Av4l4nChE's Creations

Creations, construction techniques, and news from the world of plastic toys

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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Venge » Sat Aug 05, 2017 6:12 pm

That looks great! How the Hell did it not make the cut? Every time I've looked that section is just full of brightly colored piles of plates in the vague form of a spaceship loosely dotted with random minifigures.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sat Aug 05, 2017 6:20 pm

TheVengefulOne wrote:That looks great! How the Hell did it not make the cut? Every time I've looked that section is just full of brightly colored piles of plates in the vague form of a spaceship loosely dotted with random minifigures.
Unfortunately, you're right about Cool Creations. I hate how more and more, Lego has been deliberately catering ONLY to young kids. I miss the more interesting themes, like Agents, Power Miners, Mars Mission, etc. The best they can do is create crappy parodies, like Ultra Agents, for example. The theme is obviously a recreation of Agents, but it's so...childish. Everything has that too bright, too exaggerated feel, you know? Granted, I'd bet significant money Agents itself was a recreation of Alpha Team, but I don't think it did it injustice, just kind of a different feel.

Sorry. You've triggered a very sore point with me. The whole baby-izing of Lego is a huge rant-starter for me.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by AZKAMAT » Sat Aug 05, 2017 6:31 pm

That's something I find curious as Lego has been de-kiddyfying their brand in other respects. They're WAY less cautious about including military stuff than they used to be. Compare the colonel Harding figure from one of the Man of Steel sets a few years back to the more recent Jurassic World security guys. The former was so boring and bland you'd think they didn't want to include him at all. The latter look like they could be IRL private military guys.

In way this subject touches something I've noticed here in Brikwars for years now: most armies use figure parts from before 2010. Even these days, albeit less so as with Motorhead fan's army. I've always wondered if this is because of the age of the people playing or because the newer parts don't appeal...
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sat Aug 05, 2017 7:34 pm

AZKAMAT wrote:That's something I find curious as Lego has been de-kiddyfying their brand in other respects. They're WAY less cautious about including military stuff than they used to be. Compare the colonel Harding figure from one of the Man of Steel sets a few years back to the more recent Jurassic World security guys. The former was so boring and bland you'd think they didn't want to include him at all. The latter look like they could be IRL private military guys.

In way this subject touches something I've noticed here in Brikwars for years now: most armies use figure parts from before 2010. Even these days, albeit less so as with Motorhead fan's army. I've always wondered if this is because of the age of the people playing or because the newer parts don't appeal...
Now that you mention it, you're definitely right about that. I thought just now, though: they might be more lax about military-esque figures (huzzah!), but I only see this on their licensed themes (like super heroes). I meant more specifically the Lego-made lines, the ones not licensed (AKA not peach). You are for sure right about the recent influx of military themes in recent licensed themes. I guess with all the newer, more specialized pieces, Lego can't help but A: more accurately represent the more "aggressive" looking vehicles and structures from movies, and B: match those vehicles and structures with equally realistic minifigs. If the Jurassic World makes the security guys look awesome, Lego can't help but to create them more accurately with their newer pieces.

For example, look at the Republic Fighter Tank:

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The original. Bulky ( and in my opinion, cooler, and more accurate. Its a freaking tank, after all! )

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The remake. Much more streamlined, and using more specialized pieces than the original. Granted, it is a $25 set as opposed to a $60.

If Lego went back to making sets with more bulky, basic bricks, the market might not like it, so they must use the more specialized pieces to create more realistic models.

Sorry I unloaded this huge message on you. I really enjoy discussing stuff like this.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Venge » Sat Aug 05, 2017 7:44 pm

Just look at how we went from molded guns to stud shooters and flick-fire missiles to those huge transparent things. Lego is targeting kids more and more, and seem to be getting lazy, just look at the last Pirates theme, they just slightly changed a bunch of sets from not even 10 years ago. *hopes for a cool story from Mike about this*
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sat Aug 05, 2017 7:52 pm

I halfway don't mind the stud shooters, just not as a total replacement to the molded guns. If it were me, I would've included, like one per set, as a munitions launcher kind of thing, thus increasing value and collectibility, but whatever. :|

It makes sense. Molded guns for small arms, stud shooters for heavy infantry weapons, flick fires for vehicle mounted rocket weapons. If they wanted something for a BIG gun, just use one of the spring loaded, rubber-headed missiles. Love those things.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by AZKAMAT » Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:05 am

