Set Review: Mork 031063 Ecological Park (Lego Compatible)

 

Good day brick fans!  We are back, and this time we are looking at another Mork/XMork branded set.  This one is called the Ecological Park, and it is my second Mork building set.  The other Mork set I built was the Tooncity Flower Shop and if you missed it, you can find my review of it 👉  here.

This post is brought to you by Afobrick.com who have provided this cool little building for me to review.  Thanks, Afobrick!

👉 Please check out the latest seasonal promo from Afobrick.  They are a new store on the building block scene and if you could support them, that would be great!

Here are the details of today's set review:

Brand: Mork/Xmork

Set number: 031063

Theme: Block Module

Number of Pieces: 1506 pieces

Stickers: No

Minifigures: No

Extra parts: Yes

Deformed or missing parts: No

Brick clutch and finish: Excellent

Age Rating: 6+

Size: 21cm W x 20.5 cm H

Lighting: Yes!

Unboxing

Here's the colourful box which describes all the details on the front.  The box has seen better days, but that's ok because I don't collect cardboard. 

Although branded as Mork, the box logos say Xmork.  I'm so confused.  On the back of the box is a picture of the Ecological Park lit up.  Yes, it comes with a very nice LED light brick.

Unboxings are always fun!  Let's see what we got.

The building block set includes a glossy 74 page instruction booklet, a red brick separator, a light brick, a sprue of pink flowers, and 28 numbered parts bags broken down as follows:

Section 1: 10 bags

Section 2: 9 bags

Section 3: 9 bags

Each of the numbers correspond to the respective section in the manual.  

The Build

Section 1

The 10 bags for section 1 build one side of the Ecological Park.  There are quite a few masonry bricks in this set as well as a lot of windows.  The window glass was just a tad milky but that's to be expected from the Chinese brands.  No scratches or deformities encountered with the bricks so far, that's a good sign.

The building is quite tall and houses some tropical plants and also serves as an animal sanctuary.  There are a good number of printed parts as you will see.  The interior has a rack of plants that are being grown in the corner.  Above them are 4 bird houses with perches.  There are three tropical birds roosting there.  In the lower corner near the entrance is a tank where several frogs live.  I like how there appears to be a waterline in the tank.  We will take a closer look later.

Section 2

Section 2 builds the glass enclosure which is like a solarium.  It also makes the roof line even taller with the slanted roof.  There are some hanging vines that come down inside.  On the solarium side, we find a tropical palm tree and a pond with more frogs and some more plants.  I should mention that there is a narrow gray path that winds around the base, but I don't think it's minifig scale.  

The two sections are hinged at one end and the Ecological Park building can be displayed either opened or closed.  The hinge piece is a tad loose and doesn't really hold up very well.

Section 3

Section 3 adds the slanted roof and lots of foliage.

Like I mean a lot of foliage!  I'm guess a good third of this set is attributed to plant leaves and stems. Oh and the roof tiles too.  I chose not to use any of the pink parts on the sprue.

Entrance to the building is at the side.  You can pretty much put the trees and foliage where ever you want.

Here's the back of the building complete with plants and vines.  The chain is supposed to hang a printed sign that says plants, but I thought that was pretty redundant so I didn't use it.

There are four more birds perched outside.  Can you find them all?  

So the set doesn't come with any minifigures, but I added a few so you could see how big the set relative to the figure.  Based on the scale of the minifig, this building would probably be about 25 to 30 feet tall in real life or approx 8 or 9 meters tall.

Here's a closer look inside the interior.

There are three roof panels, two of which are tiled and one is comprised of windows. They can all come off by lifting.

Brick clutch was good and they needed to be, because there were a lot of 1x2 plates used.  They could have been replaced by longer 1x4 or 1x6 plates to give more structural rigidity.  I found the area with the black tile under the roof line to be the trickiest to put together.  Try not to press too hard here or it will fall off.  This is more a design issue, than a brick clutch problem.  I will probably modify it later to remedy the problematic area.

Here's a closer look at the pond and plants area.

Oh man, every day someone has to go and clean up all of the bird doo-doo!  Be careful they don't poop on your head!  (Bird poop and minifigure, accessories not included).

