It’s the 50th LEGO Ideas set. I’m surprised LEGO didn’t make a big deal out of this one. Usually they celebrate all kinds of anniversaries. Oh well. #21342-1: The Insect Collection was released on 4 September 2023 for $79.99. It contains 1,111 pieces which works out to $0.072 per piece which isn’t too bad. A lot of the pieces are smaller, but some are special printed or unique pieces so that may make up for it.
For the review, the front of the box shows the three different models with the set name and Ideas logo on the top. The back shows another view of the set and some close up shots along with a display suggestion.
The set contains seven numbered parts bags. Bag one contains a piece separator. There are then four instruction booklets that come in an envelope (Thank you LEGO!). The first book gives some detail on the models and designers. Then the remaining three are for each of the builds.
The first bag begins building the Blue Morpho butterfly. It builds a base with a brick built plant or stick coming out of the base. Around the base are a few flowers and other plants and leaves.
The second bag adds the butterfly. The first instruction book shows the fan designer build of the butterfly which was built with SNOT techniques. This one is made with plates and tiles stacked on top of each other. The advantage is that they have some printed tiles on the edges of the wings. The disadvantage is the build isn’t as exciting due to the techniques used. It still looks great though as a blue butterfly with the different shades of blue. You also get a miniature honey bee. The bee is fun although I would rather have had a larger sized bee like the fan designer originally submitted. I guess this bee is more to scale so it fits into the scene better.
One bonus though is everything is printed. There are no stickers. YAY!
Bag three starts the Hercules Beetle build. The build starts off with a base similar to the last build. Then you add on a piece of a plant or a branch that the beetle is crawling on.
The fourth bag begins to build the beetle. It’s an interesting build with some fun techniques. The horn piece is big. I’m not sure if they are unique to this set or not, but it would have been interesting to see if they could have built it with additional pieces instead of one larger piece.
The fifth bag finishes up the beetle. You add in two blue mushrooms and then finalize the beetle. Besides the legs, you add in the wings and the covering of the back of the beetle (I’m not sure of the official term for it). You can pose the beetle with the wings out or remove the wings and have the yellow pieces covering the back. I like this feature and decided to picture it as if it’s just taking off from the branch.
The sixth bag starts the build for the Chinese Mantis. You start with the same base that the other two insects are on. Then you build a small stem with some leaves and flowers on it. There are also some round 1x1 red tiles printed as ladybugs. The fan designer submitted a larger scaled ladybug to Ideas and I would have preferred that as well, but I’ll take what they created.
The seventh and final bag adds in the Chinese Mantis. The designers did a good job capturing the shape and details of the insect. I like the use of the pistols at the bottoms of the legs and crow bars for antenna.
Here are the final builds. Definitely something outside the ordinary sets we see so that’s good. I would have liked to see more of the fan designer submissions (larger ladybug and bee), but I can’t complain with what we received. These are definitely display pieces which is fine for the 18+ audience in my opinion. Pricewise, it’s not bad considering the price for piece and maybe as it gets closer to retirement, we’ll see it go on sale which would be awesome.
What were your thoughts on this one? Can you mix them in with some of your Botanical sets?
Happy building!
