When most LEGO fans build sets, they follow the instructions to a T. But there are a few of us who enjoy making alternative creations from a set, just to see what we can build with the bricks provided. Today, just like before, we are going to do just that.

Two BrickNerd contributors were given the opportunity to fiddle around with the newest additions to the LEGO Botanical Collection, 10368 Chrysanthemum and 10369 Plum Blossom. So what can they do with such small sets? It’s time for Will and Josh to start plotting with some plants! Let’s turn it over to them in their words…

Crazy Chrysanthemums - Will Hafner

A few weeks back, BrickNerd received an offer to monkey around with some new sets provided by LEGO, and I tossed my brick in the ring to be considered to rebuild one of the new Botanical sets. Lo and behold, I was one of the chosen ones!

Our Nerd-in-Chief Dave sent me the coolest set, 10368 Chrysanthemum, which immediately caught my eye. A bunch of new banana recolors? A sweet sand green pot? What’s not to love? It was time go bananas!

quite the bunch…

This set introduces three new colors to our already diverse variety of Curious George’s favorite food, element 33085 Banana: Flame Yellowish Orange, Bright Orange and Reddish Orange. Totaling 36 bananas, the Chrysanthemum is 12.94% banana, the highest banana percentage of any set (not including a handful of collectible minifigures).

dark green bits & reddish orange octaconal Connectors

There’s a bunch of dark green bits, including some rare dark green dinosaur tails, making their triumphant return after nine years. 1x2 round tiles and 2x2 round jumpers are new in dark green, and this is the first set with reddish orange octagonal bar connectors.

Sand green, metallic gold & reddish brown look awesome together!

I had to build the pot before I got creative with the bricks, and it’s probably prettier than the flower itself in my opinion, and introduces 5x5 curved macaroni bricks, 5x5 quarter round bricks, 3x3 macaroni tiles and Wheel 41mm D. x 15mm Technic in sand green!

Let’s Get Creative

Enough about the set and the pieces… let’s see what I can do with all those elements! As is tradition, I had to make a crab. Complete with banana pinchers and banana feet, no less.

Banana pinch!

When LEGO gives you a banana, make a crab! Having so few actual system elements made this guy interesting—the 5x5 macaroni slope bricks were a pain to snap in, but luckily the set had a handful of friction half-pins I could sneak in between the anti-studs of the 5x5 domes with a wee gap between the pieces.

My crab looked a little sad, so he needed some little friends! Here’s my bugnanas, some truly appealing lil’ fellas. They feature more banana feet, because, of course. These small dudes are half-plant and half-animal, eating exclusively yellow peeled berries. I think you can guess what…

BUGNANAS!

Alt builds are a lot of fun and can be pretty challenging. Like most botanical sets before them, the Chrysanthemum is relatively bare bones in terms of System elements—it’s essentially a pile of clips, a bunch of bananas, a handful of Technic connectors, and some miscellaneous other bits here and there to attach them all together. I can’t wait to get my hands on some more of these, as I want to place most of my botanicals in the ornate little pot!

Oh, and I should actually build the set as intended, right? I nearly forgot…

Positioningg 36 bananas can be an arduous process…

Now I turn over the rest of this article to Josh who is a wizard with the bricks… you will see why soon!

Plum Blossom Bonanza - Josh Parkinson (BrickBuiltJosh)

One of the latest entries into the LEGO Botanical line, 10369 Plum Blossom is absolutely gorgeous. I was excited to get the chance to put it together and display it for a while, and it did not disappoint in the least. The Plum Blossom brings both beauty and Asian-inspired elegance to any space. I almost dreaded having to tear it apart to build a few alt builds, as I enjoyed seeing it so much. But don’t worry, I most certainly did!

The Plum Blossom feels truly complete, excelling in not only the delicate shaping of the branches, buds, and blossoms, but with a vase that is impressive in itself. The colors and shaping are perfect, and the set is packed full of recolored elements. The colors bring a deep richness to the botanical half which contrasts with the lighter blue pot reminiscent of Asian-inspired ceramics. The main body is elegantly shaped with smooth curves and a narrow opening ideal for holding a branch or two. The strip of gold only adds to the elegance of the vase. 

Visually, one of the most impressive results is best seen in person. The subtle angles of the flowers and branch tips creates the effect of the set being organically three-dimensional. Yet, most of the two branches are actually flat and perfectly parallel with each other. That would normally make the branches look flat and artificially rigid. The designers added just enough detail angled off those parallel planes that it appears organic and almost like the branches interweave with each other.

Considering the often exotic and unexpected elements that have been recolored for use in past botanical sets, the Plum Blossom uses some relatively straightforward elements to create the branches and blossoms. Most of it is built using standard Technic pieces in dark brown, flower pieces, claw pieces, and other basic elements. Maybe most interesting to me is the plethora of red 2x2 slide shoes (4278275) that I’ve typically not found much use for, even though this element seems to be in so many LEGO sets to lock together the underside of adjoining plates or as bottom sliders.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some creative parts usage, though. The pink peaches are perfect as flower buds. The feet elevating the vase use Unikitty tails, adding a touch of intricate flourish to an otherwise simple bulb shape. And the ways the red 2x2 slide shoes (4278275) are attached to precisely form the rounded petals still adds some creativity to an otherwise mundane part.

Of the botanical sets, this and its sibling set are my favorite vases in the theme due to their beauty, colors, and added visual intricacies. They are just stunning and a perfect complement to the floral builds they support.

Appropriately enough, this botanical set became my first set to fully use paper bags, and it was a welcome surprise. I’m more than happy to see more paper bags, and I found them very effective and easy to open.