Hey, but what is included in the set are the following animals:

7 tropical birds pooping

3 cats pouncing

2 dogs sitting

and 5 froggies croaking

(custom stand not included)

But wait, there's more!  The Mork Ecological Park also comes with a light brick and attached LED light string.

The instruction manual pretty much tells you to put the led lights however you want but they do provide a picture of the recommended location.  

Summary

So if you are a fan of plants and animals, you will probably like this set.  It's got a lot of nice details and best of all printed parts and no stickers.  The bonus light brick really makes this building shine! (excuse the pun).  I thought that the build quality was ok except for the area under the roof and the hinge that connects the two parts of the building together.  For a display set, you need to turn on the light or open it up so you can see the interior.  Oh and add a few minifigures for more fun.

For those of you up to the challenge, this would make a nice full sized modular building. I'd expand the footprint and provide more space on the inside so minifigures could take a tour.  I'd also provide a second floor viewing platform with ladder or stairs so that the birds could be better viewed by the minifigures.

I'd give this set a 4 out of 5.  Decent little set overall.

👉 Here's the link to the Ecological Park set on Afobrick's website.  Don't forget to use my code itsnotlego to get an extra 5% off your entire purchase.

Thanks for looking!  And don't forget to check out 👉 Afobrick's latest promo!

Lego Compatible Set Review: Keeppley K10211 Long March 2F and Shenzhou Spacecraft

 

Hello brick fans and rocket fans!

Keeppley/Enlighten has released their latest Chinese Aerospace sets for 2022 and I'll be reviewing one of the sets from the theme.  Today's set review is the Long March 2F rocket and Shenzhou spacecraft.  This is a kit that includes both spacecraft.

About the Long March rocket and Shenzhou spacecraft

The Long March 2F two stage rocket is part of the Chinese Long March family of rockets. It first went into service in 1999 to replace it's troublesome predecessor the Long March 2E.  It was used to successfully launch the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft carrying China's first astronaut into space.  Both of the Long March and Shenzhou spacecraft are still being used today.

Here are the respective wiki pages for both the Long March rocket and the Shenzhou spacecraft.

This Keeppley Long March 2F set is just one of several Aerospace sets that can be found on  Afobrick.com, one of the leading online retailers of Lego compatible building block sets.   Afobrick.com provides free worldwide shipping and free parts replacement if needed.

Here are the set details

The Brand:  Keeppley

Set name: K10211 Long March 2F and ShenZhou Spacecraft

Theme: Aerospace

Ages: 6+

Number of Pieces: approx 813 pcs (by my count)

Stickers:  None

Printed parts: Yes, quite a few!

Minifigures: None

Missing or deformed pieces:  None!

Extra parts leftover: Yes!

Check it out here:

https://afobrick.com/en-ca/products/keeppley-k10211-long-march-2f-and-shenzhou-spacecraft

Don't forget to save another 5% off if you use ITSNOTLEGO at checkout

I like the fact that Keeppley always numbers their bags of parts and each bag corresponds to the section you are building in the included instruction manual.  The Long March set also comes with 5 sectional bags, 2 supplementary parts bags and 2 16x16 baseplates.

Interestingly, although the Keeppley set number is designated as K10211, my manual says K10212.  

I'm wondering if I got the Chinese domestic version of the set, as the wording in the manual is in Chinese.  The first two pages of the manual look like the specifications for the spacecraft.  The rest of the manual and instructions is pretty much intuitive and language agnostic.

The manual has 70 pages with steps A1 thru A73 (pages 1 thru 34) building the Long March rocket and steps B1 thru B130 (pages 35 thru 70) building the Shenzhou spacecraft and it's stand.

The bricks in this set were very high quality and they clutched really well. As a result, I never had to use the brick separator that was included.

Step One: Launchpad

Step Two: Main stage rocket and booster rockets

Here are the four booster rockets that are easily clipped on to the main rocket fuselage.  As I soon came to discover, there are quite a few printed parts and no stickers whatsoever, yay!

The main rocket shown with boosters attached and installed onto the launchpad.  Yes, those are printed parts on the main rocket, not stickers.

