larry marak

Free always costs something. My rewards points from Citibank will get me about 7 12 dollar Lego sets free, but I still have to pay shipping and the value of the rewards came from interest I pay on my MasterCard purchases through Citibank. I recently got a free pab tub from the Lego store, but that was contingent on making a 75 dollar purchase which had to include one of their new boardgames.

Besides, Art Asylum currently has rights to doing minifigs ..their variety of minifig, the Mini-Mates...to just about every characture out there, Marvel, DC, and many television shows, including both incarnations of Battlestar Galactica and 24. Minimates have socketed feet so they can be used in Lego backgrounds, Art Asylum briefly produced brick sets for Batman, Superman, the Flash, and most of the Justice League, as well as literally hundreds of Marvel and DC characters. Micromate hands don't clutch lego-system utensils, they are slightly taller than minifigs, more fragile, but also fully artiulated so they can be posed manipulating controls of a vehicle or actually sitting down on a chair with knees bent downward.

Indeed, the Disney Build-It brick sets are made by Kadawa, the premier brick company of Japan. They were also the original Disney brick producer, having market sets in the 70's and 80's under their U.S. export label Loc Blocs. They are high quality bricks, not compatible with Lego because of their use of the half-depth channel system instead of tubes. The minifigs (Mickey, Donald, and Winney the Pooh) are easily compatible with Lego however. The Disney/Marvel purchase has nothing to do with licensing arrangements. Lego dropped Spiderman and Batman after short runs. Mega tends seems to give far better support longer to movie titles. They have been doing Marvel for 8 years now, and take a look at the extensive support they produced for the 3 Pirates of the Carribean movies and Cars.

[quote name='larry marak' date='Feb 20 2010, 10:14 PM' post='68837. By the way, Sluban never clones the historical Korean themes that Oxford puts out, so to get authentic Korean temples with uppointed corner bricks, costumes, and weapons you need to find a seller in Korea. Bulletin! Sluban is now cloning the historical Korean sets that Oxford is famous for! I've received 3 from hong kong tis week. Sluban calls this their Ancient China series, but it is of course the Oxford medieval Korea series. I've received 3 of these knock offs in the last week. Larry Marak, the Clone Ranger Rides Again.

Peppermint, from the photos you've included I'd say Toyriffic is an export name used by Little White Dragon of Chengdu in China. They also sell sets under the export name of Cogo. Larry Marak, known over at Bricklink as, among other things, the Clone Ranger, and the unofficial curator of clones.

3/8 German, 1/8 Czech (my last name is Czech), 1/4 Dutch, 1/8 Welsh, 1/8 Cherokee. Makes me mostly European but 500th Generation North American.

Oxford is in Korea, and is just as much immitated by Chinese Cloners as Lego. They even use images from Oxford's website for their webpage, but they are Oxford's public enemy number one. Sluban markets under several export names by the way. By the way, Sluban never clones the historical Korean themes that Oxford puts out, so to get authentic Korean temples with uppointed corner bricks, costumes, and weapons you need to find a seller in Korea. Sluban does a top quality job of cloning Oxford by the way. Currently they are re-printing Sluban's train system, which uses a rail guage just slightly larger than Lego's guage. Longest continuous operating brick companies Lego system 1956 Enlighten (1964) Pioneer in Chinese cloning Diablock (1967) Defeated Nintendo, primary building block system in Japan. Not mean't to be compatible with Lego (But there is a secret way) Oxford (early 80's) As good or better than Lego Mega Bloks (late 80's) Best Lock (mid 90's) At first incompatible, now a 2nd rate compatible line of bricks, but the first green brick company, now using bio-plastic for their bricks. K'nex (early 90's, became a brick company 5 years ago) Reinventing the brick and the stick.

Great review Peppermint. One very rarely finds Chinese clone sets around here (like 3 years ago, in a Bit Lots store). I believe there is a comparison review of this set with its Oxford original (Sluban apparently does no original sets, just copies of Oxford of Korea) on the bloks.hyperboards.com forum website. Love the minifig with the nauseated look on her face from chemical poisoning.

I understand you. The problem is that fully articulated minifigs like MB and Minimates make can be shaped to fit into an activity in your MOC scene, but the smallest element in the Lego building system is a 1x1 plate, and you can't build minifig scale devices with 1x1 plates. Its truely a shame that Lego modulex, Mega Blok Nano, don't integrate into their parent bricks. You could build controls inside an aircraft MOC or appliances in an office or kitchen. Anyone know if Diablok Nano (Best known for awesome models of the IJN navy of WW2 in Nano scale) integrates with the standard Diablok brick?

They had the brick license for DC as well as the minifig license for everyone in the universe. The C3 line did about 20 brick sets before Lego secured the Batman license and Minimates lost their brick license. Minimates is still the only way to get minifigs for all your favorite tv shows, movies, and comics. Very fragile though.

Mega has been doing Iron Man since movie 1 guys. The new version of Super-Tech using the joint system pioneered in their Neo-Shifters line was used for large figures of Iron Man, Wolverine and Spiderman last year. The 3 year lawsuit between Mega and the Rosen Brothers (who owned Rose Arts) is finally over and Mega Bloks is back in the black after 3 years of severe financial hardship. This should be an interesting year of competing themes.

