... 

 

In those sorts of cases, I think a biplane (and it was WWI, not II) kinda falls within the same lines as swords, in that it's so far removed from the modern era that the warfare association just isn't there anymore. Biplanes are associated with museums and history, moreso than bloody carnage, just as most people don't have swords lying around home to stab people with, so they remain an object of fantasy reverence instead.

The rules are no doubt arbitrary, steeped in feeling, more than any sort of hard and fast system.

 

It’s true alright!

 

Oh, okay. Thanks for clarifying.

 

When I used to build tank mocs (LEGO has a no military policy) I’d source the majority of the parts from Bricklink. The parts were relatively inexpensive, but shipping was usually 5-6 dollars for small orders (1-10 parts), and sometimes 10+ for larger. Needless to say it got to be to hard to justify the tacked on shipping costs that would total $30+ in some cases and I stopped about 2 or so years ago.

 

I used BrickLink for the first time a while back for the Sonic set. I needed like 5 or 6 pieces, and it was just way more hair-pulling than it needed to be.

 

Around £170 and no knee articulation? PASS!

 

Yeah at this point if I need a ton of parts for Mocs over a few hundred pieces, used sets are cheaper than buying specific pieces and then dealing with shipping.

 

Even the crappy transforming Lego Optimus I made as a kid had knee articulation... Yeah this is bad

 

Its a lego set first and tf figure second. Plus it costs 170 because of the royalties lego has to pay to hasbro, so again blame hasbro for this debacle. Also knees on a brick built figure ? Of that stature ? GOOD luck supporting the WEIGHT

 

Once we get an idea of how Prime looks it might be a good place to start for making other TFs in a similar scale/aesthetic.

Also can appreciate the hesitance of LEGO to do explicitly war-related toys considering the impact of WWII and how that impact creates a lasting apprehension towards the sorts of military worship we see in the US.

 

The crappy transforming Lego Optimus you made as a kid didn't have to support the weight of 1500 pieces.

The square-cube law is still very much a thing.

 

How sturdy was this Optimus?

 

use ratcheted pieces to stabilize the knees. that's probably how the hips are held.

 

no knees isn't surprising, their voltron lacked knees as well didn't it?

 

Can't wait for the reveal!

 

The ratchet pieces that Lego currently has do not integrate well as knees. They're cludgy as heck.

 

huh. i've tried them and they seem to work pretty good.

 

It's a mechanism the Lego themselves doesn't like to use, because it places unnecessary stress on the parts. The arms on the ratchet disks do not connect directly to studs, so there's this whole length of part where the piece can twist about and break under those conditions. You have to sandwich them between two Technic beams to be sturdy enough for Lego's standards, and that becomes a pretty bulky assembly. Even moreso if you need to double-up the disk ratchets for heavier builds.

Remember, Lego's internal standards are not just about whether it can be built or not, but also how long the build can survive.

 

Ohohoho… that’s nothing. Check out the Lego Indiana Jones sets from a few years back.





Most of the builds are not based on real vehicles, but they did include German soldiers with machine guns, and you KNOW the higher-ups at Lego were wringing their hands about that.