Tag Archives: Characters

We love builds with character! Creating characters from LEGO elements, whether traditional System bricks or using elements from Bionicle and Constraction themes, is an amazing way to showcase your building skills. Brining out emotion and personality in bricks is an art!

A Bionicle builder at the beak of his powers

Djokson is at it again. After a short break from posting LEGO creations, he’s coming in hot. As hot as fire! And Firebludd is this creature’s name. It’s typical of Djokson’s high standard, using Bionicle, Hero Factory, and other constraction elements in ways you’d never think possible. But in this one, it’s the system pieces that draw my eye. The belt, for instance, uses a load of mechanical claw elements that’s probably quite fiddly but looks superb. And the mouth uses two minifigure mask elements to create something almost beak-like. It makes me think this is what World of Warcraft creatures would look like if HR Giger had designed them.

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What shall we build today?

Pippi Longstocking holds a special place in my childhood memories, and when I stumbled across Sarah Beyer‘s latest LEGO build in tribute to Pippi, I had to share! Sarah’s builds are always worth taking the time to enjoy and appreciate her techniques, but when she tackles something different to her usual style it’s great to see. There’s some great build details in this build — from the shoelaces and the use of the minifig stand to add dynamism to Mr. Nilsson the monkey’s tail — are just a couple of the call outs here.

This caricature of Pippi ticks all the boxes for me — the gravity-defying hair, the never-matching stockings, the colours used and of course Mr Nilsson! The pair are ready for their next big adventure to take them from Villa Villekula!

A miniature meeting of the Middle-Earth minds

There’s so much Nice Parts Use (NPU) in Dan Ko‘s adorable LEGO Lord of the Rings wizards that I don’t know where to start. Look at Gandalf the Bley here. His beard consists of upturned eggshell pieces, and the top of his staff uses a skeleton leg. His nose is also a rounded 1×2 plate, which may not necessarily qualify as NPU, but it’s a great choice nonetheless. As for Radagast the Reddish-Brown, his beard uses an arch piece to give some shape to his face. In the hat, you’ve got an ingot flanked by the frankly genius choice of a pair of minifigure chairs. They give him so much character! Dan has even repurposed some wood stickers to add detailing to his cloak. That is NPU par excellence! Do we need a new acronym for this? NSU – Nice Sticker Use?

So GLaDOS to see you

Ivan Martynov has turned to everyone’s favourite evil-robot-overlord-with-homicidal-tendencies for inspiration in the Digital Iron Builder contest. This doesn’t appear to be GLaDOS herself – but there’s no telling whether it’s just as evil or not. The seed part is a SPIKE sensor, an unusual part in its own right. It does look superb as the iconic eyes of Aperture Science technology though. In a way it makes perfect sense for this particular part use – the colour sensor is basically an eye, of sorts. The massive robot in the centre would be impressive enough on its own here, but the addition of a turret and Personality Core really ties everything together.

Which one of you goes “Kowabunga”?

Ever struggled to remember which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle was which? If so, Dan Ko has provided a handy guide in LEGO form, with some beautifully-made sculptures. I never was that into the show, so I always had a hard time remembering the names (although I do recognise this first one as Donatello). Normally I just wondered how they ended up settling on these particular adjectives for characters in a kids’ show…

“OK team, we need some new animal characters for a kids’ TV show. Any ideas?”

“Turtles! But on their own? A bit four-legged – let’s make them mutant turtles, so they can be humanoids. And let’s make them ninjas too. Ninjas are cool! Still not relatable enough though… How about we have them be teenagers? The Mutant Turtle Ninja Teenagers! And we can name them after Renaissance artists!”

“Uh… Sounds great. The name needs some work though…”

See the rest of the gang after the jump

“This is the way” ; “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes”

Welp, we pretty much know what is going to be Disney’s hottest new action figure this spring, but a few LEGO builders like Dad’s Bricks (Joe) have gotten ahead of Hasbro and wasted no time in getting their versions out first. Now Mando doesn’t have to crane his neck so far down to keep an eye on his adorable little ward thanks to Grogu’s new IG-12 mech suit. It’s more of a hollowed-out droid, really. With the help of little Grogu at the controls, the former assassin droid is capable of saying “no” and “yes”- usually in quick succession. Judging by the builder’s name, he’s probably a dad and so can understand the pride and wonder Mando must feel for his (mild spoiler alert, here) adopted son. He probably has a stockpile of good dad jokes, too. If you know some good ones, please leave them in the comments.

