Aanchir

Just wanted to share that the LEGO Home Page today links to the Heroica website in its "What's new" section. Unfortunately, the page merely reads "Server is too busy" on my computer, but perhaps the site will be running sometime later this week. In the meantime, you can always enjoy the kickin' Spongebob Squarepants animation, or the amusing Duplo animation demonstrating how horribly useless cops are in the Duploverse. No, you can't just signal to an escaped convict hoping he'll come with you. That's not how it works. Hopefully there'll be some real Heroica news soon when the website actually debuts.

Yup, definitely still my favorite bad guy set for the summer. I'm glad to see his torso is very well armored-- I had seen in pictures that the torso armor piece on his back is raised up above the actual torso and was worried about how well that would work, but with the armor on his abdomen his body is pretty well sealed-up. His head seems to be based on one of these, with the neck joint attached to the back, the lower jaw attached to the front, and the printed shell and head piece attached to the top. Very clever, and the best use of the shell-as-head-piece build by far. He's a lot smaller than I anticipated, but that's still OK because he uses a number of large parts, so he should still be worth the villain set price tag. I

Well-said. Although it doesn't at all explain why AFOLs love Fabuland and hate Jack Stone, which had a similar level of design complexity, had similarly-well-designed figs, and didn't really replace anything. I suppose that many Jack Stone vehicles didn't have the same "cutesy-ness" as Fabuland vehicles, though. And of course, given that Jack Stone and Fabuland alike had very different aesthetics from System sets of their respective eras, the fact that Fabuland used stickers and Jack Stone used prints may have worked to the former's advantage. After all, you almost never see Fabuland stickered pieces or Jack Stone printed pieces in MOCs. This topic was partly inspired by this review which was recently posted. There's nothing wrong with the review in any way, but I was struck by the jarring contrast between this and other areas of discussion on Eurobricks. Far more complex System sets have been brutally torn apart by reviewers for the slightest signs of juniorization, and yet in this set the three non-figure parts are treated with a great deal of dignity and respect. Not once was it even mentioned that the trike could easily have been made of smaller pieces, and the only negative mention of the piece count was concerning the price per piece (which, being typical for Fabuland sets, was not treated harshly at all, in contrast with how often themes like BIONICLE are berated for having a poor price-per-piece). Perhaps another factor in play is the general "kiddiness" of Fabuland. Looking at a Fabuland set, it's totally obvious that it's designed for kids younger than ourselves. And thus we have an easier time judging it from that perspective. On the other hand, when we see an Indiana Jones set, our gut reaction (perhaps slightly embellished) is, "Awesome! I love Indiana Jones! This set must have been designed just for me!" With higher expectations naturally come greater disappointments. And as AFOLs, our sense of what is childish becomes a little distorted. LEGO World Racers was clearly designed to appeal to kids, but since we AFOLs are so used to building LEGO vehicles, the design principles (which surely are no more egregious than other "battle vehicle" toys on the market) are judged from an adult perspective. Thanks, everyone, for your insights!

