Aanchir

I only joined Instagram myself earlier this year, but here are some builders I've started following there: https://www.instagram.com/luigi1456andrew/ https://www.instagram.com/cnsm_lego/ I don't know if these builders only share to Instagram, but I haven't seen their work elsewhere as far as I can remember.

Perhaps, but I think another big factor is that over time base bricks developed an association with the chunky, simplified builds of many late 90s sets, and LEGO wanted to move away from that reputation. Also, of course, back in those days it was a choice between rugged base bricks or flimsier baseplates, but the introduction of new, bigger sizes of plate created a nice happy medium between the two.

Nothing useless about a golden banana. Besides being used ornamentally in two sets so far (and possibly more in the future), it's perfect for Donkey Kong 64 MOCs. I'd also disagree about the Goblin King's Fortress being at all cringy. In general, the use of Spring Yellowish Green across the entire goblin series is delightfully haunting, and contrasts well with past castle-ish sets. The castle looks quite nice in the animated series Secrets of Elvendale as well. The dark azur recolor of the egg piece is not really all that surprising. For starters, it was introduced in the Angry Birds Movie line, since a blue egg plays a role in the movie itself. But furthermore, blue eggs are far from unheard of in real life. I've actually got the shells of two blue robin eggs on a shelf next to my bed after finding them on walks around my neighborhood.

Hasn't it already been pushed to 2019? If a one-and-a-half year break since the last LEGO movie (and a FIVE-year break since the movie it's actually a sequel to) isn't enough buffer time for it to succeed, then more time probably won't help it any. That would be like if Marvel had delayed all of their movies from this year and the first half of next year to November 2018 or later so they wouldn't be too hot on the heels of "Captain America: Civil War" and "Doctor Strange".

I would say that 60007 High Speed Chase from 2013 was a milestone, if not a turning point, since as far as I can tell it was the first Town/City set that had a car (not a truck/van/SUV) on a full 6-wide frame. Granted, LEGO had cars this size before in other themes like Indiana Jones, not to mention much bigger cars in more fantasy-leaning themes like Agents. I do prefer 6-wide vehicles to 4-wide, just in terms of them being more detailed and feeling more accurately scaled to figures. Of course, that might have something to do with growing up around bigger vehicles… my dad has a Ford Excursion and for most of my life my mom had a Ford Crown Victoria sedan, both fairly big vehicles. I would often have a lot of fun trying to build these both IRL and on LEGO Digital Designer, and almost invariably I would stick to 6-wide, which most accurately captured their proportions and details (and, in ideal circumstances, allowed me to fit a minifigure family of four inside — though even 6-wide cars in LEGO City rarely attempt to fit more than a driver and one backseat passenger).

With the Airjitzu fliers that these latest spinners are based on, I think it was partly a matter of safety — they are basically a projectile, and you don't want something heavy or sharp dropping on kids from a great height (plus there's the question of how much you could add before they could no longer fly). With this new design, I think it was a combination of two factors — the desire to reuse the Airjitzu capsule and launcher molds, and the desire to market these similarly to the Airjitzu fliers as a toy you can do tricks/stunts with, rather than a competitive action game. So making the design sturdy and well-balanced enough to play rough with was a bigger priority than making it modifiable as a gameplay element.

I feel like if LEGO wants to be truly inclusive, introducing more skin tones to non-licensed themes may be inevitable in the long run. I’ve heard numerous questions both in person and online about why there aren’t more black people in sets. I’ve never heard anyone ask why there aren’t more white people. LEGO’s intent is for the yellow-skinned minifigure to be racially neutral, but the reality is that light-skinned people like me can see themselves in it fairly easily, yet the same can’t be said to the same extent for darker-skinned people. Obviously there are a lot of reasons that there hasn’t been more pressure to make this happen. One is that the LEGO fandom in the highly race-conscious United States is disproportionately white (economic inequality probably being a contributing factor to that, since the average white family in the US is overwhelmingly wealthier than the average black family). Another is that boys, who most minifigure-based themes primarily appeal to, don’t tend to put as much emphasis on having figures that look like them and can serve as avatars for themselves as girls do. Denmark, where LEGO originates, is also highly racially homogeneous, diminishing internal pressures on the company to make their toys more racially inclusive. And of course, tradition and the iconic status of the yellow minifigure are a powerful motivator to keep things as they are. Nevertheless, I feel like LEGO may be somewhat sabotaging their appeal with certain races by keeping darker skin tones largely constrained to the licensed themes, which have their own representation issues due to uneven representation within the film industry.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie didn't do great by Hollywood standards, but it WAS profitable, and furthermore, the sets seem to have been selling fairly well regardless (currently on shop.LEGO.com in the US, the Green Ninja Mech Dragon and Garma Mecha Man are on backorder). It also wouldn't have been a factor in these particular layoffs, which were announced prior to the movie's release. LEGO has also had pretty great success with a lot of their media offerings. The LEGO Ninjago TV series was a major hit, especially during its first two seasons, and the same could be said for many of the LEGO video games like the LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Indiana Jones, and LEGO Batman titles. The first LEGO Bionicle movie, Mask of Light, was also a commercial success, and probably contributed to the Bionicle theme saving LEGO from bankruptcy in 2003 when it was first released. In terms of non screen based media, a lot of LEGO books like The LEGO Book, The LEGO Ideas Book, The LEGO Play Book, LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia, LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary, LEGO Ninjago Character Encyclopedia, LEGO Harry Potter: Building the Magical World, and several of the early LEGO Ninjago graphic novels have spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Releasing 1-2 LEGO movies every year is not in the cards at this point by any means. There was one movie in 2014, and the original plan was for The LEGO Ninjago Movie to come out in 2016 — it only arrived the same year as The LEGO Batman Movie because the former got delayed a year. The next movie will be The LEGO Movie Sequel, which has been delayed to 2019 — beyond that point, only one movie (The Billion Brick Race) is known to be in development, and it still hasn't even got a tentative release date.

