(Custom Minifigs by Legohaulic)

Look at all these custom minifigs made of offical lego parts, this shows how much fun you can have with the new space police three minifigs. My favorite must be the punisher, now you can make a punisher minifig with offical lego parts, lovely! The yellow minifig in the background is photoshopped, just so you know.

(by Kurasaybo)

A very inpressive pic of a bunch of custom minifigs, all by one man, this must have taken ages. This is a good idea, take 18 of  the new power miners minifigures, paint them , add some custom accesories and you have your own little custom army. This is only a WIP, they will probaly have a bunch of weapons in the finish, it’s only 75% now, can’t wait to see 100%.

(image by unknown)

check out this custom minifig mod idea, by using the single horn lego piece in the torso of the minifig, you can attach robot or skeletor minifig arms to a normal minifig torso, this would be great for those of you looking to creat zombies or terminator cyborgs! It looks pretty easy and darn effective!

(how to make a lego wood cylinder by 2muchcaffeine)

If you’re making Lego custom minifigs, you’ll probably be wanting to make vignettes of these custom minifigs as well, and this is something customminifig.co.uk will be considering covering soon. In the mean time heres a useful tip to make cylinders from a Lego rail and several smooth plates. Very simple but looks great, and could be altered for all sorts of things, such as the lining on a dock by the ships.

Whilst for most of use who make custom minifigs the dream would be either Lego actually make military collections, or we can get our hands on some durable minifigs with custom decals, the reality is getting decent military themed minifigs is quite difficult, you need to really plan out what you want to acheive, since the Indiana Jones collection does have some Lego minifigs with a Military theme, and StarWars has a whole range of storm troopers, its not so difficult for sci-fi or WWII custom minifig makers. But if you’re hopeing to make something modern, get ready to do some serious hunting.

so Lets take a look a the themes that work for military vignettes:

Cowboys – Lego Cowboy theme

Knights and castles – Lego theme

WWII – Indiana Jones Russian and German soldier minifigs

Modern – Dino Attack (these are now out of production so you’re going to need to source these), Power Miners Lego themes.

Sci-fi – Lego Starwars theme.

You’ll find that in order to build up a large army of minifigs, you’ll either need to buy loads of sets of Lego, leaving you with plenty of potentially useless spare parts and costing you an arm and a leg, or, you’ll need to search on the second hand Lego community to find individual parts, in this instance you’ll need to potentially  buy the minifig in seperate parts, ie legs seperate from arms, torso seperate from head etc, this can add to the cost, but you’ll be able to get exactly what you need.

In other instances you might have designed a custom decal for your Lego minifigs, your best bet here is to source the lego minifig whos plastic is as close to the base colour you want, then, using brasso remove the existing decal and apply your own one instead, this might take longer and costa bit, but the results are supurb.

Whilst Lego minifigs come in all sorts of colours, if you want to add your own decals you have two choices, one, is to use stickers which is pretty straight forwards and keeps the existing lego decal on the minifigs.

The better, or at least more professional looking way, is to use water slide decals, however because most Lego minifigs now have decals printed on their torsos, you’ll need to first remove this.

Here’s how to remove decals from a Lego minifig:

What you’ll need:

1. Brasso
2. water
3. cloth – eg the type you use to clean glasses with
4. Q tip
5. tooth pick.
6. soap

Brasso is a Micro abrasive cleaner, usually used to polish silver, so the usual precautions apply, make sure you read the instructions before using it on your minifigs, and make sure you clean your minifigs afterwards.

1. use a small quantity of Brasso (about the size of a coin) on to your paper towel or cloth.
2. Rub Lego element or minifig part vigorously against cloth containing the Brasso.  Apply more
Brasso if necessary.  Removing the printing from a torso should take 15 seconds to 1 minute depending on how much elbow grease one uses.
3. Once the original print has been removed, wash the piece with soap and water, making sure to
remove any residual Brasso, and then allow the part to dry.
4. smaller parts us can use a toth pick or qtip to apply the brasso.

If you’ve ever wanted to know jsut how jasbrick come up and creates his Brickviet custom minifigs, you are in for a surprise. This image is the first page of Jasbricks custom minifig manual to how to make custom Lego minifig Brickviet troopers.

You can see Jasbrick’s Brickviet custom minifigs here.

Hazel Fantasy is one of the most respected and innovative custom minifig sculptors in the Lego community, his work has gains noteriety with in custom minifig circles for his innovation and attention to detail, personally I’m a massive fan, especially as his work is purist and involve lots of sculpting, sanding and drilling, it’s more like modelling than minifig customization, but thats the point behind Hazel Fantasy’s work, its an art, its not bound by rules or strict guidelines, its fun, innovative and above all, cool.

