animals

Hummingbird and Flower

Jason

This is a small LEGO sculpture of a hummingbird feeding at a flower, designed by Kristal and I as a gift for a member of our local LUG (LEGO User Group). They were battling some health issues, and we thought giving them a small kit to build might bring them some small amount of joy during a very stressful time.

https://youtu.be/qEKtQFqbLWw

If you would like to build one of your own, you can find the building instructions below, or you can build along with me in the video. Perhaps it can bring some joy to you or someone in your life as well.

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Never Ending Climber

Jason

A few weeks ago, I stumbled on an old Japanese battery commercial, featuring a little robotic fireman climbing up a ladder. It’s a pretty mesmerizing little toy, and it immediately jumped to the top of my build list.

It actually came together pretty quickly, as the robot itself is fairly simple, featuring a simple pair of pistons to drive the legs. The real challenge was figuring out a way of returning it back to the bottom of the ladder after reaching the top, so that it could climb indefinitely (or at least until the batteries ran out).

You can see the model in action, along with an in-depth breakdown of how it works, in the video.

https://youtu.be/jmPr5LQ-xEc
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Mecha Chicken

Jason

It’s been a few years since I’ve built an alternate model to a LEGO set, but it’s something I quite enjoy doing, and the Creator 3-in-1 theme has perfect sets to do it with. I picked up a few recently, and decided to sit down and see what I could build with set 31112 Wild Lion.

I ended up having a lot of fun with it, and built a Mecha Chicken, which can seat a minifig on its back, along with a cute little sidekick I named Yolk Boy.

https://youtu.be/KG38RixiBc8

If you’d like to build it yourself, you can follow along with the build video, or download the building instructions below.

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Flying Bee

Jason

Spring has finally arrived in my neck of the woods, and I’m really looking forward to flowers blooming and bees buzzing. To celebrate the coming signs of life, I built this cute little bee flying above a pretty flower. When you press one of the flower petals the bee will flap its wings, which you can see in action in the video below.

https://youtu.be/ckEW1FQPyp0

Continue reading to find instructions and build notes. You can also watch the model come together in the build video I posted on YouTube.

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Little Green Frog

Jason

For Valentine’s Day this year, Kristal wanted to build a bunch of animal themed ‘pun-ny’ Valentine’s message models. This one was for ‘You’re Un-frog-ettable!’.

It was also inspired by the ‘Little Green Frog’ song that Kristal used to sing during summer camp. She really wanted it to be able to stick its tongue out, like in the song, which can be done by pressing a lever on the frog’s back.

You can see it in action in the (very short) video below, or watch the full build video further down, and if you would like to build your own you can continue reading to find the building instructions.

https://youtu.be/-pFBg_FHzM0

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Artemis Kinetic Sculpture

Jason

Earlier this year, I stumbled upon a video of a wooden automaton of an archer shooting a bow, by a bow maker who goes by Del Cat on YouTube. As soon as I saw it in action, I knew I had to try and build a version using LEGO.

You can see the results, along with a breakdown of the design, in the video below. Continue reading for some more info and images.

https://youtu.be/2EMuI4CUJV8
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Eeyore

Jason

Over the summer, we received a message from someone that had built Kristal’s Winnie the Pooh model, and apparently their daughter wanted an Eeyore to go along with it. Kristal thought it was a great idea, so built this small scene feature everyone’s favourite sad donkey.

Building instructions for Eeyore can be found below, or you can see how it is put together in the build video.

June 2023 Update: I finally put together instructions for the full scene as well, which you can find in this post.

https://youtu.be/W8E20DKAXG8

Prairie Dogs Scene

Jason

As I mentioned in my last post of two cute little LEGO prairie dogs, they were built to be part of a larger model, which is this kinetic sculpture of a group of them hanging around their burrow.

If you watch the video with captions turned on, you can read some commentary on the design and mechanics.

https://youtu.be/qTrLNLMI_Ek
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Swimming Dolphins

Jason

After getting a couple of the cute LEGO dolphins from a Friends set, I thought it would be interesting to try and build a small model of them swimming through the water. In the end, I decided to go with a couple of brick-built dolphins instead (for reasons discussed in the video), and this is the result.

https://youtu.be/-VLQ0dXnfg0
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