#make-it blocks

Empire State Building:  Okay, this is pretty solid. My only complaint is the stick shift lever used to make the top is actually poorly designed and the stick won’t stand up very well. Oh well, nobody’s perfect (except LEGO). 

Sydney Opera House:  Well, it was a good try, but this one suffers from being a little too ambitious to capture really well in a micro, $1 set. A noble effort with slightly sub-par execution.

Leaning Tower of Pisa: This one is pretty beautiful. A couple of the bricks came with some extra plastic sticking off of them. Also the hold of the central rod on the base isn’t super sound, but altogether a really good set.

White House:  Well, you may notice that this is more of the front porch of the White House than the entire White House if you want to get really technical. I really don’t know what they were thinking, but it is a nice reproduction of the porch.

London Bridge:  A little ambitious, but not bad on a micro scale. I almost feel it could use one more level of tan before the turrets, but that’s a matter of opinion. 

Make-It Blocks, as I noted in my previous post, are available at Dollar Tree stores right now (if you know of any other place, let me know).

Some of the figures were previously sold under the Top Blox brand, but have gotten slight makeovers for MIB. There are currently 16 figures out in 8 two-packs. You may also be able to find the remnants of the Top-blox figures expanding the number of unique figures available to 24.

Girl*, Actress, Farmer, Policemen*, Doctor; Soldier, Policeman*, Military*, Doctor; Knight, Ninja, Pirate, Construction Worker*, Policeman; Fireman*, Construction Worker, Space*, Police Inspector, Astronaut; Covert Ops, Ninja, Special Forces, Fireman, Sailor.  

(*Top Blox figures have asterisks.)

The MIB minifigures are taller than LEGO minifigures, but the hair/hat swaps and the hands are the same size.

The legs and arms are on ball joints giving them a wider range of motion than LEGO minifigures. The disadvantage to this is that it becomes harder to set them squarely standing on a baseplate.

The Top-Blox vs. MIB minifigures are varied.

Some, like Girl vs. Actress, are as subtle as showing a little more face behind the hair.

Others, like ninja vs ninja are as bold as a palate swap.

And many are personality changes such as mean fireman vs clearly lobotomized fireman. 

There are a couple of, well, odd design decisions among the group.

For instance the ogre as a pirate is a pretty bold statement.

The astronaut with a knight’s torso and no mouth (and mine came with a backwards leg) is also pretty weird.

If you have a Dollar Tree nearby and you love alternative building brick brands then you’re in for a real treat.

Make-It Blocks brand building bricks have blocks, minifigures, vehicles, little furniture sets, robots, and famous buildings.

I’ll be looking at the individual sets over the next several posts, but just as an overall the quality of the bricks is mostly very good and largely the designs, sets, and figures are clever and well done. They are, as promised prominently, compatible with major brands including LEGO brand bricks. 

A lot of the sets and minifigures were previously released as other brands (My Blox, Top Blox, Architek, etc.) and I don’t know how they’re all related, but I would recommend getting whatever of these catches your eye. Only the minifigures, famous buildings, and vehicles with partial minifigures seem to be available everywhere, but if you have enough stores in your area you may find everything.

The biggest downside is that going for a dollar, there aren’t any substantive sets available, but any of the sets out is worth the dollar they go for. I haven’t found them elsewhere for sale but eBay (where they are going for a premium of course.)