Aanchir

You the same Sparky I know from HS01? Welcome to Eurobricks either way! I love this guy's arms and legs, as well as the clever head and claw designs! Certainly out-of-the-ordinary ways of using these pieces! With designs like these possible, it's a shame TLG doesn't design official alternate or combi models for the larger sets. The one main criticism I have is that his tail doesn't seem long enough to strike anything that isn't in the air or on his back. I'm not sure what sort of pieces you were working with after building the rest of the body, though. If that's what's shown in the last image, then I guess there weren't many options for lengthening it... The body's a bit messy in the understructure, but I guess that's just a consequence of the set having such a huge number of tiny Technic parts without any much larger ones to support your alternate model structurally. It's very densely-built compared to the official Witch Doctor set's torso. If the set had some of those huge rectangular Technic beams like in Skopio XV-1, it could possibly have been easier to build such a formidable body. Is this model very strong structurally? I see its legs can support it, which is always a good sign, but there are some flaws that can't show up in photos. Overall, great model with well-organized colors and motifs. It's a shame the Scorpio set didn't feel this aesthetically cohesive!

Love the feet and head. The torso is a little cluttered-looking and not all that formidable in appearance, but I guess that's just a consequence of working with limited pieces. The color scheme seems well-organized, and there are no extremely gappy areas I can see. Very nice work!

I saw that! It's always neat to see that the designers are really thinking of the system as a creative tool rather than just components of a toy for kids to play with. But then again, I guess with their job they'd have to think of it both ways! Anyway, some Hero Recon Team news: first of all, the second combined element is now shown on the Combined Elements page. But more importantly, there's a bit of news I feel I ought to share: see here. I expect there will be a new unique element replacing the black-and-silver chest piece when HRT, DesignByMe, and Pick-A-Brick get updated in September. I'm gonna try and get a Hero Recon Team order very shortly, after I've gotten my siblings' feedback on what other parts besides the unique chest plate would be cool to include (I'm thinking Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange parts).

As long as we get proper-looking minifigures rather than monstrosities like this, I'm OK. I don't have a problem with Exo-Force or even Clone Wars minifigures that go for a totally different style than the classic minifigure. And I also don't mind unique facial expressions on minifigures rather than just the classic smile or a variant thereof. But in a theme where traditional minifigures are the norm, having figs with whites in their eyes or (God forbid) NOSES is out-of-the-question. Personally, I don't have much of a problem with the criminals having prison stripes, for the reasons Mr. Elijah Timms mentions. LEGO City is a simplification of real life, not a straightforward reflection. So identifying the criminals with prison stripes and cartoony "bad guy" faces is OK most of the time. At the same time, the uniqueness of this upcoming theme might merit some more uniqueness in the bad guys. The World City theme was odd in a number of ways. The Police HQ contained an "ATV" that was to all appearances a tank, and one of the police officers in the Surveillance Truck might very well have been the Terminator. But the minifigures were very realistic-- the police had snappy blue uniforms that were until this year unmatched in the City theme, the prisoner in the HQ had a realistic orange jumpsuit, and there were a number of plainclothes criminals, including the ones in the beautiful set Hovercraft Hideout. My younger brother had this set, which is why I remember the minifigures so fondly. This is the sort of design I think criminals in LEGO City could have if they were to finally shed their prison stripes. Rough and gritty, and clearly bad guys, but dressed a bit less like obvious criminals.

Out of curiosity, did you ever end up seeing the real alien fig (with the correct torso)? In general, I can't help but notice that the least popular figs tend to be the ones with the least unique accessories. So, for instance, the S4 Monster, S3 Race Car Driver, S3 Sumo Wrestler, S3 Pilot, and S1 Crash Test Dummy all get a lot of hate.

