Aanchir

There is one in the new Harry Potter sets that solves both those issues, though it is still not posable. Personally I think that pieces like the 2x2x2 slope brick or the new gown element work best for long fancy gowns, and I don't think it would be typical for a person in a long gown like that to ride a horse anyhow. But if need be, you can just swap the gown for a stack of bricks and plates, or for normal minifig legs, since a saddle will cover up most of the distinguishing details anyhow. For sitting figures I think swapping the gown for normal legs is also an acceptable solution, and I believe this is what is done for Professor McGonagall in the new Harry Potter Great Hall set. It would probably be possible to create a posable gown element (after all, there is one for mini-dolls), but I do not think it would be appropriate for all the same styles of gown, since for the figure to be able to sit it would have to be more or less flat in the back rather than trailing behind. Even with mini-dolls the Disney Princess sets introduced a new non-posable gown element for characters with more billowing dress shapes than the posable gown element.

I think in a lot of these cases it's a bit unrealistic to call the rarity of these figures "artificial". Comic-Con exclusive minifigures, for example, are designed for LEGO to give them away for free at specific events. It's a great marketing technique, but time on the production floor costs money and it makes sense that LEGO would rather dedicate most of their production time to products they're actually selling around the world, rather than to production of stuff they're giving away for free at specific events. It's true that it can be frustrating when a Comic-Con exclusive figure is the only official version of a particular character you like. That said, nothing prevents LEGO from releasing a "normal" version of characters they've previously released as Comic-Con exclusives. Just look at Green Arrow — not only is the one in sets based on the same character as the one that was released as a Comic-Con exclusive, but even based on the same version of the character's costume! Chances are we would have already gotten a "normal" version of Phoenix in a set as well if not for the fact that there have only been three or so X-Men sets since the Super Heroes theme began. But even now, the chances of seeing characters like Phoenix or Bizarro or Spider-Woman or Shazam in sets are ultimately no different than they were before those characters were released as event exclusive minifigures. As for Mr. Gold or the chrome gold C-3PO, they were basically sweepstakes prizes. It's asinine to think that something like that should be available to everyone; it defeats the whole purpose of creating those figures in the first place. It's no different from the solid gold, silver, and platinum Bionicle masks that have been released for various contests and sweepstakes. As a kid, do you know what I thought about these masks? I thought it was really amazingly cool that they existed, and that a few lucky people would get to own them! All this despite knowing that I would almost certainly never own one myself! I also never felt cheated by not being guaranteed a chance to own every Bionicle mask ever made. So it's downright baffling to me that actual adults feel cheated by the existence of similar limited prize items.

Wow, your goblin king fortress is beautiful! I wish more of the castles at LEGO conventions had bright colors like these! It really evokes a powerful mood, whereas more typical greyish castles can often feel kind of sterile without brighter accents to complement them. That said, the grey parts where the castle appears to be crumbling also make a very powerful statement here! And I love your creative use of the keychain ribbons!

I didn't really buy a lot of the Galaxy Squad sets, but to be honest the one that wound up being a must-have was the Hive Crawler. I also consider the Warp Stinger one of the theme's more iconic designs, and Space Swarmer was a pretty solid design for its price point, so I'm not sure I'd agree that the insect vehicles were weaker designs than the human ones. I think the shift away from including things like metal detectors and walkie-talkies in space themes may have less to do with any shift away from exploration and more with those things no longer seeming futuristic to kids. In this day and age, I feel like a sci-fi character with any sort of communicators or sensors/detectors tends to have them built into their suits or as an unobtrusive ear- or wrist-mounted device, not as a separate gadget they have to lug around.

I wonder if perhaps the reason LEGO hasn't done something like that yet is the limits on articulation for a model that big. The Voltron set is able to get away with such limited articulation in its legs because it's aimed at teen/adult builders for whom play value is not as big a deal as it would be for kids. But a typical play theme would probably have to meet higher expectations for playability. Not to mention, the Voltron set isn't even minifig scale — it doesn't have to worry about how, say, having an empty space for a cockpit in each individual segment will affect the combined model's structural stability. That said, I'm with you that something like that would be really rad to see. And LEGO has managed some fairly substantial "combining vehicles" as sets, like Ultra Stealth Raider, which at a $100 price point includes three oversized bikes and a jet that combine into a tank. Doing something like that with spaceships would be no trouble at all — having the combined form be a "super robot" is the only considerable technical hurdle that still needs to be overcome.

It's so cute! I can just imagine coming across that "shell" out in nature and then the legs and eye popping out and the bug quickly skittering away! I need to try building more stuff with Mixel eyes. I love how much personality they add to anything you use them on.

With Bright Red parts, those molded in softer plastics could be so different in color from the typical standard that BrickLink treats them as a separate color (Rust). Probably the same issue that briefly affected grey clip plates (and from my experience, blue ones, since I have blue clip plates from before my lifetime with distinctly varying shades).

