Legos, anyone?

[wm cheng]

Yep, same here.  I don't think we're their audience anymore...

[sh9000]

Extremely disappointing results.

[M'Kyuun]

I was hoping for Knight Rider, if only just K.I.T.T., or the jet engine model.  Getting tired of all the old or dilapidated building submissions. Where are the mecha and sci-fi models? They don't even have mecha listed as a theme on the Ideas page, so I'm not sure what people who do mecha submissions submit them under. Anyway, it seems like the same sort of sets keep getting produced- either sitcom sets or some form of building, stuff like the typewriter and piano, or something like this K-pop band. The latter just isn't good criteria for a LEGO set, IMHO. I think the appeal is very limited. I've never heard of them, and I like to think I'm somewhat knowledgeable of pop culture. I see the appeal of this set being a very niche thing.

Make more cool space stuff, b/c lots of people around the world like space, and there are always space related submissions. Just like the other "S" word, Space sells.😉

[Dobber]

It really does surprise me that there is such a market for these things. The cabins/houses look pretty I guess but……

Like William said, it appears  the audience has changed and we aren’t it.

Chris

 

[M'Kyuun]

Review: 10298 Vespa | Brickset: LEGO set guide and database

 

I'm not a scooter afficionado, nor a fan of powder blue, but I was pleasantly surprised by this new Vespa model in the Expert Creator line due to release soon.  Normally this would have been an exceptionally difficult model to pull off with LEGO, but due to the spate of curved and rounded elements they've been producing over the past five years or so, this model benefits from all that rounded goodness. It looks amazing to my eyes, and it's one of those sets that I don't really want personally, but I want to build it for the experience, if that makes sense. LEGO have been developing the habit of rereleasing some of these sets in other colors, and I must say, this would be an excellent parts pack in black or white (I build mostly transforming aircraft MOCs, so those colors would be of great benefit to me). Anyway, this looks great, and I thought I'd share it.

[danth]

On 2/22/2022 at 2:25 PM, M'Kyuun said:

Getting tired of all the old or dilapidated building submissions.

Yep, ramshackle buildings seem to be the in thing. I think there's a strong lemming effect, where once a submission is approved, we get a lot of copycat submissions.

Ramshackle fishing shop? How about ramshackle tree house? Ramshackle pirate island? Ramshackle blacksmith shop? Ramshackle dwarf house?

And people answer "yes". That's the worst part. They vote in those things over and over. Why? I find it hard to believe that the people just demand more dilapidated rooftops. I think it's just the lemming effect. They want to vote for a winner. So they vote for whatever won last time.

It's bad enough that the Lego designers even had to start removing the drab & busted roof tops from submissions. Compare the original Blacksmith Shop submission to the released set and you'll see what I mean.

[Sanity is Optional]

I think part of it is that buildings in disrepair are more interesting than clean modern buildings (which have very little detail).

You also see a lot of older style architecture, stuff like the Opera House or the Boutique Hotel. Though it's likely a bit more repetitive of a build.

Personally I like the more playable sets, like some of the roller coaster submissions, or the buildings with some built-in gimmicks.

[M'Kyuun]

I'm a sci & sci-fi guy with an interest in both aerospace and space exploration. I'm also a child of the 80s, so stuff of that era has its appeal. And mecha and transforming robots, which are nearest and dearest to my heart and soul. None of these things since the release of the excellent Saturn V and Voltron sets have been making the cut for production.  I think the Saturn V was the last Ideas set I bought, as nothing since has really piqued my interest enough to buy. I thought the typewriter and piano sets were interesting, but ultimately, I'd much rather display a vehicle or air/space craft model. Those things have far greater appeal to me both visually and in the handling/playability. The fascination with deteriorating buildings just doesn't grab me. I'm not saying I think they're bad models; quite the contrary, I think many of them are extraordinarily well-executed, and neat to look at. But the trend grows old, and I'd rather see more variety in the submissions generally chosen. That said, choosing the K-pop band over so many other far, far better submissions just boggles my mind. Hell, I'd take a dilapidated building over that. It just doesn't offer much in the way of building experience, historical value, playability, or wide-spread interest. I have a feeling it will do well in the Asian market, but here in the US, 99% of Americans will have no idea who these guys are. I don't; I had to look them up.

