Creator

31175 Unicorn Castle Gave Me a Visual Sugar-Rush!

BrankotheFather Creator, Lego, Review , , , , , , ,
Colorful LEGO Unicorn Castle with two small unicorn figures in the foreground, showcasing a whimsical design.

Do you know the feeling of having too much cake with icing and a soft drink? Perhaps you’ve seen the effect such a combination at a children’s party? That is the feeling I got from this set.

The highlight of this set would obviously be the unicorn. As it turns out, this singular unicorn shares its habitat with two pegasi! Although, is this really a habitat? Or something else? I felt confused when building this set, and perhaps that is a good thing.

Image of the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Unicorn Castle set (31175) featuring a colorful castle with unicorn and pegasus figures, showcasing the packaging with an age recommendation of 8+, highlighting the 390 pieces and alternate build options.
The back of the LEGO set box for 31175 Unicorn Castle, showcasing three build options: a colorful castle, a stable with unicorns, and a whimsical boat.
LEGO 31175 Unicorn Castle box showing vibrant illustrations of a castle, unicorn, and pegasi, highlighting the set's colorful theme.

The ‘due-to-license-issues-officially-not-my-little-pony‘ set, 31175 Unicorn Castle is retailing for AU$59.99/£34.99/$44.99/€39.99 and contains 390 parts and three tiny horse-adjacent creatures. The creatures are probably the main selling point, but there’s quite a bit more in the box; perhaps a bit too much. Read on to see what this set has to offer, and find out if this is for you.

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Feeling old in a good way with 31174 Retro Telephone

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LEGO Creator 3in1 Retro Telephone set features a blue rotary phone design, complete with a handset, flexible cable, and a yellow notepad with a pencil.

It has been a little while since calling someone by phone actually involved ‘dialling’ their number. This term is still sometimes used, although I suspect the majority of humans in Australia have not had the experience of turning a rotary dial on a phone to make a call since the late 1980’s

Image of the LEGO Creator 3in1 Retro Telephone set packaging featuring a light blue rotary dial phone along with a pencil and yellow notepad, showcasing alternative builds on the side.
Box packaging of LEGO set 31174 featuring a retro rotary dial phone design along with two alternative builds, a modern mobile phone and a flip phone.
A LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Retro Telephone set box, featuring a colorful design with illustrations of the rotary phone and alternative builds on its sides.
LEGO Creator 3in1 Retro Telephone set 31174 box showcasing the rotary dial phone, handset, notepad, and other alternative builds.

The LEGO Group provides us with a neat reminder of what phone calls used to look like with the new Creator 3in1 set 31174 Retro Telephone retailing for AU$39.99/£24.99/$29.99/€29.99 containing 383 parts, so you can have a bit of an idea of how it felt. Or flash back to years gone past…

Although this is a 3-in-1 set, the rotary dial phone is the clear hero of this set. Look no further for improvement in the alternative builds; the other designs feel like an afterthought in comparison. The rotary phone has a nifty design for the dial, and the cable between the handset and the base is worth the price of admission alone! Check out the video to see how the cable seems to defy the rules of the LEGO® system and appear fully flexible.

Read on to see what other phones are on offer and why explore the delight that the rotary phone has to offer.

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Creator 3in1 31166 Beautiful Horse – 3 Model Review

ramblingbrick Creator, Lego, Review , , , , , , , , ,
LEGO Creator 3 in 1 set 31166 featuring a beautifully built horse model with a vibrant color palette, set against a scenic base with flowers.

We have looked at a few creature builds over the last 2 years: the T. Rex, Panda, Kitten, Panda, Safari Animals, a Flamingo, and more – each coming with three options to build. One thing has been apparent: the number of brick designs in play has taken a quantum leap over the last few years. And with each set, the colour palette of these elements expands. Today, we will take a look at another: 31166 Beautiful Horse. Not only do we have the titular horse, but also a dear and bear to build. That said, just about anyone looking at it from a short to moderate distance might well be saying “Medium nougat parts pack”

Let’s take a closer look at this new Creator 3in1 set (provided by LEGO, all opinions are my own)

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A Haunting We Will Go…31167 Creator 3in1 Haunted Mansion Review and a Brief History of Spooky Sets

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An animated image featuring a LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Haunted Mansion set, showcasing its structure and five minifigures including a vampire bride and Frankenstein's monster, along with spooky text elements referencing other LEGO themes.

I have a theory: Creator 3in1 sets and Collectable minifigures are the last bastion of the classic themes that we would love to see the LEGO Group bring back. Some of the August release Creator 3in1 sets – 31167 Haunted Mansion and 31168 The Medieval Horse Knight Castle – both seem to serve my point to a certain extent, calling back to Monster Fighters and Classic Castle, respectively.

In this review, we will look at the new Creator 3in1 31167 Haunted Mansion. This was released on August 1, and comes with 736 pieces and five unique minifigures. It is priced at $AUD149.99/ $USD89.99 / €89.99 / £79.99.

