2013 Friends Sets - Rumours and Discussion

[A2L]

Yeah, the new dolphins are cool, though to be honest I'm not sure if I'd use them in a non-Friends layout as-is, because they of course have the same style of emotive, animesque eyes as other LEGO Friends animals rather than the black bead eyes typical of other LEGO people and animals. Of course, they do skirt one frequent criticism of Friends animals (their roundedness compared to other LEGO animals) since the classic dolphin was not much better in that regard. And they seem to have more connection points than the classic dolphin — like the Agents/Pirates shark, the back of their dorsal fins seems to be a handle for clips to attach to.

The timeless question with friends animals: To use or not to use (in other sets). From what I can make out, one has eyelash, other doesn't, which means the one without the lash is a wee bit more acceptable in other sets (to me of course). Please TLG if you can print a bow instead of a collar on the pooch, please print bead eyes on the dolphins for another city set.

My lil one of course is very excited, wants at least 4!

[Aanchir]

The timeless question with friends animals: To use or not to use (in other sets). From what I can make out, one has eyelash, other doesn't, which means the one without the lash is a wee bit more acceptable in other sets (to me of course). Please TLG if you can print a bow instead of a collar on the pooch, please print bead eyes on the dolphins for another city set.

My lil one of course is very excited, wants at least 4!

Yeah, I agree, Friends critters can look somewhat odd in layouts with regular minifigures. And I agree that more simplified eye prints could solve the problem for many of them. One animal type I'd love to see new eye prints for is the various dogs. Currently, there are few LEGO dogs in themes other than Friends that have the floppy ears characteristic of many breeds.

Given that what you want is simplicity, it's possible that you could use a weak chemical solvent to remove the prints from Friends animals and apply newer, more simplified eye prints using paints or decals. I've never seen anyone do this for Friends animals but I'm sure it could be fairly effective if you're careful enough applying the new pattern.

[Faefrost]

In both the U.S. and the U.K. you can be certified for solo flight in a powered aircraft at age 16, or for solo flight in balloons and gliders at age 14. So that's not totally unreasonable. Boating laws are more diverse and I'm having a hard time finding any general laws, but I believe in many cases for boats under a certain size the boating age would be consistent with the driving age. Despite being a very big boat compared to most previous LEGO boats, based on its accommodations I imagine the Dolphin Cruiser is meant to be a luxury cabin cruiser, not a larger yacht which would require a larger crew.

Not wanting to get too far off target, but I believe in the US boats covered by the Coast Guard (open water) allow for solo operation of boats under 20' or so by a 14 year old with a safety certificate and class, or under the supervision of an adult (who apparently needs no safety class or certificate and is allowed to be a complete clod.) protected waterways such as lakes and rivers are covered by the states and will vary wildly.

[Aanchir]

Not wanting to get too far off target, but I believe in the US boats covered by the Coast Guard (open water) allow for solo operation of boats under 20' or so by a 14 year old with a safety certificate and class, or under the supervision of an adult (who apparently needs no safety class or certificate and is allowed to be a complete clod.) protected waterways such as lakes and rivers are covered by the states and will vary wildly.

That's interesting to know, thanks!

Recently the Danish advertising agency Advance, which has been working with the LEGO Group for over three and a half decades, posted

briefly highlighting some of their involvement in the marketing and creative direction of LEGO Friends. A familiar face to BIONICLE fans is Christian Faber, one of the chief creative minds behind that theme's mythology and art direction.

[lluisgib]

You can read a review of the new 41006 - Downtown Bakery at HispaBrick Magazine's blog:

http://www.hispabrickmagazine.com/en/content/41006-downtown-bakery

[Locomotive Annie]

You can read a review of the new 41006 - Downtown Bakery at HispaBrick Magazine's blog:

http://www.hispabric...downtown-bakery

Cool, thanks for posting the link

[Lordofdragonss]

You can read a review of the new 41006 - Downtown Bakery at HispaBrick Magazine's blog:

http://www.hispabric...downtown-bakery

This is surely one of the first sets I will get! So much food!

