#LEGO review

[brickcentral]

REVIEW: 10315 Tranquil Garden

Hi community! We invited @johnreiley to review this set from a photographer perspective. Here's what he had to say (full version on the blog)

"The LEGO Icons 10315 Tranquil Garden is a Japanese-inspired set that I got from @lego through #brickcentral to review. Priced at $109.99, it's a reasonable deal with 1,363 bricks. While lacking minifigures, the build was enjoyable, completed in a few hours.

The red bridge and tea ceremony pavilion stand out. The water and black border were a bit tedious, but the set is packed with details like water lilies, stone lanterns, and koi fish. Customizing the garden is easy, and it offers great photo opportunities.

Shooting proved challenging, but removing the border and adding more bamboo helped. Setting the scene at night created a magical atmosphere. Despite the lack of minifigures, the set earns an 8/10 for its aesthetics, design, and details."

If you want to read more and have a look at some bts, heads on the blog!

- @theaphol, Community Outreach Manager

[glowingbrickette]

The House at Pooh Corner

From my review of the LEGO Winnie the Pooh set, provided to me by The LEGO Group through @brickcentral . You can read it on the Brickcentral website.

[mastererestor]

Master Erestor is happy - the Rivendell set came with a complementary inkwell!

That aside, construction work is making progress, and while we still have not located Lord Elrond, Glorfindel found Lindir‘s lute in a drawer.

We are far from finished, though, and getting that roof in place was… a task best left to someone else next time. But it sits, it fits, and Elrohir has time for some gardening.

Building Imladris is fun - but the interior… oh Valar, the interior! It is absolutely priceless! Mr Baggins has a study to write his book and Erestor has a library! And an inkwell, in case this has not yet been mentioned. ♥️

Alas, Glorfindel was not happy with the weathervane, and Erestor agreed. So it was changed to something more suitable.

The detail that has gone into this is just - I have no words, and I love it. The criticism I heard elsewhere - the bright colours used in the construction - are actually a big help to somebody like me who struggles with concentration. So progress is faster than expected.

Lindir and his lute are not included in the Rivendell set, neither are Elladan and Elrohir.

[lifeinbrick]

Review | LeLightGo Lighting Kit - LEGO Lord Of The Rings Rivendell (10316) (lifeinbrick.com)

Here's a look at LeLightGo's lighting kit for Rivendell. There's a promo code on the review for 25% off lighting kits.

[ninjago-dragon-reviews]

Epic Battle Dragon (Ultra Dragon)

Number:  9450

Year Released: 2012

SPECS 

Head: 4 headed rubber head mold w/ ball shooter

Body:  Built in seating || Handle on back for flying

Tail: Swivel

Wings:  Moveable Blades || Handle spreads them out. -- technic pin connected

Feet: One bionicle claw piece

Advancement?: Kind Of

If yes: Purposfully removable saddle

REVIEW

Poseability: 1/10

All 4 legs are attached by bionical pins and do not move

Feet on ball joints, so there is some knee and ankle movement

Heads are scrunched together and cannot pose uniquely

Tail is swivel and not ball’n’socket, so it cannot pose either

Unmoving and stationary

Durability: 6/10

Neck attachment is strained and prone to disassembly

Handle holds up well

Trying to move the blades caused them to just come off

Sturdy heads that are hard to remove

Playability: 8/10

4 ball shooter heads

4 heads provides 4 different characters and personalities to roll play with

Handle on the wings for easy flying

Admittedly very fun to fly around

Combine this with the built in weaponry for a very solid toy

Brought down by lack of any posing functions, essentially a statue if not in the air

Displayability: 4/10

Lack of any poses brings it down immensely

Classic look and good accent colors, but it does not have enough white so the look appears muddy and gross

Little organic modeling. Looks like an action figure that cannot move when on a shelf

Unique 4 headed design at least looks cool from far away

Look/Design: 4/10

Lots of brown and grey, despite the dragon supposed to be white

Cool trans green, but they don’t stand out as intended

Awkward saddle built into the body

Very bare body that is almost always covered by the wings, but still is ugly when uncovered

Interesting and unique dragon head molds

OVERALL SCORE

4/10

[forskakenevergreen]

Lego Mandalorian Helmet review

So this is the first Lego set that I’ve ever built! I never had much interest in legos as a kid, I always kind of wrote them off as ‘nerdy’ and I was above that with my Bratz and Barbies. But recently, building Legos has been all over my TikTok FYP. Creator after creator, video after video, it was all about building Legos. I don’t know what's so satisfying about watching these random strangers all across the world build various Lego sets, maybe the asmar, the appeasing of watching the blocks click into one another or the voiceovers that had the tones of accomplishment but I was HOOKED. 

