LEGO Collectable Minifigures Future Series Rumours

[Pop Star c o]

For me:

January/February: Doctor Who - 24 minifigures (Yes, Disney 18; Cinematographic movies 20; Wizarding World 22, so new one should have 24)
April/May: Series 20
August/September: Wizarding World II

[Digger of Bricks]

By the way, can anyone see Lego potentially reusing this below pictured hairpiece/goggles mold from the upcoming Hidden Side playtheme for a future female counterpart to both the S4 Crazy Scientist and the S14 Monster Scientist? Such an archetype could even act as an evil counterpart to the S11 Scientist. 

 

[K_Tiger]

I think it's definitely possible. I'd be a little surprised if all the new head pieces didn't make an appearance in the CMF series somewhere down the line.

[Digger of Bricks]

Just now, K_Tiger said:

I'd be a little surprised if all the new head pieces didn't make an appearance in the CMF series somewhere down the line.

Those ghostly ones I feel will be a bit more challenging to reuse outside of the context of "ghosts" and what not.

[Digger of Bricks]

Hey, ya know what'd be too frigging cool?

What if Lego hosted a contest for both fans and artists to submit their own original character designs to be potentially translated as one of sixteen minifigures in a themed series of such original fan designs?! 

[Robert8]

New interview in the lattest Hispabricks magazine

-They have a list of 500 characters for the CMFs, with suggestions from pretty everyone at TLG 

-They talked about some CMF designs they regret, like the S5 Detective

-The characters in the movies CMFs are choosen by the studio (Warner), not them 

[Digger of Bricks]

9 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

New interview in the lattest Hispabricks magazine

The last question in that interview was the most crucial for me, even if it didn't reveal much at all, I found it insightful:

Quote

HBM: Do you accept ideas from fans for minifigs?

TW: We get sent stuff all the time and it’s really funny because if something is a good minifigure idea it is likely going to come from more than one place. I can’t recall if there was anything that came in from an external source that we hadn’t already considered, but it gives reinforcement to the idea. We don’t have an official channel for receiving suggestions, but we still get lots of suggestions.

 

[Robert8]

A contest for CMFs made by the fans would be pretty much impossible

They said they have to work on these a year in advance considering the amount of new moulds included in each series. That would mean the desings of the characters would be out to the public for a whole year between choosing the winner and the release of the series.  That's more than enough time for bootleggers to steal the desings and produce the series months before LEGO releases the official one.

Also, they would have to pretty much hire the winner for a year because it was said the designers and the engineers are constantly talking and sending notes and feedback back and forth. TLG would need the winner to be available at any time the engineers need him/her

[Digger of Bricks]

36 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

They said they have to work on these a year in advance considering the amount of new moulds included in each series. That would mean the desings of the characters would be out to the public for a whole year between choosing the winner and the release of the series.  That's more than enough time for bootleggers to steal the desings and produce the series months before LEGO releases the official one.

Well, fans' design submissions wouldn't need to be public, as it could be left exclusively up to the discretion of the product designers and TLG to decide which of the entries would be a part of the sixteen. Fans can publicly share their work elsewhere if they wish, and TLG would need only to contact the designers of each of the sixteen selected winning entries. I guess that technically wouldn't be a contest exactly, but I'd be perfectly alright with that approach. 

[Aanchir]

Another issue with making a whole series out of fan designs is that the "best of the best" entries might not wind up being the ones that offer the most appealing sense of variety for the intended buyers… so you might end up with, say, a series that's all historic or sci-fi army builder characters, leaving kids who like sports or costume characters in the lurch.

I could definitely see LEGO attempting a smaller contest with either KFOLs or AFOLs and creating ONE character in a future series based on the winning design. We've seen with the LEGO Friends Designer contest a couple years ago that LEGO is experimenting with forms of fan engagement like that which might not have been possible or practical earlier in the company's history. I don't think knock-offs would be an issue with a promotion like that, either, since the novelty of that minifigure being a fan-designed character that became a real LEGO product would probably be a bigger part of the promotional angle for that contest than what type of character happens to be chosen.

[Digger of Bricks]

Say, you know what could make for an interesting CMF? How 'bout a "Renaissance Airman" archetype, essentially a Fifteenth/Sixteenth Century aviator of a DaVinci Glider-inspired wingpack, kinda in the vein of this artwork? 

2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Another issue with making a whole series out of fan designs is that the "best of the best" entries might not wind up being the ones that offer the most appealing sense of variety for the intended buyers… so you might end up with, say, a series that's all historic or sci-fi army builder characters, leaving kids who like sports or costume characters in the lurch.

Like I had suggested, if fans/artists submitted their artwork and left it up to both TLG and the product designers to decide, Lego would probably select the sixteen best designs they'd figure would appeal the most to their intended demographic (i.e. KFOLs primarily). It wouldn't be a voting contest.

