Tag Archives: Characters

Weeping Angels and Cybermen and Daleks – oh my!

The well-known Paul Hetherington is a LEGO builder and artist we’ve covered a few times in the past. His distinct style of large brick-built characters and scenery, mixed with minifigure scale scenes is unmistakable whether it’s Batman, Fabuland, or a giant automaton ripping its robot heart out. His latest masterpiece is his take on Doctor Who.

LEGO Doctor Who Tribute

Typical of all his creations, it’s hard to say what part of it your eyes will be drawn to first. When I usually see something new he builds, I notice one part of it, and think it’s amazing. Then I notice another, and another, and another. My eyes dart around looking at all the components of a complex and beautiful creation. From top to bottom, you start with the clever lettering of the title BBC Doctor Who, then you see the giant Weeping angel and Cyberman surrounding the TARDIS. Continue reading →

You, too, can fill your zoo with over 20 adorable animals!

As someone obsessed with animals and animal builds, I’m pleased to share some exciting news! TBB’s 2020 Creation of the Year builder, Koen Zwanenburg, is providing instructions for his collection of cute and cuddly LEGO critters! These cartoon-ish creations are some of my all-time favorite animal builds. Just look at that walrus’ flippers – genius! The size and style lend themselves perfectly to repeating the techniques with all sorts of characters. And now, you can build them and collect them all yourself.

Cuddly Toys: The Animal Collection

While you’re here, be sure to check out some of Koen’s other builds! In addition to many other completely different creations, he’s also used this technique for both Super Mario and Christmas characters.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Mech!?

This LEGO model could either be a buildable figure of Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series or a mech version of the pizza-loving reptilian character. Either way this build by Cecilie Fritzvold seems like a fresh new take on character depictions from the franchise.

M1-CHEL-ANG3-L0

Cowabunga, let’s take a look at some interesting parts usage utilized in this build! Where Michelangelo’s six-packed underbelly would normally be, Fritzvold uses two trans-clear orange Nexo Knights parts to shape this area – a pentagonal tile and a windscreen. Minifigure legs are also incorporated in interesting ways here; two green pairs serve as Michelangelo’s hands while a disassembled orange pair is used in tandem with some slope parts to create a martial arts belt. It’s always nice to see unique parts such as the chain element be included in models – here, they serve as nunchuck chains. I like builds that blend interesting parts in popping colors together, and this model certainly does just that. If you’re interested in viewing more colorful LEGO TMNT mechs, Fritzvold created a few more pictured below.

TMNT - Team Mecha Ninja Turtles

A Saucerful of Secrets

Mysteries abound in this latest creation by Blake Foster. Turning the Tables features a classic UFO scenario turned on its head. Have the cows had enough? Or is this actually a flashback to how the hostilities between the alien and bovine races began? Either way, there’s a lot to unpack in this vignette. On the building front, check out the clever use of on-the-sprue Harry Potter wands in the fence, the cupcake-tipped under-udder-thrusters, and the perfect use of those 1×1 star plates. The Mixel eyes on the cow-pilot just creep me out, though.

Turning the Tables

We’ve featured a number of Blake’s other Spacy Creations in the past. Could this be the beginning of a new theme of “Cow-Space”? One can only hope.

The Bricks are Busted!

Builder Paul has struck cartoon character gold again, this time with his LEGO builds of teenage characters Candace Flynn and Vanessa Doofenshmirtz from Disney Channel’s Phineas and Ferb. Both characters are known for their attempts at “busting” their family members for their crazy antics.

BUSTED!!

Using a variety of bricks, slopes, and tiles in varying sizes Paul did an excellent job at fashioning these brick-built characters accurately via the SNOT (studs not on top) technique. The most difficult component for these characters to render correctly in bricks would be Vanessa’s more curvy frame as well as the round faces of these particular characters in comparison to the more angular faces of some other characters in the show such as Dr. Doofenshmirtz. I think the tooth shaft in pink which Paul utilizes in order to render Vanessa’s lips is an example of some pretty creative parts usage. What can I say? Paul has done it again, and I as well as many other fans are definitely hoping to see some more brick-built versions of other characters from this beloved television show.

Rock, papercuts, scissors, wait...

The players of the game that settles it all can get a little carried away sometimes. In this cute LEGO vignette by Pedro Sequeira some of our favorite players; rock, paper, and scissors are brought to life in three dimensions and we can see the consequences of such rough play!

Each player – rock, paper, and scissors are made up of some pretty standard small elements such as slopes, tiles, and small bricks. The faces on the objects and their expressions are what make this scene both adorable and hilarious. The rock and paper characters feature woodoo balls with eye prints, while printed round 1×1 tiles with mischievous squinting eyes decorate the face of scissors. A stream of tears on poor cut-up paper’s face is cleverly rendered with a couple translucent clear dragon’s fire elements. I enjoy the lines on the paper created with grey plates to give it that loose-leaf paper aesthetic. Maybe rock can talk some sense into scissors while poor paper heals its wounds from battle. Sequeira does mention that this brick-built vignette is based off of an illustration which can be viewed here.

