Review: 31202 Disney’s Mickey (and Minnie) Mouse
Posted by Huw,
LEGO launched its Art series in the summer this year and is poised to release two more sets at the beginning of next year, including 31202 Disney's Mickey Mouse, which I had the pleasure of building with my wife over the weekend.
I did not buy or build any of the summer releases so it was a new experience for us.
Before I talk about that experience, though, I'll take a look at the box and parts inside
The box is square and flat and unfortunately it's just smaller than a 48x48 baseplate -- the size of the finished mosaic without frame -- so can't be used to store the picture in whole, which I think is a missed opportunity.
Inside, nine 16x16, 1 and 1/3rd brick high baseplates are housed in the box at the bottom while the parts for the frame are under the instruction manual at the top.
A bag labelled 1 contains the new brick separator, Technic pins to join the baseplate sections together and a few spare tiles.
Some Art sets use 1x1 round plates and others 1x1 round tiles. This one uses the latter.
The baseplates were designed for these Art sets but have since found use in the Colosseum. They have holes on each side so can be joined by pins, and plates underneath, to make a very sturdy structure.
In addition to the instructions, the square manual contains information about Mickey and Minnie.
The instructions take the form of a 'paint by numbers' illustration for each baseplate. Being in book form makes it awkward if you want to share construction with someone else. Having them on separate cards would have been perfect, although there are other solutions of course, as I'll explain below.
Construction
LEGO is not just selling you a kit of parts to build a picture, it's also selling an experience. The descriptions of the Art sets at LEGO.com suggest that you will “spending quality time building it”, “Indulge your creativity” and that you'll “immerse yourself in your passion for creativity”.
So, with that in mind, I sat down with my wife Maria on a Sunday afternoon during lockdown in England for some quality building time together, the opportunity for which doesn't actually arise that often.
The first thing we did was empty the parts into trays that we could both reach. I'd advise against just dumping them on the table as they are liable to roll away.
The first issue we needed to overcome was access to the instructions. Clearly only one of us can look at them at once and, given the set hasn't been released yet, a PDF version is not yet available. The solution was simple enough: I took photos of every other page with my tablet. We could then build concurrently.
We each built the first tile in about 20 minutes. I suspect Maria was slightly more efficient at it than I, drawing on her experience of cross-stitching and the counting involved in that.
Each Art set has an accompanying soundtrack that you're encouraged to listen to while building but the one for this set is not yet available, so we couldn't indulge. Instead, we opted for a smooth jazz playlist on Spotify, including Peter White, Vincent Ingala, Brian Culbertson, Boney James, Oli Silk, Euge Groove, Chris Standring, Dave Koz and Brian Simpson. (just putting that out there in case there are any other fans of the genre reading!)
The time it takes to do a 16x16 section varies depending on its complexity, of course, but I estimate it was an average of just under 20 minutes for each one which equates to about 3 man-hours for all nine. You could no doubt do it quicker but, remember, this is about 'quality time' and not rushing it!
Once the nine tiles have been pinned together, it takes 10 minutes or so to add the frame.
A 2x4 printed tile is provided for the corner but it can be left off you prefer.
The next day our daughter Alice wanted to build Minnie, so she and Maria set about dismantling Mickey using the new 6-wide brick separator. I understand that, while it makes it a bit quicker that using a normal 2-wide one, you have to be careful with it because it has tendency to ping the pieces off in all directions!
It took about an hour to strip the tiles and sort them. A couple of Minnie's baseplates had similar patterns to Mickey so it was possible to leave them mostly intact which saved a bit of time.
Overall, then, you're looking at something like 7 man-hours of 'quality time' if you were to build both of the designs yourself from the same kit. You would probably want to do a couple of sections at a time rather than a whole picture in a single session.
I think we all enjoyed the experience. It was relaxing enough and a pleasant way to pass the time.
Official images
Although Maria enjoyed the building experience, she did not agree to repainting our lounge feature wall in a dark blue to match the pictures, so you'll have to make do with LEGO's official image:
If you buy two sets you can combine them into one, without needing to disassemble them:
Verdict
Building an Art set is quite a different experience to constructing a normal set, and I have no doubt that it will appeal to people who would not give normal LEGO sets a second thought. Conversely, it might not appeal to die-hard LEGO fans, and that's OK: this is not necessarily for them.