Guys, stop flattering me. I'm not sure I can live up to the reputation I seem to have acquired. I'm not entirely sure about all the things you mention about 2006. The color palette didn't expand too significantly-- the big color palette change I know of was in 2004, when a lot of old colors got discontinued and a lot of new colors were introduced. From 2006, I remember more about certain colors being discontinued than about new colors being introduced. In 2006, the most significant color change was that 147 Sand Yellow Metallic (Bricklink's Flat Dark Gold) was replaced with 297 Warm Gold (Bricklink's Pearl Gold). Additionally, by 2007, many other old metallic colors were discontinued: 127 Gold (Bricklink's Pearl Light Gold), 145 Sand Blue Metallic (Bricklink's , and 189 Reddish Gold (one of three or so colors Bricklink calls Copper). Additionally, 131 Silver (which I think is the earliest color Bricklink calls Pearl Light Gray) was discontinued, replaced with 296 Cool Silver (also identified as Pearl Light Gray). Cool Silver was slightly lighter than 131 Silver, and it was short-lived-- in 2007, 296 Cool Silver was discontinued and 131 Silver was reintroduced, remaining on the palette until last summer when it began to be phased out in favor of the new 315 Silver Metallic (which Bricklink identifies as Flat Silver). 2006 was also the last year for 217 Brown (Bricklink's Dark Flesh) and 50 Phosphorescent White (Bricklink's Glow-In-Dark Opaque), the latter of which was replaced with 294 Phosphorescent Green (Bricklink's Glow-In-Dark Transparent). Many Clikits colors, some of which Bricklink doesn't even identify, were also last seen in 2006. So there were changes to the color palette, and bigger ones than would be seen again in future years, but there wasn't a great expansion of it-- that had mostly taken place in 2004, and some of 2006's changes just simplified the confusing palette that 2004's restructuring had left behind. There were a couple other new colors in 2006, such as 304 (unnamed, equivalent to Bricklink's Speckle DBGray-Silver) and 306 Defused Copper (Bricklink's Speckle Black-Copper). I'm not sure if either of these was ever used after 2006. I think most of the changes in 2006, including color changes, were just a continuation of changes that had been taking place since at least 2004 when Jorgen Vig Knudstorp became CEO. It was a step in the revitalization of the LEGO brand, but changes to the color palette and set design had been ongoing for years before 2006, when a lot of these changes came to a head. I can't really describe the LEGO community's reactions at the time since I wasn't a part of any LEGO communities besides some online BIONICLE fansites. In the BIONICLE community, 2006-2007 was a period with a bad reputation, blamed for a lot of changes in the theme, such as the removal of most gear functions from sets, the introduction of certain torso pieces which kept being used all the way through 2009, the increased size of sets (which had been ongoing for some time, but in 2006-2007 reached the peak it tended to remain at until 2010), and the end of blind-packaged "collectibles", replaced with identical ammo packs and then in mid-2007 discontinued completely. But I don't think any of these changes had any significant impact on the rest of the LEGO fandom, since they didn't reflect any considerable production changes for other sets. So in short, I think that 2006 was not a solitary "turning point", but rather just the climax of a process that had begun around 2004, with sets becoming more complex, the color palette being reimagined, and many conceptual changes in themes like Technic and BIONICLE making their debut.

Alternatively, it could possibly be an instance of the connection being considered acceptable within TLG but only in certain circumstances. Keep in mind that almost all connections involve some stress; that's what holds the pieces together. Illegal connections are just when there's enough stress for the pieces to become damaged. Perhaps in the case of this piece LDD is just being stricter than TLG mandates their designers be in avoiding illegal connections. After all, it's important to remember that LDD often takes "shortcuts" in deciding what connections are legal or illegal. This is the reason why only certain parts (mostly 1x1 parts) are allowed to make a stud-to-technic-hole connection, even though other parts can legally do so as long as only one stud is being connected in that way. This is also the reason why LDD doesn't distinguish between studs with "LEGO" written on them and studs without "LEGO" written on them-- while this makes some illegal connections possible, it lets LDD allow a lot of perfectly legal connections that would otherwise be forbidden.

