Pre-production design

[phoinix]

havent you ever wondered how the lego sets got to look the way they do?

what happens at the drawing board?

how do the first drafts look?

i have found a few of them mostly at brickshelf and here they are

the city crane prototype

the 4402 sea riders creator set first draft looked like this

and the final one is as we all know this

the viking fortress 7019 looked like this

terrible isnt it?

harry potter grave-yard duel looked like this

and here are some designs on how certain minifigs were created

the monster

the vampire

the werewolf

and a couple about the vikings

if you have found any preliminary design yourself please share as i find this to be very intresting!!

Edited August 28, 2012 by Fugazi
Capitalised the title

[Sting]

I still like the preliminary Viking Fortress design (with the blue baseplates too) better.

I would like to know why they change certain elements of other wise decent looking sets. I really liked the crane truck, and I don't really know why they would have changed it besides the minifigures (to the cooler new ones)

Any other pics or insight into this from the experts would be interesting.

[Starwars4J]

I agree, I liked the Vikins prelim better, and the Monsters as well (brown hook claws? eh, not a bad idea I guess). The crane and ship I really don't care about, but I wish I had those vikings accessories! The beards and warhammer... :'-(

If you have any more, please post them, I'm finding this fascinating

[Chuck]

I agree, I liked the Vikins prelim better, and the Monsters as well (brown hook claws? eh, not a bad idea I guess). The crane and ship I really don't care about, but I wish I had those vikings accessories! The beards and warhammer... :'-(

If you have any more, please post them, I'm finding this fascinating

I was suprised by that and the fact that they were going to use 1x1s to make Frankenstein's monster taller. Though I do understand why they changed the brains on the back of his head to gears.

-l2k-

[Robiwan]

I think that this city crane looks for me better. When it had looks so I would be buy the city crane.

[Freddie]

I found a few prototypes for LEGO-trains on the net some time ago. These pictures have been on the official LEGO-site, though, and what is here are the biggest pictures I could find.

Oh, and they're all old. Both the Crocodile and the Union Pacific are 12V models, the white/green/black passenger train became the 4558 while the last one never saw daylight. Interesting designs, though. Notice the 1x3x5 doors on the Crocodile and the nose-piece on the red locomotive, as well as the base for the car, which is six studs longer compared to the longest that have ever been available to the public.

Edited 16/5-10: Attached images are gone, so I'm posting Brickshelf-uploaded ones instead. Enjoy!

Edited May 16, 2010 by Freddie

[Cabby]

Now that's interesting. Looked around for some time at brickshelf but unfortunately couldn't find any of those. Would be glad to see more, though. :-)

[bdd]

The crane is much more advance than what we got.

[phoinix]

a few more first drafts and lego designer staff from star-wars figs to the new plane wings and the new motorbike

designing jabba

motorbike prototype

new plane wings designed to be bendy

and here is the gallery with more staff...enjoy

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=162933

[oo7]

Good Topic!

I too did an extensive BS search but the only thing I could find excluding bioncle was some Harry Potter which wasn't a whole lot different.

BTW, we have a thread floating around H&A forum somewhere with all the viking prototypes. EDIT: Found it! Oh, and this one.

Cool.

Edit: Click pic for huge pic

Edit: Smaller pics, please. If you want to show detailed pics post a link to the bigger one. Makes the thread a lot easier to read. Thanks :-)

[Brick Miner]

8-

[bdd]

Vikings...

HP. I have others but they look the same as the real thing.

Spider-Man, much different than what we got.

Not really a prototype of a real set because the real set was never made.

Am I the only one that thinks that the prototype sets are better than what we got?

[dunamis]

Same with me. I love seeing these designs and concepts. Great stuff!

[Sir Dillon]

Not really a prototype of a real set because the real set was never made.

Isn't that the Mearsk set, just in different colors?

[Sting]

Am I the only one that thinks that the prototype sets are better than what we got?

In alot of cases I would agree with you. Particularily most of the Viking sets (loved the beards and hammers). In the massive Prototype Pic of the Viking Ship, the ship is much much cooler, the monster is more terrifying, and the vikings and the entire scene just looks more heroic. Look at the back of the boat - it actually has a bridge. Although not as realistic (Longships didn't have an elevated bridge section) it looks cooler than the platform we got on the Released model and has some cooler pieces.

Oh well!

[Hobbes]

Isn't that the Mearsk set, just in different colors?

Yep, it is :-)

[phoinix]

preliminary design on a couple of creator sets..

although in these cases its mostly the box art that changes and not the actuall set...

still i find lego product design very intresting!!!

thanx for sharing your finds with the rest of us!!

now all we need is an actuall lego designer to send us his/hers designs!! ;-) ;-)

[bdd]

Isn't that the Mearsk set, just in different colors?

Yes. Lego after running out of Mearsk blue pieces was gonig to make the set in either dark blue or dark green. They even let us vote on it, dark blue won. So they were about to make a dark plue boat when Mearsk wanted more sets to be made so Mearsk bought Lego the blue they need and made more. These sets were shelved.

[Axle]

I like mostly all the pre-production designs exept the Viking ones.The bakcround looks a bit dull.Some of the Viking sets are cool though.

[Brick Miner]

I like mostly all the pre-production designs exept the Viking ones.The bakcround looks a bit dull.Some of the Viking sets are cool though.

im pretty sure, if those designs would have made it into production, they would have "finished" the box art, and taken better photos of the sets. just like the models, the box art we see here is also preliminary. those dull backgrounds would have been changed.

- BrickMiner

[phoinix]

and this is a pre-production image of the 8416 technic fork lift set

finally this set ended being black

and i think this looks a lot better than the prototype..

[mutex]

and this is a pre-production image of the 8416 technic fork lift set

and i think this looks a lot better than the prototype..

Absolutely, the prototype is so Hideous than I'm thinking it's more like a "filler" to test the design of the box than anything else. I can't imagine thaht lego would releasy such an ugly thing :-)

I love this topic !! *y*

[snefroe]

Absolutely, the prototype is so Hideous than I'm thinking it's more like a "filler" to test the design of the box than anything else. I can't imagine thaht lego would releasy such an ugly thing :-)

I love this topic !! *y*

honestly, I think all end-products look waaaaaaay better than the prototypes... i'd like to see the prototypes of the old 'classic' sets :-$

[Lego Amaryl]

I think the prototype of the crane is better than the final version.

The final version is too big and doesn't fit in a city layout!

[phoinix]

honestly, I think all end-products look waaaaaaay better than the prototypes... i'd like to see the prototypes of the old 'classic' sets :-$

thats a great idea!!that would have been amazing!

i really wonder what the prototypes for classic space looked like :-$

to bad there was no internet back then so it would have been really hard to find and share the pictures!

i cant get enough of these finds! *wub*

hope we can dick up some more!!!