Robianco

It can be difficult to colour match a design on a decal to an existing torso colour so clear decal paper shows the torso colour underneath perfectly. I did a decal of Lando Calrissian from Cloud City which just had the creases, belt detail and neckline on it... That way the medium blue torso shows up underneath. Clear decal should probably only be used in light coloured torsos as you'll need lighter colours to show details on darker torsos hence using White decal paper and having the whole design on it including the background colour. Use Batmans torso design as an example... Inkjet printers (or laser printers for that matter) can't print opaque light colours so you need the colour of the paper to bring out the light details such as muscle design. In this part of the site there are several designs that have both clear and white decal designs on them that show how this works perfectly.

A set getting 10,000 votes on Ideas isn't a guarantee that it's a good set. I agree that Wayne Manor as a building doesn't offer a great deal with regards to a set. It's entirely down to the Bat Cave. If you asked those 10,000 people to put up their $200 for the Manor they wouldn't be so keen to cast their vote. Even though the pricing of the 2015 sets seems to now be fact based on rumour (although maybe an informed rumour) I hope they don't deviate too much from there.

I got some gold vambraces for my Namor custom but I can't remember where... Actually... just checked... I did get them from LPB... it seems they are indeed out of stock now! Le Petite Brique are very good. They're not the cheapest but they're a reseller for a lot of companies so you can often get everything together in one place thus saving on postage. Shipping to the UK is quite quick too. I've made several orders from them.

http://www.lapetitebrique.com/en/lego-brickforge-accessoires/3989-lego-minifig-custom-brickforge-utility-belt-black.html This is the one I used. I used a scalpel to cut the accessory holders off it so just the stud holder remained. I've basically done the same thing for my Azazel custom.

Brick Warriors tail with a hard rubber belt with stud holder on the back works a treat!

I think the ABS plastic of lego is made from pellets. The 3D printer material can get great detail but isn't great on flat surfaces as it leaves the ridge marks from the movement of the printer. Maybe with some sanding etc you can get some nice custom pieces.

I'll only echo what Borador has said. It's just down to practice. Get yourself some decent brushes... maybe from a Games Workshop or similar. I've used Tamiya Acrylic model paints as well as Games Workshop's own. I prefer the Tamiya as they stay liquid better and for some reason my GW paints have dried up pretty easily even when sealed up straight away. It may also help to pick up a magnifying glass stand that can help you see those small areas much closer and see the details you're painting better. These are something that gaming miniature painters use. You may want to look at masking areas of figures with tape and spraying or painting them... that way you can achieve sharp lines but this also takes a lot of practice and good motor and hand skills to get things steady and in the right place. I'm not personally a fan of painted Lego figures and recently I've only took to painting up head pieces with ears for customs of Namor and Azazel. Even those that manage to achieve a lot of detail on their figures still have the issue of them 'looking' painted rather than like they've been printed that way. I wouldn't rule out decalling as something inferior to painting... with sealing the decal with clear acrylic it can be just as hard wearing as painting and you can achieve much better, sharper and neater detail than any custom paint work I've seen. The person you mention on Youtube also glues details such as ammo pouches etc onto their figures to enhance them. That's something that's also going to take practice and good knife and hand skills to achieve right.

You can either have clear decal paper or white decal paper. If you have white then the white doesn't 'drop off'... The backing paper comes away but you'll still have printed on white decal paper. If you want it transparent then you have to print on clear decal paper... That way when it's wet the White backing paper comes away and you will have a transparent decal that shows the colour of the lego torso beneath it. I always printed mine on best setting for normal paper... Then a coat of clear acrylic spray to seal it. Leave for 20 mins before cutting and applying. Leave for an hour to dry then another coat of clear acrylic to seal it when it's in place. If you've got white decal paper and you're waiting for it to go clear you'll be waiting a very long time.

