Will the switch to natural-flesh-toned Pirates will be permanent?

[The Real Indiana Jones]

Hi everyone!

I am an archaeologist, and so I know a little bit about pirates, and The Age of Exploration.

This topic may also suddenly be of interest to all the LEGO Pirates Fans... We have all seen preview pics of Jack Sparrow "in the flesh" (pun intended), so obviously, the Pirates theme will be switching over to natural-flesh-toned minifigs for a while, with the Pirates of the Caribbean license. If you continue to use the new natural-flesh-toned islanders, then it may seem odd to match them up with classic-yellow-faced pirates and soldiers, no?

Since Pirates have always been a "strong perennial favorite in the LEGO portfolio of products", I am sure Pirates of the Caribbean will go for at least three waves (another pun), and that you will officially get the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman by next Christmas! Naturally, they want you to buy the Queen Anne's Revenge first, and then they will announce the release of the more famous A-list flagships for the Winter Holidays next year!

So here are my questions...

1) Do you think the switch to natural-flesh-toned minifigs will be permanent for the Pirates line after the POTC license ends?

2) Will you start using Jack Sparrow and the new natural-flesh-toned POTC sailor and islander minifigs permanently for Pirate scenes in the future?

3) Will you replace the heads of your existing Pirate/Soldier armies to match the newer natural-flesh-tones? Or will you replace POTC heads with yellow?

If you appreciate natural shades as much as I do, you can click here and then here to see my fairly-complete rundown of how to make flesh-toned figs from all around the world using all pre-existing parts!

[JCC1004]

So here are my questions... (HELP: I WANT TO MAKE THIS AN OFFICIAL POLL, BUT I AM JUST A VASSAL NOOB, SO I DON'T KNOW HOW!!!) (WHILE YOU ARE IT IT PLEASE DELETE THE SECOND WORD "WILL" FROM THE TITLE AND ADD A QUESTION MARK!) (ALSO FEEL FREE TO CORRECT THE NAMES OF THE SHIPS IF I SCREWED THEM UP! MY ERA IS MIDDLE EASTERN AND MEDITERRANEAN PREHISTORY, SORRY!)

You can't make a poll until your a Knight. You need 500 posts. A staff member will most likely add one for you.

1) Do you think the switch to natural-flesh-toned minifigs will be permanent after the POTC license ends?

2) Will you start using Jack Sparrow and the new natural-flesh-toned minifigs permanently?

3) Will you replace the heads of your existing armies to natural-flesh-toned?

1.) No unless it's another licensed pirate line. Flesh figures have only existed in licensed figures. I doubt that LEGO will change this. Non-licensed figures will probably always be yellow.

2.) Yes and I have been.

3.) No, I keep my armies authentic. I will have them in a separate army. it does seem like you don't know that they're have been flesh figures for about five years though.

[joeygunns]

1) i think its too early to tell what will happen after this wave.(pun?)

2) flesh doesn't really bother me that much, i'd much rather see them in the flesh (mr jones i think you have started a tidal wave of puns!)

3)I don't have much of an army...i'm sure some people will just use the bodies from the potc range and replace the heads with yellow.

[The Real Indiana Jones]

it does seem like you don't know that they're have been flesh figures for about five years though.

Thanks for the help... And I updated my post so it is more clear now, Thanks!

And oh yes, of course, I know that fleshies have been around for a few years now. In fact, since we now have four distinct natural skin-tones to choose from, the posts I link to talk all about how to use pre-existing minifigs and natural-flesh-toned faces to make a full range of international cultures in the most historically accurate way possible.

Have Fun!

Doug

Edited November 30, 2010 by The Real Indiana Jones

[Fugazi]

Interesting debate.

1) I agree with the others above in that non-licensed Pirate sets in the future will likely revert to yellow heads. Was a fleshie ever used in a non-licensed set?

2) The problem with swapping flesh heads with yellow ones is that nowadays many minifigs have printed flesh-coloured necks/chests that will clash with a yellow head. Your photo of Jack Sparrow is the best example. So most of the time it's not even an option.

3) For me, flesh stays flesh and yellow stays yellow. It's too much of a hassle to go and buy fleshie heads with appropriate facial features plus fleshie hands, and besides I like classic yellow figs better. Of course I don't really have an 'army' to speak of so it's more of a general opinion.

