Our next LEGO® Monkie Kid review comes from Jonas Kramm who takes on 80012 Monkey King Warrior Mech over the course of two posts. The set is available now and sells for US$149.99/ £129.99/ 129.99€.
With 1692 pieces, the Monkey King Warrior Mech is the second largest set of the first Monkie Kid wave. Today we will take a look at what’s in the box, list all the new bits in the usual New E fashion and learn that King Midas might have been involved in the design process.
Box
Red, gold and black. The box looks appealing and boosts my anticipation of this set. In particular I like how well the LEGO logo blends in with the colour scheme. The composition on the front is really clever, as the building on the right is little and makes the mech look enormous. I’m curious to see how big the scale differences will be at the end of building.
But first, the parts!
New LEGO Parts in the Monkey King Warrior Mech
The set comes without any moulds that are exclusive to this set, but includes several minifigure headgear and accessories that have been introduced for the Monkie Kid theme.
One of the most interesting new bits is the longer version of the lightsaber handle, as described in Tim Goddard’s recent review of 80009 Pigsy's Food Truck. The piece was originally designed for the Monkey King’s staff in Warm Gold Drum Lacquered/ Metallic Gold (6294553 | 67131), but also gets used in this set in Dark Stone Grey/ Dark Bluish Gray (6296951 | 66909). Note that they have different Design IDs, as often occurs with drum lacquered pieces.
What’s way more interesting in this set are the elements that come in new colours; and one colour catches the attention in particular.
Golden Madness
When it comes to golden pieces inside LEGO boxes I always feel a bit tricked by the company’s graphic designers, as they make them look so shiny on the box art. Often these pieces turn out to be just Warm Gold (LEGO Color ID 297, known as Pearl Gold on BrickLink), which is a fine golden colour, but falls short when compared to Warm Gold Drum Lacquered (ID 299, BrickLink’s Metallic Gold).
For everyone who isn't that familiar with the difference, here are some bananas as reference.
From left to right:
- Bright Yellow/ Yellow
- Brick Yellow/ Tan
- Warm Gold/ Pearl Gold
- Warm Gold Drum Lacquered/ Metallic Gold
But I wasn’t counting on King Midas now working at the LEGO design department. He must have touched all the pieces, resulting in most of the golden elements turning out to be actually in Metallic Gold! In total: a whopping number of 119 pieces, which make this the set with the most Metallic Gold elements ever.
I don’t know if other people share my excitement but for me, this news made my day! Over the years my appreciation of the metallic colours of LEGO have grown more and more, because from a builders’ perspective they look so much better – a realisation I made when I was building with a lot of Cool Silver Drum Lacquered/ Metallic Silver for my Iron Builder in 2016. Since then I’ve tried my best to grow my collection of Metallic Gold pieces, and now it’s time I reveal which pieces this set brings to make it grow even further.
Five Metallic Gold elements are exclusive to this set and three more appear in the 76165 Iron Man Bust too. I guess the designer of this mech was happy to ‘borrow’ some of the element colour changes introduced for the helmet.
Metallic Gold Slopes
- New: 10x Brick 4X3 W/ Bow - Angle (6294522 | 67121)
- 6x Brick W/ Bow 1X4 (6294504 | 67118) - comes with Iron Man bust too
- New: 8x Roof Tile W/ Lattice 1X2X2/3 (6294514 | 67119)
- New: 14x Plate W/ Bow 1X2X2/3 (6294532 | 67128)
- 2x Roof Tile 1X1X2/3 (6191668 | 33847) - comes in 11 sets
Metallic Gold Tiles
- 24x Gold Ingot (6294492 | 67117) - comes with Barracuda Bay too
- 4x Flat Tile 2X3 W/ Angle (6294551 | 67130) - comes with Iron Man bust too
- New: 18x Tile 2X2, W/ Bow (6294524 | 67124)
- 10x 1/4 Circle Tile 1X1 (6251591 | 48410) - comes also in 41911 Go Team! Bracelet, 80105 Chinese New Year Temple Fair and 76899 Lamborghini Urus ST-X & Huracán Super Trofeo EVO
Other Metallic Gold pieces
- 1x Satellite Dish Ø16 (6078236 | 17964) - comes in 21 sets
- New: 6x Rim Wide 18X14 W/ Cross Ø4.8 (6294526 | 67125)
- 12x Spoiler W/ Shaft Ø 3.2 (6294519 | 67120) - comes with Iron Man bust too
- 2x Handle (6294553 | 67131) - comes in seven Monkie Kid sets
- New: 2x Banana (6294545 | 67129)
Other New Recolours
When it comes to colour changes in other colours, it seems like the budget was largely spent on the Metallic Gold pieces, which I genuinely understand, but I found a few other new pieces and interesting elements that are worth a mention here.Even though the build is mainly Metallic Gold and Bright Red/ Red, this set shows love for Dark Turquoise/ Bright Bluish Green, quite literally.
