Random set of the day: Little Fish
Posted by Huwbot,Today's random set is 3223 Little Fish, released during 2003. It's one of 39 Creator sets produced that year. It contains 43 pieces.
It's owned by 331 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you should find it for sale at BrickLink, where new ones sell for around $8.00, or eBay.
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45 comments on this article
... Big Fish, swimming in the water, come back here and give me my daughter.
Why did I have to see that nightmarish face right before I went to bed?
Yup, that's uh, that's a product of 2003 TLC alright
If this were based on a real life creature I might be tempted to rethink my position on evolution.
Little Fish? More like Inbred Fish. This thing's got some serious problems.
Little Fish, Big Fish!
What’s with the lights? 4401 had them too
@MeisterDad said:
"If this were based on a real life creature I might be tempted to rethink my position on evolution."
I'm a Creationist, so I'm immune to that problem
One eye short of becoming "Blinky" from "the Simpsons":)
@skypilot22 said:
"What’s with the lights? 4401 had them too "
Translucent fins? Honestly I don't really get all the hate above. I think this looks fairly close to the real thing - https://preview.redd.it/yellow-spots-on-fish-widow-tetra-v0-6caxlcvcsb1c1.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=72a931fa41f9735b1c7f35ad79e50a143d7f2c4e
Fish be goofy.
@WolfpackBricksOfficial said:
"I'm a Creationist, so I'm immune to that problem "
Oh huh, a fellow religious Gen Z person, I don't find that everyday online. Probably not the same religion, but that's still nice.
There's always a ... Littler Fish?
Huh, I have this^^
A bit of a weird set, it never appeared in the catalogues and I found it in a shop that often had quite obscure Lego items back then (which was also likely the reason I got this in the first place, ok it also was very cheap).
Funnily enough I recently saw a discussion where some guys ued the x-99 age rating on a custom mock-up box, that made me wonder if Lego ever used this. Apparently they did indeed...
This set's theme is another very complicated issue.
The official term would be "Designer Set" as stated on the box. Yellow bordered boxes from 2003-2004 were meant to be the "creative" branch of Lego sets, whereas blue ones were the "play themes". The big issue here is, that Designer Sets tried to get Lego Technic under it's brand.
Technic had a difficult year in 2002 with technically no "real" sets being released (all that are , are either Re-issues, Bionicle, Racers or Star Wars Droids). So, Technic kinda saw a soft reboot in 2004, when their packaging went back to black, distancing itself from Designer Sets.
Designer Sets later went on to become what is now known as "Creator 3 in 1", creating yet another confusing theme mash-up in Lego history.
The term "Lego Creator" was originally coined in 1998 for the video game of the same name. Both it's name and logo were later reused in 2001 for the successor of the 1998-2000 Basic line (sometimes known as the "Max & Tina" line for it's Jack Stone figures). The name (but not the logo) was carried on to yellow box re-releases of a few Max & Tina sets in 2003. In 2005, Lego dropped the whole color-coding scheme of 2003 and Designer Sets became Creator (2.0). Back then they still had instructions for 3-x sets, until people (Lil' Timmy's mom?) began complaining about lacking FULL instructions for some of them. For a short while they kept using the general "Creator" branding for those types of sets, despite already shifting to a 3-in-1 concept. After the formerly "Shop at Home" exclusive sets (usually in the 10xxx range) were re-branded to Creator as well around 2010, the Creator 3-in-1 branding popped up.
In fact the Designer Sets were a continuation of the "Basic 7+" range that was available from 1980-1994. That line however saw a big hiatus from 1995-2002, eventually giving rise to the newer lines first introduced by Shop at Home. Pretty much the same as Model Team's cancellation in 1999 was actually short-lived, as demand was apparently there, as the line saw continuation in Sopwith Camel in 2001, which would develop to "Creator Expert" and eventually to "Icons" nowadays.
An attempt was made.
(Checks year)
Ah yes, 2003. It all adds up now.
I don't know what kind it is, but it sure is ugly. Not even for the parts.
@WolfpackBricksOfficial said:
" @MeisterDad said:
"If this were based on a real life creature I might be tempted to rethink my position on evolution."
I'm a Creationist, so I'm immune to that problem "
Totally missed my joke then.
@WolfpackBricksOfficial said:
" @MeisterDad said:
"If this were based on a real life creature I might be tempted to rethink my position on evolution."
I'm a Creationist, so I'm immune to that problem "
Me too, since I love the Creator 3 in 1 line.
;-)
This is what it'd looked like if Pixar had rendered Finding Nemo on a Commodore 64.
Not that little for Lego.
Yeah, that's what a fish looks like... after my cat has eaten most of its face.
@Robot99 said:
" @WolfpackBricksOfficial said:
"I'm a Creationist, so I'm immune to that problem "
Oh huh, a fellow religious Gen Z person, I don't find that everyday online. Probably not the same religion, but that's still nice."
Same here! (I'm Protestant Christian)
@fred157 said:
" Fish be goofy."
Fish be missing upper jaw.
Actually it's a very ugly fish.
