Includes 6 minifigures: Santa with red gift sack, Mrs. Claus with cookie tray and 4 elves with pointy ears and hats. LEGO Creator Expert Christmas Sets Enjoy the magic of Christmas with Santa's Workshop, a festive addition to the LEGO Winter Village Series! Gather your family around the Christmas tree to build this enchanting winter wonderland. Help the elves make the toys, feed the reindeer and help Santa load up his magical sleigh. Santa's wife has baked cookies and the clock tower shows it's nearly time for Santa to deliver the presents—all at the most wonderful time of the year! Have festive family fun building Santa's Workshop! The enchanting LEGO Creator Santa's Workshop model is full of festive magic and includes a beautiful sleigh, reindeer and a Christmas tree. Includes 6 minifigures: Santa with red gift sack, Mrs. Claus with cookie tray and 4 elves with pointy ears and hats. Features beautiful sleigh with red and gold detail and dark green padding, 4 reindeer and a baby reindeer, building with detailed interior, clock tower and Christmas tree.
Building features stained glass window and Christmas lights on roof Accessories include: 4 wrapped presents in assorted sizes and 4 toys including a blue classic spaceship, yellow car and a pink wand. Also includes North Pole sign, Santa's Workshop sign and a summer holiday picture of Santa and his wife Gather everyone around the Christmas tree! Help Santa take off in his sleigh! Family dual-building experience: includes separate brick sets with instructions for adults and children aged 8 and over Santa's Workshop measures over 6” (16cm) high, 3” (8cm) deep and 9” (24cm) wide. These are the instructions for building the LEGO Advanced Models Toy Shop that was released in 2015. Download These Instructions as PDF: BI 3016/36-65G - 10249 V29 1/2 [7.81 Mb] BI 3016/36-65G - 10249 V39 1/2 [7.81 Mb] BI 3016/56 - 10249 V29 2/2 [12.19 Mb] BI 3016/56 - 10249 V39 2/2 [12.19 Mb] View which pieces you need to build this set ) which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site
In this Brick Breakdown series I review official LEGO sets, from the perspective of looking at interesting building techniques we can all learn from. Today we will be looking at the #10249 LEGO Winter Toy Shop. You can also check out the previously discussed LEGO techniques found in official LEGO sets at the end of this article. Before we get started, it might be good to get one question out of the way. Why was this set reissued? It’s a question Jamie Berard (the lead designer for LEGO Creator) gets asked a lot these days. I have a friend who recently took a trip to Denmark, and had a chance to ask Jamie this very question in person. The long and short of his response was rather surprising. The reissue had nothing to do with a lack of new design ideas. In fact, according to Jamie, they had a new model ready to go. However management was not ready to put resources into it just yet. So Jamie talked with the people in charge and it all boiled down to this; there would either be no new LEGO Winter Village set this year, or they could rerelease one of the previous sets. T
he end result is a revised version of the #10199 LEGO Winter Toy Shop from 2009. The next logical question is; what changes are there in the revised version? ➡ LEGO WINTER TOY SHOP – WHAT’S NEW? Parts wise, there are noticeable changes between the original set and the rerelease, while keeping all the charm of the original. The most noticeable structural change involves the Christmas tree and the roof of the shop, but we will skip over those for now and talk about them later when we discuss the techniques used. Other really neat changes are the little toys. First up is the new rocket ship. It’s a simple design that can be put together quite easily, but it has an instantly recognizable shape. Next is the delivery truck that uses the new black roller-skate pieces as wheels – very clever and looks good. More sophisticated designs are the biplane and the helicopter. Both take advantage of brand new pieces that were not available in 2009, and some very clever building-techniques. O
ther changes for the toys include the new teddy bear, instead of the small brick-built bear in the original set. Also, a crate has been added to store the light-strands and/or gifts. And the previously brick-built wreaths have been replaced with the new green life-preservers. As far as the minifigures, there is an additional minifig added to the previous line-up, and some of the designs have been changed. The most significant being new printed faces and bodies for the carolers. Also, the lady caroler who used to have two capes to give the illusion of a red interior lining, now only has one cape that is red on one side and black on the other. You might think, that while these changes are nice, they still don’t add up to a $20 mark up in price. The original set from 2009 had 815 pieces, while the new set has 898 pieces. So there are a few more areas that got new parts that may explain the increase. For instance, there is a whole new strand of lights added. Also the tree, while looks quite similar, is designed differently using more pieces. O