As far as this specific one goes, it's an attractive picture, and more so when you have two to display as one. It's perhaps a bit 'monochromatic' so there are large blocks of colour so contend with when building but I guess that's the case with many of the Art sets. I'm not that enamoured by the white portions of the background: some other colour to provide better contrast with their heads might have worked better. The white bit between them in the combined picture above looks a bit odd to me, too.
I'm not sure about the use of brown and tan pieces for the anti-aliasing around the black lines: I think shades of grey would have worked better but I guess two new ones would have been needed, one darker than dark grey and one lighter than light grey, for it to be effective.
Nevertheless, they do look great on the wall, particularly so when viewed from 4 or 5 metres away.
As far as value for money goes, it costs the same as all Art sets ($120/£115) but has just 2658 pieces. So, compared to the 4249 in 31201 Harry Potter Hogwarts Crests, it does not offer as good a price-per-piece as that, or the earlier ones. On the face of it, it's odd that they are the same price with such different piece counts, unless the cost of the 1x1 pieces is a negligible proportion of the overall production cost, which is most likely the case.
Overall, then, the set provides a pleasant and relaxing way to pass the time and an attractive end product to hang on the wall for all to admire.
Thanks for LEGO for providing the set for review. All expressed opinions are my own.
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33 comments on this article
Look forward to these. Im hoping that the first wave will have some heavy reductions this black Friday!
@Huw said:
"I'm not that enamoured by the white portions of the background: some other colour to provide better contrast with their heads might have worked better. The white bit between them in the combined picture above looks a bit odd to me, too. "
I was wondering about the look of the background - does anyone know if it's based on some Disney original or if Lego came up with it themselves? When the two are combined it sort of looks like the silhouette of Mickey's/Minnie's head and ears?
When combined together, the white background becomes a Mickey Mouse silhouette! That's a cute little gimmick, hadn't noticed that Hidden Mickey before!
@MrClassic said:
" @Huw said:
"I'm not that enamoured by the white portions of the background: some other colour to provide better contrast with their heads might have worked better. The white bit between them in the combined picture above looks a bit odd to me, too. "
I was wondering about the look of the background - does anyone know if it's based on some Disney original or if Lego came up with it themselves? When the two are combined it sort of looks like the silhouette of Mickey's/Minnie's head and ears?"
It's a Hidden Mickey! ;-)
^^ Of course! It's obvious now it's been pointed out but I completely missed it -- thank you!
The price is super dissappointimg considering the piece count comparisons to other art sets.
This will undoubtedly appeal to many, not me, but many
I quite like the Art sets, but I’m not loving this one, maybe because I find a Mickey and Minnie set like this a bit boring after already getting an 18+ sculpture set of them earlier this year. I also dislike the use of tiles instead of studs. I like that LEGO differentiates these sets, but I much prefer the look of studs to the tiles in person, as to me the tiles seem a bit too flat and lacking depth. Great review - can’t wait for the Hogwarts one!
@GoldenNinja3000 said:
"I quite like the Art sets, but I’m not loving this one, maybe because I find a Mickey and Minnie set like this a bit boring after already getting an 18+ sculpture set of them earlier this year. I also dislike the use of tiles instead of studs. I like that LEGO differentiates these sets, but I much prefer the look of studs to the tiles in person, as to me the tiles seem a bit too flat and lacking depth. Great review - can’t wait for the Hogwarts one!"
They're a lot more forgiving on the fingers though!
This is much better. The only one I was even remotely interested before was The Beatles, and that pretty much demanded you buy the same product four times (which is a lot of money). However, this set is quite appealing - a nice easily recognisable image and you only need the one set, but if you really really wanted to complete the image then that will just be two sets rather than four and so much more affordable.
Not bad! I'm certainly tempted.
What about the paper bags? Are they going to be used in late 2021?
„The descriptions of the Art sets at LEGO.com suggest that you will “spending quality time building it”, “Indulge your creativity” and that you'll “immerse yourself in your passion for creativity”.“
Do they really say that to a row of sets in which you only put 2304 identical pieces on a black plate, not following steps but pictures of the finished modules? What does creativity have to do with the Art sets?