[kabel]

fleshy pirates? - never, I guess I will simply have to boycott the line and wait until they come up with yellow pirates again. I simply cannot see why I should pay more just because it has a disney license. I mean the pirates have been there since 1989 - and the sets were just right. Now we are going to get the same sets with fleshy heads but have to pay more just because it's POTC? Honestly, this doesn't make any sense at all and I feel really betrayed by Lego. So once again, no fleshy pirates for me, and not because I don't like them but because out of sheer principle!

[The Real Indiana Jones]

Interesting debate.

Was a fleshie ever used in a non-licensed set?

Thanks!

And yes, that question of why "licensed = flesh, but non-licensed = yellow" has always stumped me...

So here is a deeper question, one that turns the debate around a bit... At a certain point between 2002 and 2004, they had a solution... All figures were yellow, except for naturally-dark-skinned characters like Lando Calrissian. That solution worked just fine, so what do you think prompted them to switch all the licensed themes over to flesh-tones? Star Wars, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, and Lego Sports Basketball were all switched in mid-production...

Did it have something to do with the Official NBA Basketball license, which introduced the first representations of real-life people, not actors, or was it just a logical or aesthetic decision?

Maybe the white NBA players looked at the prototypes for their minifig-selves cast in plastic, and asked, "Hey, why do I have banana-yellow-skin, when the other guys get to be their real natural shade of brown?"

Otherwise, why do you think they make that switch?

I am curious!

"The_Real_Indy"

I am not sure whose jerseys these are in this set, but it may shed some light on the question...

Edited November 30, 2010 by The Real Indiana Jones

[Mister Phes]

So here are my questions... (HELP: I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE THIS AN OFFICIAL POLL, BUT I AM JUST A VASSAL!!!) (WHILE YOU ARE IT IT PLEASE DELETE THE SECOND WORD "WILL" FROM THE TITLE AND ADD A QUESTION MARK, THANKS!)

Greetings!

I be the Governor of these here waters and I can assist you with creating a poll.

Would you just like "Yes" and "No" response options for each of the questions in your poll?

[Aanchir]

The main reason for flesh-colored figs in licensed sets, as I understand it, is to make the figs look like who they're supposed to look like, and yet remain politically correct. The Cloud City set in Star Wars was one of the only licensed sets to use yellow figs alongside a realistic flesh tone-- but that leads to the unfortunate implication that yellow skin stands in for only white-skinned human beings, and that any other race is a "variant" from the norm. Obviously, Lando Calrissian and Mace Windu would not be recognizable to buyers if LEGO decided to stick with yellow skin for all races in all themes. So there's a compromise in play: LEGO maintains yellow skin for non-licensed figs of any and every race (including the two Native American collectible minifigs that have appeared in the past year). For licensed figs, which buyers are expected to recognize from whatever media they appear in outside of LEGO, realistic skin tones are used.

In any event, there's no reason to worry that non-licensed Pirates figs would be given realistic flesh tones. When Star Wars started using realistic skin tones, LEGO Space themes didn't follow suit. Nor did Castle themes take a cue from Harry Potter and use flesh-colored minifigs after those started appearing in 2003. So there's no reason to expect the case will be any different for the Pirates theme, whenever it is that it makes another appearance.

[The Real Indiana Jones]

The main reason for flesh-colored figs in licensed sets, as I understand it, is to make the figs look like who they're supposed to look like, and yet remain politically correct. The Cloud City set in Star Wars was one of the only licensed sets to use yellow figs alongside a realistic flesh tone-- but that leads to the unfortunate implication that yellow skin stands in for only white-skinned human beings, and that any other race is a "variant" from the norm. Obviously, Lando Calrissian and Mace Windu would not be recognizable to buyers if LEGO decided to stick with yellow skin for all races in all themes. So there's a compromise in play: LEGO maintains yellow skin for non-licensed figs of any and every race (including the two Native American collectible minifigs that have appeared in the past year). For licensed figs, which buyers are expected to recognize from whatever media they appear in outside of LEGO, realistic skin tones are used.

Yep, Aanchir, personally I think you are right on.

I realize that the original aesthetic of Lego was based on the Bauhaus style, which focuses almost entirely on the purest form of the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, plus black and white. Hence, the yellow faces...

But nowadays, with all of the rich and subtle hues and shades of brown in the pieces of the sets and in the printed clothes, it looks like an odd sort of color-mis-match to make people's skin-tone be super bright primary yellow.

And plus, just from the standpoint of historical accuracy, I like my figs bodies to be the same colors as they are in nature, and as they were in historical reality. Anyway, I will be fascinated to see the poll results...!