I always had the thought in the back of my head to start building legos, now that legos have evolved from much more than little sets for five-year-olds to construct. I was intimidated by the sheer variety that Lego has now. Of course, they have easy sets for kids, but they also have sets for many genres and ideas. Lego Star Wars, Lego Lord of the Rings, Lego Indiana Jones, there's Lego Piano, Lego Bowzer, Lego Hogwarts, Lego Atari, and Lego F1. Also, the cost of these Lego sets averages around $200 USD (for the larger sets) and the Lego Titanic costs over $600 USD! The price point was a very worrying feature; am I going to spend over $150 on legos that I might not be able to functionally do? I have a small weasel brain which makes me just not get common sense, so the fear of spending a ton of money on something that I wasn’t 100% confident that I could perfectly assemble scared me. 

But I forced myself to get over my anxieties and started browsing the Target Lego section where I found some reasonably priced legos that I felt like my brain was big enough to do. So during one of my breaks from work, I placed an order for the Lego Star Wars Mandalorian mask online so I could just go to Target and pick it up after work. Once I arrived at Target and went to the customer service center for my pick up, it turns out I placed my order for Grand Rapids, Michigan instead of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. whoops. I ended up just canceling my order and just buying the Lego set in-store and went on my mery little way home.

Opening it up I was very excited to get started. Looking through the book and doing a quick flip though, I felt less intimidated than I had originally thought I was going to be. I was still worried I was still somehow going to mess up this setup, or that maybe I just had grabbed a defaulted set and I wouldn’t be able to complete it because the legos I had pulled just happened to be the set with missing pieces. 

I confidently opened bag one and opened the mini pouch off the side, being careful to not mix the two, took a swing of my Mountain Dew, and got started. Building was surprisingly easy, each bag (with a mini bag inside each large bag) took me around 35 minutes to complete. I honestly had so much fun assembling the tiny mask! I found it very relaxing and fun to build! I put on some tunes (shout out to Orbit Culture, Avatar, Brand of Sacrifice) and got in the zone. I love crafts that are very tedious and have lots of finger work and it made me wish I started doing Legos a lot earlier! 

Building the Mandalorian mask was a very good build for beginner builders, the instruction booklet was very easy to follow and the five bags felt very accomplishable and not overwhelming. The only part I “struggled” with was the fronts of the mask, the part where you show the depths of the curve of the mask. I didn’t realize until I was building it, but certain Lego blocks were angled to one side and the other so when you build the mask you need to find the right block with the right angle for the right side. Once I realized that the other side was very easy to build. In total, I think it took me about 3 hours to build, but I would also build one bag go do some housework then go back to build another bag, etc. 

I'm gonna give the mask a 10/10, super affordable, super easy, and quick to assemble and I can’t wait to do more!

[elleventures]

Happy Monday everyone!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

That said, if you have been following me for a while now, you know I have been enjoying Lego's postcard series set. In my previous review, we discussed the Australian Postcard — and today we will be diving into the New York postcard set!

If you are also a huge lego lover, what is your favorite lego collection? I would love to hear about them! My favorite collection will have to be the botanical collection.

Have a great Monday!