So, after weeks of trying to hunt down the elusive Hazel Fantasy not just to do an interview for custom minifig, but also to get ahold of some of the brilliant custom minifig accessories he’s produced, in particular his Gears of War 2 stuff (you can see what else I wrote about these here and here), I’m finally managed to find out where you can get some of Hazels custom minifig accessories (you can get then at AMazing Armory) AND we got an exclusive interview with Hazel Fantasy!

Here are some of the Links relating to Hazel Fantasy and his custom minifig accessories:

Hazel Fantasy on Flickr

Hazel Fantasy on Brickshelf

AMazing Armory on Flickr

AMazing Armory on Bricklink

Here is the unedited interview (you have to forgive some of the responses, but I’d rather present something unaltered)

1. Hi Hazel, I’m a really big fan of your work and you’ve made a really big name for yourself as one of the greats in Lego Minifig customization, ow did you first get in to Lego minifig customization?

Answer :
In lego Lego Minifig , is not my first time , scene 2004 i have already start my
custom in LEGO minifigs , i remember my first custom is star wars Series.
At that time, only wanted to think of what to do, did not expect, it is becoming my job now, haha .

2. I love the custom GOW2 armour and weapons you made, and I understand these were some of the most well publicised pieces you made, how long did it take you to make them and how did you transfer the design from the game into Lego scale?

Answer:
well.. i remember when i was stop build lego moc at 7 years before , i have work
is taiwan doing my design works ,Figures works 12″, 3.5″ ,guns parts too , that’s start me up thinking how to custom lego minifigs gears or something for they can use in , you know , lego.com did have much guns style ,armor ..even a hans mobil phone..haha .. i addiction in  TV game , PS3 ,Xbox ,PSP too ,like all the characters in game，When I started playing my favorite TV game, I want to have income in the hands of characters…
So i custom it ,Sometimes done when the 12 “may be too much , I found a lego size to begin!

3. I’ve seen some of your other work, in particular you Aliens MOCs and you samurai MOCs, how do you come up with ideas and plan out your MOCs? Is it just a case of having an idea and making it or is there a long planning process?

Answer:
Oh . about samurai MOCs , is helping my friends to create them out ,they always using lego minifigs to create custom lego story , & i helping them to create some special,unique minifigs just for their own story `~~
& about  Aliens MOCs ,yes ~ that a long planning process ,for 2 years about ,
i always check out brickshelf.com at some Aliens fan’s gallery , very nice !!
so we want to create a Aliens video in lego scale , haha!
For Details situation is still planning now,until when those moc in lego are all finish ~

4. I understand you are from Japan/Hong Kong (i’m also from Hong Kong), what is the Lego scene like out there?

Answer:
That’s happy to hear that !  (i’m also from Hong Kong) <—[笑]
i just work’n in japan work shop ~ oh HK lego scene is very good in here !
when , whatever lego.com got new set , lego fan’s becoming crazy for that !!
lego never die !!!!

5. what sort of tools and material do you use for your prototypes and how do you transform these into mass production pieces?

Answer:
I have been using silicone molds and then vacuum-like pieces of copy machines. Each mold can be replicated 30-60 pieces, materials include: ABS, PU, transparent PU, Soft PU.Before me and my friends at their own expense, two controllers,2D CAD or 3D graphics establish a solid model.3D or 2D CAD archives archives, and then the use of rapid prototyping machine manufacturer ABS module was first introduced, after the completion of the first run after the deal can be polished, the fuel injectors. Finalization of the model shape.
About mass production pieces , now i have just create my own custom works then [AMazing armory] put these into mass production,because time & of the limited detail. Size limited … not the volume of production, can be used only for processing in me ..now they team handle that all !

6. Whats your favorite Lego series?

Answer:
by the numbers …haha ~!!  Star Wars ,Pirates ,Rock Riders ,Racer

7. If Lego could create one thing for you, what would it be?

Answer:
Build a real House for myself `~ even Big Pirates ship , wish my dreams come true ~~~

8. Do you have any advice for beginners going into Lego minifig customization? Is there anything that you have learnt about the Lego customization community?

