Cheap Blue Sea – LEGO Creator, Dolphin and Turtle (31128)

As you know, I love underwater life. Not all forms of it, but I sure could get lost for hours just observing whales, sharks, octopuses, reef fish and so on. That’s why my recent excursion to the SeaLife & AquaDome in Berlin with a buddy of mine felt too short. You know, you almost wish that elevator inside the cylinder basin would get stuck so you can just watch the fish swimming around you for longer than those eight minutes just as I would spend more time inside the exhibition without someone hurrying me. Anyway, this little trip reminded me that I still had my photos from the LEGO Dolphin and Turtle (31128) set, that somehow slipped off my radar and I never published an article, so it’s now time to do just that slightly belated.

Contents and Pricing

Regrettably, in recent years the pricing for Creator 3in1 sets has been all over the place with some seriously overpriced sets damaging the trust in the once very affordable staple of LEGO‘s product series, so I’m all the more happy to report that this one is a very affordable affair.

At 137 pieces its suggested retail price is 10 Euro, which is pretty reasonable. However, anyone is right who would point out that it really doesn’t look like there is actually so much stuff in there because the “hero” models of the dolphin and turtle look tiny. Another caveat on all of the three out-of-the-box models is that a good number of elements are only used for the base and its decorative adornments, thus not contributing to the volume of the creatures.

This can be slightly offset by discounts which bring the cost down to around 7 Euro in many online shops and physical retail outlets. During some crazy promotion shortly after I had already purchased mine, one vendor even fired out the sets for 5 Euro only, which would make this a total no-brainer. That is to say buying this set in triple to build all models at once would be reasonably doable, with or without those discounts.

The Dolphin and the Turtle

The primary build is of course the dolphin and the turtle as advertised on the box art. The reason I opted to present everything separately is not just visual clarity, but also the fact that mounting the creatures on the stand doesn’t really work that well and looks odd in terms of scale. The panels would need to be much higher, but even then the limbs of the animals get in the way of each other. That and of course if you were to assume that based on the size of the eyes relative to the body this would be a baby sea turtle, the size of the dolphin would be unrealistic and implausible. Even newborn dolphins are much larger already. Therefore your best option is probably to indeed keep them apart to not give people ideas…

The base is constructed from a bunch of round quarter plates in Tan, which at least is a useful generic color. I guess nobody would have been surprised had they gone with some crazy color like Coral. I have a feeling that Medium Blue would have been an interesting color, though. It would have looked like some distant sand bank whose color has been shifted by the light being filtered through the water and floating particles. The details on top feel a bit sparse and don’t really convey the idea of underwater vegetation or even a coral reef. It would have taken much more pieces to make this more lively.

The turtle immediately reminded me of the polybag set 30476 from 2017 that used a few similar techniques and was about the same size, even though it represented an adult specimen. Inevitably just like this version it suffered from the ball joints not having been recolored. At this size there’s simply no good way to disguise the grey elements and it limits how good everything looks. Mind you, it’s not that terrible here as in particular the gaps between different groups of pieces are small, but I still wish LEGO had gotten over themselves and colored the items in question in Sand Green or similar.

The dolphin shares the same issue with the color of the joints, but some effort has been made to at least bury the central one with in the body. At the same time, though, I feel that these connections are redundant, anyway. The body is too short and with so few segments there’s no good way of creating some dynamic and dramatic poses. Or in other words: As far as I’m concerned, this could be as solid and stiff as a bathtub toy for kids. Of course you could improve the design, but that would require more parts to create more segments, different wedges and slopes for more slender, elegant shaping and so on. At the end you’d probably end up with something completely different that barely bears any relation to the version from this set.

The Fish

I have to admit that the first alternate model, the fish, is actually my favorite from this set. It’s one of the few I actually kept around and it’s sitting on the shelf next to me looking cute, joined by the turtle from the first build. The fish itself is just some non-descript generic variant that could stand in for whatever is your favorite. From something as mundane as a Sea Bream to your most-liked variety of Scalpel Fish any interpretation is valid. Of course things would be even better if this actually used bright colors like real reef fish. Imagine how stunning this could look using Yellow, Blue, Orange or Coral contrasted with some Dark Bluish Grey or Black.

