Three new colours released today

So, are we getting two new skin tones every two years now?

...
Is Reddish orange so much different from Dark Orange?

If anybody else heard today for the first time terms “umber brown” and “sienna brown” good explanation is as usual available at the wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umber and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sienna

TL;DR: for the most famous example of the umber brown look at Lascaux cave paintings and Mona Lisa

@watcher21 said:
"...
Is Reddish orange so much different from Dark Orange?"
Yes, Dark Orange is desaturated and brownish, Reddish Orange is very vibrant, basically a solid version of Trans-Neon Orange minus the neon part.

@Ridgeheart said:
"Cool. I like the variety in skintones, although I still default to yellow for the minifigs - everything is yellow, yellow is everything. And for the most, yellow minifig-heads have the prints I like, so that works out. But sure, I don't mind having my minifigs pal around with more realistically skin-toned minifigs and minidolls, TLM-style.

Conversely, imagine a fully yellow minidoll. Yeah, that's going to take some explaining, or possibly some serious surgery to clear a blocked bile-duct.

Reddish Orange is... fine. It's put to great effect within the overarching Space-theme, as a very strong accent-colour. I don't mind it at all, I'll probably end up using it frequently, like Coral before it. Or maybe even next to Coral. It definitely seems to be the 2024 equivalent of Highlighter Yellow, which is still an abomination and an eyeblight and according to a panel of experts*, objectively the worst colour TLG has ever produced.

I'm still not over the loss of the trans-neons, and I'm not ready to forgive the monster who axed those colours.

(*consisting of me, my wife and my dog)"

What about your headless horseman figure? He doesn’t get a say?

It's kinda funny that everytime people complain about stickers instead of prints, someone (sometimes even Lego themselves!) will remind us they can only have a limited number of unique pieces (as in unique mould/color/print combinations). Yet they don't seem to have an issue with introducing new pieces, or like now, new colors that are pretty close to what already existed. Something does not compute....

(Burnt) Umber , (Dark) Sienna , Bob Ross made those color names memorable.

@TeriXeri said:
"(Burnt) Umber , (Dark) Sienna , Bob Ross made those color names memorable."
Dang, you beat me to it.
Was going to say the same thing.

You can never go wrong with Bob Ross. There's even a minifig version of him by Kopf, a (knockoff unfortunately) minifig manufacturer, but the fig (with accessories) is awesome nonetheless.
My favorite Bob Ross colour is Phtalo Blue by the way, closely followed by Sap Green.

Also, all these new colours offer future opportunities for some happy little monofigs.
;-)

If we don't get a new Cloud Car set in reddish orange this year...

@WizardOfOss said:
"It's kinda funny that everytime people complain about stickers instead of prints, someone (sometimes even Lego themselves!) will remind us they can only have a limited number of unique pieces (as in unique mould/color/print combinations). Yet they don't seem to have an issue with introducing new pieces, or like now, new colors that are pretty close to what already existed. Something does not compute...."

Yes, my concern would be that with so many colors and molds they are repeating the mistakes that almost got TLG to bankruptcy before. Perhaps limits on colors and molds used within specifc price ranges is their control for this? It's hard to envision how they keep this up and still stay affordable as a kids toy.

Reddish orange feels too close to previous colors. The same goes for rhe unpteen shades of blue we have.
But who knows, I haven't seen it in person.

Speaking of colors, what happened to the color poll results?

As much as I like Lego having a variety of colours, it does play havoc with my Colour Blindness when similar colours are used in the same sets as its hard to make out the subtle differences

It might have been nice if Lego concentrated on accurately and consistently producing their existing colours before adding new ones.

@sjr60 said:
"It might have been nice if Lego concentrated on accurately and consistently producing their existing colours before adding new ones."
Why? As long as enough people buy bad quality for ridiculous prices without complaining, why should LEGO waste resources on improving quality?

@TeriXeri said:
"(Burnt) Umber , (Dark) Sienna , Bob Ross made those color names memorable."

My favorite Crayola box had these.

I’ll take everyone’s word for it that reddish orange is different from dark orange, but with my color vision deficiency it definitely looks the same on this webpage holding my iPhone in my hand.

I appreciate all the new colors, but it does make storing them and sorting them a pain. I have to have my kids or wife help me keep everything straight. There were parts trapped with light bley for a long time, and minty green ones stick with pink.

It ain’t easy being CVDeesy.

@WizardOfOss said:
"It's kinda funny that everytime people complain about stickers instead of prints, someone (sometimes even Lego themselves!) will remind us they can only have a limited number of unique pieces (as in unique mould/color/print combinations). Yet they don't seem to have an issue with introducing new pieces, or like now, new colors that are pretty close to what already existed. Something does not compute...."

