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Aanchir

Eurobricks Ladies
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Everything posted by Aanchir

  1. Aanchir
    Good point. If you’re right, then arguably the pinks are the only “Friends colors” making a big appearance here… unless of course we count Tan as a Friends color, since it IS by far one of the most used colors in Friends sets!
  2. Aanchir
    You know, if using perfectly reasonable colors really clashes with all the other buildings, maybe that’s a fault of those other buildings for not using those colors sooner. But I don’t think it’s anywhere near as jarring as people are making it out to be. Detective’s Office used Light Royal Blue (Bright Light Blue), Medium Blue, and Medium Nougat, which are just as much “Friends colors” as Cool Yellow (Bright Light Yellow) or Bright Purple (Bright Pink) and much MORE of one than Bright Bluish Green (Dark Turquoise). Plus, the range of “modular-appropriate” colors doesn’t get bigger by declaring arbitrary colors and color combinations “off limits” until the designers are forced to repeat themselves.
  3. Aanchir
    Main reason is that it looks greenish, and dark turquoise is already confirmed from multiple sources to be coming back in 2018. Also, a lot of the teal-ish parts in this picture would be new in either color.
  4. Aanchir
    Didn’t the modular buildings have huge letter-based signs from the very beginning? (hotel sign in Cafe Corner) I can understand having very particular tastes in what sort of modular buildings you like. What confuses me is how often people project those preferences onto the designers, as if there are codified rules about setting or architectural style that they ordinarily adhere strictly to.
  5. Aanchir
    It's kind of surprising to me how long people have been expecting all the modulars to be "1930s European" when they've routinely broken both those rules. Green Grocer was based on San Francisco buildings and had decidedly post-1930s refrigerators. Fire Brigade was based on American fire stations and had an American flag. Pet Shop's neighbor building was modeled on New York brownstones. Town Hall had a computer. Brick Bank, as you mention, had the laundromat. Assembly Square had a whole apartment full of LEGO building sets (even if we assume that in this fictional world the specific sets didn't come out the same years as IRL, LEGO bricks in general weren't a thing until the 50s). There are probably even more differences that a history or architecture buff could find. But in general, I don't feel like the designers have ever intended the Modular Buildings to correspond to one specific real-world place and time. Best I can figure, they are situated in a fictional LEGO city where those sorts of boundaries aren't nearly as rigid.
  6. Aanchir
    He has a link up to a YouTube video of the descriptions in his profile. Some interesting character name reveals here, including that
  7. Aanchir
    I think chances are that most parents of KFOLs aren’t AFOLs, so don’t have the same personal vested interest informing their purchases. From my experience, neither of my parents cared about Bionicle, but they never made any attempts to discourage my enjoyment of it. There’s also a phenomenon whereby something often becomes cooler to kids (kids of a certain age, at least) BECAUSE their parents’ generation doesn’t get it. Just look at trends in popular music, or other toy categories for that matter. Do you think Ninja Turtles or Tamagotchis or Pokémon became a craze because grown-ups found them relatable?
  8. Aanchir
    I wouldn’t say Chima fell TOO far short of expectations. Bear in mind that when Chima was being developed, LEGO still had no idea that Ninjago had the makings of an evergreen hit. They would’ve known about its incredible first-year sales, certainly, but not that it would maintain that momentum. I doubt either Chima or Nexo Knights was expected to meet or surpass the level of performance Ninjago ended up demonstrating in the long run. Also, I don’t think it’s any accident that Nexo Knights often appeals to different tastes than Ninjago does. During Chima’s development, Ninjago was probably assumed to be on its way out, but by the time Nexo Knights came out the designers knew it would have to coexist with Ninjago for probably its entire run. They wouldn’t want to engineer a situation in which they’d just be splitting the audience that already loved Ninjago between it and another theme.
  9. Aanchir
    Don't know that it would need to be PM'd at this point, since Brickset has non-watermarked pics and hasn't been asked to take them down. I'll be honest, though — I don't think a piece like this being large-scale and having Technic connections is any kind of guarantee it wasn't designed primarily for System themes. When I first saw it, my initial thought was honestly what a cool helicopter rotor it could make.
  10. Aanchir
    Agreed. I don't think Star Wars sets preclude the possibility of any other space-based sci-fi themes… LEGO managed to have three Guardians of the Galaxy sets this year, after all, and they also have the Voltron set coming out through Ideas in the future. So it's clear that they still think kids will be willing to buy other space-travel-related stuff in a Star Wars year. But it's hard to tell just what kind of circumstances it would take for a full, in-house space theme to be a really safe bet once again. While it would probably be dismissed by a lot of spacers, I wouldn't mind the prospect of a girl-oriented sci-fi theme featuring minidolls. Elves has done a great job presenting castles and so forth in a detailed and well-rounded way we rarely see in boy-targeted themes, and it'd be nice to see how that kind of design philosophy might work in more of a sci-fi context. I guess there's already Super Hero Girls, but I'd like to see more of an in-house approach.
