Review: 71006 The Simpsons House, part 5
Posted by Huw,
In today's part of the review, again written with much help from CapnRex101, we add bags #5 and #6 to the house, which completes the front upstairs section of it -- two bedrooms and the bathroom -- and the front of the roof. Also included in the bags is the penultimate minifig: baby Maggie Simpson.
Maggie has a new one-piece body which is one plate shorter than a normal minifig torso when attached to short legs. The flared bottom of it prevents the arms from being rotated fully. This is the first appearance of a baby in LEGO, although it is rather large to allow a suitable level of detail to be captured. As you can see, Maggie's bow is printed on her hair, along with the famous pacifier which always accompanies this character.
It has some sort of 'tail' at the back, presumably trailing flaps of nightdress. The spikes of her hair look great in my opinion, and there are the correct number I believe.
The top front of the house is built directly onto the bottom, and once construction of bags #5 is completed, this is what it looks like:
As part of this stage of construction, you build the first half of Lisa's bedroom, in which one finds a bed, two bedside cabinets and some shelves. On these shelves are some books (actually just stacked 1x2 plates), a magnifying glass, which is similar to the one which has been around for many years, but is a slightly updated mould, and what looks like a hat box, although I cannot see such a thing in her room on the show.
In Homer and Marge's bedroom is a king size bed, two more bedside cabinets and Maggie's cot. The wall has some medium nougat patches on it due to the construction of the chimney. This is a bit of a shame, but it can be overlooked and is not much of an issue really.
Maggie's cot is found in her own room in the show, but in this model it has been placed in Homer and Marge's bedroom. Again, this is not consistent with the show, but I do not consider this much of a problem as a true recreation of the house would be too large and expensive to be profitable (or affordable). Maggie cannot lay down in the cot, but is able to stand in it.
The bathroom is full of great details: toilet with cistern, toilet roll (a vehicle door!), sink unit with shelves and shower which is completed with parts from bag 6 so is shown further down.
Here's a view from the top:
The front of the house. The windows seem a bit narrow, although they are accurate to the show. One design flaw that's apparent in this picture is that the bed headboards obscure the windows.
The contents of bags #6 complete construction of the top front of the house. Note the 'Jazz Fest' poster on Lisa's wall and the air conditioner which Homer has 'borrowed' from Flanders!
Here's the completed shower in the bathroom, complete with shower head, screen and hot and cold taps on the wall.
Completed front of section, without roof.
The roof is constructed, and held in place, in the same way as the garage roof. Constructing it is actually quite tricky, not because of complex building techniques, but because the instructions are very dark and it's hard to see what's been placed where. LEGO has recognised this as an issue and has outlined parts as they are added in yellow, but it's still not totally clear.
You can see the television aerial on the roof here which is placed accurately on the left hand side as we look at it from the front. It does not stand quite straight due to the angle of the roof, although given the traumas that this has gone through in the TV show, this is believable.
Rear view.
This first section of the upstairs is excellent. Many of the main features have been captured effectively, and the few inaccuracies are not a huge issue in my opinion given the limitations of size and price.
Tomorrow we'll complete the model and draw our conclusions on it including whether or not we think it's worth £179.99/$199.99...
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19 comments on this article
Just got this set Friday and I love it!
Just finished building mine- absolutely love it!
Good review. Only one error that I find problematic: you refer to the chimney color as it shows through into Marge and Homer's room as Dark Tan, which could cause confusion. Dark Tan is the typical term used by AFOLs for an entirely different color, Sand Yellow, which is basically just a darker version of Brick Yellow (the tan color used for the walls of the house). The chimney is Medium Nougat, which is considerably brighter and more reddish than Dark Tan/Sand Yellow.
And while I didn't build this set myself, I know what you mean about the colors maybe being a bit perplexing. In my opinion, Reddish Brown has always been darker in instruction booklets than it should be, and it's made even worse by the color distortion of most online PDF instructions. Dark Brown is even worse. Up until a couple years ago, it actually looked darker than black in most instruction booklets! Thankfully, that was corrected a couple years ago — black parts in instruction booklets are now incredibly dark, with white outlines instead of black ones to maintain clarity.
I'm not 100% pleased with the Maggie minifigure. For a figure with a molded head, obviously a solution like this was essential, but I think that for regular System sets a microfig would be more appropriate for an infant. That way, it is more than small enough to fit in a crib or stroller, or to be held or carried on the back of an adult minifigure. Of course, back before the microfig was introduced, my brother and I were trying to make models and minifigures based on A Series of Unfortunate Events, and our Sunny Baudelaire concept was pretty much exactly the same size as Maggie here. Overall, Maggie seems more appropriate in size for a toddler than an infant, but I suppose that to maintain the figure's articulation and detail, this was the most appropriate solution for this set.
NPU on the toilet paper, although it is facing the wrong way :P Simpsons would put tp the wrong way lol
Just built one of mine this weekend, amazing set, so many details and the scale is impressive, what a fun build!
The toilet paper would look too much like a car door if put the correct way, I think.
@Anachir - I've never saw someone get so upset over colors before.....
Shame about the bed headboards obscuring the windows so much, from both a visual and practical aspect.
@suckerpunch83 and Anachir: That is the sort of color 'geekiness' that I have with Star Wars...not that that is a bad thing.
Finally a baby in a Lego set, and that tail that Maggie has is very logical if you consider who her father is.....
Loving(!) all the reviews on this set. Tooning in for more...;)
Maybe turn the beds and nightstands sideways with headboard against the longer side of the wall to clear the front windows?
Thanks for the review. I gotta express my bah-humbug, anti-licensing gripe with regards to the whole line. It's a decent show, but do we really need it in Lego? C'mon, Lego's in-house stuff is better than this. Atlantis, Alien Conquest, Ninjago, Agents, CITY even, the list goes on and on... Anyway, have fun.
Is Maggie's head removable?
Kinda wonder if we can use it for normal minifigs
^Yes, her head is removable. The body is kinda out of proportion with a regular minifig head, in my opinion.
Great review! Not a big Simpsons fan at all but looking forward to picking up this set. One quick mod that I think I will do is replace the 2x2 plate and the 2x2 round plate with rounded bottom with this piece: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=11203 I think it might make it look more clean.
Loving all the details like the air conditioner! Though it should technically be on the first floor, if this is the one from Lisa's Sax. ;)
My wife is going to start building this tonight... I am looking forward to seeing the completed model in person...
My OCD has kicked in again. In the bathroom, the red and blue should be reversed for the tub. Hot water is "universally" on the left and cold on the right. If it was this way in the instructions, shame on them.
Ahem, cough http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=5860-1 cough http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=1406-1
It might be more accurate to say Lego has never produced a minifig scale baby, although I'm sure whether Maggie counts in that respect is still arguable. And she can't lie down in her cot?!