NINJAGO Concept Artwork (2009-2015)

The 42nd Ninjago article today. I think I need a break from Brickset ;) (not a fan)

The first sketch kind of looks like Jay was originally going to be a water master or something.... and the second sketch seems to show five first-year ninjas instead of four. Interesting.

The Skylor concept art looks like Liliana Vess.

Glad to see there is still a place for talented artists to show their skills in development of characters and story-lines, before manufacturing requires simplification of these ideas to mini-figs and toys.

@Mosquitosquisher7 said:
"The first sketch kind of looks like Jay was originally going to be a water master or something.... and the second sketch seems to show five first-year ninjas instead of four. Interesting."
Yeah can’t help but feel that the original plan was going to be have each of them be the classical elements; air, earth, fire, water. Probably decided ice and lightning were cooler fairly early on!

You can also find amazing Ninjago concept promo video. Back from 1st season!
https://youtu.be/ejLY7YwIT2s

@ElementalAvenger82 said:
" @Reinier said:
"The 42nd Ninjago article today. I think I need a break from Brickset ;) (not a fan)"
I mean, it’s like the tenth anniversary of the theme and today is the date to celebrate that on. "

I honestly had no idea. But obviously it makes sense. Apologies.

@TomKazutara said:
"I am kinda shocked to be honest, how much attention Ninjago gets,
compared to the last years 20th anniversary of Bionicle.

Don't get me wrong, Ninjago isn't a bad theme,
it just baffles me that it seems that people and Lego just want to forget what came before."
Bionicle’s 20th anniversary is actually this month. It’s kinda sad just how little people seem to care.

No mention of the ninjas' brief time in LEGO Universe?

@Gadzooks said:
"No mention of the ninjas' brief time in LEGO Universe?"

Sadly, LEGO tries to ignore that game. :sigh:

I enjoy concept art, and looking back at Ninjago’s early days definitely was a stroll down memory lane.

Master of Time looks way too cool, shame he fell by the wayside. Just image how the story could have been different, it's always a bit of a mess when you can manipulate time...

Love the concept art. All the sketches.
Are these collected in a book published?

@Gadzooks said:
"No mention of the ninjas' brief time in LEGO Universe?"
@Murdoch17
Ninjago in Lego Universe was mentioned on the timeline in the 10th anniversary article

@Aanchir
Part 1
I wonder what that means for LEGO HP. The theme was discontinued twice and brought back twice. It's a really messy situation, because LEGO, as far as I know, has actually consecutively held the license for almost 20 years, just not always utilized it.
The original and longest incarnation lasted 8 years. While no new sets were released in 2006, the 2005 ones were still being sold, and the last set was released in 2007. Now things get messy.
In 2009 Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 [The Videogame] was announced, using minifigure designs from the original discontinued theme. According to Wikipedia, rumors of a Tt Lego HP game date back to 2008, right after the sets were discontinued.
Jon Burton of Tt Games has said that they pushed back development of Lego Batman to release Lego Indy 1 in 2008 to tie in with the theme. That information explains why Lego Batman 1 has a mix of 2006-2008 Batman waves. For example, Tt probably gave Robin his 2006 hair because development was started based on the first waves and they didn't want to bother modeling his 2008 hair into the game.
Then, Tt rushed out Indy 2 in 09 to cash in on the new movie. Lego HP was likely intended to release much earlier, but was stuck in development for so long it released years after the theme was discontinued.
Anyway, Years 1-4 was released in 1HY 2010 and the theme got new sets in 2HY. The videogame may have (and this is just tinfoil hat conspiracy) forced Lego to reboot the theme to avoid wasting the videogame tie-in with nothing to tie into.
Either way, the theme lasted 1 more year with both another video and board game based on it. This time, the videogame used contemporary designs, making for a jarring transition between Years 1-4 and 5-7. Lego probably intended to make sets for the last movies, then ditch the theme for good... right?
Wrong. The Characters of the Magical World DK book was published in 2012, with Harry Potter minifigure. It seemed at the time that, just like in the Half-Blood Prince, Harry showed up late to the Slug Club party, but this book is actually the beginning of a 7 year period where the theme was in limbo.

