(Written by William)
I always had a love/hate relationship with the LEGO Creator line. It is a series of sets prioritizing building in its purest form, offering two or three alternate models. This diversity is, of course, a positive aspect, as you get more building experience for your money. However, it is also a weakness as the models often compromise on the design to accommodate all alternate builds. This has been especially true for sets featuring brick-built animals. But then something changed…
A year or so ago, I built the #31129 LEGO Creator Majestic Tiger. It contained a level of detail I’ve only found in the highest-priced LEGO Creator Expert sets. It made me question what I thought I knew about LEGO Creator. So, when LEGO offered us the chance to review the new #31154 LEGO Forest Animals: Red Fox, I jumped at the chance to check it out.
The set even has the same $49.99 price point as the Majestic Tiger as well as the same 9+ age recommendation. Thus, I was curious to see if LEGO designers could duplicate the awesome design and building experience of the Majestic Tiger set. So, let’s dig in and see just what this set offers.
LEGO CREATOR RED FOX – THE SCULPT
A big problem I have had with past LEGO Creator animals has been with the shaping and detail work. Normally, the lines of the creature are correct, but the texture is just not right. This is no surprise since LEGO parts are, by their nature, hard bits of plastic. Thankfully, over the years, LEGO released a wide range of interesting pieces with angles and slopes that are great for shaping.
In this set, the most notable shaping elements are the various tooth-style pieces. By layering these parts, LEGO designers were able to create the rough spiky tufts of fur that make up the coat of the Red Fox. They even managed to use some of the distinct fang elements off the side of the fox’s head for this purpose. Add to this a variety of slopes and angled wedge plates and the result is something that practically looks fuzzy.
After building the model, I personally had to make sure that it was indeed rated for a 9+ builder. My impression was that it was for someone a bit more advanced. While most of the older LEGO Creator animals felt like the end product was a toy to play with, the fox is much more like a piece of art to display.
LEGO CREATOR RED FOX – THE ARTICULATION
The next big area I’ve had issues with when it comes to LEGO Creator animals is the articulation. It is not the fact that they don’t have it. In fact, most LEGO Creator animals have a good deal of articulation. Rather, the problem stemmed from how over-exposed the joints often are.
To get a full range of movement, it is necessary to let the joints move. This means giving them a bit more space to operate. This has been a big detractor for me since those joints became unavoidably obvious and gave the product an often creepy quality.
So you can imagine my shock when I saw how LEGO designers solved this issue in this set. In previous articles in this series, I’ve mentioned collaring a joint. This is where you build up a shield to hide the joint. This method often restricts the capability of the joint but it highly increases its aesthetic value. This technique worked especially well in the #76217 LEGO Groot statue. However, what do you do if you still need a decent amount of flexibility? Simple; add another joint.
In the fox, the neck section contains two ball-joints, and both are hidden away. The head covers most of the small ball-joint that connects to the top of the neck so it doesn’t need that much hiding. This is good since that’s where most of the head movement comes from. However, the neck is connected to the main part of the body using a large ball-joint and plenty of fancy collaring.
This collar is built at an angle since it needs the neck to angle out from the body. This still allows for a bit of twisting in that transition space, giving the fox a remarkable amount of flexibility. This style of compounded joint usage is also seen in the back legs of the fox. Each of the legs has four joints which help create a realistic sitting and standing pose. Overall, only where the tail connects in with the body do you see a truly exposed joint.
LEGO CREATOR RED FOX – FINAL THOUGHTS
I didn’t mention this before, but when you build the fox, you will also build an extra little nature scene. It is a snowy landscape with a mushroom on one side of a broken stump with new growth on the other side. It really solidifies the scene of time and place where you can find the red fox.
Despite it not being too difficult to put together, the stump has a fresh feeling about how it is shaped. Just like the fox’s fur, the designer of this model was a master at using elements to create an elegantly imperfect shape.
In the end, the main advertised model of this set really holds up well. It has an exquisite look that makes it perfect as an art piece with the option of two other animals. And it does this at a fairly reasonable price. You truly get an expert-level building experience here. In the video below, I talk about the set in a bit more detail.
So, if you’re like me and mostly wrote off getting any LEGO Creator animals, you might want to give this one a second look. And even if you are not happy with the end result, you’re still getting a wide range of earth tones that cost a little over $0.07 a piece, which is a phenomenal price for parts. At the very least, the LEGO Creator Forest Animals is one series I won’t be ignoring. If you would like to check it out, it’s currently available at the LEGO Creator section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 animal sets? Do you have a favorite so far? And what do you think of the LEGO Creator Red Fox? Do you have it already? Are there any other interesting building techniques you have noticed in the set? Feel free to share your thoughts and own reviews in the comment section below!
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