10366 LEGO® ICONS Tropical Aquarium 3: Customisation

Colorful display of the 10366 Tropical Aquarium with LEGO elements including a yellow submarine, a treasure chest, and various sea plants and coral.

We have been taking a look at the 10366 Tropical Aquarium, coming out in mid November 2025. This is a large, expensive set, quite unlike anything that the LEGO Group has produced at this scale before. It’s not based on a renowned piece of Architecture, it doesn’t tie in with any preconceived cinematic universes, and neither does it follow up with one of the regular ICONs subthemes. It’s a 52 litre fish tank, filled with corals, plants, and fish of unrealistic provenance. However, I must admit, it looks quite neat. Impressive even.

A colorful LEGO diorama of a tropical aquarium filled with various coral, plants, and fish, showcasing a vibrant underwater scene.

Fish tanks often feature decorative elements within them. The Tropical Aquarium features a treasure chest, tucked away in the back corner, serving as a bubbler, along with a rock cave and shelf. However, beyond that, it is comprised of all plants, coral, and anemones.

In fact, it’s beginning to look like one of those colourful underwater layouts you often see at LEGO Conventions, with lots of hidey holes and scope for exploration and storytelling. This left me thinking about the broad range of underwater exploration themes that have cropped up over the years, and more importantly, made their way into my collection. And how they could add life to this set.

Let’s start with a quick look at some of the sets which I own (and some that I don’t), which feel as though they might serve as aquarium decorations .

  1. A Brief History of Underwater Themes
    1. Aquazone
    2. 1997-2012: Divers, Alpha Team, Aqua Raiders and Atlantis
    3. LEGO City Deep Sea/ Polar Explorers
    4. LEGO IDEAS
    5. SpongeBob SquarePants
    6. The Little Mermaid
  2. Let’s consider the space that we are planning to customise.
  3. Filling the Aquarium
    1. SpongeBob Square Pants
    2. Yellow Submarine
    3. Fantasy Underwater Layout: Enter the Aquazone
      1. Action Stations
  4. In conclusion
Continue reading

Does the LEGO IDEAS review team look at competor brands? Or Vice versa?

A collage of various LEGO model submissions displayed in a grid format, featuring vibrant designs and creative builds, with text overlay asking if any of these are already on store shelves.

[Editor: We are due to see the results of the largest LEGO® IDEAS review period, within the next day or so. With 57 submissions to LEGO IDEAS reaching 10000 votes in the lead up to May this year, we have been told to expect the biggest LEGO IDEAS announcement ever, very soon. Now, while LEGO sets are our focus here on the Rambling Brick, we can’t ignore the fact that some of the clone brick brands have been lifting their game over the last couple of years. I was sitting down, having a chat with Branko when he suggested “Some clone brick brands have released a sets similar to some of the Ideas submissions under review.” So, while LEGO IDEAS is always looking for ideas that push the envelope of what can be done with LEGO Bricks, producing something new and innovative, I can’t help but wonder “Is the IDEAS review process influenced by the way they have been taken up by Clone brands? ” and the converse question:”Do Clone brick brands look at submissions gaining traction on LEGO IDEAS and adapt them for their own purposes?”

Read on as Branko takes a look at a couple of LEGO IDEAS submissions that appear to already inspired clone brick brands along the way…]

I enjoy looking through all the ideas that are proposed and reviewed on LEGO ideas, and I have gotten the impression I’m not the only one. More and more am I seeing competing brands release sets that seem very closely related to some LEGO ideas.

Join me as I go over a handful of these. I am guessing that the LEGO IDEAS Review Team will not approve these under their own banner. They are very well aware of their competitors and they have easier targets to choose. This saddens me a bit, since the designs are all great, but let’s face it more sets have always been rejected than accepted.

I will also comment briefly on a few categories that we see recurring in these reviews regularly

Continue reading

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

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…

Continue reading

40789 Moon Car: A retro-futurist LEGO Insiders Reward [review].

A LEGO set featuring the 40789 Moon Car, displaying two minifigures in retrofuturistic space helmets, set on a moonscape base with a directional sign.

Looking back to January 2024, LEGO® Ideas launches the Exploring the Cosmos challenge: “Can you imagine how awesome the spacecraft and bases on planets will look like in 100+ years as humans start to explore the cosmos? 

Fast forward to July 2025, and the 40789 Moon Car, designed by EnchantingNoodle is available from the LEGO Insiders centre for 2500 Points. I’ve been away for a few weeks, visiting Japan Brickfest, so imagine my delight when I got home to discover the LEGO Group had arranged for this set to be waiting for me.

Let’s take a closer look…

Continue reading

What Plant is That? Exploring Minifigure-Scale Flowers and the 21353 LEGO Ideas Botanical Gardens

The new LEGO IDEAS set 21353 The Botanical Garden boasts over 3700 pieces, 12 minifigures as well as 4 birds and 4 other animals. But its main claim to fame is the fact that it includes 35 different species of plant. With some interesting recolours already available via the existing Botanicals Collection, I thought it might be worth scouring the images of the set, and matching up the flowers with a list provided by the LEGO Ambassadors Network.