Aren’t you a little cute for a gangster?

Isn’t the mythology around gangsters odd? Although they were criminals, they do seem to make for fascinating characters in novels and on screens. In fact, as Versteinert demonstrates, they can be excellent subjects for LEGO creations! And if you’re going to depict a gangster, you might as well depict the gangster: Al Capone. For someone who was designated public enemy number one, there’s a lot to love about this build. The parts usage is great – I count at least four alternate uses for things like bananas and stud shooters – but the characterization of Capone is what makes this build. The tilted fedora and cigar off to one side give him heaps of personality, and I daresay he almost looks cute!

This LEGO Wednesday Addams doesn’t care what day of the week it is!

Thanks to her recent series, Wednesday Addams has become the latest “It Girl” – or rather “Itt Girl.” And her gothic style is perfectly captured here in LEGO by builder Saird15. The character design is immediately recognizable, with brilliant shaping of the uniform. The pair of wedge plates for the lapels makes for quite the nice touch. Dark gray stripes help to break up Wednesday’s dress, as do the hints of white poking through her uniform. I absolutely love the technique used here for her braids – a simple solution to a complex problem in character emulation. But her parasol absolutely takes the cake! Utilizing a network of cloth bat wings, Saird15 is able to create a proper umbrella in the right scale for their brick-build Addams. Such an impressive design!

He isn’t the Boogeyman. He’s the one you send to kill the Boogeyman.

Builder Dan Ko has applied his special LEGO character treatment to the man, the myth, the legend: Mr. John Wick. The construction here is downright lanky, and appropriately so for Keanu Reeves’s titular hitman. As such, the build does a lot with a little, relying heavily on the perfect part choices for John’s slacks and jacket. The hair is an impressive tussle of various claw pieces, while his beard is nothing more than a double-wide cheese slope. But the most brilliant bit has got to be the 1×1 tile stuck inside a vertical clip for Baba Yaga’s nose. It feels perfectly in proportion with the rest of the construction, and is right in line with Dan’s impressive record of brick-built facial formations.

Wall-E and friends have never looked cuter in LEGO

For a creature with relatively few humanoid features, Wall-E is a wonderfully expressive character. The same can be true for his robotic co-stars though, such as EVE and M-O. Lego_nuts has a talent for creating expressive characters, so perhaps it’s no surprise that they’ve treated us to the trio in LEGO form! The three are perfectly crafted, from the protagonist’s more angular, mechanical shapes to EVE’s curvaceous form. The wonder in Wall-E’s eyes at his new green friend is palpable!

The brick-built background is also impressive – an extra detail I always love to see. They’ve done something similar with the scrap heap at Wall-E’s feet in this imitation of the original movie poster. Along with some judicious lighting and editing, this looks absolutely gorgeous!

Adding Dawson to the Circle

The music scene is filled with countless artists, so deep cuts that overlap LEGO and eclectic artists can be rare. Builder Eero Okkonen recently completed this model of singer-songwriter Richard Dawson to update his past display of the band Circle. It’s no surprise Eero says he had an easy time going about this build, as the black uniform allowed for a great piece selection to maintain uniformity. The main issues he faced were building Richard’s face and hair, which come across delightfully in the final product. Dawson often works his voice from the top to bottom of his range in songs, so it’s wonderful that the models mouth seems to be caught mid-lyric. Other details such as the microphone, guitar, and speaker all add to the immersion of the scene. The only thing I can’t get passed are the skeleton arms as fingers because they just make me think Richard has more little hands at the fingertips. I’m disturbed but curious as to how it would help his guitar playing.

As a personal fan of Richard Dawson myself, this was a delightfully unexpected model to see. Plenty of builders have been covering famous musical artists over the last year, mostly mainstream or rock. This model has me curious about Circle, and pleased at how the process of discovering new music can be just as odd as your taste in tunes.

You wanna pizza me, huh?!

I’ll level with you, dear reader: I saw this build by Ivan Martynov and I had no idea what to make of it. It looks like a pizza chef’s fever dream. Which, as it turns out, is not far from the truth! It’s apparently inspired by a newly-popular video game called Pizza Tower. I can’t comment on whether Ivan’s build is accurate, but it sure is a tour de force in clever parts usage. Chain links are doubled up for the pizza crust. White lifebelts make up the apron straps. And a couple of eggs are used for the eyes. This is the best one if you ask me – a real eye-popper!