[Aanchir]

19 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Like I had suggested, if fans/artists submitted their artwork and left it up to both TLG and the product designers to decide, Lego would probably select the sixteen best designs they'd figure would appeal the most to their intended demographic (i.e. KFOLs primarily). It wouldn't be a voting contest.

I was pretty much taking that as a given, but if a whole series is chosen that way then you'd end up with a lot of sour grapes like after the LEGO Ideas review results announcement, with AFOLs getting salty about "X deserved to be chosen way more than Y!". If any step of the decision-making process happens behind closed doors and based on factors fans can't know with any kind of certainty (how well the chosen products complement each other and/or other planned product lines, how well they appeal to established vs. potential audiences, how practical they'd be to manufacture, etc), then a lot of people would hold those decisions against LEGO instead of acknowledging what complex decisions they probably were to arrive at.

For a more minifigures-specific example, remember the VIP Top 5 Boxed Minifigures set? LEGO held a vote for VIP members to select their top 5 minifigures from Series 1–3. The winning entries were all from Series 3, and some of them had rarer recolored elements from the original blind bags (like the Dark Red scorpion, Sand Green fish, and Titanium Metallic peg leg) replaced with more common recolors. There was immediate outcry that LEGO had both rigged the outcome to focus on more recent figures, had been too cheap to rerelease those figures as-is, and shouldn't have even held the contest if they weren't going to give AFOLs exactly what they'd voted for.

…Never mind the fact that a lot of VIP program members are probably not AFOLs who were voting for early series figures like Spartans and Forestmen, but parents who might have just as easily left the decision to kids with much shorter memories and attention spans.

…Never mind that blind bag exclusive recolors might not have been feasible if those same molds were booked round-the-clock to produce the same parts in other colors for current themes.

…Never mind that a low-capacity promotional release tends to have considerable limitations on its production budget by default.

…Never mind that even among AFOLs, the Elf and Space Villain were beloved "army builder" characters in their own right, and that few people would have thought less of these figures to begin with if their original recolored elements hadn't remained exclusive.

It was still regarded by many as a "slap in the face" to the company's most loyal fans, much like any number of other initiatives (even the most well-intentioned, like shout-outs in kid-targeted sets and media to classic sets/themes released before the target audience's lifetime) that have failed to measure up to AFOLs' lofty and extremely particular expectations.

That's why I think a smaller scale contest to design one particular minifigure might be more preferable, at least in the short term. Hopefully that would allow any "grumpledumpuss" AFOLs who are grouchy about the contest results to still get as much enjoyment out of the series as a whole as they would have if it hadn't included a fan-created design.

[Digger of Bricks]

1 minute ago, Aanchir said:

I was pretty much taking that as a given, but if a whole series is chosen that way then you'd end up with a lot of sour grapes like after the LEGO Ideas review results announcement, with AFOLs getting salty about "X deserved to be chosen way more than Y!". If any step of the decision-making process happens behind closed doors and based on factors fans can't know with any kind of certainty (how well the chosen products complement each other and/or other planned product lines, how well they appeal to established vs. potential audiences, how practical they'd be to manufacture, etc), then a lot of people would hold those decisions against LEGO instead of acknowledging what complex decisions they probably were to arrive at.

Well, during the hypothetical entry phase, I don't think Lego should publish all of the submissions themselves, but rather they should discreetly accept them while allowing the fans/artists to publish their entries elsewhere (if those fans/artists wish to do so) as a means of promoting both the contest and their own artwork. That way, fans need only lament the rejected submissions they're aware of.

[Pop Star c o]

I wonder if someone knows yet, what series we can expect next year.

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, Pop Star c o said:

I wonder if someone knows yet, what series we can expect next year.

Eh, come August, perhaps we'll know something then? 

As I've said elsewhere before, I'm banking on a potential Wizarding World Series 2 for January 2020, Series 20 for April/May 2020, and hopefully Disney Series 3 for August/September 2020. Alternatively though, perhaps that potential Wizarding World Series 2 could arrive for August/September 2020 instead, tying into the cinematic release of the third Fantastic Beasts film. 

[Mr Spielbrick]

On 3/10/2019 at 8:21 PM, Robert8 said:

New interview in the lattest Hispabricks magazine

(...)

-They talked about some CMF designs they regret, like the S5 Detective

(...)

What do they regret about him? 

[Digger of Bricks]

3 minutes ago, Mr Spielbrick said:

What do they regret about him? 

If I remember right, it was that they forgot to give him a cape/cloak.

[Mr Spielbrick]

Interesting to know. Thanks, @Digger of Bricks. 

As for future CMF series, here’s hoping there will be a healthy mix of original and licenced stuff. So far, I think there have been wonderful parts and figures in every series. The CMF’s might even be the “theme” I buy the most! 