Answer:
Um .thinking , planning ,make a prototypes first before going into Lego minifig customization.If advice for beginners ,to carry out preliminary planning and preparation must be try & try many time in custom ,enjoyable learning experience,and explore the interest of custom,custom more effective use of design,According to the planned implementation of the program, the implementation of concrete progress, and regularly review the progress of the effectiveness of, in case of any early completion, will increase the target, if there is a lag, we must immediately work to increase the content of the amendment and the feasibility of the project too..~!
As long as they can do a good job in setting goals for themselves, for their own time and space planning for their commitment to work hard in practice and accountable for their own plan to guarantee its performance, enhance their knowledge in this field, successful and creative experience, this down, you challenging the work of [Custom] will be the most meaningful ! :]

9. Do you have any new and exciting products that we can all wait for? Any new upcoming projects that will be out soon?

Answer:
Um ..new and exciting products .??
Now i just finish all of my G.O.W minifigs ..starting up my Final Fantasy characters , next will be [ The Lord of the Rings ]

Thank you for this interview !!
keep in touch ~
Happy New Years to all lego fan’s

Hazel Fantasy

So there you have it the first ever exclusive interview with the master of minifig customization – Hazel Fantasy

 

(lego brick timeline by unknown)

This wonderful timeline tracks the progression of Lego from its initial inception in 1932 as a Business concept to the 1958 invention of the Lego brick with it unique and patented Stud and Tube coupling system. Along the way Is the 1978 invention of the first Lego Minifig which eventually spawned the custom minifig movement and the 1999 launch of the Lego Star Wars range, possibly one of the most successful Lego ranges.

Making Lego is fun, and building custom minifigs is great, but to truly harness the power of Lego, more sophisticated Lego building techniques need to be used. These techniques allow Lego builders to create far more dynamic and interesting models, and some of these Lego building techniques related to custom minifigs as well. Here’s a few useful Links relating to advanced Lego building techniques.

• Didier Enjary’s Unofficial LEGO Advanced Building Techniques Guide (click Télécharger document)
• Flickr LEGO techniques pool
• LEGO Techniques library
• ILTCO library (contains links to a number of train specific and more general technical guides)

Part of sourcing minifigs as described Here, is being able to add character to a minifig army and create subtle variations that break up the uniform shape of the Lego minifig and customize them to a vignette or setting. The way that a Lego minifig is made (as mentioned Here) means that by combining a torso and arms piece with a different head or a different Lego, a new minifig can be created, additionally different decals can add to the already limitless combinations, giving a totally customized custom minifig real uniqueness.

Below you can see a photo of the 4 possible decaled Torsos from the dino attack Lego series, these minifig torsos are ideal for any one looking for military special forces style custom minifigs. There are also 4 different combination’s of Heads, two different minifig helmets and two different sets of arms, just considering the minifig heads and minifig torso you already have 16 different minifig combination’s, which is definitely worth considering when you’re customizing minifigs.

Following on from the overview of how to customize lego minifigs found here Lets go into more concise detail on how to source and find specific elements for a custom minifig. The reason we are focusing on this rather than the concept and design stages is because this part of the process is one which is not reliant on ideas.

Lego has designed hundreds of thousands of different sets, minifigs and decals, however there are also elements that Lego do not produce, publicly Lego have stated for example that you can’t get Lego weapons from Lego, as such you would have to rely on external companies like BrickArms for these.

In order to source Lego parts for your custom minifig, you need to have you idea clear. First you want to break down your custom minifig design in to the individual body parts and accessories. You can find out more about the make up of the minifig here

To save you a degree of time this site has a cool feature that allows you to structure your minifig based on the different combination of elements, its certainly not exhaustive of the entire range of Lego minifigs out there but its pretty close. Additionally other sites such as Brick Link and The Lego pick a Brick and my personal favorite Find my Brick are all great places to source individual Custom minifig torso, arm and leg parts. You can find a full list of custom minifig product suppliers here. You have to get creative here, for example for modern military custom minifigs, Lego do not produce a torso that represents this, however the minfigs from the Dino Attack collection are very SWAT team-esque and could be used as a substitute, but the again the Dino Attack Lego minifigs are no longer made by Lego so you’d either have to find them second hand or produce your own decals for your custom minifig.

As a result of changing Lego stock in the brand new and second hand market as well as the ever increasing demand for certain minifigs, when creating large quantities of custom minifigs, it may cost a lot, or you may have to wait for prolonged periods of time for the right minifig components to appear on the market. In these instances you may well find it easier to use flat colour minifigs and create your own decals, however event these flat colour torsos may be in short supply as well, so you have to be reasonably prepared to removed existing decals, or change the colour template or in extreme circumstances create your own casts and mould your own minifigs from scratch. Regardless of what you do in this context, sourcing the right minifig components can be the longest and most frustrating part of minifig customization, but it can also be very rewarding, just remember your Lego invading army that’s the light at the end of the tunnel.

