LEGO® Ideas 21311 Voltron

[Digger of Bricks]

One thing I do find seemingly strange about this set, is that its feet don't look to be firmly planted, as if there's no articulation in its ankles. If that may be the case, I'm wondering how that'll affect its stability. 

[JTS]

10 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

As a reference point for those who haven't seen the original, here's @len_d69's fan build for the project as a comparison to the finalized product:

Eurobricks - [MOC] Voltron 

I always like to compare the original submission with the final product, and this might be one of those rare occasions where the official TLG version is a better set!

 

12 hours ago, Agent 86 said:

I also wish it was coming with minifigures of the five pilots / paladins. Maybe they're saving them for a future set? Something with a Castle of Lions diorama?

My guess is this will be a stand-alone set, much like the Dr Who and TBBT licences. 

[deadRahi]

32 minutes ago, JTS said:

I always like to compare the original submission with the final product, and this might be one of those rare occasions where the official TLG version is a better set!

 

My guess is this will be a stand-alone set, much like the Dr Who and TBBT licences. 

I wonder then how Minecraft went from an Ideas set to being a full fledged brand. Also, the Ghostbusters got two extra sets outside of Dimensions. Also, didnt the Helicarrier come with minifigures despite being microfigure scale? So hopefully LEGO could see reason to make the paladins.

If anything, if we want LEGO to get that suggestion about minifigures for the paladins, we should comment on the posts on social media.

Edited June 29, 2018 by deadRahi

[lightningtiger]

The level of awesomeness is beyond 110%......mind blown ! 

The question is can I afford to buy two sets ? 

[chezzymann]

Only thing im worried about is if its stable standing up with the legs splayed since you cant movr the anklee. I dont really care about minifigs. 

[LegoTFGuy]

I saw the pictures and was like "Heck yes!"

Then I saw the price and was like "Heck no!"

Looks like I'll be MoC'ing one...

[BrickG]

I wish I liked Voltron at all. This is a nice looking set.

[deraven]

On 6/28/2018 at 4:09 PM, Takanuinuva said:

I'm pretty sure the hips turn. They have to for the black lion's legs to transform

Looks like they're actually fixed in a slightly splayed position if you look closely at this photo of the black lion:

23 hours ago, x105Black said:

I just hope that those numbers aren't stickers (my luck, they will be).

Yes, they are.    You can see that in the detail photos, but looks like only a few and on relatively easy-to-place pieces so I'm not that worried by them in this case.

Like others I think it would be awesome if it had minifigs of the paladins and a bit more articulation, but I still think this is a fantastic set given the constraints TLG puts on themselves for stability, etc..  I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for mods of this to add some of those extra features.

I'm also hoping they'll be at least 1 follow-on to this (a castle set, or a Robeast for Volton to battle) that includes some mining characters... but I do agree that these not being to mining scale or designed to still fit pilots inside does make that less likely than things like the Star Destroyer that still has a minifig-scale interior.  Come on July 23...!  

[Takanuinuva]

1 hour ago, deraven said:

Looks like they're actually fixed in a slightly splayed position if you look closely at this photo of the black lion:

Yes they are but I mean the hips going forward and backward. That needs to happen for the Black Lion to transform.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Takanuinuva

[KevinMD]

3 hours ago, deraven said:

Yes, they are.    You can see that in the detail photos, but looks like only a few and on relatively easy-to-place pieces so I'm not that worried by them in this case.

I thought one of the bright spots with ideas sets was no stickers. Will be a shame if that is true.

[toothdominoes]

Hey there, there are indeed stickers. Only the numbers though. We wanted to give you the option of picking whether you wanted to have the original Japanese version or the American version with the numbers. Everything else is a print. 

The hips on the black lion are rotated by popping them off 3 snaps on either side. You then rotate it 90 degrees and snap it back on. 

Believe me when I say I investigated joints. But for this extremely crucial joint, we do not have existing pieces strong enough to provide me with the friction needed. We tested at least 20 hip solutions that were all too weak.

Also, thanks a lot for all the comments, :) I am so happy people seem to generally like it. If you want to read some more about the development, check out my bricklist: https://brickset.com/sets/list-24652

[julien4599]

That's a so cool model... I think we get one of the 2018 top set. Day one for me.

[x105Black]

16 hours ago, deraven said:

Yes, they are.    You can see that in the detail photos, but looks like only a few and on relatively easy-to-place pieces so I'm not that worried by them in this case.

I was hoping that was just preliminary.  They should have just included alternate pieces without the print.  I hate using stickers.

10 hours ago, toothdominoes said:

Hey there, there are indeed stickers. Only the numbers though. We wanted to give you the option of picking whether you wanted to have the original Japanese version or the American version with the numbers. Everything else is a print.

Guess mine will be the Japanese version!

[LegoTFGuy]

11 hours ago, toothdominoes said:

Hey there, there are indeed stickers. Only the numbers though. We wanted to give you the option of picking whether you wanted to have the original Japanese version or the American version with the numbers. Everything else is a print. 

The hips on the black lion are rotated by popping them off 3 snaps on either side. You then rotate it 90 degrees and snap it back on. 

Believe me when I say I investigated joints. But for this extremely crucial joint, we do not have existing pieces strong enough to provide me with the friction needed. We tested at least 20 hip solutions that were all too weak.

Also, thanks a lot for all the comments, :) I am so happy people seem to generally like it. If you want to read some more about the development, check out my bricklist: https://brickset.com/sets/list-24652

Thanks for the behind the scenes info! Shame to hear about the hip joints. Maybe this will finally prompt LEGO to make some stronger ratchet joints.