[Gryphon Ink]

I'm disppointed that the bakery set includes an oven and display that don't fit into the building. That's really not cool. It makes the set much less attractive in my opinion. This set should have been the same size as the City Cafe - it would have been wonderful at that size.

[SearchFunction]

Some new images:

-Sci

I have been working on my own yacht in LDD for some time now, and the first thing I thougth of when I saw this was "The Left Hand" from Donnie Brasco, with "love machine" blasting from my speakers. Seriously. This set is begging for a recreation of that scene with the friends characters as stand ins for Donnie and Lefty .

Edited May 6, 2013 by SearchFunction

[nesquik]

Town Plan looks fantastic :)

Edited May 7, 2013 by nesquik

[Ajax]

The timeless question with friends animals: To use or not to use (in other sets). From what I can make out, one has eyelash, other doesn't, which means the one without the lash is a wee bit more acceptable in other sets (to me of course). Please TLG if you can print a bow instead of a collar on the pooch, please print bead eyes on the dolphins for another city set.

My lil one of course is very excited, wants at least 4!

The only friends animals to have made it into my Lego land are the turtles, their eyes are tiny and they are just cool looking. I'm using mine as tortoise's in my zoo.

[Laura Beinbrech]

Wow, I come back from my moving/Minecraft-induced hiatus and find this thread. I definitely like the upcoming friends sets, particularly the fact that they've actually included some boys for a change (even if they DO look kinda like Justin Bieber). I'm definitely going to have to get the Dolphin cruiser, which should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with my usual builds Of course, I'll likely end up militarizing it, but I just love the fact they have the boat hulls in white.

Also, I found the new series 2 collectible animal mini sets at the local target the other day and got the bunny one for my wife, which resulted in much squee from her end. I'm also thinking about getting the Rehersal stage set, mainly for Stephanie's outfit... With a bit of tweaking, I could easily make her into an anime-style Magical girl.

[xtremegoogler]

German review of the dolphin cruiser:

[Rick]

A German webshop has pictures of series 3 of the Friends Collectables.

[Chocolatecake]

Oh... The fawn is a must have for me and it will be a perfect funny little gift for my father who has a huntinglicense (He mainly "hunts" clayplates though )

[just2good]

A German webshop has pictures of series 3 of the Friends Collectables.

Thanks Rick!

I'll try to get all of these. They look great! Am I the only one who think the fawn looks a bit creepy?

[slovakiasteph]

I'll try to get all of these. They look great! Am I the only one who think the fawn looks a bit creepy?

Nope, I agree... don't know that I would have known it was a fawn without foreknowledge!

[Aanchir]

A German webshop has pictures of series 3 of the Friends Collectables.

I didn't realize we still hadn't seen pics of these sets on cache.LEGO.com. Here are some pics I saw on Flickr around a week ago. Not fond of the fawn... the chubby cheeks and wide forehead on an animal that should have a very thin face just make it look deformed, more like a dog than a deer. But perhaps others will disagree.

[Kristel]

I didn't realize we still hadn't seen pics of these sets on cache.LEGO.com. Here are some pics I saw on Flickr around a week ago. Not fond of the fawn... the chubby cheeks and wide forehead on an animal that should have a very thin face just make it look deformed, more like a dog than a deer. But perhaps others will disagree.

I thought the fawn was a little odd, but I couldn't pinpoint what was. You're right, it's because it's face is more like a dog or a fox. Overall, still cute though.

[CM4Sci]

I didn't realize we still hadn't seen pics of these sets on cache.LEGO.com. Here are some pics I saw on Flickr around a week ago. Not fond of the fawn... the chubby cheeks and wide forehead on an animal that should have a very thin face just make it look deformed, more like a dog than a deer. But perhaps others will disagree.

Looks like it could be customized to make My Little Pony characters. The moulding looks about right.

