Today, I’d like to welcome Branko as a contributor to the Rambling Brick Team. He’s been providing some editorial assistance for a little while, and today we publish the first of his reviews. 

When LEGO recovered from their near bankruptcy, they re-focused on what LEGO does well; building different things with the same bricks. For me that was highlighted best with the animal sets, and this Wild Safari Animals box reminds me a lot of one of my old-time favourites: 4884 Wild hunters. That is a very good start.

31150 Wild Safari Animals is the largest of LEGO’s creator 3-in-1 set launched in January 2024 and will set you back AU$99.99/£59.99/$64.99/€64.99 for 780 pieces (pretty similar across currencies at time of writing). The tent-pole of this set is the tall giraffe with flamingo and tree, both of which are already great, but in addition alternate instructions are included for a lion with butterfly or a pair of gazelle. With this set you should not be wondering if you should buy it, but rather, should you buy one, two or more!

This box is filled with pieces in soft colours that are usually quite rare (Medium Orange, Nougat, Medium Nougat, Magenta, Dark Pink, Bright Pink), a nice build experience without repetition, and five models that each deserve to be seen

Isn’t there anything disappointing about this set? Surely LEGO cannot release a perfect set right at the start of the year? Read on to find out; there will be animals, there will be LEGO pieces, there will be Pilates with impressive core control and there may be a crocodile and perhaps even a tiger (in Africa?)!

I’ll look at three mains aspects of this set to determine its worth; the finished sets, the pieces provided in this set, and the experience of building these models. For a set to be considered perfect it will need to score well in all these categories, as well as a final value-for-money adjustment.

What’s in the box

This year saw paper bags appear in several sets in this series but this still has the classic plastic numbered bags, 6 in total. Three instruction booklets are included and it is immediately clear that there is one build (yes the giraffe) that gets a bit more attention than the other two.

Finished models

The Giraffe comes with a nice looking tree that capture the atmosphere of savanna very well, and a flamingo that looks surprisingly good, especially considering its size. The crocodile 31121 Crocodile from 2021 would be able to share the habitat of a giraffe so it seem appropriate to see how it fits in. It is so large that the giraffe seems a bit less impressive all of a sudden but they do work together quite well as a display piece. As you can see the giraffe clearly would prefer to keep the display to itself. The giraffe very pose-able and stable (more on this later)and even the flamingo oozes character.

The large joints are neatly covered and even the small ball joints blend in well with the build; I am a great fan of such build techniques, it makes the overall set look more sophisticated than when large joints are distracting from the overall appearance.

Unfortunately the giraffe is not able to bend its ‘knees’ (wrists and heels to be precise) but it is still very pose-able because of the ability to spread its front legs. When doing so occasionally its shoulder cover pops off, but that’s a small price to pay for the hidden joints.

The alternate build of a pair of gazelle (and adult and juvenile) again provides a very cute display but they are not as pose-able as the giraffe. The little one can do a decent ‘Bambi-on-ice’ impression, but is neither of them is able to sit and they both look a little bit stiff when they stand.

The joints in the shoulders of the adult are very visible, which irks me. Despite these small misgivings it still is easy to put them in a cute pose that looks great on display.

The elegant realistic style of the hoofed animals is reminiscent of Dave and Gus’ winning build from LEGO Masters Australia season 3. Gus has joined the LEGO company in 2023 as a designer so I would like to think he had something to do with this set, and until he personally tells me otherwise I will hold on to that thought (Gus; you know where to find me to set me straight if so required).

The final build in this box is a lion with butterfly; which deviates from the hoofed animals. The face of the lion is very nice and the lion by itself looks great but the large joints are exposed which detracts a bit form the elegance of the build. The Lion is not very pose-able which is really a pity; lions are naturally very good at lounging or pouncing or crouching but this one seems to only be able to do a stand-and-stare. For a dash of colour the lion comes with a tree and butterfly.

LEGO has changed a lot since 2005 (when they released the lion in the Wild Creatures set). I think this new rendition is certainly much more sophisticated but there was something fun about the play-ability and pose-ability of the clunky version of old. Is LEGO trying too hard?

Obviously the lion needs to be compared to the previous large cat 31129 Majestic Tiger (get that if you still can!). As expected the tiger is quite a bit bigger (it was the headline act of that set after all) but the two cats don’t look too strange next to each other, except for the fact that they inhabit different continents.

All three builds are beautiful examples of what is possible with LEGO in 2024. They will look great on display and are fun as play pieces.

The Pieces

Looking at all the bricks in this set shows a slight dominance of tan, a popular colour, but more importantly, a very large quantity of medium orange pieces. There are some nougats in various pieces and a little bit of pink. A few of the pieces that excite me are shown below. One piece is entirely new, which I will label as ‘2×2 round tile inverted’. It is flat instead of the normal rounded inverted round tile. A new generic piece like this is always a very welcome addition to the LEGO library!

A special mention must go to 93571 Technic, Axle Connector 2 x 3 with Ball Joint Socket. This part has only appeared once in 2014 in set 70209 Chi Mungus and this is significant due to LEGO’s quality problems with that colour. For several years pieces in reddish brown, dark red and pearl gold have been notorious for becoming brittle and breaking when being used. LEGO has claimed they have fixed that problem but only time will validate that statement. This particular piece will be putting that statement boldly to the test because it is a ball joint and when assemblying it it is put under more stress than regular LEGO bricks. I applaud LEGO for putting their confidence on show with this piece.

Build a giraffe

Starting the build with the giraffe allows us to build one bag at a time. The first bag guice us a nice selection of savanna colours and a brick separator. As the build of this first bag progresses studs appear on all sides (note the giraffe’s heart in the earlier steps) and slopes and curves are already appearing on the back of the torso. Note the reddish brown ball joint appear in the torso; I was a bit nervous about seeing this part; let’s see if it remained intact as the build progresses.

