Tag Archives: Creatures

Creepy crawly or fuzzy & fluffly (yes, that’s possible in LEGO), we love our LEGO animals. Check them out here, and fall in love yourself.

Please wash hands after handling the dead monkey-robot thingy

For most of us, our LEGO mistakes never see the light of day. But for Fedde Barendrecht, his mistakes–scratch that–his abominations make it onto The Brothers Brick. This unfortunate…um…dead robot-monkey thingy is a result of Fedde ordering the wrong parts, then making do with what he had. Among this pile of brown goo, I see a K-2SO head, a curled monkey tail and a DUPLO bearskin. You may squabble over whether or not this utilizes legitimate build techniques, but I am intrigued nonetheless. For me, it’s in the realm of those curio hoaxes such as the Fiji Mermaid or the Jackalope. Just like watching some fool jumping on a trampoline with a bowling ball, it’s bound to get ugly, you don’t want to see it happen, but you can’t turn away either. What is seen can never be unseen. Thanks, Fedde!

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The magic inherent in transparent purple LEGO bricks

I’ve always felt that there’s something magical about transparent LEGO bricks and that transparent purple LEGO bricks are extra magical. Builder Jayfa also sees something in those elements, as evidenced by their Voidwalker. The entire build is an ode to “nice part usage.” Hero Factory ball joints and armor create the body of an elegant beast. Meanwhile, White Hero Factory armor covers the body, leading to a head that combines Legend of Chima wings with an eerie black large figure armor for the face. Even the tail ends in style, with minifigure wings at the tip.

According to the photo description, Voidwalker was built in just two days. I wish my own creations came together with such quick beauty!

And another thing to stress out over: Bobbit Worms!

I was just researching bobbit worms for reasons having nothing to do with LEGO when I saw this LEGO version by Aaron Van Cleave turn up (for reasons having everything to do with LEGO) and I thought; what serendipity! Although serendipity usually involves a chance meeting with a good friend or discovering someone else likes burnt orange as much as you do. It rarely involves bobbit worms. Yet here we are. The bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) is a creature ranging from about 4 inches (10cm) to 9.81 ft (299cm) long and inhabits burrows that it creates on the ocean floor. It bursts out of the sand to hunt its prey with terrifying speed. As if that’s not scary enough, Aaron’s version is much bigger and robotic because apparently that is what the world needs now. There is excellent part usage here and the roiling, explosive sand effect he created is accurate. I know this already because…serendipity.

A gardener’s worst nightmare

If you have a green thumb, running into a loathsome worm could leave you with no thumbs. This slimy, purple annelid with two massive claws was built by Duncan Lindbo, and it looks terrifyingly awesome. Purple, dark pink, and orange elements complement one another nicely, along with a drip of neon green drool. What really makes the build is this hilarious photo, driving home the point of how disgusting a loathsome worm is. It’s a truly unique way of displaying one’s brick-built creatures.

A closer look reveals Duncan put a lot of heart into his build…literally! The beast’s underbelly is comprised of 3×3 heart plates and 1×1 heart tiles. Don’t let all the love and playful colors deceive you, though; the worm’s mandibles are reminiscent of the Predator’s, and they look ready to inflict some serious pain (along with a deadly dose venom). Everything about it screams. “you can look, but don’t touch!”

The Demon’s price seems reasonable — he only wants your soul

Demons stalk the night. Or at least they do in Jayfa‘s world. This LEGO Bionicle creation is a wonderfully dark and brooding character, put together using a prototype mask and custom-designed wing membranes. The pose is excellent, powerful and intimidating, and the colour scheme is spot-on — those splashes of trans-blue work brilliantly with the pearl gold against all the black. Inexperienced warlocks beware, this probably wasn’t the low-level denizen of the Netherworld you meant to summon…

Baby got Dewback

From the giant rancor to that thing in the Death Star’s trash compactor, there’s no shortage of interesting creatures in the Star Wars universe. One of the most memorable for me is the dewback, a reptile found on the desert world of Tatooine. Over the years, LEGO has released a few minifigure scaled versions of this creature. Some were very movie-accurate in appearance, but were constructed of giant molded parts without much hope for reuse. The recent Escape Pod vs. Dewback Microfighters set features a brick-built dewback, but the adjustments needed to meet the microfighter theme meant that the creature wasn’t particularly movie-accurate. Luca S Projects has given us the best of both worlds with a brick-built dewback that looks just like the real thing.

