41075 The Elves Treetop Hideaway

[rogue27]

I started building 41075 The Elves Treetop Hideaway last night. I did bag 1 which completed the bottom half of the tree on the right.

It's built on a green Plate 16x16 rather than a baseplate. This is a great part that I had not seen before, but it has been around since 2011. It also includes Plate 8x16 in green and medium azure where the other half will be built. Also new to me, but around since 2012. The majority of these new plates have gone into Friends/Princess/Elves sets or large LEGO exclusives like Palace Cinema. I wonder if TLG is phasing out the smaller baseplate sizes in favor of these more versatile plates?

The base of the tree is a nice looking root system using dark red bricks, slopes, and inverted arches. It's very solid with many overlapping bricks. There is a hidden compartment built into the back of the roots containing an envelope tile. The back of the tree looks like it is meant to be accessed by passing through the swirling air which is hinged on ball joints. For story purposes, perhaps the girl Emily is supposed to collect the Air Key from another set before passing through the whirlwind read to the letter hidden in the tree.

Above the roots, the color switches to brown and branches begin spreading outward. There is a window, but it is just for looks. This part of the tree is hollow, but there is no way to access the interior. The back has a hinged cover that folds down to hide the envelope compartment in the roots. The roots and branches both have angle plates on the sides, allowing brown 2x8 plates to provide bracing. This is a really strong tree!

Additional details include a table, two goblets filled with different drinks, two seats, a small stream/spring flowing from a rock, a bucket of water, a mushroom, two pink small limbs with gems, and pearl gold grass which also has a gem inside.

Despite the figures not being useful to me, I like it so far. I appreciate the strength of the structure and the hidden compartment in the roots. The pink and purple foliage is great. I grew up with games and movies like Secret of Mana and The Last Unicorn, so I feel like brightly colored forest scenes belong in fantasy. Things are darker and grittier today, so perhaps younger males won't appreciate these new foliage colors.

I look forward to finishing this build. I can post more impressions if anybody is interested.

[Bruce N H]

That set looks interesting. I agree, all of the crazy colors could be really useful for various magical/fantasy worlds. Looking closely at the set picture in reading your review, I see that there is a new flower stem piece:



I hadn't seen that highlighted by anyone before. It's in one of the other elves sets as well according to BrickLink.

That new fence piece is awesome as well. Ooh, it's also available in pearl gold. LEGO, please make these in other colors as well. I could use about fifty of these in white and light gray.



Bruce

[rogue27]

Indeed, I haven't gotten to those parts yet, but I look forward to it. I think they will be popular.


EDIT: Completed Bag #2 last night which finished the tree on the right. I'll keep this shorter due to a perceived lack of interest.

The deck was pretty simple. Big octagon plate. The most interesting thing was the use of A-Plates to set the fences at 45 degree angles with touching corners. This allowed them to be connected at the top using dark green hinge plates which are unique to this set. The fences are elegant and timeless, I expect them to appear elsewhere, perhaps in a modular building.

Above the deck, a two-stud thick series of curves and arches creates a rounded look that can double as a handle. The shape seems appropriate, but it isn't developed enough to provide more than a hint. Also above the deck is a curtain of foliage on technic pins and beams that can open and close. It isn't dense enough to feel truly satisfying as cover, but the unexpected movement is pretty cool.

The collapsible bridge works well, and tractor treads make great wooden planks. I prefer this design over the rope bridge from the original pirates theme.

Just below the deck is some kind of magic fairy disco ball that uses several new parts/colors:

The fright knights crystal ball in transparent with glitter. This color has only been used on six parts since it was introduced in 2002. Might work as a snow globe.

The round plate with crown leaf is a great looking part from 2014 that hasn't left the mini-doll product lines yet. I hope it eventually appears in other colors.

A small radar dish in trans-purple with glitter. A rare color that has only been used on three elements since it was introduced in 2004. This set also uses it as a mushroom top. I imagine a variety of uses in fantasy and space builds.


Other interesting parts:

The new flower stem that Bruce mentioned is fantastic. It has a uniform dome shape when loaded with flowers, and works better as a stand-alone bush or handheld bouquet than the traditional part or the CMF Series 7 flower stem. However, the traditional flower stem is probably still best for creating a field of flowers.

Emily has a new sand blue backpack. The design should fit in a variety of settings, especially if produced in something brownish. Unfortunately, it doesn't attach to a minifigure's back.

I hope somebody enjoyed reading this. I failed to keep it short like I promised.

