Tag Archives: Puppet

C is for Seed Part. You know, phonetically.

The Iron Builder competition is based around taking an unusual LEGO “seed part” and incorporating in into amazing creations. brickleas is an expert at this craft, taking a huge pile of 100 blue  Large Figure Part Shield Holder with Axle pieces and transforming them into Sesame Street’s own Cookie Monster. The texture of the shield elements does an amazing job of standing in for Cookie’s fur, but the techniques that create the black puppet-mouth and googly eyes are just as impressive. Even that chocolate chip cookie manages to look delicious somehow.

Seed Part Monster

When I reviewed 21324 LEGO Ideas Sesame Street, I had a few reservations about the look of the Cookie Monster minifigure, and it does my heart good to see him done justice here. If you’re a fan of Sesame Street, too, then check out some of our other featured creations starring more Muppet friends!

This dragon will string you along.

LEGO is cool. Puppets are cool. Dragons are cool. Put them all together like Jonas Kramm did? You get something so cool it’s icy. And yet…somehow super hot. Built for the Iron Builder contest, this feisty creature was inspired by the 9V Train track switch element, but I think the coolest bit of NPU (“Nice Part Usage”) has to the the Minifigure Headdresses used to form the dragon’s mouth.

06 - Dragon String Puppet

You can see the puppetry in action in Jonas’ Flickr post. And when you’re done there, check out some other cool LEGO puppets that we’ve featured. Maybe you’ll be inspired enough to build your own!

Tom Servo and me – a journey part 4 [Feature]

Previously on Tom Servo and Me: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

When we last left Chris Doyle, he had just finished building his latest replica of Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000. All that was left was to take photos and write up the summary article. Simple, right? Well, if you’ve read the previous installments, you know things rarely went according to plan throughout this journey. Why should the last few steps be any easier? When things go disastrously wrong during the final photo shoot, Chris will find himself questioning if getting back into LEGO building was the worst idea he ever had.

Tom Servo and Me - The end of the journey

In the end, it will all work out. We promise.

Read more about the final leg of Chris’s journey in rebuilding his LEGO Tom Servo model.

Allow myself to introduce...myself

No, you’re not looking at identical twins. You are looking at Adam Dodge and his new ventriloquist puppet. The one on the left was constructed from LEGO bricks while the one on the right (I’m 95% sure) was devised by more natural means. One is a dummy, the other isn’t, but both insist that you don’t call them that. The one on the left can move his eyes, lips, eyebrow, hands, legs and feet while the one on the right…can do the same.

He's no Dummy

This photo illustrates the inner workings of the one on the left while the inner workings of the one on the right is comprised of organic goo not fit for daytime viewing. The one on the right said there was a ventriloquist in his family history so he figured…what the heck! I think the one on the left said the same thing, but the other one was barely moving his lips so now I’m not sure. The one on the left said my two-bit comedy routine was all washed up. On second though I’m pretty sure it was the one on the right that said that. Wow, this post started with such confidence and now I don’t know what’s what! Just watch this video of the dummy in action!

He's no Dummy

A true puppet monarchy — King Gustav LEGO marionette

Although an imaginative builder has surely created one, I don’t recall having seen a well-built LEGO marionette before. This puppet of King Gustav I by Nicolas Picot is brilliant, with great articulation and a solid reproduction of the king’s dapper uniform, in particular the upside-down curve-topped fences which serve excellent duty as epaulet embroidery. The king’s steely gaze is also particularly well done, and the mustache seems surprisingly accurate for made of only two pieces.

Gustav 1er 01

Gustav 1er 02

“High on a hill was a lonely goatherd...”

It’s funny how your perspective changes with age. As a kid I was tortured annually with the BBC’s Christmas airing of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. But as an adult I find it absolutely captivating – all three hours of it. I mean, it’s got everything… Nuns. Yodeling. Christopher Plummer. Some Nazis.

In the film adaptation, the The Lonely Goatherd number was performed as a marionette show (by Bil Baird and Cora Eisenberg-Baird). And now half a century later, VirtualLUG die-hard Millie McKenzie has perfectly recreated the entire theater and its distinctive puppets for our enjoyment:

If all this looks vaguely familiar, but you need your memory jogging, here’s the original scene:


Clearly the goats were too lifelike, as sadly Millie’s cat later went on to destroy the entire setup…

…naughty kittie, over the Alps into Switzerland with you!