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23 October 2024

Review: 10370 Poinsettia from LEGO® Icons Botanical Collection

Posted by Tom Loftus

Charming festive display piece or stunning parts pack? LEGO® Icons Botanical Collection 10370 Poinsettia is both! One third of its 608 parts are rare or exclusive, all of which are integral to the plant's striking bracts, plentiful foliage and sturdy woven-basket flowerpot.

A wide variety of loose Lego pieces, mostly red and green

Products in this article were gifted by The LEGO Group; the author's opinions are their own.
This article contains affiliate links to LEGO.com; we may get a small commission if you purchase.

10370 Poinsettia

  • Release date: 1 October 2024
  • Pieces: 608
Price:

 

The parts

Let's start with the flagship recolour of the set and its companion, both exclusive in regular red:

2 red lego pieces

  • 18x Flag 2 x 4 Triangle (6511983 | 5555)
  • 6x Plate Special 1 x 1 with Hole Through Stud, 3 Bars and 3 Bar Holes (6515586 | 1941)
See Toby's LEGO Friends Summer Adventure Camp sets review for some thorough examination of the new flag's geometry.


A shade darker next with these elements in dark red:

4 dark red lego elements

  • 8x Plate Special 1 x 1 Rounded with Handle (6483130 | 26047) - 3 other sets
  • 2x Large Figure Weapon 6 Blade Ninja Star / Shuriken (6516524 | 41125) - Exclusive
  • 15x Wedge Sloped 4 x 4 Pointed (6511987 | 22391) - Exclusive
  • 15 x Hinge Cylinder 1 x 2 Locking with 1 Finger and Axle Hole On Ends (6431687 | 53923) - 3 other sets

Petals, check! Now for the foliage, starting with this pair of exclusive-ish parts in bright green:

2 bright green lego parts

  • 6x Technic Pulley Wheel (6515235 | 2786, 4185, 49750, 65668) - Exists as a Q-part for use by LEGOLAND Model Shops
  • 15x Technic Pin Connector Hub with 1 Pin with Friction Ridges Lengthwise [Square Holes] (6515234 | 65487) - Exclusive

Turn another shade of envy with a look at this batch in dark green:

6 dark green lego parts

  • 2x Large Figure Weapon 6 Blade Ninja Star / Shuriken(6511985 | 41125) - Exclusive
  • 6x Wedge Plate 2 x 4 27° Left (6515237 | 65429) - Exclusive
  • 6x Wedge Plate 2 x 4 27° Right (6515238 | 65426) - Exclusive
  • 8x Technic Axle and Pin Connector Angled #5 - 112.5° (6515241 | 32015, 41488) - Exclusive
  • 15x Plate Special 1 x 2 with Pin Hole Underneath (6515236 | 18677, 28809) - Exclusive
  • 6 x Wedge Curved 3 x 4 x 2/3 Cut-out (6390054 | 31584) - 3 other sets
  • 15x Windscreen 6 x 4 x 1 Hexagonal with Handle (6465521 | 27262) - Also found in 10328 Bouquet of Roses

An umbrella term for the following yellowy/orangey/golden hues was tough to pin down, but I felt they belong together nonetheless:

4 different lego parts

  • 17x Hair Small Tuft in Bright Light Yellow (6516341 | 68212) - Exclusive
  • 8x Slope Curved 3 x 4 x 2/3 Triple Curved with 2 Sunk Studs in Medium Nougat (6515240 | 93604) - Exclusive
  • 4x Tile 3 x 3 Curved, Macaroni in Dark Orange (6468066 | 79393) - 3 other sets
  • 10x  Plate Round 1 x 2 Half Circle with Stud (Jumper) in Warm Gold/ Pearl Gold (6503258 | 1745) - Also found in 75398 C-3PO


Finally, a couple of bar-based elements. Both have appeared in a fair number of other sets already, but they still have that air of newness about them:

2 different lego parts

  • 18x Pneumatic T-Piece (T Bar) [New Style] in Reddish Orange (6486091 | 4697) - 3 other sets - Note the generous quantity, narrowly beaten by the 19 in 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon's Tale that originally introduced the recolour.
  • 3x Plate Round 1 x 1 with Vertical Bar in Black (6508269 | 3661) - 4 other sets

The build

The planters in Botanical Collection sets are often just as interesting to make as the plants themselves. The Poinsettia's 'bricker-work' basket is no exception:

octagonal lego construction with studs facing many directions

It uses SNOT bricks to connect the outer panels but also has a few facing inwards to lock alternating sides at 45°. 

There's some parts-based ingenuity in the larger flower heads too:

round lego construction using pulley wheels, with a central spine rising above

Both pulley wheel's axle holes are reserved for the stem connection below so a 1x1 plate with vertical bar recentres the spindly structure up top. It's a neat solution, utilising the spare LEGO Technic hole courtesy of the 5-petal design.

3 lego poinsettia flowers

There are three flower designs, each showing a different stage of development. The small and large each have a duplicate, making five flower heads in total. 

The smallest flowers use left versions of 1x2 curved slopes with stud notch (29120) for their petals. This streamlines the instructions and avoids the frustration of discerning lefts from rights, but it also mean there are 8 mismatched slopes per set out in the ether. 


4 stages of constructing the Poinsettia Lego set.

It's a quick build with many repeated sub-assemblies that follows a predictable path of pot to plant to flowers. Installing the final flower in the centre is a little finnicky with so many leaves and petals to negotiate, but once in place the model is complete:

completed set lego poinsettia

It's certainly recognisable as a poinsettia with red accented by yellow popping against dark green. It does lack the papery quality of the real plant, and the jump from dark red to red is a bit extreme. However, short of resorting to vinyl pieces, crafting wafer-thin petals with colour-subtlety in bricks will require some compromise.


closeup of lego poinsettia flower using ninjago textured hexagonal weapons for green leaves and red petals

On that note, the texture of the shurikens is a little distracting but the overall shape of part blends better than anticipated - especially the partially obscured dark green ones. 


Alternate build

With so many pointy elements in bright colours at my disposal, I had intended to make a dragon. However, as a parts-intensive face design took shape, a new idea emerged.

Lego model of some sort of spiky puffball monster with skinny legs but large feet and arms, glaring

He may not be the majestic dragon I had in mind, but I'm pleased with this grumpy swamp shepherd all the same - especially as creature builds aren't my forte.


Rear and interior of Lego model

He's not so pretty around the back where the supply of parts began to run dry. Standard bricks and 1M-wide plates are rarities in the set's inventory so the head's structure is a little bare-bones too.


grumpy swamp shepherd lego monster glaring at a tiny helpless one-eyed blob creature with floppy tentacles

What's a shepherd without a flock? Here he's staring down a particularly disobedient herd member that's wandered far from the group - built with a handful of remaining elements. 

Closing thoughts

You'll find better value and accuracy elsewhere in the Botanical Collection range, but despite the red flags (ha!) 10370 Poinsettia remains a respectable festive display piece. Its size is decent, the build enjoyable and it comes with a mountain of exclusive recolours to admire even when completed.

extreme closeup of flower on poinsettia lego model

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2 comments:

  1. I find the Poinsettia rather meh but simply adore the grumpy swamp shepherd and would buy that in an instant ♥️

    ReplyDelete
  2. It seems like there would be more practical, and possibly more solid, ways of connecting the center of the flowers while allowing the stems to attach on the back, so I wonder if this was one of those situations where the designers chose to do it a different way to give people more of a certain part.

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