So "less expensive" = "dumber"? That's new to me. Also, I don't understand why any difference between a vehicle or scene in the source material and the same vehicle or scene in a LEGO set can be considered an "error". After all, the most recent D2C Death Star set was a work of art, despite not being to scale, including only a select few scenes, and compressing every scene into a tiny space. LEGO City builders don't expect every vehicle to be a perfect likeness of its real-world counterpart, non-LEGO Star Wars toy fans don't expect all playsets to be exact movie replicas, and it seems awfully pretentious for Star Wars fans to assume they deserve better than either group. I'm sure a lot of AFOLs and Star Wars fans consider Echo Base important, but at the same time, telling TLG that wouldn't ensure a better set than the one that resulted. It's the design details that people seem to dislike about the set, and that's the place where official LEGO set designers have a lot more experience and know a lot more of the factors that make a set attractive and practical. Blobbing everything in one room isn't lazy, it's practical. Throw up a bunch of walls everywhere and you make playing with the set more difficult (even more so for us adults with our non-kid-sized hands), you drive up the cost of the set, and you make the set a lot harder to display in an attractive way whether in real life or on box art. And anyway, if there were walls separating the rooms, would it really be that much more accurate if the walls weren't in the right place? The Cloud City set and the aforementioned Death Star set are both amazing designs, but they have various scenes smooshed together next to each other, not spacing them out with hallways like they were in the actual movie. Accuracy is often overrated. Back when I did collect LEGO Star Wars sets, I had a lot of Star Wars cross-section books, and I tried to design models of the vehicles that hadn't been released as sets. In general, I aimed for the highest possible accuracy. And in general, the final models were ugly, brittle, and boring. TLG has since released sets of a lot of those same vehicles (for instance, the AT-TE) that far surpass my attempts despite being considerably less accurate to the source material. I believe Lucasfilms does have to approve every set, but if you think that the merchandise guys at Lucasfilms care about total accuracy you're sorely mistaken. I think if you look most Star Wars playsets meant to depict movie scenes, they will not be significantly more movie-accurate than this one (especially if all the major Echo Base scenes are meant to be consolidated into one toy). The idea that because AFOLs don't like a set, the designers "didn't try hard enough" is laughable. They tried very hard to accomplish what they felt was most important. And they have enough experience to know that what's important in a set isn't necessarily its accuracy to the source material. An AFOL wouldn't try nearly as hard; they might just settle for an unnecessarily accurate replica that could, for all they know, totally fail to sell to kids. Minifigures may be a great asset to sets that makes them sell a lot better. What you're ignoring, though, is that they'd help an attractive, movie-accurate set sell just as much as they'd help a sloppy, effortless set. Are you suggesting that TLG's designers just aim to meet a certain level of profitability and decide to call it quits? That's not only insulting the talent and experience of TLG's set designers, it's insulting TLG's business strategies in general. As a business, you aim for maximum profitability, not just "good enough". And that applies for any company that intends to have a competitive edge. Designers sometimes do make sacrifices in their designs in order to make the sets better in one way or another-- whether "better" in this case means more affordable, more streamlined, more sturdy, more kid-friendly, or safer. Quality is extremely subjective, and different people value different types of quality-- for instance, the amount of fun a kid will have building and playing with a set versus the visual impact of the set once it's completed. Sometimes TLG's designers do have regrets about the things they cut back on and the choices they make. So the idea that they don't value quality themselves and can only interpret it through a set's profits is belittling to designers who are in fact real human beings, and who perform their jobs as designers to the best of their abilities. I tried to have a civil conversation about this, but if you're too cynical to acknowledge that TLG designers actually put hard work and thought into their designs, I don't even know if I'll bother. But keep this in mind-- I think that this is a very attractive and high-quality set, and I won't be buying it at all-- not even for the minifigures. So you see, it's not just a matter of TLG designing sets for the stupid masses and ignoring the demands of the wiser and more deserving AFOLs. People don't buy sets for the same reasons, and TLG has to design sets in a way that will be most advantageous. Throwing a couple extremely obscure characters in as minifigures isn't a sure-fire way to ensure profitability, and if you feel that it is then it's no wonder you can't grasp the design process for this set.

Well, we can never know for sure, since this is the first Ki Adi minifigure that has ever been released. I suppose some people might be able to whip up some customs or find another minifigure face that looks appropriate, though. Great review. I don't buy Star Wars sets, but I am very happy with the quality of this one. I figured I'd share that the brown pieces you couldn't identify are aircraft parts introduced last year in set 7206. One of them is also used in this year's Speedboat set, demonstrating that they are not nearly as overspecialized as the 8-wide airplane nose piece that predated them.

