Partying in the North – A Review of the LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 18

A New Series

A year ago, we tried something new here on the blog: a collaborative review of the Collectible Minifigures Series 17. Back then, I chose to review the Butterfly Girl. I decided to name her Aria, and since then I’ve continued to photograph her.

A year later, after a second LEGO Batman Movie and a Ninjago Movie series, here we are again with a new CMF Series soon to be released. This time, I took on the task of reviewing the (almost) full Series that Boris got from LEGO and sent me two weeks ago.

I’ve always found the idea of reviewing a full series daunting. Even if I like the majority of the figures, there’s always only a couple of minifigures that will inspire me enough to take pictures. Getting good pictures is not all about whether the subject is a great toy, but also about how well it fits my Vision.

However, I was so impressed with this new Series that I accepted the challenge of doing a review of all the minifigures… Except for one. The box of 60 minifigures we received from LEGO, only includes one Classic Policeman, which Boris kept and brought to Floating Bricks.

Because the Series is themed around disguises and party, I decided to focus my review on a story celebrating one of my favorite minifigure.

(I won’t go into a full review about every single figure or accessory. I want instead to show what inspired me as an outdoor photographer, and what didn’t. If you’re looking for a more in-depth review, I can only recommend Brickset, the Brothers Brick or JANGBRiCKS.)

A Surprise Party for Aria

Aria left her home to wander around in the North. After one year, she started to feel Nostalgic for home.

That’s when her Friends and Family decided to land her a surprise party to celebrate her first year wandering in the North.

The Monsters

But all sort of strange characters also joined the party.

With creepy and scary creatures around, a Unicorn was hired as a bodyguard to make sure nobody would cause any trouble.

The Cameos

A few unexpected guests also showed up…

Out of Place

But not every guest felt at home in the Nordic Landscape.

Photographing the Series

The Easy Ones

I obviously have my favorites.

As soon as I saw the first official pictures of this new Series, I knew that the Dragon would be amazing to photograph. I love the deep red color, and I can’t wait for summer so I can photograph him in the green forests of Northern Finland.

The Flower Pot, the Spider, the Red and Blue Bricks, and the Cactus are all winners. They’re cute, funny and cheerful, and it’s been so much fun photographing them.

The Hard Ones

The worst is the Clown. Although he wears a great outfit, I really can’t stand the mix of colors. Green, purple and orange don’t work for me at all. It’s the only figure I wouldn’t photograph on its own because of the color. (He does, however, comes with awesome balloon accessories.)

The other figures are all great, but some, such as the Firework Suit, didn’t inspire me photographically as much as the others.

Although I love the red car of the Race Car Suit, I swapped the minifigure. In my opinion, Gizmo better fits the car. Similarly, The new Unicorn is a great figure, but I prefer the color scheme of the previous one. So I decided to improve the Series 13 Unicorn with the sword, the shield and the golden horn from the new one.

Finally the Elephant, despite being an excellent addition to the list of animal disguises, was one of the hardest to photograph. It took me several attempts before coming up with a satisfying photo.

Conclusion

Since I saw the first photos of this new CMF Series, I knew it had the potential to become one of my favorites. After having spent almost two weeks playing with them, I can say it is.

From a photographic point of view, I can’t stress how fun these new figures (and their accessories) are. Although I enjoy the more regular Series without a common theme and with more variety among the figures, the party theme of this one helps a lot to create photos with a common story.

These should start to be available in stores in a couple of days. I personally can’t wait to get my hands on them here in Finland so I can start getting a few more copies of my favorite figures.

Maëlick

Sharing the Adventures in The North of my Plastic Friends.