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acciobrick2022-12-14 11:37 am
gingerwitch.livejournal.com) wrote in acciobrick2022-12-14 11:37 am
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Pictures of the New 2023 Harry Potter Lego Sets!
Lego has posted pictures of 2023's 1st half year's sets on the S@H due March 1st, 2023, and they're... interesting.
The 76420 Triwizard Tournament: The Black Lake (the Second Task) is more successful than I could have hoped and feels like a design triumph at the price point. Well done! The 76413 Hogwarts™: Room of Requirement (the Room of Hidden Things) is again in the 2021+ modular style, but continues to improve on 2022's trend towards bettering the exteriors of the (logically compromised) modular style. It's fairly satisfying as a castle addition on its own, which for the modular style is high praise, and as in Dumbledore's Office, it also folds open, making much better use of its footprint than the original 2021 modular editions did. And finally the four House Banner sets representing each of the House Common Rooms are something of the messy collage I'd feared. This time they've done a more satisfying job with the minifigs, however, (Hufflepuffs represent!) giving us a robe, cardigan and Quidditch jumper for each of the Houses and a better variety of figs than usual, and I love the little Grindylow. ❤️
Pic spam of the Banner sets follows. I'll be posting the other two sets later in the day...
Commonalities... Each House Banner, in addition to the three different House uniforms, includes a portrait of the respective Founder on a lenticular backboard and their artefacts as physical lego pieces. Three of those go on to become Horcruxes (Salazar's locket, Helga's cup, Rowena's diadem), and the fourth (Godric's sword) is used to destroy them, so those are nice details to finally have, even if they wouldn't ordinarily be found in the common rooms. I don't care; canon be hanged, I'm just happy they're there. (Thanks designers! 😘) The backboards themselves vary in their success (Slytherin's might be the best), but either way it will limit our ability to apply the pieces in other builds that for the most part we enjoyed in the Moment sets. These aren't printed or even stickered pieces we can reuse elsewhere in other configurations. The Gryffindor stairs, for example, would have been far more useful on one of those arch inserts so we could use it somewhere else. The squashed format of the tables and chairs throughout the series is also a problem for the same reasons. 3 or 4 more pieces would have made the Slytherin and Hufflepuff chairs much better, 7 or 8 more pieces would have made them great, a larger tile coupled with an extra piece or two could have made much better reading chairs for Ravenclaw, but unfortunately these are the compromises necessary to fit them into the folded Banners. By contrast, by and large the Moment furniture and shelf builds at least allowed us to slot them into our castles mostly unchanged, and I know a lot of people purchased extra sets to have them for their MOCs for just that reason. With the number of modifications necessary here, it's a good deal cheaper just to order the smaller handful of pieces you want from the set with the rest you'd want to bricklink anyway.
And an extra shoutout for the inclusion of the Moment books in the artwork for the Banner sets. It's a lovely touch.
76409 Gryffindor House Banner 285 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Harry Potter, Angelina Johnson (❤️!) and Neville Longbottom
accessory elements: Golden Snitch and a Sword of Gryffindor
also: a couple of armchairs, a couch table, a love seat, a couple of candles, one of the old series of brooms, a letter, an inkwell, a House crest, a chessboard sticker, and a portrait (haven't figured out of whom yet)
The lenticular backboard creates depth on a staircase, a trophy displaying 1st or 4th place, Sirius Black appearing in the fire and more.
Below is the only rear side of the Banner sets I'm including here, and I've done it to contrast it with the actual set above. I wanted to show just how good the artwork is (I love their art team to bits), but at the same time how little extra it actually is and the huge difference it makes. I really wish lego would consider making things like this available as digital downloads. Include the carpets you've already created, add that little bit of tapestry and the windows from the sides. (They could print it on the inside of the box, but I can already see the complaints rolling in now when the packaging is damaged in transit.) They could also leave "cutouts" in the design for the set to sit on so it isn't of as much value to people who'd download it without owning the set. I know that's always a legitimate concern when you generate or offer free content.
Another thing that comes to mind while looking at it: when you find yourself needing to add this much "magic" to a scene, it might be struggling on its own. I appreciate the sets are meant to be played with and the need to represent it as a non-static thing, but I'm sure you get my point.
Side note, I chuckled at fifth or sixth year Harry practising a firstie's lesson. Wingardium Leviosa! Then again, I imaging Sectum Sempraing Neville wouldn't have been a good look.
