Anmeldung neuer User » Vintage Lego Alternative, getting into it

Hey everyone,

I love the vintage LEGO Castle sets from my childhood. Back then I didn’t have the money nor skills for it to it properly, I only had a few sets but still had a blast with it. I’ve now decided to get back into it. Got a bunch of sets and a bunch of extra pieces to make the vegetation more interesting. I’ve always thought that LEGO should put emphasis on making the models a bit more lush. For starters, here are some great forest men sets I’ve gotten and added some vegetation to. Don’t you agree LEGO should put more greens/plants in?

Not really. As a kid I thought sets like this were fine with the small amount of leaf pieces. There are plenty enough to look like a tree. It is hard to follow instructions if there are too many leaves to be added and instructions need to be clear. Plus they are easy to knock off and get in the way a bit when playing with it. Adding more leaves increases the cost and possibly decreases play value.

I'm curious how well the yellow castle did sales-wise in the lineup-- I know that the classic space sets in 1978/1979 sold like hotcakes! I wonder if feedback from kids indicated that they thought the yellow castle was too silly looking, hence moving to the gray, which had been established as successful for LEGOLAND space? I know I certainly thought so as a kid, and was much more intrigued when they had gray castles. If I had to guess, I would speculate that GKC (or maybe even KKK) probably wanted to keep a vibrant classic color palette, but gradually conceded the more neutral gray.

There was a small smattering of gray bricks in 894/452 Mobile Ground Tracking Station, which came out in 1979-- but not a ton. And there were gray slopes and macaronis in the non-crater plate version of 493 Space Command Center in 1978. It seems like they made an exception for gray in the palette in the classic space lineup, but it was mostly limited to plates, slopes, antennas, and other doodads, rather than bricks (with only a scant few here and there).

I got the #6038 wagon as a fun little extra for the castle, but I realized I could use the pieces I have already to (mostly) build up the #6075-1 Wolfpack Tower. Had to tear down the Royal Drawbridge model for this but it seems like a fun smaller castle to make and then try to improve on And I’ll simply take the little Wolfpack flag from the wagon to put on top. It will fit nicely with the Forestmen. Poor king Lionheart’s LEGO assets are being seized.

That's interesting. I heard somewhere that the reason why Lego made the first castle yellow instead of grey because they didn't want kids using the grey pieces to make tanks and other military vehicles. I can't remember where I heard that; maybe a recent documentary?