16 October 2021

(CW:HP) Build a giant minifigure with LEGO® 76393 Harry Potter & Hermione Granger

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TobyMac (@efraimaspie) takes a special angle with his review of LEGO® Harry Potter 76393 Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, examining which parts you need to adapt these brick-built minifigures to other characters. Editorial note: Although views expressed by Harry Potter's creator do not align with that of New Elementary, we continue to cover some sets for their parts. Read about our stance here. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.


The moment the subject of today’s review was announced, I fell in love with the concept of large, brick-built versions of Minifigures. I know we have seen them before, like the 3723 LEGO® Minifigure, but they never really captured the curves and angles of the original. I can’t find an official name for these types of figures, so I hereby dub them BFG, or Brick Figure Giant. 

For now, the concept is only used in the Harry Potter franchise, but I immediately envisioned this concept being used all across the LEGO universe. Imagine Classic Space figures, Black Falcon soldiers, Lloyd, inhabitants of LEGO CITY, Pirates, Galidor! Okay, maybe not the last one, but you catch my drift.

So, for today, I’m not really interested in the characters Harry and Hermione, but I want to take a closer look at the inner structures and build techniques that form these BFGs. I am not a good MOC designer; my role at New Elementary is focussed more on reviewing and gathering data like the monthly newly released element list, so I can’t show you many customized versions of the BFG. What I can do is show you which parts are needed, and give you a list of existing colours for those parts.

The parts

New elements

The set brings us 2 new moulds. Well, 1 new mould and a new shape of fabric: the black cape for Harry Potter (6357998 | 79751); the biggest fabric element I have seen myself.

The ‘real’ new mould is a new addition to the ever-growing group of curved parts: the 78522 Brick Curved 4 x 6 with 2 x 4 Cutout. This new element is used as the face for the BFGs, so comes in 2 prints. You can see Brick Curved 4 x 6 with 2 x 4 Cutout with Face print (Hermione Granger) in Light Nougat (6360707 | 79236) lying face up, and Brick Curved 4 x 6 with 2 x 4 Cutout with Face, Glasses print (Harry Potter) in Light Nougat (6351608 | 79235) is lying face down. You can see his print later on in the review.

The new mould has the same curvature as Slope Curved 3 x 1 (50950), shown here in Reddish Brown and Slope Curved 3 x 2 (24309). In a way, you could call this mould a POOP, as you can get the same result using 8x 50950 or 4x 24309, but I assume the new mould is needed here as a canvas for the face print. I’m curious if the mould is also necessary for stability and strength.

Recolours 

Light Nougat

The set is a treasure-trove for Light Nougat-lovers. We find 13 different elements, in 11 moulds, 10 of which have not been seen in this colour before. Stay with me, it’s a long list:

  • 10 x 3069b Tile 1 x 2 with Groove in Light Nougat (6330199 | 3069). The only non-recolour element in the list. We’ve seen this one being introduced earlier this year in the 10280 Flower Bouquet.
  • 12 x 32802 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 1 Double with 1 x 2 Cutout in Light Nougat (6357788 | 32802)
  • 1 x 78522pr0002 Brick Curved 4 x 6 with 2 x 4 Cutout with Face print (Hermione Granger) in Light Nougat (6360707 | 79236)
  • 1 x 78522pr0001 Brick Curved 4 x 6 with 2 x 4 Cutout with Face, Glasses print (Harry Potter) in Light Nougat (6351608 | 79235)
  • 8 x 3622 Brick 1 x 3 in Light Nougat (6357794 | 3622)
  • 8 x 93273 Slope Curved 4 x 1 Double with No Studs in Light Nougat (6357798 | 93273)
  • 4 x 3941 Brick Round 2 x 2 with Axle Hole in Light Nougat (6357786 | 6143)
  • 12 x 3021 Plate 2 x 3 in Light Nougat (6357789 | 3021)
  • 24 x 54200 Slope 30° 1 x 1 x 2/3 (Cheese Slope) in Light Nougat (6357792 | 54200)
  • 1 x 50950pr0001 Slope Curved 3 x 1 No Studs with Lightning Bolt / Harry Potter Scar print in Light Nougat (6357975 | 79747), which beside a recolour also is a new print.
  • 2 x 50950 Slope Curved 3 x 1 No Studs in Light Nougat (6357800 | 50950)
  • 16 x 37352 Brick Curved 1 x 2 x 1 No Studs in Light Nougat (6357793 | 37352)
  • 21 x 3024 Plate 1 x 1 in Light Nougat (6357797 | 3024)

I have to say, just for this list of recolours alone, the 76393 is an interesting set. I couldn’t remember seeing so many new Light Nougat elements being introduced in a single set, or even a single year, so I did some digging in the Rebrickable database, and came up with this graph.

