The Lego Project


Here's a Lego project which I was working on last year:

androidarts.com/legoproject/

I got myself busy with other stuff halfway through, but the idea was to redesign every Space faction and... come up with a bunch of useful micro mecha parts.

I don't have time to work on it now, so unfortunately the project is in a half finished state with more text than illustrations, and a lot of the illustrations are just pencil roughs which needs to be iterated and cleaned up.

I did polish up some of the factions, like Ice Planet and Blacktron, but the rest are kind of fuzzy or junk which should've been erased.

8 comments:

Sam Nielson said...

You mentioned (I'm paraphrasing) that the characters would be more appealing in the lego video games if they had more articulation, but I think the awkward, stiff way they move is part of the appeal. At least for the games they've done so far.

That said, I would spend a lot of money to get the lego systems you've designed. Even if it cost twice or three times as much for a kit as they cost now.

Arne said...

Yeah, it's a bit like apples and oranges. There's some charm to stiff robotic movement, although the minifigs are kind of bendy when they're animated (but not in stop motion of course) . In the case of larger things like micro mecha, good joint pieces would make it easier to make stable constructions and you can concentrate more on making a good looking design. Lego haven't really made any cool looking mecha so far. Lego fans have made a lot of cool micro mecha, but I suspect they don't hold together well. Some of the other fan creations have to be very large to allow for good joints and volume sculpting (looks great on thumnails).

Bionicle stuff right now is very sturdy because of the larger pieces and massive ball joints. Kids can be really rough with it while playing. Too many joints might make the figure flimsy, but on the other hand, Lego does pieces with good precision, so you might not see as many randomly loose joints and bad fits like you do on an action figure. Also, replacing loose joints with good ones is easy with Lego, but more of a problem with action figures.

Galspanic said...

I find the division between the Lego and Bionicle community to be very interesting. there is a lot of animosity, which is a shame, since they have essentially the same family tree.

Oli said...

Brilliant art, you my favourite artist and I wish i could create art like yours! Do you often use a tablet for all of your work or do you scan stuff and upload it?

Arne said...

I use paper and mechanical pencil for the thumbnails, then I scan and do line art and colors digitally with a Wacom Tablet + Photoshop. I've grown quite comfortable with this process.

Wunderbear said...

Ahhh! I used to have some of those kits when I was a wee lad! The Ice Planet, space (Spyrius? Is that what they were called, then?) kits, and the Life on Mars kits (I had both mechs). Those were awesome.

Your concepts look pretty awesome; I like your new-style minifigs. The ASCII-faces would be a fantastic idea, certainly better than those weird grimaces the minifigs sport nowadays.

Unknown said...

I am really really sad sometimes when I come to your website(s).

This deep sadness springs from knowing that most of your amazingly fun, awesome designs and ideas will not be real. I want those lego minifigs to be real so bad.

It's just as well though, if "Metafight" ever came out, I might lose my job.

Sauro said...

I wanted to show you this: http://www.shapeways.com/model/1381965/coolego-articulate-minifig.html?materialId=75&etId=14621613

Maybe you can try to 3D print some of your ideas, prior to show them to Lego. I really could buy them, if produced!