DREAMZzz Instruction Manuals

I haven't bought any Ninjago for a while, so have they included any stylized art for the new Ninjago sets at all, given both are from new shows launching about the same time?

Multiple options are neat, and I'm sure folks love it but my OCD kills me on deciding which is the 'one true official' build to follow and display when there are multiple options. :-) Probably a trick to get me to buy two copies.

That's quite cool actually. Certainly an improvement. I mean I do have those niggling thoughts about is it worth the extra paper, ink or costs but yeah it's quite cool.

This reminds me a LOT of the Speed Slammers subtheme of technic that ran from 2000-2001.

Seriously, just the check the instructions of 8236 Bike Burner and tell me that doesn't remind you of the sketched images of the model and the color coded sections of the instruction booklet. Skip to page 16 for the best example.
I'm loving this!

This is so much better an addition than those awful renders and the patronizing progress bar and especially the celebratory 'yay, you completed it!' lines around the model when you assemble ONE minifigure or sometimes when you just get to a random section of the model. Even taking into account that the majority of sets are for children, those are like saying that the build is a slog you have to be coached through.
Sorry for the rant. I came accross this stuff in 40580 and it hit a nerve.

@oukexergon said:
"I haven't bought any Ninjago for a while, so have they included any stylized art for the new Ninjago sets at all, given both are from new shows launching about the same time?"

The Core waves had some pieces of art for each major section of a build.

@briandrewz86 said:
"It would be cool if they could find a way to jazz up other instruction manuals. The current incarnation of manuals seems very bland and uninteresting. As someone who keeps the manuals regardless of whether or not I keep the set, I would definitely like to see more creativity. This is a good start."

Yea, like they did with 21334 ;-)

I have noticed in some of the newest Friends sets that you see the odd little animation on the page such as heat radiating if you’re finished building a fire related thing like a fireplace for example. I do find it a tad distracting. The first time I saw it, I was actually looking in the pieces as I thought it was a new part :)

At least it's one booklet per set, including the alternative options.

Some themes, in particular City have been quite different in how they handled instructions over the years, up to 2019 it seems to split booklets by bags mostly (a set like 60231 : Fire Chief Response Truck stops halfway a build to continue in booklet/bag 2)

Then sets like 60295 : Stunt Show Arena in 2021 had 6 booklets , but no bag numbers/build orders on the cover at all (probably meant to "build together", but the lack of booklet numbers can be annoying for storage.

Recent 2022 sets did get bag numbers on them again.

Then 2023 switched to numbered booklets not directly related to bag numbers, but build orders, but the modular nature of a set like 60372 : Police Training Academy does still allow it to build in different order from the 1-2-3-4.

Then also 2023, a really big set like 60380 : Downtown at least doesn't split everything by tiny booklets, but 5 medium sized booklets across 18 bags, which is still an improvement over the past, and it allows building together, as the way the set is designed.

@MudTail said:
" @oukexergon said:
"I haven't bought any Ninjago for a while, so have they included any stylized art for the new Ninjago sets at all, given both are from new shows launching about the same time?"

The Core waves had some pieces of art for each major section of a build."

Oh cool, I hope it's a trend that persists and increases.

Very cool, and glad they didn't push it towards app.

Oh I love these illustrated covers! To me that's an improvement over not just the standard 2023 instruction booklets but also older ones. There's no reason the instructions have to have the same basic product photo as the set itself—if you have the set you probably already had the box and know what you're in for!

This is what those alternative models needed way back in the 90's.

I would really like just one instruction book per set. If there's more than one, then they should be the same size, and they should be numbered to indicate how many books there are: i.e. "1 of 3" or "1/3" so I know at a glance how many books I need- I don't want to have to page through, trying to figure out if I have all the books at hand.
I really miss the old mini catalogs that were included. These days, we sometimes don't even get any images in the back of the instructions of all the sets in the theme or subtheme.

Fascinating how this kind of colorful comic printing is ok but color on the front (to match the box art) is “too wasteful”.

- fun for kids though

This is easily my favorite theme Lego has put out in the last decade. I haven't been this excited for a Lego theme since Exo-Force. These instruction manuals are so amazing to look at, they remind me of the old lego inspiration books with all the moc's from the 90's, but I alos get big Time Cruiser vibes from them (in a good way)

MK sets had some fun elements to their manuals as we’ll. MK would hold up a sheet when a sticker was needed & shooting stars would appear when a sub assembly was finished. And not exclusive to MK but I love the minifig progression bar at the bottom.

This is once again amazing, but I wish there was more smaller sets from this line.
This is why IMO this line will fail. How kids can play with the setting if they can afford 2 sets max?

@RatchetingClank said:
"Do the manuals provide any credits to the artists?

I have been searching long and hard to find at least few people that have worked for LEGO on concept art and stuff like that, to be able to follow their work for inspiration.

"
No clue I’m afraid for credits, but Matt betteker on art station is a concept artist for dreamzzz, bionical and Ninjago, and has a ton of interesting things there. I recommend checking him out.

I'd at least like to see more steps per page. I don't think TLM would apply more pieces per step again, but more steps per page should be doable and save weight, paper, space and time.

For me instruction manuals are very much a part of the experience. Not just in the building (I really don't like digital instructions), but also in the lead up to it. Getting ready to build, unpack the box, sort the bags and then laying the instruction manual(s) out in front of you. Having a bland render on the cover doesn't do much in triggering your imagination, it just shows you what you'll have once you finished building, not what it should be doing (shooting down baddies or something).
With these Dreamzzz covers I can imagine just pausing for a bit, looking at the cover and then really wanting to build stuff...

