LEGO Ideas has revealed a surprise bonus set – 21376 Orange Cat, a recolour of 21349 Tuxedo Cat.
21376 Orange Cat is coming from LEGO Ideas on March 1, the theme’s second feline friend you can build. It uses 1,755 pieces and will retail for £89.99 / $99.99 / €99.99.
Sets in LEGO Ideas usually come about in one of two ways – through a fan submitting a concept and it getting to 10,000 votes then being approved by the LEGO Group, or by a fan winning a contest. In this case though, the popularity of 21349 Tuxedo Cat and desire from consumers for different colours encouraged the design team to come up with a new colour variation for the existing set.
“After the Tuxedo Cat was announced, we saw a lot of people in the community asking for different colours of cats,” says Ideas Design Manager Jordan Scott. “A lot of people are asking for orange cats. So we thought, who best to make an orange cat than LEGO Ideas? We already had the Tuxedo Cat and now it has a friend you can pair with it.”
Doggo fans need not worry though – 11384 Golden Retriever Puppy is on the way too.
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The goal was to offer a set as close to the original 21349 Tuxedo Cat as possible, but some elements were not available in the relevant colour, so Senior Model Designer Chris McVeigh made changes where necessary… and where he spotted opportunities for small improvements.
“After I finished the Tuxedo Cat I was quite happy with it,” he says. “In general, designers do not get to revisit the models that they have designed. So when the opportunity to revisit the cat came up, I was pretty excited about it.
“I iterated a little bit to differentiate it. I also think that there is a little bit of a challenge in colour change, because in theory you would think it’s a straight colour swap. There’s a little bit more differentiation in this model, like on a part level, but visually, it’s very, very similar.
“There is a little bit of asymmetry in the face and we’ve increased the amount of white fur at the front. We also have an articulated mouth right now, so have to switch that up, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this one, but we have green eyes, so this one will come with two sets of eyes, green and brown, and they are compatible with the Tuxedo Cat. If you wanted to move any of those eyes, for example, the green ones back to the Tuxedo Cat.”
When Damian Andres originally designed the cat model that reached 10,000 votes on LEGO Ideas, he made it brown, but the professional designers switched it to black and white. Damiean will earn a commission on 21376 Orange Cat, just as he does on the original version.
LEGO Ideas has a huge slate of fan-designed sets on the way, including Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Downton Abbey, Ramen, Vintage Sewing Machine, E.T. The Extra-terrestrial, Smurf Village and La Catrina. Another 75 product ideas are currently under consideration.
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