Because it happened to come out around the same time as this set, I got myself a couple of the Tropical Parrot (30581) Creator 3in1 polybags as well to compare the fish in there with the one from this one. The little red fish is notably more crude and simplified, but does not look at all that bad next to its bigger brother. In addition, the smaller offering comes with some actual leaf elements and a few wedge slopes, the latter of which even perfectly matching in their Lime Green color, which could be used to enhance the larger fish or the scenery around it.

Since we’re already here, here’s also a look at this bag’s main hero, the parrot. It was released pretty widely, including some cardboard promo boxes in regular grocery stores, so it should be easy to find and even be obtainable for 2.50 Euro or less sometimes. Another of those little gems that you should not miss out on.

Back to the main subject of this review, there’s a good amount of leftover pieces that aren’t used. Not too dramatic in absolute terms, but in relation to the size of the set still notable.

The Seahorse

The third model is a little seahorse and next to it its companion sea slug/ snail. The upper body half of the little vertical swimmer is reasonably proportionate, but the tail is way, way too short. This is one of those situations where throwing in ten more pieces or so could have made a huge difference even if the tail was presented coiled up. Also, since these little critters are latched on to a grass blade, plant stem or even just a piece of material floating in the water it would have been nice if there had been some elements to mimic that.

The number of leftovers is rather moderate, though following through with some plant-like structure for the little guy to cling on could have reduced it even further by e.g. using the yellow blossoms on a coral twig and hiding the crab underneath.

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Concluding Thoughts

While it doesn’t get me quite as excited as the Fantasy Forest Creatures (31125), this is still an excellent little set. That is, if you remove the somewhat nonsensical forced combinations of elements and the resulting scale issues from the equation. More or less the animals should be viewed and treated as separate entities and treated this way while you dispense with the rest. The uninspired presentation is really the biggest issue and it may be worthwhile to invest some time in building pimped bases if you feel so inclined.

Otherwise it’s a very enjoyable experience. The builds don’t take too long and aren’t in any way convoluted, yet still look good, which makes this a good option for kids. The finished models are also reasonably robust for play within their design restrictions, so your little tyke swooshing around the dolphin, turtle or fish is perfectly possible. I’d definitely recommend this package. Even if you don’t have a particular interest in underwater creatures, it is relaxing fun and the set is very affordable.

Explorer-ing… The Deep (again) – LEGO Explorer Magazine, June 2022

The wait for the latest LEGO Explorer felt extremely long and the last week I wasn’t even sure if I hadn’t missed the date and it would come out at all. But here it finally is the June 2022 issue, so let’s have a look at it.

This edition once again focuses on exploring the depths of the oceans, which is a bit of a repeat already, since one of the first issues already had this as a subject. Not terrible, since this is a broad topic that could fill volumes and volumes of books and in turn have me nerd out about it, but regardless it illustrates to me how the publishers are just meandering about with no real long-term concept. Similar to the issue from way back then we get a rather random selection of deep sea animals like octopuses, starfish and various fish species.

There’s a dedicated section on coral reefs, but that, too, in and of itself kind of reiterates my point: They could have done a whole mag about just that. I’m sure kids would have fun learning about different coral types and getting a buildable sea anemone as an extra…

As written in the previews reviews, I have no issues with the comic’s graphical style, it just lacks in substance and feels out of place. That also goes for the various puzzles, quizzes, coloring page and other activities, which feel too much like filler where more interesting editorial pages could have been instead.

The poster is more or less just a shameless advertisement for the expensive Ocean Exploration Ship (60266) set, which isn’t even available anymore. This feels like just another pointless exercise by the editors “just because they can” and doesn’t even make sense as a marketing gag.