Step Three: The Payload Section

The payload on the Long March rocket can either be the Shenzhou spacecraft or parts of the Tiangong space station.   The payload flaps and chinese flag on the fairing are printed parts.

Here is the assembled Long March 2F rocket which stands approximately 21 inches high.

Not sure why, but there isn't any printing on the reverse side of the rocket.

Step Four: Shenzhou spacecraft

Step four builds the Shenzhou spacecraft consisting of three modules. From top to bottom, these are the orbital module, the reentry module in the middle and the service module.  

Step Five: The Solar Panels and Display Stand

Printed pieces for the solar panels.

The trans blue stand is adjustable.

The solar panels can be swivelled.

I've placed one of my minifigures with the Shenzhou spacecraft so you can get  a sense of the scale of the assembled model.  I think the Shenzhou would have to be increased by another 3 to 4 times in size to be minifig scale (just guessing).

Oh, did you know that the Shenzhou spacecraft was featured in the movie Sandra Bullock/George Clooney movie Gravity?

After building the Long March rocket, I thought it would be fun to see if I can make it look like it was lifting off from the launchpad.  See the before and after pics below.

The rocket was originally secured to the base/launchpad via a short technic pin. I replaced it with a much longer pin to raise the rocket ship off of the base.  Then, I attached some flame pieces to each of the rocket and booster nozzles.  What do you think of the mod, does it make the rocket look better?  Let me know!

This was a satisfying building set that took less than a day to complete.  Although the parts count is not indicated anywhere, neither on the manual or on the Afobrick website.  I did a manual count of all the pieces used.

The Long March 2F rocket consisted of 400 pieces.  That included 195 pieces for the stand, 116 pieces to build the 4 booster rockets and 89 pieces for the main rocket.

The Shenzhou spacecraft is comprised of 421 pieces and 12 pieces of trans-blue parts for the stand.  Total part count came to 833 pieces, by my estimation.

I wanted to take some of my wife's cotton balls that she uses to clean her face, to simulate the smoke billowing from the rockets, but sadly, she said no.  😞

This set makes a nice display piece for anyone who enjoys model rockets.

One day, maybe, I will build a launch tower next to the rocket and increase the size of the launchpad.  But I will save that for another project.  Anyways, thx for looking.

Here's the set link again: https://afobrick.com/en-ca/products/keeppley-k10211-long-march-2f-and-shenzhou-spacecraft and remember to use my discount code itsnotlego to get another 5% off.

Bye!

Set Review: Keeppley K18003 Yinyi Garden Entertainment Building Block Set

It's huge, it's colourful, it's packed with details!  It's the new Keeppley K18003 Yinyi Garden Entertainment building block set.   Hey, brick fans, today we are back with another review and it's quite the set.

In case you are unfamiliar with the name, Keeppley is a building block brand that is part of the Enlighten Toys franchise. A quick scan on brick4.com reveals that they have produced just under 200 sets for such names such as Naruto, Pokemon, Doraemon,  Crayon Shin, and Hello Kitty to name a few.  If you see sets with the names Enlighten, Keeppely, and Qman, they are all part of the same brand.

A huge shout out to online store Afobrick.com who made this review possible by kindly furnishing the set for me to review.  The set was sent to me superfast and well packaged.  Afobrick.com has an excellent track record for packaging and delivery.

Afobrick.com also provides free worldwide shipping and it's all tax free. Buy more, save more!

The Keeppley K18003 Yinyi Garden Entertainment Center is now available on their website, and don't forget to use my discount code ITSNOTLEGO at checkout. (click on the pic below to go directly to the item listing).

In 2020, Keeppley  expanded into Chinese Street Architecture theme, with the  Kaiyun Hotpot Restaurant K18001, then shortly thereafter the Qiyun Luxury Hotel K18002.  

New for this year is the Yinyi Garden and Entertainment Center K18003. The Entertainment center consists of three storeys in an L shaped layout.  Where your normal modular building sits on a 32x32 stud baseplate, this one has a footprint of 36 by 42 studs.  If you want to fit this into your modular city, you might have to make some adjustments.  This is a decent sized set with well over 2000 pieces I'd imagine.