Could be the finish; could be the plastic; could be some other quality of the molds. One thing that bothers me about the Chinese plant is that since TLG doesn't yet own it it's hardly ever mentioned in any of their press releases, despite the importance of some of the minifigures and parts they produce. I remember reading that the collectible minifigures were being produced in China not entirely because of costs but also because of capacity. Presumably TLG wanted to keep their other facilities reserved for their main themes, possibly in case the minifigures series were a flop, or possibly just because it would have been too much trouble in the older facilities to do such large but short-term production runs. It'd be nice if some of the LEGO employees on this forum would chime in more often in instances like this, since I can't remember who I remember mentioning that and I could very easily have my facts wrong. Other problems that have been observed are translucency (possibly a mold problem, but more likely a plastic or dye problem since the leg molds aren't visibly thinner) and "pinkness" of white printing on red (not exclusive to Chinese-made parts, I've heard this is a consequence of having too few "coats" of white printing, which also afflicts other light colors like the yellow printing of the S2 Lifeguard). As for issues with printing being off-center or joints being too loose, I've heard reports to the contrary (that joints are too tight in some cases, and printing being better than TLG's other minifigures at times), so I would assume that these issues may be just a matter of inconsistency like that encountered in any other facility. So far none of these things have really diminished my view of the quality of the collectible minifigures, but I earnestly hope that TLG can demonstrate a greater attentiveness to these issues by working towards "insourcing" the Chinese plant as they have done with all their other production, isolating the exact reason for these differences (I should hope that they know the reasons for certain, even if they're not telling us or not yet capable of doing anything about them), and, just to show they really care, making sure that their customer service department knows enough of the facts to explain these sorts of issues to dissatisfied customers.

Just watched all the episodes on Youtube. I was underwhelmed at first-- the content was not much better than the first four Hero Factory TV episodes. So, in other words, good enough for me to enjoy, but not good enough that I could see myself enjoying a full cartoon series of it. The last half, though, was every bit as awesome as The Adventures of Clutch Powers, if not more, and I find myself anxiously looking forward to the TV series. The music was one thing I liked tremendously. It reminded me of early BIONICLE music, with a blend of traditional and modern instruments and rhythms, but with a decidedly more Asian-inspired tone. The animation was also excellent. I loved how the ninjas just took off and put on their masks in one quick motion! However, there was some serious uncanny valley going on with Sensei Wu's mouth... when it opened and closed, there was an actual hollow cavity rather than just a printed expression, and the few times you could see it clearly behind his beard it was rather jarring. The dragons were awesome, even if they did need to give the Earth Dragon wings for the purposes of the script. It would have been cool if more LEGO elements like studs were visible on them (and on more of the locations and scenery), but there was still a great LEGO feel to the props, scenes, and characters. I suppose if every individual rock had studs it would begin to feel gimmicky and distracting. It was a bit of shame that building was never a core plot element like it was in Clutch Powers (or for that matter, in Hero Factory). Perhaps the TV series will make more jokes about the LEGO nature of this world from time to time, though. When I first saw screenshots of the episodes, I was skeptical about how the Golden Weapons had been so radically changed, applying dragon motifs to all four and putting a lot more detail on them in general. But having seen it all the way through, I actually like that change, since it makes all the weapons as unique as the Dragon Sword of Fire rather than just being palette swaps of the plainer weapons that the skeletons and ninjas also used. The skeleton baddies were stupid but amusing. It's a shame Wyplash wasn't featured, but I think one of the problems with the Hero Factory episodes is that too many characters get involved for them to all have great characterization. This and Clutch Powers share a cast structure of four main heroes, just a few supporting characters, three or four main baddies (two of whom serve as comic relief), and an army of enemy mooks. I assume that the TV series (and next year's sets) will demote Lord Garmadon to supporting character status with the likes of Nya and Sensei Wu, whereas Lloyd and the snakemen will replace his skeletons as the enemy faction. Although technically, a full TV series can probably support far more characters than a one- or two-hour TV miniseries.