The extra is a small submarine. Well, at least that’s what it’s supposed to be, but it mostly looks like a barrel. Of course the biggest issue is using a flat dish instead of a proper bubble canopy, but if you still have it floating around, you could try the one from the alien UFO a few issues ago at least or another 4 x 4 dome piece from your collection. It would also have been wonderful if the mid section would have been built from two of these cylinder pieces instead of just a turntable brick. It would have extended the length and made it look less stubby. Then again, though, I guess LEGO producing pieces in a new color just for a magazine freebie is too much to hope for…

Unfortunately this is just another rather mediocre issue and things just aren’t looking well for this magazine. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the year they announce the cancellation of the whole shebang due to insufficient sales. Cause and effect, you know…

Magnetic Dive – LEGO City Magazine, August 2021

It has become standard practice for the LEGO City magazines to go for a dive in the summer-ish editions and this year is not an exception. Yes, pretty much exactly after one year we are getting another underwater-centric issue featuring a diver.

The overall repetitive nature of the subject matter notwithstanding, the story of the comic is okay, though again perhaps a bit too wacky and overstuffed for its own good. I find it hard to imagine how kids are supposed to keep the story straight. You’re on a sunny beach one moment, then suddenly underwater and then there is a weird twist with a big horseshoe magnet. not my kettle of fish, no pun intended.

On the bright side, the oceanic scenes look great and I’m really waiting for someone at Blue Ocean and LEGO to see the light and use those for a poster one day.

Speaking of which… The posters are acceptable and in fact the one on the reverse page is probably even better than the one shown here. Outside that there’s not much to do bar the usual super simplistic puzzles and some promotional pages on sets and some minifigures’ “history”, but I guess you’re not buying this mag for intellectual content.

The diver is interesting in that it appears to be a completely new figure so far not yet contained in any set. Its design is similar to the older Deep Sea Explorer series, but with some notable differences, so I don’t quite know what to make of it. It would be funny if LEGO put out a figure before it was ever properly introduced in a full set. The rest isn’t really worth mentioning. It would have been much cooler if instead of the old and overused big crab they had included the hermit crab from last year’s collectible minifigure series at least.

As far as “summer editions” go, this one is okay, but of course nowhere near as impressive as the one with shark last year. On a general note it seems they should mix up the formula a bit. Clearly there’s enough summer and outdoor activities they can borrow from and from having a guy sunbathing at the beach to the highly desirable swimming innertube to an ice stand there would be so much to choose from. There’s even a good chance people would be perfectly content with the printed “can” or the wheelchair skater from the Skate Park (60290). You know, just something different at all…

Yellow Deep Dive – LEGO City, Ocean Exploration Submarine (60264)

From what it looks like, this is going to be the last day of the heat wave that has been making my life miserable those last three weeks, so it’s time to sit down and finally write this little review for the LEGO City Ocean Exploration Submarine (60264).

This is one of those “Maybe/ perhaps/ possibly some day” sets, that had me pondering a purchasing decision back and forth for quite a while. The reason is of course that that are some interesting things in this set, but I’ve never been greatly into City to begin with and, let me spell that out right away, the set overall looks somewhat bland despite being actually reasonably filled with stuff.

A major contributing factor for my hesitance was the price. We all know that LEGO has this weird piece count x 10 Cent logic and I can acknowledge that there are a few large pieces in here that may cost a tiny bit more to produce, but overall 30 Euro just didn’t feel right. It’s too mundane and ordinary to make me go “I’m going to accept a small surcharge for the coolness factor.”. So ultimately I once more waited for the price to drop below that magic 20 Euro threshold and only then jumped on to it.

The minifigures aren’t much to write home about. For a play-centric series like City they are okay, but have very little collector’s value. It’s not that they’re bad, just not in any way outstanding. The Sand Blue and Dark Red combo for the regular guys is pretty common and even the divers literally feel like what they appear – astronauts that took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up underwater. As they say, this is neither here nor there, as for a genuine diving expedition at the depths presented here they would have to be hard shell pressurized suits, not those semi-dry industrial diving suits.