The red line shows the total of unique moulds used, by year. The green line shows the total of new unique moulds being introduced for Light Nougat. Unique moulds here means parts in a unique physical form, so no matter how many different head-prints were produced in a year, it still counts as 1. I also filtered out single-use moulds, like the heads in the LEGO Star Wars buildable figures. What remains are unique moulds that hold a value for MOC designers. As you can see, 2021 is a very good year for Light Nougat.

But wait, there’s more! 

Other Recolours

  • The 4032a Plate Round 2 x 2 with Axle Hole makes its first appearance in Olive Green (6186035 | 4032). 
  • 3003 Brick 2 x 2 appears for the first time in Flame Yellowish Orange/ Bright Light Orange (6295078 | 3003). The element can also be found in 11015 Around The World.
  • Besides a recolour in Light Nougat, we also find the 32802 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 1 Double with 1 x 2 Cutout for the first time in White (6338001 | 32802).
  • For Sand Yellow/ Dark Tan we have 2 newcomers: 51270 Plant, Pumpkin (6357809 | 51270) and 14716 Brick 1 x 1 x 3 (6310988 | 14716).
  • And lastly, the 64225 Wedge Curved 4 x 3 No Studs [Plain] in Dark Stone Grey / Dark Bluish Gray (6315026 | 64225).

New prints

I’ve already shown the new prints on the Light Nougat elements, and we find another on the Panel 1 x 6 x 5 with Sweater, Red/Yellow Trim/Stripes, White Shirt, Tie print in Dark Stone Grey / Dark Bluish Gray (6351623 | 79241).

Rare and interesting elements


That leaves us with the rare elements. First up are a couple of Reddish Brown parts:

  • 29120 Slope Curved 2 x 1 with Stud Notch Left in Reddish Brown (6290397 | 29120) and 29119 Slope Curved 2 x 1 with Stud Notch Right in Reddish Brown (6290396 | 29120) have been introduced last year, and we find them both here 14 times.
  • 13548 Wedge Sloped 45° 2 x 2 Corner in Reddish Brown (6266770 | 13548) was introduced way back in 2014 in The Simpsons House, and has not been seen until the summer of 2021, appearing also in 60300 Wildlife Rescue ATV.
  • 50950 Slope Curved 3 x 1 No Studs in Reddish Brown (6325975 | 50950) has only been seen in 3 sets in 2018. Here, we get 8 of them.
  • 27263 Tile Special 2 x 2 Corner with Cut Corner - Facet in Reddish Brown (6295302 | 27263) makes its 3rd appearance after being introduced in 2020. The element can also be found in the recently released 76388 Hogsmeade Village Visit.

For Dark Stone Grey / Dark Bluish Gray we have:

  • 69729 Tile 2 x 6 in Dark Stone Grey / Dark Bluish Gray (6321746 | 69729). Introduced last year, this element has appeared in so many sets simultaneously, I almost overlooked it. 
  • 35787 Tile 45° Cut 2 x 2 in Dark Stone Grey / Dark Bluish Gray (6262025 | 35787) was introduced in 71741 NINJAGO City Gardens, and appears in 2 other sets from the summer 2021 wave.
  • Similar to the Tile 2 x 6, 73825 Bracket 1 x 1 - 1 x 2 Inverted in Dark Stone Grey / Dark Bluish Gray (6336390 | 73825) is introduced in multiple sets simultaneously.

