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Sharing my review for the LEGO 80113 Family Reunion Celebration. My husband gave me a gift card for the Holidays and waited patiently for this set’s release on Jan. 1st 2024. The reviews are based on my own opinion. I omitted the minifigures just because I wanted to focus on the build itself.

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with this beautiful set! The Family Reunion Celebration set is a traditional restaurant with beautiful details and wall art. This set has 1823 pieces and has 2 detachable floors for play. It comes with 13 Lego Minifigures but I would like to talk more about the intricate design and art of this set and how eye-catching it is for me.

The build details

I admire the “Nice Part Usage” of the frogs for a more Asian architectural approach. The gold ingot in Earth Green is the perfect Green for the roof tiles.

The corner stalls

These beautiful, printed stickers add a sense of Asian culture to the build.

The entrance

Again the characters are neatly printed and are very inviting.

The aquarium

This is my favorite part of the build! The aquarium is a way of attracting good luck and fortune. The placement of it in Feng Shui is perfect!

The kitchen

The Kitchen is very playable too with pots and pans and that duck!

The paintings

The paintings on the 2nd floor are so beautiful! On the round table, you can gaze at this beautiful bird painting while the light is shining through the window. When you go to use the bathroom on the same floor, you will see a beautiful castle painting that reminds you of where the Ancient Chinese Gods live.

Summary

This set costs $129.99/€129.99/£89.99 and comes with a sticker sheet. Some wouldn’t like the stickers but for me, it added to the play as if I’m holding a piece of delicate art and framing it. This set comes with a lot of really good pieces like the gutters and fence and as a builder, I know I can create tons of beautiful MOC’s with this set.

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🤩 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: @huehughes Hello everyone! It's time to direct the spotlight toward our community members, and today we will get to know better Hue Hughes!

"My name is Hue Hughes. I am a video editor and vfx artist living in coastal South Carolina. The inspiration behind this photo is creating a practical image that had action and tension. Shooting outdoors is something I very rarely do but it is how I got started.

I begin taking my very first toy photographs in 2017. It all started when I purchased a camera and macro lens. I started shooting my sons diverse collection of robots, space ships and superheroes.

It was a short time later I found a unique connection with LEGO®. Its simplistic design, scale, detail and bright color palette of this toy lent itself very well to toy photography. So well in fact, I bought a few more lens and enough LEGO® sets to start a small toy store and never looked back.

I believe every great story has a beginning, middle and end. This same philosophy also holds true for a good photograph. The image must tell a compelling story that catches the viewers attention and resonates some form of a response - a memory, excitement, joy or just a simple thought from your childhood.

Every image of mine is a window into another world and it’s that window we gaze upon to find a great toy story. Whether it’s throwing baking powder to simulate a winter blizzard on a mountainside or a fire cracker that showers a scene with sparks to mimic an explosion, I like creating all of my effects in camera and practically.

I build my own sets and create my own effects by hand using common household materials and old filmmaking techniques. This style of artisan photography adds an element of realism, personality and craftsmanship to a photo which forms a tighter bond between the viewer and the image.

I am a stronger believer that gear does not make a great shot. It helps but as an artist your equipment should help you achieve your style. My camera is a Canon 7d. I pair this body with either a EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 or EF 85mm f/1.8 usm. A single Litepanels Caliber Fresnel is my go-to for lighting. The final element is a fog machine that when combined with the Fresnel creates rich, dreamy photography."

Thank you for accepting our invitation and let the community knows you better!

If you want some insights on the exclusive picture and for a better view of the others, head to our blog at https://brickentral.net/.

- @theaphol, Community Outreach Manager

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♥️FEATURE: circus_robot on instagram

Today’s feature from circus_robot is fantasy themed and fits wonderfully into the new #builddetails tag. I love the graceful curves of the magical tree. The high windows provide a visible light source that illuminates the main subject. Even though there are minifigure knights in the background, due to the dimmer lighting the minifigs become the background and the illuminated tree build shines brightly.

~@glowingbrickette

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♥️FEATURE: lego_nuts on Instagram

It’s growing out of control! This image is filled with a wonderful sci-fi build with cool-blue lighting that’s brighter on the main subject. The posing of the robot characters also leads the viewer to the main subject. While Wall-E and Eve are nicely built themselves, I love that the main subject is actually the plant growing out of its incubation unit. 

I asked lego_nuts if I could use this to illustrate the #builddetails tag. The image is a close-up of a larger build. While the background is slightly out of focus, the main subject has clear details of the build visible and in focus. As all of lego_nuts work, this combines building skills with photography skills using composition, lighting, color, and storytelling to create a compelling piece of art. Thanks for sharing your work with us lego_nuts!

Like myself, many of our community members do not have such advanced building skills. Take a look at this month’s tips on building and we will also accept sets for #builddetails. For our mod-building friends, we have many tips on photography available to everyone on the BrickCentral website.

~@glowingbrickette

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♥️ FEATURE: legoanywhere on Instagram

Today’s feature comes from our new #classicface hashtag. The warm yellow of the classic face just pops out against all the snow. The story of this image can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the language you speak, and who your audience is.

While browsing the Discord share-your-photos channel for features, I noticed this one and thought the snow guardians were returning home… until I noticed the name of the photographer, who is from Japan. To people who write in a right-to-left language, moving to the right implies going back, and moving left implies going forward. The opposite is true in left-to-right languages. 

Knowing who your audience is will affect which direction your visual story unfolds. I love how many different places the members of our community come from, and the many ways they tell a visual story.

~@glowingbrickette

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Hello!

It's @theaphol here and it's time to direct the spotlight toward our community members! Today we will get to know better @johnreiley!

"Hi! I’m John and I’m from Utah, located in the midwestern United States.

I have had an interest in photography since a young age. Back in 2013, I first discovered the online LEGO community on Flickr and started photographing my MOCs, inspired by the amazing work of people like Mark Erickson (@markoffalworth on Instagram) , Chris McVeigh (@powerpig on Instagram), and Tyler Clites (@tylerbuilds on Instagram).

In August 2021, I discovered the BrickCentral community after coming across awe-inspiring photos by people like Nathan Michael Smith (@circus_robot on Instagram) and @yuri-badiner. Being a part of the community has been fun and has pushed me to try many new things.

My camera is a Canon M50 and I generally use the 15-45mm kit lens or a Canon 40mm prime lens with a conversion mount. I use a variety of LEDs, flashlights, and occasionally a flash. I prefer to shoot indoors where I have complete control of the lighting.

I edit all of my photos in Photoshop. Some only need simple color-grading adjustments, while sometimes I need to layer together multiple photos with different lighting to get it just right.

One of my goals for my photos is that it encapsulates some sort of emotion or meaning. I wait for an idea to come to mind that I really like before building and setting up for a photo. This means I often post quite sporadically as I sometimes have creative lulls.

Before I begin building, I often draw up a quick sketch of how I want the photo to look. As I build, new ideas will come to mind, and I’ll incorporate them into the build.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a part of the little worlds I’m creating and it’s satisfying being able to bring to life something that used to be just an idea in my head! "

Thank you @johnreiley for accepting our invitation and let the community knows you better!

If you want some insights on one of his pictures and for a better view of the others, head to our blog.