LEGO Star Wars 75317 The Mandalorian & the Child (Baby Yoda) BrickHeadz characters [Review]

The appearance of “The Child” (immediately nicknamed Baby Yoda) at the end of the first episode of “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ last November caught the whole world by surprise, including merchandise and toy licensees like LEGO, who had to scramble to produce products based on the show. First revealed in February, right before Toy Fair in New York, where we got hands on with both LEGO Star Wars The Mandalorian sets, preorders for the 295-piece LEGO BrickHeadz 75317 The Mandalorian & the Child immediately went on back-order from the LEGO Shop (US $19.99 | CAN $24.99 | UK £17.99), but has begun showing up “in the wild” ahead of its August 1st release date.

Read our hands-on review of LEGO Star Wars 75317 The Mandalorian & the Child BrickHeadz

The frog prince of wails

The story of the frog prince has been updated many times over the years. Maybe in this LEGO version by Ivan Marynov the prince has just realized that social distancing is going to make smooching a princess a lot more difficult. Whatever the case, this is certainly an expressive frog. A golden crown from the 2006 Knight’s Kingdom II theme is all that remains of this fellow’s past, and a bit of red cloth forms the interior of the gaping mouth. But for me it’s the eyes (yellow radar dishes surrounded by tires) that really get the horror of the moment across. I also like the Technic ball joints used for the toes. The tiny fly(ing) magic user is also full of fun part usage. From the blue wizard hat to the Parademon wings, this little fellow clearly wasn’t someone to mess with.

You know, sometimes existential angst is just darn cute.

The Vile Spell

Ivan’s other featured creations aren’t quite as adorable, but you should still check them out!

The terror of tiny Transformers

As a kid, I think the Transformers cartoon did teach me some memorable words, like screaming at the top of my lungs in Megatron style “Decepticons, retreeeatt!” These too deserve some shout out with the family members that we’re sure to find familiar. There’s Daddy “Screaming” Megatron, Sonny “Rebellious” Starscream, Brother “Silent” Soundwave, “Conehead” Ramjet, “See-It-All” Reflector and “Shoot-em-up” Shockwave. All these were brought to you by Joe Perez, using the LEGO Mixel joints that were in abundance in the theme.

"Decepticons Attack"

Even though these are not transformable, and neither do I expect them to be, they make a nice tiny collection that demands to be in my collection one day.

Let Aladdin take you on a magic carpet ride

It’s a whole new world of LEGO building when MSIndustries uses the plastic bricks to create this spectacular Aladdin model. I will admit to being a hardcore Disney fan so of course, my scrolling stopped upon seeing this image. I was immediately drawn to the nicely rendered characters and that wonderfully fluid magic carpet that seems to float in the air by magic.

The characters are full of life and interesting parts usage. The construction of Aladdin’s turban and Jasmine’s hair is particularly well done as well as their outfits. The Genie’s expression and pose are perfect and really give him a lot of personality. But for once, Genie isn’t the center of attention here. Its’ the magic carpet’s turn to shine. The patterning is beautiful and the undulation in its’ form is achieved using a combination of 10 x 10 LEGO nets, round 2×2 plates and bars. And that floating look? It’s not Photoshop trickery but in fact a practical effect.

A Whole New World

Check out the magic that helps keep the carpet afloat

A show that’s as fun to watch as it is to build

You’re trapped in your home, and you and your roommates have no choice but to watch bad movies.

Sound familiar? No, it’s not just a good guess as to what many of our readers might be doing at this particular moment in time. It’s the plot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 – the story of a man shot into space and forced to watch cheesy movies with his robot companions. It’s one of my (TBB contributor Chris Doyle) favorite shows to binge-watch. Oh, and to build in LEGO. I’ve previously shared a build of the first subjects of this movie-watching experiment, Joel, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot. Thanks to being trapped at home myself, I’ve had time to build the other two sets of castaways.

All aboard the Satellite of Love

Click here to continue reading…

The classic side-eye

We have all known that person at some point. The one who says something and all you can do is silently give them that judging gaze. Sometimes they’re even a friend. And you love them, but man are they weird. This build by Gregory Coquelz, inspired by the writings of author China Miéville, perfectly captures that moment. Maybe it’s the slurping in the middle of a very serious Dungeons and Dragons quest. Whatever thought bubbles you give the scene, the characters and their outfits tell a great story.

Back to New Crobuzon

You can see more of Gregory’s work by visiting our archives.