…not the catchphrase of Dr. Lazarus, Hans Gruber, the Sheriff of Nottingham or Severus Snape, but words spoken by the singular actor with the nasal tone and sardonic expression who portrayed all of them over the course of his stellar 25 year movie career. Beloved British actor Alan Rickman passed away today at the age of 69 (strangely mirroring the very recent passing of British music icon David Bowie). Hong Kong builder Alanboar Cheung whipped together this quick tribute to one of the more recent – and arguably most popular – of Rickman’s characters, the complicated Professor of Potions from the Harry Potter film series.
Tag Archives: Characters
The nightly visitor you didn’t want: Crimson Peak’s Lady Sharp
Guillermo del Toro’s latest film, Crimson Peak, is hauntingly beautiful and more than a bit freaky. The movie is awash in bold contrasting tones of black, white, and red, and none moreso than the palpably creepy specter of Lady Sharp. Tyler Halliwell’s terrific bust stays true to the apparition’s viscerally gruesome crimson visage.
When I was your age ‘streaming media’ was called books...
Meet Ol’ Barney, an opinionated, grumpy old man created by Centuri. His fingers are gnarled, his bones ache when it rains, those teeth have done a lifetime of chomping and you’re going to need to speak up boy!
Ol’ Barney has some fun parts use by Centuri. Some of the ones I spotted are the white croissants for his eyebrows, tan hair for his ears, a gold ingot belt buckle and what could better be better than ‘knobbly knees’ made of Technic connectors.
Now go and do something useful…when I was your age we didn’t just sit around playing with kiddie toys…
Astrid the Vanquisher conquers all
Talented Bionicle builder Djordje strikes again with another wonderful character, as always featuring unusual parts usage. For “Astrid the Vanquisher” Djordje has included an inside-out tent from the Lone Ranger sets as the Valkyrie’s skirt. Similarly, her shoulders are built from “big-fig” masks from the colorful Knights Kingdom series.
The schizophrenic ice age squirrel
I was a big fan of the first Ice Age movie when it came out several years ago. My favorite character was this prehistoric squirrel-thing that was constantly causing tectonic plate shifts with his prized acorn. The crazy proportions of “Scrat” would make it seem like an impossibility to recreate him effectively in LEGO (though Bruce Lowell built a LEGO Scrat a few years ago). But captainsmog seems to have captured the frenzied and furry essence flawlessly. Yet another epic use of the Mixel eyes!
A room with a view
As a predominantly character-focused builder myself, I have really enjoyed watching prolific Romanian builder Legranger Absurde develop his own distinct brand of small-scale characters over the past few months. His signature style invariably features Mixel eyes, long bangs, and curvaceous females in shoulderless outfits. But it also demonstrates some new clever limb articulation techniques, allowing for wonderful posing. And with his latest creation, the builder has even taken a crack at building a detailed scene around one of these figures:
I feel remiss in not having featured more of these delightful characters here before. So click below the fold for a gallery of previous examples of this builder’s recent work…
Olivia’s all deadly curves
Builder Jarek has already proven himself to be a master of hard angles and flat planes with his incredible Star Destroyer, but now he’s shaking things up with this stunning character, named Olivia the Swordmaiden. Jarek makes excellent use of the new balloon panels and lots of curved bricks and slopes for a result that looks ripped straight from the pages of a sci-fi concept art book.
Transforming LEGO Nemesis Prime is *almost* cute
Fans of Transformers will immediately recognise Nemesis Prime, the evil clone of the Autobot leader Optimus Prime, built by Japanese builder Moko. Brick-built Transformers have been featured before on TBB, but Moko’s build is a little bit different. Transformers originated as an animated television series in the 1980s. In the series Nemesis Prime is an evil, merciless killer …but oh my goodness, now he is super cute!
Moko has gone for the chibi feel with this build, yet manages to maintain accuracy and detail despite the diminutive stature. And as if that was not enough, his Nemesis Prime even transforms:
If you want to see detailed views, Moko has more photos of his builds of Nemesis Prime and Optimus Prime on his own blog. (Note: Moko’s blog is in Japanese, but the photographs are easily seen as thumbnails and Google roughly translates the page)
I will finish what you started
Kylo Ren is my new favorite villain. He clomps around menacingly, has an eerie, almost mechanical, baritone voice, and just the right amount of that famous Skywalker immaturity. Though we recently also featured torokimasa’s chibi Kylo Ren here on TBB, Kevin Ryhal‘s brick-built Kylo was too good to pass up. Kevin perfectly captured Kylo’s distinctive flowing robes (no easy feat with brick) and the unstable blade of his vented lightsaber. Also, the battle-stance pose is spot on.
Nick Wilde, that crafty fox from Zootopia
OK, so Disney’s Zootopia isn’t out yet, but the trailer is hilarious and makes this movie a must-see for me. Jordan Schwartz, a fan of all things Disney, gone ahead and made a fantastic sculpt of Nick Wilde, one of the film’s new protagonists, and it looks spot on. The sly look Nick is giving us is too perfect.
I’ll show you the dark side
At least, he will try. Just imagine torokimasa‘s adorable LEGO Kylo Ren throwing a tantrum and vandalizing First Order equipment! While the technique the builder used for the lightsaber blades would have been lazy for any other lightsaber, I think it works great to emulate the unstable blade effect on Ren’s crossguard saber.
I’ve got a good feeling about these
I was determined to stay away from the Star Wars stuff for a while following the glut of excellent models prompted by the release of The Force Awakens. Yet these figures from Luc Byard are simply too cool not to post…
Immediately recognizable, the Princess and her beau have never looked cuter. The shaping is excellent, avoiding some of the blockiness which can come with chibi builds, and the attention to detail is impressive whilst staying with the chibi-aesthetic – those blasters in particular are spot-on.
Luc has also had a crack at Darth Vader in this building style. It’s good, but for me it hasn’t quite hit the sweet spot between recognisable, fun, and cute which really set the Han and Leia figures apart. I hope Luc keeps going though, more figures in this style would make me very happy indeed.