Two new sets in the Pets subtheme are here to grow the BrickHeadz family, following the recent BrickHeadz dog and cat sets. 40442 Goldfish (US $14.99 | CAN $19.99 | UK £13.49) and 40443 Budgie (US $14.99 | CAN $19.99 | UK £13.49) will be available starting March 1. Adorable to look at and fun to build, these creatures can either be displayed on a shelf as colorful decor pieces or swooshed around the room, and whether that’s under the water or in the sky is up to your imagination. Read on to see just what we thought of Goldfish and Budgie!
The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of these sets for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
The boxes and contents
Not much has changed for the BrickHeadz line in terms of packaging, though there’s nothing wrong with nailing it on the first try. The front packaging does leave out the fact that both the fish and the birds come on larger-than-typical display stands not pictured on the front of the box.
However, a quick turnaround reveals that there’s more inside. We also learn the names of the smaller pets, with Fry accompanying Goldfish, and Chick alongside Budgie. As usual with the pets of BrickHeadz, the smaller creature is slightly different in design than the bigger one.
Inside these boxes are instructions, parts and stickers for each build. You’ll see that Goldfish comes with 186 pieces, 75 pieces less than Budgie’s part count of 261. That’s a lot of more pieces for the same price, giving Budgie the edge as a better buy if you’re purely after pieces. However, Goldfish has several plant and coral pieces that can be hard to find in sets at this low price.
The build: Goldfish
I started by dumping out the parts for the Goldfish, realizing quickly that this build was no bucket of chum. Three bags made it easy to see how LEGO had presorted the pieces by their relative sizes. It only took a few minutes to near completion of the first Goldfish.
While building, I had no issues with cracked bricks. However, several of the smaller orange pieces had to be squeezed on tightly, which definitely put stress on those bricks. This could lead to cracking or snapping in the future, as is the problem with many dark red and brown bricks (though LEGO has reportedly taken steps to correct the issue recently).
One thing I liked is the number of bricks with studs on the sides. This is typical with BrickHeadz sets, as all use the same basic building principles.
You can see how small Goldfish is when sitting in the palm of my hand. Like we mentioned above, this guy is adorable.
After that, I moved on to the smaller Fry and the base platform. It was interesting to see the differences in construction methods between Goldfish and Fry. You’d think that they’d be nearly identical, but the only true similarities were the colors and the parts used on the tail sections, which are the same size.
The base platform utilizes a fun light blue to contrast with the green seaweed and pink coral. That coral, by the way, is the best brick piece in the entire set. It’s so funky and I can think of a dozen ways it could be used in future creations.
The Goldfish set comes with two stickers that are applied to the curved slopes, as seen above. It’s just a tiny customization you can make.
The finished fishes
Well if that ain’t the best couple of orange fish we’ve seen since Finding Nemo! Both Goldfish and Fry are very sturdy on their respective stands. My only complaint is that with both fish mounted, it’s hard to see the seaweed and coral pieces. Maybe this would be a better display if they were mounted the other way around, peering out from the ocean plant life.
The build: Budgie
Putting the birds together was different because I had to take a brief pause partway through. That allowed me to take a step back and see how different this process was compared to the fish models. An extra 75 pieces is actually a lot of extra steps to build, and it shows.
The colors with Budgie and his friend Chick are excellent. There’s a lot of them, including the light yellow exterior, four different shades of blue, and three shades of green. This has some of the most color varieties I’ve ever seen in a set of this size. I appreciate the effort the designers put into that, using non-traditional yellows and greens instead of the default yellow and green we see in most LEGO products, and it matches real budgies better, too.
Take a look at the feathers on this little guy. I really enjoyed putting those on the BrickHeadz bird because it instantly had a purpose: feathers. You knew what you were building and could see how such small pieces imply such a strong sense of detail. It was a similar experience building Chick’s feathers as well.
The base platform was different than Goldfish’s base. The frame was probably meant to look like the bottom of a birdcage. It’s nice and simple, with no complications in constructing it.
The finished birds
Just like the fishes, the base platform has room for both creatures and comes with two options for sticker placement. Unlike the previous model, the birds are given wooden posts to stand on, complete with log-end pieces to really nail that tree-cut appearance. However, this is where I found a drawback to the bird models. While Chick could be easily mounted on his stand, the larger Budgie always found a way to fall off. Any slight movement of the base platform and he tips over.
Other than that, nothing else ruffled my feathers. This was a fantastic build, giving me new insights into the minds of the BrickHeadz designers and bringing life to another LEGO set.
Conclusion
Both the Goldfish and Budgie BrickHeadz sets were really fun to build and definitely worth their price in plastic. Hat’s off to another round of enjoyable, adorable and playable LEGO sets that both kids and adults are sure to enjoy.
40442 Goldfish contains 186 pieces and will be available March 1 for US $14.99 | CAN $19.99 | UK £13.49
40443 Budgie contains 261 pieces and will be available March 1 for US $14.99 | CAN $19.99 | UK £13.49
The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of these sets for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
