2018 Friends Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[LegoSims20]

Do you guys think the new Friends bedrooms are good sets? My cousin has the older 3, so I was thinking of getting her the new 2. 

[kiwinewt]

2 hours ago, LegoSims20 said:

Do you guys think the new Friends bedrooms are good sets? My cousin has the older 3, so I was thinking of getting her the new 2. 

We got a couple of them and put them into rooms in our MOC'd buildings. There's some cool little bits to them :)

[Aanchir]

On 8/21/2018 at 9:08 PM, Feng-huang0296 said:

I'd be excited to see that. 

Y'now, as long as they don't keep up this overdependence on the 'pastel' colours. Normal colours are fine, people!

Frankly, not a whole lot of the colors used in Friends would even qualify as pastel. Pastel typically refers to colors that are considerably lightened and desaturated. That would describe colors like Light Purple, Cool Yellow, Spring Yellowish Green, Aqua, Light Royal Blue, and Lavender. But it would NOT be a very accurate description of the many brighter or deeper colors often used in the Friends theme like Bright Reddish Violet, Bright Purple, Flame Yellowish Orange, Bright Yellowish Green, Bright Bluish Green, Medium Azur, Dark Azur, Earth Blue, Medium Lilac, or Medium Lavender.

When I think "pastel", I think Paradisa — a theme that employed light colors like Light Reddish Violet, Light Yellow, Light Green, and loads and loads of White to the point of looking faded or washed out. By comparison, most Friends sets tend to use pastel colors more sparingly, with plenty of brighter or deeper colors to balance them out.

[Mylenium]

20 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Frankly, not a whole lot of the colors used in Friends would even qualify as pastel. (...clipped for brevity...)

You could discuss this endlessly as today's "pastels" are nothing like the purely chalk-based products with natural pigments eons ago. It's probably fair to say that many colors that you couldn't do way back then are the most normal thing today due to synthetic pigments being way more intense. You do have a point, but ultimately it's a technicality based on an old non-technical definition. It would not be impossible to create Dark Azur or Medium Lavender as a "pastels" today using different binding mediums and a whole lot of pigments. That aside, I think with all LEGO colors it mostly comes down to some intermediate tones being missing, which in my opinion is the thing that makes Friends Sets so contentious and off-putting to many. If you forcibly have to conform to a limited set of colors, of course even the best of designs can look rather rubbish because they feel unbalanced and whacky.

Mylenium

[Aanchir]

7 hours ago, Mylenium said:

You could discuss this endlessly as today's "pastels" are nothing like the purely chalk-based products with natural pigments eons ago. It's probably fair to say that many colors that you couldn't do way back then are the most normal thing today due to synthetic pigments being way more intense. You do have a point, but ultimately it's a technicality based on an old non-technical definition. It would not be impossible to create Dark Azur or Medium Lavender as a "pastels" today using different binding mediums and a whole lot of pigments. That aside, I think with all LEGO colors it mostly comes down to some intermediate tones being missing, which in my opinion is the thing that makes Friends Sets so contentious and off-putting to many. If you forcibly have to conform to a limited set of colors, of course even the best of designs can look rather rubbish because they feel unbalanced and whacky.

Mylenium

Frankly I think that Friends sets are some of the LEAST lacking in intermediate tones. In Friends, pretty much no color is "off limits". It's got one of the most extensive color palettes of any theme. Whereas in most non-girl-oriented themes (including the classics), intermediate tones between red and blue or blue and green tend to be extremely scarce. Where are the people complaining that City or classic Town are "contentious and off-putting" or "unbalanced and whacky" due to their profound lack of pinks, purples, and azures/bluish-greens?