And the final group of rare elements:

  •  44728 Bracket 1 x 2 - 2 x 2 in Medium Lilac/ Dark Purple (6334093 | 21712) has not been seen since 2004 before being reintroduced in the Super Mario Character Packs earlier this year.
  • 60592 Window 1 x 2 x 2 Flat Front in Bright Bluish Green/ Dark Turquoise (6328106 | 60592) has only been seen in the 71741 NINJAGO City Gardens before.
  • 34103 Plate Special 1 x 3 with 2 Studs with Groove and Inside Stud Holder (Jumper) in Flame Yellowish Orange/ Bright Light Orange (6307254 | 34103) is new for 2021, and has made appearances in 6 sets now.
  • 65304 Technic Pin Long with Friction Ridges Lengthwise and Stop Bush [No Ridge Near Rim] in Bright Yellowish Green/ Lime (6325515 | 65304) is technically rare, but only because the old mold 32054 has gotten an update this year.
  • 41682 Bracket 2 x 2 with 1 x 2 Vertical Studs in Sand Yellow/ Dark Tan (6328183 | 41682) was introduced in 10278 Police Station, and makes its 3rd appearance here.

The last thing I wanted to mention is the amount of standard bricks and brackets found in the set. I love it when designers incorporate so many standard bricks in a build, showing you don’t have to rely on ‘fancy’ new stuff for great designs.

The Build


The build starts off with Harry’s torso. Inside we find a structure that creates the (near-perfect) angle for the sides. The red axles on the sides attach to the arms. Inside the structure, the axle gets a gear, which is connected to other gears fixed on a pin with friction (the red dots in the lower left image). This gives the axles enough friction to hold the arms in place under any wanted angle. The structure gets encased in a wall made out of standard 1 x 2 x 3 slope bricks and a 1 x 6 x 5 panel. The panel seems only to be used for the large print. You can easily replace it with smaller bricks and/or plates to create your own pattern.

Weirdly, Hermione’s torso, while being identical on the outside, uses a different axle to hold the arms. Harry uses a standard 5L Axle, but Hermione has a 5L Axle with Stop. This seems to be a better version, as the axle from Harry often comes all the way out when I remove the arms. I’m not sure why there is a difference. Harry and Hermione both have their own bags and instruction booklet, so a theory could be that the Hermione version was designed later on, while Harry was already in production. So the designers were able to make the improvement for Hermione, but it was too late for Harry? Oh, to be a fly on the many walls in Billund to hear these stories!


The hips are directly attached to the torso. I was hoping the top of the hips would have the large squarish ‘studs’ that the real-life hips & legs assembly have, but there wouldn’t be room for them inside the torso. The yellow axle holds 2 ball joints, creating enough friction to hold the legs in any wanted position.

The legs are built individually, just like in the real-life minifig. Here, most of the standard bricks are used. The white insert holds the axle from the hips. The legs have full range of movement, and are strong enough to stay in a walking position. If I have to give a criticism, it would be that the backside of the legs are solid. I would have loved to see the holes here that come in the real-life minifigure legs. It would be tricky on a 5-wide leg though.


Next are the arms and hands. The hands are attached by a pin with axle and can rotate freely. The ‘fingers’ are a bit fragile and are purely decorative. The magic wand is held by the studs on the inside of the hand.

And lastly the head gets built. Harry’s head is pretty complex, with little symmetry in the inner frame. As you can see, the Brick Curved 4 x 6  could be replaced by 8x Slope Curved 3 x 1, if it wasn’t for the print.


The head of Hermione is more symmetrical, and is basically an inner frame, on which sections of hair are placed. This head seems to be easiest to customize.

Customizing the giant LEGO minifigure set 76393

As I mentioned in the introduction, I’m no good at designing my own customized BFGs. Instead, I’ll discuss some of what I call the ‘bottle-neck parts’, those that are essential for the BFGs and cannot be substituted, and see what variety of colours they come in so you have an idea of the options available.

Legs

In the legs we find Slope Curved 4 x 1 Double with No Studs (93273), used to get the curved top on the legs. Seeing this part currently comes in 35 colours, the options to custom coloured legs are wide. And even if you can’t find the needed colour, you could swap them for Slope Curved 2 x 2 x ⅔ (15068) and Slope Curved 2 x 1 No Studs [1/2 Bow] (11477), appearing in 39 and 41 colours respectively. The other parts are standard bricks, plates and tiles, which shouldn’t form a problem for your colourscheme. At worst, you might have to swap some parts for another size.