[Haltiamieli]

Pretty much agree with Aanchir's points, though I wouldn't be exactly sure that flesh-tones will never spread to non-licenced sets. Who knows what happens in the long run? After all there's no denying that the old yellow approach doesn't include some PC problems: the argument on colourblindness isn't very convincing when it comes to significantly darker skin-tones. The difference between reality and Lego yellow is just so big. As commented above, Lando or Mace Windu wouldn't just be as recognisable as Luke or Han Solo if they were all yellow. This is surely one of the reasons why we haven't seen (and won't see, I predict) Lego sets depicting Sub-Saharan Africa. It would be a PR nightmare no matter what approach they would take. Only as long as the non-licenced sets concentrate on such cultures where the population is mostly somewhat light-skinned they can keep the PC question in the background and claim to be colourblind with some plausibility.

I've only just grown out of my dark ages and as a consequence I don't own any flesh-toned figs yet. And I suppose I'm stuck with the yellow for the foreseeable future: all-out changing to flesh-tones would make my old stash of yellow minifig parts useless, and there's just too few licenced sets that interest me to acquire replacements in sufficient quantity and diversity. So when the time comes that I have the chance and the resources to buy those PotC sets that interest me, I will either prune the included minifigs from all usable parts or leave them in complete assembly as cast-off showcases. Latter would be preferable of course, but probably at least some parts (clothing, hats/hairpieces etc.) will be too good to be missed from my main collection.

Edited November 30, 2010 by Haltiamieli

[The Real Indiana Jones]

Greetings!

I be the Governor of these here waters and I can assist you with creating a poll.

Would you just like "Yes" and "No" response options for each of the questions in your poll?

Thank You, Sir. How about:

1) "yes, "no", "no opinion".

2) "yes, "no", "no opinion", and "whichever way the winds blow in the future".

3) "replace with flesh", "replace with yellow", "leave them all like they are", "no opinion", and "whichever way the winds blow in the future".

Oh, and please re-phrase the post title as a question, and add a question mark. I can't do that, but I am sure that you can.

The results of the poll may help everyone decide if they want to invest big in the new POTC sets, buy new heads on BrickLink, or just "keep you powder dry" (the final pun, I swear) for a few waves for the possible return of the Classic-Style sets.

Peace Out!

"The_Real_Indy"

Edited November 30, 2010 by The Real Indiana Jones

[Mister Phes]

Oh, and please re-phrase the post title as a question, and add a question mark. I can't do that, but I am sure that you can.

Aye, I know all kinds of magic tricks!

I also corrected your use of "Lego" and "Legos" to "LEGO" as per the official LEGO Fair Play policy.

[Joebot]

The turning point was Lando.

Back when the Star Wars license started, and all the characters were yellow, TLC didn't include Lando in a set for an awkwardly long time. I mean, geez, the dude blew up a Death Star, right? How about some mini-fig love??

At the time, there was MUCH debate on Lugnet (anybody remember Lugnet??) about how TLC would handle the fact that Billy Dee Williams is an African-American. This debate, as you can probably imagine, was heated and filled with much posturing and angry claims of "I'll boycott Lego forever!"

The debate came down on two sides:

1) Keep all figs yellow forever, regardless of who they are intended to represent. This would have been the simplest solution, but probably not a very satisfying one. As Aanchir noted above, a yellow Lando next to a yellow Luke would have been odd.

2) Make Lando brown, and keep all characters portrayed by Caucasian actors yellow. This too would have been a simple solution, but it comes with an unpleasant connotation. For 40 years now, TLC has said that yellow minifigs don't represent a specific race. They're just "people." This is a very nice philosophy. Unfortunately, as soon as you introduce a brown Lando next to a yellow Luke, you've now made the connection that yellow = Caucasian. This implies that all those yellow minifigs ever made in the past 40 years were, in fact, meant to represent Caucasians.

Both of those solutions had their (typically angry, vocal) proponents. TLC threw us a curve ball though, and did something that no one expected or predicted -- they made a new color to represent Caucasian characters. It solves one problem (how to represent the fact that actors and actress have different skin colors), but introduced a whole new set of problems -- namely, changing colors in the middle of a licensed theme. Thus my Star Wars collection is half-yellow and half-flesh.

They sort of mitigated this issue by not making the new Caucasian minifig color very realistic. Instead of a peachy-pink color (which they DID do for the NBA theme) they made it a sickly jaundiced grey-yellow. I have never seen a person with this skin color before in real life, so I'm always amused when people refer to it as a "realistic flesh tone." It's not realistic at all. It's a compromise -- it's "sort of" yellow, so it's not quite so jarring when these new figs are placed next to classic yellow figs.