[deraven]

11 minutes ago, LegoTFGuy said:

Shame to hear about the hip joints. Maybe this will finally prompt LEGO to make some stronger ratchet joints.

Yes, it would have been excellent to have that extra articulation, but still an excellent job even getting this to market!  I suppose the issue for TLG would be what builds (besides something like this) would require those stronger joints since they'd probably be too rigid for many uses as well.

11 hours ago, toothdominoes said:

We tested at least 20 hip solutions that were all too weak.

Thanks for sharing, and for that additional info via Brickset as well!  Any chance you could share some of the better designs at some point?  Ones that weren't good enough for the mass-market QC that TLG does but might be fun to see or implement for us AFOLs?  I know there will be plenty of AFOL solutions shared here with mods, but it'd be really interesting to see a master builder's take as well.  

[Digger of Bricks]

On 6/28/2018 at 6:27 PM, deadRahi said:

I wish that it had Minifigures of the five Paladins. If it did, even though this set is based on the classic version, I would have liked the Minifigures to be based on the Netflix series (I adore its version of Pidge).

Perhaps if this set is more successful than they would've hoped for, maybe Lego would pursue obtaining the license for the current Netflix series, giving us a line of individual sets for each Lion and its respective pilot. 

On 6/28/2018 at 8:33 PM, Agent 86 said:

Maybe they're saving them for a future set? Something with a Castle of Lions diorama?

You know, @len_d69 (creator of the Ideas project) did have another submission for a Castle of Lions playset, as a successive project to follow up his Voltron one:

 

[LegoTFGuy]

30 minutes ago, deraven said:

Yes, it would have been excellent to have that extra articulation, but still an excellent job even getting this to market!  I suppose the issue for TLG would be what builds (besides something like this) would require those stronger joints since they'd probably be too rigid for many uses as well.

Ah, that's a good point. 

2 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Perhaps if this set is more successful than they would've hoped for, maybe Lego would pursue obtaining the license for the current Netflix series, giving us a line of individual sets for each Lion and its respective pilot. 

I'd buy the heck out of those. I actually had an idea some time back for a series of five sets, but instead of one lion per set the three smallest were Green, Yellow and Black, the 4th largest set was Blue and Red, and the largest was Zarkon's mech. That way buying them all would give you a complete Voltron and someone for him to fight.

Edited June 30, 2018 by LegoTFGuy

[Digger of Bricks]

3 minutes ago, LegoTFGuy said:

I'd buy the heck out of those. I actually had an idea some time back for a series of five sets, but instead of one lion per set the three smallest were Green, Yellow and Black, the 4th largest set was Blue and Red, and the largest was Zarkon's mech. That way buying them all would give you a complete Voltron and someone for him to fight.

I have a very limited knowledge of both the classic and current TV shows, so I didn't know who Zarkon was and I looked him up. Well, I'll just say, his Netflix incarnation and respective mech would both certainly be impressive as a minifigure and Lego build! 

[Takanuinuva]

What we need is a 360 version of this joint

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=44225&idColor=86#T=C&C=86

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=44224&idColor=85#T=C&C=85

It was strong enough to be used for the Fire Mech's hips. So a joint of that ratchet strength might be enough for large mechs and robots.

[LegoTFGuy]

1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I have a very limited knowledge of both the classic and current TV shows, so I didn't know who Zarkon was and I looked him up. Well, I'll just say, his Netflix incarnation and respective mech would both certainly be impressive as a minifigure and Lego build! 

Oh yeah, Legendary Defender Zarkon and his mech have great designs that would look awesome in a set. The same goes for his son Lotor, who

Spoiler

had a mech in the finale of the most recent season that was combined from 3 uniquely designed ships.

 

 

Edited June 30, 2018 by LegoTFGuy

[deadRahi]

Spoiler

 

Please try not to place any spoilers for the latest season. A lot of us have not yet to catch up on it.

Edited June 30, 2018 by deadRahi

[LegoTFGuy]

35 minutes ago, deadRahi said:

Please try not to place any spoilers for the latest season. A lot of us have not yet to catch up on it.

Whoops, sorry, didn't think of that. I edited my post to add spoiler tags, you might want to edit the quote in yours also.

[deadRahi]

@LegoTfGuy how do I put spoiler tags?

 

Edit: Nevermind I got it.

Edited June 30, 2018 by deadRahi

[x105Black]

I would love one day to see individual sets released for each of the Lions and Paladins, assembling into a minifigure / System scale Voltron.

One can hope...

[Artanis I]

On 6/30/2018 at 5:34 PM, toothdominoes said:

Hey there, there are indeed stickers. Only the numbers though. We wanted to give you the option of picking whether you wanted to have the original Japanese version or the American version with the numbers. Everything else is a print. 

The hips on the black lion are rotated by popping them off 3 snaps on either side. You then rotate it 90 degrees and snap it back on. 

Believe me when I say I investigated joints. But for this extremely crucial joint, we do not have existing pieces strong enough to provide me with the friction needed. We tested at least 20 hip solutions that were all too weak.

Also, thanks a lot for all the comments, :) I am so happy people seem to generally like it. If you want to read some more about the development, check out my bricklist: https://brickset.com/sets/list-24652

Quote

From the very beginning, the consensus was that we could not make this as a LEGO product, so it was my job to prove people wrong. To kick reason to the curb and do the impossible! By not giving up and continuing to smash our heads into the wall, we made it possible.

Thank you so much, it's so appreciated! Congratulations on the set.