Since Ideas is the only avenue for us to really get CS inspired sets, I wish there were more really well-done models in that vein, and that those models achieved the 10K threshold, but they just don't seem to. I'm super thankful for Pete Reid's Exo-Suit set, and I wish his or some of the other excellent CS-inspired submissions had been produced. As I mentioned previously, Ideas doesn't even have a mecha theme under which to make submissions, which I'm sure makes it more difficult for mecha builders, as they have to submit their MOCs under some un-related theme if they want to take part. Seems a huge oversight IMHO. 

Edited February 26, 2022 by M'Kyuun

[Chronocidal]

Saw that new rocket launching complex was up on the shop, and decided to splurge a bit, and grabbed a pair of them.  Hopefully that'll give me all the parts I need for shuttle boosters in the Saturn V scale, so all I need now is a pile of orange parts for the tank.

There have been a few nice revisions to the original KingsKnight shuttle that eliminate some of the more outdated elements, and solve some of the layering issues the wings had, so I'm looking forward to getting around to building that up... someday.  

 

[M'Kyuun]

I've been greatly anticipating the release of the new City Space sets and set out to my local Wally around 7:30 this morning, only to find that all the Space sets and most of the Speed Champions were already sold out. I did manage to pick up a copy of the two remaining Countachs, which is a pretty cool build. Anyway, I returned home quite dismayed.

Fast forward to this afternoon: I spent the day with a friend who's working on a very large spaceplane MOC which he's taking to Bricks Cascade, a large LEGO convention that's happening 9-10 March. Upon taking my leave, I stopped by a Wally near his house, and they had the Rocket Launch Center, the Lunar Space Station, and the Lunar Roving Vehicle. I saw no sign of the Lunar Research Base, so I'm guessing that'll be a Target exclusive set. Anyway, I picked up a Lunar Station and Rover, which I'll probably build tomorrow. I was super-tempted to grab the Rocket Launch Center, too, but since I have a buttload of VIP points, I think I'll wait and get both the RLC and the Lunar Research Center at the LEGO store in Oregon using my VIP points to cover both. Those are the sets I want the most, so leaving it in the store was pretty tough, but that $150 price tag is a good persuader to wait until we go to the LEGO Store. Plastic crack is just getting pricier and pricier. I'm thinking current events aren't going to help. 🤕

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, even with things getting pricier though, I think LEGO sets are holding to a fairly consistent per-part price for the most part.  The Launch Center is on the steeper side (probably due to the number of larger elements), but I did have some VIP points to cut down what I paid.

My overall purchases have tapered off quite a bit in the past couple of years, for a variety of reasons, so I haven't built up many points for a while.  Most of my focus has been models and flight sim hardware for a while now.  

[Scyla]

I’m in a bit of a pickle. I put up my Lego Star Wars collection and  noticed that a: my RotJ shelf looks a bit empty. And b: the glass cabinet would fit the USC Super Star Destroyer.

Looking at aftermarket prices they are a bit too high for my likings. Ranging from $800 to $1200 for a sealed set.

I really want to have one though so I was wondering if Lego would redo a UCS SSD soonish.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Scyla

[M'Kyuun]

6 hours ago, Scyla said:

I’m in a bit of a pickle. I put up my Lego Star Wars collection and  noticed that a: my RotJ shelf looks a bit empty. And b: the glass cabinet would fit the USC Super Star Destroyer.

Looking at aftermarket prices they are a bit too high for my likings. Ranging from $800 to $1200 for a sealed set.

I really want to have one though so I was wondering if Lego would redo a UCS SSD soonish.

Thus far, no announcements of such. However, the regular UCS Star Destroyer is still available, although it's currently out of stock on LEGO.com. LEGO stores may still have it though.  

[Scyla]

2 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Thus far, no announcements of such. However, the regular UCS Star Destroyer is still available, although it's currently out of stock on LEGO.com. LEGO stores may still have it though.  

I know but I habe the most recent Star Destroyer playset from Lego and I’m good with that. The UCS one is tempting but too tall for my display case. The Super Star Destroyer is a vessel missing in my collection.

 My thinking was that Lego might to a renewal of the SSD after the regular one. On the other hand the design of the SSD doesn’t lend itself well to a redesign the same way the Star Destroyer did I think.

[M'Kyuun]

5 hours ago, Scyla said:

I know but I habe the most recent Star Destroyer playset from Lego and I’m good with that. The UCS one is tempting but too tall for my display case. The Super Star Destroyer is a vessel missing in my collection.

 My thinking was that Lego might to a renewal of the SSD after the regular one. On the other hand the design of the SSD doesn’t lend itself well to a redesign the same way the Star Destroyer did I think.