Samuel Johnson was under no obligation to chime in on a tweet that wasn't addressed at him, and whether or not you think there are details he's withholding, it would be foolish to imagine the details he DID provide are not truthful just because he's defending product lines he worked on. After all, his job is set design, not PR, and NDAs typically don't differentiate between positive and negative insider information. I also would argue against the notion that a theme that did alright/exceeded sales targets did not succeed. Are we really at the point where a theme has to be an evergeen hit like Ninjago or Friends or City to call it a success at all? Perhaps with Nexo Knights you could make an argument that the theme not becoming a lasting success like Ninjago meant falling short of ideal expectations. But when Chima was conceived, even Ninjago was not expected to be an evergreen hit. Its small third year wave was seen as its grand finale, and the announcement that new sets were in development for 2014 only came right before the first wave of Chima sets hit the shelves. So if Chima was intended to last as long as what was understood at the time to be Ninjago's lifespan, then it absolutely achieved that goal. If you plan for two bottles of soda to last a week each, but it turns out the ginger ale lasts eight days and the cola lasts a month, you don't say that the ginger ale didn't last as long as you expected.

If these rumors are true I for one won't complain. After all, I've loved seeing updated versions of the Destiny's Bounty and Ultra Sonic Raider and have thought for a while that some of the original dragons from 2011–2012 might benefit from a similar update! Also, with the popularity of streaming services like Netflix, a lot of kids might be just as aware of the pilot and Season 1 characters and story as they are of the current story. So that might be enough to generate renewed demand for those seasons' characters and factions. The big question, for me, is how this will tie in with the show. Will the sets literally retell stories we've already heard? Or will there be a new story arc that revisits a lot of those same plot elements and makes that classic stuff relevant again? All that said… I haven't seen a whole lot of sources for either the Ice Temple rumors or the 2019 rumors at this point, so there'll probably be more to discuss once we have some info that's a little more definite.

First of all, is that confirmed anywhere for either of those themes, or pure speculation? I can't recall ever seeing anything that suggested Chima was supposed to get more than two waves in 2015, let alone that Nexo Knights was supposed to get more than one wave this year (I am aware of Nexo Knights books that were planned and later cancelled, but the same is true of LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Friends). Furthermore, that seems like a rather ridiculous measuring stick for whether a theme succeeds or fails. We have literally no idea whether LEGO ever had plans for new Pirates sets in 1998. Would you declare the Pirates theme a failure on the basis of one hypothetical cancelled wave, regardless of what sales or profits were generated by the waves that actually got released? For that matter, what if LEGO came up with an idea for a new, different "modern day" theme to replace City, despite having planned on two or three more years of City sets? Would you then declare the City theme a "relative failure"?

Well, to hear one of the designers tell it… Also, I think the difference in a theme lasting two and a half years or three is kind of splitting hairs. Nexo Knights got one new wave in its third year, Chima got two. Heck, Chima had more non-polybag sets in its final year than all the first year Kingdoms sets! To dismiss either Chima or Nexo Knights as not lasting three years because there wasn’t a new wave in June or later would be like saying Kingdoms only lasted one year because it only got two waves, or that Speed Champions is only in its second year because it’s had just four non-consecutive waves.

I’ve never seen any credible reports of Chima being a failure. Compared to Ninjago maybe, but that’s because Ninjago was a runaway success that went on to become evergreen. By that argument you could call even the Pirates theme a “relative failure”, since it never lasted as long or got as many sets as the likes of Bionicle or City. To say nothing of the many flash-in-the-pan licenses like The Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean, whose short-lived successes are practically insignificant compared to the persistent success of the Star Wars and Super Heroes themes!

I think a space pirate theme could wind up in either sci-fi or action-adventure depending on whether there are any magic/supernatural elements. Generally that seems a big part of what separates themes like Nexo Knights and Atlantis from what Eurobricks considers Sci-Fi. It's kind of odd that things break down that way here, when sci-fi as a film or literary genre has included fantasy elements for many decades, but it seems to be the way things have worked out so far.

You hit the little swooshy arrow-shaped "Share" button on the lower right of any Flickr page, then when the dialog box comes up click "BBCode" and select "Thumbnail" from the drop-down menu. Then just copy and paste the code that appears right above that drop down menu. If you ever want to use bigger images there are also a lot of larger sizes available.

I really love buildable figures (especially cute girls), ranging from Bionicle-style robot action figures to more System-based dolls and sculptures. As examples, here are a few from my Favorites folder on Flickr:

This is really cool and I love the variety you’ve been able to achieve! This program seems like it would be great for generating variations on an idea (color schemes, motifs, etc) to decide what you like best, which can be more tedious with IRL builds or even with some digital building software.

