Tag Archives: Figure

Waterlogged and battle-ready

Have you ever had that dream where you’re a shirtless ginger merman riding a seahorse into Atlantean battle? You haven’t? Then I feel sorry for you because you have not lived. That is probably my second most recurring dream beside the one where I’m thrown out a casino for winning too much…and for also being a shirtless merman. Builder MS Industries surely knows what I’m talking about as they have recreated my dream in LEGO. I’m seeing some excellent use of Samurai swords in the seahorse’s fins and lime green flippers gives a bright little fish some great personality. Your inciteful interpretations of my dreams are most welcome in the comments.

Atlantis Patrol

Built like an Egyptian goddess

Meet Amunna, Eero Okkonen’s latest elegant LEGO figure. I’m continually flabbergasted with the apparent ease with which he brings these characters to life. This time we have an Egyptian-inspired woman loaded with expert parts usage. Bo Peep’s cane to decorate the legs? Check. A surfboard and treasure map printed tile on the staff? Yep! And what about a little coral flare, treasure chest pouch, and colorful wing skirt? You got it! Dying to know what’s on her bust? It’s a printed radiator element that was only found with this print in one set: 7411 Tygurah’s Roar. (The open area above the curves is carefully hidden by her hair.) Throughout, an appealing color palette abounds, and from head to foot, this is one cool chick.

Amunna, Harbringer of Thebes

If you’re craving more, take a look at all of Eero’s builds that we’ve covered by visiting our archive!

Once charged, this solar-powered gentlelady can be a hellion on two feet!

LEGO Builder Andrew Evans has heated up something a little different for us to savor. She is Vaihdelia, the Solar-Powered Gentlelady and she’s adorned in what seems to be a corseted jacket made from solar panels. My artist’s sense of color is alight with Andrew’s use of black and gold. White makes an excellent tertiary color while just a few hints of orange, green and marigold really makes this figure pop. The sword guard is a carriage wheel and the piece is used again as part of her collar. The three-panel presentation illustrates how versatile this figure is. Her solar-powered parasol is comprised of parts from a Darth Vader buildable figure but can convert to a shield while in fight mode. I’m sure she’s a gentlelady for the most part but can be a hellion on two feet when she needs to be!

Vaihdelia: Solar-Powered Gentlelady

Dream if you can a courtyard, an ocean of violets in bloom

Suddenly I have Prince tunes going through my head and I don’t know why. It’s weird when that happens. Anyway, Marco De Bon built this delightfully purple mech he calls the FA-13 “Venus” and we’re all tickled pink about it. Or…purple, actually. Well, maybe a little pink. The translucent sparkly pink wings are actually doors that come from a rare Belleville set (good luck finding that!) and are used brilliantly here. The mech stands 8-inches (20cm) tall and is inspired by the insect-like mechs of the Aura Battler Dunbine anime series from the 80s.

Lego FA-13 "Venus"

Marco also constructed a stand for flying and action poses.

Lego FA-13 "Venus"

Red Sonja is a thing of dreams from a much evolved builder

For folks like me, building people and other bipedal figures can be a bit difficult. I’d build them fine enough, but even the slightest shift in weight could result in a fragile creation toppling over, so often it’s just easier to build them with both feet planted firmly on steady ground. The end result is a little stiff but at least we’re not cleaning up a toppled LEGO mess. But Letranger Absurde has built plenty of human figures. Even his own humbler beginnings were admittedly a little rigid, but we are witnessing a great builder evolving into a greater one, as evidenced by this Red Sonja creation. Her proportions and fluidity of motion are suitable enough to grace a Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo fantasy illustration. The builder tells us that this is indeed his most difficult creation to date but the end result is absolutely worth the effort.

Red Sonja

Here is another recent creation that illustrates how well this builder is evolving.

Not your usual Star Wars build

Lately, between The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker, the LEGO building community has seen a great wealth of fan creations based on all things Star Wars. This is not, in itself, a bad thing. I mean, Baby Yoda is indeed very cute. But it’s still nice when a builder will take things in a very unexpected direction. Let’s say you have a 75117 Kylo Ren set on hand. Sure, you could build it according to the directions and act out your favorite Dark Side moments. But Letranger Absurde decided to take those parts and present a very different Dark Side vision. The Blood Countess takes key parts from that set and turns them into a vision of malice that is, to me anyway, just a bit scarier.

The Blood Countess

The most obvious part is Kylo’s torso, inverted and used for the Countess’ abdomen. Less easy to identify are the shoulder guards now forming her bodice. Of the non-kit parts in use, I like the Ninjago influence in the hat for the belt buckle and spinner ring in the sash detailing. Beyond the Countess herself, check out the build on the heart (or other glob of flesh) in her hand. There’s a telephone receiver in there. Is the secret message of this build “reach out and touch someone?” Gosh, I hope not.

A colorful speedbike supporter

Give Eero Okkonen a challenge and he delivers. In a New Elementary competition, builders were tasked with using the latest marine-life parts to create something interesting. He definitely didn’t disappoint with this lovely character. She’s a fan for another of his figures, a speederbike rider. The coral creatures adorn multiple areas of her costume, but the best parts usage might be the clever placement of shark surfboards to create a skirt!