Seems pretty simple to me, Lego would rather use those allotments for unique elements on colors/moulds that can be used in a variety of applications than for single-use decorated elements. Lego designers wanting to stretch their new element allotments as far as they can computes fairly easily.

@oukexergon said:
" @WizardOfOss said:
"It's kinda funny that everytime people complain about stickers instead of prints, someone (sometimes even Lego themselves!) will remind us they can only have a limited number of unique pieces (as in unique mould/color/print combinations). Yet they don't seem to have an issue with introducing new pieces, or like now, new colors that are pretty close to what already existed. Something does not compute...."

Yes, my concern would be that with so many colors and molds they are repeating the mistakes that almost got TLG to bankruptcy before. Perhaps limits on colors and molds used within specifc price ranges is their control for this? It's hard to envision how they keep this up and still stay affordable as a kids toy."

Many things have changed since then. LEGO is a private company with billions in cash on hand. They have built many new factories in countries with low production costs. They have multiple licensing agreements worth lots of money.
Perhaps I'm wrong but I don't believe LEGO has ever been seen as an affordable kids toy. Sure there are low cost options, but LEGO sets are expensive.

Oh no! Why bring more pieces with different colours to sort and find an empty tray for ?????? life of an AFOL is hard, I know ??

The new skin tones are definitely welcome, especially the umber brown - Lego's previously available range of deeper skin tones has long been limited, but it's nice to see them making continued improvements.

The orange is OK, I guess, though it does seem quite a specific shade. Someone in the thread mentioned a Cloud Car set in this shade and I agree it's fairly ideal for that.

@Garyslaw said:
"a solid version of Trans-Neon Orange minus the neon part.
"

So, orange, then.

@AustinPowers said:
" @sjr60 said:
"It might have been nice if Lego concentrated on accurately and consistently producing their existing colours before adding new ones."
Why? As long as enough people buy bad quality for ridiculous prices without complaining, why should LEGO waste resources on improving quality? "

Happy New Year too, Austin! Was kinda hoping you would try to limit this type of old boomer who loves to complain about stuff posts in the New Year. Alas, it seems impossible to teach an old dog new tricks.

In the meantime your German lovechild Bluebrixx is releasing a Delorean with an add-on time machine pack. You just cannot call it a Delorean or a time machine. Licenses missing and stuff. How the heck they keep getting away with such shenanigans is beyond me.

On topic: Reddish Orange is nice, and more skin colors are always welcome. More diversity, yay!

@sjr60 said:
"It might have been nice if Lego concentrated on accurately and consistently producing their existing colours before adding new ones."

Maybe that's why they introduce new colours. This formulation isn't quite as expected, so let's call it a new colour!

@tkatt said:
"Perhaps I'm wrong but I don't believe LEGO has ever been seen as an affordable kids toy. Sure there are low cost options, but LEGO sets are expensive."

Ask every kid in Europe or North America and I reckon many will have had LEGO at some stage of their childhood, thus meaning at least some LEGO sets are an affordable kids' toy.

@AustinPowers said:
" @MrBedhead said:
"Happy New Year too, Austin! Was kinda hoping you would try to limit this type of old boomer who loves to complain about stuff posts in the New Year. Alas, it seems impossible to teach an old dog new tricks.

In the meantime your German lovechild Bluebrixx is releasing a Delorean with an add-on time machine pack. You just cannot call it a Delorean or a time machine. Licenses missing and stuff. How the heck they keep getting away with such shenanigans is beyond me. "
Indeed, a very Happy New Year to you too.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I guess you'll have to keep putting up with my comments. ;-)
Also, I didn't complain. I gave a sarcastic answer to someone asking about why LEGO doesn't improve their quality. By now the quality has become so bad that I can laugh and joke about it. Taking it seriously is out of the question.

As for how BlueBrixx can get away with it, I guess it's a down to
a) some things simply don't legally require a licence and
b) even if some could hold a grudge about them releasing such sets, those potential licence holders probably don't care. After all, they don't sell nearly as many sets as LEGO by a wide margin, and it's not as if those sets would get made otherwise anyway most of the time. The DeLorean might be an exception, but since when has LEGO shown interest in producing something like the Fall Guy truck, the Airwolf helicopter, or the Magnum P. I. Ferrari, to name but a few. Or any of the hundreds of different train sets BlueBrixx produces.