(Lego, custom, minifigs, film, characters by Legohaulic)

This is an awesome collection of custom minifigs I can accross on the web, the Lego custom minifigs shown here all use generic Lego minfig parts with the exception of BrickArms weapons, rubber bands and a Lego sticker for an eyepatch.

You can prombably make out The Terminator, Bruce Lee, Rambo and the Lone ranger amongst other. And whats really cool about this collection of minifigs is that it shows you can create some fantastic custom minfigs just by putting together the right combination of existing Lego minifig parts, you don’t have to get custom decals made up.

Jasbrick was one of the first people I met in the Adult Lego custom minifig community, he’s a great guy and always very helpful, constantly suggesting new ideas and offering invaluable advice and feedback, so as testament to Jasbrick, I’ve interviewed him:

1.       Jasbrick, you were one of the first people I met when i got into minifig customization, care to tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into minifig customization.

Jas is short for Jason and I am a 35 year old AFOL based in the UK.  I balance my minifig customization with a pretty stressful job as the Director of an international consultancy firm and being the father of two great little boys that share my love of our little plastic friends.  I also have the benefit of an extremely tolerant wife that whilst she does not share my obsession does manage to hide her embarrassment well

My dark ages stretch over 20 years and are mainly due to the pursuit of a career that left little time for anything else.  However with the birth of my kids I had the opportunity and excuse to start hanging out in toy shops again and my addiction resurfaced.  Since that point I have scoured shops, internet sites (ebay and Bricklink predominantly) and boot sales (my favourite place for finding the best pieces).  Initially my collection was focused on sets and I would be loathe to deviate from the instructions, however things have changed somewhat in recent times…

In truth I have only been customising figs for weeks, with my first somewhat minor customisation being the cutting of one piece on an otherwise pure fig.  Even though this was a minor modification the impact on the characterisation of the fig was so dramatic that I was inspired to do more.  It was at this time that I spotted Hazel’s (In my view one of [if not the] most talented customisers out there) Gears of War figs and from that point on I was hooked on customisation.

2.       You’ve got a real talent and have created some really unique pieces, can you tell us a bit more about what inspires you and where you get your ideas from?

Thank you, I am glad that you like them.  My inspiration comes from a number of sources, including other customisers (Hazel, Kaminoan etc.), film and computer game imagery as well as a whole host of things.  However for me one of the biggest source of ideas is from part experimentation.  Basically a normal builder looks at every TLC part and sees new possibilities for building an MOC, as a customiser I get this experience but also so much more due to my willingness to cross the line into the heretical realm of cutting, painting and gluing pieces.

One big area for me is the fact that I look at almost everything (TLC, clone brands, other toys, and just about anything) with a view to the potential for inclusion in a fig design.  One of my designs that seems to have been quite popular, the Brikviet Shocktrooper, evolved from an experiment in trying to find an alternative use for axe heads.  Once those pieces were in place then everything else just developed naturally from there.

3.       as someone new to the scene it can be very intimidating, in your experience what advice would you give to a beginner first starting out in  Lego minifig customization?

As I have owned up to above, my experience is based over a very short period, however I hope that I can offer some reasonable advice.  I would suggest the following as my top tips for a customiser:

Don’t reinvent the wheel… Lego is such a flexible and amazing tool and allows you to create so much before you ever dream of picking up a knife of a paintbrush.  When you come up with an idea or a concept look for a way to achieve this my traditional means first.  Once you have exhausted that avenue then it is time to start looking with the eye of a customiser.

Perfect your technique… One of the biggest reasons for customisation being seen as heresy is the sheer number of figs that are seen that look really bad.  I am not saying that you should hide your creations until you are a master, but I do think that there are some very basic mistakes that can be made which with a bit of practice can be avoided.  One area that really exemplifies this is painting, if done well it can completely make a fig, however if not it can ruin it.  For my part a lot of my customisation skills come from my early dark age years involved in tabletop wargaming and modelling ala Games Workshop.  One advantage is that I know how to use the tools of our trade because of this background.  I think this site is going to be a source of technique tuition so I am happy to contribute what I can as well.

Look for inspiration… The best things to create are things that you love, e.g. from your favourite film or computer game and the internet offers huge potential for image resources.  I use Google Image search as a means of obtaining all the examples I need.  Also places like Flickr and more specific sites like Brickarms and Eurobricks community forums have a wealth of great examples to learn from.

