LEGO 31129 Majestic Tiger – There’s no tame in this big cat [Review]

From the jungles of Asia comes a new LEGO set that released on January 1st: the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31129 Majestic Tiger. This 3-in-1 set features alternative builds of a fish and a red panda. The 775-piece LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31129 Majestic Tiger is available now for US $49.99 | CAN $64.99 | UK £44.99. It may also be available from third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay.
The Brothers Brick had the opportunity to review the 775-piece Majestic Tiger and share our thoughts on whether or not it’s worth purchasing.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with a copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

The box and contents

The box is relatively large with lots of colors. You can see all three builds on the cover, with the feature being the tiger. The box’s background has the same color elements as the nature parts of the builds: green bamboo, grey stone, and blue water. It’s a nice tie-in that some of the previous 3-in-1 sets didn’t have.

The top of the box also features the three builds. An actual-sized rounded orange brick is also shown, giving you a sense of how big these sets will be.

The back of the box shows a play scene of each animal. Nothing on the other thin sides of the box was notable.

The box is a thumb-punch box, making it easy to open and guarantees no need for a knife or scissors. When opening the box, you can understand why it looks so big. With 775 pieces and three sets of instructions, plenty of room was needed to package everything in.

Inside the box is a ton of bags. I call out LEGO every time on this because it’s kind of insane how many bags are used to keep everything in its place. Inside each bag is another two bags, making 12 in total. There weren’t any stickers for this set, which is great for me since that means I won’t have anyone griping about stickers in the comment section for this review.

I was surprised to see so many pink bricks in a set that looked like it was mostly orange and black. I’ll explain why I think that is below in the main build.

The main build

Opening the first bag revealed the included brick separator, which isn’t always included in the 3-in-1 sets. I ended up not needing it while putting the tiger together. The instructions started off with the main body of the tiger, which was very different from other sets I’ve built in the past. I liked the ball joints and how they attach the tiger’s fur to the main body.

Remember earlier when I mentioned pink bricks? You can see here that the interior of the tiger is loaded with various shades of pink and red, making me think the designers were trying to incorporate some sort of fleshy interior. I think the rounded red brick on the bottom right is the tiger’s heart. Is this kind of detail a bit graphic? Yes. Skill on the part of the designer? Also yes.

Additionally, it was pretty ingenious of the designers to align the tiger’s striped fur with the printed striped body. These printed stripes are new bricks made specifically for this set, by the way.

The instructions then move on to the front legs, which are very articulated. I liked the way I was able to build the muscular tone of the tiger’s legs and paws. It was very satisfying and quickly allowed me to get a sense of the tiger’s shape. The blend of orange, white, and black colors works so well!

The instructions then had me open the second bag and build the back legs and tail. The rear legs were in the third bag and are virtually the same as the front. At this point, all that I needed to do was build the head and tail, located in bag four.

I did find it a bit funny to see the way the instructions told me to pop the leg joints in place. It looked right out of a comic book. Who knew there were so many ways to say, “click?”

Something else that was… interesting… was the tiger’s exit hole the designers choose to include with the tiger’s anatomy. I don’t know if it was necessary to include a flower piece to show where it was, or if it was even needed to point it out at all. Points for accuracy, I guess.

This is no joke! I swear it was in the instructions. #LEGOtigerbutthole

The tail was quick to put together, utilizing more ball and joint pieces. The final part of the tiger itself is the head, which was hard to figure out since there are so many pieces that need to be placed at just the right angle. For example, the ears have to be placed precisely in position so the tiger doesn’t look like it’s scared. The teeth need to be angled perfectly.

Speaking of teeth, I was impressed with the amount of detail used in the mouth and eyes. And again, it was also visually detailed of the designers to include pink and light yellow pieces behind the eyes as internal bodily parts. The color choice of tan for the teeth seemed a little off for me until I considered that this tiger was a wild one, not some Hollywood show pet.

The lower jaw is a hinge, allowing the tiger to be posed into a roar or chomping down on its prey. And look at those fearsome eyes!

Thus the tiger was complete. It’s one of the coolest animals I’ve ever built out of LEGO.

All that was left was to build the red bird and the small natural structure, which were also found in bag four. The bird was made from less than ten bricks. It’s impressive what the designers can come up with without having to rely on a ton of bricks. It’s also great that after a complex tiger build, the natural setting was so simple to put together.

At this point, the main build is finished. it probably took me two hours total to assemble. As hard as it was at times, I loved every minute of building it. And I never want to take it apart.

Alternative models

Wait, I have to take it apart to build the red panda and the fish? Why would I do that? This tiger is gorgeous! Who in their right mind would want to build the other animals after this?

Confession time: Normally, this is the part of the review where I post photos of the alternative builds. However, you’re not going to see those here. As I began disassembling the tiger and putting together the red panda, I was so frustrated at losing such a fun creation. To add to this killjoy, I couldn’t find the pieces required by the instructions for the red panda. The tiger’s instructions specified which bags I was building from, whereas the red panda and the fish instructions wanted me to grab individual bricks out of a pile of nearly a thousand pieces. It became infuriating as I was stuck for 20 minutes searching for a mystery brick. I finally decided that this is a 1-build set and that the designers made a poor choice in trying to include pieces for two other creatures that weren’t nearly as detailed or likable. Besides, there’s already another goldfish set out there.

Conclusions and recommendations

The Majestic Tiger is truly that: majestic, flawless, fierce. I love the look of the fur and the teeth. It was really fun lining up the printed striped bricks with the layered stripes I built for the tiger’s body. I even laughed at the tiger butt. Everything came together in a way that was genuinely fun… until I had to take it apart to build the menial red panda and the freaking fish. It was extremely frustrating to destroy something so beautiful, only to get lost in the instructions of a subpar animal design. That level of frustration isn’t easily forgotten, which is why I still think the alternative builds for this set are a complete waste of time.

If you want to build a fantastic, articulated model of a tiger, even at $50, definitely get this set. If you’re into red pandas and fish, fine. Get it. Whatever. But don’t buy this set if you want to build all three. Having to take apart the tiger after being so proud of the way it looks is not worth any price point. It would be better if you bought three of these sets so you could build them each individually without sacrificing the best part of it: the Majestic Tiger.

While you’re here, take a look at some of our past reviews of Creator 3-in-1 sets including:

The LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31129 Majestic Tiger is available now for US $49.99CAN $64.99 | UK £44.99. It may also be available from third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with a copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

2 comments on “LEGO 31129 Majestic Tiger – There’s no tame in this big cat [Review]

  1. hntrains

    The moment I saw this set, I was struck by the body of the animal. It looks like a box. I have never seen anything similar in an animate creature. The face, too, looks rushed. Not for children aged nine or older, but for five- or six-year-olds. The legs, then! Do you remember any drawing done by your less-gifted colleagues, in secondary school, which looked artificial and forced? That is how the legs of this thing here reveal themselves to be.
    I do not know how people at LEGO work, but I see no explanation here other than that they did not have enough time to refine the build or anyone to revise the work of whoever it was who created the set.
    It seems like they just released it the way it was when the time was up – and hoped no one would notice the embarrassing imperfections.
    By contrast, the tiger revised here:
    https://www.brothers-brick.com/2022/01/27/the-year-of-big-cat-energy/
    (“The year of Big Cat Energy”, showing the work of Ian Hou, visible at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianhoy/51842054551/), with its realistic head and streamlined body, stands out as a very clever, very fluid design.

  2. Jimmy

    Ian’s tiger is very nice, but the Lego set is posable. That’s a huge difference, not to mention the size and piece count difference.

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