I think this question merits a bit more analysis, though. AFOLs in the 90s almost certainly wouldn't have considered 90s themes like Paradisa, Wild West, or Aquazone "classics". But AFOLs today might. Are we to assume that these themes became classics at some point? If so, how do you define that point? It's only been around 20 years since Western/Wild West sets first hit the market. That's over two thirds of my lifetime. But if we consider it a "classic" today, then by that definition, in four or five years Bionicle, Alpha Team, and Harry Potter could be just as accurately described as "classics". Certainly, it'd still be a much longer time before themes of the 2010s hit that threshold, but we do need to recognize that the definition of "classic theme" is not only highly subjective, but also fairly fluid. Even by this more qualitative definition, what is or isn't a "classic theme" is rather murky. Like, the Monster Fighters and Dino themes from 2012 didn't really have any more supplementary media than Adventurers did. Would they qualify as classics in your book? If LEGO were to create a new theme in a whole new genre (like, say steampunk, or sword-and-sandals) next year, without much in the way of supplementary media, would you consider it a "classic" from day one? And what about a theme like Fabuland that's over 30 years old, but was media-driven? Classic or not?

Nothing too surprising or enlightening in that explanation, but it's good to have them weigh in on the issue. Best I can figure it is LEGO trying to respond to the changing expectations of the market. Between people who grew up with more detailed minifigure faces as the default and people who only became LEGO fans as teens or adults, there's bound to be a lot of people nowadays for whom generic faces are an anomaly in otherwise highly detailed sets rather than a trip down memory lane.

Wonder if LEGO would ever consider using 22885 + 15068 (with a 3023 in between to fill the gap). That would solve the height difference, at least, though not the "arms at sides" problem or the lack of a hinge. I suspect one reason LEGO hasn't introduced a new standard for gowns/dresses is that they release figures in dresses so rarely. In this year's sets, fewer than ten minifigures use the 2x2x2 dress slope. Additionally, I'm not convinced that a dress piece that fixes ALL the 2x2x2 dress slope's issues would even work for all the same applications. For instance, even if you add a leg hinge, making the figure able to sit up straight would require removing the sloped portion from the back, which would eliminate the long, flowing look. Depending on the design of the hinge, you might also wind up having to have the front of the lower legs set back from the front of the hips like on regular minifigure legs, which would give the appearance of a dress that clings tightly to the shape of the body, rather than a looser gown (it'd basically resemble regular minifigure legs except joined in the center).

I got similar feedback when this MOC was still in the WIP phase. I did explore some other possibilities, too, but ultimately I liked these eyes the best. The fact that they're cartoony, even to the point of seeming unsettling, reinforces her artificial/animatronic nature in a way I really like. Also the ball joint eyes are proportionate to the head in a way that larger or smaller eye pieces would not be. The second-best solution I found is as simple as changing the color/pattern of the eyes like so. However, this also makes them less expressive, which I wasn't so fond of. I still think this could be a fun thing to do to have her show more extreme emotions, though… for instance, red eyes if she's angry, green eyes if she's super happy, etc. Thank you so much! The medium azur was actually sort of a happy accident. Originally, I had pretty much settled on black for the "hair" color, but then was surprised to find that a lot of the parts were much rarer in black than I'd anticipated. I had to sort of scramble to figure out a color I could get all the parts in before BrickFair Virginia, and Medium Azur ended up being the option that was both most affordable and best-looking. I'm glad I made that change though because it looks much more fun and futuristic than the black did.