I agree. I get the sense that was a one-off, at least for the foreseeable future. They've never even made one for the regular SW line despite making several regular SD sets. Unfortunately, if you want an SSD, you're at the mercy of the secondary market, which will be ludicrously expensive at this point.

In other news, LEGO announced their 90th anniversary set, and it's going to be a castle. I was so hoping for a Classic Space set. Glad it wasn't Bionicle at least, but there was just a large and rather nice castle released in the Creator line in 2021. No love for CS it seems. 😒

[Scyla]

58 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I agree. I get the sense that was a one-off, at least for the foreseeable future. They've never even made one for the regular SW line despite making several regular SD sets. Unfortunately, if you want an SSD, you're at the mercy of the secondary market, which will be ludicrously expensive at this point.

In other news, LEGO announced their 90th anniversary set, and it's going to be a castle. I was so hoping for a Classic Space set. Glad it wasn't Bionicle at least, but there was just a large and rather nice castle released in the Creator line in 2021. No love for CS it seems. 😒

If they use these knights I might be interested in buying the Castle set: 

They were always my favorite knight Minifigs.

[danth]

6 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

In other news, LEGO announced their 90th anniversary set, and it's going to be a castle. I was so hoping for a Classic Space set. Glad it wasn't Bionicle at least, but there was just a large and rather nice castle released in the Creator line in 2021. No love for CS it seems. 😒

Yep, it really sucks.

I was thinking about this, and I think the Classic Space issue is a lot simpler than people realize.

Disney has a licensing agreement with Lego for Star Wars, obviously. They get money for each SW Lego set sold. If Lego sold regular Space sets, that would obviously compete directly with SW, so each Space set, to Disney, would be money lost. Obviously you can't have a license agreement like that.

Space is simply forbidden while Lego has Star Wars, as part of the licensing agreement. That's the only way the licensing agreement could possibly work.

And it's even worse now that there's Lightyear.

There's undoubtedly a very detailed contract outlining what Lego can and cannot do in terms of competition with Disney sets, and NASA sets are obviously exempt, while sci-fi Space is not.

Edited March 11, 2022 by danth

[Chronocidal]

The first set in a long list of part orders arrived, and I'm happy to say this was a pretty pleasant build.

I'm actually curious where the bulk of these orange parts came from, since I don't recall any really large natural sources of them, particularly the curved surface tiles.

I have to give props to the designer for part of this, since he came up with a much simpler method of construction than the bulk of the lower sections of the Saturn V set, and it's much easier to build.  The top cone is rather fragile though, so I might be looking into making that more sturdy.  My order for these parts also came missing two absolutely microscopic detail pieces (I think they're actually minifigure lipstick props?), but they're not essential, and I can easily replace them with something more common.

I've got the SRB parts on order now, so I should be able to build those by next week.  After that, I think I have most of the pieces for the orbiter itself.. but I'm actually considering straight up ordering the whole thing, just to have the set I can leave on permanent display, and not steal anything from my other sets.

[sh9000]

 

[Chronocidal]

Finally got around to making a couple of tweaks to the Saturn V I'd been meaning to do for a long time, one actually a direct result of the new launch complex set.

I've gone back and forth about the fin design several times, but I think I like the better shape and color more than the thin tails included in the set.

The other thing I'd wanted to work on a long time was the nozzles on the upper stages of the rocket.  They've never been terrible, but the combination of the domes and wheel hubs always felt a little strange to me.  After getting the new rocket sets for pieces for the Shuttle though, I found I had a new option to try.

The nozzles may be a little undersized, but I like the shape a lot better than the stock ones.  I think they're actually a beehive element molded in gunmetal.  

[Hiriyu]

This is a silly little VF-1 Armored Valkyrie-inspired poseable mech I built from the #30343 McLaren Elva polybag set. I haven't really built anything from Lego in about 35 years, but had this set kicking around as a stocking stuffer from last Christmas. Decided to see what sort of mech I could come up with using the pretty limited parts selection from that set, and this is the result. Janky as all hell, but pretty fun too

[Chronocidal]

Pretty cute little mech for a quick build!  Impressive how it came out with such a limited selection of parts to use.

Also, my SRBs arrived.  

Pretty hilarious how this build is really nothing to sneeze at size-wise, and it's still only about half as tall as the Saturn V.  That thing is just a monster.

