Review: 31102 Fire Dragon
Posted by Skizz,
Please welcome guest reviewer Skizz.
The Creator line often has mythical creatures in its line up and 31102 Fire Dragon is this year's addition. It features a fire breathing dragon, a sabre tooth tiger and a scorpion.
For me, these creator sets are a bit hit-and-miss, some I like, others not so. Which one will this fall into?
Fire Dragon
I like the colour scheme overall, although it is similar to 2018's mythical creatures version, the use of a different colour for the wings makes them stand out and look more striking. Speaking of the mythical creatures set, this dragon only has two legs rather the four in the older model, which, being a bit pedantic, makes this a wyvern and not a dragon!
Having only two legs does make the model more prone to falling over, but the flexible tail made that a minor issue. It does have a great amount of posability in all the joints, mainly ball joints, hinged plates and joint links, and they are all sturdy and will stay where they're positioned.
The legs can be retracted along the body which then gives the model a good amount of swooshability. The flame in the mouth is also jointed which allows the flame to be centred even when the mouth is opened. I think the jaw joint, just clips and a bar, could have been improved as when the mouth is open the bar is quite visible and looks out of place.
The use of curved elements for the wings gives it a more organic look than the previous version and overall I think it looks good. The use of a yellow horn for the eye makes it look slightly sinister and the curved elements gives the head a natural look. Overall, the shape looks good and I certainly enjoyed taking photos with it.
From nose to tail it measures 30cm and has a wingspan of 25cm so it's good size.
The treasure chest does add an element of play value and I can see younger kids taking advantage of it to create more stories.
Sabre Tooth Tiger
Like the first model, this was simple to build and the result, overall, is fine.
The rear legs, body and head are well made, but the overall model is let down by the front legs in my opinion - there's no articulation on the front knees (and the back knees, but they look better using the curved elements), both forward legs don't bend, so the movement of the joints makes for some unnatural poses which don't quite look right.
Also, the mouth can't fully close and like the first model, has that odd bar-and-clip hinge.
Scorpion
After the slightly disappointing tiger, I wasn't sure about this model. Again, the build was straightforward (although one step was missing a piece in the parts summary!) and I do like the result. The pincers can open and close so they can grab things, the tail has four points of articulation and the legs can be raised and lowered.
The large pincers do give the model a tendency to tip forward so there's a limit to how far forward the sting can be moved, but it's still possible to get that distinctive scorpion pose.
Overall
I did enjoying building and photographing this model and the build was all straightforward which suits the target age group and it would, in my opinion, make a great present.
The only criticism I'd have about all the models are the visible technic holes! Using SNOT techniques it wouldn't be difficult to hide these and would be an interesting start to enhance the set.
In conclusion then, a good set in general with room for improvement.
Thanks to LEGO for providing the set for review. All opinions expressed are my own.
54 likes
18 comments on this article
I prefer Red Creatures to the more recent dragon iterations. It looked nicer, and also had arms (albeit limited) in addition to the wings.
Miss for me
Cool set and all but this is another red dragon. Third one. Green one with two necks would be more interesting.
I like it but I'm unsure if I need it since I have the 2015 (I think) dragon.
For me it’s between 1990s Castle, Ninjago, or Harry Potter for Dragons. Maybe for the scorpion or parts.
Good review Skizz. We've been having a lot of guest/new reviewers recently.
If we're going full-pedant, that's a sabre-toothed cat, not a tiger ;-)
Great review, and nice photos, Skizz! Hope the wyvern didn't scorch your strawberries...!
And there was no blonde princess minifig, pictured riding the dragon? Lost opportunity :).
Great review Skizz! I think it is a decent set for what it is (just talking about the main model), but definitely could be improved.
Thanks for the review, @Skizz .
I prefer moulded dragons to brick-built ones. Also, I find the blue parts jarring.
Like most fantastic creatures aficionadi, I like my dragons to have four limbs, not two. But the number of limbs doesn’t define a dragon vs a wyvern. That’s just the way that Dungeons & Dragons and derivatives define them. While J.R.R. Tolkien thought of dragons as having four limbs, Peter Jackson was not wrong in portraying the dragon Smaug as having two. It’s still a dragon.
Stop trying to make wyvern happen. It's not going to happen.
@Zander said:
"I prefer moulded dragons to brick-built ones."
Sorry to disappoint you, but LEGO is about brick-building! ;)))
I have the old Red Creatures set and it is still my favorite. All the others since then have gradually gotten worse and worse imho. This current one being bottom of the pile. The colour scheme is dreadful, the builds are meh at best. Nothing to see here, moving on.
This isn’t a bad set but I can’t help but compare it to Red Creatures which is one of my favorite sets of all time. This one just isn’t as attractive to me.
Nope. With only two legs the dragon should be able to rest on his wing claws too. The tiger is made ugly by the blocky grey hinges, and the scorpion looks like something a toddler made from random junk parts after Clash of the Titans was on the telly.
Pretty poor effort. The dragon's head looks great and evil, the body just too clunky and half finished.
Gotta admit, I don’t get all this hate. The dragon looks lovely to me with it’s two tone colour scheme. I love the use of dark blue which provides a nice contrast. While none of the alternate builds excite me they are respectable for what they are trying to replicate, especially within the limited parts selection.
I think the dragon looks really great here; kind of let down by the saber toothed cat which is what I wanted the set for. The scorpion is pretty awesome though!