Sven F

REVIEW: 40123 Painting Easter Eggs

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  1. 1. How do you rate this set?

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INTRODUCTION

Ever since January 2015, the mini seasonal sets started to appear in a new format that would appeal to a wider audience. They represent a piece of life in the appropriate season, built on a tiny 8x8 vignette. Usually these sets include some interesting parts or rare colors and are jam-packed with cool accessories. This added detail makes them especially attractive to "afol's", "moc" builders and collectors while the older style sets seemed to mostly rely on novelty value and targeted children and the common buyer. So far, they've proven extremely popular.

Painting Easter Eggs comes after the Valentines set, and will be followed by Halloween and Thanksgiving accordingly.

TECHNICAL:

Set Name: Painting Easter Eggs
Set Number: 40121
Number of Pieces: 153
Theme: Seasonal
Availability: LEGO Exclusive / retail
Year Released: 2015
Price: $ 9.99 / € 9.99
Stickers: 0
New elements: 0
Exclusive minifigures: 0

Brickset entry

Bricklink Inventory

The set consists of 153 pieces, two minifigures and one animal. Most of the pieces are very small so it's advised to build in a controlled environment, (leave your cat in the other room)

The box is the smallest available LEGO box after polybags. There is usually a short and simple story printed on the back, in this case the kid dropped one of the eggs on the floor while his mom observes unamused.

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PARTS SELECTION:

The obvious stand out is the white chicken, but there's also a number of cool accessories included; you get a paint brush (plus one extra), a painters palette, a black pot, one green bottle, some cookie tiles and the common mug in red.

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These vignettes have a habit of including 1x2 bricks in rare and interesting colors, you get 7 masonry 1x2's in dark red and two in dark tan. The 1x1 transparent brick is also infrequent and you get 3 of them, 1 of which is hidden in the build. I believe the bricks representing white eggs were previously seen in Bionicle used for eyeballs, but are pretty cool as eggs, although in Europe our eggs are closer to tan than white. Did I mention the awesome chicken?

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MINIFIGURES:

Two mini figures are included, a child and what is presumably his mother, or sister or whatever you like. We have seen her torso before in many creator and city sets. I am personally not a fan of the blue blouse, but the kid's torso print makes up for it. The cosmonaut t-shirt is fairly uncommon and popular.

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Both characters have double faces which adds to interactive play features.

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BUILD:

Building is straightforward, The instructions start with the tiny additional plate of grass with the chicken's nest, I guess the chicken isn't allowed in the kitchen.

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The kitchen is built entirely on a 8x8 base and has a neat tiled floor in a checkered pattern which gives it a great finished look.

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The appliances and sink are in very lively colors and the dark red masonry forms the outside wall.

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The cookies are in the oven, the egg is boiling, almost ready for Easter. The espresso machine, transparent oven door and lively green colors give the kitchen a modern-day look, but still very cosy and cute.

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Almost done, The top shelf is up, the clock is ticking we need to start painting those eggs. There are four different colors of 1x1 round bricks included which represent paint cans. I think it would have been cool to have one or two of those egg pieces in a new color to represent an already painted egg, but the white's are more versatile if you want to use them to stock up a grocery or something, so I am not complaining.

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And the kitchen is done. I tried to copy the setting that was depicted on the box with the kid smashing one egg on the floor. That smashed egg is a nice piece to use on a plate too.

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The back view is not lacking in detail, The great color combination and texture of the outside facade could easily work as is, even in it's flat form. The light bright orange window curtains are a nice touch... uh oh, what's that kid up to?

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Given the size of the set, you get a lot of pieces left over, this is off course due to a lot of small 1x1 pieces. Nice to get an extra paintbrush and cookie.

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CONCLUSION:

I consider myself fairly critical, but there is simply nothing to critique about this set. LEGO always put special effort into staying neutral in regards to race and religion, so depicting Easter may be a slight bend in those principles, but that could be said of almost any seasonal set.

It's amazing how much value can be fitted into a tiny box, this set excels at "playability", "collectability" and parts selection, something that is generally hard not to compromise at this scale. I can picture anyone buying this, from an office clerk as his desk ornament to a little kid who wants to interact with the characters. It just has a hugely wide appeal which is probably why they sell out so quickly.

If you collected some of the older Creator houses that came with sparse or no interior furnishings, and you are short on "moc-ing" ideas, these seasonal sets could serve as greatly detailed packs to fill the void.

Overall Design: 10/10 - There is nothing I can think of, that could have been designed better, nothing falls off nor is clumsy to handle.

Parts selection: 10/10 - This set must have skipped the optimization process as no element is spared or recycled. + you get a chicken!

Play features: 7/10 - While the set provides sufficient scene for play and plenty accessories, there are no specially added play functions out of the obvious.

Challenging build: 6/10 - The build is simple and easy, but far from boring or repetitive.

Minifigures: 6/10 - Minifigures are not what makes this set, but from all the generic prints we could get, one of them has the best of the bunch.

Price: n/a - I am sorry, but i don't like to comment on price as this varies between countries and individual expectations, but compared to sets of similar size and piece count, sans licence, I consider it good value.

Overall: 9/1

Edited by Sven F

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2 hours ago, Fox Womb said:

9/1? Dope.

Definitely. :laugh:

18 hours ago, Sven F said:

I consider myself fairly critical, but there is simply nothing to critique about this set. LEGO always put special effort into staying neutral in regards to race and religion, so depicting Easter may be a slight bend in those principles, but that could be said of almost any seasonal set.

Well since Easter eggs have nothing to do whatsoever with the true Christian meaning of Easter I guess they didn't have a problem with this.

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Nice review and lovely set! I hope to get my hands on it one day, I managed to get Thanksgiving Dinner, Santa's Visit and Winter fun from the same series, and i love those vignettes :wub:

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