Wonderful work. For doing the helicopters, try using the znap 68 millimeter wheels in black. Perfect for mocing, as they have propellers instead of struts inside the round curved wheels.

Excellent review, loved the photos showing construction stages for the legs/hips assembly. Mechs have always been a week area for Lego so far. Exoforce was apalling. By the way, for anyone seeking more and newer life on mars minifigs, Wit Toys of China has stolen the design for their "Star Wars" series, which use box art from both Lucasfilms and Paramounts Star Trek! Still, its the only way to get brand new current production LoM figures.

Probably Lego's best (and only) competitive advantage in the market today is their reputation for excellent clutch. I'd focus on creating a larger percentage of offering priced between $15 and $30, and try very hard to have the price point work out to slightly less than ten cents per element. Perceived value is what will probably kill TLG, as the product becomes to expensive for parents in this faltering economy.

I'd revive the Znap line. Bionicle, while popular, ultimately became a dead-end for Lego. Znap expanded technic away from the rectilinear lines of brick construction by introducing french curves and true 3-dimensionality. There is still tremendous unharvested potential and profit from the znap line of elements and their design possibilities.

As long as you are willing to pay 75 cents per element they are worth buying. Haven't found an AFOL yet who would pay that unless the parts have very special building properties. I just ended up spending a small fortune to purchase the only yellow double arch znap piece available in the world through an intermediary European buyer...ended up costing me 17.77 Euro. But Melissa (my wife of 33 years) had a specific project in mind and SHE is worth the price.

Are you referring to MegaBloks? Or some custom creation you saw? -'Skintas I'm refering to the MB figures released as convention specials at the San Diego comiccon convention. True transclear is impressive. Of course open fire with your weapon reveals your position to the Covenant, so you better take out your target on the first shot. Speaking off topic on the subject of high tech weaponry, did you read that the Taliban can hijack control of a Predator drone with a $26 dollar piece of software in a portable wireless laptop? Makes a little notebook computer a close range area defense weapon in modern warfare!!!

Disney spreads their license around quite a bit. Besides Oxford's license, and the Pixar and Pirates of the Carribean licenses that used to be with Megabloks and are now with Lego,, Disney has contracted with Kadawa of Japan to do souvenir bricks sets for the different areas of the Disney parks. Sold under the brand name Disney Brick-It, there are 8 sets, each with a plastic playmat. Together (and after buying 8 $20 sets) you have a brick symbolic model of the magic kingdom. Of the 8, my favorite is the Jungle Cruise set for Adventureland. It models the bend in the river where you find elephants frolicing by a natural waterfall. The elephants, crocodiles and hippos are thick cardboard punchout figures that stand up between rows of studs on the baseplate, so you see likenesses of the actual animatronic models when you build this set. Big Thunder is probably their second best set. Warning for those buying these sets, Kadawa (sold over the last 40 years as Dia Bloks, Brix Blox, and Loc Bloks, use channels instead of tubes on the bottoms of bricks and plates, and are thus a non-compatible brand.

Ralph, Sluban creates very few original parts, they are a specialty cloner. They clone original Oxford sets. If you check out the homepages of Oxford (Korea) and Sluban (People's Republic of China) Sluban's page looks like a Chinese language mirror of Oxford's page. The good thing about Sluban is that Oxford is probably the second best brick company in the world, and they don't export at all, so if you want Oxford's military, town, sports or girl's lines, you can get them through Sluban. Also Sluban has reissued Oxford's train line. Oxford of course is mad as hell over this theft of design, but can't do anything but complain on their website about cloners..............

Excellent photography, yo ur treatment reveals both the blockyness the design, a natural consequence of using just a hundred or so bricks, and the custom parts used to produce the tails, stabilizers and missle/payload package show us exactly why this is a desireable set. A number of Chinese cloners have done this aircraft, Sluban's looks much better than others I've seen and built.

This is Honda's second MegaBloks campaign, the first was a similar commercial for the Honda element produced several years ago. Honda probably asked MB to produce another commercial for them. MB is well established in Japan, with an Asian model line produced and distributed by Bandai. The sets are unavailable in North American and Europe. Otherwise we'd all have Thunder Bird, Gungan, and a host of cool licensed properties available in our stores over here.

Were lucky enough to pick up our set on Nov. 28 at the Glendale California Lego shop. Call stores if you want to get one. Gorgeous theme set.

While I never liked or cared to build in Bionicle, I certainly noticed that half a generation of children grew up on Bionicle. TLG's marketing of the story through scholastic books in the states put Bionicle in (potentially) every elementary school classroom in America. And its my understanding that Bionicle sales kept Lego afloat during its near run-in with bankruptcy and liquidation a few years ago. For the above reasons I'm sorry to see the line go. The market for the sets (a huge number of children who are junior hobbeyists) is being set adrift.

It never hurts to read another company's building instructions. You never know when you will find a technique that you will gladly incorporate in your creative toolbox.