City Advent Calendar: Day 1
Posted by CapnRex101,
The City Advent Calendar is now in its thirteenth year, the first one having been released in 2005. LEGO has changed a great deal since then but City remains fairly consistent to reflect the enduring popularity of its subject matter, including police, trains and exploration.
Nevertheless, I am hoping the 2017 Advent Calendar will introduce some fresh characters and models to LEGO City, perhaps improving upon the rather mixed standard of the 2016 edition. Let's open the first door and find out...
The design of the packaging is familiar, featuring indoor and outdoor scenes which are suited to displaying some of the models and minifigures included. I like the distribution of festive colours and the wintry scene outside looks marvellous, with pine trees growing between market stalls and even Santa himself pushing a snowblower!
Folding down the flap on the front of the box reveals the 24 doors as well as a mat for displaying the gifts. The design matches that on the front of the box but shows a different perspective, including the lounge with a train track and a rug as well as an outdoor area. This will prove very useful as City Advent Calendars often contain models which belong inside along with some more appropriate for display outside.
The first gift is a toy train to occupy the ring of track in the living room. It consists of fifteen pieces and looks very festive with a red and light bluish grey boiler alongside a dark green roof over the cab. The tiny chimney looks great and I like the black 1x1 round plates depicting wheels, although they are spread further apart than one might expect for a real steam train.
However, this is a toy version and on that basis I think it looks very good. The only potential improvement at this scale would perhaps have been to include a white ice cream element representing steam billowing from the chimney. I have very much enjoyed the selection of minifigure-scale toys featured in previous calendars so hope that this little train is a sign of things to come!
Overall - 4.0 - Trains are always a popular subject in LEGO City and this miniature version includes almost every detail one would expect so I think we are off to a great start.
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8 comments on this article
That's a cute little train :D
(And thanks as well for using the "day 1" image at the top of the post instead of the day's model - I know it's more work, and it's really appreciated)
^^ I second using day images! so not to give away each days item if we haven't opened them yet.
Great idea to update this each day! This is our 1st year with a LEGO Advent calendar in our home and we are excited! My oldest son buult his this morning before school and had an extra black stud and gold smooth stud in our build.
In my opinion I thought it was a really good build as well, my score would still probably be a 4/5 since I think it was a nice build both to look at and to play with, I'm a fan of trains and this is really great in my opinion.
I think they should introduce the ice cream element in light bluish gray. That way, it would be even more useful to depict steam.
It comes with a spare black 1x1 round plate and gold 1x1 round tile, which you can actually add to improve the look of the funnel.
P.S. Who's trying the build-in-the-bag challenge for the whole calendar?
@Joefish, you mean you are trying to build the model without taking the pieces out?! I'm considering going out and purchasing an advent calendar to try this...
Would be helpful for folk's new to the site to mention somewhere the range you're using for the rating scale. I'll make the assumption it's out of 5 max, like from previous years.