Ummm... all of the chess sets released by LEGO had cases, not too different in appearance than that Ninjago one. Same with several of the Tic-Tac-Toe sets. Why is this so different, besides that it's an add-on to the main series sets rather than a fully-stocked Extended Line board game? Similarly, Heroica now has an extended-line carrying case. As I see it, carrying cases like these for a product with an inherent "game" characteristic are extremely practical. They're not designed for AFOLs to use as briefcases, obviously, but frankly when you're a kid with games you enjoy playing with others on-the-go, a brand-name carrying case like this is a dream come true! Extended line products have their own budget independent from regular sets, so the regular sets aren't suffering at all because of the non-set merchandise TLG happens to have on the market. Frankly, there's no reason these AFOLs should have any problems with these sorts of products. By the way, I think Ninjago has been a huge success, as I see it. A huge number of kids loving the theme is the only way I can explain all the Ninjago birthday cakes I've been seeing. I had some LEGO-themed cakes in my childhood, but never as ambitious or professionally-created as this one, just to name an example. (It really spins!) On a side-note, I recently discovered the Toys 'R' Us Hong Kong website for Ninjago. It's certainly very amusing, with lots of great content (even if most of it is just a simplification of the content from the main Ninjago website). Their "Downloads" section is a much easier place to find lots of great Ninjago content than the official site, which has downloadable content spread across several pages. Also, it's the first place I've been able to find the original (not DX) Zane and Cole wallpapers, which makes me happy since I had feared those were lost forever after the Ninjago site updated in April. The most impressive thing I discovered, of course, was this huge downloadable Ninjago map poster. I was recently looking at this map in an instruction booklet and realized for the first time that the land of Ninjago is shaped like a dragon! I guess I was kind of slow figuring that out, but to be fair my family didn't own any Ninjago sets before Brickfair a couple weeks ago.

I know how confusing it is when an illegal connection shows up in an official set! Typically, older sets are more prone to include illegal connections than newer sets. But sometimes you will find recent sets that have illegal connections in them-- the Ultimate Collector's Series General Grievous, model, which is less than five years old, has a problem almost identical to the one you encountered.

Something else to keep in mind: differences in how "shiny" parts are can depend heavily on the surface finish of the mold. Some molds are burnished to produce an extremely smooth, reflective texture, while others are not. Since the collectible minifigure body part molds were all newly-created for the Chinese production facility, there could have been a different surface finish, so the parts would be different even if made from the exact same batch of plastic. There are a lot of reasons for parts having different surface finishes. I believe some surface finishes better retain printing than others. Some hide mold lines and scratches particularly well (this is the case with the rough texture that is standard for slope bricks). Another difference between collectible minifigure torsos and other torsos is that torsos from regular themes (not Chinese-made) have a much more visible indentation in the center of the word "LEGO" on top of the neck stud. So we do know for certain that the collectible minifigure torso molds are not identical to the molds used in all of TLG's facilities (although I highly doubt the molds are entirely consistent between TLG's other facilities anyway, since some are bound to be newer and others older). In the case of the fedora, it's even more obvious, since the fedora mold used in the Collectible Minifigures (starting with the S1 Cowboy) has an entirely different part number than the one in the Indiana Jones theme. The collectible one is 88410, whereas the IJ one is 61506. It should be noted that pretty much all parts in S1 and S2 were given new design IDs unique to the collectible minifigures; it wasn't until S3 that parts with older design IDs began to appear. Also, Lyi, the insourcing of TLG's production facilities took place before Chinese production began and was completed in 2008. TLG does not yet own the Chinese production facility they use, although I believe the people working there are employed by TLG rather than the company that is leasing the facilities to them. The plastic could indeed be a factor, but that shouldn't be an immediate assumption. Last I heard, there was a situation with Chinese manufacturing laws whereby TLG had to use a certain percentage of domestic materials in their production, so they were forced to use the closest ABS formulation to the one that they use in other facilities across the globe (which is, unlike the Chinese plastic, all from a single supplier). However, people often leap to conclusions about different plastic being responsible for all sorts of things that could just be mold differences (the same way they assume rubber parts exist for safety or cost reasons, the former of which is only sometimes the case and the latter of which is never the case).

