Review: 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox
Posted by benbacardi,The Creator 3-in-1 set that most caught my eye this year when they were announced was 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox, and that's saying quite a bit considering what it had to contend with.
LEGO have released a number of buildable animals lately, including the excellent 31129 Majestic Tiger, and 31157 Exotic Peacock.
With 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox, LEGO has captured three common woodland animals that will be familiar to many of us; a fox, a red squirrel, and an owl. Let's take a look at all three.
Summary
31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox, 667 pieces.
£44.99 / $49.99 / €49.99 | 6.7p/7.5c/7.5c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
A brilliant set with three fantastic models; a joy to build, and look great on display.
- Three fantastic models
- Excellent articulation
- Great detailing in the fur and feathers
- None!
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Red Fox
The primary build of the set, and the one that first drew my attention, is that of a Red Fox. The largest and most common of all foxes, he is an animal that can be found all across the Northern Hemisphere, from forests and woodlands to inner cities.
The completed model is impressive. It is surprisingly large, although many of its more than 650 parts are small in order to provide the detailing to its fur. The colours are excellent; a primarily dark orange body—shading indicated by a variety of medium nougat and reddish brown—with a white chest and tip of the iconic bushy tail.
Tufty fur is represented with a variety of overlapping tiles, plates, and "rock plates". The ball joints used for the articulation unfortunately take away a little from the overall effect, as the only colour options available are shades of grey, but they are relatively well hidden for the most part.
The fox has a high degree of articulation, with ball joints at the ankles, two in the tail, two in the neck, and rotation possible at all four hips and two places in each hind leg. They each have enough friction to enable the fox to comfortably wrap its tail around itself, sitting back on its haunches...
...or stand upright, tail held high with the animal adopting a more dynamic pose. Lifting the head does reveal a slightly odd-looking flat section in the neck, however.
The ears have slight lateral movement, but can't be folded forward or back, and the mouth can open revealing the fox's red tongue inside.
A small build of scenery is also provided; a broken tree stump in the snow, with a young sapling growing to the side.
The tree stump is constructed particularly cleverly, with eight side panels connected to a central ring, topped with a printed round tile. It's simple, but was a joy to build and does an excellent job at portraying a broken stump, ragged around one side where the wood would have split as the tree fell.
My only complaint is that perhaps it is a little small in scale compared to the fox, but any bigger would have taken significantly more parts that I am glad were instead spent on the excellent detail and articulation of the woodland animal himself.
Owl
The set is named "Forest Animals", and the designers have chosen an owl as one of the alternative builds. From the design it seems likely that it is modelled on a tawny or brown owl, although at this scale the colouring is hard to capture accurately.
The owl looks excellent, however. The feathers on the chest and detailing on the wings are fantastic, and the beak is very well captured with a single piece. The head can rotate a full 360 degrees, and the tail can be raised and lowered. The wings have a very small amount of movement to them, but not enough for them to be used to pose the bird any other way.
A small tree is provided for the owl to perch on. It sits better on the tree than it does on the ground, connected securely enough by the two 1x2 plates that make up its feet. The claws hang down slightly in front, giving the impression of the owl gripping the branch, although it would perhaps have been good to include a claw on the rear of the foot too.
The branches of the tree are articulated, both on the left and the right, and can easily be adjusted to the desired pose. In the photo below, you can see the rear of the owl, which is significantly less detailed than the front, and rather unsightly in places. However, overall the model looks great on display when viewed from the usual angles!
Squirrel
The other alterative build is another woodland creature that will be familiar to many of us, though perhaps not in this colour—a red squirrel! They are native to many countries throughout Europe, but numbers in the UK have drastically reduced since the introduction of the grey squirrel, which are certainly the only ones I ever see running around in our local area.
Once again, the model is an excellent representation of the creature. The colours suit it very well, and the variety of pieces used to create texture on the fox and the owl are put to good use here. The tail is articulated in two places, and although its movement is limited. the tip curls over in a very realistic manner.
The rear legs can rotate at the hip, and the paws are also articulated, allowing the squirrel to either sit upright or crouch. The head is connected with a ball joint, which, coupled with the movement in the ears, means the squirrel can be positioned in some very inquisitive poses.
As is expected, the rear of the squirrel is not its most flattering angle, with the large joint where the tail connects exposed in a rather unsightly area.
He comes with a small acorn, a very suitable accompaniment for the little creature, which is made from a handful of parts but looks fantastic. It can be held in the squirrel's paws when sat back on its haunches.