ther examples of increased number of pieces include the ladder which originally features a 2×2 modified brick with two finger connections. This time the same shape was rebuilt with plates using four pieces instead of one. Some of the floor tiles have been swapped out as well, from 1×6 to a couple of 1×3 tiles. Oh, and before I forget, the bench has studs now so minifigures will not slip off. 😀 As for changes in colors, there are several small variations. For example the red lights on the tree were replaced with pink. The fixtures for those lights, as well as the door-knob and frog above the clock, are now all gold. The wheels on the toy train have become silver. The Jack-In-The-Box went from blue and red to blue and orange. The gray LEGO Technic pieces on the roof are now dark-green and the plates under the windows that were dark-red are now reddish-brown. And we already talked about the changes for the minifigures. ➡ LEGO WINTER TOY SHOP – TURNING PLATES Besides changes in elements, colors, and details there are also differences in building techniques. Th
e original set came out before I started writing this Brick Breakdown series, so I never had a chance to talk about some extremely rare techniques, like turning plates. This technique is used in both versions of the set near the top of the Christmas tree, where a 2×4 plate is slightly turned. To understand what is happening here, take two 2×4 plates and two 1×1 round plates to conduct a small experiment. Place a 2×4 plate horizontal so you have two rows of four studs. Now place the two round plates in the upper left corner and the lower right corner of the horizontal plate. Now take the second 2×4 plate (also horizontal) and then slightly rotate it so that the lower left stud attaches to the round plate in the upper left corner and the upper right corner attaches to the lower right stud. If you do it right, it should look like the top plate is turned about 45 degrees. The new LEGO Winter Toy Shop also connects the lower branches using this technique. This gives each successive layer a much more natural shape while continuing to provide solid stability. In
addition, these plates are built around a trunk that is made of 2×2 round bricks. The result is a realistic tree-trunk and convincing limbs when you look at the tree from the side. All in all, it is a much more complex, yet subtle design, and it provides you with many more examples of plate turning when compared to the original set. ➡ LEGO WINTER TOY SHOP – SIGHTED VS. BL Probably the biggest change to the new version of the LEGO Winter Toy Shop is how the roof comes together. It is also what I feel is the worst change to the model. Ultimately, you do get a roof that looks almost the same, and maybe even a bit more seamless. The trade-off is that it is a lot more fragile than the original. In order to explain this difference you need to understand differing building approaches. And this is where sighted and blind comes into play. These terms refer to how much you are able to see the connections when you are putting something together. In a blind approach you rely on your sense of touch. Th
is means you are free to build things a bit more on the sturdy side since you don’t need to see what you are covering up. On the other side of the coin is the sighted approach. This method may require using fewer elements or thinner pieces so that you can better have line of sight when you connect things together. Generally, it has the benefit of looking a bit better since you don’t have to cover up any bulky elements. Neither method is superior. Both have their major strength and potential weakness. A great builder will learn to use both styles and use each at the most appropriate times. The roof on the newest version of the LEGO Winter Toy Shop is completely a sighted approach. It has a much simpler connection system and looks great. I personally found the instability a point against the technique since I feel floors, walls, and roofs should be the most resilient and durable parts of a building. However, that’s just my personal preference. ➡ LEGO WINTER TOY SHOP FINAL COMPARISON
Normally, I talk about how to apply the techniques you learn at this point, but I feel this Brick Breakdown has more to do with how the new set compares to the original. In short, this version does feel like a small but noticeable upgrade. For those who never got the original, this is an easy set to say yes to when it comes to adding it to your collection because it looks really sweet. If you have the original set already you might still consider picking it up for the upgrades it provides, but truthfully, most of what you get in the new set is minor differences. If you do end up having both sets, you might combine them to make the best version. For example, taking the old roof and putting it on the new set with the updated green LEGO Technic pieces. Other hobbies call this “kit bashing”. LEGO fans just call it building what we want. 🙄 In the end, this set is great, no matter which version you get. I will admit that the new version feels a bit better overall, if you only want one. The