Ask questions… With forums and tools like Flickr you have a great opportunity to ask existing customisers how they do what they do.  I love it when somebody asks me how I did something or what part I used etc. as it is a great compliment that they like it enough to want to know how to do it themselves.

Find a forum… Starting out is daunting and the barrier to posting that first project is a big one… will they like it?… will I be crucified as a newbie?… is it worth posting?  All these questions and more run through your head and in some cases put you off and the community as a whole may miss out on something really unique.  My advice is to find the right place and post away.  In my case I have a great fondness for the Brickarms Community as they are where I spent a lot of time posting my figs, especially as my figs use these custom accessories extensively.  However other places that are generally receptive and supportive would be Eurobricks and Fineclonier.  Another place that could be good is MOCpages, however I myself have had bad experiences here with rating attacks from purists that just do not like what we do.  I am staying clear until the rating system is completely visible and ratings are accompanied by comments.  Flickr is also an excellent medium for your images however I would look to forums as well as I will explain below. [custom minifig:"we'll be starting our own minifig forum soon!"]
Take criticism well… Criticism comes from two main sources, those that want to help you improve and those that would not like it even if it was perfect.  Learn to differentiate the two, learn from the former and ignore the latter… you cannot please everyone.  I cannot emphasise enough how useful comments can be and if you want to improve really listen to what they have to say.  Nobody is perfect and with thousands of people looking at and reviewing your work it is a great way of honing your creations and skills.

Draw your own line… We each have our own views as to how much is too much when it comes to customisation.  Make sure you know how far you are prepared to go.  For me, my goal is to ensure that it is still clearly identifiable as a minifig and that TLC should represent the greatest percentage of the figs components.  The dangerous line is where the fig starts to look more like an action figure than a piece of lego.
There is probably a lot more I could say but I have probably already rambled on too much anyway.

4.       I’ve seen loads of your work, is there one piece in particular that shines out as your favorite?

Now that is tough.  It is a bit like saying which is your favourite child, if you were to put a gun to my head I would have to say that it is Vlad the Brikviet Shocktrooper with Minigun thingy with the first Brikviet Shocktrooper as a very close, if not inseparably close second.  These guys really have pride of place in my collection now as they are actually very simple to make but I feel have quite a distinct feel.  Another factor is that the reason that people have responded to these is due to my modification and not due to the fact that I am using non-standard parts as in the case of some of my other Brikviet figs.

5.       Lego minifig customization is still a little ‘underground’ particularly in the UK, what kind of reaction do you get when you tell people about your hobby?

Sounds great to be ‘underground’ However I think that this is not just an issue in the UK as there is a very large purist movement that generate a variety of reactions ranging from ignoring customisation as though it is something that will go away if they don’t acknowledge it to outright hostility from those that really get very worked up about someone doing nasty things to their beloved figs.  Even in the short time I have been around in this area I have had the whole gamut of this which include very personal attacks from a 12 year old Texan to very reasoned and eloquent explanations of why it is not something they like.  I have the utmost respect for the latter and gratitude for the laugh provided by the former.

For my own sanity I put customisation into the category of the new and developing, and with sites like those mentioned previously and this one I feel it will not be long before it pops out to above the surface!  Saying that however I am absolutely convinced that we need to raise our game and come up with some pretty special customisations to win over those that can be converted, therefore we really do need more new blood and to establish the customiser community.

6.       are that any particular minifig customizers or pieces that you particularly admire?

I think I have mentioned some of the names above, however I will mention Hazel and Kaminoan again as I think they are leading the way.  As for pieces, I have got to acknowledge Brickarms as Will Chapman is producing some accessories that create a whole world of opportunities for customisers.  Brickarms seem to be a source of new people entering this area as they see how good non-TLC products can be.  One source that I have admired and not yet had the opportunity to use myself are the products available through Brickforge, they look great and could really add to my options but with no UK supplier I have yet to purchase anything. [custom minifig:"maybe we can be their UK supplier eh?"]

Here are some of the fantastic custom minifigs by Jasbrick and here’s his flickr

One of the difficult things about Lego is the fixed range of motion the Minifigs have, the arms for example only move up and down, which can be severely limiting, custom minifig builders have sought all sorts of ways to get around this and give custom minifigs a wider range of movement. Here’s a video of a custom minifig being modded to allow for the arms to have that additional movement that it sometimes needs.