Av4l4nChE wrote:Sorry I unloaded this huge message on you. I really enjoy discussing stuff like this.
No no, I enjoy it likewise. I love studying toy companies from a distance. I also don't like the new(ish) trend of girls making up what seems like half of all minifigs across as many themes as they can get away with. Frankly, though, I think that's going to pass along with the rest of the "Girls, girls everywhere!" phenomenon. That's something that bugs me even outside of Brikwars. Just go look at IRL breakdowns of biological sex among construction workers and compare it to what's represented in the sets to get a hint at my thinking. Although experience tells me one priority of businesses is to avoid controversy (and controversial labels) so I suppose I can't blame them.

I agree with you about the Pirate Sets, but honestly what more can they do with them? They've produced that theme for decades now and I'm sure they're at the Simpsons conundrum of having to recycle past iterations.

Man, seeing that old tank gives me a real feels-bad about buying the current one. The current one just doesn't capture the SW BFII Republic/Empire hover tank at all. Still might buy it tho just to add "Hot Blue Alien Babe" to one of my hero's conquests.

I'll PM you some additional thoughts. I like this convo but it seems more appropriate to the Bricks section.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:04 am

True. I'll post this as a thread on Bricks or General Discussions soon. I'm interested to hear what everyone else thinks about this.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by stubby » Sun Aug 06, 2017 2:36 pm

Av4l4nChE wrote:Unfortunately, you're right about Cool Creations. I hate how more and more, Lego has been deliberately catering ONLY to young kids. I miss the more interesting themes, like Agents, Power Miners, Mars Mission, etc. The best they can do is create crappy parodies, like Ultra Agents, for example. The theme is obviously a recreation of Agents, but it's so...childish. Everything has that too bright, too exaggerated feel, you know? Granted, I'd bet significant money Agents itself was a recreation of Alpha Team, but I don't think it did it injustice, just kind of a different feel.

Sorry. You've triggered a very sore point with me. The whole baby-izing of Lego is a huge rant-starter for me.
Nah. Lego plays a full-age-spectrum strategy. Every year, they choose some playthemes to target ages 5-7, some for 7-9, some for 10-12 (roughly speaking). Which themes get which age groups changes every year according to where the market's at. So for some years, Star Wars (for instance) gets to be the theme designed for older kids with advanced construction and brick-built weapons etc., and some years it's stuck being the theme aimed at younger kids with gimmicky launchers and blocky construction. It sucks when your favorite theme gets picked for the littlest kids for a year or two, but they generally cycle back around again before long.

For awhile I remember we were trying a thing where a theme would age up with its target group - we'd pick them up at the youngest level, then increase the design level each year, and then start over again once they aged out of the core Lego demographic. I don't know if we do that anymore now that I'm not in product design though.

AZKAMAT wrote:In way this subject touches something I've noticed here in Brikwars for years now: most armies use figure parts from before 2010. Even these days, albeit less so as with Motorhead fan's army. I've always wondered if this is because of the age of the people playing or because the newer parts don't appeal...
Most of the armies you notice are because they're big or well-built. Collections and building skill increase over time; somebody who just started buying sets within the last year or two is a lot less likely to have the skill or collection size to make the kind of army you'll notice or remember. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but the chances are just a lot better for guys who've been working at it since 2010.

AZKAMAT wrote:I also don't like the new(ish) trend of girls making up what seems like half of all minifigs across as many themes as they can get away with.
This is a kind of amazing statement. Even if they did manage to bring girls up to fully half, that would just reflect the actual proportion of girls in real life, right? A 50/50 split isn't a "girls, girls everywhere! phenomenon," it's basic biology. If anything, the current "boys, boys everywhere phenomenon" is incredibly unrealistic, and makes me wonder if Lego knows how humans work.

AZKAMAT wrote:Just go look at IRL breakdowns of biological sex among construction workers and compare it to what's represented in the sets to get a hint at my thinking.
I did a lot of construction work as a kid. On some crews we had women, and on some crews we didn't. In my recollection, when a crew didn't have a lot of women, it was because the men were such casual assholes about women that any women workers they did hire either had no choice but to leave, or they couldn't even get hired in the first place. If a crew did have a regular number of women, it was generally a good sign that the crew and management weren't a bunch of total assholes. (They could still be assholes about other stuff, of course, but not being assholes in one area makes it a lot more likely that you're not assholes in other areas as well.)