76410 Slytherin House Banner 349 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson ❤️ and Blaise Zabini
the accessory elements are a little more disappointing here: Slytherin’s Locket and a "snake element" by which I assume they mean the snake
also: an armchair, a couch table, um... maybe green torches? (I haven't a clue.), the world's narrowest desk?, some trophies (including a cup), and a House crest. Oh, and a feather so Blaise can practise remedial magic as well. Off Pansy's hair, it's probably safe to say this is sixth year, Half-Blood Prince.
The lenticular backboard here creates moving images of Black Lake underwater scenes through the window, a flickering fire in the fireplace, Salazar Slytherin’s serious/smiling face, and more. It looks like it might be the best in the series.
The stairs here are putting the kibosh on my hope that the flaps could fold into the set for storage. I definitely don't have the wall space to hang these, and I liked the way the Moment sets stored so neatly. I was hoping these might as well.
Interesting details: a portrait of Snape with an actually decent expression for once. After the lack of love he's received since the reboot (only TWO Snape versions and we've had FIVE versions of that poxy Sirius Black, four this last year alone! and when Snape's finally included in the advent calendar this year, marketing don't even bother to mention him in their advertising), I don't even care if his portrait in the common room makes sense. Heck, Lockhart had portraits galore, so here we are, embracing it. More please.
Quibble: As Blaise is included in the 76413 Hogwarts™: Room of Requirement (the Room of Hidden Things) set, where he unquestionably belongs, I wish they'd given us an older version of Crabbe or Goyle (probably Goyle, as he was actually in DH II) or some character we haven't had yet. (MILLIE! Theo! Daphne!) On the other hand, it is nice to get extra "black" hands and heads to be able to represent more POC. Simultaneously I'll note that I do appreciate that they haven't felt the need to do that at the cost character accuracy / priority in the series as a whole. The population of Britain is overwhelmingly light nougat (or would be were they lego), and consequently so are my Hogwarts builds, and that's okay (in the same way a Black Panther set doesn't need a bunch of light nougat characters either). As a whole this feels like the lego designers are making a good effort to hit the sweet spot between fan and film representation here, and there's something nice (and inclusive) about making it possible to create your sigfig (signature figure) for your MOCs, so there's definitely some appreciation for their choices here. ❤️ (But along those lines, a less comical / simplistic version of the faces in the Hogwarts Trunk would have helped. Give fans the pieces they need to work with. And of course that's the problem with the modern trend of not just making everyone yellow. Something definitely gets lost when you're colour matching your actors and your lego pieces. When everyone was yellow, everyone was represented.) Props also for making the effort to include as many of the girls as the boys over this series.
76411 Ravenclaw House Banner 305 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood and Michael Corner ❤️
accessory elements: Cornish Pixie and "wand elements" (I'm taking that to mean marketing shrugged. Pfui.)
also: oil lamps, torches, two armchairs, a House crest, and what I believe is a physical build of the Hogwarts Moment DADA book (very cute!) which was obviously difficult to include otherwise in sticker form as its black cover lacks contrast. That's such a cute detail, shame on marketing for not caring to mention it. (Pfui again.) Do the designers justice, a lot of love and effort goes into these things.
The lenticular background lends the illusion of depth through the windows, moving clouds and flickering flames in the fireplace.
If Cho doesn't come with a sleeping face on the reverse side so we can use her in the 76420 Triwizard Tournament: The Black Lake (the Second Task), I'm going to squeak with displeasure. (You may hear it from here.) That hope is the only thing keeping me from complaining about yet another Cho. We'll have to wait and see.
76412 Hufflepuff House Banner 313 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Cedric Diggory, Susan Bones ❤️ and Hannah Abbott ❤️
accessory elements: pruning shears, a watering can, cutlery and Hufflepuff’s Cup, some snacks and flowers
also: an armchair, loveseat, couch table, trunk, House crest, portrait of Newt ❤️, a portrait of a fruit bowl, and a little House banner.
The lenticular backboard depicts a Mandrake popping up and down behind a curtain, a Niffler stealing coins from behind a barrel, a flickering fire and more.
Again I'd have rather not had yet another Cedric, especially as we need to get a collectible minifig version of him (and Fleur) in his (their) swimming kit. They could have given us a different head and hair without needing to resort to new prints, too, as I've seen good MOCs of Harry's entire class created with parts already available. We know Zacharias Smith played Quidditch, if they really couldn't think of anyone else.
And that's it for now. The other two will follow later.