I think it could be just how specialized a figure it is, much like the Crash Test Dummy. While a lot more people make Town MOCs than make auto testing MOCs, and thus he has more versatile applications, his parts are mostly fairly specific to the mime aesthetic. Also, there's a number of people with whom mimes in general are unpopular, sort of like how a lot of people don't like clowns. It's a sort of uncanny-valley effect in real life that could have spilled over somewhat to the collectible minifigures. It's interesting to see how diverse people's likes and dislikes are. Personally, I loved both the Race Car Driver and the S4 Street Skater, two of people's general least favorite figs. The Race Car Driver had heavy branding that made him a touch more realistic than most seen in various race themes, and his Octan-branded helmet is a work of art (I love all of LEGO's fictional companies and so forth, and love seeing their logos on things). The S4 Street Skater had a very unique look with a great face, a great board design, and an amazing hat.

I don't know, yesterday I had a devious idea for something to do with one of those figures (assuming their heads are around the same size I'm visualizing, which may not be the case).

This is a set I have fond memories of from childhood. In fact, the pillow on my bed is decorated with a picture of this set on one side and 6339 Shuttle Launch Pad on the back. I do have to admit that I don't know if I quite as much fun with this set as I have had with many more recent sets. The conveyor is a nice feature, and one that gets more fun the more Aquazone sets you have, but it only has slightly more of a "destination" for the crystals than the endless cycle gold and silver crystals go through in the more recent Dwarves' Mine. Also, the baseplates make this set take up a lot of space, whether displaying or playing with the set. Admittedly, it's better than the shabby-looking Aquasharks base, but still I find some later sets like Pharaoh's Forbidden Ruins, Fort Legoredo, and Flying Ninja's Fortress to be more fun overall (and I'll admit none of these sets are all that much later, but I'm listing them because they're large stationary bases, whereas more recent sets I've had a lot of fun with are often mobile bases like the SP3 Galactic Enforcer, the Agents Mobile Command Center, or the Atlantis Exploration HQ). The architecture of this base was nice and outshone any other Aquazone bases IMO. In addition, the underwater baseplates made the environment very mysterious compared to the plainer sand beds of Atlantis or 2007 Aqua Raiders. The sci-fi story behind the theme was nice, although awfully complex for its time-- if the characters had consistent names then it would have been every bit as complex and unorthodox as some of today's themes like Ninjago. Overall, this was a very fun set from a very fun theme. Even if I've had more fun with some more recent sets, I still have fond memories of Aquazone, particularly the early Aquanauts vs. Aquasharks sets.

My brother and I built this guy yesterday. I have to say, he's very nice! He has the best color organization of any of the dragons we've got so far (the Fire Dragon, the Ice Dragon, and now the Earth Dragon), with those extremely tasteful dark tan (sand yellow) stripes on his legs. A couple things do bother me about him-- for instance, the silver spines on his head (they don't match any of his other parts in color or shape, being way more curved than his rocky contours), or the tiny gaps in his sides as seen from above. But these are minor faults, I think, and the set definitely ends up being both a nice display piece and a fun set to play with. Another thing that bothers me a bit is Cole DX's torso. It just doesn't feel as colorful as the other DX torsos. Kai's has a yellow stripe on the dragon's face and yellow flames, Zane's has a blue stripe on the face and blue ice breath, and Cole's has a grey stripe on the face. That's it. I understand that grey was needed to continue the belt pattern onto his torso, but I still wish there were a more vibrant color for the dragon's face-stripe, like possibly sand green. Essentially, something that would stand out more from the gold and the black background color. General Wyplash is cool. I have some devious ideas of what I might be able to do with that skull...

