LEGO generously gifted us the LEGO 31388 Wild Animals: Family of Koalas, and I’ll make it clear right from the top. This is a botanicals set. The name on the box is largely misleading and has derived me of some of the pleasure this box could offer. What’s in a name, eh?
It makes sense that this largest member of ‘Creator 3-in-1 Continents’ representing Australia puts the emphasis on the animals, but it does so in name more than in bricks. Speaking of animals, the continent of Australia (Oceania) is represented by two very iconic characters from Down-Under, the koala and kangaroo and is joined by a less specifically down-under creature, the sea turtle. The sea turtle has risen to fame in Finding Nemo riding the East Australian Current (EAC) so I cannot argue there is a strong association with Australia, but I would have preferred to see an Australian bird like a like a Kookaburra or a Bin-chicken instead. We’ve had several turtles in the past, so why do we need one again?
The answer to this lies not in the turtles. But, as it turns out, in the rocks beneath them. Join me as I try to answer some of the questions that were raised by ‘31388 Wild Animals: Family of Koalas’ with 1536 pieces, retailing for AU$199.99/£99.99/US$129.99/€119.99‘
Initially seeing the images on the box of this set I felt under-whelmed. There was something off about the animals, and certainly did not look worth the enormous price-tag for this set. As I mentioned, I had some issue with the choice of turtles to join kangaroos and koalas but I missed the point of this set.
This set is NOT about the animals. At all. I will use the koala (the ‘hero’ model) as an illustration of this. The first bag is to build the baby koala, and the last 3 bags (12-14) are to build the adult koala. This means that 10 out of 14 bags (71%) are NOT koala at all! For the main model, nearly three-quarters of the contents of this set is covered by an eucalypt tree and some butterflies. Can the set then reasonably be called ‘Koala family’?
If you consider what kind of LEGO animals you can buy for the price of this set (like this golden retriever), it becomes even more apparent that this box isn’t about the koala at all. I would have loved a large koala, similar in dimensions and detail to the golden retriever or the tuxedo cat. As it stands however, I think the eucalypt maketh, the koala. I distinctly remember a time when I saw a wombat walking across the road at dusk and as it reached the other side casually kept walking up the side of a tree. Upon closer inspection a koala was starting back at me. A wombat is, essentially, a ground-koala, so if a koala is presented without a tree, it’s hardly a koala at all!
The alternate models for this set provide much the same situation; most of the building is aimed at building the environments in the form of plants or a reef. Because I did not appreciate this initially I was getting a bit frustrated when ANOTHER page dealt with building more rock or plants. Once I realized that I was, in fact, building a botanical set, and the rocks and plants are the point of the set, I relaxed and could enjoy the build a lot more.
Now we established that the main premise of this set is is environment (in the form of plants and coral), we can proceed to review the set upon those merits. Don’t fall for the name on the box, just look at what your eyes tell you.
Reef
We build a little turtle first, that is quite lonely as we go through and build the reef, shown below. This reef represents quite a significant amount of detail and build effort, and it looks the part! The fish are adorable and the variety of ‘flowers’ (anenome’s I assume) give a nice pop. The eyes staring back at you from the cave are a nice touch. Because this was the first variant I built, while building I was annoyed that I was just not getting into the turtle (as I mentioned earlier) but towards the end I got the message and adjusted expectations for the rest.
As we have come to expect the big turtle has a heart (and some other organs). The shell is created with some elegant angling of plates and clips, that would befit a botanical set, so even the animal tickles the same feeling of building flowers.
Once complete, both turtles take their place on top of the reef, making for a cute display, but something isn’t right. I’ve seen better turtles created by LEGO. The shapes to not connect nicely enough and too many of the pieces don’t have the right colour. It’s almost a shame to add the turtle to the reef.
Grasslands with shrubs
With little sadness we disassemble the reptiles and move on to an iconic Australian animal: the kangaroo! I mean; we move on to some Australian brushland.
This build does start with the animals, and a nicely posable pair is presented in short order, when quite a bit of building is left to go.
I found the nose of the baby kangaroo (the joey) was better suited in pink as demonstrated below so I left that in place for the rest of the photos.
Along we way we build a few birds, from the looks of it an orange bellied parrot and a azure kingfisher. I would argue that a kookaburra would be more iconic Australian, but hey.
next we create a sizeable base, that I adore. The organic shapes in here look great and belie the LEGO origin; it is a great masterclass in terrain building in a small area.
The little bit of terrain is enlivened with leaves and flowers before the birds are added.