Part 2
After 2011, everyone believed the Boy Who Lived was dead. While a large, dedicated fanbase remained, the HP merchandising empire seemed to be over with the last of the movies. Lego discontinued the theme again, and sets, new and used, shot up in value at supersonic speed.
A new generation was reading the books and watching the movies; the Universal theme park section continued to draw dangerously tight crowds; the franchise was realized to have staying power. JK Rowling and WB put their heads together, and decided to make the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them spinoff movies.
Lego, collaborating with WB, gave Dumbledore a cameo in the Lego Movie (based on his purple design, perhaps they liked Richard Harris better?) It seemed a possibility Lego would make Fantastic Beasts sets, but none came. Instead video games seemed to dictate the theme's fate: to promote the new Lego Dimensions as one of many franchises, Fantastic Beasts and HP packs were produced, and sold poorly.
The main HP pack was a bizzare "team pack" with Harry and Lord Voldemort teaming up despite a prophecy saying they literally needed to kill the other in order to survive. It gets weirder- the two enemies made frenemies were paired with a micro-fighters-like vehicle.
Harry gets the Hogwarts Express, which he doesn't have the qualifications to drive but supposedly the engineer entrusted it to a kid like the Polar Express. Voldy, who would not be caught dead driving a muggle car, let alone a worse-for-wear medium-blue one belonging to blood traitors, gets the Weasleys' flying Ford Anglia. I feel like Ron was originally intended as he would go with the car and with Harry better as a "team."
Both figures are the same as from 2010, except Harry gets an awkward hair replacement from the S1 Street Skater and Cole, likely due to his original hair being discontinued, and Voldemort gets his nostril-holes erased, which paradoxically implies he does indeed have a nose, like other minifigures.
This pack and others like it failed probably because it didn't advertise enough the fact that they allowed access to new ingame enviornments- Hogwarts in this case. Even so, the Lego Harry Potter games, which had levels and 100+ playable characters, were around the same price as this team pack with 2 characters. Not to mention the oft-cited flaws with toys-to-life games.
Consumers wanted real sets of these beloved franchises in Dimensions (and not so beloved, like 2016 Ghostbusters, which got a set anyway.) Perhaps with the Crimes of Grindlewald coming in 2018, Lego saw the chance to capture both AFOLs and KFOLs who liked HP. CoG really just seems to have been an excuse to revive the theme as "Wizarding World", with the single, small, half-accurate, first-to-be-retired set based on the movie as an afterthought. The rest of the first wave was based on the established HP and FB movies.
HP fans like myself think it's funny when non HP fans think the franchise is "over" and there's no longer much demand for it. Such naysayers were proven wrong when Lego quit their charade in 2019 and dropped the Wizarding World banner to reveal their true colors: HARRY POTTER.

Part 3
Anyway, WHY I said all that is I hope HP will get a 20th anniversary celebration later this year (the first sets and first movie were released in fall 2001) with special minifigs in sets like Star Wars and Ninjago have gotten. The above odyssey describes how the past 20 years have been really weird for this theme. Other than Space Police, it's the only theme to have three runs. But Lego owns Space Police, and licenses HP.
Lego technically has held the license for 20 years but just not used it. Essentially Lego was flushing millions down the toilet by paying for the HP license only for frivolous things, like for Dimensions, and having Dumbledore and Voldemort appear in movies. I'm glad Lego has finally reached a decision whether to let HP live or die, and even more pleased they decided to let it live.
Anyway, the 2011 Diagon Alley Set may have been to celebrate 10 years of Lego HP with a D2C. Lego Star Wars did celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2009, with 10th anniversary seals and retro artwork of Luke and the gang in their 1999 yellow glory on boxes. And for the next anniversary, they made their way IN the boxes.
Judging by the precedent of SW, if HP gets a follow-up anniversary, sets this fall will include a bonus yellow-skin-era minifigure with 10th anniversary printed stand and back. Even better for HP that nearly every figure had a cape back then. Brickset does seem to have more HP sets for this year than any other (bar 2002 with its obscure TRU quidditch stand, Coke promo and Hong Kong Minifigure packs) so that assuming half the 10 regular-numbered unrevealed sets each have a minifig, the most likely 5 are:
Harry with light [bluish] gray Gryffindor robes and starry cloak or purple "invisibility cloak"
Ron with light [bluish] gray Gryffindor robes and starry cloak (hair could be recolored to regular orange)
Hermione with light [bluish] gray Gryffindor robes and starry cloak
Dumbledore with original hair and beard piece, purple robes and cape recolored to medium lilac, and the torso under the beard being a bathrobe showing way too much skin
Snape, back when everyone thought he was a bad guy so he has a glow in the dark head, "female" hair, purple waistcoat, black cape, return of dark [bluish] gray lightsaber blade to represent his wand from 4733
Draco Malfoy with light [bluish] gray Slytherin robes and starry cloak
Some of the printed tiles from the original sets could make a return, either as supplementary accessories to the legacy figs' big ol' wands, or even better, hidden within the sets as in days of old.