- New: 8x Tile 1X1, Heart (6293280 | 39739)
- 1x Flat Tile 6X6 (6282864 | 10202) - comes with 71708 Gamer's Market too
- 2x Brick 4X3 W. Bow/Angle in Yellow (6294281 | 64225) - comes with 60256 Racing Cars too
- New: 1x Plate W. Bows 2X1½ in White (629530 | 47458)
- New: 1x Plate Half Circle 3X6 With Cut in Red (6295298 | 18646)
- 2x Left Plate 1X2, W/ Bow, 45 Deg. Cut in Reddish Brown (6290397 | 29120) - comes with 76166 Avengers Tower Battle too
- 2x Right Plate 1X2, W/ Bow, 45 Deg. Cut in Reddish Brown (6290396 | 29119) - again, in 76166 Avengers Tower Battle
- 1x Shooter W/ 3.2 Shaft W/5.9 Cup in Medium Stone Grey/ Light Bluish Gray (6251837 | 23922) - comes with 76142 Avengers Speeder Bike Attack too
- 1x Ring in Pearl Gold (6286094 | 35485) - coming in 80007 Iron Bull Tank, 80010 Demon Bull King and 75969 Hogwarts Astronomy Tower too
- New: 3x Cow Horn in Dark Bluish Gray (9299482) - coming in several Monkie Kid sets
- New: 2x Cow Horn in Bright Reddish Violet/ Magenta (6298479) - coming in several Monkie Kid sets
I really like that the cow horn comes in new colours now, these will be very useful for my own creations.
Decorations in 80012 Monkey King Warrior Mech
The set heavily relies on stickers, but also features a small selection of printed pieces.
- New: 2x Flat Tile 1X1, Round, No. 136 “Eye” in Pearl Gold (6322943)
- 2x Tile 1X1, Heart, No. 4 “Peach” in Light Purple/ Bright Pink (6305864) - also come in 80009 Pigsy's Food Truck (Read Tim Goddard’s review of Pigsy's Food Truck)
- 1x Flat Tile 1X2, No. 284 in Transparent/ Trans-Clear (6296301) - comes in 30341 Monkie Kid's Delivery Bike, 80009 Pigsy's Food Truck and 80011 Red Son's Inferno Truck too
A total number of 47 stickers in 31 designs come on the sticker sheet. Even though I rarely use stickers, the sheet looks quite appealing colour-wise, and I also like the graphic designs, for example the “dragon ship”.
Other materials
A plasticated foil sheet is included, which includes the cut-outs of seven different foil elements, and is exclusive to this set.
The sheet comes wrapped in plastic with the instructions and therefore is in perfect condition.
But that’s not all: the mech wears a fabric cape too!
This comes folded and packed in its own bag.
My fear that the folding could leave creases behind thankfully didn't prove true.
Conclusion
This first look at the set is already promising! 119 Metallic Gold pieces speak for themselves. Also the foil elements and cape caught my attention and I’m looking forward to see how they look on the final build. In the next part of my review I will guide you through the build and we will see how it turns out in the end. Meanwhile, here’s a preview of the red bow elements that will shape the mech. Click here to read it now!
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Massive thanks go to our 'Vibrant Coral' patrons: Iain Adams, Baixo LMmodels, Andy Price, Anthony Wright, Geppy, Chris Cook, London AFOLs, Gerald Lasser, Big B Bricks, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Huw Millington, Neil Crosby, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Sue Ann Barber & Trevor Clark, and Kevin Gascoigne. You're awesome!
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Nice lighting in those pictures of the minifigures. What kind of lights are you using?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I use two softboxes, one left one right. Nothing spectacular.
DeleteGood start to the review! Since you've posted the sticker sheet here, I might as well mention that I've managed to translate and decipher most (not all) of the Chinese text on these sticker sheets using Google Translate. Here's a sample, listed by sticker number:
ReplyDelete1&2: "Old Zhu Noodle House." This refers to Pigsy's Chinese name, Zhu Bajie. The character for "noodle" is cleverly stylized as a pair of chopsticks pulling noodles out of a box.
4: the only one still largely giving me trouble. The poster reads "New" and the character in red on the upper right means "day" but a lot of the various other text is hard to decipher—if I had to guess I suspect some may be things like designer names or initials?
