This November saw a new LEGO challenge: NovHENber. Participants were invited to build chickens during the month, and many AFOLs answered the call. With the last chickens hatched, we checked in with builders behind the challenge – Syrdarian and Carson Lacy – and cooped up all the hens from the inaugural event.
Syrdarian : I like to organize activities. It’s fun as long as it’s kept simple, without judging phases or prizes to ship. Within the French-speaking LUG I’m part of, Les Briqueurs, I’m lucky enough to be able to run a couple of local activities during the year, but I wanted to try something bigger. After #timeforcrab, frogust, ShellTember, each being wonderful activities on their own, I was inspired to spin one up in the same vibe, even though I’m terrible at creating organic MOCS. I asked Carson if he was willing to help me, and he kindly accepted.
To announce the event, we were supposed to each build a hen separately but Carson’s hen was too good, so we decided to create variants of his design along with puns, all found by him. Except for the title “NovHENber” — that was suggested by my mother, all tribute to her.
Most of the builders who participated have included all kinds of puns with ”Hen”. We hadn’t planned for this, but what a treat! It’s pun practice for the next Iron Forge!
My contribution is a black hen built by my father. The structure, the proportion and everything was built by him. I’ve just filled the gaps and took the picture.
Carson: Having just finished my Shelltember build, Syrdarian’s invitation to promote his new prompt couldn’t have come at a better time. I thought NovHENber was a great idea and opportunity to build an animal that doesn’t really seem to get its time in the spotlight within the MOC building community. After we landed on our idea for our accessorized birds, I thought a good-old pun for the names would be a lot of fun. I’m glad to see others agreed, as many of the other creations had some very clever names. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone’s takes on their feathered friends, and I’m hoping we can do something similar in the future.
Now let’s have a look at the egg-celent entries into this fun challenge!
exoch.i pays tribute to two of history’s great generals in their chickensonas.
Otto Fens achieves some wild feathering using rubber bands, minifig bandages, and a helmet plume pulling double duty as crest and beak!
Taj: Brick Minstrel imagines a duel of the fates between AnikHEN Skywalker and Obi Wan kHENobi two Jedi. When it comes to chicken puns, Taj has the high ground.
Kristel Whitaker dreamt up 10 different hens! We covered them all here.
Eli Willsea fished up a chicken in his signature studless style.
Tuxille.legomok goes green with a plant-themed hen-try.
Jin Chen struts his stuff with a proud rooster.
Xiheng Xu creates this absolute orb of a chicken with a brilliant technique using umbrellas to create an almost perfect sphere.
FS Leinad crows with this stunning rooster.
Jan Sarnecki hatches this little fella with minifig hands for toes.
ColonelCandy breaks some eggs for this hen, chick, and tasty worm!
Kolsian goes to Japan to find the elusive Ron-hen.
Brique Logique is definitely breaking some chicken taboos with this tribute. We’ll forgive the cannibalism on account of the incredible NPU.
James Logan Saragosa trots out this turkey-chicken hybrid.
Finally, Harry gets hen-spiration and lets loose a TermHENator in the hen house.