[Anonknee Muss]

On 3/12/2019 at 10:25 PM, Digger of Bricks said:

Say, you know what could make for an interesting CMF? How 'bout a "Renaissance Airman" archetype, essentially a Fifteenth/Sixteenth Century aviator of a DaVinci Glider-inspired wingpack, kinda in the vein of this artwork? 

*insert picture here*

Anything renaissance I’ll take it!

I’d love a plague doctor minifigure!

[Digger of Bricks]

4 hours ago, J4ck said:

Anything renaissance I’ll take it!

I’d love a plague doctor minifigure!

Though this one isn't "Renaissance" in any way, another idea for a CMF I thought of recently is one that could pay homage to Bionicle somehow. As a generic archetype, perhaps such a CMF could be named "Biomechanical Warrior/Alien" with a design similar to these:

[MAB]

On 3/12/2019 at 11:42 PM, Aanchir said:

I was pretty much taking that as a given, but if a whole series is chosen that way then you'd end up with a lot of sour grapes like after the LEGO Ideas review results announcement, with AFOLs getting salty about "X deserved to be chosen way more than Y!". If any step of the decision-making process happens behind closed doors and based on factors fans can't know with any kind of certainty (how well the chosen products complement each other and/or other planned product lines, how well they appeal to established vs. potential audiences, how practical they'd be to manufacture, etc), then a lot of people would hold those decisions against LEGO instead of acknowledging what complex decisions they probably were to arrive at.

 

 

Plus there would be many complaints that fans had submitted ideas, they weren't winners, but then LEGO stole them and made that figure in a future series.

There are very few original ideas. Loads of people would suggest similar figures and if LEGO are deciding on the winners, then they might as well just come up with the selection themselves.

[Anonknee Muss]

5 minutes ago, MAB said:

Plus there would be many complaints that fans had submitted ideas, they weren't winners, but then LEGO stole them and made that figure in a future series.

There are very few original ideas. Loads of people would suggest similar figures and if LEGO are deciding on the winners, then they might as well just come up with the selection themselves.

Good point.

31 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Though this one isn't "Renaissance" in any way, another idea for a CMF I thought of recently is one that could pay homage to Bionicle somehow. As a generic archetype, perhaps such a CMF could be named "Biomechanical Warrior/Alien" with a design similar to these:

*insert picture here*

Whoa!

What do you reckon, will they have new heads or new masks that fit over the minifigure heads?

[Digger of Bricks]

7 minutes ago, MAB said:

There are very few original ideas.

Uh, I don't think so... 

4 minutes ago, J4ck said:

What do you reckon, will they have new heads or new masks that fit over the minifigure heads?

Preferably the latter! 

[Robert8]

9 hours ago, Mr Spielbrick said:

Interesting to know. Thanks, @Digger of Bricks. 

As for future CMF series, here’s hoping there will be a healthy mix of original and licenced stuff. So far, I think there have been wonderful parts and figures in every series. The CMF’s might even be the “theme” I buy the most! 

I'd go regular, licensed, regular, licensed, etc

[Aanchir]

3 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Though this one isn't "Renaissance" in any way, another idea for a CMF I thought of recently is one that could pay homage to Bionicle somehow. As a generic archetype, perhaps such a CMF could be named "Biomechanical Warrior/Alien" with a design similar to these:

Honestly, as cool as that might be, I almost think a concept a broader audience might relate to might be an “action figure fan” with, say, a baseball cap with a Bionicle logo, a 1x1 round brick patterned to resemble a classic Bionicle canister, and a nanofig patterned to resemble a Toa. In that case, kids and adults with no nostalgia for Bionicle can relate to it as a more general archetype that just happens to reference a past LEGO theme.

That may partly be a self-indulgent wish on my part, though, since those are the sorts of parts I’d love to have for my sigfig. Certainly a biomechanical hero , while possibly a more bizarre concept to people who don’t know Bionicle, is more action-packed and exciting in terms of the type of play scenario suggested by their design and accessories.

3 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Uh, I don't think so... 

Really? Because most of the ideas suggested here on recent pages are derivative in one way or another — whether based on an idea LEGO has portrayed in a past theme (like Bionicle characters), an idea based o. real life (like a plague doctor), or an idea proposed in some past non-LEGO creative medium (like a Renaissance wingsuit). And any of these ideas could just as easily be something LEGO is already contemplating behind the scenes, since they have just as much access to the concepts that inspire us as we typically do. If people can moan about LEGO “stealing” the concept of a Helicarrier set from LEGO Ideas, despite that project being based on an ongoing licensed theme and widely available movies, and having a completely different scale than the eventual set, then it goes without saying that somebody who proposes a concept to LEGO for a archetypical, public domain concept like a Centaur or Medieval Bard, they might get irrationally defensive should LEGO release a similar-looking figure without crediting them.