Svelte

Just a quicky alternate build I did this afternoon of the 8061 Gateway of the Squid, using only pieces from that set - it's a lovely parts pack for undersea building and it's fun to expand the rather spare official model for some more submerged ruins and seabed surprises! Click on the image for the 1024 version: Click here to see how it can integrate with the official model! I'll definitely pick up a few more of these for parts. The 8061 is a really efficiently designed but aesthetically pleasing and at $AUD59.99 one of the few value sets released for Australians from any theme in early 2010.

For S@H orders to Australia, which cost $AUD45 to ship for a reasonable sized order and can take 18 business days to arrive with standard shipping, it's best to try and forget you have anything ordered at all, so when it does finally land on your doorstep you are pleasantly surprised!

As stated many, many times before, we don't post deeplinks of images marked prelim/ confidential.

Yays for SlyOwl! Have a fantastic day!

$50 in cash and a handjob for the man who skins it and brings me the pelt! I'd like a new fur stole. I hear that kind of trade is legal out here in the Colonies I mean the fur trade, not the handjob.

I pray that indeed I am still a 'natural' blonde by Journey's End.

I just put a golden trident in King Squid's hands for the very first time and I can confirm the problem with this piece. I've never had plastic shave off a piece like soft cheddar from a cheese grater before, but I have now. Wow.

The dates in the catalogue are for retail stores. Usually most stuff from S@H is released simultaneously in waves. It may be that this one is coming later, however. Last year Ahsoka's Starfighter was a Jan release but the Dooku's Solar Sailer was backordered until Feb.

S@H is now updated with most of the missing stuff from yesterday, like SP3, Power Miners small sets and the Fire Station ($139.99). No sign of the SW Landspeeder or Swampy Swarm Speeder though

The markets are served by different distribution centres, so no. Besides, it's the *exact* sets which have been available in the US on S@H which are the *exact* sets not available elsewhere, and vice versa - even though some of these sets have already appeared in stores in Europe (from reviews and Bricklink sellers)

And vice versa - the smaller sets are not available outside the US. There seems to be some database error as this is true of Atlantis and Space Police 3 as well (and City Fire sets) - what is available in the US isn't available anywhere else, and vice versa. I expect it will be fixed soon.

This is all so tastefully spooky! *shivers in delight* Phasma Diabolis, here we come!

If you look at the discussion threads for each theme, you can see that we do know about this Please don't create topics like this without checking to see if this news has been reported first. Thanks.

I think what Front is getting at is that yellow on black printing always looks a little green and it has nothing to do with the quality of the plastic (quality of printing is a valid issue, however.) Anyway, I've had a chance to open some 2010 sets and quality issues persist. Surprise surprise! Some of these are well documented, like the still-variable reddish-brown shades in Mariann Asanuma's Woody's Round Up Review and the variable shades of green in the Army Men on Patrol. Three years later, let's stop even using the excuse that old dodgy parts are somehow still in the supply chain 3 years after these problems first became evident These colour disfferences are here to stay. Singlehandedly the worst part I've seen in a long time is a run of 1x2 white bricks modified with grill which I found in a (US market) 8086 ARC 170. The colour density is so low that they border on the transparent, and would be better described as 'cream' than white It seems that every time they fix something, they stuff up somewhere else. It's the lack of consistency that is so frustrating as you don't know when something is going to go bad. As another example, I bought the 4996 Creator Beach House from S@H when it was first released in Jan 08. I never really noticed the differences in shades and wondered why people used this as a test case for bad quality. But a few months ago I bought another one form S@H, clearly from a later production batch. The difference was astounding! Minor variations had polarised between the glowy alien yellow (as seen in the City Corner bus) and the greeny-blacky tinged shade which is also common. The set when assembled looked appalling! I went back to find my original set and was shocked at the brazen discrepancy. I think that even any parents and kids who would have bought this later version would be unable to miss this and if feedback starts to hurt LEGO where they supposedly care most - a reputation for quality!

