Tag Archives: Characters

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…”

1/4: Donatello

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.

［LEGO - Mando and IG-12]

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!

Al Capone - Risky Business

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!

Wednesday Addams

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.

Baba Yaga

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!

Finally I built an EVE with WALL-E and M-O!

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!

An upgraded mini WALL-E

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.

Richard Dawson

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!

PIZZA TIME

An unsettling M3GAN made from unsettling L3GO

I’m off doing other Lino stuff but I’ve programmed an AI to say what I would say so you should find this passage to be flawlessly indistinguishable from my own. The Brothers Brick alum Iain Heath has done it again and by “it” I mean making us feel hopelessly unhip all while filling our pants with chili. He’s built a LEGO M3GAN from the movie with a duplicate title and now we’re even more malfunctioning than we already were. Iain tells us he was rooting for the murderous dancing robot the whole time and if you know Iain as I do, then you’d know this to be true. The last time we upset LEGO purists we received a record number of complaints from folks with AOL email addresses. Still, our Co-Founder Andrew, who does that thing with the internet, says Iain is the best thing to ever happen to white bread. Please scan our archives to see even more reasons why we enjoy Iain Heath’s moose knuckle. Destroy all humans!

Ogle this Oogway

Ozzie Joss Woodyard / Jayfa is ringing in the new year with the venerated sage kung fu master Oogway from the Kung Fu Panda film and TV franchise. Joss’ usual knack for character work shines brightly here as he recreates the tranquil master of the Jade Palace. This guy looks like he could teach a clumsy panda a thing or two! I love the use of the dragon wing cloth as Oogway’s tunic, and well-placed studs on the exposed sand green skin evoke the textured tortoise legs of the original character model from the movie.

Master Oogway

Like what you see? There’s more Kung Fu Panda action to be found in our archives with this sculpted scene from the movie and excellent recreations of Masters Tigress and Crane.

Looking to the past for inspiration in the future

Tino Poutiainen has drawn inspiration from the world of racing motorcycles for his latest LEGO creation. He says the all-conquering Honda NSR500 was the inspiration for the bike, and there’s certainly a resemblance. That is to say, it looks awesome!

Agent V

There’s some very nifty parts use within. The front wheel is held in by a technic disc itself fitted into a basketball hoop, which frankly looks made for this purpose. The minifigure pulley brake lever is cool too. Although the original motorcycle was conceived in the 1980s, Tino has updated it for a slightly more futuristic age, perfectly illustrated by the figure stood next to it. Presumably this is what stylish motorcycle leathers will look like in a few decades’ time. I hope there’s a helmet just out of shot, or in that briefcase. Even the future is no excuse not to be road-safe!

Once you go green, you can’t go back

Spider-Man’s nemesis Green Goblin has never looked as good as he does in this awesome large-scale LEGO version by Nikita Nikolsky. The Green Goblin himself looks mighty good in a scale that makes the pumpkin bombs a perfect fit, but it’s the glider’s use of weird flat silver pieces, many of which came from Bionicle, that caught my eye first. The purple portions are paper shapes that Nikita cut out; I’d have loved to see a brick-built solution but I have to admit the paper looks good. (And for those LEGO purists out there who would complain, there’s plenty of precedent in official sets for incorporating custom paper shapes, such as the little-known Muji line).

Green Goblin