Ordered the elements I need for the shuttle, so I'm hoping those will get here by the weekend, and I can get this build finished up (and come up with a way to display it).

[Hiriyu]

4 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Pretty cute little mech for a quick build!  Impressive how it came out with such a limited selection of parts to use.

Hah, thanks! Kawamori and Miyatake-san are great teachers. I had enough fun on that little guy that I picked up another set today after work, a Technic McLaren Senna GTR which was on sale at Target. I was big into Lego until my teen years, so it'll be fun to reconnect a bit with the hobby.

Very impressive stuff on your Shuttle system! Is it a derivative of an official set, or something that you or other fans have designed? (Apologies, I'm a bit out of touch with the modern Lego ecosystems.) Looking forward to seeing what you do with the Orbiter!

[Chronocidal]

This shuttle has a bit of a long story.  Shortly after the Saturn V set was confirmed in the LEGO IDEAS program (a fan submitted design, turned into an official set), a slew of classic NASA submissions flooded the IDEAS site, all in the same scale as the Saturn V set.  Most of these were smaller builds of things like the earlier Mercury and Gemini rockets, and rather easy to make if you had the parts.

One of the fancier ones was a new complete Shuttle, and it reached the required 10,000 votes for official consideration in record time.  Of course, LEGO got sick of all the NASA-themed submissions, and refused to do the set, so the designer took matters into his own hands and published the instructions and parts list on Rebrickable.  I've been gathering the pieces over the past month or so, and learning to navigate BrickLink to purchase individual groups of bricks to make it. 

It's unfortunately a more expensive prospect than if LEGO had made the set officially, but I've wanted an actual properly scaled shuttle stack set for upwards of 30 years, since I received the first LEGO System Space Shuttle set in 1991 as a birthday gift.  When LEGO finally produced the pieces for the booster nose cones and nozzles in white, I figured now was the time to build it, while those parts were plentiful.

Official site for his instructions are here, with a few sample photos.  It's surprisingly sturdy as a set.
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-46228/KingsKnight/space-shuttle-1110-scale/#details

 

[Hiriyu]

That's a really great-looking model. Thanks for the backstory and background info on it, much appreciated! I think I remember the OG Shuttle set you mention, although I think it came on the scene a while after my prime building years (Classic Space and Expert Builder were my jam, up to about 1985). Here's to hoping that your new parts arrive in a timely manner and that you share lots of photos from your build 😀 👍

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Hiriyu

[sh9000]

 

[Dobber]

14 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

This shuttle has a bit of a long story.  Shortly after the Saturn V set was confirmed in the LEGO IDEAS program (a fan submitted design, turned into an official set), a slew of classic NASA submissions flooded the IDEAS site, all in the same scale as the Saturn V set.  Most of these were smaller builds of things like the earlier Mercury and Gemini rockets, and rather easy to make if you had the parts.

One of the fancier ones was a new complete Shuttle, and it reached the required 10,000 votes for official consideration in record time.  Of course, LEGO got sick of all the NASA-themed submissions, and refused to do the set, so the designer took matters into his own hands and published the instructions and parts list on Rebrickable.  I've been gathering the pieces over the past month or so, and learning to navigate BrickLink to purchase individual groups of bricks to make it. 

It's unfortunately a more expensive prospect than if LEGO had made the set officially, but I've wanted an actual properly scaled shuttle stack set for upwards of 30 years, since I received the first LEGO System Space Shuttle set in 1991 as a birthday gift.  When LEGO finally produced the pieces for the booster nose cones and nozzles in white, I figured now was the time to build it, while those parts were plentiful.

Official site for his instructions are here, with a few sample photos.  It's surprisingly sturdy as a set.
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-46228/KingsKnight/space-shuttle-1110-scale/#details

 

Wow that looks great! I’d love to have that too but Bricklink confuses the absolute crap out of me and is the main hindrance of me trying MOC’s. I have bought a couple instruction PDF’s but the parts just come out to ridiculous prices compared to what the “estimate” cost is. Unless I’m doing something completely wrong on Bricklink. I really don’t see how people do the MOC thing as it so confusing and frustrating. Not to mention expensive! I guess I’m just dense.

