should be able to fit on the helmet, since the older domed visor (from the Launch Command theme and various later themes) can fit on the Atlantis helmet just as well as the Atlantis domed visor. There is a slight difference in the internal geometry of the newer visor, since it seems to be thickened and reinforced in some areas, so perhaps the connection is not truly "legal". But as Calabar demonstrates, both versions "fit" on the regular crash helmet on LDD, the Atlantis version simply won't connect. It also has to be assumed that if the parts aren't meant to connect, the LDD team didn't originally know this, because the connection was allowed in the earliest version of LDD where both parts were available, and even to this day the Atlantis visor is in DesignByMe without any sign of the Atlantis diving helmet it's "meant" to attach to. To be fair, there is a part that it should legally be able to connect to in DesignByMe mode-- the breathing mask 6158. But when the connectivity of the visor was changed to disallow use on regular helmets, it was obviously also changed to disallow connectivity with this part. So ironically, DesignByMe mode now includes a part that can't properly attach to any other DesignByMe parts!