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31137 Creator 3-in-1 Adorable Dogs Review

By Rakesh Gosai (SAFOLs Brick Deputy)

I recently got my hands on the LEGO® Creator 3-in-1 Adorable Dogs (31137) set, and let me tell you, it’s pretty paw-some! As someone who has a pet dog AND loves animals, this set caught my eye with its cute doggy designs and fun extras. Plus, you never know what cool building tricks or pieces you might discover along the way, right?

What’s Inside and How Much?

This set comes with 475 pieces and is priced between R385.00 and R499.00. Not bad at all considering the bang for your buck! It’s always nice when you feel like you’re getting more than what you paid for.

The Fun Stuff

Now, let’s dive into the good stuff. This set lets you build not just the adorable pups but also doggy essentials like a food bowl, chew toys, and even a magic leash. That’s pretty cool, right? Plus, there are some unique pieces thrown in, like a Black elastic wire that’s usually hard to come by.

The Doggy Crew

When it comes to the pups, you’ve got quite the lineup – from a Labrador Golden Retriever to a Beagle, a Poodle, and more. While the building process can get a bit same-old, same-old, it’s a neat way to learn the ropes and get creative with customizations. The dogs turn out cute, but maybe a bit more puppy-like than full-grown doggo vibes.

The Final Bark

In a nutshell, this set is a hit or miss depending on your love for dogs. Kids are sure to have a blast with the simple builds and cute designs. But if dogs aren’t your thing, it might not fetch your interest as much. Despite some repetitiveness, the set offers a good mix of fun and educational value, making it a solid choice for dog enthusiasts and LEGO® lovers alike.

So, if you’re looking to add a touch of puppy love to your LEGO® collection, the Creator 3-in1 Adorable Dogs (31137) set could be just the tail-wagging addition you need!

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41757 Friends Botanical Garden Review

Review by Anne-Marie Wolfaardt (SAFOLs Members, CapeLUG Members)

This is one of the most beautiful LEGO® sets I have ever built. The LEGO® Friends Botanical Garden set is elegant and can be used in any LEGO® City. I loved building it.

The set has 1072 pieces and 3 LEGO® Friends Mini-dolls.

Recommended age for the set is 12+, which means it caters for more advanced builders so ensure you some advance building skills.

The box already shows some of the fauna and flora that will be created in the set and their botanical names. Inside the box is the instruction booklet, six bags and a small sticker sheet.

The three LEGO® Friends characters are:

  • Liann, the artistic skater, comes with a sketchbook and pen.
  • Adi’s apron shows she works at the botanical garden.
  • Niko, their friend from high school, has a camera and selfie stick, although I am not sure how he can take pictures with the selfie stick if his phone is in a messaging app 😊

I love the coral and yellow colours used on the Liann’s and Adi’s tops.

On page 2 and 3 of the instruction manual you get a guide to some of the fauna and flora used in the build.

Bag 1 builds 2 mini-dolls, a picnic blanket with accessories and the pond.

  • Building the pond was very interesting.  The design use to build the pond can be used when making MILS system, and I will surely use this technique in future builds. There are 2 koi fish printed 1×2 tiles and a bright green frog that you can see through the light blue tiles of the pond.  The pond is rounded off with some tan tiles and is decorated with ducks and lily pads that makes the pond very colourful.

Bag 2 builds the last mini-doll, waterfall, and the start of the building.

  • The waterfall is beautiful, and the design is very simple but so effective.  Inside this part of the building are the succulents and cacti.  You also build a seating area that will surround a tree, later in the built. 

Bag 3 continues with the opposite side of the building. 

  • On this side we have all the other exotic plants that makes the botanical garden beautiful. The creative use of parts to make the plants is amazing.  The Bird of Paradise uses a spiky orange headpiece, the nepenthes use bright green saxophone, and the rafflesia uses red spiky shoulder pads.

Bag 4 continues with the building and adds some more plants that hang in the air. 

  • We also build a dome over the plants, and it looks so fantastic.  In my opinion, I think they missed a 1×4 white tile to finish off where the dome is connected.

Bag 5 starts with the finishing touches of the first floor of the building as well as the water fountain on the roof.

Bag 6 has all the trees that are added to the building. 

  • The trees are so beautiful and just gives the botanical gardens that finishing touches that makes for a great build. The park bench by the entrance where visitors can sit is unique because of the use of the open mouth black snakes for the framework.

The dome is a very eye-catching fixture. I enjoyed building the structure that suspends the 4 butterflies that is attached to the dome.

The 2 trees that finish off the building shows the creative use of LEGO® pieces. The plumeria tree is surrounded by a seating area that makes the Botanical Garden look so inviting and tranquil.  The plum blossom tree just adds that extra dash of colour to the pond.

The only thing I would change in the set is to swap the succulents/cacti and the bonsai tree. The succulents and cacti grow in a dry and hot environment and near the waterfall is not good placement, placing the bonsai tree next to the waterfall will give it a cool environment and protect it inside the building. 

I highly recommend this set; it is fun to build and will be a great addition to any LEGO® City. The set looks sophisticated and grown up.  This is a must have for all the LEGO® Friends lovers.

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10297 LEGO® Boutique Hotel Review

By Rakesh Gosai (SAFOLs Brick Deputy)

One of the most anticipated LEGO® sets for me released this year, the LEGO® Boutique Hotel 10297. This is the 17th LEGO® Modular building that LEGO® has made. The LEGO® Boutique Hotel was designed to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of this well-loved Creator Expert Theme.