-Sci

[Aanchir]

Oh my gosh... I'm probably way late to the party, but the LEGO Friends product page is amazing! I was just visiting the site and discovered this. What a brilliant way to do a product page! Not the most user-friendly for someone actively seeking out info on a certain set, but the sense of adventure created by the "map screen" is fantastic!

Some of the summer sets can be seen on the map screen, though they don't yet have the pink markers that indicate a product. I wonder whether any other future products are hiding out on this page. One thing's for sure: I'll bet you could find loads of inspiration for Friends MOCs on this page!

[Lordofdragonss]

Haha indeed that's quite a great idea! And I see a Grocery store! baybe we will get it in the future, heheh.

I saw the catalog the other day and I am positively suprised by Poland prices. They seem to be lover than last year somehow. With Bakery being for 100 zł I can buy two of them and make one big shop <3

[Aanchir]

Lately I've been trying to build a house for Mia on LDD based on its appearance on the LEGO Friends products page. It's been immensely difficult for a number of reasons:

• I'm trying to keep to the "dollhouse" scale and standards for modularity as seen in Olivia's House, Heartlake High, and Summer Riding Camp.
  
• I'm trying to incorporate as many details from Mia's Bedroom as possible, though I've given up on including them all in one room. Even if I put them in a downstairs room with around 11 studs by 14 studs of floorspace, they'd be way too compressed.
  
• That house's design, with a steep sloped roof covering an attic and dormer, is very difficult to build, particularly in any type of green. All the designs I've come up with really limit the amount of usable upstairs floorspace (and ideally I'd like the bedroom to be upstairs).
  
• I feel like the colors I'm working with are too dull. I originally wanted classic green (Dark Green) as the roof color over a tan building, which would be fairly vibrant. No dice. It's next to impossible to make the roof in that color due to a limited selection of slope bricks and wedge plates. The most usable color option for the roof is Earth Green, which just doesn't feel very... Friends-y, even if I were to add some brightly-colored accents.

On the whole, most of these problems probably boil down to me being too strict with myself. But I think some of them are also indicative of how difficult a "dollhouse"-style build can be in general.

[CM4Sci]

Lately I've been trying to build a house for Mia on LDD based on its appearance on the LEGO Friends products page. It's been immensely difficult for a number of reasons:

• I'm trying to keep to the "dollhouse" scale and standards for modularity as seen in Olivia's House, Heartlake High, and Summer Riding Camp.
  
• I'm trying to incorporate as many details from Mia's Bedroom as possible, though I've given up on including them all in one room. Even if I put them in a downstairs room with around 11 studs by 14 studs of floorspace, they'd be way too compressed.
  
• That house's design, with a steep sloped roof covering an attic and dormer, is very difficult to build, particularly in any type of green. All the designs I've come up with really limit the amount of usable upstairs floorspace (and ideally I'd like the bedroom to be upstairs).
  
• I feel like the colors I'm working with are too dull. I originally wanted classic green (Dark Green) as the roof color over a tan building, which would be fairly vibrant. No dice. It's next to impossible to make the roof in that color due to a limited selection of slope bricks and wedge plates. The most usable color option for the roof is Earth Green, which just doesn't feel very... Friends-y, even if I were to add some brightly-colored accents.
  

On the whole, most of these problems probably boil down to me being too strict with myself. But I think some of them are also indicative of how difficult a "dollhouse"-style build can be in general.

For the roof, you could try something like this. You could possibly try to make it not just a blank wall and a door with some windows, add some flowers or other decorations. Like Olivia's House

-Sci

[Gryphon Ink]

Damn, I just saw those pictures of the latest animal sets, and that fawn is awful. I had high hopes for it. Too bad. I find the Friends animals are a VERY mixed bag. Some of them are really cute (hedgehog, squirrel, turtle), some of them are strange but still okay (horse, poodle) and some are just bad. The fawn is one of those. I agree that it looks a lot more like a fox than a fawn.

Now, the bird I like and will buy. The dog, I think, is just meh. I've never been a huge fan of the Friends dogs, and the build is wholly unremarkable.