[shaycowboy]

BRICKLOOT DECEMBER 2023

heres something abit new for me, im gonna do a review!

brickloot is a monthly lego subscription box

ive been getting it for over a year now, so naturally i have a methodology to the madness

when you get a brickloot you get 4-8 things centered on a theme, this theme is all about oceanic life baby

a reef ranger, a fish, a scuba crab, misc underwater pieces, a baseplate, and a diver this go around (every box always has one minifigure at the verrrry least!)

pretty standard baseplate, well take a look at the diver in abit!

lets look at this brick pack...

hm!

small oversight in making some randomized pieces!

lego sharks come in two pieces! i only got the body!

we got a headless shark! poor guy

besides that unfortunate fellow we got...

scuba gear, many amphibian friends...a couple reptilian! an anchor, some shells, coral, most things needed for an ocean!

at least our diver has some more gear

aswell as a second face!

moving onto the fish

pretty standard gentleman, has some nice translucent pieces to give him abit of a razzle dazzle!

in my opinion i think he could have a stand of some kind, but i can make one out of my own lego collection

however! somebody here does have a stand!

the scuba crab! quite a silly little guy

every box has some sort of middle ground set, not big, but not some small little extra

sometimes it's an accessory to the big set!

in this case its more of a standalone friend...heh...stand. alone. cause the crab has a stand...hehehehe...

comes with a couple stickers, which i wont be using

i rarely use stickers for lego builds, luckily however...

hes perfectly fine without them! the eyes are done by using a rotating peg piece, so after moving this fella sometimes they look abit crosseyed (quite cute in my opinion)

onto the big attraction

the reef ranger!

every box always has some big set, sometimes it's a vehicle, sometimes it's a building, sometimes it's a whole scene!

it has quite afew stickers...

which means some detail will be missing from my personal build of it

i do like it!

theres just an unfortunate error.

the bottom portion is abit warped, so it cant stay on (this is an issue with one piece being manufactured wrong, not how its built)

not everything can be perfect, but its okay

lets take a look at the side portion of this set

now THIS is cute!

treasure in the bones of a wrecked ship

i have a personal obsession with lego jewel pieces, so seeing three included sure does make me smile

all for this little fiend to hoard...

all together the builds do go together, if you had any other oceanic lego sets you could probably make quite the display

i am a big fan of the collective variety in fish colors between the underwater pieces pack and the reef ranger set

(coming from someone with...so many orange lego fish in her collection...)

overall...i give it a 7.5/10 for this months theme.

the builds are nice, i enjoy the amount provided, but i am a touch scorn by the sharks missing head and the warped piece on the reef rangers bottom

this is the first time ive ever made some sort of structured review

i get legos alot (even outside of these monthly brickloot boxes)

so maybe i should review things more often!

im not affiliated in any sort of way, im just a massive nerd over legos

bonus kitty because she was disturbed that i was too busy to let her in my lap

[junkanimate]

And we're back

[theexpatbrickie]

35 pcs Set # 30570 year of release 2021

►Never miss a new Video! ►Click HERE to subscribe to The Expat Brickie https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXMI...

►Be part of our community and join us on : 👤 https://linktr.ee/theexpatbrickie

Stay tuned for more build videos coming soon.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey this is Andy The Expat Brickie Today we are going to review and build the LEGO City Wildlife Rescue Hovercraft. This is a 35-piece set available in a polybag and comes with set number 30570 The LEGO City Wildlife Rescue Hovercraft was first made available in mid-2021. Once built the set consists of the Wildlife Rescue Hovercraft itself along with a monkey micro figure and 1 Male Wildlife Rescue Worker mini figure which is unique to this set. So, without further delay lets build…

Not only was this a really cool little build, but I love the fact I now have another unique mini figure to add to my growing collection – I am sure we will also see him starring in his own short sometime soon.

I hope you enjoyed this video and thanks for watching, stay tuned for more build videos coming soon. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments below.

#theexpatbrickie #lego30570 #legocity #legofan #legominifigure #legospeedbuild #legonerd #lego #legobuilder  #legomodel #legoset #legovideo #legowildliferescure #legobuilds

[brickcentral]

REVIEW: CMF SERIES 24 71037

Releasing on January 1st to most of the world, Collectible Minifigure Series 24 is the second "regular" theme coming out this year and it's a nice one!

Unlike CMF Series 23, this one seems to really have something for everyone. There are two medieval fantasy minifigs, two space-related minifigs, two costumed characters, a historical minifig, and several city-type characters.

My favorites are:

- the orc

- the falconer

- the newsboy

- the potter

However, I'm guessing Spacebaby is going to be everyone else's favorite and I expect to see hundreds of Spacebaby photos from the community come January.