The hips need some attention. Here, 4x Brick Curved 3 x 1 with 2/3 Inverted Cutout (70681) are used for the hollow curve that follows the top of the legs. This part is relatively new, and currently available in only 6 colours, severely limiting the options for the hips. But I think there is a workaround. The lower section of the hips (the Black area in Harry and Hermione) is upside-down. This only seems to be for the curved shape of the 70681. You can easily flip the hips around, and use a Brick Arch 1 x 6 Raised Arch (92950), which has the same curvature, adding another 12 colour options. Downside is that the arch brick shows its hollow side. 

Torso

The slopes used to create the angled sides of the torso are built with Slope 75° 2 x 1 x 3 with Hollow Stud (4460b). Here, you have 24 colour options. The surface of the front of the torso is made up out of the Panel 1 x 4 x 3 (60581), which comes in 20 colours, with 13 of them overlapping with the 4460b. Of course, you can replace the large panel with standard bricks and plates, giving even more colour options.

The biggest bottle-neck in the arms are the brackets that are used, especially the new Bracket 1 x 1 - 1 x 2 Inverted (73825), as it only comes in 9 colours so far. The good news is, the brackets are mostly hidden inside the arms. Only the ½-plate thick sides are visible. 

A bigger issue are the hands, which use the Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 1 Double with 1 x 2 Cutout (32802). This part is available in 5 colours, of which the standard Minifigure colour, Yellow, is not one of them. You could modify the hands a bit and use the 2-module wide version (4871) or the 4-wide versions (4854/72454).

Head

Lastly, the head. The most important parts for its shape are:

  • Slope Curved 3 x 1 No Studs (50950), available in 34 colours
  • Slope Curved 4 x 1 Double with No Studs (93273), available in 35 colours
  • Brick Curved 1 x 2 x 1 No Studs (37352), available in 24 colours
  • Slope 30° 1 x 1 x 2/3 (54200), the Cheese Slope, available in 56 colours

The only real party-pooper here is of course the Brick Curved 4 x 6 with 2 x 4 Cutout (78522), which is the only curved part big enough to fit a full face print, and only comes in Light Nougat. For shape, you can replace it with 8x Slope Curved 3 x 1 (50950) or 4x Slope Curved 3 x 2 (24309), and get creative with custom prints/sharpies. The 50950 comes in 34 colours, the 24309 is more limited with 12 colours.

The last part I want to mention is the Technic Brick 1 x 4 (3701), used to hold the axle that holds the arm. This part comes in 16 colours, most of them older ones. I can’t see an option to use a different part without a redesign of the torso, but 95% of the part gets covered by the arms, so like with the brackets in the hands, I think you can cheat a bit here.

Monochrome options

I’ve played around with the bulk-edit option in Rebrickable to test different monochrome BFGs, excluding any parts that are either hidden on the inside, or are only used in the hair sections:

Colour

Unavailable parts

Swap for

White

None


Black

None


L.B. Gray

32802 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 1

4871 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 2

Yellow

32802 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 1

4871 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 2

70681 Brick Curved 3 x 1

3455 Brick Arch 1 x 6

11212 Plate 3 x 3

Any other plate that fits

Red

32802 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 1

4871 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 2

70681 Brick Curved 3 x 1

92950 Brick Arch 1 x 6 Raised Arch

Brackets

Not really in sight

Reddish Brown

32802 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 1

72454 Slope Inverted 45° 4 x 4

64225 Wedge Curved 4 x 3

47753 Wedge Curved 4 x 4

Brackets

Not really in sight

Conclusion


In short: I love this set!

The concept of the BFG is simply perfect, and executed very well. All ratios and angles seem to be spot-on, or at least well within the acceptable margins that make it look great. The figures have the same range of motion as their real-life counterparts, and Hermione’s hair makes it impossible to rotate her head (just like in the real-life figs). Harry has no trouble looking behind himself. Besides the Brick Curved 4 x 6 for the face, there were no new moulds introduced to get to this result. I love it when a designer can create something completely new without relying on new moulds. The Brick Curved 4 x 6 is a border-case, as the mould only seems to be used because of the need for a large print across a single element. It’s presumably not needed for structural integrity nor to achieve a never-before-seen shape.


The only thing that could use an upgrade is the chin area of the heads. It's a bit too square, and doesn't follow the curvature of the face. 