This is exceptionally creative. It’s cool to see a fantasy creation that breaks from Tolkien-esque medieval fantasy tropes and instead takes cues from more contemporary, sci-fi influenced media like Dune or Tremors. There’s no reason a creature like this is any less valid as a fantasy monster than more traditional mythical monsters like dragons and sea serpents! I also can’t help but be reminded of one of the story arcs from my favorite fantasy podcast, The Adventure Zone. The use of the drill stage/wheel pieces from Power Miners to construct the body is very inspired and gives it a nice spiny/scaly look. Much more interesting than if it were a smoother tube shape. The mouth is quite fearsome too! But I also have to give a shout out to the wonderfully sandy terrain you’ve constructed, up to and including the explosion of sand where your wurm has burst out of the ground! The curved slopes for sand dunes are a technique I will have to remember for the future. Great job!!!

One thing I would love to see at some point is a theme set in cyberspace, sort of like Tron, MegaMan Battle Network, or Code Lyoko. This could work as a theme with minifigures, mini-dolls, action figures… you name it. It would potentially be a good opportunity to reuse some of the more cyber-influenced parts from Nexo Knights like the holographic swords and axes. The MegaMan Battle Network games in particular really appealed to me growing up. I suspect that here on Eurobricks, a theme like that would qualify more as an action theme than a sci-fi theme on account of being heavily superhero and fantasy influenced and having to rely on figurative rather than literal representations of technical concepts (for instance, a firewall might be depicted as an actual wall of fire, computer bugs as actual bugs, etc).

Are we still talking about the holes in the legs, or breaks from toy accuracy in general? I don't see how adding more points of articulation makes anything "easier to animate". The LEGO movie designs are more advanced in some ways, like the photorealistic textures showing wear, tear, dust, and molding marks on the individual parts, or the cheats they use to get around the real limitations on posability for a properly assembled minifigure. But animating legs that only move back and forth on one axis is easy-peasy. Brickfilmers have been doing it for decades, and if you've used a program like LDD you know it's no more difficult on a digital model than a physical one. I would also count these kinds of deviations as a creative liberty because it's not at all limited to animated media. The packaging for the collectible minifigures, the illustrations of various hand-drawn LEGO comics, and more also deviate from a strictly toy-accurate look, not because it's somehow any easier than showing the characters with the limited articulation of the physical toys, but rather because it gives the characters more expressive body language, lets their movement feel more fluid and less "janky", and in some cases like certain Ninjago comics and media lets decoration from the front of the legs continue onto the back. The LEGO movies proved that the realistic LEGO look is better some of the time. Acting as if they proved that style was always superior is like saying Toy Story proved CGI cartoons were always superior to hand-drawn ones, or that Van Gogh proved that impressionist paintings were always superior to realist ones. There is no reason all media representations of LEGO characters have to follow the exact same rules. Frankly, it'd be pretty boring if they did.

At over one and a half times the length of the current snake mold, I think Nagini's mold may be too long for some uses, though it could make a good anaconda for future jungle sets.

I think one reason behind that omission in the article is that the author seems to mistake the patent for the "stud and tube" system for a switch from bricks that didn't snap together at all to bricks that did, when in reality the bricks before the stud and tube system could still interlock, just not as securely in as many ways.

Why is it a mistake? Seems like a pretty unobtrusive creative liberty for animators to take, especially since it could be awkward making legs with holes contract when you want to show the legs in a pose that real minifig legs can't assume. 100% accuracy to the toys doesn't have to be the goal all the time.

Looks like this one, but if you wanted to build Luxo Jr. in real life you could probably use this one as a substitute.

Generally the LEGO Shop site gets all retailer exclusives regardless of where they're ordinarily exclusive to. There was a brief period that brick-and-mortar LEGO Brand Stores were not carrying other stores' exclusives but I believe that policy ended last year.

Judging from Destiny's Bounty, I'm willing to bet that not only could LEGO do this, they could probably do it for cheaper than what the original Imperial Flagship cost. A kraken would be quite nice actually… it's been a while since we had a big brick-built cephalopod in sets, and I quite enjoyed those in the Aqua Raiders and Atlantis themes. LEGO has a lot more nice curvy elements and joint elements than they had when either of those came out and so could probably do an even better job today! Opening up the Pirates theme to more fantasy material would also allow for other sorts of monsters themes like those two have touched on, like sea serpents or giant sharks. LEGO could also potentially introduce something of a quest narrative with special collectible treasures for the pirates to hunt down and fight over, like the sort we've so often seen in themes like Orient Expedition, Atlantis, Monster Fighters, and Ninjago. Here's a random thought that occurred to me recently: what if LEGO did a pirates theme where the principle conflict wasn't between roguish pirates and lawful soldiers, but rather between two rival pirate crews? Outside the Pirates of the Caribbean license, LEGO has done this once before — in the 4+ Pirates theme, which had the rival crews of Captain Redbeard and Captain Kragg. (The mainline Pirates theme did have Captain Ironhook, but there was very little in the Pirates sets or media to establish that he and Captain Redbeard commanded opposing crews). Revisiting that theme structure could potentially boost both the appeal of the Pirates theme with kids, as I think generally pirates tend to be more iconic and ubiquitous in kids' media than soldiers of that era. And this way rather than just having one unified "Pirates" aesthetic, the two crews could be given contrasting color schemes, design motifs, and characterization.