Robianco

I've just signed up so thanks for that. I must admit I've had a shopping basket full of stuff on AE for a while and I keep going back to it to add or remove stuff. The Harley which has the painting on the hand and neck etc is now there as the actual figure and it's terrible. The torso is almost completely white and the print is awful. They've managed to print the neck various colours though but the original hand painted version was basically her choker collar with details whereas the actual printed figure is just a blurred mess. 70p saved there. I had the SY mech with their variant of the BvS Superman suit but it was £10 and I'd be throwing away everything except for the suit so that's been deleted. New 53 Poison Ivy is also another no-go. I'm waiting for my Christo version so I won't bother with that even for potential parts.

Digger318 on Youtube has reviewed a few of the bootleg Dinosaurs: Hope this helps.

You don't know what you're missing... ;)

I think we'll get a bigfig version with the LBM sets.

I think you should definitely be aware of the BL cost of the figure. If there are around 5 or 6 sellers hovering around a starting price then that's the basic value of the figure... If you can find one on eBay cheaper then great but work out your postage and know if you're paying over the odds. Also... Don't be afraid to try and part out figures. I've picked up plenty of figures by grabbing a head or torso here and there the make a figure up. I also like to order parts to make figures to sell and cover the cost of the parts I keep... Such as the BvS Alfred that I recently sold five of. I totally agree. It's actually almost underwhelming in hand which is odd for a Christo. It's perfect for what it's portraying yet almost dull as a figure.

eBay has been great for picking up SH stuff for me. Original Scarecrow was sold with a custom torso for £3, original Robins have cost around £7-£8 each even with the rare wavy hair etc. I just trawl through generic Lego terms and see what people are selling. I recently got three TFA Star Wars figures including Han Solo for around £6 in total. I love it when people don't know/care what they're listing.

I'm not sure a CMF wave counts as a set.

Well I don't think Lego hates us... Or anyone else for that matter. Lego parts and designs have developed and improved since the license began and if you put 7140 on a shelf now it would stay there regardless of the cost. If people just want a minifigure such as Darth Vader then they can BL one for a reasonable cost... Most of the figure was also available on B&P for a while including the two piece helmet. Lego is a collectible toy... But one that mass produced so every set, at least for these licenses, are readily available for a long time and are subject to various sales from retailers at different times too. We're just not going to get X-Wings for £35 anymore and Lego isn't going to dumb down its design ethic simply to produce cheaper sets. Early Slave 1 looked terrible compared to the last system scale set never mind the UCS minifig scale set, at least to me, although I know there are those that look on those designs fondly. More importantly Lego is an editable toy. You can buy Lego bricks direct from them or from various sources to create anything you want to suit any budget. Lego also do produce cheaper sets to pick minifigs up with lines such as the planet series or micro fighters ask well as main characters appearing in £20 sets for small budgets. Lego aren't going to waste resources in designing, producing and marketing simplified sets when it would be perceived to be a backward step in their designs. Also... If they did create a 'cheap' version of a set it would effect sales of the 'premium' product which would be questionable from a business point of view.

Mine has been sat resting on its wings since I built it a month ago without any issues.

Swap the cape and the hips for purple and it's a pretty close thing.

It certainly is. Once my Gotham by Gaslight version arrives from him and Fig-nation complete their Flashpoint Batman I'll update my Batman collection which will be at around 45 variants. God knows how many it will be after the Lego Batman Movie.

Cosmic might be a copy of SoCal Minifigs custom... Although I think PPM has copied it also.

DC have had a couple... Banana delivery man and the farmer in the new Scarecrow set. Can't think of anything more civilian than a police officer in Marvel.

Yeah... It's that version. I'll take some closer up photos of that and the Phoenix version.

There are several custom Stan Lee already available. Christo made an exact copy of the game version as a pad printed figure: http://custombrickandminifig.auctivacommerce.com/Custom-Stan-Lee-P4924336.aspx A digitally printed figure has been made also... Popunkymunky: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A1243-Lego-CUSTOM-PRINTED-Marvel-Superhero-Video-Game-INSPIRED-STAN-LEE-MINIFIG-/361638525803?nav=SEARCH Minifigures.com: http://www.minifigures.com/products/stan-lee.html

Pad is how Lego do theirs... the ink should sit very flat to the surface of the plastic and should be totally smooth. Digital ink tends to sit thicker on the figure... so much so you can see a highlight and shadow on the ink coverage. OLS has a very good printer so is about as good as digital gets but there's still a thickness to the ink coverage. Digital also can't reproduce metallic ink so you won't get something like a silver as it'll just appear grey. On the subject of customs here's my Superman collection with each of Lego's and a few customs to fill things out:

SY for Maria Hill. TO be honest SY did 2 figure sets for AOU and they were pretty much perfect. I replaced a few heads with official Lego such as Quicksilver's hair, Von Strucker's head (although the SY is pretty good anyway) and Maria Hill's head (again, the SY is very good but I just prefer to replace where I can).

They did that with Azog as a figure in blister packaging as well as Bard the Bowman. He only thing the packaging didn't have was the word 'Exclusive' on it so they ended up just as preview figures. You'd have felt very silly paying over the odds just for it to appear in a set a few months later. If it doesn't say 'Exclusive' on the backing card then it won't be. Rocket was good because it was in a set and I'm not sure they've done exclusive figures in sets. I think that was the same year as the mini '66 Batmobile which had the figures from the Juniors set and the Superman and Ultron sets from last year... nice exclusive little sets but no exclusive figures in them.

I personally think Customs are a great part of collecting Lego... although they can be a bit of a drain on your finances. If I can give any advice on it I'd say pick a theme and stick to it... I personally stick with DC and Star Wars, hence all my Marvel customs getting sold as well as all of my LOTR & Hobbit items. I only ever buy pad printed figures too... there are far too many digitally printed figures to even attempt to complete things... I normally find that anybody who has gone to the trouble of pad printing things have taken a lot of time to get the design right... which isn't always the case with digitally printed figures. OLS's SDCC figures that are shown by Cap above are really well done but I'll stick to my modified bootlegs as the metallic print on the bootleg is actually closer to the genuine Lego versions. If I ever look to downsize, the Batman figures will be the last to go though.

Good luck! Am I still right in thinking you'd have to relocate to Denmark?

It's not so bad if it's clearly listed as a replica or similar... at least you can make the decision based on fact.

To be honest if it was a good enough Swamp thing I'd happily spend £15 or so on that set to be able to pick it up. I can't see Lego every releasing it so it would be worth it if the quality was right.

I've had these set up on my SAS figures for a white and never had a problem with them. I think they're SiDan too. Here's a pic of the Rigged WWII mask: http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/g/ErYAAOSwPc9WzWhJ/s-l225.jpg

If it's like that then I'm just enquiring at every retailer whether I can buy a full box and then sell off the spares.