Well, it wasn’t long ago that we were celebrating bringing in 2022! But of course the beginning of February marks another New Year festival on that calendar - the Lunar New Year of course! So what better way to celebrate than (finally!) lighting up one of LEGO’s amazing Chinese New Year sets, the Spring Lantern Festival!
All of these incredible sets have been on our radar for quite some time (one LMB team member has managed to collect them all!) But as the release of Chinese New Year sets tend to arrive around the same time as Modular Buildings, it’s been tricky to fit them in… that changes now!
The Spring Lantern Festival is right up there with our favourite sets - and we don’t mean only in the Chinese New Year series, we’re talking ALL sets! It’s got a bit of everything, family fun, great colours, amazing minifigures, super details, modular baseplates and of course, incredible lighting opportunities that we’ve been itching to get our hands-on.
As we mentioned above, the set is somewhat of a ‘mini’ Modular Building set, with a reconfigurable baseplate that makes it the perfect addition to any Modular Majors LEGO province! As such, our designers knew exactly what to do with this one. They didn’t waste a second longer after the final brick was laid, and began adding lights faster than you can say “Gong Hei Fat Choy!”
Without a doubt, the hero detail to highlight in this set was all of those amazing lanterns! With a mixture of trans and solid lantern bricks included in the set, the team knew that a heavy dose of our regular white bit lights would amplify the traditional red that signifies good luck, prosperity and warm wishes as a real lantern festival - and that’s just the desired effect that was achieved here!
Our designers applied all of their tricks and tips to ensure cable management was at its most efficient, knowing that chaining together many exposed lights this way can become tedious for even the most patient assembly enthusiast! Once again taking extra time, and triple-checking their work to make sure the assembly instructions were clear and easy to follow. The results? Dazzling!
The Spring Lantern Festival officially celebrated The Year of the Ox, and so a real focal point of the set is the charming LEGO Ox Lantern included! While the mini did come with one of LEGO’s simple Light Bricks, you can bet we had our own designs in mind when it came to lighting our horned, four-legged friend!
Not to mention a pair of our cool custom-built Black Lamp Posts! Normally reserved for Modular Buildings, but of course, we had to include a couple here, blending with the LEGO lanterns provided in the set - special edition!
Finally, it’s always a pleasure when there is the challenge of lighting up and emphasising a body of water for display. Be it pool, ice rink, river or… anything wet really! This is an aspect of the hobby that can easily be overdone. Too many LEDs, or perhaps the incorrect colour choice and those LEGO trans plates look more like a light-up neon dance floor rather than a calm and realistic pond. A tasteful Blue Bit Light (or three) was all our designers deemed necessary to complete this cherished LEGO set.
But why stop there? There are so many great LEGO Chinese New Year sets, we might as well keep our good luck flowing and light up some more right? Are you as big of fans as we are of this charming and family-friendly series? Let us know what other sets we should light up?… perhaps the Year of the Tiger? Time for some tasty Nian Gao