Moving on, the reason for this becomes easily apparent: The species of Angler Fish depicted in this set typically live way beyond the 200 meter deep ranges any mainstream diving suit would withstand, hence you likely wouldn’t encounter them on a normal expedition, let alone a casual scuba dive. So basically the set gets this aspect completely wrong.

The fish itself is of course one of the main attractions of the set. I was surprised how large it actually is – almost the height of a minifigure. The overall proportions and anatomy are recognizable, but the lantern whip is kind of in the wrong place. It should be above the mouth/ on the forehead and point backward.

As much as I wanted the fish, I always had serious doubts about the coloration and those weren’t alleviated now that I have the set. I do get why they opted for a “glow in the dark” effect along with the Lime Green, but ultimately the result is to limited to really warrant that choice. Therefore it seems more conventional colors would have been better. Since this is dual molded, it may not have been possible to make it fully transparent (Trans Black) like many of the real deep sea fish are without exposing the mold edges, but I could have totally gone for Dark Bluish Grey with Trans Neon Orange or Trans Neon Green teeth, fins and eyes.

The cove/ cave/ grotto or whatever may be the correct term is just a run-off-the mill small rock build with nothing specific to it. It looks nice enough, but clearly could have benefited from some more love. Most disappointingly it would and should have been easy to include a pack of the mini fish and creatures introduced for the animal rescue Friends sets one year ago. This would have enlivened the whole scene, small as it may be and having this pack of extra in another color would just have been cool.

Another shortcoming that tickles the engineering half of my brain in all the wrong ways is the flimsy mechanism meant to pull the fish back and forth. It’s not so much that it exists at all, but seriously, just locking in the transparent liftarm with only a single plate? It just wobbles around and is more or less useless. If you hand this to your kids, I would recommend you just leave it off and let them hold the fish directly.

The bulk of the set, not in terms of the number of pieces, but overall volume, goes into the exploration submarine. The build captures the typical overall structure and appearance of these vehicles quite nicely – ballast tanks that could also double as skids to sit on the ocean floor, the actual pressure cell, the large float/ stabilization tank(s) on the top (filled with fluids so they don’t collapse under the exterior pressure), the omnidirectional propellers, the robotic manipulator arms, the large bubble window. They even included a small underwater sled for the drivers to hold on to. It’s just that it looks all way too perfect and smooth.

Ultimately that is the biggest failing of this set: everything looks so pristine like it has never actually been used. Now of course this is a play set for kids and considerations for simplicity, stability, ease of assembly and so on may take precedence, but it honestly shouldn’t have been too difficult to integrate some greebly stuff.

Those vehicles get repaired all the time and modified on the spot to optimize them for a given task, so they show some wear, have extra rails and ropes bolted on, may carry additional exterior air supplies, lighting rigs or specialized sensor buoys. There’s just so much they could have added. Even something simple like replacing one of the Yellow window frames with a Dark Orange one to indicate a replaced segment that simply wasn’t painted yet along with boarding up the window with an opaque insert might have added just that bit of interest and still would be perfectly safe.

The lack of details unfortunately also extends to the interior. The cockpit doesn’t even have a single printed panel, only the secondary radar operator has something to show for. Again, this is another case of where it would have been easy to add a few SNOT bricks or brackets and plug on some printed tiles at least.

On a more positive note, this set has one good thing going for it: It brings back the Yellow 1 x 6 x 2 arch, which until not so long ago was quite rare. I mentioned this in the review for the Winter Village Station (10259). So if you were ever keen on building just the yellow bus or for that matter a school bus or here in Germany an old-fashioned postal truck this set would be a good basis, even more so since it also includes the two large hood pieces and also two of the roof wedge pieces.

As should have become clear, I’m far from in love with this set. It is okay as a play set for your kids and I certainly got my value out of it from the parts, but at the end of the day this is a very sub-par set. The irony here is that it would be just fine if LEGO had concocted this as a 20 Euro set of their own, but it is unworthy of a NatGEO collaboration. It literally reeks of those cheap licensing deals where nobody cares beyond just slapping on the logo. Simply disappointing.