Although… That list might not quite be complete…

This won’t be a comprehensive review, as I don’t actually have the set in my hands, rather a tour in search of the plants matching the description. Once we are done, we will take a quick review of floral elements appearing in minifigure scaled sets over the years.

Continue reading

NEW Build-a-Mini brings us Waking World DREAMZzz Characters: Minifigure Overview

In which we look at the figures in the build a ministations, compare theme with their existing counterparts and speculate over the next colour of spaceman torso. I think the clues are all there…

While LEGO® Dreamzzz sets focus mainly on the Dream World, a significant part of the action takes place in the waking world: the schoolyard, the kids’ homes and other locations around LEGO Brooklyn. It has been a little frustrating, being unable to get the right minifigures for these settings, until now…

Continue reading

You’re gonna need a bigger bookshelf! 21350 LEGO® Ideas JAWS officially revealed.

 The northern summer of 1975 was unlike any that had come before. There was a terrifying phenomenon never before seen: the cinema release that was so popular that people would queue up around the block to see it—the literal Block Buster. Forty-nine years ago last month, Jaws was released upon a population of unsuspecting holiday beachgoers!

The 1497-piece LEGO® set based on the 1975 summer blockbuster JAWS was designed by LEGO fan Johnny Campbell, and features characters Martin Brody, Matt Hooper and Sam Quint as minifigures, aboard the Orca boat – plus the shark, which can be displayed in its entirety OR with just the front half of the body, preparing to make a tasty snack of the fishing boat, ORCA.

The LEGO® Idea JAWS set will be available for LEGO Insiders from 3rd August 2024 and for all from 6th August 2024. It will be priced at €149.99 / 129.99 GBP/ $149.99/249.99 AUD/1399 CNY/199.99 CAD/3999 MXN.

Continue reading

31151 Creator T. Rex brings LEGO Ideas to Life

Dinosaurs are a perennial favourite of the LEGO® Creator range, with no fewer than 18 sets released since 2004, and the latest 31151 T.Rex brings us several alternatives: new brick-built T.Rex, Triceratops and Pteranodon models to put together. But wait. This combination of dinosaurs has appeared in the same box before: in 2017’s 31058 Mighty Dinosaurs – (and its colour-swapped alternatives77940 and 77941), a 174-piece Creator 3in1 set that has been diligently moving off the shelves since 2017. If nothing else, this demonstrates the popularity of Brick-Built dinosaurs, even in the setting of great-looking (but expensive)moulded models from the Jurassic World saga.

This model is part of the latest(June 2024) wave of LEGO Creator 3in1 sets and has 626 pieces. It has a recommended retail price of $AUD89.99/$USD59.99/€59.99/£54.99. Thanks to the LEGO Group for sending this set for an early review.

But perhaps the most intriguing matchup with the options in this set released in recent years is 21320 Dinosaur Fossils – a LEGO Ideas set from 2019 that features skeletons for each of the dinosaurs depicted in this new set. Let’s take a closer look at the models in this set and compare them against the models present in 21320 and what is involved in putting them together.

Continue reading

Are you ready to roll? LEGO ® Ideas DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: Red Dragons Tale Officially Revealed

This year, the Role Playing Game Dungeons and Dragons turns fifty. I was about 5 years old at the time when Gary Gygax rolled out the first version of his tabletop role playing game. I took some interest in the 1980s:I was intrigued by the notion of creating your own world, and the variety characters you could create, and the monsters that could be encountered, but the game didn’t take off with my circle of friends at the time. It probably coincided with entering my LEGO Dark Ages as well. I was therefore surprised when I went to see the movie Dungeons and Dragons: Honour among Thieves last year and I found myself seeing so many character types and monsters that I had read about in a nostalgic haze.

Flash forward to 2022, and LEGO Ideas announced a challenge for fans to design a set to showcase their favourite aspects of the Game. The winner of this challenge was Dutch fan Lucas Bolt. His submission “Dragons Keep: Journey’s End” brought a tavern, a ruined castle with caves and crypts, to say nothing of a couple of brick-built beasties. Today, the final product is revealed: with over 3700 pieces, this set takes Bolt’s original submission and bumps up the level of original detail.

Priced at $AUD499.99/€359.99/£ 314.99/$USD359.99/$CAD469.99, the set will be available on the first of April 2024 (and that’s no joke.) The set is also associated with a free D&D Adventure booklet available as a digital download, or as a paperback book with 2400 LEGO Insiders points

Dungeons and Dragons publishers, Wizards of the Coast, are owned by Hasbro, and this represents the 3rd collaboration with the toy giant/entertainment company, following on from Transformers Optimus Prime released in 2022, as well as Peppa Pig DUPLO sets, also due for release in April.

Continue reading

Monkie Kid 80054 Megapolis City: 10 Reasons That This Middle-Aged AFOL Is Excited!

Yesterday, I was a little bit excited to get my first glimpses of the Monkie Kid set 80054 Megapolis City. Celebrating the 5th year of Monkie Kid, the set is full of the eastereggs that we have come to expect from these large scale urban envoronments from MK. But the image quality was a bit poor: fast forward 24 hours and we have now got high resolution images, some are ‘lifestyle images,’others are renders of the box art. And while I was a bit excited yesterday, today I am turning it up to 11.

Continue reading