I think ppp isn't the right way to look at Art sets because in the end with each set you always get mosaic of the same size. In my oppinion you pay $120 for those 2304 1x1 round plates or tiles that create the actual mosaic and pcs for the base and frame. The rest of pcs are just something you get as a nice addition. Although those are mostly useless anyways. I myself got Marilyn Monroe (which I love) but because I built the variant without blue I am left with over 500 1x1 blue round plates. They are nice but I have no use for that many.
@Lego_max said:
"„The descriptions of the Art sets at LEGO.com suggest that you will “spending quality time building it”, “Indulge your creativity” and that you'll “immerse yourself in your passion for creativity”.“
Do they really say that to a row of sets in which you only put 2304 identical pieces on a black plate, not following steps but pictures of the finished modules? What does creativity have to do with the Art sets?"
It’s just marketing speak.
The round dot tiles give these art sets a unique look, and the pixellation is clearly touched-up by hand by a professional artist rather than just crude digitisations; there's much more pin-sharp detail than in a lot of AFOL mosaics I've seen.
But these old-style Mickey and Minnie images, for me, just seem to hark back to a time of highly inappropriate and insensitive cultural depictions in animations, and are best left in the past. I know Disney has to keep recycling them and throwing billions of dollars around to keep hold of its ancient copyrights, but personally I'd rather see characters from the animated movies than Mickey, Donald, Goofy et. al.
The background was the first thing I noticed about this. I clicked on the comments link, so I had to scroll up to get to the article, and that was the first image I reached. Here's the second thing I noticed, since New Elementary has just posted a review of the Hogwarts crest. In the first wave, there were two sets that built four single panels. You could combine them into a larger image, but it wasn't really a unique build. There were two sets that built three single panels, or could be built into a three panel design if you got three copies, for a total of six unique panels. Hogwarts builds four individual crests, plus a full Hogwarts crest that combines four different panels, for a whopping total of eight unique panels. And then the Mickey/Minnie set appears to only build two individual panels. For the first time, they've designed the individual panels to form a single image when joined together, but you also get the least parts of any set, and the least build options. On the plus side, the full buy-in is under $250, compared to nearly $1000 if you want to build all of the Hogwarts crests.
@Lego_max:
_Passion_ for creativity. Not creativity itself. Besides, you are still creating the final piece that you hang on your wall, even if you're not designing it from scratch. You can prepare a meal from a cookbook recipe, and it's still a home-cooked meal. This just has more predictable results.
@Joefish:
If you're working from an original digital image vs a scanned copy of a print image, you're probably going to get a much more consistent result. Besides that, they have their own internal software, which they can probably tweak to spit out cleaner results. While it's unlikely, you also can't rule out the possibility that someone designed these freehand.
Interesting that we have both tiles and studs within a theme to bring some balance; some will prefer tiles, some want studs. At the same time the Art theme itself is a balance on the range of LEGO products; some want the "escape" and a display piece, others want the techniques and dynamics of a functional set.
There is a product for almost anyone who would be inclined to jump into the hobby, it is a golden age to rediscover the LEGO brand.
They're cute, I'll probably get them, I hope they'll make the duck couple sometime in the future
They look fantastic, but I do think it's a pity that the build itself looks very monotonous.
i think the art pieces look great on a maroon/reddish backdrop. (no painting require)
the printed Disney 2 x 4 tile piece is mint!
These look really good! I’d prefer not to pay $250 for it though if I could catch them on a discount.
I think the white hidden Mickey background actually distracts from the characters and that they’d pop better on a solid dark blue background (even if that makes the whole image a bit more redundant).
Also think the combined image might look better if you lost the outside column on each character’s ear and shifted them 2 pixel columns apart. As it is, they look like they’re too close together to be able to focus their eyes on each other.
@northgeorgiamasonry said:
"I think the white hidden Mickey background actually distracts from the characters and that they’d pop better on a solid dark blue background (even if that makes the whole image a bit more redundant)."
Fully agree. And if you don't get two sets you won't even know about the "hidden Mickey". Maybe if some other shade of blue was used instead of white it'd look better?