One error: 315 Silver Metallic is most frequently identified on Bricklink not as Pearl Light Gray, but as Flat Silver #95. It's also been listed as Pearl Dark Gray and Pearl Light Gray, but recently a lot of inventories have been fixed to list it as Flat Silver. Additionally, I ought to point out that I don't think 309 and 310 are "new" versions of Chrome Silver and Chrome Gold, but rather the classic versions that were only recently assigned Material ID numbers. Most chrome parts didn't have Material ID numbers in the past. Superkalle asked me a while back to collaborate on finding LDD-Bricklink color equivalencies for various Bricklink colors that hadn't been identified on LDD, and sent a request to the LDD team to check LEGO's database and find what material ID numbers were listed for several chrome parts. Sure enough, 310 Metalized Gold came up as a result for even older Chrome Gold parts like 43900. In contrast, no material IDs or names not already known came up for parts like 71598. Other than that, perfectly accurate. Of the unreleased colors, we know that Lavender and will be appearing in a set this year (Collectible Minifigures Series 5). No signs of any parts yet in Medium Azure, Spring Yellowish Green, or Medium Lavender. Lastly, I have a question: when you say you found the old color reference file outdated, are you referring to my Complete LEGO Color Chart in the LDD Reference topic, Superkalle's Color Reference file from LDD Manager, or something else? I don't think my own file is missing any colors, although I really ought to put some work into making a spreadsheet that gives some more detail like Bricklink color equivalencies, the timelines in which each color appeared, etc. (I've already started a document like this, but haven't posted it.)

I just wanted to ask this question that's been bugging me for a long time. What's the root of AFOLs' love affair with the Fabuland theme? It's a great theme with a creative concept, but at the same time it violates many of the values that AFOLs tend to cherish. For starters, many of the parts are extremely <insert that tiresome argument>. Yes, the theme is at a larger scale than most minifigure themes, but that doesn't exactly excuse parts like this that are really limited in their use both physically and aesthetically (or, taking things to the extreme, parts like this). The parts in general are about as <insert that tiresome argument> as those in Duplo, and even Duplo uses more reasonably-sized window and door pieces most of the time. Also related to the part I just linked to, there's the issue of stickers. I've seen a lot of stickers in the Fabuland theme, and that's generally something that AFOLs can't stand (I know there are others like myself who prefer stickers to prints, but I'm going with what's perceived as the majority opinion here). Many were STAMPs (Stickers Across Multiple Pieces), something I don't think anybody likes. The figures in Fabuland are not minifig-scale, which is something that tends to be one of the main criticisms AFOLs have of themes like Belville and Jack Stone. Many of the figures and parts use fairly obscure colors that were almost never used outside this theme, and yet these colors aren't as universally hated as new colors added to today's palette which AFOLs consider "unnecessary". Even the colors that were common in those days like red, yellow, and blue are used for extremely illogical things, yet the color scheme criticisms of today's themes like Power Miners and Atlantis never seem to touch Fabuland Fabuland was above all else a story theme, which is a criticism often leveled against today's themes. Many AFOLs tend to prefer the level of free imagination offered by older themes like Classic Space, where minifigures had no names or unique faces. Some of the most story-intensive themes, like BIONICLE and Knights' Kingdom II, are also some of the most rejected by the AFOL community. The story was told in part through books and a TV series, and yet there are some AFOLs who feel that even with its video games today (in which brick-building abounds) LEGO deviates from its core products and core values. Is the love AFOLs have for Fabuland just ironic, like how some people enjoy films like Plan 9 From Outer Space for their overall badness? Is it just a matter of Fabuland being a historical curiosity that only a few AFOLs have in their collections, and that they like to show off? Or is it all just nostalgia? Will AFOLs fifteen years down the road be huge fans of Jack Stone and 4 Juniors/4+? I'd like to hear people's thoughts and opinions. I'm not by any means a Fabuland hater by any means, and I would in fact love it if AFOLs would be more open to the themes I enjoyed growing up, like BIONICLE and Knights' Kingdom II. At the same time, though, Fabuland's AFOL fanbase seems disproportionately large compared to many more recent themes with lots of similarities, and I've never quite understood how this came about.

Your point about a change in the molding process is a good one. In 2006 TLG switched to adding dye to their plastic granulate during the production process rather than using pre-colored granulate, and I wonder if perhaps it wasn't until 2007 that they used up what was left of their pre-colored Reddish Brown granulate and began distributing parts made with the modern dying process. Material ID is what LEGO Digital Designer refers to the individual colors as. But in real life, I wouldn't be surprised if Material ID includes both the color and the physical material-- such as pp182 or pp111 on this chart, both of which I believe are the material used in BIONICLE and Hero Factory weapons, rather than the polycarbonate (PC) used for most transparent parts or the ABS used for most opaque parts.