Herald of the Carp Speeder

Eero also recently created an entirely different character with a hockey stick beard. And perhaps one of my favorites is his version of the extraordinary Captain Nemo.

“If ye like the nut, crack it!” Also hockey sticks.

My plan for this article; no matter what the title shall be, I’d add “also hockey sticks” beside it. This build had me searching the interwebs for a snappy Scottish proverb and I found “if ye like the nut, crack it”, which roughly translates to; if you like the reward then you must accept the effort involved to achieve it. A fitting proverb for any LEGO builder, although I see now that a choice of words involving cracking nuts and hockey sticks can be a rather tender subject juxtaposed with a guy in a kilt. But my own inner coding states that if hilarity ensues, even unintentionally, then go with it. That may or may not have been the motivation for Eero Okkonen when he built this charming Highland Shepherd.

Highland Shepherd

Everything from the bottom of his brògan to the top of his tam o’shanter is all Scottish Highlander. That epic beard consists of the aforementioned hockey sticks, which is not a Scottish invention but can crack some nuts if given the effort. Consider yourselves rewarded.

The Infernal Dictionary has no word for this

Builder [VB] and his friends have built an entire royal family of odd creatures such as this King Asmodeus. The kicker is the only description they left for us is written in some crazy, arcane, completely indecipherable moon language. They state; “Aucun avant n’a songe de réunir un pandémonium d’aberrations et de porteurs de malheur sous une seule entité surnommée le Dictionnaire Infernal”.

King Asmodeus

I just wish there was some sort of online translator to make heads or tails of this muck. It would be like Googling something except, instead of looking up photos or articles, you could plug the indecipherable gibberish into one section and it would spit up a translation in English, or whatever your native language happens to be. But we’re probably like fifty years from having such technology, which is a shame really. Oh, well. Here’s a prior time the same builder totally delighted us with Uranus.

One horseman of the apocalypse

Who needs the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when you have this Kumamoto Castle Samurai, who can do more ass-kicking and raise more holy hell than four horseman combined. Or, at the very least, he would ruin your 日本の宴会. DanielBrickSon is a master of building with Bionicle and this is some amazing feat. To give some perspective to the massive scale of this, the flag is a sail from the 70618 Destiny’s Bounty set. The flag topper is a minifig-scale horse battle helmet. So just imagine your minifig horse wearing it next to this beast and you’ll get a feel for what it might be like to do battle with this awe-inspiring samurai. While masterful build techniques abound, the 2×4 plates facing studs-out along the base are an excellent touch. This would look to be right at home as a centerpiece sculpture in any Asian art museum.

Kumamoto Castle Samurai

The Dark Crystal Skeksis will feast on your essence

Show of hands, who is watching the new “Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” series on Netflix? Go ahead, put them up, I have Aughra’s eye and can see you. Wow, that is a lot of hands! The rest of you should get on that. Especially you, Matt Wilson of Topeka, Kansas, you’d totally be into it. With beautiful sets, masterful puppeteering and phenomenal voice talent, I am truly enthralled with the world of Thra all over again. Hongjun Youn has built a Skeksis that looks so accurate, you can almost hear them squabble and Chamberlain squeal. His ragged clothing is comprised of some of these cloth dragon wing parts. The head is so on par with the Skeksis you’d think LEGO had a license with Jim Henson’s Studio, but alas it is a Chima Vulture head. Now hold still while we drain your essence!

Skeksis

We all float down here, Georgie

With their exaggerated features and over-the-top antics, clowns can inadvertently scare children and more than a few adults, rather than entertain them. Couple this with the notion that, prone to depression, alcoholism and criminal misconduct, real-life clowns can sometimes be an unsavory lot. If that doesn’t give you just a touch of Coulrophobia already then leave it to Stephen King to hammer that fear into the rest of us when he wrote It in 1986. Tim Curry first frightened television viewers in 1990 when he gave Pennywise the Clown a savage, sneering malevolence and a Bronx accent in ABC’s two-part miniseries. In 2017 a new generation of moviegoers were scared out of their wits when Bill Skarsgård portrayed a redesigned Pennywise with a childlike curiosity and a seething maliciousness. Now, just in time for It: Chapter 2, City Son recreates Pennywise’s likeness in LEGO.

IT(2019)- Pennywise the Dancing Clown

His signature red balloon and string seems to be the only non-LEGO elements here, but red puff balls adorn his Shakespearean outfit while what we commonly call “cheese slopes” comprise his Elizabethan ruffle collar. The whole getup sort of implies he’s been doing this evil clown gig far longer than any of us has been alive. A closer look at his mug shows that a hot dog makes up his sinister smile while several horns in red and white and a flower denote his make-up design.

IT(2019)- Pennywise the Dancing Clown

If you haven’t seen the movies or read the book, I don’t want to spoil much for you, but you can file this next bit under good general advice and not so much a spoiled plot point: if a clown tries to lure you into a sewer with him, it is probably best you don’t go. And now you know.