Car dealership would be hard to do as a modular I feel, given that at least the dealerships I'm used to devote a lot more of their space to their lot than to their building (unless this is just a joke about how many people are frustrated with getting cars in modular building sets).

Great to hear the reasoning behind the changes straight from the source. Personally, I don't feel like the changes are too severe. Olivia still has wavy brown hair and light brown eyes, Mia and Emma still have the same skin color, hair color, and hairstyle as ever, Andrea still has brown skin and hair in tight curls, and Stephanie has barely changed at all. All in all, the changes are hardly any more severe than when they cast a new actor to play a classic character like Batman or Spider-Man, and a heck of a lot less severe than when they cast a new James Bond or a new Doctor. And honestly, I think the changes DO go a long way. One thing LEGO Friends has been criticized for is that all the characters basically had the same face… but now, their faces feel a lot more distinct. Their outfits and surroundings also now feel a lot more tied into their specific interests. Olivia's heart insignia is replaced with a flower-shaped gear (or gear-shaped flower), and her new default outfit feels much more science- and learning-oriented. Mia's new outfit feels very outdoorsy, and her interests have been expanded from animals specifically (because in a series where all the characters have lots of animal friends that doesn't distinguish her so much) to adventure and the outdoors more generally. Stephanie's sets, on the other hand, seem to bring her focus in a little more tightly from events in general to athletics. Emma and Andrea's outfits and sets continue to demonstrate their love of the visual and performing arts, respectively. Side note, something I'm just now noticing — the carpet in every one of the "bedroom" sets is heart-shaped! I hope LEGO releases bedrooms for Emma and Andrea in the summer wave to complete the series!

As far as LEGO is concerned it is the same color (same name and ID number). But of course, some variability is a possibility with any color, especially since Teal/Bright Bluish Green/Dark Turquoise was last used slightly before LEGO started mixing their own colors instead of buying pre-colored plastic granulate from a single supplier.

New LEGO Elves pics in the Action Themes forum. Notable details: Cool diamond-shaped elemental crystals New elf hair/ears Brick-built harp and lute New recolors of Chima bat wings, Chima flame wings, Elves dragon wings, Nexo Power tile, Elves railings, the new spiders, the new triple leaf piece, the classic triangular shield, and 1x1x6 circular column. New printed 2x2 round tile with multicolored crystal pattern New book cover (maybe a print, maybe a sticker) with a similar multicolored crystal pattern Black shield with a new pattern (again, maybe a print, maybe a sticker)

The mention of Chima seems odd to me. As you mention, it's been discontinued since 2015, and throughout its lifespan the LEGO Group's overall sales and profits steadily rose. As for Ninjago and Friends, those are almost always among the best-selling sets and themes, so I think their continued development is more than justified.

As a Bionicle fan I heard red characters are really appealing and eye-catching to kids, so tend to be some of the most popular. This is probably also why Kai was basically chosen as the Ninjago theme's main character in 2011 before Lloyd was introduced. That said, Lloyd is in about as many LEGO Ninjago Movie sets as Kai is (technically more, if you count polybags and collectible minifigures and so forth).

Oh wow, great job! I love his proportions and rounded shape. He'd be great even just as a sculpture but the fact that you went the extra mile and gave him real articulation is quite the impressive feat! Great part use for his belt buckle as well.

That could be interesting, but do you have any pics of how that might translate to a smaller building? A skyscraper like those ones probably wouldn't work as a modular building unless it were at a "deluxe" price point like Town Hall/Assembly Square/Ninjago City. Also might be a more repetitive build since there's not as much variation between the floors. I'm really not sure what kind of modular building could be good for the future. But one thing I would love, now that LEGO has a wheelchair piece, is a building that's wheelchair accessible. So far the only modular building that has had an elevator was Town Hall, and there was no way to get to that elevator without climbing some stairs.

cache.LEGO.com (and consequently, Brickset) has alternate angle pics for all the new Friends sets! This pic seems to confirm what the Friendship House is… a converted firehouse! (check the little fire insignia on the left wall of the top floor) Between this and Olivia's Mission Vehicle I'm getting some real Ghostbusters vibe from this new wave. As another nice detail, on the left wall of the second floor there's what looks to be a Maneki-neko (lucky cat) on a shelf. Also, note the "Lost cat" flyer on the tree that the swing hangs from, which ties in with the calico cat in the Olivia's Mission Vehicle set!

