Leewan

Hi, Here's the new version of the articulated Mata body : It's made of six different parts (ten if you count the Lego parts used for the pistons) : the hips, the disks (there's four of them), and the upper torso. Unlike the previous version, the Lego parts are essential to connect the elements. The disks simply slide onto the wires of the hips (they're Ø1mm bars), and so does the torso. To keep them in place, there's a loose ball joint that connects each part : When you move the upper torso, the wires bend and the disks simply follow the movement. You can get these parts on Shapeways. PS : Here's a few photos of the parts in use, courtesy of Shapeways user phaznoll :

I've recently bought Darth Vader. At less than 25€, that was a hard pass. The torso build is interesting, but not as interesting as the first one. It looks much better, though. I'm not too convinced by the use of Technic panels, but they're covered by the cloth pieces, so it's not too bothering. What is bothering, however, is the terrible articulation of the legs. The knees can't even bend at 90°, and because of the Technic panels, the movement of the hips is absurdly limited too. It's a shame, because he looks much better than the 2015 version. I particularly like the subtle metallic dots printed on his torso, arms and legs, it's a nice detail. BTW, his head and helmet parts bear a ©2016 mention, so a redesign was apparently planned quite soon after the release of the first version.

I hope so. I doubt @Nabii can comment on that, but I guess we'll know more about the planned sets at the SDCC.

I've never played it either, but if it can give us varied and colorful CCBS sets, then I'm in !

Congratulations to the winners, there's been a lot of crazy and creative entries, that was really fun to see. While I ultimately voted for @logeybear's Creature From Beyond in the Category A, I have to say @Ballom Nom Nom's Devout of the Order of Abiding Cushioning gave me a good laugh, it's such a daft concept !

Why would one consider the CCBS as not viable ? Because the sets "don't sell" ? But the building system isn't the sole reason why the sets sell or not. Which makes me think that I'd love to see a CCBS equivalent of the Unikitty theme. No, seriously. Look at all of these crazy characters ! A bunch of colourful, silly, expressive characters would be really refreshing. Kinda like the Mixels, but bigger, and without tribes, to allow for more variety within each wave.

3 - 1 point 11 - 1 point 12 - 1 point

In 2001, but why does it matter ? You say "LEGO made the dumbest choice of making those 6 golden mask when G2 when the theme haven't even started putting their first wave on shelves yet and didn't know if the theme was gonna be a success or not." as if they should have waited to see whether the theme was successful or not before planning the marketing campaign. That really doesn't sound like the big, adult-targeted exclusives / $300+ sets Aanchir was referring to, though. PS : But it doesn't really matter, it's off-topic.

Hi ! I've built a half-man half-mosquito half-alien MOC this week, called Aristote Paxeros : He's an alien gastronome who travels the universe to taste the blood of different species. Of course, he's civilized, so he collects his food with a special syringe. The vials allow him to store up to two separate meals : When he arrived on Earth, he became friends with Diogenes Trexler, the most powerful wizard in the world.

IIRC, sometimes they offer a certain percentage on some materials (-10% on precious metals, for example), but not on specific products. The only possible way to lower the price of a precise product would be if the creator lowers the markup (the amount of money he / she gets from each sale), so it's up to the designer, not Shapeways, and it's only if there's a markup to begin with. Same here. Depending on where you live, shipping can be awfully expensive.

No, it's LBG (or Medium Stone Grey ), at least judging from this pic and the inventory. Unless you're talking about a different part / set ?

2M beams now exist in dark bley :

I see what you mean. When I tried Mecabricks for the first time - years ago, I found it absolutely awful to use, because I was used to work with LDD. I couldn't figure out how to connect or move parts around (or even how to change their colour), and the parts library was quite small, so I quickly gave up, and never opened it again for months, or maybe even years. I believe it's when @Scrubs released the Blender template that I decided to give it another try. LDD was almost dead anyway, and the rendering possibilities were promising, so I tried Mecabricks again. The workshop had been improved, it was easier to use, and although I was still used to work with LDD, I didn't give up and learned to use it properly. Now, even if I'm still able to use LDD and I can easily switch from LDD to MB, I almost never open LDD anymore, and I became a big Mecabricks advocate. I think the key is to not give up too easily, and be patient.

Oh, I meant for the limbs, sorry. To replace the black and red beams on Onua and Tahu and make them closer to their original counterparts. And, another suggestion, perhaps using this part in reddish brown on Pohatu's torso ?

Neat ! How strong are the hips ? I'm a bit worried that the upper half of the Toa is only held to the lower half with only two half-pins. If you're open to changes, what about using this beam, respectively in dark bley and orange on Onua and Tahu, and the Bohrok eyes in dark and light bley on Onua and Kopaka ?

