Creator had a great 2024, with both this set and Wild Safari Animals making our admin top 10 sets of the year. I noticed we didn't have a review of this one yet, so decided to pick one up and fill this glaring gap. I had been eyeing it off for a while, as all three animals look great on the box. Lets take a closer look and see if the builds impress as well.

Magical woodland adventures await boys and girls aged 9+ when they build, play with and display the 3 different LEGO® animal toys of this Creator Forest Animals: Red Fox (31154) 3in1 playset. It features a highly posable red fox toy that can move its head, neck, legs, paws and tail. It can sit or stand and comes with a snow-covered tree stump and spruce tree stand.

This Creator 3in1 set lets kids build 3 different woodland LEGO animals with the same bricks. They can build a highly posable red fox figure, rebuild it into a posable red owl toy perched on a tree branch, or a posable red squirrel toy with an acorn. All 3 playsets make for great display items on a shelf or bedside table.

From LEGO.com

£44.99/$49.99/€49.99 / A$99.99

The Box

The box measured 380mm x 260mm x 55mm and weighs 843g. Inside are 5 bags numbered 1 to 5, and 3 loose Instruction Manuals.

This is my first retail set (that I have opened) that has paper bags! About time. I actually got some of the first prototype paper bags back in 2021 when I bought the Ninjago employee gift set Temple of Celebrations (left bag). Not much has changed since then, the material feels exactly the same, the graphics only have minor alterations. However this time the internal bags were laso paper, whereas with the gift set the small internal bags were still plastic. I guess it takes a fair amount of time to replace/modify all the equipment that does bagging.

The Instructions

The Australian version of the instruction manual measures 193mm x 174mm. The red fox is 223 steps over 110 pages, the squirrel is 126 steps over 63 pages, and the owl is 131 steps over 59 pages. Strangely the step counts reset for each of the tree builds.

The set contains 667 parts and 13 spares, in 14 colors, and 21 part categories, with a total of 146 unique parts/color combinations.
Main colors are:

• White: 37 unique parts, 94 quantity.
• Reddish Brown: 26 unique parts, 100 quantity.
• Dark Orange: 25 unique parts, 205 quantity.

Main categories are:

• Plates Special: 34 unique parts, 169 quantity.
• Plates: 22 unique parts, 108 quantity.
• Bricks Curved: 17 unique parts, 77 quantity.

New Colors

43898
Dish 3 x 3 Inverted [Radar]
Dark Tan

15208
Plate Special 1 x 2 with Three Teeth [Tri-Tooth]
Medium Nougat

Rare Colors and Prints

3262
Brick Round 2 x 2 Dome Top - Vented Stud with Bottom Axle Holder x Shape + Orientation
Medium Nougat

30357
Plate Round Corner 3 x 3
Dark Orange

24309
Slope Curved 3 x 2 No Studs
Dark Orange

This is the smallest new/rare parts list I have done in a while. I thought Dark orange was rarer than that, but guess a lot of parts exist in that colour already.

We start by building the body, as is typical for these size animals we have a mostly 2 wide brick core with lots of SNOT for side detailing to be added. There is lots of lovely texture in this set to get the animals looking furry.

I was not expecting a double neck joint, however the ball socket here seems to be mostly for getting this section at the right angle, not for allowing movement. It does let you rotate the neck a bit, helping with posing.

The head has a 1x brick core with lots of detailing added on. The features on the face are perfect, but I'm not sold on the round plate in the ear. The anti studs and axle hole look a bit out of place. There are boat studs  in this set as well, but I'm not loving the look of them either. Which do you think is better?

Moving on we make some chicken drumsticks. The front legs don't have knees, to make up for this the back legs have 2 points of articulation. We finish the bag with no feet, giving the model a comical look (why is there no corgi alt build yet?).

Finally, we work on the tail. Both tail sections have a very similar build process. There is good range of motion, without too much that the poses start to look unnatural.

There is a whole bag for the side build. We start by making a millenium falcon, before coverring it up with the beginnings of the stump. There is a tricky technique where you fold in jumper plates after adding a layer of bark. A mushroom and pine tree are added to the ball sockets, giving some fun angles.