[wm cheng]

Hey @Dobber I hear ya!  I just spent 6-8hrs learning how to use Bricklink properly with a lot of help from some kind facebook addicts and it takes a bit to get use to.  Never just hit easy buy - you have to try to buy your pieces from as few local stores as possible, shipping across boarders kills you especially from multiple sources.  Identify the problem bricks/items which are rare that is forcing the buy all from multiple sources and try to reduce or those and buy other items from those stores that carry the rare or hard to find pieces.  Additionally watch out for the minimum buys as some stores will charge a fee if you are getting just a few pieces from them.  After playing around with the site and manually selecting the stores to buy from I managed to get my stores down from 6-7 to 3 stores and 2 of which were even in Canada (locally) - I ended up saving 70% of the original "easy buy" costs.  The trick is to isolate those hard to find/rare pieces and then look at who actually sells them and start your buy from those stores.  Good luck, its pretty cool once you get the hang of it, but it will always be more expensive than buying a Lego set.  I'm a total newbie and just started to get my feet wet in this whole new world.

[Dobber]

Thanks @wm cheng one of these days I’ll just have to buckle down and try and figure it out. I’ve tried the how to videos that are supposed to walk you through it but it’s still so confusing to me.

Chris

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, the process of nailing down how and where to buy parts from is a little bit of a mess.

The part that confused me most at first was why the algorithm was breaking up orders across so many stores.  I realized that it was prioritizing price above all else, so it was picking up one and two brick groups from certain stores just because they were the lowest price, when it made much more sense to spend a bit more per part, and get them all from one.  I realized there's a checkbox to ignore shops not selling as many of a part as you need, so that helped a lot.

The other thing I found was that Rebrickable actually has a much more in-depth order list system, but it is a massive spreadsheet tool.  It will search a lot of the same shops that BrickLink will, and compile a giant sheet showing you all the shops selling parts you need in the columns, with the individual elements as rows, so you can go down the columns and try to find shops selling as many of what you need as possible.  There's definitely an art to it.

The other other thing I've just accepted is that it's just much cheaper to get used bricks.  I've made a couple orders of mixed new and used, and honestly, I've barely noticed any difference.  I think most shops are going to avoid selling heavily worn bricks to begin with.  The worst I've gotten was a brick that had glue from a sticker that had been removed.

My orders for the tank and boosters were before I knew what I was doing, so they cost more than they should have really (not helping that some of the large axles and panel elements in those parts are really expensive.. I don't know where those size 32 axles come from, but I've seen them range from $5-$20 each).  The Shuttle itself came out to about $70 for about 550 parts though, which really isn't terrible.

 

[sketchley]

9 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

The other other thing I've just accepted is that it's just much cheaper to get used bricks.  I've made a couple orders of mixed new and used, and honestly, I've barely noticed any difference.  I think most shops are going to avoid selling heavily worn bricks to begin with.  The worst I've gotten was a brick that had glue from a sticker that had been removed.

 

I've heard something from the Lego group about older bricks being "toxic" compared to the newer ones.  I don't know when the Lego group changed their plastic recipe, but it is something to keep in mind depending on whether or not you intend to give the Lego to kids.

[pengbuzz]

6 hours ago, sketchley said:

I've heard something from the Lego group about older bricks being "toxic" compared to the newer ones.  I don't know when the Lego group changed their plastic recipe, but it is something to keep in mind depending on whether or not you intend to give the Lego to kids.

I never heard of that one before; thanks for the tip!

[sketchley]

17 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I never heard of that one before; thanks for the tip!

Here's a rather in depth article on it: https://tamararubin.com/2019/05/vintage-1970s-legos-test-positive-for-a-high-level-of-a-known-carcinogen-how-can-i-tell-if-my-legos-are-safe/

Short form:

• vintage bricks from the '70's and (early) '80's
• contain the carcinogen cadmium (among other toxins)
• more prevalent in certain colours (red, black, and yellow)
• there are ways to ascertain if you have a 'modern' brick or a 'vintage' brick (refer to article for details)

[wm cheng]

Damn!  All my childhood memories - I wanted to pass down my Galaxy Explorer and Technics Car Chassis - now I have to reconsider that.  Thanks for the info @sketchley.

With all this new info, I can't believe I survived my childhood 😛

 

[Chronocidal]

I think my main question about this would be how likely it is that this would be a problem for anyone not putting the bricks in their mouth.   

I've been playing with the things since age three, and the only reason my parents let me have them that early was because I didn't have a tendency to put anything in my mouth at that age.

In terms of finding the potentially contaminated parts, I could actually probably identify the exact elements I have from that timeframe, since the bulk of my collection started after 1989.  Finding said parts amongst the tens of thousands I have at this point is probably a much more difficult task.