  11. Aanchir
    I would say the lack of a new Space theme may have more to do with new Star Wars movies coming out than with Nexo Knights. I don't think it's any coincidence that the return of space themes from their last lengthy hiatus came shortly after the end of the prequel trilogy, while the start of the most recent hiatus came shortly before the start of the sequel trilogy. Star Wars is always a pretty big deal for LEGO, but it becomes an even bigger deal when there are new movies out. Trying to put out an original Space theme while kids are already drowning in Star Wars marketing hype would be a big risk.
  12. Aanchir
    Anyway, now that 2018 sets are starting to show up, it seems increasingly clear to me that next year is aiming to be a sort of a "grand finale" for Nexo Knights, and that a different Castle theme is likely to take its place in 2019 — unless, for some reason, the LEGO Group thinks that another Castle theme would have too much overlap with The LEGO Movie Sequel, which is coming out that same year. In general, the Castle category tends to be renewed every three years, and while Nexo Knights has been fairly successful last we heard, it doesn't seem to have been the kind of breakout hit it'd have to be to go evergreen the way Ninjago or Friends did. I disagree with those who suspect that kids' interest in castles is so weak that there wouldn't have been any incarnation of LEGO Castle if Nexo Knights hadn't come out. The core ideas behind of LEGO Castle still hold up fairly well today, as evidenced by the many castles, dragons, etc. that have come out in the past several years, in both licensed and non-licensed themes. And cyber-knights are hardly the ONLY twist to the Castle formula that could have kept the category fresh — particularly if LEGO had chosen to relaunch Castle as an ordinary theme rather than a "big bang", since a "big bang" is generally a much bigger investment with a greater need for novelty and high-concept storytelling. That said, I also don't think that Nexo Knights ending before its three years were up would have made Castle come back any sooner, because even new incarnations of pre-existing themes can take up to two years to develop, and in the past when a Castle theme has ended before its three years are up, it's still two and a half to three years after its launch before the next one launches. Castle 2013 only lasted a single wave, and it's not as though they rushed a new Castle series out to market the very next year.
  13. Aanchir
    The number of adults on this very forum who enjoy Nexo Knights, and the number who have made Nexo Knights MOCs of their own, are proof it has adult appeal. It's quite exhausting to put up with fans of classic themes close-mindedly asserting that if they don't like a theme then there's nothing in it for adults to like. People said the same thing about Bionicle, Ninjago, etc. Very true. A contingent of every generation's elders will hate or fail to understand what the new generation likes. To assume that your generation is the first and last to really, truly know what's good and what's bad is plumb ignorance. Today, a lot of people are already looking back at things like 1970s disco, 1980s hip-hop, and 1990s boy bands and realizing that maybe they weren't as bad as many people made them out to be at the time. It's the same with LEGO themes. Well duh. Of course kids who don't like Nexo Knights to begin with won't miss it. You could say the same thing about basically any theme. That's no reason to assume that there are no kids who like it or will miss it. Kids aren't a hivemind; their tastes can differ just as much as anybody else's. Don't forget the sheer scale of the LEGO fan community. Even a theme that isn't a top seller can still have hundreds or even thousands of kids who enjoy it. Look at how many AFOLs today have nostalgia for Orient Expedition — a theme that came out in a year when only Bionicle and Star Wars sets actually made any money. And again, this idea that "because I and the people close to me don't like this theme, it will not be missed" is not a new argument — I saw lots of Bionicle fans/Hero Factory haters claim that nobody would ever miss Hero Factory the same way they missed Bionicle. And while it's true that the number of people who miss Hero Factory is probably much smaller than the number who missed Bionicle (due to Hero Factory never catching on as widely in the first place), plenty of the kids who did grow up enjoying Hero Factory now miss it just as much as anybody ever misses a theme they loved in their formative years that is no longer around.
