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 are not prepared! (for this LEGO Illidan Stormrage from World of Warcraft)

A cornerstone of gaming, the role-playing online game World of Warcraft, has recently had a resurgence. The re-release of its original form (before seven expansions) has had millions hooked, me including. I guess that explains my lack of activity in the LEGO world… But while everybody else is busy killing boars and growing out their hair, Chi Hsin Wei has been building. The result is Illidan Stormrage, one of the central characters in the Warcraft storyline.

The character is obviously instantly recognizable, with the torn wings, green demonic tattoos and his weapons, the warglaives of Azzinoth built using lime green dragon wings. The muscles of the upper body are quite impressive, as is the construction of the character’s pants that look like they have not been changed for ten thousand years…

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Heh-heh heh-heh heh-heh... Cool.

The incredible brick artist LEGO7 has brought these two teenage fools to ABS with perfect articulation. The 90s proved itself as an era of animated comedic satire with the likes of many cartoons, though none poked their finger as hard as Beavis and Butthead. The shaping of each grungy hairpiece is instantly recognisable, as is their position on their much-loved couch. His remarkable ability to construct facial expressions is not lost here either. The use of a pink 1×1 round plate as Beavis’s gum line is so perfectly placed, that I cant help but hear the sniggering laugh coming from these two delinquents. The colour scheme used in their attire has been excellently chosen, showing their worn out AC/DC and Metallica T-shirts. Even the slight twist of each inner leg, brings these two socially inept teens to amazing brick built likeness. All they need now is a decrepit lounge room and some headbanging play features.

To experience some of LEGO7’s other excellent characters, check out his Animal Music Box.

There’s no choice but to like Hobson

One great thing about Paddy Bricksplitter’s LEGO creations is that they always have a lot of character. Take Hobson, here, for example. Described as a faithful robotic butler to the idle rich, you still get the feeling that maybe this servant is a little disdainful of the beverage choices being made. Or maybe it’s just Hobson’s choice. Regardless of any pompous attitude, Hobson is all class, though. Check out the gold chain, pneumatic T cufflinks, and bucket handles as both eyebrows and shoe accents. Hobson’s outfit is also stylishly constructed, creatively using parts like the 4x4x16 tapered curve, Hero Factory armor, and vehicle tires.

A hunter weathered and a hunter feathered

There is an ancient manner of hunting that involves the use of a trained hawk to catch the prey. Few now practice such an art, but LEGO builder Hongjun Youn has created one such hunter, who is perhaps one of the two left in Korea, the builder’s home country. Shown with his hawk perched on his shoulder, the pose is regal, the sort of thing you might see in an old National Geographic magazine. What sets this build apart from the crowd is the level of texture, something difficult to do with hard plastic bricks. While the hawk is one of the better ones I have seen at this scale, the best feature is the deeply lined and weathered face of the hawker, implying that he has spent most of his time outside exposed to the elements.

Speaking of the face and the elements, it took me a while to figure out what pieces the builder used. A deep dive into Bricklink revealed them to be a hockey mask from the 2003 Sports theme and another hockey mask flipped upside down; together they make for an impressive and expressive visage. The glorious fur texture around the neck and boot cuffs, as well as the neck feathers of the bird, is accomplished by the use of this armor piece, and the layering of various tattered cloth elements completes the look. All in all, this pair of hunters looks ready to set out into the wilderness and bring back some game.

Precise, clean cuts. No one saw anything. Again.

The world of Magic: the Gathering is, despite its cheap fantasy storyline, a treasure trove of characters and other motives. Some (far too few, if you ask me!) LEGO builders like Eero Okkonen take inspiration from it and create amazing works of art. This recreation of The Wanderer is a great example of a builder capturing the original artwork perfectly. The Wanderer is a clichéd mysterious character in the lore that would be quite interesting if it was in any other story.

The build is mostly what one would expect from this master character builder. The real highlight is the incredible accuracy to the source material. The exotic colours like pink, gold and sand green are not the easiest to work with in LEGO, but Eero stretched his collection to the limit and successfully recreated the character, with all her challenges. The most interesting part usage to me was the Technic figure scuba flipper used as the ends of the hair. To read more about the building process, check out Eero’s own blog post on Cyclopic bricks.

Sir, we thought you were here to protect us...

For over four months, the citizens of Hong Kong have been protesting a proposed bill that relinquishes some of Hong Kong’s autonomy and places the city-state under more direct influence of mainland China. More than 2 million peaceful demonstrators have been met with increasingly violent responses from the Hong Kong Police Force, who have bolstered their ranks with mainland Chinese forces and decried the protests as riots, shooting thousands of canisters of tear gas at the civilian crowds. LEGO builder Wing Lee, a Hong Kong citizen, has created this poignant vignette of a demonstrator and a riot-gear equipped policeman.