With that in mind, if Lego has the choice to make a construction set that's made with a group of normal people or a group of assholes, why would they pick the assholes?
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sun Aug 06, 2017 2:55 pm

Interesting! What would your guess be as to the theme in the higher age-range category now? I've not observed that, but I was never looking for it either.

As for the girls thing, I see where you both are coming from, but to me, it does kinda seem like they've DRASTICALLY increased the amount of girl figs in sets as a whole. Although, when you used to have, like 2, maybe 3 girls in an entire line ( like, literally. Agents has Agent Trace, Agent Swift, Dyna-Mite, and maybe like one more I'm forgetting) an increase from 6 to 8 (very rough numbers, correct me if I'm wrong) would seem pretty massive to more veteran collectors.

Maybe it's just an unintentional coincidence, their increased female fig numbers with the whole women's equality thing in recent years. I think it is easy to quickly assume Lego is just bending in compliance to the current social pressures. Not that I'm downing them for doing that, they're entitled to their opinions and beliefs, same as the rest of us.

Anyway, I've made a thread for this discussion on General Discussion, so we can continue it there, because I don't want to kill a good discussion thread with creation pics that I will eventually upload.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by stubby » Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:17 pm

Av4l4nChE wrote:Interesting! What would your guess be as to the theme in the higher age-range category now? I've not observed that, but I was never looking for it either.
No need to guess; I can just go over to shop.lego.com and search by age. Right now it looks like the higher age range stuff is the Lego Batman and Ninjago movies, and Nexo Knights. (I'm not sure Nexo Knights as a theme is a good fit for the age they're targeting, but I don't know how they make these decisions.)
Av4l4nChE wrote:As for the girls thing, I see where you both are coming from, but to me, it does kinda seem like they've DRASTICALLY increased the amount of girl figs in sets as a whole. Although, when you used to have, like 2, maybe 3 girls in an entire line ( like, literally. Agents has Agent Trace, Agent Swift, Dyna-Mite, and maybe like one more I'm forgetting) an increase from 6 to 8 (very rough numbers, correct me if I'm wrong) would seem pretty massive to more veteran collectors.

Maybe it's just an unintentional coincidence, their increased female fig numbers with the whole women's equality thing in recent years. I think it is easy to quickly assume Lego is just bending in compliance to the current social pressures. Not that I'm downing them for doing that, they're entitled to their opinions and beliefs, same as the rest of us.
Well, yeah. They DRASTICALLY increased the amount of girls because the earlier 18:1 ratio of male minifigs to female ones was DRASTICALLY a pretty giant fuckup on their part. I don't know if the whole women's equality thing was what made them realize they were fucking up so badly, but that's fine; it doesn't change the fact that it was a giant fuckup and they needed to fix it.

Whether it was because of social pressure, who cares? Either way they let a major fuckup go uncorrected way too long. And afterwards their growth was out of control, going from losing a quarter billion dollars a year to becoming the biggest and most successful toy company in the world - it was almost like abandoning the policy of completely ignoring half their potential customers had a positive effect on sales.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:49 pm

Always awesome to hear Lego history!
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sun Aug 06, 2017 7:27 pm

Found some more oldies!

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If you've played God's gift known as Borderlands 2, you know these enemies. A Constructor and a WAR Loader. Except it's green.
Because Exo-Force.

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A cool chopper I made with pieces from the Ultimate Collector's Edition Batmobile. It would've been way better had I had some actual
chopper rotor pieces at the time, but the wings from the old Zane's Ice Dragon had to make do.

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A meh mech-thing I made with Mars Mission pieces.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Av4l4nChE » Sun Aug 06, 2017 7:38 pm

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A dope war machine I built, integrated with Power Functions.
I ended up selling them, because I got no use out of them, and I wanted an Xbox One.

I also found some race cars I built a while ago

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Not bad.

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I hate this one. This one is Hilary Clinton to me.

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I like this one.

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This one too.
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Re: Av4l4nChE's Creations

Post by Omega Prime » Sun Aug 06, 2017 8:22 pm

You should have saved the dope war machine for brikwars. :studgod:
gotta love knitting needles. i can make you a scarf. i can make a hat. i can stab your eyes out. i can make mittens.

What was that middle part again?

i can make a hat

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