If you’re not interested in the figures, the set still is a great parts-pack, especially with the load of new Light Nougat elements along with lots of standard bricks, brackets and curved slopes.

In closing, I would like to show off this custom Harry Potter in Quidditch outfit along with his Nimbus 2000, designed by my eldest daughter. If I've inspired you to build your own custom BFG, please share the results with us!


READ MORE: What new LEGO® pieces were released in October 2021?

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All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.

25 comments:

  1. Excellent review! I was expecting to have to make a lengthy reply about potential customs and the bottlenecks I might expect to encounter (having experimented with the builds a bit on Stud.io), but was pleased to see that covered at length in the review.

    Obviously I've lost any fondness for the Harry Potter theme, but was pretty impressed with these when they were first revealed. Lego has had a large scale buildable minifigure as a set before (3723), but it was bulky and used very rudimentary building techniques. This new version is WAY more impressive, managing to make a much more accurate look at a better scale and with superior shaping and articulation.

    The new mold for the face print seems like it could be versatile even as a POOP (potentially seeing use for, say, a removable roof for a vehicle or something where a singular piece would be more robust than an assembly of multiple parts), but personally I'm hoping that its introduction could lead to future buildable minifigures in themes I could actually stomach buying. Realistically, we could probably expect popular characters from themes such as Star Wars (Luke and Vader two-pack, perhaps) and Super Heroes (with characters such as Batman or Spider-Man being easy picks). It might be wishful thinking, but I personally would love to see figures like this released for original themes like Monkie Kid or Ninjago, or even for "retro" characters such as Captain Redbeard, Johnny Thunder, or a Classic Spaceman.

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    1. My immediate thought for a Super Heroes set was Ant-Man; he could be an opportunity to use this build in a minifig-scale set for Quantumania. (Though I'm probably setting my hopes too high there; the previous two films only got one $20 set apiece.)

      The introduction of more basic elements in Light Nougat also really stands out to me, and I'm wondering if we might actually see a building use that shade in the near future - from Promobricks.de's description of the new modular, it sounds possible that that's the "light color" used for the first-floor façade.

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  2. Regarding the difference in arm connections, I imagine Harry's is built so that there's a tiny bit of extra space between the arm and the torso to accommodate the thickness of the cape fabric, which wouldn't be possible with Hermione's use of the axle with stop. I wonder how many iterations they went through before settling on giving the axles the tiny bit of extra boost by positioning the "wand" bar between their ends, given that the angles are impressive constructions in their own right.

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  3. I find it quite strange to come up with a new poop mould just for that.
    I'd be Lego, I'd invest in printing on assemblies in one go. Like, putting the parts on a plate, & printing them all in one go. Only downside, it would introduce a lot more of new part ID's, but it would benefit to many things. The fiasco of the Ford Mustang printing would have been avoided this way, the entire line should have been printed in one (or two) go.

    Of course I'm no engineer and I assume it's hard to automate this. Or they would already have fixed the existing printing problems.

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    1. Yeah, that sounds remarkably hard to automate. Not only would you have to assemble all of the parts that need printing (in alignments that would vary from set to set), but unless you subsequently packaged all of the printed parts in a single pre=pack, you'd lose the advantage of consistent alignment anyway (since even if you could effectively sort and inventory the individual prints, which would be another challenge for automation, packaging parts from different assemblies together would still run the risk of misalignment). And for a unified stripe pattern like on the Mustang, any subtle misalignment would still require you to puzzle out exactly which section of the stripe goes where if you wanted to ensure a single unbroken line.

      For a set like this one, it's far easier and more reliable to have a single part for most of the face print, just like on a normal-sized minifigure. Given the facial proportions and how some features (like the mouths or Harry's glasses) would have to be broken between separate prints if they were printed on smaller parts, it's not like those smaller printed parts would necessarily have that much utility on their own anyway.

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    2. But you wouldn't remove the parts from their support (in this case, a 2x4 plate), you'd just include the entire assembly.

      As for utility, the Hermione one would separate each eye & the mouth, it'd be useful, providing there will be more like this.

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    3. Packaging a preassembled section like that would likely add its own challenges. Again, it would probably require the parts to be pre-packed into bags directly after coming off the printer since otherwise there'd be little way to ensure the parts didn't come apart or get mixed with others in the assembly line process that typically bins newly molded or newly printed parts together between each stage of the production process.