Plus, BlueBrixx does have several official licences, like Star Trek, Robocop, Stargate etc. "

So, you are saying that you are ok with supporting a company that does not give a shit about obtaining licenses where they should, and thus prefers to operate in a grey zone? Good to know where your morals lie. Not that I did not know that already. As long as it is cheap and looks like the real thing, I guess you are fine with it. Oh, and the fact that they have some licenses does not excuse all the blatant copies of products that are not licensed. Compact italian sports car for a Lancia Delta? Submarine car for the James Bond Lotus? And now selling the Delorean as a steel Irish sports car? And you defend this? I am really wondering if the German authorities put something in the water in Germany or if they are secretly defending some left-wing, anti-corporate society, since they clearly see no issues here (btw, I was using some serious sarcasm here).

To continue, your comment was not sarcastic. Your comment was that of someone who has watched a bit too many Youtube influencer videos to be good for him. You can say now that it was sarcastic, but we all know that you meant it. Newsflash: if you mean something it can inherently not really be sarcastic.

Anyway, the fact that you are saying that LEGO's quality is stupidly bad now only proves this. It is oh so weird that me and so many other people do not experience this massive decline in quality. And yes, I am patiently waiting for the umpteenth, well hidden, "you are just a fanboy" remark.

@MrBedhead said:
Anyway, the fact that you are saying that LEGO's quality is stupidly bad now only proves this. It is oh so weird that me and so many other people do not experience this massive decline in quality. And yes, I am patiently waiting for the umpteenth, well hidden, "you are just a fanboy" remark.]]

you must agree with the fact that, for the price you pay, it is unforgivalbe that the colours are not coherent. i mean my lamborghini sian of several hundreds of euros has multiple colours of bright green... same with other colours in other sets (yellow, red, white...)

i really love building lego etc and always buy them at a +-40% discount, but still, colour should always be the same, like RAL colours in paint etc

Request to add a ‘hide comments from blocked user even if someone else is replying to them’ feature to the website in 2024 please.

@tomenadi said:
[[ @MrBedhead said:
Anyway, the fact that you are saying that LEGO's quality is stupidly bad now only proves this. It is oh so weird that me and so many other people do not experience this massive decline in quality. And yes, I am patiently waiting for the umpteenth, well hidden, "you are just a fanboy" remark.]]

you must agree with the fact that, for the price you pay, it is unforgivalbe that the colours are not coherent. i mean my lamborghini sian of several hundreds of euros has multiple colours of bright green... same with other colours in other sets (yellow, red, white...)

i really love building lego etc and always buy them at a +-40% discount, but still, colour should always be the same, like RAL colours in paint etc

]]

I would argue that about 98% of people who buy LEGO do not care. And I agree with them. The same applies to stickers.

My two Monster Fighters haunted houses from 2012 have 50 shades of sand green, and stickers. Yet, I love them to death and so do many people.

What I mean to say is: nothing is perfect, and it is perfectly possible to enjoy things that are not 100% perfect.

@MrBedhead said:
"Anyway, the fact that you are saying that LEGO's quality is stupidly bad now only proves this. It is oh so weird that me and so many other people do not experience this massive decline in quality. And yes, I am patiently waiting for the umpteenth, well hidden, "you are just a fanboy" remark."
No, I am not implying that you are a fanboy anymore. I accept that your experiences are different than mine. I also accept that your priorities in terms of quality and value for money are different than mine.

But just as food for thought my recent experiences with LEGO:

I built several recent sets where the instruction manuals came crumpled and torn out of the box. The sticker sheets were also crumpled so some stickers were unusable.
A couple of years ago this didn't happen since instructions and stickers came in a separate bag with a cardboard backing as additional protection. A perfect solution though certainly more expensive and complicated to produce. But it showed a level of attention to quality one should be able to expect on a high price product that LEGO is.

The colour differences are now so extreme on many colours, not just dark red like in the past, that some colours appear to exist in several variants. Dark tan, light yellow, bright light blue and lime being prime examples.

Another area is injection point marks, which are now often worse than on the competition. And yes, I remember during my childhood those marks were really bad in some pieces too, especially something like 1x2 bricks. But LEGO had gotten so perfect over the decades that I find it sad that they are now back on the levels they were before they got better at it.

Lastly I notice that parts tolerances have worsened recently meaning gaps are larger than they used to be or parts width variations are far more noticeable. On that subject an interesting observation: 1x1 plates used to be completely square with LEGO but not with the competition. You could rotate a LEGO 1x1 plate on say a 1 by x brick, and whatever the rotation the edges would sit flush with the piece below. While pieces from competitors were more rectangular so that in one orientation the 1x1 plate would sit flush with the piece below but with a different orientation they would have some overlap or "underlap".
Now LEGO 1x1 plates have the same problem the competition used to have, while many of the competitors' 1x1s now are as perfectly square as LEGO's used to be. Which is strange, unless LEGO is placing less emphasis on parts tolerances.