In fairness, I sometimes see conflicting information on what "evergreen" means. I'm still not 100% sure if it has to be a theme that's present year-in, year-out, or if a theme like Castle that has a stable three-year renewal cycle can still be considered "evergreen". I'm also a bit fuzzy on what it takes for a theme to be considered part of an evergreen series. We've seen that an evergreen theme can have its name changed, what with Castle becoming Kingdoms and then becoming Castle again. We've also seen that LEGO is willing to re-imagine evergreen series well outside the constraints of how they were originally envisioned (like how Castle morphed into Ninja in the 90s or Nexo Knights in 2016). But if, say, a licensed theme like Pirates of the Caribbean filled in for an evergreen category for a year or "cycle", would LEGO still consider the broader category evergreen? Perhaps the weirdest official instance of the term "evergreen" I've seen was in the New York Toy Fair press pamphlet from 2012, which called the single-wave Dino theme "an evergreen in construction". Did LEGO expect it to continue year after year? In that case, that certainly didn't go as planned. But if it was just something they wanted to keep on a steady three-year renewal cycle, and licensed incarnations do in fact count, then technically they are still on track for that, since they had Jurassic World sets in 2015 and will have Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom sets slated for next year.

There are a lot of reasons I prefer the more modern heads. As a disclaimer, I have always been a big fan of story-driven themes and their potential for storytelling play. Just as sets with more complex builds teach kids to be more advanced builders, themes with more complex stories teach kids to be more advanced storytellers. Consequently, themes like Bionicle and Ninjago inspire a wealth of fan art, fan fiction, fan animations, and other forms of storytelling beyond just MOCs. None of the people who write great books and movies and comics and plays got there by closing themselves off from other people's stories and forcing themselves to create in a complete vacuum of outside influences. Enjoying other people's stories is how you acquire the tools to create better stories yourself. Much has been said about how open-ended the classic themes were, but as a kid I found myself much more inspired to create stories with my sets and figures if I had some kind of "story starter", like characters who had some established (or even just suggested) personality or motivations. A figure with a generic smiley face is just a cipher — there's nothing more to them than whatever job their clothes happen to suggest. But give them determined-looking eyebrows or a devilish smirk and suddenly they convey the sense of a character with real thoughts and feelings. And then you can start digging into them on a deeper level. Why is this character angry? What is this character so determined to do? What is this character scared of? Even a happy expression conveys more meaning in this context than it does if every character has the same happy smile. As Sammael pointed out above, the smiley face is NOT an inherently neutral expression. To imagine a character with the classic smile being angry or sad or frightened means having to IGNORE their facial cues… and how is that any less limiting than having to disregard another expression like a scowl, open-mouthed grin, or frown? From a creative building standpoint, more detailed faces greatly multiply the mixing and matching possibilities you have with a given number of figures. More detailed faces also help free figures from the outdated idea that hairstyle denotes gender. Just look at how the boxer in this set uses a hair piece originally designed for female figures, but his printed mustache helps make him more recognizable as a man with wavy hair. Similarly, a face with more feminine traits like lipstick enables you to use a shorter hairstyle without the figure being confused for male. Furthermore, regardless of what other facial features the figures might have, I greatly prefer minifigure faces with eyebrows and white sparkles in their eyes. It makes them feel so much more alive compared to the classic black dot eyes. Finally… I have over the years seen some obnoxious articles that try to insinuate that figures with angry, sad, or determined emotions somehow influence kids' development in a negative way, whereas a world of smiling faces inspires kids to grow up to be happy and agreeable. Now that right there is some hot garbage. Speaking from experience as an autistic person, it's profoundly important that kids learn to understand and recognize emotional cues, and to be aware that everybody being happy all the time is neither realistic nor ideal. Kids need to know that being upset about things is valid, that showing how you are feeling is valid, and that "negative" emotions can be just as effective motivators as positive ones.

Honestly in the past 12 years or so I don't feel like the general minifigure face design standards have changed much at all. You look at a figure like Rascus and he could still fit in pretty well with a modern-day Ninjago or Nexo Knights figure. Certainly design standards have become a lot more stable than they were in the 90s and early naughts when we had all kinds of weird and awful faces (it's kind of ironic to read a comment about designs that don't age well from somebody with a LEGO Island avatar… though granted, the Infomaniac is one of the only characters in that game whose design did age fairly well). Even in the early 90s when faces were still simple like you describe, there are some that have aged very poorly. This one here looks more like a sex doll than a real person (arguably, several early female minifig heads did). Plus, only about seven or eight years passed between the first figs with facial features other than a smile (in the 1989 Pirates sets) and some of the worst ever minifig faces (like Flatfoot Thomsen and the various American Indians from the Wild West theme). Certainly some throw shade at themes like Exo-Force and Clone Wars that consciously broke from design conventions of the time, but at least those generally didn't resemble racist caricatures. With that in mind, the fact that we've gone so long with fairly consistent design standards tells me that the minifigure is largely through with a lot of its earlier "growing pains". The same as in Rock Raiders. That's why it's so extraordinary… it's very rare for a color to come out of retirement like that.

At that point, why not go the extra mile and invert ALL the colors?