"Brick Yellow" and "Sand Yellow" actually make a lot more sense than people realize. Observe. As you can see, LEGO at one time had a pretty logical "spectrum" of colors to choose from. Many of those have been discontinued (those depicted as bricks rather than plates in the above chart), but there is still a pattern that includes many colors whose official names people have trouble understanding. Dark Green (Bricklink's Green) is one shade darker than Bright Green, and one shade lighter than Earth Green (Bricklink's Dark Green). Earth Orange (Bricklink's Brown) is one shade darker than Dark Orange. Together as a single hue are Light Reddish Violet (Bricklink's Pink), Medium Reddish Violet (Bricklink's Dark Pink prior to 2004), and Bright Reddish Violet (Bricklink's Magenta). Needless to say, not all colors can be organized according to this simple spectrum. Both old colors like Light Orange Brown (Bricklink's Earth Orange) and newer colors like Flame Yellowish Orange (Bricklink's Bright Light Orange) can't really be organized in this way. But still, some of the color names that confuse people the most in this day and age start to make a lot more sense in the context of this color spectrum. Transparent Brown doesn't make as much sense as some other color names in this particular context; it's a more specific color name rather than one that makes sense relative to other colors. However, it should be noted that a press release a couple years ago mentioned 111 Transparent Brown, 131 Silver (Bricklink's Pearl Light Gray), and 148 Dark Grey Metallic (Bricklink's Pearl Dark Gray) as colors that TLG was planning to replace due to difficulty in matching the target color consistently. 131 Silver and 148 Dark Grey Metallic were replaced toward the end of last year with 315 Silver Metallic and 316 Titanium Metallic, respectively. 111 Transparent Brown is still with us, though. So perhaps we may be seeing a "browner" Transparent Brown substitute next year. Alternatively, the replacement could be a proper "Transparent Black"/"Transparent Grey" rather than the smoky not-quite-grey, not-quite-brown color we've currently got. On the other hand, perhaps the design lab has changed their minds and they won't be replacing the color at all. Just something to think about.

On one hand, I agree. My younger brother has a netbook and encounters many of these same errors. At the same time, I think it should be considered that as free software, we have to give the LDD team some slack. After all, from my experience, the quality of LDD is far better than some of the extremely glitchy LEGO computer software of the 90s and early 00s, and those cost money! Now, as far as computers are concerned, I'm pretty lenient about things running poorly. I tend to keep my patience with software even if it crashes frequently or runs slowly-- in most cases, I just learn to put up with or work around its flaws. And I'm sure the LEGO computer games from the 90s, on my mom's old PC which often ran poorly on its own, helped condition me to put up with more than I probably ought to. But I still think LDD is a magnificent piece of software and I love how it's always being improved further with its ever-expanding bricks palette, not to mention the sense of accomplishment in reporting bugs and errors on this forum so the design team can put our time spent building to good use.

There's absolutely no reason I'd want TLG applying stickers to parts for me, for most of the reasons other people have mentioned. I'm generally in favor of stickers in a lot of applications, and am not the sort of person who considers printing superior in all situations. Pre-applied stickers would be just as pointless as printing in many situations, and would probably cost more considering how hard it would be for a machine to replicate the fine motor skills required for applying stickers to certain surfaces.

I probably ought to mention that while my family is very LEGO-tolerant, my mom and dad do sometimes act a bit condescending towards the themes I like. Neither of my parents really understood BIONICLE when I was into it, and my dad can't even wrap his brain around the much simpler Hero Factory theme. He insists that he just doesn't get the idea of robot characters, although when I pointed out that the fleshy organic-looking characters of Galidor were the alternative he had to admit that robot characters make sense from a pragmatist point-of-view. My dad also thinks Ninjago is a bit ridiculous (I think it's the name that bothers him in this case, not the content of the sets). It should be pointed out that when showing off the features of sets I've built to either of my parents, they marvel at the designs just as much as I do, no matter what the theme. It's the overall aesthetic and background stories for the themes that they have the most difficulty understanding or connecting with. On a related note, my mom really wishes more of my LEGO building was from a more artistic perspective. She is often mentioning how much she'd like me to try and build things from real life rather than building fantasy spaceships and action figures.

