So I know I just wrote a similar post for the recently supported LEGO Ideas Claus Toys submission, but we got the announcement from LEGO that they released the LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith to stores as of today and I’m curious…
Would you add this set to your Winter Village?
About the LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith
There’s been a lot of chatter about the blacksmith. It was submitted way back in 2017 by Clemens Fiedler and achieved 10,000 supporters in July 2019.
You can see his original submission above.
When Amazon.UK leaked photos of the new set, forums everywhere started commenting on how LEGO reduced what most felt to be an awesome set down to something much more simple and less elaborate. While that may be the case, the new LEGO-approved build is not without its charms.
And in that thought, I know I’m not alone. For as many that spoke up about their dislike for the set, there are may others who are already making plans to add this build to their Winter Village setup!
We’ll just skip the whole uproar with the missing goat… ;)
You can pick up the LEGO Ideas Medieval Blacksmith (21325) on Shop@Home.
So What Would You Change to Add it to your Winter Village?
Great question. While I’m not sure we would want a blacksmith in our winter village, it could work well modified as an inn.
Also, the set feels a little larger than many of the winter village sets released by LEGO so we would still want to build and see how it looks with everything else. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to do this comparison as we don’t get sets ahead of time like some other blogs. And since we are still under quarantine here, I probably won’t be getting this one anytime soon to do a side by side comparison.
(But if one of you does one, please send it my way! I’d love to include it in this post.)
Aside from those two major points, we’d probably make the following modifications:
1. Add snow accents to the roof
This aspect of the new design is very colorful and I personally love it. Much more so than the original build. While I’m loath to remove the sand green moss patches from the roof slope, I think we would replace them with white plates and shields to give the roof a snow-covered appearance.
We might even consider shifting down some of the shields to still include variations in the roof color. After all, that is a very attractive design feature for this build.
2. Replace some brown framing bricks on roof with white pieces
Since we can’t just replace the tiles and have it look like a natural snow fall, I think we’d also need to replace some, if not all, of the brown roof framing. I would think only those pieces directly exposed to the snowfall and not much more.
3. The tree needs to be bare… and maybe white
I’ll admit, I don’t know my trees. However, this tree looks like one of those whose leaves would fall in winter time. We’d either remove all the green foliage, or replace it with white leaves… maybe even make the bark white on the top side.
4. Convert the blacksmith area to a restaurant
I love the blacksmith as is if we were building to stand alone. But since we want to integrate it into our winter village, I believe we’d convert it into a brick oven pizza restaurant, or something of the sort. Haven’t full thought it out, but a food establishment seems about right. And I don’t want to loose the charm of the exposed forge.
Speaking of food…
5. The garden has to go
Yes, sadly. While I love the little garden, it wouldn’t make sense for a winter village scene. Too much snow on the ground for anything to grow well. This area could also be extended with a few tents and standing tables for the pizzeria.
6. Some minifigures would get dropped
Finally, let’s be honest. Most of our winter village scenes probably don’t make room for knights. I think I’d save those for some other type of build. Or they’d go in our minifigure bin.
We’d definitely keep the blacksmith… maybe replace his anvil with a pizza paddle. The wife might make her way into the forest someplace in another scene. The horse and the dog would get repurposed in the village as well.