Review: 910039 The Art of Chocolate
Posted by CapnRex101,
910039 The Art of Chocolate was developed by Brickester, whose stunning 910034 Brick Cross Train Station proved extremely popular earlier this year! The chocolate factory looks fantastic too, sharing various architectural features with buildings from the Winter Village range.
Unfortunately, I have not had the time to ready an in-depth review and time is normally limited with these sets, as they sometimes sell out in a matter of hours. However, I have taken plenty of photos and given brief thoughts on the set, which I hope you will find useful.
Summary
910039 The Art of Chocolate, 2,615 pieces.
£189.99 / $229.99 / €209.99 | 7.3p/8.8c/8.0c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
The Art of Chocolate is exceptionally detailed, but maybe over-engineered in places
- Brilliant architectural design
- High standard of detail
- Realistic machinery
- Certain rooms are cramped
- Some fragile building techniques
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
The Completed Model
I was impressed with the exterior of 910034 Brick Cross Train Station and this structure looks excellent too. The irregular angles of certain sections are appealing, while the combination of window types works remarkably well. Furthermore, the colour scheme looks superb, primarily comprising sand green bricks, but mixing in greys, dark blue and pearl gold highlights.
While stylistically similar to the Winter Village Collection, this model is substantially larger than those and fully enclosed. In fact, its footprint is similar to a Modular Building, so it certainly has presence on display alone, although easier compatibility with the Winter Village may have been nice.
The foliage around the bay window looks good, but is relatively fragile and fiddly to assemble. There are a few building techniques used that I would not expect in a standard LEGO set, but this one stood out, as some of the leaves are not fully supported.
Personally, I do not have strong feelings about LEGO buildings being enclosed on all sides, but many people do and the doll house configuration is integrated nicely here. The rear wall opens in two sections and these panels close securely, attaching to the internal floors via click hinges.
I like how the machinery is arranged on the ground floor, starting with a grinder for the cocoa beans before moving to a mixer and then a machine that moulds the chocolate into bars. The designer has evidently paid close attention to realism here, as each machine features plenty of detail.
The entrance level is impressively detailed, like the factory area underneath. I love the hat rack by the door and the fireplace in the tasting room. However, it is hard to pose minifigures in this room, especially in the seats by the bay window. That is an advantage of the Modular Building format, with removable floors.
The staircase to the top floor is connected to the rear wall, which is not ideal for play, but I am glad the feature is included, nonetheless. The kitchen and preparation room both look perfect, notably including a stocked fridge in the kitchen, despite the restricted space available.
Overall
910039 The Art of Chocolate is meticulously detailed, both inside and out. The architecture is beautiful and I appreciate the careful attention paid to authenticity, particularly with the factory machinery. Additionally, the doll house design is effective, although that leads to my only issue with the model.
Silly though it sounds, I find the set over-engineered in some regards. Given the building's size, internal space is not always used efficiently and certain rooms are quite difficult to access. The price of £189.99, $229.99 or €209.99 therefore feels fairly expensive to me, although based on the piece count and seven minifigures included, maybe the cost is not unreasonable.
You can pre-order this and other BrickLink Designer Program Series 3 sets here.
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28 comments on this article
It wouldn't be a Bricklink set without the word "fragile" in it.
Looking at it, I can appreciate the work that went going into it, but it looks too "much", not like a LEGO set at all.
Someone did say 'Chocolate!'
This is going to look fantastic in our Christmas display..... next year.
I could see simply not building the folding rear doors and leaving it open-backed in the style of the other WV sets. I don't think they'd really be missed, and would save on piece count and price. Love the concept, though. I don't think we have the budget for this set, but I do love the WV line and a chocolate factory would be a fantastic addition to it.
@johleth said:
"It wouldn't be a Bricklink set without the word "fragile" in it.
Looking at it, I can appreciate the work that went going into it, but it looks too "much", not like a LEGO set at all."
"'Fragile' why it must be Italian! What a wonderful special prize. Ralphie, go get my crowbar."
This was the only set I was very tempted by when it first appeared, but the more I looked at it the more I thought it was just too over cluttered. So none from this wave.
How did you get this set, don't they ship in March?
Not normally a fan of BDP - it's literally just LEGO Ideas for buildings - but this really stands out to me!
I was just about to say that I'm actually surprised it's not more expensive, that the price honestly looks fair to me. A full 32x24 building I would say is equal to a 32x32 modular with a similar piece count and the empty baseplate at the back. So €210 would be less than the latest 32x32 modular building which is at €240 in my area. But then I went to the actual pre-order page to see the price for real and sure enough, it's the equivalent of €255 here. So yeah, that put's an end to that debate, it's on the pricey side, although still not awfully bad.
The set looks great though. Not quite as refined as official sets, but most of that I think is down to the worn-down look with the mixed colors rather than more solid color blocking of different sections. And that is simply an artistic choice. The details are superb, the designer have really managed to get the most out of the piece count which can very quickly get out of hand when doing this sort of thing!