This completes the first build. The tree bark print looks a little off to me. I think it is because it is on reddish brown. The redish brown here is the bark, with the inner wood of pines being a lighter colour. I think printing it on a dark tan would have made it blend better with the rest of the brick built trunk, but maybe it needs to be reddish brown for the next one, or maybe they just couldn't justify a new print.

Despite not having front knees, the fox is able to do a few different poses, including a handstand with nose helping to balance. Standing, sitting, and lying down are no problem.

This model was great, and I was sad to have to disassemble it so soon, but the show must go on!

I decided to build the Squirrel next. It uses 60% of the set parts. The body is again a 2 wide SNOT tower with some side panelling, however the main stud direction is sideways this time. Take care to actually follow the instructions as the sides are not perfectly symetrical.

The first section of the tail has me a bit confused. It is connected via a friction joint, and feels like it should move, but there is not enough space for it to actually move. It has left me wondering if I built it wrong, but I can't find any errors.

The rest of the tail is quite bushy, and can actually move! A bot of a gap between sections, but you need this to allow for the movement.

The legs have an ankle joint, and the hip can rotate, but there is really only one position it can be in to keep the model balanced. The head is simple, but does the trick. Some stubby arms and an acorn finish the build. While the acorn is only held with gravity, it fits well. The arms can only move up and down, not in and out. This might make holding the acorn easier, but it does limit the poses.

While the squirrel can't do a hand stand, it can do a push up. Poses are a little limited with this one, but the few it can do look great.

One more to go!

This model uses 65% of the set parts. For some reason I thought the owl instructions would build the perch first, but no, we start with the owl, building something that looks like the begining of santa's sleigh. It gets padded out with a very fluffy tummy.

Next we build the feet and tail. I was worried the tail would prevent it from standing without the perch, but it doesn't get in the way.

The wings are simply some layered plates with a bit of texture. While they are connected with a towball joint, there is very limited range of motion.

The head is again built with a 2 wide SNOT core, with sides being built outwards. The eyes are a nice useage of 32474 technic ball joint.

This finishes the owl, but we still need to build the perch. The stand is built sideways, with snowy ground at the bottom, and a few connections for branches. The branches are similar to the first tree, and I am glad I didn't try to pull apart the stacks of green spindles.

It's not the most realistinc branch, (an owl wouldn't perch this close to the ground, and the snow means it is hard to imagine it as part of a larger tree), but it is a good scale for the model and does look pretty. The bottom of the first branch section does look a bit square, it would have been nice if they were able to disguise this join a little better.

Again, this model has limited poseability, but the head is good fun to turn around. 

This is a top tier Creator set. Each of the three models look amazing. Often one of the b-models leaves a bit to be desired, but not this time.

This is more of a display set than a play set, with limited mobility in the second two models, although they are sturdy enough to be moved around.

I can now see why other admin were voting for this set as on of their top sets of 2024 (is it too late to change my vote?)

As always Creator 3 in 1 sets are typically good candidates for alternate builds. There is 31 submitted so far, which is a little less than I was expecting after almost a year, but still quite a few nice ones to choose from. This set and 31150-1 - Wild Safari Animals were released at a similar time and are both brown animal based sets. So if you can only have one, which would it be? Safari animals is currently winning for volume of alternate builds with 63 so far, although it did have a three month head start. TobyMac has done a review of the set here.

The pricing has me confussed, with the RRP of Safari animals sitting at $64.99US compared to $49.99US for the Red Fox, but both are listed as $99.99AU. So US price per part has 8.3cpp for safiari and 7.4cpp for red fox making red fox the better deal, but if you live in Australia, we have 12.8cpp for safari vs 15cpp for the red fox, making safari animals the better deal. The inconsistency for Australian pricing continues to annoy me.

Despite this I have no regrets in getting this set. Let me know which set you prefer in comments below.

Disclaimer: Anything said in this post is the opinion of the author and not The LEGO Group. Parts and build photographs by icedragonj (© 2024 Rebrickable)