Conclusion
LEGO's 3-in-1 sets are some of my favourites, particularly for the price range, and their buildable creatures have been truly excellent lately. 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox doesn't disappoint; all three models are fantastic, were a joy to build, and look great on display. Each manages to capture the unique characteristics of the woodland creatures, and the articulation makes them quite satisfying to pose in the way that you want.
At the moment, the owl is on display in my lounge, but I suspect it won't be long before it is dismantled and replaced by the fox, which is my young son's favourite animal. I can highly recommend the set as a fantastic build for any animal lover.
31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox is available on LEGO.com for £44.99/$49.99/€49.99.
202 likes
63 comments on this article
Awesome!!!
Wow. Every single model is superbly detailed. I like Creator now.
Luckily by now everybody knows what the fox say. :))
Great part usage and excellent looking models! Usually only one is good, the others are fillers, but here all three are great. Creator 3-in-1 is the only remaining theme in the LEGO portfolio (after the demise of B-models in Technic) that follows the core philosophy of being able to rebuild the sets into something different.
The only downside to this model is the inability to display all three models at once! Because the owl is tooooo cuuuuute but when I buy the 3-in-1 models I hate having leftover pieces so I usually have the main model displayed.
I simply love these Creator animal sets. For me, they're almost a pure distillation of the *idea* of LEGO.
@Quinnly said:
"Wow. Every single model is superbly detailed. I like Creator now."
Especially the Superb Owl!
Top notch design work, I love all three of these. Some 3-in-1 suffer from lesser second and third models, but these are great. Definitely going on the want list!
This will go so well with 31150 and 31129 can't wait to get it and make a creature display!
...standing by!
Waiting for mine to arrive! I will go for the owl!
Another fantastic model from up-and-coming Lego designer Aaron Newman! He's been hitting it out of the park this year with both this set and the 31150 set in the Creator theme, and 60430 and 60433 in the City Space subtheme!
I've been acquainted with Aaron since way back in the day on sites like BZPower and Eurobricks (where he was ambitious enough to come up with several all-new "theme" concepts), and rooted for him when he participated in the US Lego Masters show. It's great to see his work as an actual designer for Lego continue to excel and improve!
I like the owl, I'm not sure about the squirrel. The fox's ears front on look a bit odd, it looks better side on.
I actually think the build/shape of the squirrel looks the most on point.
The fox is cool but he has such a buff wolf-like chest for an animal that is actually quite slender and small, purely because of the legs sticking out the side a little.
Such a fantastic set - Creator is going really strong lately!
@Lyichir said:
"Another fantastic model from up-and-coming Lego designer Aaron Newman! He's been hitting it out of the park this year with both this set and the 31150 set in the Creator theme, and 60430 and 60433 in the City Space subtheme!
I've been acquainted with Aaron since way back in the day on sites like BZPower and Eurobricks (where he was ambitious enough to come up with several all-new "theme" concepts), and rooted for him when he participated in the US Lego Masters show. It's great to see his work as an actual designer for Lego continue to excel and improve!"
Hehehe, with all the talk about Nuju on the RSOTD article the other day, I just remembered "Nuju Metru" was Aaron's username on BZPower. It's odd to be old enough that all the "Bionicle kids" when I was a kid are now adults actually designing LEGO sets. The focus on Rahi and other creatures during Bionicle's early years makes me wonder if that is part of the influence of this set, albeit with a much more naturalistic look being based on real animals and using System bricks.
Not going to lie, I felt a bit robbed when Aaron's team lost LEGO Master's towards the end of that first season. I felt like the team that pushed ahead to the finale instead was not that consistent in their builds and really only came together in the end by dumb luck, while Aaron's team was superb through-out the series and really only fell apart right on that one episode in the semi-finals. How much of that is due to TV reality show editing though and the story the producers want to "convey" to the audience is hard for me to say, but if Aaron is now actually employed at LEGO then I guess he got the last laugh in the end since that's a bigger brag than actually winning the TV show competition.
Defo plan on getting this, possibly even three times to keep the models around, which I rarely do due to lack of space.
I'm really liking the squirrel build. It captures the likeness really well
Really like the look of this set and can't wait to pick it up!
Am I the only one that thinks these models are the stuff of nightmares?
Must Buy!!!! It's the Fox and the Squirrel for me, will probably need to wait for a bit of a discount for the 2nd set but with sets like this I don't object to paying full price for them.
Will get two eventually to have the fox and squirrel built at the same time.
This set is fantastic, all 3 models are superb.
I saw this one in the store the other day. For a moment I was a bit tempted. But ultimately it looked too fiddly for my taste. Builds like these can get slow when you rebuild them without pre-sorted bags.
But seeing this revew... idk. I really like the look of the three models.
