Read a review on the Harry Potter's Hogwarts Icons - Collectors' Edition 76391 exclaiming about the wearable Harry Potter's glasses, and sold me on the set =)
My Verdict: Looking Glass Portrait showing 3D holographic videos brings the Hogwarts Icons set alive and makes it truly magical! =D
Harry Potter's glasses
It has arrived, and that's the 1st bag of bricks - it builds the glasses, liquid luck potion, and wand. Alas, the glasses are somewhat wonky and doesn't sit well on the face! It probably needs a spectacle band, haha. Or just tilt the head back, and keep the neck straight, so it doesn't fall off!
Naturally the glasses do not have glasses - lens, in them. As the manual reminds all, Harry Potter often breaks his glasses and you'll need to frequently use the Oculus Reparo spell to fix it XD
Harry Potter's Wand
The liquid potion is easy to build.
The wand is slightly tricky. You roll it side to side and put on the finishing touches on each side one at a time. Make sure to work the the right side each time, if you hate messing up and diverging from the build in the instructions.
Hedwig Sitting on the Books
Hedwig's head can swivel side to side, its feather clusters can rotate and be somewhat poseable. Its claws are poseable, and are used in the set to 'grip' the Hogwart's acceptance letter.
Hedwig is secured to a support structure running vertically through the stack of books. I.e. the books can't really be separated and arranged in other ways.
Overall, Hedwig is awesome looking, especially with its specially printed custom eyes. Wish its head can be mechanized with AI tracking so it will follow you!
Build of Books
Many 1x2 bricks with grilles are used to denote the pages of the top 2 books. Note that each brick actually has vertical grilles on one side and horizontal grilles on the other side! Thus, make sure to take care when affixing these bricks to have the horizontal sides facing outwards of course! To save you the trouble of redoing whole swaths of the book.
The open book at the bottom depicts open pages using stacks of 3 loose brackets stuffed within a ledge structure. That's really cool!
Potions
The 3 bottles of potions (not counting the vial of Liquid Luck) are exquisite transparent glass-like bottles with labels (stickers), containing brightly coloured translucent dots and 1 with gillyweed. With nice cork plugs sealing the contents in.
Wish the vial of Liquid Luck could also have been in a transparent bottle with liquid sloshing in it.
PS: this vial is built with the 1st pack of bricks, whereas the other 3 bottles are in a later pack.
Golden Snitch & Chocolate Frog
The golden snitch is actually covered in 6 gold spherical panels, with 2 special large, gold feather pieces for its wings. It's pretty nice.
There are plates provided for 4 house colours of Hogwarts, but there are only 2 sets of the common connectors in yellow and grey. Thus, one can only build 2 of the house colour scarves, with the remaining 2 sets of colour accents remaining.
For example, I built the Gryffindor (red & yellow) and Slytherin (green & grey). And have black (for Hufflepuff) and blue (for Ravenclaw) remaining. Then I've the chocolate frog sitting on both the Gryffindor & Slytherin scarves which are placed side by side.
The chocolate frog is cool. While its front limbs are slightly more poseable, its rear limbs can only stretch sideways.
Rack of Greats
The golden rack of greats houses McGonagall, Hagrid, and Dumbledore in his special purple cove.
There're also 2 spare racks for your other minifigs.
Overall Build
It took me 2 days to build at a relaxing pace.
It starts off with the glasses and wand in pack #1. Next up are packs to build the books. Most of these builds are pretty interesting. Except for the repetitive part of assembling the side of the top 2 books using the countless 1x2 bricks with grilles. Finishing the books with a pair of Hedwig's legs is a good place to stop for the day.
This is followed by packs for Hedwig the next day. There's of course much symmetry to the build. Hence, will be repeatedly building feathers. Luckily, each is somewhat different and the mirror symmetry takes the tedium out of it mostly. And it sure is lovely to see Hedwig taking shape, and finally merge and perch him onto of the books.
Lastly, finish up with the remaining equally memorable stuff - the potions and the chocolate frog. And the Greats - or could we say GOATs?
And in summary...
Epic: Hedwig & Looking Glass Portrait
I've finally found the perfect accompaniment to the Looking Glass Portrait holographic display - and that's of course the Hogwarts Icon Collectors' Edition 76391.
Recall the moving pictures in Harry Potter world's newspapers, and talking portraits and moving photos in picture frames in houses and Hogwarts. That is precisely what the Look Glass Portrait brings to complete the Hogwarts Icon set =) It's truly magical!