Late January, brickset launched a competition for the 60th anniversary of the Lego brick. I initially didn't plan on entering, but, having built two tiny construction vehicles during the same period, I decided to finally try something when I saw they posted a reminder, a bit over a week before the end. So I had a bit more than a week to build something. I chose the Caterham because : -It hadn't been done before at this scale -It's an excellent set, and therefore a good example of what can be achieved with Lego bricks -I thought this part would be perfect for the hood However, I quickly scrapped the idea of using a CCBS shell for the hood, I couldn't integrate it properly in the rest of the MOC. After that, I've spent days and days rebuilding the car to get accurate proportions (at one point, it looked like this - the front was clearly too wide), almost until the very end. The most difficult part was to find a way to connect the two fender parts together (which I haven't been able to do, actually). In the end, the MOC looks like this : There are a lot of fragile connections, and because of that, I wasn't expecting to win at all... but I did. Some people were even interested in building their own copy of the MOC, which is now possible thanks to @DanSto, who created building instructions of the MOC. You can get the PDF here, and obtain a parts list from the Mecabricks page of the model (click on the Inventory tab).

The newest sets are available on the s@h. They cost 30€ / 26£ each. It's a bit better in the US, Maul is at 30$, but Han Solo and the Range trooper cost "only" 25$. Still, I don't know how Lego expects them to sell at such prohibitive prices...

Do you want it to be functional (i.e. actually shoot things) or is it optional ? If that can help, I've made, a few years ago, two crossbows that could shoot flick-fire missiles. You can see them here and here.

I think he's referring to this : Also, according to this site, the box of the Chiron weighs more than 6,8 kg.

Yup, a theme created from scratch, and not based on a pre-existing universe.

No, I don't think there's enough room for that. The diameter of the hole is 3.2mm, it's made for lightsaber-type parts, so you can attach weapons with parts like the pneumatic T, or shoot flames / elemental blasts with the palm.

I've updated the articulated hands, thanks to @TheOneVeyronian's help : Some people (including TOV) had issues assembling the fingers, so she suggested me to add holes to the ballcups, just like their Ø10.2 counterparts. I will try to do a variant with a Mixel joint for the wrist. The new version of the Mata Torso I mentioned in my previous message is ready (and I think it's awesome, even more impressive than the initial design), I'll order it next time Shapeways offers the shipping (right now it would cost me more than 12€ to send the parts from the Netherlands to France, that's way too expensive ).

And a MonsterVerse theme has a much smaller potential than Star Wars. You could do two or three waves, and then run out of creatures to represent (and it's not because it exists in a movie that it can be made as a good Lego set, what I mean is not all the monsters can become sets). A brand new theme has more chances to last for several years. I can't remember the exact quote, but before BIONICLE G1 was cancelled, in 2010, there were plans to explore Bota Magna, where live... biomechanical dinosaurs.

Yeah, but we'll have to wait for the Jurassic World trilogy to be over, because such sets would risk to compete against future JW3 / JP6 sets. Unless they do Jurassic World Constraction sets, but I'd rather have non-licensed dinosaurs. And I think anything that's not humanoid would be cool, actually, to show what can be achieved with CCBS. If it's something totally new (or another reboot of an in-house theme) it won't have to compete with more screen accurate figures/toys. And you can have functions and looks. Some of the Star Wars sets do. I don't think we should have to choose between both. Of course, integrating functions requires more parts, and eats up a part of the budget that could be solely used for "cosmetic" elements, so it's more about finding the right balance between these two aspects for a given price point. Yeah, something new and surprising would be great. Like RoboRiders, when you think of it, that was crazy : "To counter the virus, the species created wheel-shaped armour for themselves, and six motorcycle-like machines, called RoboRiders, to travel in." @Digger of Bricks mentioned the competition aspect, I'm wondering if we could see a sports-based theme. That would be a good way to put the emphasis on competition, and to create sets with interesting and different functions. It doesn't have to be a theme inspired by a real-life sport, like the Hockey sets from the 2000's, though.

Ah, that's a good idea ! That reminds me of the co-injected armor claw concept seen in the G2 artbook. Yeah, and while it didn't last too long, the Hero Recon Team program did put the emphasis on this by allowing people to create their own Hero set. Gosh, they launched this seven years ago, time flies ! I hadn't seen things that way. Well, in that case, I'm all for a Galidor G2 made with CCBS parts. Another idea I had, which could mix System and Constraction set, would be a theme similar to Code Lyoko (I know it aired in the US, but I don't know how well known / popular the series was outside of France). In short, it's an animated series where a group of teens go in a virtual world to fight monsters to save the world from an evil IA called XANA. There could be system playsets, either set in the reality or in the virtual world (or both), and Constraction sets that represent the virtual avatars of the main characters and the ennemies they fight. So the System sets would mostly focus on the real-life settings, and the Constraction sets would focus on the virtual world. PS : I just remembered something somewhat related : last night I had a dream where Lego was officially announcing a BIONICLE reboot for 2019. They said they would go in a completely new direction, which was true since I remember two of the sets shown were dinosaurs, a brachiosaurus and a stegosaurus, I believe. The sets were quite big, in the 25-30€ range. There were messages here saying "Oh, so the rumor was true after all !".