For me having both versions give me a chance to cherry pick the best print and plastic. The hips and leg joint are always an issue for me on Decool and it's a tell tale visual that it's not right. I know it's VERY minor but it's still something that bothers me. The rounded corners on the torso are always welcome from SY. I picked up the cheaper official set so I've already got that Lego version of Star Lord and the Nova Officer but it'll at least give me something to compare with the SY versions to see how accurate they are. Another Sakaaran will be nice too. If SY have iffy shoulders again at least I can switch out the Decool arms on it so they have the right width. The Decool knives are also silver with Drax which is nice. Both sets will be around £11 in total which isn't too bad.

They'll hit AE soon enough but from what I've seen I don't think they're worth the wait. I know this is the 'bootleg thread' but I think for some figures the only real option is customs. At least for now. I just replaced three SY Spider-Man figures with Christo's original versions.

You need to get some perspective. Life isn't just about Lego and bootlegs. It's not like I was in Costa on Friday realising that the large tea I'd just bought was 2/3 of the cost of the SY SWAT set or anything....,

Just saw that... It'll be good to mix and match tiger a decent set.

Yeah... But the cape on the actual SDCC figure isn't a scalloped bat cape... It's a regular flat bottomed cape. By the way... Whoever wanted the classic Magneto version... The eBay seller listed above by Jango's has the Bozhi version of the Wolverine Chopper set for £6.50. That's got the yellow Wolvie, Magneto and Deadpool.

I wouldn't say that indicated a mystery figure rather than just the indication of the following wave. 6 figures in each wave normally... Wolvie, Magneto, Catwoman, Bats, ZEA & Storm.

I've already got Daredevil and Dr Strange! ;)

Yeah... looks like they've copied Christo's Dark Knight Catwoman and there are the 2 new Batman. At least we'll get the double sided head to mix and match with the SY version of ZEA. Interested to see if the Decool has slightly more accurate printing and the correct back design. I'd much prefer the other Batman there to be the earlier SDCC rather than just the Tumbler version.

Your opinion is valid of course. I'll respectfully disagree with likening that wonderful Hulk figure with the quality of some of the bootlegs though. That is indeed a lovely Hulk figure!

eBay will pull auctions at the request of anyone. If you're a small seller the chances are it will be pulled without question. I had an auction ended by someone who simply wanted me to stop selling something even though it was clearly labelled as it was a cheaper alternative to the items he was selling (not figures by the way) so after several friendly messages to me warning me about selling them he reported me to eBay. Funnily enough he didn't sell his items either as they were vastly overpriced. Lego offers people so much as a toy. It's always been about the bricks to me... only recently have the minifigures actually taken any prominence. It's this flexibility that help make it number one. Any build I have is genuine Lego bricks. There's no substitute. But the creation of the CMF line shows that Lego are perfectly aware of the appeal of minifigures... and with that people want more. As I've said previously if Lego made these then we'd all buy from them. Some people don't care for minifigures at all... and others are more focused on those than the actual builds. To each their own.

I take your point. It's the reason that I still have CDs on my shelves and continue to buy them to support that artist... And I continue to buy concert tickets. I have several versions of Led Zeppelin's catalogue but I'll still buy the 2 new remasters next Monday morning. But I'm talking about the production of minifigures that aren't produced by Lego under license. There's no choice of whether to buy the Lego version as it doesn't exist. It's not about playing a cracked version of a game over buying it... I've said repeatedly that I don't agree with the cloning of Lego sets. I don't buy them... If I want a Lego set I'll buy the Lego version whether that's direct from my Lego store or from a high street store. My shelves don't have copies of official Lego sets or figures... Except for SDCC figures. But I think I share the frustrations of 1000s of Lego fans worldwide on the distribution of those. Imagine if FIFA was limited to how many teams it had in it... It has a few but not all... And your team wasn't one of them... They'd shown your team on a trailer... You could even play against them but never as them. Then a third party company produced an add on to the game that had your team in it. Would you be tempted? You'd bought the game... Not downloaded it or cracked it... But here was your chance to make the game more 'complete'... If EA released an add on later on you could always buy that too and delete the third party add on but there was a chance EA would never release it. I think the vast majority of people here feel that way about customs. If they were available from Lego there'd be no market for copies... Or a greatly diminished one for those who still couldn't afford it. But while they aren't there will always be a market for people who create them. Marvel very well may have a problem with bootlegging of merchandise as any company would... But we're back to the argument of whether we're just talking about Chinese companies making these sets and figures or the many people that are producing figures that aren't currently available. One call or visit from any of the legal teams from Marvel etc could close some eBay stores tomorrow. They don't even have to be heavy about it... Just a chat will suffice and they'd be gone. If that ever happens then we might see a change in the custom minifigure market. I knew a guy in New York who used to have a business creating needle drops of the Beatles catalogue... He'd clean up the audio from first pressing and print discs etc... 1000s of customers worldwide on a mailing list. Then in early 2009 he had a visit... From EMI. They told him they liked his stuff... Even told him McCartney owned some of it... But as they had the remasters coming out they'd like him to stop... For at least a year. So he did. Then he started up again and continued to archive the Beatles vinyl catalogue as the remasters still didn't give all Beatles fans what they wanted... And EMI left him alone. In the same way Lego know they can never give fans everything they want... Even if they'll tease them with it sometimes in games etc... So they know the custom market will exist to provide those. And as the largest toy brand in the world they know that if and when they release those things the custom market is so small they'll still sell millions of sets worldwide including to those who had a custom because they were Lego fans in the first place. I thought about that but I'd typed the whole thing on my phone so I was determined to finish it!