      Even if they did, I don't think the seams line up to split the design usefully even for Hermione—the eyes look slightly too large and low to fit neatly on a pair of 2x3 curved slopes without overlapping others, and the mouth would necessarily have to be split between two slopes either way since a 2x6 double curved slope does not exist. Adjusting the proportions to better fit the grid would detract from the accuracy and charm of the finished figures. And realistically, if they continue to produce these that would likely continue to be the case. As "standardized" as minifigure faces can sometimes feel, they don't adhere strictly to an easily divisible grid. That's probably a big reason why Lego opted for a 4x6 piece like this—splitting the faces into multiple slopes would add unattractive seams to the face and would offer little functional benefit in return.

      And the cost of introducing a new multi-brick preassembly, printing, and pre-packaging process to the production line would likely eat into the savings from using existing molds—especially considering that even as a new mold the 4x6 mold still has the potential to be broadly useful for other applications where a large printable surface or a sturdier sloped element is preferable to an assembly of separate slopes. Really, this one new element is hardly egregious—I don't see why it seems to turn so many people off on principle.

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    4. Still, what else could Lego possibly do to avoid the problems with the Ford Mustang in the future? The easy solution would be to get back to sticker over assembly, and they won't do that (and we don't want that).

      I don't know why registration is such a problem with pad printing, and it of course applies to single parts as well, but perhaps the only solution is manual labor, and in that case it'd better be done once for several parts.
      In either case, if registration stopped being so bad/random, these face prints could even be done separately.

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    5. @anothergol: The Mustang issues where not technical issues, communication issues. Quoting form the 'Percieved Quality issues' article from september last year:

      "Basically, Production hadn’t been informed that those parts would eventually be placed next to one another; they only knew they had to paint a dark blue line in the middle of a white part. Since printed parts don’t generally need to align, that is not a parameter that is checked."

      So basically, the best course of action to prevent this from happening again is not inventing elaborate new expensive production techniques, but just hoping that human won't do like most humans do and make a mistake every one in a while.

      But I must say, preassembled Lego seems so much more wrong to me than a slightly poopy part.

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    6. What do you mean, that -when communicated properly-, the production CAN align stuff properly? Why don't they always do it then? I mean,
      when is it ok for a part to be printed off-center?

      I don't really buy it, sounds like PR speech. Ironically I've had the same problem with UV printing services, basically none of them is able to align things correctly. I know pad printing is very different, but if they can print accurately, they should always do it. And if it has a cost, I assume it was already computed in the Ford Mustang's price.
      Have new Mustang sets been produced since then, fixing the problem?

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    7. If production never gets the note that piece 1 needs to be aligned with piece 70 and 450, why would they bother? How would they know what they should align piece 1 to? My guess would be that Lego isn't that inefficient a company that production workers have time to ask why they're making the parts scheduled for that day. Of course, you're free to label it as PR BS, but to me it sounds very plausible.

      As for if it's fixed; I have no idea, the article didn't state, but note that even if it's fixed, with the way production, storage and distribution works, it might take some time before that all trickles down to the actual sets. Of course, this all depends on their internal quality standards. Though I doubt it (and would dislike it from an environmental perspective), maybe an error like this is enough to warrant an internal recall.

      But if Bjarke Schønwandt, Lego's Quality Director is to be believed, you should really call their customer service if you're this unhappy. Not only to register this as a complaint, but also because they might (again, difficulty lies in their production process) be able to help you with aligned parts.

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    8. If I had to complain about misaligned prints on Lego, I'd have to do it for half of them, it's a very common occurence. They shouldn't align a print according to another one, they should align it as designed, period. Yes, I'm sure it's not easy. I just don't buy their excuse that they didn't get the memo to do it right. "sorry, we didn't know we had to do it properly"

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    9. Do WHAT properly? Production makes (and prints) bricks. They don't know for which set, because they don't need to know. Their job is efficiently producing the parts and will plan this production based accordingly. This might mean that parts for a single set are produced weeks (or more, depending on stock and popularity) apart.

      After production, parts are stored in bins. When all parts need for a set are available in the needed quantities, the bins are taken out of storage to package the sets.

      So if multiple printed elements need to be aligned, production really needs a note stating this.