6&7:"Grandmaster". This is for the arcade cabinet.
10: "Menu". Pretty self-evident.
11: "Dragon Horse Shipping". Basically the non-abbreviated version of the English text. Seems to imply that MK's friend Mei's family (descended from the legendary White Dragon Horse) runs a large shipping business.
13: "Number One in the World". Another sign for Pigsy's noodle shop.
14: Another one I'm not entirely clear on. Has the number 15.01 (which I'd guess is a date? January 15?) and text that as best as I can tell translates to "township club". I think based on the photos it refers to MK and his friends but I'm not sure whether my translation could benefit from context or colloquial usage.
15: "All kinds of food" and "20% off ordering". More promos for Pigsy's noodles.
24: I think the symbol used for the Demon Bull King and his army is the character for "cattle", but stylized in a way that makes it look like a pair of bull horns.
27-30: These aren't Chinese, but the controls actually have pixelated "P", "S", "D" and "M" labels. Not sure the significance of these.
31: This term refers to the "peaches of immortality" from Journey to the West, one of several ways in which the Monkey King became immortal.
Finally, the foil "flags" on the mech's back read 齊天大聖 or "Qitian Dasheng", one of the Monkey King's many titles. It translates to "the great sage, heaven's equal".
This is very interesting, so thank you very much for doing the extra work! I have no clue of Chinese, but as a student of graphic design I'm curious about the ways typography can get used in that language.
DeleteActually I tried to translate some of the symbols with one of these software that claims to translate from image, but it didn't work so I gave up.
Yeah. I used Google Translate, which offers a variety of useful options. On mobile it can translate from the camera in some cases though with more stylized text or busy layouts it struggles, which for many of these stickers made me have to resort to another option in the desktop version—actually drawing out the characters stroke by stroke. Which for someone like me with no understanding of the language can be a challenge, but luckily the software is fairly forgiving of sloppiness. Once I had a translation that looked right and made sense, I could be fairly confident in the translation. For some of the translations it also helped that once I drew out the characters, Google Translate would turn them into Unicode characters that I could plug into Google to try to find additional background information on phrases (especially useful for the several references to the original Journey to the West that feature character names or wordplay that might not be obvious from a direct translation).
DeleteThis guy has some better translations since he is an actual translator for Chinese languages:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOZX4ADU500
P S M D stickers - Pigsy, Sandy, Monkey, Dragon?
ReplyDeleteThat sounds likely, actually!
DeleteI also may have been able to decipher some of the graffiti from sticker 4—though some of it is only guesses. The Chinese characters read "30 workers", though I'm unsure of what that means (perhaps the size of the Monkie Kid design team?). Another graffiti reads "GA" which if I had to guess I'd suspect were the initials of Lego designer and graphic designer Gemma Anderson (who hasn't updated her bricklist of sets she's worked on on Brickset in several years, but who has a background in graphic design and a passion for graffiti art). And the "#CES!" may refer to designer Cesar Soares, who has mostly works on the Star Wars team but may have assisted with this theme or set.
Is the "30 workers" guess based on something like 三十工人 ? I have a hard time seeing it.
ReplyDeleteOne theory I have was that it could be read as 卌.I.X. , i.e. Five (Tally), One, Ten, though I wouldn't know what significance that would have. Apparently that five tally symbol could also be read in Chinese as "40". It does also look somewhat like the turned character of "beauty", 美.
However, all of these guesses feel somewhat as shots in the dark. None of them feel particularly obvious and unstrained...
Ah, there actually was a 卅 character meaning 30... Sorry... 30-1-10, 30-9, HIX, THIX, it all still feels pretty strained...
DeleteThat one was 卅工乂. Google Translate gave me that translation, but I'm not sure how reliable it is. The fact that there are periods after each character make it plausible that it could mean something else.
DeleteHmmm, yeah, writing 工 as I or | feels somewhat like writing H as - . It's not a simplification, it's just strange. I didn't know about the 乂 character but I find translations like mow, control, regulate, nurture or discipline...
DeleteI just took some beginner's class in Chinese many years ago, though, and I've forgotten just about all of it, anyway...
Hmmm, MIX in Roman numerals equals 1009, which upside-down is GOOI, and 'gooi' in Afrikaans means 'throw', which is fitting since this is a THROW-UP.
DeleteOr maybe I am overthinking this...
You guys missed a golden opportunity to quote a certain scene from a certain Austin Powers movie...
ReplyDeleteJokes aside, the amount of gold lacquer pieces in this set is incredible!