The 76420 Triwizard Tournament: The Black Lake (the Second Task) is more successful than I could have hoped and feels like a design triumph at the price point. Well done! The 76413 Hogwarts™: Room of Requirement (the Room of Hidden Things) is again in the 2021+ modular style, but continues to improve on 2022's trend towards bettering the exteriors of the (logically compromised) modular style. It's fairly satisfying as a castle addition on its own, which for the modular style is high praise, and as in Dumbledore's Office, it also folds open, making much better use of its footprint than the original 2021 modular editions did. And finally the four House Banner sets representing each of the House Common Rooms are something of the messy collage I'd feared. This time they've done a more satisfying job with the minifigs, however, (Hufflepuffs represent!) giving us a robe, cardigan and Quidditch jumper for each of the Houses and a better variety of figs than usual, and I love the little Grindylow. ❤️
Pic spam of the Banner sets follows. I'll be posting the other two sets later in the day...
Commonalities... Each House Banner, in addition to the three different House uniforms, includes a portrait of the respective Founder on a lenticular backboard and their artefacts as physical lego pieces. Three of those go on to become Horcruxes (Salazar's locket, Helga's cup, Rowena's diadem), and the fourth (Godric's sword) is used to destroy them, so those are nice details to finally have, even if they wouldn't ordinarily be found in the common rooms. I don't care; canon be hanged, I'm just happy they're there. (Thanks designers! 😘) The backboards themselves vary in their success (Slytherin's might be the best), but either way it will limit our ability to apply the pieces in other builds that for the most part we enjoyed in the Moment sets. These aren't printed or even stickered pieces we can reuse elsewhere in other configurations. The Gryffindor stairs, for example, would have been far more useful on one of those arch inserts so we could use it somewhere else. The squashed format of the tables and chairs throughout the series is also a problem for the same reasons. 3 or 4 more pieces would have made the Slytherin and Hufflepuff chairs much better, 7 or 8 more pieces would have made them great, a larger tile coupled with an extra piece or two could have made much better reading chairs for Ravenclaw, but unfortunately these are the compromises necessary to fit them into the folded Banners. By contrast, by and large the Moment furniture and shelf builds at least allowed us to slot them into our castles mostly unchanged, and I know a lot of people purchased extra sets to have them for their MOCs for just that reason. With the number of modifications necessary here, it's a good deal cheaper just to order the smaller handful of pieces you want from the set with the rest you'd want to bricklink anyway.
And an extra shoutout for the inclusion of the Moment books in the artwork for the Banner sets. It's a lovely touch.
76409 Gryffindor House Banner 285 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Harry Potter, Angelina Johnson (❤️!) and Neville Longbottom
accessory elements: Golden Snitch and a Sword of Gryffindor
also: a couple of armchairs, a couch table, a love seat, a couple of candles, one of the old series of brooms, a letter, an inkwell, a House crest, a chessboard sticker, and a portrait (haven't figured out of whom yet)
The lenticular backboard creates depth on a staircase, a trophy displaying 1st or 4th place, Sirius Black appearing in the fire and more.
Below is the only rear side of the Banner sets I'm including here, and I've done it to contrast it with the actual set above. I wanted to show just how good the artwork is (I love their art team to bits), but at the same time how little extra it actually is and the huge difference it makes. I really wish lego would consider making things like this available as digital downloads. Include the carpets you've already created, add that little bit of tapestry and the windows from the sides. (They could print it on the inside of the box, but I can already see the complaints rolling in now when the packaging is damaged in transit.) They could also leave "cutouts" in the design for the set to sit on so it isn't of as much value to people who'd download it without owning the set. I know that's always a legitimate concern when you generate or offer free content.
Another thing that comes to mind while looking at it: when you find yourself needing to add this much "magic" to a scene, it might be struggling on its own. I appreciate the sets are meant to be played with and the need to represent it as a non-static thing, but I'm sure you get my point.
Side note, I chuckled at fifth or sixth year Harry practising a firstie's lesson. Wingardium Leviosa! Then again, I imaging Sectum Sempraing Neville wouldn't have been a good look.
76410 Slytherin House Banner 349 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson ❤️ and Blaise Zabini
the accessory elements are a little more disappointing here: Slytherin’s Locket and a "snake element" by which I assume they mean the snake
also: an armchair, a couch table, um... maybe green torches? (I haven't a clue.), the world's narrowest desk?, some trophies (including a cup), and a House crest. Oh, and a feather so Blaise can practise remedial magic as well. Off Pansy's hair, it's probably safe to say this is sixth year, Half-Blood Prince.