I think there's some database glitch with S@H, as everything that was listed just for the US market previously (the small Power Miners, the 2 SP3 sets, the larger Fire stuff) doesn't show up anywhere else. I would expect it to be fixed soon. $AUD49.99 for the 2-fig 177 piece Freeco Speeder is the point at which I stop buying from S@H

The best way, as always, is to look at the Products Launched page: http://shop.lego.com/WhatsNew/ProductsLaunched2009.aspx?va=1

Some big prices across the board apart from SW - 5891 Apple Tree House is overprice at $80 and charging $15 for a 67 piece Atlantis set seems odd to say the least. I wonder if this means we'll see a jump to the 10210 Flagship when it goes on sale, as we've seen with big Exclusives before. Patchy selection, too. I can't say there's a lot that's tempting at the moment.

You can have Canada. It doesn't really mean much for the rest of the world, unfortunately

Thanks Rick! It always seemed odd to me that there are only 3 sets in the Duplo run...

Exactly! Maybe those that haven't been buying Creator houses since 2004 (although the first 4886 Building Bonanza isn't branded Creator, it certainly set the trend for large back-walled models) are more in need of red roof tiles, but for those of us who have the whole series, the prospect of another house in white/ red/ tan/ black house is not very appealing. This is a great sideways move. I don't think it's too small, either. Sure, it's small but look at it in comparison to something like a super-detailed Cafe Corner. It actually bridges the scale quite well, whereas the badly proportioned 6754 Family Home looks out of place and too big next to most other models. Like the odd looking oversized 2010 Rebel headgear and AT-AT driver helmets, there comes a point when big is just *not* better Since noone seems to know the official price yet (not even in $US) I don't know how anyone can yet accurately judge whether this is better value than other sets in the line.

That is supposed to be sorted by 2010, I'm told. The allotments are planned 2 years ahead, which is why the US didn't get anything in 08 or 09.

I can't believe the largely negative responses to this set! It is one of the few must-haves from the Jan releases for me The colour scheme is bright without being tacky, and very unique for a series which has alternated between tan/ red/ white/ black permutations. We get several useful elements in new colours, like tan windows and the door frame. Finally, the inclusion of new dark blue roof pieces such as inverse corners and the roof cap pieces means that for one other colour apart from basic red and basic black, we get an almost complete suite of roof tiles in a beautiful and sought after colour Just think of the possibilities for large scale house MOCs or for Castle builders! I also prefer the scale of the models, which look much more suited to figs than something like the very strangely proportioned 6754 Family Home with its giant shutter windows bigger than most minifig doors and it's odd and unfinished looking roof. Come on, how many of you actually buy these sets and deck out full interiors for them anyway? The 6754 was a McMansion but this is a modest building of classy beauty. Incidentally, the bright green baseplate is the same bright green as bright green has always been, as was last found in a 16 x 32 baseplate in the 2003 Orient Expedition palace. It is not a new colour, it just hasn't been in non-Belville sets for a while. I think the US RRP is $39.99, more at TRU. US buyers got a good deal on the 6754 Family Home, so I hope the Aus RRP will be a better deal than we got for that (the Family Home is $AUD129.99, which is currently $US115 - think about that before complaining how bad the price of this is ). Thanks for the review! My love is undiminished!

Nice! I like this one better of the two. All the curves at the front really create the instantly distinctive shape I'd like to see a minifig inside it, though. Or is it to scale, but doesn't fit a fig?

Dreamy and creamy by the look of Jacob's crotch. But I thought that was forbidden? Thanks for the Christmas cheer!

Sometimes it's good to step back and do something else. An enforced break can do wonders. Take a walk around outside. Look around. You will be surprised what inspiration seeps into your subconscious. I wouldn't recommend looking at other people's work at this stage. It may only lead to mental confusion, overstimulation and feelings of inadequacy! If you still can't resist the ABS urge, another thing to do is go back to basics and build (or rebuild) a favourite official model. Sometimes it's just nice to build for the pleasure of it It can be downtime between your flights of creative fancy but still with that satisfying clickety clack of bricks bumping each other.