Subject:
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Re: Go the Designer series!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Sun, 7 May 2006 01:07:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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1827 times
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In lugnet.loc.au, Kerry Raymond wrote:
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I sort-of broke out of my self-imposed Lego exile on Friday night. I bought
the
4507 Prehistoric Creatures (T-Rex on the box cover) - 719 parts
4884 Wild Hunters (lion on the box cover) - 630 parts
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snip
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The prehistoric creatures set gives you a lot of red and dark red, together
with browns, greys, blacks and white for accents. The wild hunters set is
predominantly tan and shades of brown (including that burnt orange), with
black, grey and white accents (plus some green parts). The traditional
inappropriate blue part (so beloved by Richy) seems to have been omitted.
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The legacy lives on in the innappropriate colour that may or may not be blue.
For eg. I got the new Batmobile recently, and some of the internal structure is
made of yellow parts. I figure either a)it saves them shutting down certain
machines to load up a different colour, b)they’re easier to find in a pile of
bricks when your building the model, or c)they’re trying to piss off AFOLs.
One of the best things about the designer sets is they have very few
inappropriately coloured parts.
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Without consulting the inventory, the impression you get of these sets is
that the parts are predominantly slopes and regular bricks and plates. There
are also a lot of wedges and curves. There are quite a lot of hinges in this
set, to help build these rather these very non-traditional Lego structures,
including some new and somewhat wierd-looking click-hinge pieces for
handling shoulder and elbow joints. But apart from these new pieces and a
few teeth pieces, everything else in the box is really good general building
stock that could be used for other projects. There were a few Technics
bricks (with the holes) and a few Technics pins and axles.
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A good basic parts pack in all of those sets. Click rotation hinges are some of
the best new parts, and they are in those sets in such quantities that I now
have a separate drawer for them.
There’s lots of SNOT brackets too.
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The finished models are quite impressive -- the kids were thrilled and other
adults present were amazed you could make such things with Lego -- they
really look like the animal!
The playability is not great though. To get the realistic external shape,
there are a lot of little wedge plates built snot-style, which makes it
difficult to grip the models on the sides without knocking them off. I think
a head-on combat between the dinosaur and the lion would have seen a lot of
blood split by both :-) But as display pieces, they were great.
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Which is mainly because of the aforementioned
SNOT bracket. It leaves a
nasty half plate offset, perfect for levering parts off. I’d honestly prefer the
2x2 face of that part to be 1 plate thick, or make a 2 long version of
this(1), so it can be
built flush.
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So, if you are buying these sets for kids, you may
have to help with the construction at times, as the kids were getting a bit
frustrated, and don’t expect to get it right the first time yourself.
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I do it the other way around: they help me build it.
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Of course maybe if we had started with some of the easier models first, we
might have learned a bit more about the techniques used in the joints and
legs first before tackling the bigger models, but the kids wanted to start
on the more complicated models so that was that!
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You’ll be building Gundams like everyone else by Christmas.
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I think these would be a great gift if you are looking for something that
both parents and kids could enjoy together (not always an easy thing to
find). I’m definitely tempted to go back and buy these sets just for
myself -- no, no, Kerry, wait until after you finish your studies!
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Pick up the Triceratops one while your at it. Similar colour mix to the T-rex
one, meaning even Bigger Dinosaurs.
Allister
(1) that part is great for larger snot areas, but a bit big for models at this
size
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Go the Designer series!
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| I sort-of broke out of my self-imposed Lego exile on Friday night. I bought the 4507 Prehistoric Creatures (T-Rex on the box cover) - 719 parts 4884 Wild Hunters (lion on the box cover) - 630 parts as birthday gifts for some primary school aged (...) (18 years ago, 6-May-06, to lugnet.loc.au)
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