None of these points are me being influenced by any YouTubers but by personal experience with the hundreds of sets I have built in recent years, both by LEGO as well as dozens of competitors.

And it's not that I would love to complain. I would love to gush about LEGO's sets. After all they were such an important part of my childhood*. I'm simply unhappy with how they have changed in recent years.
Yes, they offer more lines and themes than ever, it's just that the vast majority doesn't resonate with me anymore, especially on themes like Technic that used to be my favorite. Or trains, which was one of the reasons I got to know BlueBrixx products in the first place.
And as for them, I have already told you that I don't condone intellectual property theft. But selling a brown pick up truck that looks something like the one from the Fall Guy (which actually used several different models over the years) doesn't constitute intellectual property theft to me.
The Bond Lotus is different, I agree with you on that one, but many of the vehicles they sell are generic enough that they don't seem to require a licence. If they did I am certain the rights owners would sue the crap out of BlueBrixx. Since they don't I guess they're okay with it - or at least don't care enough to pursue the matter.
Call me a bad person for thinking like that but that's indeed the way I see it.

@Binary_Code said:
" @WizardOfOss said:
"It's kinda funny that everytime people complain about stickers instead of prints, someone (sometimes even Lego themselves!) will remind us they can only have a limited number of unique pieces (as in unique mould/color/print combinations). Yet they don't seem to have an issue with introducing new pieces, or like now, new colors that are pretty close to what already existed. Something does not compute...."

Seems pretty simple to me, Lego would rather use those allotments for unique elements on colors/moulds that can be used in a variety of applications than for single-use decorated elements. Lego designers wanting to stretch their new element allotments as far as they can computes fairly easily."

Here’s the issue: that explanation is reasonable, straightforward, and doesn’t allow for much whining. No comment section would be caught dead accepting it

@MrBedhead:
Bionicle "sorta" saved them the way the sun "sorta" provides the energy to keep Earth running. By the time the abundance of parts created for Bionicle became a liability, the company was back on solid footing, and the range of parts being produced for even Bionicle had been curtailed. They even needed to install a new production line, in the middle of record losses, just to keep up with the demand for Bionicle sets, without basically shutting other themes down cold. In hindsight, that may have been the smarter option, but they had contractual obligations to fill existing orders.

The problem is, all those other themes were just as bad as Bionicle with creating new parts, only the sets didn't sell well enough to justify the expense, and many of those parts ended up being used in only one set before they were retired. Sitting on all of those unused molds cost a lot of money, too. But before the pile of Bionicle molds could end up dragging them down, they figured this out and started scrapping molds that weren't likely to see reuse anytime soon.

Unfortunately, this need to keep reusing the same molds led to the shift from G1 Bionicle to the Constraction system, which was never the same level of smash hit that Bionicle was in 2001. There just wasn't enough substance to the design, which basically felt like hanging paper doll clothing on stick figures.

@AustinPowers:
There have been recent court cases over the ownership of the trademark for DeLorean and the BttF time machine, so those are very much things that still need to be licensed. Better believe the same holds true for Ferrari, plus Magnum P.I. has had a reboot series going for several years now. Even with a Fall Guy reboot film coming out this year, I would think the truck is not so widely recognizable that it would draw much attention outside of a small fan following, and Airwolf may have used a real helicopter for filming, but I couldn't tell you which one.

Legally, however, everything you mentioned requires licensing. However, if you stay just far enough away from saying a thing is a thing, you can make it difficult to actually sue for damages. But the BttF DeLorean and the Magnum P.I. Ferrari are two of the most recognizable film cars of all time. I just don't see how they can get away with it, unless the amount of money involved isn't worth the trouble to file a lawsuit. Or the company just isn't big enough that anyone has really caught wind of the fact that their IP is being used illegally.

@chrisaw said:
"Request to add a ‘hide comments from blocked user even if someone else is replying to them’ feature to the website in 2024 please."

If someone routinely responds to people whose posts I hide, then I hide their posts too. It makes the world a better place.

I hope the new browns will be 'unlocked' at some point and not just kept to fig parts

@watcher21 said:
"...
Is Reddish orange so much different from Dark Orange?"

It may look quite similar, but to colour enthusiasts it's great because it is a complimentary colour to teal. I am sure we will start seeing some fantastic looking MOCs in these two colours once the new colour starts being used in more parts.

Why introduce those colours when Sand Red is still waiting for its grand return? ;)