Thanks for the review. That sounds like a lovely afternoon actually. I am looking forward to seeing an updated photo of your lounge feature wall next year featuring a vase of LEGO flowers!
^ LOL!
I had to clear a lot of smaller ones away to stop it looking cluttered. Alice asked why I didn't include the wooden minifig in the first image so I added in the second.
But, yes, @mfg3000 , expect to see a photo in the same place with the flowers in a vase!
@Galaxy12_Import:
They said they weren't sure whether to use tiles or plates with the first round, but what people noted was that the plates went to the fictional IP and the tiles were the real people. Now HP gets plates and Mickey gets tiles...indicating that Mickey is a real anthropomorphic mouse!
@The_Toniboeh:
That actually would have upped the piece count to get it in range of the first four, and would have offered greater rebuild value like all the other mosaics. I'm not sure what they would have done for the background on the Ducks, except maybe the top of a heart.
@MrClassic:
Even if you don't buy two copies, you'll have all the pictures, articles, and comments on the internet, and whatever images they included in the set itself. I mean, we all know about and Huw has the only copy between the lot of us.
@Joefish said:
"But these old-style Mickey and Minnie images, for me, just seem to hark back to a time of highly inappropriate and insensitive cultural depictions in animations, and are best left in the past."
You’re right, they should probably ditch the main mascot of their brand.
Anyway, these are mighty impressive - almost as impressive as Huw’s shots of them hanging on the wall, which at first I mistook for Lego’s own promo shots!
@chrisaw:
To be fair, they've managed to hoover up enough of it without the FTC batting an eye that they could probably just call themselves Hollywood by now.
@Mr__Thrawn said:
" @Lego_max said:
"„The descriptions of the Art sets at LEGO.com suggest that you will “spending quality time building it”, “Indulge your creativity” and that you'll “immerse yourself in your passion for creativity”.“
Do they really say that to a row of sets in which you only put 2304 identical pieces on a black plate, not following steps but pictures of the finished modules? What does creativity have to do with the Art sets?"
It’s just marketing speak.
"
Turned up to eleven.
It's true marketing BS.
I bought one example of the Sith set, and as my wife expressed interest in the Marilyn Monroe set I got one for her birthday. Turns out she was only interested in the final result, not the "quality time" building it, so our eight-year-old assembled it for her.
But those tiles are more problematic than the round plates used in the Sith set, as they are much harder to take off in case you want to correct a mistake or do a different version of the image.
@Chardee_MacDennis said:
"I think ppp isn't the right way to look at Art sets because in the end with each set you always get mosaic of the same size. In my oppinion you pay $120 for those 2304 1x1 round plates or tiles that create the actual mosaic and pcs for the base and frame. The rest of pcs are just something you get as a nice addition. Although those are mostly useless anyways. I myself got Marilyn Monroe (which I love) but because I built the variant without blue I am left with over 500 1x1 blue round plates. They are nice but I have no use for that many."
I agree to an extent, but the PPP is almost double on this than on the Harry Potter set.
They could have made it a double pack for $200 or something and it would be a much more attractive deal.
@Chardee_MacDennis said:
"I myself got Marilyn Monroe (which I love) but because I built the variant without blue I am left with over 500 1x1 blue round plates. They are nice but I have no use for that many."
Same here. But you could use these pieces to simulate water, for example in the Ideas Ship in a bottle.
@AustinPowers said:
" @Chardee_MacDennis said:
"I myself got Marilyn Monroe (which I love) but because I built the variant without blue I am left with over 500 1x1 blue round plates. They are nice but I have no use for that many."
Same here. But you could use these pieces to simulate water, for example in the Ideas Ship in a bottle. "
Are you suggesting that we will start seeing hurricane sets popping up on Lego Ideas?
I prefer the Star Wars 31200 and Marvel Iron Man 31199 pictures , mainly as appear more vibrant with more colour shades, contrasts and detailing. As they are the same size there are several hundred more spares which suggests that there is more potential for further creative designs apart from those officially provided. Finally, the round plate studs are more instantly recognizable as Lego, whereas these appear to be more like a painted pin picture purchased at a Disney store.
My mother in-law is a disney freak and this is right up my ally to gift to her... she has been to disney world too many times to count and all she speaks is Mickey!