I definitely agree to this. Really, while many models could do with fewer cheese slopes, that doesn't mean that models would be any better for it. Looking at this year's sets, I don't see many where the cheese slopes are particularly obtrusive-- rather, they add a level of detail to models which would otherwise just require different tiny parts like 1x1 round plates in their place. If there were fewer cheese slopes, then I'm sure people would celebrate every set that had rare colors in large quantities. It's true that we may take the cheese slopes in our sets for granted, but besides sets like Tower Bridge where they're just used as an easy way to create large smooth slopes, I can't think of many instances where they aren't used tastefully. Glancing at the Captain's Cabin, I can see all ten of the cheese slopes. The question, then, becomes what would be used in place of them if these cheese slopes were absent? Probably, as I mentioned, 1x1 tiles, 1x1 plates, or 1x1 round plates. Perhaps two of the cheese slopes in the set could be left off entirely, without anything replacing them, but frankly I don't see how two cheese slopes would change either the cost of the set or its perceived value significantly. Believe me, I don't think cheese slopes are incorporated into set designs any place where they take the place of more important structural characteristics. And I'm sure that if a set design ends up costing more than the price range TLG intends to sell the set for, cheese slopes and similar "detail" pieces are some of the first to go. So I don't think the cheese slope deserves any sort of antipathy for harming set designs. Lastly, from a MOCing perspective let me say that I think the use of cheese slopes for greenery, lava, ice, or snow is a perfectly legitimate way of adding detail to a scene. My twin brother made a microscale volcanic island once recently, and using tiny pieces like cheese slopes was the only real way to make the lava floes convincing. And frankly, I think BURPs are rather boring unless they have some sort of detail, whether in the form of the three-leaf 1x1 round brick introduced for Ninja sets like this one, basic bricks as used in this set (a mountain design that today would look woefully out-of-date-- even plates would have at least offered some variety in texture), or the current trend of using cheese slopes.

The problem with this theory is that Belville and Paradisa were created for the same reason as this theme: to tap into the largely untapped female market. So even before these themes TLG had a problem with more boys buying products than girls. Meanwhile, how can you say that girls like regular LEGO who don't buy any of the products? For a young girl to really value the traditional LEGO minifigure they have to have owned LEGO at one point, or at least been exposed to it through siblings and so forth. For adults, sure, there's a sense of nostalgia even for those who just remember LEGO but never owned it. But this theme is targeted at kids... specifically, those who have grown out of Duplo but haven't been attracted to regular LEGO. These are girls who wouldn't have known LEGO before this supposed skew towards male-oriented content, and so wouldn't have been kids who used to buy LEGO and stopped. In fact, most of them would have a stronger nostalgia for Duplo than regular LEGO, so less geometrically-shaped figures with realistic skin tones might not be at all at odds with the sort of play they would have been used to. This topic examines the issue in more detail and points out that girls and boys tend to have largely different play patterns after they grow out of the Duplo age range, not just interests in different content. While it acknowledges a bias in TLG's existing play themes towards boy-oriented content, this is not the sole reason why boys overwhelmingly outnumber girls when it comes to buying and playing with LEGO. Will this theme help amend that imbalance? I certainly hope so. But I think it stands more of a chance than just adding more diversity of content to the City line, which seems to be many AFOL's first suggestion. I mean, look at what TLG has already tried in the City theme! This year's Marina is basically a Paradisa set without the pastel colors. The Farm sets have already been pointed to as an example of what girls may like (based on the idea that girls really like sets involving animals), yet it didn't seem to prove much more successful with girls than other City sets (and to be fair, it had as heavy an emphasis on vehicles as any other City subtheme). The City House is basically a modernized counterpart to the classic town-theme houses people seemed to consider so gender-neutral, with many dollhouse-like attributes. Frankly, I think TLG has been putting forward a considerable effort to diversify their City sets away from just emergency vehicles. But they're not going to abandon the subthemes that are most successful just to implement these new and untested ideas. Remember that even ideas that were touched on in the 80s and earlier might not work today, because kids today have different interests than kids did back then. So re-introducing ideas from sets back then is about as risky as introducing brand-new ideas, and is not a decision to be taken lightly.