I just figured I'd share something I discovered the other day in Keene, New Hampshire. I noticed that the store Toy City still had some moderately-full boxes of Series 3 and 4, and so I asked the man at the register if they hadn't been selling well. His response was that they'd been selling wonderfully, but that they had originally bought way too many, having bought too few of the first two series and been blown away by the demand. I'd also like to encourage any US users who live within driving distance from Keene and have not yet completed series 3 and 4 to visit Toy City and see if they have the minifigures you need to complete your collection (or any that you'd like multiples of). It's a wonderful toy store and I'd love for them to get as much business as possible-- especially if that business encourages them to continue stocking the LEGO collectible minifigures in the future!

You came to the right place. I think I have most of the answers you need. 8791's primary armor color is 268 Medium Lilac, his secondary armor color is 199 Dark Stone Grey, his metallic armor color is 189 Reddish Gold, his joint color is 194 Medium Stone Grey and the wolf on his chest and shield is 131 Silver 8792's primary armor color is 102 Medium Blue, his secondary armor color is 140 Earth Blue, his metallic armor color is 131 Silver, his joint color is 135 Sand Blue, and the hawk on his chest and shield is 147 Sand Yellow Metallic. 8793's primary armor color is 28 Dark Green, his secondary armor color is 141 Earth Green, his metallic armor color is 147 Sand Yellow Metallic, his joint color is 138 Sand Yellow, and the monkey on his chest and shield is 131 Silver. 8794's primary armor color is 21 Bright Red, his secondary armor color is 138 Sand Yellow, his metallic armor color is 145 Sand Blue Metallic, his joint color is 199 Dark Stone Grey, and the bear on his chest and shield is 189 Reddish Gold. 8795's colors are 26 Black, 154 Dark Red, 131 Silver, and 199 Dark Stone Grey. 8796's primary armor color is 195 Royal Blue, his secondary armor color is 208 Light Stone Grey, his metallic armor color is 189 Reddish Gold, and his joint color is Dark Stone Grey. 8703's primary armor color is 141 Earth Green, his secondary armor color is 138 Sand Yellow, his shoulder armor and faceplate color is 304 (unnamed and unavailable on LDD), his leg armor and weapon color is 296 Cool Silver, his joint color is 135 Sand Blue, and the horse on his shield is 297 Warm Gold. 8704's primary armor color is 21 Bright Red, his secondary armor color is 199 Dark Stone Grey, his shoulder armor and faceplate color is 304 (unnamed and unavailable on LDD), his leg armor and weapon color is 296 Cool Silver, his joint color is 1 White, and the bull on his shield is 296 Cool Silver. 8705's colors are 26 Black, 191 Flame Yellowish Orange, 132 Black Glitter (not available on LDD), and 296 Cool Silver. 8706's colors are 26 Black, 135 Sand Blue, 306 Defused Copper (not available on LDD), and 296 Cool Silver. Hope I didn't miss anything important. I'm on my lunch break and so don't have much time to post. Feel free to ask any questions about anything I said that was unclear.

I doubt it was an intentional color change, just because if an extreme color change were intended, the new reddish brown would be assigned a new Material ID number. As I mentioned before, differences in color among reddish colors like Reddish Brown and Dark Red are more easily perceptible to the human eye, so it could very easily be a simple difference in how concentrated the dye is. For the record, I don't recall ever seeing any differences in Reddish Brown parts that were considerably more distinct than any other color inconsistencies, and having never had a dark age I've been buying sets fairly consistently since before the 2004 color change, and certainly since 2007. I'm not saying that there aren't inconsistencies, but I'm having trouble imagining a systematic change in that color in 2007 that managed to completely escape my notice (and that I've never heard mentioned up until now).

