That's the Simpson family and their neighbor Ned Flanders. There's only the 6 figures in the set. It's a $200 set and unless you want the parts it's a lot to pay for the figures. Of course the sets a great parts pack for the right person. The figures will run you $90-100 on Bricklink, for double that you can have the other 2500 parts in the set, the mix of parts is well worth that. I just looked ont he LEGO Shop@Home and the set is sold out already.
hat's the hand drawn family for some sort of comparison. Here's some nice big pictures of the minifigs. First up Homer.
I'm not sure I care that much for the expression on Homer's face. I'd like a happier look with his eyes wide open. His beard shadow looks kind of dark but if you look Google some pictures of him the shade changes from a much lighter tan to a darker tan. This is Homer in his work clothes. I would have prefered to see a Homer without the tie and badge. Maybe they'll be one in one of the forthcoming sets or the Collectible Minifigs series. I like the medium blue pants but they seem a bit too light of a shade.
Marge's hair looks better than her face. Her dress is almost the right shade and but the apron looks odd what the torso joins the legs. Like some of the other Simpsons figures this Marge fig makes me want more costume changes. If you watched the show you'd probably see less of Homer in his tie than you would see Marge in her apron. I was a fan of the Playmate series of Simpsons action figures and they sure had a great variety of costumes on the figures.
Again I'm not finding joy in the Bart figures face sculpt but I do like his short sleeve T-shirt. Skateboard is ok but I already have several of them from the Collectible Minifigs series. Nice printing on the shorts and sneakers.
I like the Lisa figure better than most even though the brick shape doesn't capture the triangle shape her and her dress form. On the other than the company has done some fun fabric accessories and this dress is no exception. The nice thing about some of the Simpsons costumes is that they have a great potential for re-use in other themes.
There's Maggie and Ned Flanders. I like both of these head sculpts. Maggie looks ok as a figure. Ned has a bit of a limited re-use costume.
Here's some of the stuff that comes in additon to the house and the figures.
Bart's got a skateboard thingy in medium blue. Those inverted arches are always good to have and anything in the medium blue is welcome in my house. The BBQ is ok.
I like making minifig furniture. I like the design on the orange chairs. They aren't practical for me, I want something that attaches to the MOC so it won't slide around when it gets moved. The mailbox is pretty good. It's much nicer than the hand drawn mailbox the tv show has but there you go. I like the wheelbarrow. I have some red ones but not that color. Do I need more, probably not. but I'd take one or two of pretty much any other color. I do like the Property Of Ned Flanders sticker that goes on the wheelbarrow. Nice touch. Almost makes me want to make up a bunch of them in stickers that are my size and stick them onto random stuff out in the world. Leave a bit of a puzzle or a joke for the person who finds it.
That's a really great lounge chair. Simple yet elegant. Good design to steal and the reason I like downloading the instructions to sets I don't buy. I don't use that grill piece that forms the back of the lounge enough. There's a lot of parts that I don't think to use but could if only I was spurred on by example. From a practical point of view I'm lazy, and really, who has time to think everything out. I have tv to watch.
Again I'm holding off buying one of the sets and so far it's been fairly easy. I don't need the parts in the set that much and while the figures are nice I have enough reservations about them that I don't feel any great urge to have them. Especially since I know there are other options coming in the summer. I can wait and see what happens. It's also the $200 price, which if I bought one I might wind up building it and keeping it intact instead of parting it out and turning it into working parts. If you got one and never opened it you could sell it for more in a few years but there's little fun in that. You could do like a lot of people and sell the figures to lower the cost per piece of the rest of the bricks. I've become quite happy with having a digital copy of somethng physical that I like. It saves on storage space and there's little or no cost to have a picture. Mind you I've had decades of having stuff and the novelty is wearing off. Especially books, they are so damn heavy. Lego on the other hand is lighter per square foot but much bulkier. Ah, well, life goes on.
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