[Bruce N H]

Hey,

Could you take a pic of that flower stem piece looking directly down from the top? It's hard to tell the angles between the stems from the pic on BrickLink. Also maybe a pic of the stem covered in flower elements?

Thanks,
Bruce

[rogue27]

Sure, I'll do that tonight if I remember.

[Lil_Curt]

Thanks rogue,

I think I will get this set. I was waiting for your full write up before I responded though good write up. Thanks again

[rogue27]

Terrible lighting, but here are some images of the new flower pieces. Stems are all the same length. Inner circle of three, and outer circle of three rotated 60 degrees.

Top View


Side View


Bouquet


I'll update with impressions from bags 3 and 4 when I finish them.

[Str0ngbad]

Thank you for doing this. I felt I should comment so that you knew more people were actually interested. I doubt I will get any of the sets but I am VERY interested in the pieces. I will be spending a good bit at Bricks and Pieces just on the parts from these sets. The comparison pictures of the flower stems are very helpful. I wasn't sure if they had a stud or not before.

[rogue27]

Thanks for the comments. If it's not clear from the photos, there is no stud on the new flower stems. Also, I agree with your opinions on toilet paper.

When I opened bag #3, I did a little experiment. I put all of the girly colors* aside. It was mostly plant bits and transparent elements. Most of the general building parts (bricks, plates, slopes) are tan, brown, dark red, greens, grey, black, etc. In other words, I think most people here would find most of the parts to be useful, especially if they appreciate the new foliage colors.

Bag 3 began with a piece of furniture for the first tree's deck. It is a bed that opens up to form an L-shaped sofa, and there is a tile-pattern carpet on the floor too. Great finishing touch.

The bottom half of the second tree didn't have much that was new. It's a 4x4 trunk with slopes and arches spreading outward to form roots and branches. The big surprise for me was that the hollow 4x4 trunk gets filled in with 1x1x6 columns. They could have easily left that out, but they're going the extra mile to make the tree very strong. I appreciate how sturdy and dense this build is.

Aside from the trunk, there are bits of foliage, a couple mushrooms, and minor bits of dark green landscaping, but bag 3 was pretty straightforward.


* I don't like saying "girly colors", but it seemed like the most concise way to make my point. My point being that most of the parts are in colors that are frequently used outside the female-targeted product lines. Just check out the inventory, this is a great parts pack with lots of generally useful parts and colors.

[dyntar]

I just finished building this set tonight and i found it a pretty good build. I have no interest in the Friends sets but this one caught my eye. Theres very little pink which is a bonus. I bought this set because i wanted to experiment with it and try to convert it into an elvish building that would fit in with my castles. The purple actually looks good and I could picture people using the tree pieces in castle MOCs. When i took out all the pink parts it looked even better. But my plan is to replace the purples and few pink tree pieces with the tree parts from the Rivendell set. Its actually a really nice set if you look past the colours that are too bright.. who has flouro blue water?
The bridge/ladder is a great design and would work great in a castle set. The elves fence is awesome and even most of the stickers apart from 1 would have a use in any castle scene. Even the hairpieces work well on elven figures.
Its definitely worth taking a good look at this set especially at the parts.. just ignore the colour scheme.

[Bluesecrets]

I just built this set. I'm not surprised by the level of the build. All of the bigger friends sets have good solid builds. This one does not disappoint.

The things I love:
trans purple chain
the new leaf stems
the new plant in gold
all of the pink gems
the trans pieces
the new fence pieces
the new flower piece in light purple
the sand green pieces
the dark red and dark green pieces
and the lamp! oh that lame is just great
16x16 baseplate

I am not a fan of purple and pink leaves.

[rogue27]

I finished building this on Saturday morning. Didn't have time to write anything, but I also don't have much to write.

The fourth bag built the deck on the second tree and connected the two halves together.

There were a few noteworthy details. A small campfire, perhaps dangerously close to the tree, with a kettle cooking a carrot. A telescope, a basket on a winding trans-purple chain, and some food items finish it off. The elves are clearly vegetarians.

I like that there is no built-in conflict. Just a playset with some figures, some interactive bits, and a variety of potential hooks for the imagination to grab onto and explore. Of course, that is true for most (all?) of the mini-doll sets.

I have no intention of keeping this together for play or display because I am not a girl between the ages of 8 and 12, but I think this would be a great toy for it's target audience. For the majority of this forum, it is a good parts pack if you like the leaves. Otherwise, you will probably do better by purchasing individual parts from Bricklink.

I'm happy with my purchase. It was fun to build, and it gave me a nice assortment of parts.