Crazy Arms from Crazy Bricks
Posted by glenbricker,
I have finally (mostly) recovered from co-chairing Brick Fiesta and it was a lot of work but a ton of fun. One of the highlights was meeting Guy Himber of Iron Builder, Crazy Bricks, and general steampunk fame and he currently has a pretty interesting Kickstarter out there: Crazy Arms.
The basic idea is an alternate arm set for minifigs and though this idea has been proposed before, Guy's design has a novel approach to grounding the arms into the figure without wearing out the joint.
His approach utilizes a new element, part of the Kickstarter, that plugs into the legs and creates a spot for the arms to plug into on the torso.
While it is hard for me to pull the arms off my beloved figs for any reason, I have to say, who hasn't at some point wanted to pose their minifig arms like this:
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14 comments on this article
Sounds brilliant! Thanks for the news!
The idea looks great. I for one have always wanted to pose my figures arms. Thank you glenbricker!
The way those arms are connected is GENIUS. I want a whole bunch of them in assorted varieties.
...they must be great for brickfilms though...
interesting. one limit may be making such arms for minifigs with printed arms.
He is the future
I mean, he's famous for steampunk, but...
They could make these arms like Technic figures, with ball joints.
I'm already a backer.
The only problem with this Kickstarter project is for those of us in the UK. The minimum pledge amount is above the threshold for VAT, duty and Royal Mail's £8 charge. So if your order is stopped by customs, the total will come to about £30 (about $45). That's a huge amount for three pairs of arms! It's a shame Crazy Bricks didn't set a lower reward of say $15 (+$5 P&P) for two pairs of arms for those of us in the UK (and elsewhere).
UK threshold for duty and vat is £15.00 on the value of the goods only. $20.00, including shipping, is the minimum pledge which at current exchange rates is around £13.00 so we're in the clear here in Blighty.
Ah, somewhat misleading, it's $5 for shipping. Anyway, the value of the goods remains $20.00. As I understand it, the threshold is based on the value of goods alone but if that threshold is passed then the entire package is liable for vat, handling fee and possibly duty, depending on the total value.
@Greendude
Unless you work for HMRC or know someone who does, you don't know that. The £15 threshold may or may not currently be the intrinsic value of the goods (i.e. the price paid excluding P&P, insurance etc). HMRC change the rules arbitrarily but take months to publish updates, so you can't be sure what the true situation is at any given time. If you contact HMRC, they will point you to the latest published notice. But that may not be what they are following.
If you are wondering why they would ever revert to the intrinsic value of the goods, it's because their rule changes are occasionally successfully challenged in the courts.
Also, they use exchange rates that are unrelated to reality and favourable to them. They have rules by which they set those rates but as they make the rules, they can and do change them to suit their purposes.
Ok...so $15 is also too high because HMRC will adjust the exchange rate to push it over the threshold? Be reasonable. As it currently stands, at least that we know of, $20 is under the threshold.
Looks very promising! I can't wait to get my hands on some.
I would love to have all of my mini figures have posable arms. What a great idea. Would like to see more on this.
54 hours to go, still nearly $1400 shy of the $15,000 goal. eeek!
That said, it seems like projects that are this close never fail to fund.
(thanks, dude, now you've jinxed it!)