I’m less convinced by the apple tree in this set, which has exposed black roots, and whose four sub-assembly branches look much more obviously identical to each other. LEGO is leaning hard into foliage these days, from the beautifully autumnal tree in last year’s 10270 Bookshop modular building to Nick Vas’s stunning trees in Ninjago City and this year’s 10281 Bonsai Tree. Rounded corners soften the building’s footprint, with sections that extend out from the main base to accommodate the blacksmith’s working area and the well with a tree. True to its origins as a fan design, the blacksmith shop starts on an irregular base built from plates. Hobbyist builders have been creating structures on bases other than, well, baseplates for years, but most larger LEGO buildings like Modulars still start on 32×32 or 16×32 baseplates. We’ve seen compass, target, and “Once upon a time…” tiles previously, but more of these unusual printed elements is always welcome. The 2×4 sign tile is unique to this set, and the 1×4 plank tiles are actually a new design, subtly different from previous designs. Two of the printed tiles are new for 2020. The set includes no stickered elements, with all of the detailed designs being either brick-built or printed. But maybe I’m jaded after 11 years of LEGO CUUSOO/Ideas. But these write-ups have become so templatized that reading them adds very little to the build experience. I appreciate that the individual designers continue to take center stage in LEGO’s instructions for sets geared toward older builders - a number of my own LEGO friends have successfully earned 10,000 votes on LEGO Ideas, and several more are designers of official sets in Billund. I’m incredibly happy for Clemens, but his story is the same as just about every other winning fan designer (a big fan of LEGO theme XYZ since childhood, follow your dreams, etc.), while the in-house designers of the actual product similarly sound much the same (privileged to work on the fan designer’s wonderful design, etc.). I’m going to say something potentially controversial: More than a decade since LEGO launched the predecessor of today’s LEGO Ideas on the Japanese CUUSOO platform, both fan designer and in-house designer write-ups have started to sound pretty much all the same. The instruction booklet follows the same design aesthetic, providing a page highlighting the winning fan designer and another spread for the (costumed) in-house LEGO set designers. The set’s 2,000+ pieces come in 14 numbered bags, plus an unnumbered bag with large plates, and the instruction booklet in its own sleeve. The new packaging design announced last May is clearly here to stay, with a black background that highlights the main build on the front and detail views on the back. Not counting the gorgeous 40448 Vintage Car gift with purchase from the first half of January, the blacksmith shop is the first LEGO Ideas product released in 2021. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews. The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. The set includes 2,164 pieces with 4 minifigures, and will become available on February 1st, 2020 at a price of US $149.99 | CAN $199.99 | UK £134.99. Yesterday, LEGO officially revealed 21325 Medieval Blacksmith, an original design by LEGO fan designer Clemens Fiedler. But increasingly, LEGO has approved wholly original designs, such as 21310 Old Fishing Store. LEGO has continued to diversify the products that it sources and launches via its LEGO Ideas platform, which for many years has been perceived as focusing on licensed themes like Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, Voltron, and so on.
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