  14. Aanchir
    That's an… unusual perspective. Are you talking about just for constraction/buildable figure MOCs, or do MOCs built with bricks in general fail to appeal to you? The biggest disadvantage System-based buildable figures have compared to Technic-based constraction is in terms of stability. Technic-based constraction in sets is geared towards rugged action play, and between classic Bionicle and CCBS's many single-piece limb beams and Technic's usefulness for locking parts together, it is also easier to make jointed limbs that won't break apart. This is why in sets it's so much rarer to see knee joints in System-based mecha than in Technic-based constraction sets. Even in Exo-Force, the main reason why figures with knee joints were more common than in sets today was primarily because so many of the mechs used the single-piece arm and leg segment bricks from the Knights' Kingdom sets. That said, I have seen a few primarily System-based buildable figures that stand out as exceptional. And I'm increasingly drawn to building them myself in part due to most digital building software being a lot more conducive to brainstorming System builds than constraction ones (and more new System sets coming out each year to inspire new ways of building). System parts are also great for creating more precise shapes at a smaller scale than is often possible with Technic-based constraction, especially in recent years due to the large number of great curve elements now in use. I don't see nearly as many System-based buildable figure MOCs as Technic-based ones ones outside of the mecha genre, but I don't think that's because brick-based buildable figures don't look good.
  15. Aanchir
    Face rigs refers to the way the faces are animated, not features like scars or freckles. Overall, though, I don't really feel like the ninja's designs feel that much different than they always have. Other LEGO themes like Alpha Team have changed their characters' designs much more drastically. But here Nya, Jay, and Cole still feel like the same characters they've always been, just with a few minor details added or removed. And it's not like the character designs were totally consistent before anyway… Kai's scar and the original Nya figure's eye shadow were never in the show, and that didn't keep people from understanding that they were the same characters. I actually really like the new spinner suits just because they're the first ones where it's really obvious where the suit ends and the elemental energy begins. As much as I loved both the Airjitzu figs, that was what bothered me most about them — there was an obvious color layering/blocking that implied at least some part of the fig's design was clothing, but no texturing or anything to reinforce that. These new figs with their standard human faces may not be quite as exciting as those ones, but they do fix that issue. The only thing that does particularly bother me about the new spinner figs is that Zane's hood is all white, unlike the others which are black on the top and sides. This was also a discrepancy with the movie suits, but there, Zane's outfit was mostly white anyway so it didn't feel too out-of-place. Here, though, Zane's suit uses a lot of black, and then it just randomly stops at the hood.
  16. Aanchir
    Random observation: The Sons of Garmadon bigfig's bike has a skateboard clipped to one or both sides. However, unless the picture we've seen omits them, there are no regular-size Sons of Garmadon minifigs in that set. Which leads me to wonder… does he… does he wear them as roller skates? Because the idea of skateboards as bigfig roller skates is absolutely buck wild.
  17. Aanchir
    I think he's probably gone undercover to investigate the Sons of Garmadon, and silvery skin and hair would give away his identity. Maybe he's wearing a synthetic mask, or has been upgraded with some kind of active camouflage tech that lets him change his appearance. It kind of gives me flashbacks to the Teen Titans episode where Cyborg goes undercover and joins H.I.V.E. Academy.
  18. Aanchir
    All the ninja vehicles this year feel like really strong designs to me. It's great to get a speedboat in a set that feels a bit more refined than Nya's in the City of Stiix set, the Ninja Nightcrawler is easily the beefiest vehicle Lloyd's had, and Zane's new bike is based on his falcon — pretty sweet! Samurai X's mech also has a lot of character. The S.O.G. vehicles aren't bad either. I'm intrigued by that big new blade piece, and I really love how the handlebars of the giant's bike are constructed. I love the use of red pieces on these vehicles, especially the bright red recolor of the katana piece! Zane going undercover is a pretty cool plot device and I'm interested to see how it shakes out. It's nice that the new wave having to share space with some LEGO Ninjago Movie sets doesn't mean getting shortchanged on cool new sets and figs. In some ways this new wave feels even more fleshed out than the Hands of Time sets were.
  19. Aanchir
    I think previously a lot of the designs were trying to be more racially ambiguous, but at times at the expense of realism. They also had a serious case of "same face syndrome". Andrea's facial features in particular now make her more recognizably black. Emma's race is still ambiguous but the theory I've seen before that she may be Asian or Hispanic feels more plausible with her new, darker eye color. And I feel like girls in the LEGO Friends target audience will probably be able to relate better to Mia with her new orangish hair than with the deep red that she had before. I always figured the LEGO Friends girls were somewhere between the ages of 14 and 16. 16 is the youngest that they could have a driver's license or sport pilot certificate in the United States, but that might be a place where LEGO Friends just chooses to diverge from reality for the sake of playability. The main reason I figure that the Juniors version of Mia might be different than the new version is that the first two Ninjago-themed Juniors sets reused some of their older costumes instead of the current ones. So it might be the same way with these sets' hair pieces.