Anyway, that's how I remember the whole thing going down. It caused a huge uproar at the time, second only to the now-infamous grey/bley change. Good times, good times ...

[Admiral Croissant]

Long question and long answers..

I'm not going to read it all, but I did vote. I'm not changing all my yellow's into fleshies, but I may do the opposite.

I remember seeing a topic with a good Lego 'yellow marker' so you keep the same head, but in yellow.

Here it is. This may be a good solution.

By the way, it's [bloggedcp][/bloggedcp]

Edited December 2, 2010 by Admiral Croissant

[Captain Becker]

Ill leave them as they are. I like more yellow color than fleshie, but i also like the fleshie look as it gives more realistic look.

Thanks for showing that topic Croissant, i actually have one of those yellow markers, so i might try that but in a different fleshie head

Captain Becker

Edited November 30, 2010 by Captain Becker

[vexorian]

1) Do you think the switch to natural-flesh-toned minifigs will be permanent for the Pirates line after the POTC license ends?

Why would it? So far, no theme that is not licensed uses flesh colored minifigs, and in a way the yellow faces come from TLGs good intentions so it is unlikely they will be used in non-PotC pirate sets.

I dislike the flesh colored figures because they are incompatible with everything else. I would not like a non-licensed theme to start using them.

[exon_from_youtube]

Wow I would like that mini fig alone.... And some brown heads so I can make a Jamaican theme area in my city...

The flesh tone looks great, but if they only include it in pirates then I would be sad

[Aanchir]

The turning point was Lando.

Back when the Star Wars license started, and all the characters were yellow, TLC didn't include Lando in a set for an awkwardly long time. I mean, geez, the dude blew up a Death Star, right? How about some mini-fig love??

At the time, there was MUCH debate on Lugnet (anybody remember Lugnet??) about how TLC would handle the fact that Billy Dee Williams is an African-American. This debate, as you can probably imagine, was heated and filled with much posturing and angry claims of "I'll boycott Lego forever!"

The debate came down on two sides:

1) Keep all figs yellow forever, regardless of who they are intended to represent. This would have been the simplest solution, but probably not a very satisfying one. As Aanchir noted above, a yellow Lando next to a yellow Luke would have been odd.

2) Make Lando brown, and keep all characters portrayed by Caucasian actors yellow. This too would have been a simple solution, but it comes with an unpleasant connotation. For 40 years now, TLC has said that yellow minifigs don't represent a specific race. They're just "people." This is a very nice philosophy. Unfortunately, as soon as you introduce a brown Lando next to a yellow Luke, you've now made the connection that yellow = Caucasian. This implies that all those yellow minifigs ever made in the past 40 years were, in fact, meant to represent Caucasians.

Both of those solutions had their (typically angry, vocal) proponents. TLC threw us a curve ball though, and did something that no one expected or predicted -- they made a new color to represent Caucasian characters. It solves one problem (how to represent the fact that actors and actress have different skin colors), but introduced a whole new set of problems -- namely, changing colors in the middle of a licensed theme. Thus my Star Wars collection is half-yellow and half-flesh.

They sort of mitigated this issue by not making the new Caucasian minifig color very realistic. Instead of a peachy-pink color (which they DID do for the NBA theme) they made it a sickly jaundiced grey-yellow. I have never seen a person with this skin color before in real life, so I'm always amused when people refer to it as a "realistic flesh tone." It's not realistic at all. It's a compromise -- it's "sort of" yellow, so it's not quite so jarring when these new figs are placed next to classic yellow figs.

Anyway, that's how I remember the whole thing going down. It caused a huge uproar at the time, second only to the now-infamous grey/bley change. Good times, good times ...

Actually, the color used for the basketball figs (18 Nougat) is a color that had been around for quite a while before-- specifically, in Duplo sets. If I'm correct it's still used as the "default" color scheme for caucasian Duplo figs.

18 Nougat is still used for some figs (for instance, some of the Prince of Persia figs and Indiana Jones figs) but only for people whose skin is darker than what we consider "typical" of caucasian skin-- that is, people with a mid-range or tanned skintone. Next year's Jar Jar Binks fig will, if I'm looking at it correctly, have arms and head printing in 18 Nougat.