[Soupperson1]

On 8/25/2018 at 8:01 PM, Aanchir said:

Frankly, not a whole lot of the colors used in Friends would even qualify as pastel. Pastel typically refers to colors that are considerably lightened and desaturated. That would describe colors like Light Purple, Cool Yellow, Spring Yellowish Green, Aqua, Light Royal Blue, and Lavender. But it would NOT be a very accurate description of the many brighter or deeper colors often used in the Friends theme like Bright Reddish Violet, Bright Purple, Flame Yellowish Orange, Bright Yellowish Green, Bright Bluish Green, Medium Azur, Dark Azur, Earth Blue, Medium Lilac, or Medium Lavender.

When I think "pastel", I think Paradisa — a theme that employed light colors like Light Reddish Violet, Light Yellow, Light Green, and loads and loads of White to the point of looking faded or washed out. By comparison, most Friends sets tend to use pastel colors more sparingly, with plenty of brighter or deeper colors to balance them out.

Friends uses plenty of white for nearly every building, but I agree with the rest of your points.

[Mylenium]

14 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Frankly I think that Friends sets are some of the LEAST lacking in intermediate tones. In Friends, pretty much no color is "off limits". It's got one of the most extensive color palettes of any theme. Whereas in most non-girl-oriented themes (including the classics), intermediate tones between red and blue or blue and green tend to be extremely scarce. Where are the people complaining that City or classic Town are "contentious and off-putting" or "unbalanced and whacky" due to their profound lack of pinks, purples, and azures/bluish-greens?

I tend to disagree. Just because some colors aren't off limits doesn't mean everything is roses in Friends. Yes, some color combinations are just whacky and yes, some intermediate/ complimentary colors are "missing". You only need to pick up any reasonably good book on color theory to have that verified. Whether or not people complain (or don't) in other areas of LEGO is an entirely different matter. Different strokes for different people or in this case target demographics. Of course you can find whacky and distasteful stuff in City, Elves, Nexo Knights or heck, for that matter, even in Star Wars. It's just not necessarily as "in your face" as with a lot of Friends sets plus you start out with an even more restricted palette to begin with, which actually sometimes can be a blessing. On the other hand that does in no way mean that they wouldn't want other/ more/ different colors at times. Point in case: The Friends designers are probably trying a bit too hard to use every color in the book and overuse their clichéed color palettes way too much. Again, I'm not debating that we have a lot of colors with Friends, I'm more concerned that they may be the wrong colors, after all, or not be used in the smartest ways.

Mylenium

Edited August 27, 2018 by Mylenium
Fixed bad grammar

[Elf Gal]

I'm surprised there haven't been any pictures yet.  I thought they were usually released around October.

[cebelicamya]

http://heartlaketimes.blogspot.com/2018/11/2019-lego-friends-sets-january-wave.html?m=1

pictures of new sets! ??

[White Phoenix of the Crown]

Will there be Go - Carts next year ?

[SoupOrFishOil]

Please forgive me if somebody has started a 2019 topic. I can't seem to find one.... 

Is Mia's hair getting recolored to a brighter shade of red next year? That's what it looks like in official pictures, but it's kind of hard to be certain.

[ExeSandbox]

2 hours ago, SoupOrFishOil said:

Please forgive me if somebody has started a 2019 topic. I can't seem to find one.... 

Is Mia's hair getting recolored to a brighter shade of red next year? That's what it looks like in official pictures, but it's kind of hard to be certain.

I wish she would get a brighter red color for her hair, maybe even orange. But it's most likely still Dark Red, I suppose the lighting must have made it look brighter. 

[Soupperson1]

On 12/19/2018 at 5:18 AM, ExeSandbox said:

I wish she would get a brighter red color for her hair, maybe even orange. But it's most likely still Dark Red, I suppose the lighting must have made it look brighter. 

No it’s bright red now 

On 12/19/2018 at 2:55 AM, SoupOrFishOil said:

Please forgive me if somebody has started a 2019 topic. I can't seem to find one.... 

Is Mia's hair getting recolored to a brighter shade of red next year? That's what it looks like in official pictures, but it's kind of hard to be certain.

I’m hurt you didn’t contact me first Berry :P Yes it’s bright red now!