Tag Archives: Dan Ko

Gotta cast them spells, Pokémon!

Mainline Pokémon games are iconic RPGs with all of the stats, XP, and leveling up you expect from the genre, so fusing Pocket Monsters with D&D is a perfect fit! That’s just what builders Dan Ko and Gino Loshe teamed up to prove with this character collaboration called Dungeons & Pocket Monsters. Dan was responsible for giving Pikachu and Bulbasaur their mage makeovers, while Gino tackled Squirtle and Charmander. Created for the Brickscalibur competition “Elemental Emergency” category, each character wields a different flavor of magic matching their Pokémon type. Even more impressive, each sports a different type of wizard cap! Join them as they travel across the land seeking the power that’s inside.

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A duck hunter ready for dwagon season

Dan Ko‘s dark duck knight might be deththpicable, but his clever use of unexpected parts is truly divine. Who else could have thought to build a dragon’s jaw from Lloyd’s Avatar Arcade Pod? The finger leaf fronts as the dragon’s frills are easy to identify, but did you catch the three leaves in sprues as neck segments? Daffy’s minifig head looks surprisingly menacing with the Fright Knight’s helm spun around. Using a slider disc instead of a minifig shield is an inspired accessory that accentuates the toon vibes. Dan once again shows it’s not the number of parts that count – it’s how you use them.

The Deththpicable Dark Knight is Dan’s entry in the “Capturing Character” category of the 2024 Brickscalibur competition, which runs until Jan 15, 2025.

What do you get when you cross knights in shining armour with the frog prince?

If you want to bring a bit of whimsy to a fantasy LEGO creation, a good place to start is making your characters animals. Oh, and giving them a massive sword. That’s the angle that Dan Ko has gone for in this charming duo. Both the frog knight and his snail steed are full of character – and clever parts use! Our knight in croaking armour has some fantastic leafy webbed feet, and the ski for a cross-guard is a neat idea for this asymmetric sword. The snail, meanwhile, has caterpillar tracks wound up to form its shell. Although I must admit – and this might be a niche reference – that with those bright yellow eyes, it reminds me of the slugs from the LEGO Rock Raiders video game. Perhaps they’re distant cousins?

Briiiiiiicks... Briiiicks!

The stereotype for zombies is that they wander aimlessly, looking for brains. But Dan Ko‘s is a little different. If you listen closely, you’ll find that some of them aren’t actually looking for brains, but for bricks. It seems even AFOLs aren’t safe from the zombie apocalypse. Brains are no good! Zombified Fans of LEGO (ZFOLs) need bricks to fill their heads with. This one has turned to a pink roller skate, which by coincidence does look a bit like a regular brain. All the better to blend in with the horde of the undead!

Flippin’ in my flops

While autumn is in-uh-bloom, which means torrential downpours here in the Pacific Northwest, LEGO extraordinaire Dan Ko takes us on a summer vacation. He’s competing in the infamous Iron Builder competition and we’re all as pleased as Hawaiian Punch, by golly! He’s used four of the requisite red Technic Rotor Blades to construct the neat beach chair. I suppose that alone would have pleased the Iron Builder Gods but he’s gone the extra mile to depict a sunny beach scene in a travel case. I can feel the warm sand getting into all my nether bits! With Iron Builder, there’s no telling what our esteemed builders will do! Here’s to hoping Dan Ko will take us on vacation again soon.

A dark LEGO knight of a different feather

This armed and armored knight by Dan Ko may look simple at first glance, but there is lots to crow about — starting with the beak made with swords paired with a large claw part. The wide wings made with angled bow pieces give the perfect impression of feathers. But the hero of this build would have to be that great sword that is giving me major Final Fantasy vibes.

MC Vespa; full-time DJ, part-time pretty boy

Clever LEGO builder Dan Ko graces the pages of The Brothers Brick once again and this time he drops MC Vespa. He’s got cool shoes, a radical haircut, and a face like a Vespa. No seriously, it is a Vespa! The part can be found in the Friends Heartlake City Bakery. Check out that doofus grin! It has more than a few of us at TBB headquarters chuckling at this very nice parts usage. Please peruse our Dan Ko archives to learn why we think Dan is the king of NPU while you, on the other hand, just sort of loaf on the couch.

A miniature meeting of the Middle-Earth minds

There’s so much Nice Parts Use (NPU) in Dan Ko‘s adorable LEGO Lord of the Rings wizards that I don’t know where to start. Look at Gandalf the Bley here. His beard consists of upturned eggshell pieces, and the top of his staff uses a skeleton leg. His nose is also a rounded 1×2 plate, which may not necessarily qualify as NPU, but it’s a great choice nonetheless. As for Radagast the Reddish-Brown, his beard uses an arch piece to give some shape to his face. In the hat, you’ve got an ingot flanked by the frankly genius choice of a pair of minifigure chairs. They give him so much character! Dan has even repurposed some wood stickers to add detailing to his cloak. That is NPU par excellence! Do we need a new acronym for this? NSU – Nice Sticker Use?

A kooky koala using just thirty LEGO pieces

We’re used to seeing larger LEGO creations from Dan Ko but this time he presents a cute koala using only thirty pieces. He tells us the koala is among the wildest and most dangerous animals in the world, if not the whole universe. Wait, does Dan know something we don’t? I was already aware Australia housed thousands of animals hellbent on killing us all but I didn’t know the koala was among them. Crikey!

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…”

See the rest of the gang after the jump

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.

Never ending fun in the sun

It’s that time of the year again when the Rogue Olympics contest sweeps the LEGO community. The first round’s theme is “Above the clouds”, and builder Dan Ko delivers this wonderful scene from the 1984 film The NeverEnding Story. Coming in at 27 parts, the scene features Atreyu and Falkor flying through the sky, an iconic and immediately recognizable scene from the movie. What I really like about this build is Falkor. The luck dragon’s body comes together with a series of battle droid bodies. At this scale, they work well to bring the Falkor’s face and body to life.

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