I can't remember another 3-in-1 where it was so hard to pick a standout from the options. Each one is absolutely fantastic, no compromises on any of them somehow.
Astonishing Creator set. Worth buying 3 times on offers. OK 4 for spare MOC parts!
A brilliant set, easily my favourite overall from 2024. It looks to be on the same level with the excellent 31129 Majestic Tiger set. All three builds look fantastic and very playable, and fit into a coherent topic. My personal favourite build and the main reason to get it is the squirrel because I just love them! Creator 3-in-1 is on a roll the past few years, and I am really glad for this because it is the last pure Lego theme standing compared to the sad state of other Lego stalwarts like City or Technic. It is still offering original ideas, multiple builds and reasonable prices, like Lego should be. It makes me jealous as a Technic guy.
I like the owl the best. I also really like the tree in the fox build.
The fox is great, but an obvious improvement is that the white end of the tail could be blended a little better with some greebling details like on the rest of the body. The straight line break between the colours looks unnatural there given how well they have done this elsewhere.
@Lyichir said:
"Another fantastic model from up-and-coming Lego designer Aaron Newman! He's been hitting it out of the park this year with both this set and the 31150 set in the Creator theme, and 60430 and 60433 in the City Space subtheme!
I've been acquainted with Aaron since way back in the day on sites like BZPower and Eurobricks (where he was ambitious enough to come up with several all-new "theme" concepts), and rooted for him when he participated in the US Lego Masters show. It's great to see his work as an actual designer for Lego continue to excel and improve!"
Totally agree - I've been following Aaron for some time - well before his Lego Master's appearance - it was his dragons and Lord of the Rings MOCs that got me hooked - I have built both his Sauron and the Fell Beast over Osgiliath models - and they take pride of place in my (extensive) LotR section. Glad to see we are getting his designs straight from LEGO. Although currently working out if I can find two more of the 3-in-1s relatively cheaply... another £200 is a bit much at the moment...
Love thesw animals sets. The giraffe is a great build too. Currently the fox guards my living room
Defiently a must buy 3x of this set. Unintentionally i have started a Lego animals collection. At least good looking ones.
@kingalbino said:
"Am I the only one that thinks these models are the stuff of nightmares?"
Yes. Yes, you are.
This must be the best set of brick built animals LEGO has ever done! I genuinely can't decide which one is best, because they're all equally good. That's rare for Creator 3-in-1. While I don't tend to buy stuff that isn't minifig scale, this set might persuade me otherwise if there's an attractive discount.
Also, the fox reminds me of Fox from the Animals Of The Farthing Wood cartoon. I wonder if this fox can do that pose from the opening segment.
Quite excellent. Obviously Lego's sinister plan to compel people to buy 3 of each set.
As a member of the Tufty Club I was slightly thrown by the mention of Tufty fur on the fox... Tufty Fluffytail, the squirrel that taught me Kerb Drill, would have been most alarmed!
Great photos, the poses are amazing! So full of life, the last one of the red squirrel especially.
Might have to get several of these, but I'm definitely getting at least one. This is easily one of the best Creator sets in a good while, and all three of the animals are so lifelike that it's hard to pass up even if I didn't specifically want it.
Thanks for the review.
I wanted to mention how all three animals look great, but almost everyone before me did.
If I had time I would explore how the owl and squirrel would look in different colours.
Maybe a good candidate for a re-coloured set if Lego still does those.
They really need to recolour those mixel joints...
They all look good but the radar ears on the Fox bother me. The Owl is my pick. Shame this appears to be a Lego exclusive though.
That fox will certainly capture the attention in-store in the lego and franchised lego stores when on display. The giraffe one certainly did and its almost perpetually sold out!
Top quality and priced well set.
A set so nice.... I bought it thrice!
I think I'd like to buy two sets plus however many extra pieces I need to build the third model too. I may need to do the same thing with the set containing the giraffe. (My wallet and bookcases are softly sobbing in the corner.) It's always amazing to see such organic shapes built from Lego.
BTW, CCC, the transition in a real fox from orange tail to white tail tip is really about that abrupt. Using four pieces for the tip instead of two might help suggest that the tip is as furry as the rest of the tail, but other than that I think it's fine!
@Murdoch17 said:
" @kingalbino said:
"Am I the only one that thinks these models are the stuff of nightmares?"
Yes. Yes, you are."
He got two upvotes, so it would appear not. I don't know what's wrong with some people...
@ozbrickcreator said:"They really need to recolour those mixel joints..."While I definitely agree that it would be nice to have them in more colors, it's more complicated than just pouring a different color of plastic into the same mold. The fillers used to produce each different color gives different colors slightly different properties. It's entirely possible that producing the sockets, at least, in another color would require producing an entirely new mold.