As I set out to review this set, I may have become distracted and started looking at other ‘Haunted Themes’ that we have seen across the years…

LEGO Creator 3in1 Haunted Mansion set 31167 featuring a spooky green house with ghostly elements, five unique minifigures, and the option to build alternate models like a ghost ship and ghost train.
LEGO Creator 3in1 set 31167 featuring a haunted mansion, ghost train, and ghost ship, showcasing the spooky theme.

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What Can We Learn From the Creator 3in1 31172 Record Player with Flowers?

ramblingbrick Creator, Lego, Review , , , , , , , , ,

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love the LEGO® Creator 3in1 sets: they provide builders with great opportunities to learn about about evolving construction techniques, new elements, or even serve as reminders about established techniques that might be outside our regular repertoire.

Recently, there has been a trend to bring out creator 3in1 sets showcasing specific colours, while building real world objects, decorated with flowers. One of the latest releases, 31172, brings us the options of a record player, a radio and a microphone with vintage styling while highlighting a white and light royal blue, with different bunches of flowers.

This set has 366 pieces, and priced at $AUD39.99/ $USD29.99 /€29.99 /£24.99. It is now available now

Today, after looking at the elements included and the 3 models, we will take a look at some of the handy tips I picked up as I put the record player together. Some were new to me, some were reminders, and all will be useful to someone, I am sure. I’d love to know what you think.

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Creator 3in1 31170 Wild Animals – Pink Flamingo [Review, featuring all 3 builds]

ramblingbrick Creator, Lego, Review , , , , , , , ,

This has been a bumper year for Creator 3in1: Over the past decade, we have seen between 13 and 17 sets (including polybags) released over the course of the year. Here we are at the beginning of March, and that count is already up to 12. We typically see a few sets released around midyear, so I wonder if we will be edging a little higher than average this year.

One thing that has characterised the sets that we have looked at so far this year (31162, 31163,61165) has been the emphasis on organic-looking creature builds, with a limited primary colour palette: we have seen quarter circle curved slope elements emphasised in medium stone grey, tan, and black.

The 31170 Wild Animals Pink Flamingo broadens this palette further with the addition of these curved elements in vibrant coral and a great collection of light purple elements.The box demonstrates 3 models: the titular Flamingo, an axolotl and a galah – a pink parrot renowned for wreaking havoc on both the local landscape and soundscapes here in Australia.

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31162 Creator 3in1: Cute Bunny

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We have been browsing through some of the LEGO Creator 3in1 sets for the January release, particularly those looking at creature builds. I have another today: 31162 Cute Bunny has 326 pieces and will be priced at $AUD29.99/£17.99/$usd19.99/€19.99. There are three builds – a rabbit, a seal pup, and a llama. The LEGO Group provided this set for review purposes, all opinions are my own. Let’s take a closer look.

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31163 Creator 3in1 Playful Cat Review

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Continuing our look at some of the upcoming creator sets, today we look at 31163 Playful Cat. This set has 407 pieces and is priced at AUD39.99/USD24.99/€24.99/£19.99. It goes on sale on January 1 2024. This set comes with 3 builds: the playful cat, the puppy, and the pigeon. Let’s take a closer look.

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Creator 3in1 31165 Wild Animals Panda Family (All Forms)

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LEGO® Creator 3 in1 is going in for creature modeling in a big way in 2025, with six of the nine new sets featuring creatures, real or imagined. The LEGO Group have sent a few of these sets over for review. (all opinions are my own)

Today, I’d like to look at 31165 Wild Animals: Panda Family. With 626 pieces, and priced at $AUD59.99 / $USD39.99/ €39.99/ £34.99. the set brings us builds with the theme of animal families – featuring an adult and its young. Here the builds include Pandas; Orca and Penguins. Lets take a closer look.

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Aquatical or Botanical? 31158 Sea Animals [Review]

BrankotheFather Creator, Lego, Review , , , , , , , , ,

Another review from Branko today. We asked for a copy of 31158 Sea Animals to look at (Thank you LEGO® Team), and what started as a simple look at a nice looking set got a bit out of hand!

Botanical sets have become an integral part of the Grown-up LEGO® Experience. Since the release of the first life-sized flowers in 2021, they have become such a regular and expected release that LEGO has now decided to explicitly dedicate a theme to it: Botanicals, rather than continue to release them under the generic ‘ICONS’ banner. The theme is expanding in a way that suggests that it is popular (see these newly announced sets and this Botanic garden). But today I would like to look at an alternative to these plants, that may serve a similar purpose: Aquascaping!

An aquarium serves a similar purpose of colourful natural decoration, emphasizing moving living creatures more than plants, so how does this translate to LEGO? Is it possible to create a pleasant natural decoration based on underwater creatures as an alternative to plants?

Read on to see how we explore the comparison “Fish or Flowers” based on the set 31158 Sea Animals (AU$49.99/£24.99/$29.99/€29.99)

Fish or Flowers