The booklet matched the elegance of the set with the elegance of the cover design and the informative couple of spreads that highlight the plum blossom in art and nature. The build process was pleasant, without anything groundbreaking. It also didn’t have a ton of repetition either, which can plague many botanical sets. At most, there were three sets of repeated assemblies, which were the relatively simple construction of two types of open blossoms.

Personally, I’ve loved the botanical sets as much for the parts as for the beauty of the final build. The line introduced so many interesting, organically shaped recolored elements.

So, what else is possible with the parts from the Plum Blossom? LEGO is meant to be rebuilt, after all! So I gave it a few days in its official form next to my desk to admire and enjoy. Then it was time to brace my heart and tear this beauty apart to see what I could do with the parts. I started by challenging myself to create true alt-builds that only use the parts in the set.

Plum Blossom Alt-Build #1: The Orc Roadster Tearing it Up

My first alternative build gravitated to the wheel-like blue cylinders and the large curves of the vase, combined with the botanical character of the branches. It evolved into a very curvy, somewhat delicate, and fairly intricate roadster that seems born of old-world fantasy smashed with a bit of smooth, futuristic curvaceousness. Therefore, it seemed suitable for the orc from the Dungeons & Dragons set to drive it.

The driver’s seat underwent many iterations to achieve a compact design that seemed appropriately positioned and angled for the driver. The Unikitty tails came in handy for the front, the red 2x2 slide shoe for the seat cushion, and the half-round jumpers for adding shaping for the seat back.

The front wheels were the final challenge, figuring out what to even use for the wheels and how to make them feel appropriately sized. I had tried several options of the round parts in the set, including the red 2x2 slide shoe elements and the 2x2 dark gray plates. I also created an interesting larger wheel with the four-pronged 2x2 brown plate and two layers of red claws going in opposite directions to create a pretty smooth circle. But I didn’t have enough of the red claws in the set to finish the second wheel.

I finally settled on the interesting use of the 3x3 ring (6508326) as the wheel. I used the red slide shoe to hide the anti-stud portion of the hoop and act like the housing of the mechanics so the wheel looks completely circular. The pink peaches were put inside the ring to add a hub effect to complete the look.

The build was tricky, especially considering the limited parts I had to work with. It took some finagling to angle all the curves in such a way that they worked together and flowed together as much as possible. Everything hinges around a single 6M bar with flange (6170468) that acts as a rear axle and uses clip elements from the set to angle the rear and front portions of the body. Accent shaping used a combination of SNOT connections, angling curves on a stud, and using the 45-degree bar with stud (6510194) to angle the gold accents above the rear wheels.

And in the back we have what looks like a botanical alternative to the exhaust pipes curving up and back. I love the crown pieces recolored in cool yellow in this set, and definitely wanted to use them and the dark pink crowns here to add a burst of backward movement and organic flair.

Plum Blossom Alt Build #2: Halbert the Turtle Swimming the Cosmic Waves

Next up, I wanted to do a figure build. The head was actually started in the roadster where I had developed this face to go under the front of the big blue curves of the roadster, making more of a beetle-type of creature that rolled around on two wheels. I ended up taking it and using it as the starting point for a creature build. I wanted something more upright but I lacked pieces in this set to really give reasonable articulation or to add any real bulk to the figure. 

But I continued building out the head, adding the rounded back of the head with 6-prong stems (6452882) radiating out with the red slide shoe pieces (using flower pieces to connect the two), creating a fairly round and solid back of the head, then figuring out the connection to the neck. After that, I got stuck trying to figure out how to create a body with these pieces.

I started looking at the big curved pieces, thinking of using them as a shell or shield. I ended up going with it as a shell on the creature’s back to add bulk to the creature’s body. I also utilized what I almost used for the front wheels on the roadster to add a red, central ornament on top of the shell. The 4-pronged 2x2 brown plate (6313506) ended up upside down, with the four bars secured by friction between the studs of the 4x4 round brick in the center of the shell.

Then, it came down to figuring out how I was going to attach the head and limbs to the shell. I added some bulk with the gold curves using a SNOT core. That left me with the legs to figure out. The only reasonable color was brown to keep consistency between flesh and shell. But I didn’t have a lot to work with in this set.

In the end, the curved brown bricks seemed the best option to represent the legs of what was becoming definitely a turtle. Since most of the skeleton of the creature was using the Technic connectors, I inserted the pin with a stud in the hole (6395635) and inserted the 45-degree angled rod with stud (6510194) as a way to position the legs in a good dynamic angle. The back legs and tail actually use the 3x3 ring with rod hole/anti-stud (6508326) to position everything off of it at different angles.

I added this almost necklace-like assembly around its neck to add the feeling of more bulk to its neck than the Technic connectors could provide. Then I used other parts from the set to create a stand to elevate it as if it’s swimming.

Baby Blossom Mech Cruising the Alien Landscape

Using the Let’s Build Series monthly theme of building a mech, I went with something very compact to start with that just popped into my mind looking at these gold pieces. I created this space baby mech and alien landscape for him to explore.

The construction was a fun combination of a 2-sided SNOT brick and the 45 degree angled rod with stud pieces (6510194) to position the legs.

I added the pot handle from my own parts to give him some suitable controls for the mech.

This build is very easy to recreate yourself, so have fun!

So you see, you don’t need huge sets to create some amazing alt-builds! From crabs and turtles to bikes and mechs, LEGO can be rebuilt into just about anything regardless of the set the pieces come in.

The LEGO Botanical Collection 10368 Chrysanthemum and 10369 Plum Blossom are available for $30 US, $40 CAN, and £25 UK each.

DISCLAIMER: These sets were provided to BrickNerd by LEGO. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

What alt builds would you create with these pieces? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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