The lenticular backboard here creates moving images of Black Lake underwater scenes through the window, a flickering fire in the fireplace, Salazar Slytherin’s serious/smiling face, and more. It looks like it might be the best in the series.
The stairs here are putting the kibosh on my hope that the flaps could fold into the set for storage. I definitely don't have the wall space to hang these, and I liked the way the Moment sets stored so neatly. I was hoping these might as well.
Interesting details: a portrait of Snape with an actually decent expression for once. After the lack of love he's received since the reboot (only TWO Snape versions and we've had FIVE versions of that poxy Sirius Black, four this last year alone! and when Snape's finally included in the advent calendar this year, marketing don't even bother to mention him in their advertising), I don't even care if his portrait in the common room makes sense. Heck, Lockhart had portraits galore, so here we are, embracing it. More please.
Quibble: As Blaise is included in the 76413 Hogwarts™: Room of Requirement (the Room of Hidden Things) set, where he unquestionably belongs, I wish they'd given us an older version of Crabbe or Goyle (probably Goyle, as he was actually in DH II) or some character we haven't had yet. (MILLIE! Theo! Daphne!) On the other hand, it is nice to get extra "black" hands and heads to be able to represent more POC. Simultaneously I'll note that I do appreciate that they haven't felt the need to do that at the cost character accuracy / priority in the series as a whole. The population of Britain is overwhelmingly light nougat (or would be were they lego), and consequently so are my Hogwarts builds, and that's okay (in the same way a Black Panther set doesn't need a bunch of light nougat characters either). As a whole this feels like the lego designers are making a good effort to hit the sweet spot between fan and film representation here, and there's something nice (and inclusive) about making it possible to create your sigfig (signature figure) for your MOCs, so there's definitely some appreciation for their choices here. ❤️ (But along those lines, a less comical / simplistic version of the faces in the Hogwarts Trunk would have helped. Give fans the pieces they need to work with. And of course that's the problem with the modern trend of not just making everyone yellow. Something definitely gets lost when you're colour matching your actors and your lego pieces. When everyone was yellow, everyone was represented.) Props also for making the effort to include as many of the girls as the boys over this series.
76411 Ravenclaw House Banner 305 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood and Michael Corner ❤️
accessory elements: Cornish Pixie and "wand elements" (I'm taking that to mean marketing shrugged. Pfui.)
also: oil lamps, torches, two armchairs, a House crest, and what I believe is a physical build of the Hogwarts Moment DADA book (very cute!) which was obviously difficult to include otherwise in sticker form as its black cover lacks contrast. That's such a cute detail, shame on marketing for not caring to mention it. (Pfui again.) Do the designers justice, a lot of love and effort goes into these things.
The lenticular background lends the illusion of depth through the windows, moving clouds and flickering flames in the fireplace.
If Cho doesn't come with a sleeping face on the reverse side so we can use her in the 76420 Triwizard Tournament: The Black Lake (the Second Task), I'm going to squeak with displeasure. (You may hear it from here.) That hope is the only thing keeping me from complaining about yet another Cho. We'll have to wait and see.
76412 Hufflepuff House Banner 313 pieces for ca. $35
Minifigs: Cedric Diggory, Susan Bones ❤️ and Hannah Abbott ❤️
accessory elements: pruning shears, a watering can, cutlery and Hufflepuff’s Cup, some snacks and flowers
also: an armchair, loveseat, couch table, trunk, House crest, portrait of Newt ❤️, a portrait of a fruit bowl, and a little House banner.
The lenticular backboard depicts a Mandrake popping up and down behind a curtain, a Niffler stealing coins from behind a barrel, a flickering fire and more.
Again I'd have rather not had yet another Cedric, especially as we need to get a collectible minifig version of him (and Fleur) in his (their) swimming kit. They could have given us a different head and hair without needing to resort to new prints, too, as I've seen good MOCs of Harry's entire class created with parts already available. We know Zacharias Smith played Quidditch, if they really couldn't think of anyone else.
And that's it for now. The other two will follow later.
no subject
I get your points on the depth, size of furniture (really seems leaning into nano mode?), etc., but love the fun of the banners having more than simply dots.
Really confused by portrait of Ravenclaw... all others are in color... so is it supposed to be Gray Lady, if so Why diadem?
Missed the grindylow??? Where is it? Also, Totally agree on Where's Millie, Theo, & Daphne!?!?! Haven't we had 3 Cedrics & 2 or 3 Hannah Abbott??? Or were they Susan Bones, can't remember. Ummm Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernie Macmillan, Zacharias...