LEGO Ideas 40912 Sea Serpent sails into stores next week, and introduces some substantial changes from the original contest-winning design.
HallowedBrick02 took pole position in last year’s Twist of Nostalgia LEGO Ideas challenge, and his winning 250-piece design has now been transformed into 40912 Sea Serpent – an updated and reimagined version of 1992’s 6057 Sea Serpent. As always, though, it hasn’t survived the official LEGO design process unchanged, with the finished model coming in at 241 pieces total.
Here’s a closer look at how the finished gift-with-purchase – which will be available with qualifying orders from July 7 – stacks up next to HallowedBrick02’s original submission.
Sail
Perhaps the most immediately obvious change between the proposed design and the final model is the sail. HallowedBrick02 conceived a brick-built version in lieu of the fabric element of the 1992 set, but the LEGO Group has wound back the clock 30-something years to recreate and modernise the original sail.
It’s a nice touch for the gift-with-purchase, and one of three new elements currently exclusive to 40912 Sea Serpent.
Stern and bow
While 40912 Sea Serpent mirrors the overall shaping of the original submission pretty closely, there are still quite substantial changes to both the stern and bow when you look a little closer. Starting from the back of the ship, the squared-off modular stern now makes use of hinge plates to angle the side walls, which swing open to allow for internal access (rather than removing the roof).
At the other end of the boat, the 3x3 rounded tiles have made way for 2x3 wedge plates that bridge the gap to the middle section. The cargo compartment on the main deck is still present and correct, only a little further back behind the mast rather than in front of it.
Steering
One major selling point of HallowedBrick02’s original design is the working steering system. The rudders are controlled by a steering vane atop the stern and able to move forward and back in tandem – but that innovation looks to be absent entirely from 40912 Sea Serpent, which instead simply clips the rudders to the side of the boat.
Exactly why the designers made that change is unclear, because it doesn’t look like a particularly complex mechanism to incorporate. But given the original design was created in BrickLink Studio rather than physical bricks, it’s tough to say whether it would have worked as seamlessly as intended in practice.
Minifigures
The final and (beyond the sail) most obvious change is the minifigure line-up. HallowedBrick02 proposed three Black Knights, as per the original 1992 set (which also included two Black Falcons), but the finished set strips that back to just two soldiers.
And rather than cooking up new versions of the Black Knight torsos, 40912 Sea Serpent instead repurposes the existing Griffin Knight torso, swapping out dark red arms for dark blue but retaining the gold hands. That means there’s no real novelty to these minifigures, but it also means it’ll be relatively easy to assemble your own if you want to build up a modern Black Knights army.
It’s also consistent with the original Black Knights minifigures, which used generic scale mail torsos, so feels appropriate in that sense. And there’s still one element of novelty here: the two new shields, which print a modern Black Knights logo on to the three-point piece introduced in The Legend of Zelda’s 77092 Great Deku Tree 2-in-1. You get two of those in the set.
That’s another departure from the original submission, which proposed a printed flag and two different types of shields, but gifts-with-purchase typically only get one or two new elements – so a single shield design and a brand new sail feels like a pretty good way to use them.
What do you think of the final version of 40912 Sea Serpent? Sound off in the comments and let us know if you’ll be angling to pick it up next week. The LEGO castle gift-with-purchase will be free with qualifying orders at LEGO.com from July 7, but the LEGO Group has yet to confirm exactly how much you’ll need to spend to acquire it.
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