Spacebaby's head, airtanks, and helmet are all one piece... in case you were wondering about that. I know I was.

Lots of good parts in this series for those like me who want to create custom characters. Check out the blog for a closer look at all 12 of CMF Series 24 minifigures.

Disclaimer: This set was sent to me from LEGO through @brickcentral to take photos but all opinions are mine.

- @fourbrickstall

[aleiiii]

Hello! I absolutely adore your art! I love how you draw everyone and the scenes you create! Sorry if this has been asked before but I know Na is human but what if she was a goddess or from the Celestial Realm? Like what kind of goddess do you think she would be? And if the monkeys like her/treat her differently?

hello anonnnn and tyyyyy heheh 🤭

This was an interesting one, got me thinkin about a lil story that might come out through this sort of circumstance

I would think most of the celestials would be very cautious about Wukong. He did cause all those problems for them so long ago, so I’m sure at first a Goddess!Nà would be very careful about encountering this monkey (and his second hand). So….what if she encountered him without knowing it was him…..under the circumstances that she is a goddess that enjoys helping her feathered friends.

And then she goes back to the celestial realm talking about a strange bird she has never seen before… tan in color, strange markings and a very apparent red bushy tail feather (very much reminiscent of a …monkey tail)

Oh man everyone is all up on her case about helping Wukong. I mean how was she supposed to know, she thought she was doing a heavenly duty.

To Wukong, I would think he wouldn’t like the company of the celestials after everything either. He in fact thinks he is still better than them, of course he would never hang out with them all buddy buddy. So when this naive goddess comes to help him, he becomes very interested…

hrmmm hrmmm good food for the brain in these trying times

[spiderman-into-the-sapphiverse]

The Last Wish Puss in Boots 🤝 Lego Batman

singing a self-congratulatory song as an introduction in their solo movie to establish their self confidence before they have a shattering identity crisis later on

[lifeinbrick]

LEGO Gaming nostalgia at it's best. All but one mainstream LEGO game covered, and the Skywalker Saga is coming soon to this series.

[ninjago-dragon-reviews]

Lightning Dragon Battle (Whisp)

Number: 2521

Year Released: 2011

SPECS 

Head: Rubber Head mold w/ ball shooter

Body:  Dual ratchet jointed hip || Built in saddle on neck

Tail: 1x1 rigid clip tail

Wings: Foldable blade pieces w/ duel ratchet joints

Feet: One Bionicle claw piece

Advancement?: Yes

If yes: Duel ratchet on both hip and wings. A moveable neck

REVIEW

Poseability: 9.5/10

Ratchet joints on the back and hip allow for pretty much anything imaginable.

Ratchet joints on the base of wings give the wings potential for being secondary arms or legs depending on what you need them for. They are very versatile in distributing the weight wherever needed

Stubby legs, but the wings make up for it

Base of the neck cannot go up and down, only left and right. This is further blocked by the chains

Durability: 6/10

Rudimentary body is stable and easily fixable

Details on the wings are not sturdy and they constantly flick off, leaving it annoying to handle. The cones haunt this entire generation of dragons and they are all annoying to deal with.

Same goes with the barrels, flags, and spears. The extra parts thrown on the dragon don't add to the design, but take away from the durability.

Playability: 7/10

Lots of poses, as previously established.

Ball shooter head for endless fun

The double hips make it hard to hold at times, as they constantly click and shift. This could be due to age however.

Not too fun to fly around (ground dragon)

Decent personality with limitless poseability and a detailed face print

Displayability: 7/10

Gets special treatment as it’s a limited edition collectors item

Will look cool on shelves because of that alone

Soft blue hue, but is ruined by the boring dark gray underbody. Rudimentary build and sheer amount of different blues can leave it looking a tad ugly for some.

Provides a wealth of poses both longways and upways, so it’s helpful for sticking in displays wherever there is free space.

Look/Design: 6/10

Mellow gray and blacks lessen the colour scheme

Splashes of yellow attempt to make the design pop, but there are too many dull colours to even it out so it ends up fading to the background. Very dull overall. It needs more yellow and white.

Very obviously lego and simple body builds. It doesn't pass as an organic look or structure.

Legs are extremely simple and mundane

Great head mold

OVERALL SCORE

7/10