Bag 2 brings us more of the same palette but it is used to cover the outside of the torso. A nice mix of shapes is used to represent the giraffe’s spots. Towards the end of this bag the torso and tail are complete and it’s time to move on to the neck in bag 3.

With the long plates in bag 3 it will not be a surprise that we are moving our way towards the giraffe’s neck. A few steps in I notice that the plate with bricks has bent upwards. I cannot recall having seen this before with LEGO; please leave your comments below if you have experienced this before. The bend is not a major issue; as soon as more plates are added to the build it all straightens itself out.

I’d like to highlight the work of LEGO’s instruction designers for this set. When LEGO releases a set they try to make sure you will have a fun experience building it and they try to ensure you will not make a mistake. In this particular case they have made sure that the dark orange jumper plates used for the neck are all 2 studs long, and the medium nougat jumper plates are all 3 studs long. This means that even if you cannot distinguish the colours, you will be able to easily follow the design just by shape. When the designers do their work well you do not notice anything; you just enjoy the build.

The best part of the entire build comes after the neck; the head. It is filled with interesting offsets and parts (microphone for eyeballs!) to achieve a shape that is unmistakably the head of a giraffe and it is not even 3 studs wide and 6 studs long!

The next bag allows us to provide the giraffe with some hind legs, quickly to be followed by the front legs in the bag after that. Even before the giraffe has feet we can assess its core strength; it is able to hold a plank quite well, and as soon as the feet are added it is even able to hold a plank on just two legs; I cannot say I am quite this stable during Pilates!

The final bag brings us different colours to build a bit of decorative plants and a flamingo! The flamingo is an exciting clever ball of pieces that captures the look and feel of a flamingo perfectly. The tree is surprisingly fun to build because no part has to be repeated more than twice; nearly every brand and leaf is a bit different from the others.

The end results speaks for itself.

Build a family of gazelle

Moving on to the alternative build, the baby gazelle is built first; the slope makes for an adorable snout and it comes together into a very cute little deer. Yeah, I kept seeing a little Bambi rather than a gazelle while building her, especially when I tried Bambi’s skating pose. A shortcoming of the little deer is that it is unable to tilt its head back, only sideways.

The adult gazelle follows a pattern very similar to the giraffe; the way the body is built up with studs to sides and slopes on the back, albeit a slightly shorter neck. The head effectively captures the shape and style of a gazelle including the curved horns. After building the giraffe this all feels familiar and still impressive. The legs also follow a very similar pattern and provide good stable support (even with only three legs).

A little bush completes the build which is similar, but not quite the same, as the tree in the giraffe’s build. The gazelle’s look adorable together, but I am a little distracted by the visible shoulder joints.

See below the parts that are left after this build, I feel that there are enough pieces to have fleshed out these bovids a bit more, but then again they look great as they are.

Build a lion

The final build in this set is the lion. Again the torso establishes studs on the side but they are covered smoothly this time. Once the legs assemble you can already sense the strength of the predator.

The best part is the face/head; which starts with something that resembles a millennium falcon, which is then covered in round plates to create a shaggy mane (similar to the patterns used in several long haired Brickheadz). An interesting brick inversion happens for the face where a some parts for the brain are included.

The side of the head is connected only by the cheek (round 2×2 tile). The facial expression reminds me of an Easter island statue. The final step of the face is immensely satisfying where the addition of a simple plate 2×2 corner turns the face from a mask suddenly into a lion!

The build is wrapped up with some feet and a little tree with butterfly.

The lion doesn’t have a lot of flexibility to position him in different ways, which is disappointing because, to me, lions are the epitome of an animal capable of ‘lounging’, laying down and relaxing in weird poses or transform into a crouching hunter. This model is more akin to a stuffed version you may seen in a museum; not at all bad, but for LEGO it is lacking in playfulness. Note how my attempts to make the lion ‘relax’ have even loosened the plates holding his wrists.

As with the gazelle, the shoulder (and to a lesser extent the hip) joints are exposed and very visible, and the grey does distract from the overall appearance.

The lion took a bit of a jaunt outside to play with it’s older (by 20 years!) cousin. This allowed us to compare the two in the wild. The youngling is significantly smaller albeit more elegant but I feel that the older version is more ‘accessible’; the build techniques are more straightforward and still capture a lot of character. The newer version delighted me with clever techniques to capture the characteristics very well.

Internal Organs

It has become a bit of a tradition for brick-built LEGO animals to contain some internal organs and the three adult mammals in this set are no different. The giraffe contains a dark-pink heart, the adult gazelle contains a small heart, but the lion is a bit different. While building there is a distinct lack of heart in the lion’s torso but there is a large hollow; suggesting the lion should have a meal. When building the head some purple internal organ appears so it seem that the lion may not have a heart, but he does have a brain and he is hungry….

Conclusion: go get yourself a giraffe!

If you’ve read all the way down to here I’ll make it clear: go get at least one (and probably more) of these! The box feels quite heavy for the size, and at 780 pieces is pretty good value for money, especially considering the relatively rarity of the colours used. All three finished builds are excellent and the build process is varied and fun. The set may not be entirely perfect but it is as close I as we can realistically expect, so I award this set 5 out of 5 arbitrary praise units; what a joyous start to the year!

The set is priced at AUD99.99; USD64.99; CAD84.99; €64.99;£59.99 and goes on sale on January 1 2024. If you purchase from LEGO.com, consider using the affiliate link – the blog might receive a small commission which goes back into site maintenance. And it will cost you nothing.

The set was provided by LEGO but all opinions are my own… As if I could have been any more positive if they wanted…

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!