  20. Aanchir
    My feeling about sets based on books is that they're pretty risky for several reasons: First of all, a lot of kids in LEGO's core audience might not be proficient readers. And how proficient a reader a kid is can play a big role in what kinds of books they care about. A classic book that might be enthralling to seven-year-olds reading it for the first time might feel boring to a nine-year-old who's already moved on to more complex books. That's very different from a lot of the movie-based themes LEGO picks up, which are properties engineered and proven to generate a lot of interest with a diverse age range. Second, outside new books that generate a massive craze the way the Harry Potter books did, a lot of books might not be exciting to as big a slice of that core audience, because kids' tastes in books can be really varied. Some books might be massively successful in one country or region but fairly obscure anywhere else. Others, as mentioned, might appeal mostly to a specific age range. Unlike new or ongoing movie franchise, which are already inevitably getting a huge marketing push to help them reach as many people as possible, written stories (especially classic ones like Treasure Island or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) rarely have as much money being poured in from various sources to create widespread and immediate interest in their stories and characters. Third, unlike movies, TV shows, or comic books, a lot of times books (except picture books) don't convey as clear an idea of what the characters will look like. Very few books are so painstaking in their descriptions that everybody will have a clear and consistent idea what the people, places, and things in those books look like. A kid can look at an Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, or Batman minifigure and instantly recognize them from their adventures. But an Ichabod Crane minifigure not based on a specific visual portrayal probably won't be recognizable to anybody until you tell them that it's Ichabod Crane — and even then, it might conflict with how that person imagined the character, which might be enough to dissuade them from making a purchase. Don't get me wrong, I'm not of the opinion that movies are better than books or anything like that. When I was a kid I built several MOCs and custom minifigures based on The Lord of the Rings, years before LEGO picked up the license. My interest in the Harry Potter theme was driven just as much by my love of the books as my love of the movies. And I've been dreaming of a Series of Unfortunate Events theme for well over a decade. But from a commercial standpoint, even with a book that's in the public domain, there are so many obstacles to making a globally successful book-based toy line.
  21. Aanchir
    I feel like if LEGO could have done independent leg articulation and wrist articulation for the mini-doll, they would've done so in the first place. They definitely tested arms with articulated wrists like the minifigure has, but most of the girls they tested it with didn't like the wider proportions and cuff-like wrist. As far as legs go, I'm not sure a really sturdy individual leg connection could've been achieved without making the hips considerably wider. Just compare the width of the hips on a minifigure skeleton with the width of the hips on a mini-doll. As much as I like the idea of a "mini-doll 2.0", I'm not sure if it's really feasible without throwing off the proportions. I'm really fond of the character redesigns, to be honest! The characters retain a lot of their most iconic characteristics, but they now feel more varied and realistic. It's peculiar that Mia still has the same Dark Red hair as she's always had in the Juniors set. It'll be strange if her hair color doesn't match her character illustrations in the main-series Friends sets.
  22. Aanchir
    Although we haven't seen finalized pics of the main mountain police station, from the prelims I saw I was really impressed with it. It felt very creative and had a sort of dynamic terrain we haven't seen too often in City since they stopped using raised baseplates.
  23. Aanchir
    To be honest, I don’t have a huge issue with the ninja using their signature weapons from the movie, since they haven’t really had any consistent signature weapons in the sets or the show for some time. Like, when’s the last time we actually saw Cole carry a scythe in the show? Even in the sets he only gets a scythe every now and then, and usually with a totally new design. The ninja also often pick up new weapons as the plot demands (like the Technoblades, Aeroblades, or Sword of Souls) without showing any particular need to adjust to using a weapon they haven’t previously trained with. While I like the idea of the ninja continuing to use their signature weapons from the first year or some variations thereof, the sets have never been super committed to that. The one thing I sort of dislike about Zane’s bow and arrow is that compared to more ninja-specific weapons like katanas, shurikens, and sais or brick-built weapons like a scythe or hammer, the standard bow and arrow piece doesn’t feel all that distinctive.
  24. Aanchir
    I love that Kai and Nya's outfits parallel each other, just like the Fusion suits did! In general I'm really impressed with the new suits, both the regular versions and the Spinjitzu Masters versions. One thing I especially like is we're finally seeing the real advantages of the new two-part hoods. With these, the color blocking can be varied, so that the lower portion of the hood can match the headband, the main part of the hood… or, potentially, neither. Plus, it has the advantage of being able to be printed AND multi-colored, not just one or the other like the 2012 and 2015 hoods.
  25. Aanchir
    Toy safety standards have gotten stricter, so any magnet small enough to swallow would require covering like half the box with safety warnings, and possibly even stricter regulations in some countries. That’s why the magnets in train sets are now part of a pre-assembled buffer piece rather than individual parts you attach yourself.
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