It's not a difference in material-- it's almost certainly just a mold difference. A material difference would change the appearance of the part from all sides, not just the back. Something people often forget is that molds are responsible for the surface finish of a part as well as its shape. This is probably also part of the reason why collectible minifigure parts are less shiny than other minifigures-- as has been mentioned often, the collectible minifigures use almost exclusively new molds for their body parts. Your other observation about TLG probably having a surplus of parts from the opposite, older mold which they're trying to get rid of is probably the correct reason for the inconsistency of "right" and "left" wings, though,

I don't think it's a really big deal, since the double-meaning works either way. It's either the words "Ninja Go!" (demonstrating the same characteristic excitement as the Japanese-exclusive promo set "[url=http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=3018-1 LEGO Shogun Go!") or a portmanteau of "Ninja" and "LEGO". The exclamation "Ninja Go!" is a recurring line in "The Weekend Whip", the theme song of the series, and you're even encouraged to shout "Ninja GO!" when releasing your spinner in the Spinjitzu gameplay instructions. In other words, when referring to the setting of the theme, it would be Nin-JAH-go, whereas the pronunciation "Ninja Go!", while not the official pronunciation of the theme or setting, is still played with occasionally and has a similar level of meaning.

The legs are short? Really? I based the whole MOC around a standard Hero frame (adjusted a bit to have longer upper legs, more in line with a standard human figure), so I would think the legs should be long enough. And yeah, she's got fire wings. I was looking for a simple wing design that would use a somewhat repetitive pattern to create formidable-looking wings (much like the dragons in Ninjago, except I was largely testing the capacity for such a design using the Hero Factory building system). Hero Factory and BIONICLE weapons were the main place I looked for inspiration, and when I saw Furno's fire shooter piece it was too cool to pass up. Well, I don't mind Technic in general, but I'm generally a lot more pleased with myself if I can create a unique-looking and complete-looking model with the same design constraints a set designer might have to obey-- for instance, limited piece count and fairly simple construction. Technic can be a good thing, but at the same time I've seen plenty of MOCs where a torso's structure is a huge, solid block of Technic parts, without the sort of smooth, simplified aesthetic an actual set might have, and I try to avoid that. This doesn't mean I avoid Technic constructions in my MOCs-- in this case, it was necessary, and Fire Lord's torso shows how Technic-based action figures can be done tastefully without disrupting the simple aesthetic. However, things like Fire Lord's upper arms-- blocky, exposed, and not at all streamlined-- are the sorts of Technic-based building I like to avoid. And in other people's MOCs, Technic constructions can indeed be done tastefully. The thing that bothers me is when the Technic begins to interrupt the intended aesthetic of the model. If a model is supposed to fit in with sets, then it should at least have the looks of one if not the actual simplicity of design-- any large quantity of basic Technic parts ought to be well-hidden. A more "artsy" MOC, not intended to fit in with sets, can use Technic and System willy-nilly (some of my favorite BIONICLE MOCs do so), but I don't tend to build many of those myself (possibly because I just don't have the design talent).

A great song indeed! I'm mostly listening to Mike Oldfield stuff these days, as usual. Not listening to anything in particular, but since I'm sure people want to see/hear a video here's the beginning of the live performance of Tubular Bells II in 1992 at Edinburgh Castle: .Always blows me away. If you ever have an hour to kill, I encourage you to listen to that concert all the way through-- that person's YouTube channel has it in five parts, and it's an amazing performance.