      As for fixing it, I re-read the article, and it seems they have.

      You can read the article here, it gives a nice peek at how big corporate companies work.

      https://www.newelementary.com/2020/09/missing-faulty-lego-consumer-perceived-quality.html

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    10. What are you talking about? The designer provides the print with its precise location. It's not up to the production to "align designs", their job is to get as close as possible to what the designer instructed.
      Misalignment is a problem. You can argue that care is time and time is money, but not that "the lines weren't aligned because they didn't know they should have been aligned". Ideally, all artwork should be printed precisely as instructed.

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    11. Like the article said, that parameter (prints aligning precisely with other prints) isn't checked for all parts. All machines have certain tolerances for error, and as they are used the moving parts can need occasional recalibration. For the majority of prints, a subtle difference in alignment (less than 1 mm) would barely be noticeable in the first place, so expending time and manpower to test completed prints and recalibrate more frequently for micrometer-level precision would only serve to potentially reject already-manufactured parts and create more waste (printed parts that could not be recycled due to already having ink applied) with no significant benefit (since in most cases a misalignment at that level would be barely perceptible). "Only the best is good enough" does not translate to making the perfect the enemy of the good.

      Lego does verify print alignment more precisely for certain types of parts that they know will often interface directly with other prints, such as minifigure legs, heads, and torsos (this is why occasionally you'll see "test prints" of these parts leak out into the wild, with grid lines and coordinates that can ensure that nothing has shifted out of alignment). In the case of the parts in the Mustang, there was simply a breakdown in communication that failed to ensure that the printed tiles and slopes of that set received the same level of scrutiny and regularity of recalibration as interconnecting parts would normally get.

      In any case, I still fail to see how that issue is one that affects THIS set, since again, splitting up the face print onto multiple parts would not offer any benefit since several of the facial features on BOTH faces overlap the "seams" that would appear between normal 2x3 and 1x3 slopes. To make the prints easily divisible and result in parts with greater utility on their own would require Lego to purposely misalign those iconic minifigure facial features, which seems like a silly course of action to take if proper alignment of printed details was your primary concern in the first place!

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    12. Yeah, so as I was saying, it's more a matter of time being money, and the production wasn't instructed *to care*.

      Indeed torsos & faces are generally way better aligned (even though there are often misalignments when sides of legs are printed. I've seen minifigs in chinese sets printed with a quality that I've never seen on a real minifig). It's sad, because 1mm is a lot on a Lego part, I have way too many misaligned prints in my collection.

      Lego asks 50 cents to a buck or more for a printed 1x1 or 2x2, even the generic unlicensed ones. It's sad that this price isn't enough for the production *to care*, and you get a useless misaligned print at random.

      A custom UV print would cost you like 2 bucks in a developped country, or 20 cents in China. I've paid 20 cents for custom prints with manual labor, and Lego can't mass-produce with quality for 60 cents?

      It's funny how precise Lego parts can be, dual molding being especially impressive in the details. But when it comes to printing on parts, Lego sucks. Even worse are their sticker sheets. When is the last time we got stickers properly cutout? It just never happens.

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    13. You articulated what I was trying to say better than I could Andrew, thanks. Also a good point about how even "perfect" alignment wouldn't make the end model better looking. Personally I've often thought the 3x2 curved slope to be a bit of a POOP, but somehow this part, in this set, seems less POOPy.

      @Anothergol: You are probably right, Lego could make things exactly how you want them to be, they choose not to. If you enjoy looking at things from a different perspective, I'd like to recommend you the book 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen Covey.

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  4. In my LUG we have always just called them Bigfigs.

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    1. BigFigs is also used for other large figures like the Hulk, Thanos and some Rock Raiders, so I was looking for something new to avoid confusion.

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  5. It's that one unique part that puts me off this set. There's something creepy about those faces...

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  6. Or, to paraphrase a Doom coinage "Big Frickin' Guy" (or Gal)...

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  8. Inspired by the recolor discussion in this post, I present to you the Classic Space Maxifig: https://flic.kr/p/2mDSgJf

    I made a number of minor changes to reduce the price somewhat and without custom prints I had to construct a brick version of the face and logo. I hope they make a yellow classic minifig face POOP 6x4 plate in the future.

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