When adding the kangaroo it becomes clear whey there are some unusual diagonal cavities to the front of the plate; the kangaroo can stick it’s toes underneath while the heels rest on the elevated rear to give the kanga a more dynamic pose that just leaning on it’s full feet. Joey’s head can be mounted into the mother’s pouch for the iconic Australian marsupial image.
Little joey is showing of that it can balance on it’s toes without this assistance, unlike mom.
In the end we are left with quite a cute display of Australiana, but the kangaroos look ‘off’. The kangaroos looks scraggy and dishevelled. Such kangaroos are not uncommon, I’ve seen plenty grazing near a petrol station when waking home at night, but those are just not specimen that would motivate you to take out your camera, let alone immortalise in LEGO. There are several jagged edges where they should not be, and the tail connection (should go straight from head down along the spine). The choice of birds doesn’t match what I tend to see in areas where kangaroos are present, not really ‘wrong’ but just also ‘not quite right’.
After two builds down that did not quite impress let’s hope the main course, will delight.
Eucalypt tree
The main event starts with a baby koala. Cute and simple, nothing wrong here.
We then move on to the main part of the build a eucalypt tree, more commonly known as a gum-tree. The process is quite satisfying, building an apparently erratic pattern of SNOT bricks and the suddenly cladding it with curved slopes to have a round tree trunk appear.
The bark of gum trees is quite iconic in the sense that it peels all the time which gives a shredded pattern that is captured nicely in LEGO. The way of capturing this shape is very consistent on all sides too, which I personally admire, since I always randomly click together parts to make a tree look ‘organic’ and as a result it never does. This tree trunk works very well. For reference a gum tree from my kitchen window.
Once a few side branches are added the tree is fleshed out with leaves and flowers which is where things come off the rails. The flowers are varied and colourful and provide a very nice touch. The leaves on the tree are essentially two designs repeated many times. The instructions try to make it more interesting by getting you to build 2 or 3 at a time, but it’s still the same thing repeatedly.
That is not really the problem. The issue I have is that eucalypt leaves look nothing like the ones on this tree. Koalas exclusively eat eucalypt leaves, and typically only certain types of eucalyptus. They are a bit pedantic, like giant pandas. The leaves you see in the photo above are not from the gum tree, but from other bushes around it.
Eucalypt leaves are notable singular and not palm-like. The flowers do resemble eucalypt flowers and if I squint hard enough I could un-see that the leaves are all connected, but again something feels ‘off’.
On to the koala then, not providing many surprises but a pleasant building experience. I was please to see the koalas with a big thumb, because they are know for having TWO thumbs. Approximating it with 2 fingers and a thumb captures the visual vibe well.
Chucking the koala up the tree even while scratching its butt, looks good. The koala looks scraggy but many koalas do so it works. There are no obvious gaps or holes to distract me and the beady black eyes are just right. Adding the baby to its back also adds to the overall look and provides a pleasant, mildly busy display.
The opposable thumbs are a great addition to the koala that allows various other ways to pose it. For example, I found it riding the Ducati Desmo 450 at some point, and I like it. Most larger Australian animals have a ‘what are you looking at’ attitude to life so I would not be surprised if someone found a real koala on their bike at some point. For me that may be even more Australian than a koala in a gum tree.
Can I recommend this set?
Yes, in a way. This is a very expensive set if you want a koala. If you like plants and enjoy building botanical sets, then this is quite a nice variation. It may not accurately represent specific plants, but it does provide a pretty display piece and stretches your botanical skills a little bit into the world of fauna. Out of the new creator 3-in-1 animals released in July this set may have provided most, ehm, feelings. Annoyance, enjoyment and some laughter. I don’t like being annoyed when building LEGO so I will deduct praise for that, but I greatly appreciate being surprised. I’ve been building LEGO for a while after all.
I give this set 4 out of 5 arbitrary praise units, because… look at that furry face on the motorbike. At the end of the day this set may not be exactly what it says on the box, but it’s still a great experience and a conversation starter. Go for it.
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Until Next Time,
Play Well!
Appendix: What makes up a tree
The box of this set presents most of the story I started with; the majority of the detail in each of the three models is presented by the ‘background’. The tree dominates the front and the reef with fish draws the eyes away from the turtles. If there was no name on the front of the box I would not have had much of an issue with this.
the box contains 14 bags, which is only relevant for the main build of the eucalypt tree; the other booklets require you to empty all bags and may your way through it like ‘in ye olden days’.
The combined parts would look a bit like this:
There are a lot of nice ‘Australian tree’ colours (pastel green and tan). In particular the single leaf stands out for me as it is the only one that reminds me of a eucalypt leaf.