Oh my gosh... those videos are AMAZING! I love the little scenes at the end of the Earth Dragon and Skull Truck videos! Granted, if I were a kid, I'd probably have thought they were just silly, but today as an adult I think they're hilarious! I guess my sense of humor is no surprise, though, considering I regularly read webcomics like Axe Cop. I'm currently building the Fire Temple on LDD. Most of the parts besides some of the skeleton general parts and the Dragon Sword of Fire should be available. Normally I worry that I use LDD as a substitute for real bricks, but I think it's a testament to this set's design that partway through building it I'm beginning to wonder whether I should skip out on some of the things I'd been saving up to to make room in my budget for this set (and probably the other three dragon sets to go with it). It also gives me many ideas for the Ninjago Giant Chess Set WIP my twin brother is working on-- he's doing Study Abroad in the UK currently, but once we're both back home I plan to do some serious brainstorming. By the way, has anyone gotten "LEGO Battles: Ninjago" yet, and if so, have you tried making any of the models from it? Some of them are quite clearly based on classic Ninja sets from 1998. The behind-the-scenes design videos on the LEGO Video Games website are entertaining, if not as much as these designer videos. I reckon the designer videos are more entertaining because it feels less like the designers are acting-- they honestly seem to be having just as much fun playing with and showing us the sets as a kid buying them might have playing with them and showing them to his or her parents!

A McDonalds promo from 15 years ago wouldn't have had wedge plates, and certainly wouldn't have had binoculars or similarly small detail pieces. And it almost certainly would not have had a minifigure This is from a person who got McDonalds promo sets for years. Admittedly, a McDonalds promo from 15 years ago would probably be better-designed than a more recent one, since McDonalds is so irrational these days with their policy of wanting toys with "no assembly required".

Alright, I definitely love the manuals for these sets. I wonder if they'll all be as in-depth or whether just this one is because it's the "starter kit". I expect they'll all be like this, since they have to be about the same length anyway (since each kit has three models). I wonder if these instruction manuals will make it online. Brickmaster set instructions ended up online, and of course some of the Architecture sets' building instructions are about as fancy in material and design as these ones. But at the same time, this is advertised as such a special offer that I wouldn't be surprised if the manuals were only accessible through the MBA website, and only to MBA subscribers. Since I plan to subscribe I won't be disappointed either way, but I'm sure some people who don't necessarily want the full subscription would still be happy to see the contents of the instruction manual-- especially people in countries where a full subscription isn't ever likely to be offered.

Actually, Reddish Brown does have more significant color consistency issues than most other LEGO colors. It's not quite as problematic as Dark Red, but still up there. I've read that one reason for this is that reddish colors are just easier for the human eye to distinguish, so even variations within TLG's prescribed tolerances are more noticeable in Dark Red and Reddish Brown than in a lot of other colors. That's just one factor, of course-- there are also, as you mentioned, far more color inconsistency problems in post-2004 parts in general than in pre-2004 parts. Also, great work on that color list. I'd like to add that of the colors listed, only 18, 38, 192, 308, and 312 are still current today. This means you won't be finding any of the other brown colors on store shelves except if a store still has sets from 2006 (the year 217 Brown was discontinued). I'm not entirely sure what 216 Rust is, either. It's a fairly recent color, given its numbering, but I can't think of any examples of it in System. Possibly a Duplo color? Another brown color I know of but don't know much about is 108 Earth Yellow, which was probably introduced in the late 90s. I can tell you what 128 Dark Nougat is-- it's the color used for Vernon Dursley's hair in 4728 Escape from Privet Drive. Bricklink misidentifies it as Light Orange Brown (BL's Earth Orange), something I don't understand since it's several shades darker than Ron Weasley's Light Orange Brown hair in the same set. Peeron does identify it as a distinct color, although I don't know how many of the things listed as that color are actually that color since I don't have any of the Duplo or Belville sets where it is said to have appeared. And then there's 187 Metallic Earth Orange, a color that doesn't appear on most lists-- it was used almost exclusively in the the BIONICLE set 8587 Panrahk for this character's face, feet, and back plate. I wouldn't include any metallic ("pearl") colors in a list of colors that could be called "brown", but in this case the color is so close to 25 Earth Orange (old brown) that almost any resource referring to these parts will just call them Brown. The reason classic brown is called Earth Orange, by the way, is because of where it falls on the color spectrum LEGO used to use for many of its colors. Here's a chart showing the other colors that fall on this spectrum. There are a lot of other curious color names that are best explained with this chart, such as Sand Yellow (Dark Tan), Brick Yellow (Tan), and Dark Green (Green).

