Happy New Year to all you toy lovers! With this being the perfect time for spring cleaning and renewal, isn't it time to add some new decorations to your home? Today, we here at the Toy People editorial team are diving into two sets from the LEGO ICONS series' Botanical Collection: "10313 Wildflower Bouquet" and "10314 Dried Flower Centerpiece"!
Launched in 2021, the Botanical Collection's main appeal is its beautiful flowers that require no watering and never wilt. This not only showcases LEGO parts in a unique and stylish application but also introduces more people to the world of LEGO through their love of flowers. For adult LEGO fans who view their completed sets as home decor, the Botanical Collection is undoubtedly another fantastic choice for decorating their space!
This time, "10313 Wildflower Bouquet" gives you 8 different species of flowers, each with vastly different building techniques, and it's also a great excuse to buy a beautiful new vase (haha). Meanwhile, "10314 Dried Flower Centerpiece" is not only gorgeous with a great sense of cohesion, but it might also be an unexpected boon for toy fans who love MOCing LEGO mechs! As for why, I'll reveal the reason in the content below.
▼ Let's start with "10313 Wildflower Bouquet." The front of the box clearly displays the bouquet itself, with a black background that gives it a more premium feel.
▼ The Botanical Collection logo is truly beautiful.
▼ The back shows some lifestyle shots, a demonstration of how the stems can be adjusted, and the bouquet's dimensions. Generally, they are around 43 cm in height.
▼ When I opened the box, the instruction manual was already severely bent.
▼ There are a total of two bags for each number from 1 to 4, plus one unnumbered bag of long stem pieces, for a total of 939 parts.
▼ Let's start planting! GO~!
▼ Next, let's take a closer look at each type of flower in the Wildflower Bouquet! First up is the darker-colored Leatherleaf Fern, with a total of 3 stems.
▼ Then we have the Cow Parsley, composed of an abundance of small white flowers, with 2 stems.
▼ The Welsh Poppy, featuring four large petals and a wheel hub piece for the central stigma. There are 2 stems of this as well.
▼ The Cornflower, whose flower head closely resembles a Japanese pinwheel called a "yaguruma." This set includes both blue and white versions, for a total of 3 stems.
▼ There are also 2 stems of the beautifully colored Lavender.
▼ You get 2 stems of the Lupin, which features a color scheme of light green, magenta, and purple, and is constructed using a large number of pirate captain hat pieces.
▼ Next are two colors of Gerbera Daisy.
▼ And finally, the blue Larkspur.
▼ It looks fantastic displayed in a vase!
Next up is the other set, number 10314, the "Dried Flower Centerpiece"! The box style is the same as 10313, featuring a plain black background that makes the LEGO product stand out. The mossy green textured section with the part number at the bottom looks great!
▼ Here we see lifestyle shots, dimension information (it has a significant presence at 40 cm long when completed), and an evil suggestion to buy all three sets!
▼ This set comes with two instruction manuals, allowing for two people to build simultaneously. The designer is one of my long-time idols: Chris McVeigh.
▼ You can also stack the two manuals to show the complete image.
▼ There are 7 bags of parts in total, containing 812 pieces.
▼ Let's get building! GO~
▼ As usual, let's share some interesting little details encountered during the build! First are the white wall-hanging elements hidden in the baseplate.
▼ To replicate the wavy structure of wheat, nest-like pieces are stacked here.
▼ Gear pieces, often seen in Technic sets for creating linkages in race cars or mechs, can also outline the shape of a plant. So clever.
▼ The Bladder Cherry, commonly known as the Chinese Lantern, is constructed from pieces often used as pumpkins or lanterns, along with a whip piece. And the whip piece seems particularly soft this time!? It's worth noting that the Dried Flower Centerpiece includes a large number of ball joint pieces, which will surely be very useful for toy fans who enjoy MOCing mechs! Additionally, many of the gear and nest-like pieces could be used as special cannons, launchers, and more... it seems like a lot of fun!
▼ By the way, set 10314 gives you a lot of whip pieces! Time to bring out Catwoman to play, perhaps!?
▼ The small orange cosmos flower is created by overlapping three epaulette pieces. What a brilliant application!
▼ The petals of the large Gerbera Daisy are made from 24 oar pieces, while the central disc floret is represented by the hat commonly used for boatmen or Japanese ronin.
▼ The rose, in my personal opinion, is the most spectacular flower in this set. It's both surprising and delightful how the car fender pieces used as inner petals and the new shell-type pieces for the outer petals can fit together so perfectly to create such a highly realistic rose.
▼ Now, let's take a moment to admire the Dried Flower Centerpiece.
▼ The dense, layered look from the side is fantastic!
▼ There are two wall-hanging elements in total.
The main body of this dried flower arrangement is essentially two sections. To achieve the look on the front of the box, you must add a connecting piece in the middle, but it also offers an alternative display option of being split in two.
LEGO ICONS 10313 "Wildflower Bouquet" & 10314 "Dried Flower Centerpiece" Review Summary:
"Reusing existing LEGO parts in entirely new ways" has always been one of LEGO's core principles, and this time, the Botanical Collection sets will absolutely blow the minds of first-time builders! The Wildflower Bouquet allows you to learn more about the included flowers during the building process, and its vibrant colors are very appealing. The individual stem format enhances display versatility, allowing you to experiment with various vases.
For me, the Dried Flower Centerpiece offered more building surprises, such as the aforementioned rose, wheat, and cosmos, all of which reinterpret the appearance of plants in unexpected ways. The strong overall aesthetic and the clever construction that allows it to be split in two are also very impressive. It looks fantastic on its own and will surely be a great helper in embellishing a dining table! For toy fans who love flowers but have never tried this LEGO series, I highly recommend giving it a try. If you're a hardcore LEGO fan, I believe both of these sets can bring you more building inspiration. They are perfect for pure display or for taking apart to rebuild into something new.
LEGO ICONS 10313 Wildflower Bouquet
Recommended Retail Price: NT$1,999, Total Parts: 939, Expected Release Date: February 1, 2023
LEGO ICONS 10314 Dried Flower Centerpiece
Recommended Retail Price: NT$1,799, Total Parts: 812, Expected Release Date: February 1, 2023