Despite the necessary evil of the occasional blue-grey connection brick, the sand-green creature’s curves are very accurately reproduced. The use of the Legends of Chima crocodile eye tile works well, as do the minifigure arms and hands used as part of the bridle. It’s also worth mentioning the diorama as a whole; the base is subtle but enough is present to set the scene, and the use of the dusty stormtoopers is certainly apt. Now, when can I expect to see a nice 1:1 model? Someone’s got to be working on that…

An iBird before you go

Are you here for massive castles, mechs and spaceships? Well hang on there, Sonny Jim, you’ll still get plenty of that. But sometimes you have to stop to appreciate the smaller things, like this iBird built by Dicky Laban. This tiny fellow is comprised of under 30 pieces and is a robotic bird inspired by the cassowary, which is a dinosaur-like bird that lives in the tropical forests of New Guinea, East Nusa Tenggara, the Maluku Islands, and Northeastern Australia. See, we have robots, dinosaurs and birds in one post; all three can be just as cool as castles, mechs, and spaceships any day. Aren’t you glad you stopped in? We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

I’m a frog-mech. What are you?

If life was like the Frogger game, this frog-mech would likely run over you. Without a reference of scale, it is hard to tell if Mitsuru Nikaido intended for this to be a delicate little mech, or a kaiju behemoth capable of toppling over the mightiest of city towers. Just to be safe, I’m going to err on the side of assuming any encounter on the road would lead to a car being totaled. What is clear, however, is this mech is fully posable and the shaping is just perfect. The spool for an eye is an excellent touch.

It would seem that white animal mechs with gray, black and yellow accents are totally Mitsuru’s thing as there are several more like it in his photostream. Here are previous times we featured a crocodile, a dragonfly, a lemur and a crane and locust creature double-feature, along with another picture of the frog mech, just for good measure.

A dragon that is also a crane and an excavator and a wrecking ball and...

So I have been building again. This one was quite a stress-free build, inspired by my other recent dragon, Dragon Unit LL-32167. I was struck by a moment of inspiration about a month ago and realized that I have a yellow 24-toothed gear that would work perfectly in the dragon’s neck. The thought process continued with the idea that if I build a dragon using no light gray and (almost) no blue, I could keep the previous one assembled for a longer time. This means that everyone visiting my tiny local LEGO shows/conventions may have a chance at seeing the two mecha dragons side-by-side. I name this awesome construction worker mecha dragon Workhorse.

Click here to read more about my latest build and a comparison with my earlier similar build

The air dragon soaring above the stone and water

I love LEGO dragons, and the air dragon Bandea from this immersive (almost) fully LEGO scene by one of our contributors, Benjamin Stenlund, is one of my favourites from the past few months. The body is chunky and curvy like a “real” dragon is. What gives it the edge are not the Ninjago sword edges, but the awesome background it is presented on. The horizon is put on just the right point with the corresponding camera angle. What I love most are the realistic rocks, made of wedge slopes and polygonal panels fitted together to represent the cracks and angles of a real rock face.

The builder has quite a few elemental-themed dragons in his portfolio: Moto the Fire Dragon, Maji the Water Dragon, Hewa the Air dragon and Daera and Kijani, the Earth Dragons – the last one being my personal favourite so far.

The cutest creature of the underground – Krtek

Readers from eastern Europe will instantly recognize this adorable critter from the Czech cartoon Krtek (which means “little mole” in Czech). Having read books and seen cartoons of Krtek’s adventures throughout my childhood, I never thought to see the character built out of LEGO. But when I saw this perfect recreation by Eero Okkonen, I went full “aww-mode”.

The pose on the image is so iconic that one would hardly notice this is LEGO, were it not for a jagged edge here and there. Curved pieces capture the character’s shape very well, but my favourite parts are the red nose and the three long hairs on the mole’s head. As a master character builder, Eero has explored many different source materials and themes, but none quite as iconic as this one. Thanks for the nostalgia trip, Eero!

Kinetic LEGO sculpture of the Luck Dragon from The Neverending Story [Video]

Stranger Things season 3 will undoubtedly have given Limahl’s royalties a boost with its use of the theme song from The Neverending Story. But if you’re a fan of the original movie, then Jason Allemann‘s latest creation will have you smiling and humming the song to yourself without a single reference to Hawkins, Indiana. He’s put together an excellent LEGO version of Falkor the Luck Dragon.

Jason is the undisputed master of LEGO kinetic sculpture, imbuing his creations with wonderful motion, and this model is a perfect example. Check out the video featuring the Luck Dragon in flight, and Jason talking through the design process.