(Written by Geneva – gid617)
As I mentioned in my review of the #21315 LEGO Ideas Pop-Up Book (see LEGO Ideas Pop-up Book Review & Thoughts), this set is ideal for creating your own alternate inserts to go along with other fairytales or stories. Since the set is already designed to switch between stories, all you have to do is copy the basic connections in the original scenes and then build your own concept from there! 🙂
The moment I saw this set, I knew I’d have to try creating some scenes of my own; so, after a little brainstorming, I’ve built scenes for two different fairytales; The Gingerbread Boy and The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
The story of The Gingerbread Boy involves a lot of different scenery as the Gingerbread Boy runs away from the woman and the man, from the cows and horses, from the villagers and pigs, and finally gets eaten by the fox while crossing the river, or – if you prefer a happy ending – finds a gingerbread house in the woods and lives happily ever after.
All those different scenes made for a complicated build, given the tight constraints of the LEGO Ideas Pop-Up Book. I started with a definite vision of a kitchen, since that’s where the Gingerbread Boy began his career.
One big challenge for this story was getting all the animals in. Although I would have liked a few cows and pigs as well, at least there’s a horse behind the fence!
Then, on the back left is the fox, and on the front left a micro-scale gingerbread house – the two story endings I’m familiar with.
All this, of course, folds up nicely, and makes pretty good use of the space available inside the book.
Not too long ago, I made instructions for a small project, so with that experience under my belt, I decided to do some instructions for this alternate insert for the LEGO Ideas Pop-Up book. Even if you’re not interested in building my Gingerbread Boy fairytale, an inside look at the techniques that went into this creation might be rewarding.
The second fairytale I chose to recreate is The Boy Who Cried Wolf. While in some ways this was simpler than The Gingerbread Boy, I did spend a lot of time trying to perfect a different mechanism for raising part of the scene which, in the end, just didn’t work. But although that was pretty disappointing, in some ways The Boy Who Cried Wolf worked better with the pop-up format than The Gingerbread Boy. With less colors and a simpler build, it stands out more from the base.
As you may recall, in The Boy Who Cried Wolf, a shepherd boy from a small village livens up his boring days by scaring the townsfolk with cries of “Wolf!” But he scares them one too many times; and when the wolf actually shows up, no one believes the unfortunate boy.
Looking over my selection of minifigure heads, I came across the perfect dual-sided face for the mischievous shepherd boy!
As with my previous fairytale recreation, this one also folds up well.
Not only that, but being a simpler build, The Boy Who Cried Wolf was much easier to create instructions for… although, I admit I did lose my way rebuilding all that rock. Fortunately, I had lots of pictures!
Both these fairytales made for rewarding builds, and I enjoyed making some time to explore the potential of the LEGO Ideas Pop-up Book a little further! Have you worked on some inserts of your own? What do you think about my alternate builds? Which one do you prefer? Do you have any questions about the techniques or pieces I used? Feel free to share your comments and questions below! 😉
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