Thanks for the review! I like this set better than the other Pharaoh's Quest promo/impulse (30091 Desert Rover) because this set is cute and ridiculous-looking, whereas IMO the Desert Rover is just ridiculous looking. I think it may have to do with how this set is smaller all around, while the Desert Rover has features like the distance between its headlights or the size of its front grille that could easily be kept the same on a minifigure-scale car. The initials on his jacket could very easily be the initials of a Pharaoh's Quest model designer. They like throwing those sorts of things into print and sticker designs.

Thanks for linking to LDD manager, Superkalle. Unfortunately, many of the sets posted recently have not yet been inventoried on Bricklink, and so I've been having to use the inventories in the backs of the instruction booklets (as well as consulting out-of-box photos when available to determine, for example, the silver color used in certain sets). It'd be very helpful if people would both use LDD manager when possible and wait for the sets to be inventoried on Bricklink before posting them here. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy building sets before they're reviewed, inventoried on Bricklink, or even released in stores. However, if you can bear holding off on posting them here, it would allow you to catch a lot more errors yourself and would make my work a lot easier. A lot of people ask me why I do these corrections for other members, and there are a lot of reasons, but first and foremost is the fact that it's something where I can make all the trivial knowledge I've accumulated about color and part timelines actually feel useful. In some cases, I can help teach people the official names of colors that differ from the Bricklink names-- something I was researching even before I started using LDD frequently-- and other "quirks" about LEGO colors and parts on LDD. But at the same time, I don't want my color corrections to be an excuse for carelessness in building. If you're having trouble identifying the often-distorted colors in an instruction booklet (for instance, 37 Bright Green and 28 Dark Green are often hard to tell apart), look it up, either on Bricklink or in images where it's clearer. Grogall's Brickshelf folder has lots of very clear, high-resolution images of recent sets. If a set's not on Bricklink yet, feel free to consult the inventory that should be in the back of one of the instruction booklets for each set (at least in all sets since 2006). These inventories don't give the names or ID numbers for colors, but they do group parts together by color, so it's easy to see which parts should be the same color and which should not. There are a lot of resources at your disposal to help you make this topic a reliable resource for people to look at an accurate 3-D model of an official set. Personally, I know I come to this topic often to download a set if I want to reference aspects of that set's design when MOCing. This topic is, like most things on Eurobricks, a collaborative effort, and I'm happy to be a part of it. But please make sure you put forth an effort to use all the resources available to you.

lol. But for some reason, I never notice any looser hinges in my collectible minifigures. If anything, they sometimes feel tighter than non-collectible minifigure legs and arms. Sometime I'll have to do a more controlled comparison between new collectible minifigures, new "mainstream" minifigures, older and thoroughly-played-with collectible minifigures, and older mainstream minifigures. Wasn't there someone a while back who used a precise scale to compare collectible minifigures and non-Chinese minifigures? I can't remember what topic that was in or what the results were, though. I don't think there was a very great difference in weight (and there shouldn't be much, since they're both made of very similar types of ABS-- there are only slight differences based on what company produced that ABS). Had you opened the set yet and seen the minifigure? It always bothers me when somebody has a set but starts to think less of it just after learning where its pieces come from. In any event, seeing all of those countries listed as possible sites of production, I imagine that the only "Chinese" part is probably the hair piece. You can compare the parts with collectible minifigure parts and more "mainstream" minifig parts to see for sure-- Chinese-made parts currently have newer molds with some visible differences, like molding marks under the arms, the lack of printing on the neck stud, and the word "LEGO" being aligned differently on the top of the legs assembly. Of course, TLG has told us that eventually all of these different molds and processes are likely to make their way to the other production facilities as well, but for now they're an OK tool for identifying the place of production for most regular minifigure parts. If you do make this comparison, will you share your results with us? I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in knowing.