But more in the sense of ugly on purpose - some sort of deep sea angler or something I guess.
EDIT:
I also got 4401 which had a way less ugly... uh never mind.
This go nicely with yesterday's 6277 , after all you need fish in the harbor
@myth said:
"This go nicely with yesterday's 6277 , after all you need fish in the harbor"
This looks more like one of those sea monsters they used to paint into the maps!
"Little fish" in relation to what?
If I were a minifig, that looks like quite a large scary fish to me,
But then I guess as Qui Gon said,
There's always a bigger fish.
That is a Hapsburg-worthy underbite there, friendo
This is The Best Speed Champion Ever!
It still has 10 models you can build with this set. None of them seem particularly pretty, but it's still nice for what used to be a promotional and/or rarely available set.
Designer sets were just extra, just like that.
The wedges used for those fins were also new that year btw. So not a bad parts pack if you factor in the amount of orange parts.
Bricks are friend, not food!
(....and then you step on one, and instantly reconsider it all)
@Binnekamp said:
"It still has 10 models you can build with this set. None of them seem particularly pretty, but it's still nice for what used to be a promotional and/or rarely available set."
Gotta love those instructions that differentiate between "Quick Build", "Experienced Build" and "Advanced Build".......in a 43 piece set :-)
But that's probably just the ableist in me.....
@WizardOfOss said:
" @Binnekamp said:
"It still has 10 models you can build with this set. None of them seem particularly pretty, but it's still nice for what used to be a promotional and/or rarely available set."
Gotta love those instructions that differentiate between "Quick Build", "Experienced Build" and "Advanced Build".......in a 43 piece set :-)
But that's probably just the ableist in me....."
Remember that this set was aimed at 5+, so the quick build design uses only a few parts whereas the advanced build uses the whole inventory. They were labelled so that a young kid could start to build the easy model first.
@CCC said:
"Remember that this set was aimed at 5+, so the quick build design uses only a few parts whereas the advanced build uses the whole inventory. They were labelled so that a young kid could start to build the easy model first. "
The young kid who can't read yet so is probably just confused by the icons ;-)
And looking at the instructions of this set....yes, the Quick Build is clearly simpler, but for the Experienced and Advanced there's just so little difference. But I assume they did this with all Creator sets at the time, and with bigger sets it obviously will make a lot more sense.
And let's be real here. We all, kids and adults alike, will (almost) always go for the main build first. The other ones are afterthoughts.
Goofy ahh fish
@RogueWhistler said:
"... Big Fish, swimming in the water, come back here and give me my daughter."
Beat me to it.
I remember seeing this species of fish. It was in Tasmania.
iykyk
@MeisterDad said:
"If this were based on a real life creature I might be tempted to rethink my position on evolution."
I’m pretty sure this is the result of crossbreeding a piranha with Dogpool.
@Atuin:
Technic wasn’t being absorbed into Designer so much as they decided it wasn’t really a theme in its own right. Duplo also got canned at the same time, for the same reason. These days, they’ve just learned to multi-theme certain products, so you can have sets from the same IP that fall under Technic, System, 4+, and Duplo all in the same year.
@bnic99:
Even if you were a minifig standing next to this, I’m pretty sure all it would do to you is say, “Kill me!”
@WizardOfOss:
Nah. If it’ll do that to your foot, just consider what it’d do to your digestive tract.
@PurpleDave said:
" @WizardOfOss:
Nah. If it’ll do that to your foot, just consider what it’d do to your digestive tract."
And that's why you have to chew your bricks properly!
(I can't deny that still sounds kinda painful...)
@WizardOfOss said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @WizardOfOss:
Nah. If it’ll do that to your foot, just consider what it’d do to your digestive tract."
And that's why you have to chew your bricks properly!
(I can't deny that still sounds kinda painful...)"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzw6nRnaQG0
You’ll need these. If they work on other teeth, they’re the only thing that stands a chance against LEGO bricks.
fish
So, there’s a little fish, and a big fish, but did it come in a cardboard box?
Man, everyone here is so quick to dog on Designer Sets. I'm a bit biased, since they were my favorite LEGO sets (other than BIONICLE) when I was young. I adored the 2003 range of them. Never got any of the smaller obscure releases like this - just the main five or so that saw retail release (not the bigger three that are laughably normal to me now, though I recall the idea of them seeming so complex back then!)
I really enjoyed how the manuals went on and showed so many little models, and had a ton of fun trying to puzzle out how some came together. Of course, I think the booklets I liked the most were the Inventor sets. A lot of fun having a little "story" with that first model as a through-point. I should flip through them again sometime. It's funny what stuff from when you were little sticks with you.
@TBOC:
No, I actually really liked Wild Collection, but things just…fell short of the mark with Designer polybags and other similar sets.
When I was a kid, my brother had a game called Shimano Xtreme Fishing on the Wii, and there was a level where you were spearfishing in a chemical plant or something, and there were weird mutant fish. This reminds me of that.
That's some whiplash from yesterday's set: from literally my favourite set ever (or a top contender) to... fish.