As for colours: I'm not colour blind, but do struggle with darker colours sometimes. In my experience that seemed to be a bigger problem in older sets though, where I would be left with parts in the wrong colour later in the build. Still happens when I (re)build older (SW) sets, not so much with the new ones. I really think Lego has improved in that aspect.

Reminds of the cool manuals from 1999-2001, although of cause they were much thinner^^

@amosnp said:
"Multiple options are neat, and I'm sure folks love it but my OCD kills me on deciding which is the 'one true official' build to follow and display when there are multiple options. :-) Probably a trick to get me to buy two copies. "

I'm with you.... I buy a Creator 3 in one and often think, ill make the small or medium model first and then take apart to make the Large (You can't take apart Lego :-) ) So I buy another. The one advantage of course is once you have secured a copy you cant loose and you may then get 33% off the 2nd copy and have spare parts......

Got lost with the City Missions...... too many options.......

I have not read all of the responses but has anyone asked about price? The manual looks great, Art and sections in colour codes all seem a great idea, for any set that has Variants. I just wonder if having the Art at least adds extra cost for the buyer?

@PurpleDave said:
" @amosnp:
I’m not actually colorblind myself (as I discovered doing theatrical lighting in college, I have very good color sense…but I still can’t mix paint colors to save my life). I did however once diagnose someone with colorblindness, over the internet. A woman, even, and since the genes are recessive on the X chromosome, any form of colorblindness in a woman is supposedly as rare as a man having the most extreme version, which is just B/W vision and no colors at all. In this case, dark-blue pieces looked purple to her, but not to her kids.

Anyways, one of the things you’re going to be fighting is how the colors are achieved. A laser is just one color, but paint is mixed using red/blue/yellow subtractive mixing. Print shops use cyan/magenta/yellow subtractive mixing. Theatrical lighting uses red/blue/green additive mixing. And then there’s the part you have firsthand experience with, which is that the color that’s there is not always the color you perceive. These are all just different ways to get our brains to conclude that you’re looking at the same color, like adding “1+9”, or “2+8”, or “5+5” as a way to communicate the number ten. To most of us, this is a solution that works, more or less. To someone who is colorblind, it’s like only seeing “1”, “2”, or “5”, and wondering why they don’t all look like the same number.

The unfortunate answer is, I don’t think they can ever get print instructions to work the same for colorblind individuals unless they actually tailor them to your specific form of colorblindness (in which case they may not work for anyone else). And the only way to achieve that is if the people designing the instructions either understand what you’re going through, or if they have people with different forms of colorblindness offering input through the whole process."

Thanks for additional info. Definitely a challenge on paper. Labels, numbers, or names would help (but then you get into language or reading issues). I'd love to see some features in the instructions app to help - digital gets some more options. There's also a 3rd party site that does some color blind Lego stuff that's helpful. https://color.brick.design/

@Huw said:
" @MrClassic said:
"They show the set number too!"

It only seems to be the 18+ sets they are missing from at the moment. I do wonder why: it will make identifying them in 10+ years far more difficult."

Yes indeed. Missing set numbers on manual covers is extremely annoying. I have my manuals all organized by set number. Hard to get it in the right spot and find it later when their is no number on it. Worst filing it cause I have to look it up first. But even worse is then if there are other books without numbers already files, I might have to look those up, again, to to figure out where the new one slots in. I don't mind if it's small in an unobscure place as long as it's there. The madness needs to stop ASAP.

I can't overstate the importance of a good instruction manual. It's a joy to look at and (sometimes read). Without a paper manual, building is far less pleasant. I HATE digital manuals, so much so that affter building a couple, I have stopped buying the Bricklink Designer sets, because they only have digital manuals.

When you buy cheap China LEGO knockoffs (OK, I confess, I bought a few) their crappy instruction sheets make you realize that LEGO really is better than the Chinese brands, because truth be told the brick quality of the Chinese brands is actually not that bad any more, the way it used to be.

LEGO manuals seemed to have declined in quality in recent years, in that the colours and shades are hard to tell apart. Or maybe my eyes are getting worse...

So LEGO paying more attention to the manuals is something I welcome, and hope they realize that this is a very important part of what makes LEGO special.

@Klontjes:
For me, these new images do very little. They don’t trigger immediate association with the sets they represent, which is what the cover image is for. I don’t mind them, but I would prefer if the set was still pictured on the cover in some way.

For color representation, they have played around quite a bit. Sometimes they’ve taken a step backwards, but in general there has been improvement.

@amosnp:
There was a time when I toyed with the idea of pursuing theatrical lighting design as a career. One of the more interesting things I learned at that time is that our eyes will naturally “white balance” themselves. Experiencing that in a five-minute demonstration really hammers home how much of what we think we see is just in our minds. You also have to unlearn much of the color theory you’ve carried with you since kindergarten.

Anyways, one option to help tell things apart would be to use letters or glyphs. You don’t have to know what the character represents, as long as you can tell them apart from each other.

This is awesome, especially since it seemed like they were making a push towards digital for a while. I really hope this expands to other themes as well. While these drawings may not be much, it really makes it seem like a much more premium product. Adding art is always a good thing.

@alfred_the_buttler:
They used digital for Dimensions, because building the models is incorporated into the game itself. They did it again for Mario, because digital allows them to include animations that explain how to play the game. And they did it for Bricklink because the runs are so tiny that it's not worth the setup cost to print them. Offhand, I'm not aware of any other themes that have had strictly-digital instructions. Mostly it was baseless conjecture that (in spite of an official explanation that clearly doesn't work for any other themes), because a single theme got them, then the plan must be for _every_ theme to get them. Plus there's the (small) crowd that has actually been asking for this to happen, which muddies the water.

WHERE ARE THE NUMBERS?!

Can't wait to buy some Dreamzzz sets! The theme definitely looks quite strong so far