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!

You might want to have that growth looked at.

There have been enough medical issues in my extended family that I know you have to take an unexpected growth or bump seriously. Early detection is often an important factor in survival, and ignoring things almost never has a good outcome. LEGO builder Djokson brings us a cautionary tale in this vein with The Husk of Minaurogg. I’m sure that Minaurogg was a happy-go-lucky type of person. You can see that reflected in their cheerful helm (skillfully constructed from a minifigure shield, robot arms and elbow bricks.) and well groomed nails. Sadly, all that mirth has come to a sudden halt as Minaurogg has come down with a bad case of…something. A growth of round tiles in transparent purple have boiled up, and a couple of giant pustules look ready to burst. There’s also severe discoloration of the arm with new spiky outgrowths on the shoulder. And that one red eye seems pretty bloodshot.

Ah, maybe it’s just me being alarmist. I’m sure I few days of bed rest is all that’s required to set things right!

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TRY again (More drunken LEGO building by Chris Doyle)

You know what isn’t supposed to mix? LEGO and booze. But sometimes it does. And wow, can it be a lot of fun to watch. Recently, I shared my tribute to the TRY channel’s drunken LEGO building. It featured one of the three pairs of TRYers who attempted to build sets while smashed out of their gourds. The people I depicted enjoyed my creation, but it didn’t end there. One of the other people in the video, Mary-Claire, asked if I could build her and Lolsy Byrne next. So…here we are.
MC and Lolsy’s attempt at building Yoda’s Hut (75208) didn’t quite go as smoothly, but I think it’s fair to say they had a great time anyway. Even if MC was momentarily confused if their set was from “Sky Wars” or some other franchise… (To be fair, she was really drunk!)

I ran into a couple of challenges in making recognizable likenesses. Lolsy’s nose ring (made from a minifigure gold ring) was difficult to position. Luckily the 2×1 curved slope of her nose has a notch that allowed for the ring to sit on the top of a 1×1 Technic brick built sideways off of her lip. That allowed enough of an offset to have at least almost half of the ring “exposed” below her nose, and flush with the rest of her face.
Mary-Clare’s mouth also gave me a bit of trouble. Eventually I found a combination of 1×2 and 2×2 plates for her lips and a 1×2 rounded plate for her teeth that worked. The mouth assembly is “studs down”, so the connection point on the underside of the 2×2 plate creates a nice suggestion of a tongue…an unexpected but welcome side effect.

I also wanted to add a little something extra to this second build, so I decided to animate a bit of the video. (From about the 6:00 mark). At that point, Lolsy has a few choice things to say to anyone who has a problem with their Star Wars knowledge…click on through to see her LEGO avatar in action!

LEGO’s saviours rise once again

Originally hitting store shelves in Europe in 2000, and then rolled out to North America in 2001, the LEGO Bionicle theme played a key role in hauling the company out of its financial woes of the late 1990s and helped to build the foundation of the all-conquering toy company LEGO has become. Aaron Newman pays tribute to the original lineup of figures released under the theme, but he’s done it with a twist — these are all built with classic System bricks. The six Toa Knight figures are nicely done, immediately recognisable to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the originals. Kopaka, the Toa of Ice, was always my favourite, and I love how Aaron has captured his iconic mask. The presentation of the models is spot-on too, well-photographed and then just a touch of special effects to give a hint of the elemental powers at play.

North Pole or bust!

I love Christmas as much as anyone. In fact, I would wager that I love it more than most people. But I have to admit that my jaw clenches, a tic twinges in my cheek, and my guts churn when I start seeing Christmas merchandise and commercials before Thanksgiving. I once worked at a store where the Holiday displays came out at the beginning of October, and I had to see them almost every day for three months. It was torture. And the Christmas songs played on a loop piped into the stores – don’t even get me started on how much I despise all 3,000,000,000 versions of “Jingle Bell Rock”. That being said, I do appreciate a good LEGO build when I see one, even if it is Santa Claus at the start of November. Kale Frost had the opportunity to build a huge Christmas display for a mall out of LEGO bricks, and the head of the Head Elf is particularly noteworthy.

The bushy white eyebrows make good use of some wings, and the clips are surprisingly effective as eyelashes. I love the clear blue eyes and the jolly face. This Santa looks like he needs some more cookies, though, since that neck is not as, ah, girthy as I would expect. It doesn’t look like he is hiding multiple chins behind that LEGO beard, and he is hardly ruddy. Perhaps this is Santa after some weight loss and exercise, getting swoll in the North Pole Crossfit Gym. Not that it really matters, as long as he leaves me some presents under the tree — the kind that make the proper rattling noise when shaken.

Booze and LEGO don’t usually mix this well

In these dark times, I find a lot of comfort in watching silly YouTube videos. In heavy rotation for me (builder Chris Doyle) is The TRY Channel. There, a bunch of Irish comedians react to odd foods and activities. It’s really funny. Sometimes the challenges involve a lot of alcohol, and thus feature drunk Irish comedians. This, to me, is even funnier. Imagine my delight then, when TRY released Drunk Irish People Try Building LEGO Sets. I’ll give you a quick recap of the episode: It doesn’t go particularly well for most of them.
Two of the TRYers, though, Dermot Ward and Bláithín de Burca, manage to get through more than two-thirds of the build of the 76119 Batmobile set. I felt really bad for them when time ran out and they had to stop. So, being the sort of person who builds with LEGO myself, I thought I’d make a little alternate-reality ending for the video where they did finish.

