Product review (4 stars): Fun, but...
Positives: Character design templates are included and easy to follow; Unpacking of the product is quick and easy, no hard-to-cut plastic covered items; Once you work through the initial faults of this product(see negatives), it is fun and my son was excited to create characters.
Negatives: Design flaw #1: Instructions are to press firmly and beads will stay. Well, they don't. When you use the included paper template, the beads don't stay and topple over. My son was initially very frustrated with this until we came up with our own solution. Our solution was to fold up a paper towel, get it wet, and we dabbed the bottom of each bead before sticking it on to the template. The beads seemed to stay much better once they had a little bit of "glue" to help them stick. Design flaw #2: The container that you separate the beads in to by color has no top. Once we were done for the day, we dumped the remaining beads into a baggy because the nice little separating container they give you doesn't have a top. Weird. Why wouldn't they supply a top???
Last comment: Neither a positive nor a negative...just an opinion. The spinning drying thing is not totally necessary. Sure, my son had fun pushing the button twenty times to make it spin; That was fun. The directions said it gets rid of the excess water, but you have to wait at least 20 min (according to the directions) for them to dry anyway. We waited longer because ours were still sticky. If the spinning thing gets lost, no big whoop. You can still create characters without the paper templates, without the spinning thing, and still have a fun and cute product when you're done. Just don't lose the beads...which is why I would love a top on the container! Ha! Hope this info helps.