The set consists of 3066 pieces and is already available from your favourite LEGO® store in South Africa. Get your bags packed and get checked in to this beautiful rendition of this hotel!

This hotel is unlike anything LEGO® has done on a Modular Building and its fitting for the 15th Anniversary set to be something special. The instruction manual has a fitting introduction to the Boutique Hotel and the Modular Building theme. The designer is Anderson Ward Grubb, and he has cleverly hidden references to the previous Modular Buildings. I enjoyed that because it helped me appreciate the current and previous renditions in this series.

The amount of minifigures in this set is 7, which is above the average amount of minifigures that were included previously. More minifigures just increase the playability of this set.

The minifigures are:

  1. An accountant
  2. A backpacker
  3. An older lady
  4. The art gallery curator
  5. A barista
  6. A male bellhop
  7. A female bellhop

Included with the above minifigures are two mini builds i.e. A coffee cart and a luggage trolley.

The build is an amazing experience and continuously engages you as you build the various sections. The variety in the build kept me engaged with the furniture on the inside, the variety of colours used in this set, the staircases, and the beautiful architectural details on the exterior of the hotel. Each bag feels like you are building something different.

Sand Green is a favourite colour of mines, this is used at the top section of the hotel. I enjoyed the clever use of the black snakes on the roof, keep an eye out for that! One of the stand-out features of the build is the way the building is angled and gives the set a unique feel.

Keep an eye out for the beautifully designed staircases in this build, there are many as this set is three stories high. The art gallery is an amazing addition, it does feel very small, but the details squeezed into this section are really fun. The painting inside looks like a character from the theme called “Galidor”, an unknown theme to me. Included in the gallery is a LEGO® sculpture, I have not seen this featured in any other sets.

The palm tree at the outside bar is another amazing detail, something new and bright unlike the ones I am used to seeing in older sets. The staircase at the rooftop bar has a notice board which has plenty of references to the previous modular buildings, a very clever way to include this in such a small board.

The hotel itself features two rooms, one large suite and a smaller room. My daughter always asks me where the toilets are in these sets, and this set has only one in the large suite! Poor minifigures that use the smaller room! In the large suite, a nice feature was the chocolate on the bed and bottle of wine. This suite has a black and white television with an actress from The Palace Cinema.

The Boutique Hotel makes is an amazing build with beautiful colours and beautiful design. From start to finish, I was engaged. Once the build is completed, you can’t help but admire it from all angles. This was a perfect set for me and rated 10/10!

31205 Jim Lee Batman™ Collection Review

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Reviewed by Gary James (SAFOLs Member)

The Jim Lee Batman collection Lego Art set was release in March 2022. The set consists of 4167 pieces, the bulk of which is made up of the coloured 1×1 round tiles. That being said, as with all Lego Art sets, not all of these will be used. The set allows the builder to choose one of three portraits: Batman, Joker or Harley-Quinn. The artwork itself is based off the drawings of legendary DC artist and current publisher and Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee, coloured by Alex Sinclair.

The set consists of the default 9 16×16 black panels that are assembled into a 3×3 grid and locked into place by a border made of black bricks and making your final portrait 40cmx40cm. The image is created by using 16 different coloured 1×1 round tiles. The set also comes with a large black brick separator for removing multiple tiles at a time and a smaller separator for removing specific tiles for those inevitable moments when you mix up your colours and place a piece in the wrong location.

The instruction manual does a good job of breaking down what could be a very intimidating, complex build into small manageable steps. You start with building the all-important colour key that assigns each of the 16 colours a number. A good idea is to decant the different colours into their own container and arrange them in numeric order to minimise your time searching for the correct colour.

Next you need to decide which of the 3 portraits you want to build and find the appropriate starting point in the instruction manual and start building. The build itself is very much like painting by numbers and can be very monotonous at times. This is not necessarily a bad thing as sometimes after a long day you just want to relax, building some LEGO® that does not need a lot of concentration. The experience is added to by downloading and listening to the unique soundtrack for this LEGO® Art set, which is an interview featuring both LEGO® designers and DC artists, the link for which can be found in the instruction manual.

I loved watching the image develop as you add each completed tile to form a row, and then adding each row to form the completed image. Of the three picture options from the single set my favourite is The Batman™, that is in no way influenced by me being a huge Batman™ fan 😉

In addition to the three options out of the box, there are two further image options available. Using two sets you can build an image of Batman™ and Catwoman with the Gotham City skyline in the background. Combining three sets you can build a large profile image of The Batman™

On the downside, due to the number of pieces and possibly the IP involved these sets are not cheap and go for round R2000 each. This means that to build all 5 possible images at once you would have to purchase 8 of these sets; 1 each for the default options, 2 for the Batman™/Catwoman portrait and a further 3 for the large Batman™ portrait, and since you will never use all the pieces for any particular image it does mean that you will end up with a huge excess of coloured tiles. This however is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you fancy yourself a little creative. There is plenty of software on the internet that will produce a pixilated version of any image, giving you the opportunity to make your own art piece with the left-over pieces.

Overall, I am a fan of the LEGO® Art series having collected the previous Star Wars Art sets, but the Jim Lee Batman™ collection is definitely my favourite. With a build time of 2.5 to 4 hours per image, depending on how quickly you can find and place tiles. I find building these sets very relaxing and is a great way to spend the evening and when you are finished you have a new piece of art to hang on your wall.