This was one of my first times building characters in the likeness of “real people”, as opposed to robots or super-heroes. I think they turned out pretty recognizable. Dermot likes to joke that he has an oversized head, so there are a few extra bricks in his forehead. His mostly-unbuttoned plaid shirt, though, was a real pain at this scale. I used a combination of headlight bricks and 1×1 tiles to get a suggestion of the pattern. Creating a version of Bla had some challenges as well. I used rubber bands for the straps on her top, and digging into my sticker stash to find something to use for the decoration. A pair of chrome grill tiles and some Brickheadz glasses complete her look. I also built a tiny Batmobile, Batman, and Joker. Because context matters.

The best part of this build for me was when the TRYers reacted to it. It’s super gratifying when a bit of fan art gets a big thumbs up from the people depicted in it. And Mary-Claire wants me to work up versions of her and Lolsy next. That sounds like something I’m going to have to…Try. (Sorry. I couldn’t resist.)

Blast to the past with Generation 1 Transformers

Builder Alex Jones (Orion Pax) has a laser-focused talent to bring our favorite Transformers to life. They not only look great and recognizable in their humanoid form, but it takes skill to also make the same builds look fabulous in their alternate vehicle modes using LEGO bricks. This is not an easy task indeed and would likely take tons of hours of experimentation. These sets of builds feature; Autobots Ironhide, Cosmos, Mirage, and Powerglide each decorated with the unmistakable patterns and prints from the original box designs from the 80s. They certainly don’t make morning cartoons like they used to!

Click to see more Autobots in action

Laughing all the way to the bank

There’s no stopping the insanity of the Joker at the box office, with it now surpassing the Deadpool movies to be the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. Though more fan builds will inevitably come, for now this build by Vincent’s LEGO Creation is likely as close as we’re going to get to a minifigure representation of the groundbreaking performance by Joaquin Phoenix, since we all know how LEGO feels about representing movies with that level of violence. However, you never can tell as we’ve seen how LEGO tackles more unconventional topics with convention releases.

Captain Nemo reporting for duty.

Majestic and mysterious. Those are just a few choice words to describe this LEGO model of Jules Verne’s enigmatic submarine captain by Eero Okkonen. Nemo, or Prince Dakkar, pilot of the equally mysterious Nautilus submarine, is adorned with gold trim, and that olive green turban even has a nautilus tile in front. By far though, the star of this build is his richly textured mustache and beard, made from such choice parts as Star Wars pistols, minifigure hands, and “raven” wings. He would make a fearsome foe indeed.

A LEGO builder builds a LEGO builder building LEGO

It was a pleasure to meet Jason Allemann a few weeks back at BrickCon. He was our very funny keynote speaker and if you don’t know him by name, you may certainly know him as the builder who specializes in feats of engineering such as his now famous Sysiphus model and the two times his LEGO Ideas submissions became actual sets; once with the 21305 Ball Maze and the 21315 Pop-Up Book. If you were lucky enough to attend BrickCon this year, you may have had a chance to get your grubby little mitts on the exclusive convention model, which is of this LEGO builder building LEGO, built by Jason, also a LEGO builder. See, it’s totally meta! Like all of Jason’s models, movement is a key feature with this one. You turn a crank and this little fellow toils busily on his LEGO model of the BrickCon logo.

Also, if you happen to have a Power Functions motor you can hook that bad boy to it and this little guy will really cook! But don’t just take my word for it, watch this build video of the designer building the model, then later hooking up a motor to it. Brothers Brick’s own Chris Malloy did the graphic design for the packaging. Neat!

Chibi Sisyphus can never get ahead of his head

In order to fully appreciate this next creation, we’re going to have to define a couple of terms. The first is chibi. That’s a Japanese slang term that describes an art style where characters are drawn as small, chubby figures with exaggerated features. The second is Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, he was a king who was punished by the gods for his wicked ways. He is forced to push a giant boulder up an even bigger hill, only to have it roll back down every time it nears the top. At first glance, these two terms don’t seem to have a lot do to with each other. Leave it to Sheo to unify them into a really cute image of eternal torture. In this version, Sisyphus doesn’t have a boulder to push; instead, his over-sized chibi head is the enormous weight that has to be moved upwards.

Creative use of various arches and curved slopes creates an anguished, yet adorable, visage. The use of a curved brick for the leg gives a great sense of that upward pushing. I also like the detail of the 2×2 round tile for his belly, and let’s not ignore the build of the mountain either. The rocks are built out in all directions, with a combination of slopes, plates, and tiles giving some lively texture to the backdrop.

Smile through your fear and sorrow...

The new Joker movie by Todd Philipps in my view tells one of the best origin stories for the Clown Prince of Crime. Being a fan of the Dark Knight and the various original treatments of his arch-enemy over the past decades, no comic panel could have told the tale that was told with the amazing embodiment of Joaquin Phoenix on the big screen. While this LEGO bust of the Joker by George Panteleon isn’t from the movie, it bears a striking resemblance to the Joker from Batman: The Animated Series, especially that nose and that wide grin. The amazing brick layering techniques in which every single piece seems to fit perfectly and brings this character to life gives me the chills.

Click to see more angles of this superb build

Jason, watch out! Here come the skeletons!

One of the most memorable movies of my childhood was the 1963 stop-motion feature Jason and the Argonauts which features the work of animation master Ray Harryhausen. This pair of skeletons by Moko look like they jumped right out the movie, passing through a Terminator filter on the way out. The skulls, made from this Bionicle skull part, are a perfect choice, and those ribs made from a creature claw are great too.