@Brickalili said:
" @Monopoly said:
" @TomKazutara said:
"I am kinda shocked to be honest, how much attention Ninjago gets,
compared to the last years 20th anniversary of Bionicle.

Don't get me wrong, Ninjago isn't a bad theme,
it just baffles me that it seems that people and Lego just want to forget what came before."
Bionicle’s 20th anniversary is actually this month. It’s kinda sad just how little people seem to care.
"

I mean yeah its been 20 years since Bionicle started up but I'm not sure you can call it an anniversary since its not been continuing for that entire time. Its not a theme thats still running so Lego is putting effort into promoting one that is, leading brickset in turn to put effort into reporting it"

You just made me realize that the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Chima in two years is not so certain ..

Given that Legacy sets often redesign the characters to create new and more unique minifigures I wonder if any of these concept art designs could be reused in the future. Personally I'd prefer if Legacy just reprinted the old ones, but if they have to be new this could be an interesting design pool to pull from.

Regarding the Elemental Master sketches, the one on the left in the top image may have been a Master of Rain, which may have been dropped because it cut too close to Nya's power. In the lower image, that's clearly the Elemental Master of Groot, which had...other conflicts.

@nick3c:
They made a minifig of Batman dressed up like a member of KISS, goth boy and girl minifigs, and a few punk rocker minifigs, so I'm not sure that argument flies anymore.

@TomKazutara:
You're off by a year, Bionicle officially released in 2001. Europe got their first few sets early in the year, the US got the entire 2001 run in the summer, and Europe got the rest of the sets a couple months later. If you found them in 2000, it's probably because the retailer broke street date and stocked them early to catch the Christmas shopping season.b

@Brickalili:
Anniversaries mark the passage of years since a one-time event. In some instances, like marriage, it just seems like they are marking continuous years of a condition, but it's really more about the event that started that condition. People still observe their anniversaries even after the passing of their spouses, after which they are no longer married.

@Aanchir:
But they have done throwback sets honoring Space, Castle, and Pirates, even though none of those themes is still in production. Bionicle just has an uphill battle because the G2 run was a flop, and there are very few distinctly Bionicle elements still in production.

@Norikins:
2010 is the year Deathly Hallows 1 hit theaters, and Deathly Hallows 2 followed in 2011. That's why they revived the theme. I think they gradually let the theme slide for a combination of two reasons. One is that the kids who grew up with the HP movies were growing older along with them, and many of the older ones aged out by the time the movie series hit its midpoint. The other is that they started getting noticeably darker with Goblet of Fire killing off Cedric and bringing Voldemort back from the dead. They only did _one_ set the following year for Order of the Phoenix, and that was a generic (3rd) Hogwarts Castle, and skipped Half-Blood Prince altogether (the first set tied to that movie was 2010's 4840 The Burrow). There was no movie released in 2009, so there was nothing to tie any sets to, and they learned during the original run of HP that licensed themes performed best when there was a movie or a season of a TV show to tie the release to.

2018 absolutely saw the third run kick off because they realized they could tie HP sets to the FB movies, but the real question is why they didn't think of that when FB1 was in production. Maybe it was only after seeing prices for the original sets spike that they realized there was still demand out there.

Also, Pirates has had three runs. The original run skipped four years but lasted from 1989-2002. The second run was 2009-2010, and the third was just 2015.

@PurpleDave said:
@nick3c:
They made a minifig of Batman dressed up like a member of KISS, goth boy and girl minifigs, and a few punk rocker minifigs, so I'm not sure that argument flies anymore.

@PurpleDave
I was meaning a different kind of edgy, like not for kids edgy not weird edgy.