@Bri3k_b01 said:
"How did you get this set, don't they ship in March?"
as a free review copy...
My second favourite of this series. My favourite is the forest stronghold.
@DenDeze said:
" @Bri3k_b01 said:
"How did you get this set, don't they ship in March?"
as a free review copy..."
They only get sent one from each series; the others go to other LAN members for review.
@DenDeze said:
" @Bri3k_b01 said:
"How did you get this set, don't they ship in March?"
as a free review copy..."
Oh, okay. I always forget those exist.
Thanks for the pictures. It definitely does look full. Some interesting bits here and there, so I'm sure whomever decides to get it will be pleased.
That seems like a pretty full review to me! Thanks for getting it done in time to consider purchasing.
Mm, chocolate. Who doesn't like chocolate!
Isn't this the place that Homer Simpson hallucinated about while speaking to the new, german owners of the nuclear power plant?
@b2_O said:
"Isn't this the place that Homer Simpson hallucinated about while speaking to the new, german owners of the nuclear power plant?"
ZAT VAS TEN MINUTES AGO!
This set was just too cluttered and Christmas for me. I couldn't see wanting to have it up all the time. And as much as I hate open backs and appreciate the trouble they went to in building one that didn't impact on the price too much, there just wasn't enough to interest me.
@Ridgeheart said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"Mm, chocolate. Who doesn't like chocolate!"
Me. Which is just another reason why I don't like this set, I suppose."
It's treason, then.
it’s not a modular, there’s no pin holes and the hinges would clash
I'm not sure who the target group is for that one. It's not a modular, it's not exactly Winter village.
I love chocolate, but this is not edible. As nice as it looks, I preferred to spend my budget on the Harbormaster's and the Caravan.
Glad i ordered it. Look forward to receiving it, not looking forward to the online building instructions. They are far too over digitized for me. Why can't they just do an online 'book' version?
@Spike730 said:
"I'm not sure who the target group is for that one. It's not a modular, it's not exactly Winter village."
Well, judging by the sales on BrickLink, it's clearly popular, albeit not as popular as the Forest Stronghold or Camping Adventure.
For me, and I suspect many others, the appeal is that it's a visually striking and conceptually unique design that could be incorporated very comfortably into a winter village/Lego city layout, with a few adjustments (i.e. MILS plates).
As an aside, I'm not particularly fond of chocolate, but I know a good deal of my Lego city's minifigs are! And I'm looking forward to working out some way to incorporate this alongside the forthcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Lego IDEAS set.
@Ridgeheart said:
"I'm kind of done with these huge buildings - not everything needs to be modular. Modular doesn't need to be everything. I need fewer massive chunks of plastic in my life, and I kind of need to redirect these big chunks of income towards perhaps not starving to death.
BDP (and Ideas) were instrumental in giving us some things we were starved for, but - are we really starved for castles these days? Botanical gardens? Rickety fisherman's houses? Modulars in general?
The only things I genuinely like here are the use of the curved roof and the way the back-wall folds out. That's inspired, I surely would have liked to see that in future modular sets (IF I wanted to see more modulars - which honestly, I kind of don't). I can't say I'm smitten with the way this set is built on the inside, it seems like that was mostly an afterthought.
That said, this comment isn't going to change anything. Hey, cheer up! Let's have a bet! What do you suppose the NEXT $200 Modular will be? Let's go for an opium-den, I'm fairly certain we haven't had one of those yet.
@Maxbricks14 said:
"Mm, chocolate. Who doesn't like chocolate!"
Me. Which is just another reason why I don't like this set, I suppose."
I guess it was bound to happen but oh does it sadden me to disagree with Nether Ridge, except for that opium den modular thing which was clearly fantastic in all ways.
IDEAS and BLDP might be my favorite 2 themes these days and I’m excited to discover what our LEGO community has in store (literally) for us going forward.
Still trying to not lament my missed forest stronghold.
@meesajarjar72 said:
"Glad i ordered it. Look forward to receiving it, not looking forward to the online building instructions. They are far too over digitized for me. Why can't they just do an online 'book' version?"
Do you mean the instructions in the app? I'm not a fan of those either. When I build BDP sets I always download the pdf version from Bricklink. And for regular sets I download the pdf instructions from Lego (through the links on the sets' pages here on Brickset).
Does anyone know if BDP sticker sheets are produced 'in-house' by TLG or sourced from an outside third party? It's somewhat concerning that the stickers shown here appear to be more closely colour matched than ANYTHING they manage to achieve in a standard production set...
@magni_nominis_umbra said:
"Does anyone know if BDP sticker sheets are produced 'in-house' by TLG or sourced from an outside third party? It's somewhat concerning that the stickers shown here appear to be more closely colour matched than ANYTHING they manage to achieve in a standard production set..."
That's a very interesting observation, I had to go back and look at the pictures and you are totally right. All colors are spot on. Would be interesting if anyone knows the answer to your question.