Alright, looking at those reviews, I'll admit Witch Doctor's pretty cool. Still not at all a fan of his Technic-intensive build, and he has a lot of obvious flaws like his spindly, hollow body, but I love the unique posture given to him by the design of his legs (which are one of my favorite parts of the design, despite having a lot of Technic going on). His torso bothers me most, and I much preferred Fire Lord in that regard. His arms are also kinda questionable, and I'm not sure how much posability they have. The little comic on the back of the boxes is cool, but is probably extremely unclear in meaning to anyone who isn't already a fan of Hero Factory. I love the graphic design for this wave-- very intense! I like the Witch Doctor graphic on the villain instructions, but wish there was one for every bad guy set. Rocka XL is cool, but suffers from similar flaws to Witch Doctor. The torso seems heavily Technic-dependent and doesn't work too well overall. The arms seem about the same as Fire Lord's, which doesn't bother me one bit. What bothers me more are the changes in the arm design. The elbow no longer has such a wide range of mobility, which would be OK on a smaller set, but since the shoulder can't bend too well the elbow needs that extra space to move around. The legs are also OK, but not much different from Fire Lord's, although some of the new pieces work to their advantage. This is a set I don't feel I need to get, since the same character is in a smaller set and almost the exact same build is used for Fire Lord, but it's at least as well-designed as Fire Lord was and possibly more so (except the torso-- I love Fire Lord's torso build and how streamlined it is, and in comparison Rocka XL's feels a lot more pieced-together). Kinda hard to judge some of the new pieces, but I like what I see. I look forward to getting Raw-Jaw, who IMO makes the best use of that paw piece, even though Rocka XL's use of it as a torso is also nice. I didn't even bother watching the Scorpio review, but I liked the Waspix review. The person reviewing Waspix had a better idea what they were doing than the person reviewing Witch Doctor and Rocka XL, I think-- more showing, less talking. I generally watch video reviews with the sound off so that I can just critique the set myself instead of listening to someone else's opinions, and there was a lot more to actually watch in the Waspix review. Waspix is my second-favorite bad guy set in the upcoming wave, after Raw-Jaw. The new joint piece in Waspix is nice, and I imagine it could be useful for making unique Hero Factory creature MOCs. I tried making a bug on LDD earlier using just the 2.0 pieces (including Drilldozer's Av-Matoran-esque connector with two ball joints) and didn't have much success. With this piece you could just snap two or three of them on a Technic beam, add some larger parts to fill out the body, and you're on a roll! Can't wait for some picture reviews to start showing up here on Eurobricks!

Well, they're designed to work with a certain budget, if not a certain piece count. They can't just design a year of only $150 sets, so some sets will naturally have less detail than others. However, it's a bit unfair to call this process "dumbing down". Simplifying something and removing extraneous details can be a positive change as well as a negative change. And while some people want a photorealistic starship replica, that doesn't mean that "more detail" is a sign of higher-quality. Streamlining design can lead to a sturdier and more economical set. By "economical" I'm not just talking about price-- I mean that the set is as efficient as possible, making sure that the vast majority of the space is used to house interesting features and there's less "waste" in general. TLG has their reasons for not accepting AFOL input. One of these is obviously that AFOLs can't be counted on to know all of what makes a good set. Kids and AFOLs are attracted to vastly different attributes in sets, which isn't to say kids are experts, either-- there are a lot of kids and AFOLs alike who'd happily sacrifice certain aspects of quality by using illegal connections that can cause part damage, designing a set with hard-to-follow instructions, or designing a set that's all "looks" with very little play value. These are all things that LEGO designers learn from experience, and things which more "hardcore" LEGO fans don't necessarily sympathize with, but which genuinely help move product. In the case of Echo Base, I don't necessarily understand your complaints. No, it doesn't immediately stand out as a Star Wars set without the minifigures, but then again, this would apply to pretty much any location-based set. Echo Base was hardly the most distinctive location in the Star Wars franchise, but at the same time I've been waiting for years for TLG to design a set showing the bacta tank scene, and this one does it as well as I could ever have imagined (well, with the exception of Han not being there). It even has the recovery bed/chair! I'd rather that TLG design a somewhat boring Echo Base set that depends on flick-fire missiles to have any interesting pieces than stick only to more familiar locations and never make any Echo Base set at all.

Angelique by Aanchir - LXF Just a Hero Factory MOC I figured I'd post.