Simple thing to do is search for completed items on eBay to get s good idea how much people have paid for the figures. If I'm doing something similar I normally look at settling for just under the average price so you know you'll sell them. I wouldn't always look at the top price items as you won't always be that lucky. You may find the build then only cost 1/4 to 1/3 of the full set cost.

I've actually got no problem with people who dislike customs as long as it's across the board. My problem is with the double standards people can show when it comes to who produces 'customs' and some of them being OK while some are thieves. There seems to be a general acceptance of the production of custom figures with Lego and it's licensees for some reason. Whether they accept that there are some things they simply can't... or won't get round to releasing... and to have them made available to it's customers doesn't have any negative effect on it's sales. There are many events around the world that have a Lego presence that has custom figures available... whether that's DC, Marvel SW, Harry Potter or many other themes. There are numerous online stores and sellers based in Europe and the US that produce custom figures with a variety of printing techniques and quality standards. I think the idea that custom figure producers are getting rich of them is a mistake. The production costs of making short run figures... especially pad printed... is expensive. The cost of those figures covers the cost with a small profit. Maybe just enough to allow the start of the next figure run. I think if anyone wanted to see how wealthy they could become doing it should try if for a short while and see how far they get... although it surprises me to see just how many figures sell that I wouldn't touch as I don't like the quality of the design or print. If Lego or any of the licensees wanted to shut down the custom figure market they could. They've got the financial might and the lawyers to go after the sellers and shut them down overnight.... but they don't. If people don't like custom figures then that's fine but for me... as long as it's allowed by Lego and the above mentioned License holders... or they at least turn a blind eye to it then I'll take them as an acceptance of the service they offer... and it's not just me who thinks they offer a service. It's the 1000s of other buyers and Lego fans who also spend a great deal of money buying Lego sets that consider it a service that offers them a great deal. I'm also pretty sure that these same people will be the first in line to pick up those DC and Marvel sets once they hit the shelves in the new year and put their hard earned money into Lego like they always have done.

Any and every customiser in the world currently producing minifigures isn't paying royalties or have licenses. Some of them hugely respected who are considered to offer a service to the Lego community. Sold by respected resellers and online stores. You either have an issue with everyone or noone.

I think the biggest issue on the growth of value is how long it's been in the market. 7 years is a long time and there's a lot of them around. Most of the figures in the set have been updated since it's release. How many of the parts are unique in the build also? 10179 has several parts... quite important ones that are unique to that set and so push the price up even on a BL version. I'd say that were not really likely to see a 10188 in the £1000-£1500 price range. Cloud City is rarer and has some incredibly rare figures... figures that are totally unique to that set... and even that doesn't reach those figures.

I did add the capes and the bats though! ;)

I won't tell you how much I sold the spare ZEA figures for...