Review: 11510 Magnolia
Posted by Huw,
The botanical collection continues to surprise, delight, and innovate and that's particularly true of 11510 Magnolia Branches which is the first to include dual-colour moulded parts that have been produced specially for the set.
Summary
11510 Magnolia Branches, 435 pieces.
£44.99 / $49.99 / €49.99 | 10.3p / 11.5c / 11.5c per piece.
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Realistic and life-sized: like all good botanicals it could pass for the real thing from a distance
- Dual-colour petals raise the bar
- Weight and asymmetrical design of the branches makes them difficult to arrange in a vase
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Notable parts
The 5x6 leaf was introduced last year and has since become a staple of botanical sets. For this set it's been dual-moulded in white and bright purple, and it looks beautiful. There are 36 of them and as you can see, and would expect, there is some variation in the pattern which makes each one unique. I suspect the same is true of real magnolia petals.
This piece, inexplicably called beam 1x5 with cross hole, was also introduced last year but remains rare. An axle can pass all the way through and in this set it's used for thickening the stems which, as usual, are 32l axles.
It's new here in brown, as are most of the other Technic connector pieces in the set.
The completed model
The 'bouquet' comprises five branches with six fully-open flowers, and a number of buds at different stages of growth.
The fully-open heads are constructed using the same method as the orange tulips in 11501 Tulip Bouquet, with the petals clipped to two of the new 'tripod' pieces.
Two of the five branches have two flowers and a couple of emerging buds. Note the brown frogs used to represent gnarly bits on the bark.
Two of them have one flower, a larger bud, and three smaller ones.
The fifth branch comprises two large buds and two smaller ones at the end.
Verdict
This is an attractive and life-like botanical that pushes the boundaries with its dual-colour petals and raises the bar for future releases.
It can be tricky to arrange them in a vase, especially in a 3D printed one that weighs next to nothing. The flowers are quite heavy, so the branches tend to rotate due to gravity. It helps that the vase I printed is ribbed, so the indentations around the rim help stop the branches from moving about too much, but I had to be careful to balance the weight of them to stop it toppling over. Filling it with rice or something would have helped.
At $49.99, £44.99, €49.99 it's not particularly cheap, but I don't think the theme's many aficionados will mind paying that.
Vase designed in Maker Lab Make My Vase and printed in vase mode using Bambu Lab cherry pink transparent PLA filament.
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11 comments on this article
I think I’m more excited for the sunflowers honestly. Great that TLG is doing larger marbled parts again!
This seems really small for $50, even for the Botanical line.
Honestly, if this had a brick-built pot or vase, I would get it in an instant. The flowers themselves, when I first saw the picture, did not realize they were Lego, that’s how good they look. But without something that they’re ‘growing’ in, I can’t justify the cost
Beautiful final build, but the price feels bad.
Overall they look neat. I will definitely have to wait for a sale though.
The marbling looks good and adds a lot of life to the build. A neighbor has some magnolia trees and it is neat to see it bloom every year.
Certainly a more wholesome use of brown frogs than we normally get
As a collector of Botanical sets, I can confirm - Price Per Piece hardly factors into buying decisions.
I love the look of these, can't wait to get them.
Disappointingly this doesn't include a Tom Cruise minifig and a sound brick with his infamous monologue....
Put some rice in the vase and you can arrange botanicals much more easily.
Maybe next time use a brick-built vase instead of a 3D printed one, @Huw...? ;-)