The two figures stand atop a five-petal orchid, the symbol of Hong Kong, while the color fades from the city’s traditional red and white motif beneath the armored officer. The world is watching this time, and may democracy prevail.

The Supreme Leader of the House of Mouse

Builders Build Better Bricks built a better brick Mickey Mouse to put in your brick-built house! Now try saying that 10 times fast.

Mickey Mouse is one the most iconic and enduring characters in animation history and he’s captured the imagination of many an excellent LEGO builder. This version of the world’s most famous mouse puts Technic parts and hinges to excellent use. The Technic axle connectors that make up the arms and legs could easily swapped and replaced to make the figure capable of a variety of poses. The gloves are really nicely done with the Vehicle Mudguard making a nice curve to the palms and used again to create the curved back of the closed hand. The rounded tiles that give the illusion of rounded fingers are a nice choice. Mickey’s face, with its many odd shapes are well rendered with a combination of quarter round tiles, clever sideways building and rounded bottom plates for the cheeks. The pose is one that will be familiar to fans and imbues the figure with a wonderful sense of action and personality.

I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger!

A builder who goes by the dubious name of SuckMyBrick has built a stunning LEGO portrait of Walter White, the mild-mannered chemistry teacher turned badass meth dealer because…desperate times. I hope I didn’t spoil too much for you, but as Breaking Bad has been cited as one of the best TV shows of all time, it is strongly recommended that you watch it to see Bryan Cranston in the most pivotal role of his career, even if just to sputter off memorable quotes such as this article’s title. SuckMyBrick is exceptionally good at building characters and portraits. Here is a recent time we featured his Fred Flintstone, as well as a whole string of internet influencers and the Commander in Peach.

Why don’t you come along with me...on a Magic Carp(et) Ride

LEGO builders have often explored the theme of “speeder bikes” – flying motorcycle-esque vehicles with a grand and glorious racing tradition. (Or, for those looking for the possible origins of the trope, a callback to the forest chase scene in Return of the Jedi. Although usually built in minifigure scale for maxium swooshability, there’s no reason that one couldn’t make a larger version. In fact, Eero Okkonen has done just that in Kiirus Ögonblick and The Carp Speeder, mixing skill in large figure builds with…a fish. Not just any fish, though, but a carp. A blue and orange, jet powered, mechanical-hybrid carp….Because why not?

See more of this fishy speeder bike.

Life from the ashes, like a leafy kind of phoenix

In a world where human influence seems more and more destructive, it can sometimes feel like there is less hope for life every passing day. Patrick Biggs tackles this topic with an expressive character that seems to embody wild plant life. Now, we should not oversimplify the ecological crisis to just deforestation, but as a symbol this creation is quite powerful. It may be a touch ironic to talk about such problems through plastic bricks, but if it makes just one person consider their carbon or plastic footprint, the world is better for it.

The character’s leafy face has a perfect shape and an expression achieved by two simple pin holes. The body has much more detail than I would expect from brown. But the character would not have the impact it does without the burnt stump it is presented on, as well as the flowers sprouting from said stump under the gardener’s influence.

Wealthiest Disney character of all time

Despite his namesake, Scrooge McDuck is a cool and adventurous dude and one of my favorites from the 80s Duck Tales Adventures. It’s nice to see him come alive and reproduced beautifully in brick form. This build not only features the wealthy duck, but is also rich in Nice Parts Usages (NPUs). You’ve got to love how Koen Zwanenburg used the magnifying glasses for the pince-nez, and the bucket handles for his belt buckle. Most appropriately perhaps, parts of the treasure chest are made of gold ingot elements.

We could all live in harmony if Aliens just attended social etiquette schooling

We love our Ridley Scott adventures and can continue to worship Alien Xenomorphs like what the folks over at Build Better Bricks did with LEGO bricks and parts. That lighting and pose is awesome, making this one of the slickest medium-scale Aliens we’ve seen. It smoothly blends System and Bionicle elements to create the cold, clammy, terror-inducing Xenomorph form.

But, let’s all calm down and think a little. These Alien creatures that we see running around in the movies are not dumb species. They can certainly walk upright like us homo sapiens, and with a bit of schooling, surely we all could live together in harmony. To start with, get them to don clothes and manicure down those claws down to something manageable. They’ve got to also learn to close those gaping mouths to avoid all that drooling. The problem with us is that we human explorers fail to communicate. As soon as we see something ugly, we just whip out the blasters and assume these creatures want to just eat us all alive. Sure they need to figure out a way to survive, but I’m sure we can work something out for when they need to implant us with face-huggers and reproduce those cute tiny babies. Volunteers perhaps?