However, for most of LEGO's licensed themes after 2002 they switched to a new color, 183 Light Nougat. Light Nougat is IMO a fairly realistic skin tone-- I don't see why you feel it looks yellowed or jaundiced. My own skin (using my own hands and arms) is yellower, and since my doctor has never mentioned anything unhealthy about my skin I don't think Light Nougat can be considered unnaturally yellow. If anything it's a little rosier than I would expect of many actors whose minifigs use this color.

And then there's darker skin tones. For the basketball figs and other pre-2004 dark-skinned figs, the standard brown color (25 Earth Orange) was used. When Earth Orange was discontinued in 2004, the new color 217 Brown was used in its place. This was considerably lighter than Earth Orange, and outside of minifig heads saw most of its use in 2004-2006 BIONICLE sets. Bricklink calls this color Dark Flesh.

217 Brown was last used in 2006, and since then the standard color for African-American skin tones has been 192 Reddish Brown-- the color that replaced Earth Orange in most non-minifig, non-BIONICLE applications. In the Indiana Jones set Temple of the Crystal Skull, there has been one additional color: 38 Dark Orange, a fairly old color that was chosen to represent the Mesoamerican natives from the movie.

I don't at all intend to imply that LEGO has sworn never to stop using yellow as their default minifig color in non-licensed themes. But so far they haven't given us any grounds to predict that. As long as we don't get the sort of grotesque caricatures that were created for multiethnic minifigs from the Basketball and Wild West (Western) themes, I'm perfectly happy with yellow skin remaining the default for non-licensed minifigures.

And yeah, I pay way more attention to this stuff than I should.

[Captain Becker]

Why would it? So far, no theme that is not licensed uses flesh colored minifigs, and in a way the yellow faces come from TLGs good intentions so it is unlikely they will be used in non-PotC pirate sets.

Indeed, Classic pirates head colour has always been yellow, so i dont think at they will change it even in the future. But we cant say for sure of course

Captain Becker

[RoryoCox]

I think the new flesh heads will be great but I do not think they will remain after the end of the POTC line. They are of course exclusive to licensed themes and therefore can't be used in 'system' themes.

I might replace the heads with the new flesh ones as I do like flesh more than yellow and the new torsos might persuade me to totally replace them.

[Joebot]

However, for most of LEGO's licensed themes after 2002 they switched to a new color, 183 Light Nougat. Light Nougat is IMO a fairly realistic skin tone-- I don't see why you feel it looks yellowed or jaundiced. My own skin (using my own hands and arms) is yellower, and since my doctor has never mentioned anything unhealthy about my skin I don't think Light Nougat can be considered unnaturally yellow. If anything it's a little rosier than I would expect of many actors whose minifigs use this color.

I would argue that this color used for the NBA figs is a lot closer to a realistic Caucasian flesh tone that the current yellowish one.

But anyway, I'm digressing from the topic at hand. I agree with most of the posters here that until TLC tells us otherwise, we can probably assume that they'll stick with their separation of licensed / non-licensed mini-fig colors. Any future non-licensed Pirate theme would presumably revert back to yellow figs.

[Capn Frank]

1) Do you think the switch to natural-flesh-toned minifigs will be permanent for the Pirates line after the POTC license ends?

2) Will you start using Jack Sparrow and the new natural-flesh-toned POTC sailor and islander minifigs permanently for Pirate scenes in the future?

3) Will you replace the heads of your existing Pirate/Soldier armies to match the newer natural-flesh-tones? Or will you replace POTC heads with yellow?

1) No

2) No

3) Replace with Yellow

I am really not a big fan of the flesh figs and replace any of their pale fleshy faces with yellow ones. Any torsos that have flesh color on them I typically keep set aside. I will probably sell the "undesirable" fleshy torsos at my BL.

I have WAY too many yellow figs to switch all of them to flesh toned. This past couple of years I have gotten a lot of fleshy faces. But they're still out numbered by the original yellow faces 20:1.

[David Thomsen]

I probably won't get the POTC theme, although if there are some new parts (compass, epee, powdered wig) I will probably get them on BrickLink to boost my Classic Pirates theme.

The POTC torsos will be too specific for my Classics theme, even if they don't have flesh skin printed on them. I like the generic Pirate look of the classic stuff.

[Mr. Gray]

The POTC torsos will be too specific for my Classics theme, even if they don't have flesh skin printed on them. I like the generic Pirate look of the classic stuff.

I have to agree. Adding some really detailed torsos into a batch of just detailed enough torsos looks off to me.

Hopefully not all torsos in the POTC theme will have fleshy openings or would be much more detailed than original pirate torsos. Hopefully.