Category: Toys

Steampunk Jelly

October 28, 2026

I bought the above construction kit (‘fake LEGO’) in NYC. It was only $40. Was it worth this price?

The above shows the contents. I didn’t look closely enough at the box to realize the extent of the lighting so I was surprised to see it comes with a rechargeable battery and three lights, one of which is a flexible strip:

The strip is triggered by sound and pulses. Like a steampunk jellyfish!

The quality of the pieces is very high and while most were identical to LEGO there was a good quantity of unique parts as well. Construction is done in two halves, each of which utilizes more pieces than is typical for a LEGO kit. The several dozen steps of the first half used almost entirely orange pieces.

And the above are all the pieces for step 2, which is a little excessive don’t you think? Assembly wasn’t difficult but felt more like a technic kit than a normal LEGO one. The grip of the pieces is extremely strong, and my ruined hands found removing incorrectly placed bricks a painful challenge.

The central support is well engineered and very sturdy but supports the jelly with just a single tiny axle which makes the kit surprisingly fragile. Things got worse with the arms attached, and while the finished jelly looks great you wouldn’t want to accidentally bump it!

At about a foot tall, it’s bigger than I expected. It looks better than I expected. It was more fun to build than I expected. And it looks fantastic in the dark:

At $40 this is an absolute steal. Lego would charge twice as much and they wouldn’t even include the light! I’d never heard of this company (Sembo) and likely will never see their products again but based on this alone I’d certainly buy another.

DlroSkeleton

August 9, 2026

When I was in Japan I was unable to buy a new model kit since it was sold out everywhere. Luckily I found it on Amazon and here it is:

This ’30 Minute Fantasy’ kit is part of Bandai’s ever-expanding line of fantasy plastic models, and the first in what I expect to be a series of ‘monster’ kits. Here’s the blurb explaining these creatures:

I made the kit today, which was a bit challenging since one of my thumbs is still not fully operational. But even under these circumstances it only took a few hours, and likely would have been faster if I wasn’t getting distracted often.

The box contains two skeletons, and a variety of weapons. As part of the ’30 minute fantasy’ line they are slightly robotic and contain ‘hardpoints’ on which to attach armor pieces from other kits. I wasn’t interested in this; I just wanted the skeletons 🙂

They look great and are very poseable. I equipped one of them with a couple of blades and the other will lurk dramatically on a bookshelf:

An obvious thought that pops into your mind when you look at these is the T-800 endoskeletons of the Terminator series. A quick look online shows many skillful customizations, with this being one of the better ones I found:

This is an easy-to-make, inexpensive (about $12 in Japan) and impressive model kit. I look forward to whatever monster they produce next!

Barad-Dûr

July 30, 2026

In Lord Of The Rings, Barad-dûr is the tower fortress of Sauron. Taller than any structure built by man, it stands in Mordor near Mount Doom and at its peak The Eye Of Sauron endlessly scans Middle Earth looking for The One Ring. It’s the domain of ultimate evil, and it was time for me to build my own:

This is another monstrous set, and since Rivendell is my favourite LEGO build of all time I wanted this one as soon as it released. And bought it I did, although that was two years ago and it has sat on a shelf all this time waiting!

The 5400+ pieces came in exactly 40 bags which I’ve needed to pile two deep to fit them all in the above photo.

The tower is built in three parts with separate instruction books. In total; there are 1003 steps across the collective 620 pages of instructions!

Disappointingly, the set also came with a sticker sheet. No one likes LEGO stickers, and for a $460 set their inclusion is ridiculous. Most of these were placed on curved pieces, and apparently LEGO doesn’t yet have the technology to directly print onto curves.

The first instruction book is the base of the tower and uses about half of the bags of pieces. There’s a lot of detail here both inside and out, with doors that open via a hidden switch, a secret compartment where Gollum hides, and various items to furnish the interior for its wicked inhabitants. The angled walls are achieved using clever building techniques and are strongly reinforced, which is a good thing considering the size of the finished tower.

Most of the included minifigures are in the first few bags, and they’re all great. Frodo has a couple of faces, but I’ll always display the one where he’s almost seduced by The Ring.

A group of orcs with a range of armour and weapons inhabit the lower level of the tower. According to the instructions much of these figures – and their gear – is unique to this set. Yes that one in the middle is grilling a sausage!

Sauron and The Mouth Of Sauron are both suitably creepy. While I’m not showing them here, believe me both are even more disturbing without their helmets on! Until rereleased in a recent set, Sauron was one of the more expensive minifigures available, selling for up to $100 on the secondary market. He has a thrown room in the middle of the tower which has a Palantir hidden being a moving throne:

Here’s the finished set:

It took me over thirty hours to build, which I did in sessions of two or three bags at a time. The last book went very slowly since I could only use one hand (I’ve recently had hand surgery) and needed to be extremely careful since I was dealing with the spire.

The Eye lights up via a light brick, and can also be moved to look in any direction:

Here’s the view from behind showing the interior detail:

I enjoyed building this so much I hardly wanted it to end. Now I need to work out where to put it, a non-trivial problem since it’s 83 cm tall! I’ve got an idea or two, but for now it remains on our dining table since it’s remarkably heavy and I’m certainly not going to move it with only one hand!

Robot Claw