@benbacardi:
The Eastern Grey Squirrel that has invaded Europe is known to have grey, brown, black, and white morphs. I've never seen white ones, and don't see brown ones much since moving across the state. Black ones are very common in SE Canada, apparently, which may explain why the brown ones are largely absent from this region.
Well, there goes $150 from my LEGO budget.
@PurpleDave said:
" @benbacardi:
The Eastern Grey Squirrel that has invaded Europe is known to have grey, brown, black, and white morphs. I've never seen white ones, and don't see brown ones much since moving across the state. Black ones are very common in SE Canada, apparently, which may explain why the brown ones are largely absent from this region."
Yup! In Virginia we mostly have ones ranging from grey to brown, but Washington D.C. has a small population of the black ones that were brought from Canada by Teddy Roosevelt.
@Lyichir:
Canada being right across the river over here, I could see black squirrels making their own way over, or possibly even being dropped by clumsy eagles. The weird thing is, I've looked up the habitat of a few other species, and the lower peninsula of Michigan is sometimes a migratory island. They'll travel up through Wisconsin into the UP, or they'll travel up through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York to make a river crossing, but they'll avoid the mitten entirely, probably due to most of it being surrounded by three of the largest lakes in the world.
I will have to buy three of this one...
SQUIRREL!!!
The 3-in-1 animals are crushing it. The tiger, the giraffe, and now this fox. Amazing looking build.
@StyleCounselor said:
"SQUIRREL!!!"
But is it a flying squirrel? And what about moose?
(This message brought to you by Fearless Leader and the Govt. of Pottsylvania)
@PurpleDave said:
" @Lyichir:
Canada being right across the river over here, I could see black squirrels making their own way over, or possibly even being dropped by clumsy eagles." Clumsy indeed, if their prey survives long enough to be dropped.
@Murdoch17 said:" @StyleCounselor said:""SQUIRREL!!!""
But is it a flying squirrel? And what about moose?
(This message brought to you by Fearless Leader and the Govt. of Pottsylvania) "
No, they're just hijacking the message from https://brickset.com/parts/6422775/dog-no-51
@TheOtherMike said:
" @Murdoch17 said:" @StyleCounselor said:""SQUIRREL!!!""
But is it a flying squirrel? And what about moose?
(This message brought to you by Fearless Leader and the Govt. of Pottsylvania) "
No, they're just hijacking the message from https://brickset.com/parts/6422775/dog-no-51"
And this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdyo4evwMxU
@Murdoch17 said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"SQUIRREL!!!"
But is it a flying squirrel? And what about moose?
(This message brought to you by Fearless Leader and the Govt. of Pottsylvania)"
A moose once bit my sister...
@PurpleDave said:
" @Murdoch17 said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"SQUIRREL!!!"
But is it a flying squirrel? And what about moose?
(This message brought to you by Fearless Leader and the Govt. of Pottsylvania)"
A moose once bit my sister..."
The people responsible for moderating these comments have been sacked. The following comments have been written in a completely new style at great expense.
Brought to you by Yama the Llama.
Fantastic Mr.Fox indeed! 'Owl' definitely be buying this set once I've 'squirreled' away some savings aside for a splurge!
@sklamb said:
"BTW, CCC, the transition in a real fox from orange tail to white tail tip is really about that abrupt. Using four pieces for the tip instead of two might help suggest that the tip is as furry as the rest of the tail, but other than that I think it's fine!"
It is not such a sharp line in reality though. A couple of teeth parts, or the thatched roof part, even a few cheese slopes on the exposed studs would give a little more texture and blending at the end of the tail like on the rest of the model, rather than leaving it looking like the nose cone of a rocket or spaceship.
Creator continues to be a best theme.
@kingalbino said:
"Am I the only one that thinks these models are the stuff of nightmares?"
Maybe not the only one, but surely in the minority. :-)
Not quite as good as Gus and David's fox from LEGO Masters Australia but still good nonetheless!
@PurpleDave said:
" @Murdoch17 said:
" @StyleCounselor said:
"SQUIRREL!!!"
But is it a flying squirrel? And what about moose?
(This message brought to you by Fearless Leader and the Govt. of Pottsylvania)"
A moose once bit my sister..."
Moose bites can be pretty nastii...
It's kind of refreshing to read such overwhelmingly positive responses in the comments. But it is expected, this set looks splendid, the price is right and the review did it justice. Time to go shopping!
@CCC:
You’re assuming it’s _not_ supposed to be the business end of a squirrel-shaped spaceship.
This set and the Giraffe are absolute art. Nice werk LEGO.