Typically, a modular building has a very interesting front facade, with a not so interesting backside.  The Keeppley entertainment center is an exception as both front and rear of the building are exquisitely and richly detailed.

Dominating the front corner of the building is a large sign board that runs the entire height of the three floors.  If someone knows the meaning of the characters on the sign, please let me know.  And yes, those are all printed parts, not stickers.

Here are some of the different exterior facades that adorn the three levels of the building.  More examples of printed pieces can be found.

Left side front view.

Right side front view.

Being a corner modular building, you can choose to display the side you like the best.

Here's the other side of the entertainment centre.  One can see a rooftop garden, a stone bridge that leads to a pagoda surrounded by water and a huge tree that overlooks a waterfall.   In the center of all this, there is a working glass elevator that services all three floors. It's a very nice setup, although one wonders where all that water is coming from.  

There's a bird perched in the tree, wish it was more colourful though.

The view of beautiful waterfall is obscured by the pagoda.

A better view of the waterfall with pagoda removed.

Shaded lookout from the second floor.

The full height glass elevator shaft. The elevator works by turning the blue knob at the top to raise and lower the platform inside.  There are openings from each floor to access the shaft, however there should be glass doors to prevent people from falling into the shaft and getting seriously injured.

I don't know if this applies to the other Keeppley buildings, but this one does not come off floor by floor like a regular modular building.  There are a couple of novel ways to view the interior of the entertainment centre.

Kitchen in a drawer!  This sliding feature makes it possible to remove the entire kitchen for extra play value.

With the kitchen fully removed, one can see all the details of the double stove, sink and other utensils.

On the other arm of the building, there are four different rooms to be seen by swinging away each section.  Unfortunately access is limited and is for viewing only.

Here is the main floor dining room, with seating for six.  Even inside there are printed signs on the wall and even the rice and noodle bowls are printed, not stickered.

I'm not exactly sure for sort of room this is on the second floor.  I'm guessing from the cups on the table that it's some sort of tea room, with different teas for tasting.

On the top floor is the mahjong room.  Mahjong is like a chinese version of gin rummy but using plastic tiles instead of cards.  Of course, there are a lot more complexities to this game than my simple explanation.  Anyways, mahjong can be found in many asian gambling establishments, typically frequented by the older generation.  And yes, all the colourful mahjong tiles are printed pieces.

One last look at the Mahjong room from an exterior view.

Finally for those of the less geriatric crowd, there is a video games room next to the mahjong room.

With a couple of controllers on the shelf and a dance mat on the floor, this should have the kids poppin.

So let's talk about the minifigures that come with this set.  There are six of them, three males and three females, all dressed in traditional chinese garments.

I'm pretty sure that Enlighten/Keeppley/Qman wanted to avoid Lego's wrath when it came to minifigure replicas.  So they made their minifigures with huge heads that look more like dolls than minifigures.   If you like them, then that's fine, but for me, I prefer all of my minifigures to look similar in size.  Xingbao and Sluban have uniquely designed minifigs as well, but they still keep within the same size norms as Lego style minifigures.  

But did you know that you can actually swap out the ginormous Enlighten heads and replace them with standard minifigure heads?  I went through my minifigure collection and selected some that loosely replicate the ones in the set.  

Which minifigure style do you prefer? Let me know if you prefer the Lego standard or the new Enlighten ones.  

As a final note, I took a lot of pictures as I built the set, but not sure if there's anyone interested in seeing the process.  Let me know if you want to see those pics and I can make a subsequent post.  I found the brick clutch and quality to be excellent.  There was a matter of  one missing piece and one deformed piece, however those did not impact the build.  There are some transparent window parts which are relatively clear and scuffed or scratched.

I gave this set a 4.8 out of 5 with points deducted for the missing and deformed parts and the big headed mini figures.  But overall a fun and enjoyable build.  And the entertainment center is absolutely photogenic.

Want to build this colourful and exquisite set?  Head on over to Afobrick.com and check out all the different brick sets they have at the store.

Hope you have enjoyed this review and let me know what you thought in the comments.   Bye for now!