Review:31036 Toy and Grocery Shop/Nexus

Today I'm reviewing: 31036 Toy and Grocery Shop

Theme: Creator
Pieces: 436
Minifigures: 2
Price: $39.99
Brickipedia / Brickset

The Preface[edit | edit source]

Hello, welcome to my review of 31036 Toy and Grocery Shop. Before we get into this set, the name should be changed to Toy and Grocery Shop... And post office, and apartments, and shop corner. Like, this set is really that crammed together. But I've fallen in love with it over the course of building it, ultimately building my own model. I'd like to bring up a short statement by saying 'Creator is the epitome of LEGO.' There we are, I said it. I've really only been seen with licensed sets and I've always complained about how they aren't classic or promote rebuilding. And I've really been looking in the wrong direction. LEGO Creator doesn't only offer a 3 in 1 model. It's more like infinite models for the price of one. That being said, when I first saw that these were up for review I almost passed on it. Because I thought I had no interest in a set that lots of people probably don't care for, in all honesty I've been pretty sheltered on Eurobricks in the Licensed forums. Long story short, I think I'll be buying a lot more Creator sets now.

The Box[edit | edit source]

The box is nice, the average yellow border and the 'pop' of the text. Also with a lush suburban background. Aiding to the photo of the set. This set doesn't need action to sell it at all. The builds look modern and for the price the set looks great. Definitely appealing to the eyes. As you can see below the box is also the average $40 set box size. If that means anything. But there is still a ton of space for the LEGO, I'm not quite sure how that works or if I like it but I bet it's for the best so I'll be quiet about that.

The Content[edit | edit source]

Minifigures[edit | edit source]

My favorite things in sets and high selling points for LEGO. Should they matter in a set that revolves around building THREE different models? Well, it's arguable. Heh, not really. They are supposed to be there so it looks like there is life. They do that perfectly. The minifigs also gave me a lot of pieces that licensed sets don't have in them, for more or less obvious reasons. Though it was nothing new or different I'm going to give the figs 10/10. It's clear that these figs didn't need to be added, but the designer did so. I don't know if adding minifigures was a choice and I've already said their importance so there is that.

Building #1[edit | edit source]

The build starts off simple and very easy to follow. You get a lesson on sturdy building too. One thing I love about this set I want to say right now is that this set is sturdy. All three models are just amazingly sturdy. Props to the designer for that. Making three models is hard enough but following guidelines to design and sturdiness is crazy hard in my eyes. You have a lot of tiling on the floor at the start of the build too. As you progress you start with the first floor of the building seen on the right of the promotional art and make your way to the left and continue from there. I would like to highlight the use of the hinges to make the door frame angled. I always have trouble with that but this makes it look easy. There is a clever build of a vending machine on the left building too which is also cool. The toy shop's build is just crazy awesome. You build the left wall and it's at an angle and you start to wonder what goes there until you put stairs on it. Just genius in my eyes. You fix the wall up and it looks like nothing was there!

But here come some cons. The toy shop is pretty much empty. I really do think a toy shop should have something to it that makes it friendly and exciting other than a train in the window and a robot on the wall. A table inside or something would've been nice. Not leaving the grocery shop behind though! That's the most detailed room in the build. It's nothing fantastic but it's got more than the toy shop. Once you finish the first floor you build a nice flower bed on the balcony of the grocery. Which fits nicely. But again the room is bland. Just a bed and two letters on the bottom that make no sense. Then you work your way to some railing. Which I like the use of the "torch" pieces rather than the jail cell pieces that've been used. Above the toy shop is also another flower bed which is nice too. This room has a lamp. And that's it. The signs for both shops are both very different. One screams toy shop, the other could've used something other than a newspaper. It just doesn't fit. Then you get to the window work on the upper floor which adds a lot of character to the building. Which is nice to see on the outside but sad not to see on the inside. The roofing is amazing though.

I enjoy the glass above the grocery. It's a nice small detail to have there. Then you add the dark blue roof and the food stand. Both aren't anything special but they look nice. But wait! There's more! The gum-ball machine is there along with a scooter. Both of which are also not that special but they are nice additions. And adds to an assumption that the toy store is more inviting rather than what the inside build was. Concluding building one. Below are pictures of the insides where as you can see have little detail. The bedroom made more sense as you fold the building shown below. This is the best build as it is the main advertised building. Not bad, in the end the interior does matter to the playability of the set and the outside really made the buildings look nice but outshines the interior. As there were pieces left over to build another toy or something to fill up some gaps.

Building #2[edit | edit source]

Build #2 - Easily my second favorite build. I'll be a bit more brief in these last two as these are a part of the product yet not as heavily advertised as the first building and obviously not the main build (lots of spare pieces for both.) We start off the same really, yet you start more interior rather than frame. Which was different. We get one open area side on the right and then a more closed up side on the left. By closed up I should say crammed. The detail that was added was certainly nicer than the first build. The approach was more "what am I doing again?" As it seems relatively sloppy. This Market Corner is a great addition.

The outside is not complicated, the window job was however. But it still looked nice. Some repeated details were pretty nice such as the paper stand and the red and yellow 'canvas' cover. This build somehow reminded me of the previous one with the sign and such. I was slightly disappointed that there was no second floor, as I said. You had a lot of pieces left over. A small loft or greenhouse would've been nice. But the roof itself was bare and unsatisfying. Yet there are upsides to this building no matter how much I may have thrashed it. Something about it not being so perky to say. The building seemed friendly but not like cartoony. No matter my wants of this build it's still the most realistic and in my home state see a lot of small market places like this, especially in Seattle and some more of the ports. The building was boring except for the roof. Seemed like a lot of the detail focused in the first build was not set aside for the other. Which was a shame in my opinion. Once I saw this build on the back of the set I was though kind of expecting a build like this, though I still really like it. It has a few flaws that can be perfected by the buyer.

Building #3[edit | edit source]

Build #3 - My least favorite build, the Post Office. Though I do admire so much about this building, I think this being the third build constituted a bad taste in my mouth. The lack of a brick separator aided to that. I have a ton but still, I wouldn't expect that one wasn't included. Though I still got a brick separator, I still had to manually pull some pieces off resulting in minor cuts and the degrading of my index finger's and thumb's nails. Those are all first world problems that annoyed me when building this set to my dissatisfaction.

Anyways, onto my judgement of this final building: The build seems exactly the same, base, tiles, bricks, etc. It's a great base but my goodness was it lackluster after three builds, but after awhile I got over it as I had found the perfect interior. And the start of an awesome exterior. Very nice and clever bits all around. This is what I wanted on the second building. And a great usage of the stairs that were absent in the second build. A minor complaint is a bench you build. It seems like very ugly plastic/metal benches that are placed at the wrong places. But another detail was added that got my mind off from that. A skylight! As you progress, you get to build a balcony with a bird and a telescope. This may sound like endearing love for this build but after I finished it and spun it around. It was a bit jumbled and some places were just untidy and bland.