LEGO does occasionally give discounts on certain sets on their website, but rarely discounts of the same magnitude that retailers offer. Check their Sales and Deals page to see what's for sale currently. However, note that sale items on the website tend to be retired sets or sets from retired themes, whereas retailers tend to offer sales on most of the LEGO sets they have in stock-- even current ones. The LEGO Shop website's sales tend to be more of a "clearance" than a regular sale. LEGO offers occasional sales in LEGO brand stores. Recently, they've had one at three LEGO stores in the Virginia-Maryland-D.C. area to coincide with Brickfair, available only to registered event attendees. It was a fairly deep discount (30% off an order totaling $250 or more), and my family ended up buying a lot of sets. These sorts of things may not be marked on store calendars, since they only matter to registered attendees, but if you're attending any LEGO fan events like Brickfair keep your eyes peeled. Overall, though, unless you are part of the LEGO VIP program, then there's no special reason to put off a purchase in hopes of a better deal from the LEGO catalog or website. Offers of 30% off are about the highest you're likely to find for larger sets, so when an offer like that emerges it's best to snatch it!

It's been clear for many years that TLG wants their website to be a unisex toy. The problem is that girls just don't buy LEGO products the way boys do. As such, TLG is often trying new and innovative ways to get new female buyers. And the important thing to remember is that girls who prefer regular LEGO already tend to buy that. They aren't who these girl-oriented themes are usually targeted at-- they are a minority of the female audience and TLG is devoting their attention to the majority which doesn't buy LEGO and is thus an untapped market. Basically, any girl who wants the figs to look like regular minifigures is probably already buying sets that have regular minifigures in them. "LEGO Friends" is probably designed to try and appeal to all girls, but primarily the ones who aren't buying other sets. Now, as for these sets I think they are (as far as TLG is concerned) as interchangeable as classic minifigures. I can see four pieces at least: the torso, legs, head, and hair. This is the same number of parts as it is "legal" to separate a minifigure into (removing a minifigure's legs from the hips or removing the arms or hands from the torso damages the connection and thus TLG does not encourage separating them). They are apparently less articulated, which could harm their popularity, but I wouldn't consider it a huge flaw. Am I disappointed by this theme, from an AFOL perspective? Yeah, I guess I am. But I think using a new style of figure is just realistic on LEGO's part. The early suggestions that this theme would use regular minifigures seemed too good to be true, and it turned out that they were-- I don't think that's worth moping about. Currently, I'm just hoping that this theme will be successful so that some day we can say "LEGO is a unisex toy" rather than "LEGO is a unisex toy overwhelmingly bought by boys rather than girls". If it takes a separate theme to accomplish that then that's fine. I didn't complain about BIONICLE (an action figure theme) being designed primarily for boys, after all. Why should I be concerned with Friends (a doll theme) being designed primarily for girls?

I've had similar difficulty trying to find out when particular colors made their debut. Bricklink has timelines for each one, but they're often inaccurate, especially considering how often colors are misidentified in the database. I don't know any easy solutions for you, but one suggestion: the element IDs for parts (seven-digit number which identifies design, color, and decorations all at once) usually are roughly in order of date. Now, this may be inaccurate because individual elements, like the overall part designs, probably get registered before the part begins appearing in sets, and so it might not be a perfect sequence. However, it can still be a starting point. If you want to know where you can find element IDs, the "replacement parts" section of the LEGO Customer Service website (service.lego.com) has images of several parts. Each image's URL includes the element ID for that part. This is the best suggestion I can offer.