DC Comics LEGO - Lois Lane, Black Canary, Green Arrow

Today is Valentine's Day.  I like Valentine's Day a lot more now than I used to.  I'm married to a hot wife, have two boys who are just starting to figure out the V-Day thing and will probably be much more successful at it than I ever have been, or ever will be.  They're both kinda players, now that I think about it. In any case, I figured it would be a good day to highlight a few super-couples that I made out of LEGO.

Superman was finally part of a LEGO set in 2012, and I picked him up and dig him lots.  But he didn't have a Lois Lane with him.  There will be a Lois Lane with the new Man of Steel LEGO sets coming this May, but super-love can't wait that long.  So I made this Lois Lane to go with him.  Awwww.  That's her um, phone in her hand.  Or iPad.  Or iPad Mini.  It's something shiny, okay? 

Another super-couple I've liked for a long time now is Green Arrow and Black Canary; they're always on-again off-again, and I honestly don't know their current status in the DC Universe.  Green Arrow is on the CW series "Arrow,  and that's good for him I suppose...and there's a Laurel Lance character on there who might possibly maybe become a Black Canary eventually.  Anyway.  Here's them.  And no, I didn't use her fishnets costume.  Not yet.  Maybe later. It *is* Valentine's Day...

LEGO Batman: Enemies

With all of my obsessive compulsive problems with how LEGO isn't releasing every single character from across more than 75 years of DC Comics history, I've gotta say I have no complaints about how they've handled the villains of Gotham City. Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Bane, Killer Croc...all the A-Listers are covered.  

Then again, me being me...I wanted more. Batman has the best (or worst?) villains in comic books, and even beyond the A-Listers, I wanted more.  

Left to Right, Front to Back: Red Hood, Black Mask, Mr Zsasz; Firefly, Mad Hatter, Killer Moth; Hugo Strange, Hush.

LEGO Batman: Allies

Huntress, Batman, Robin (Damian Wayne) Nightwing, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon

As a lifelong fan of Batman, and a nearly lifelong fan of LEGO, when LEGO announced a Batman line in 2007, I was immediately onboard.  LEGO did a great job with Batman for a few years, and then restarted the line last year, expanding it to include the rest of the DC Comics universe (Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman etc.).

But when you've known Batman as long as I have, you need something more.  So I've updated some of my Batman LEGO customs and added some new ones.

Batman, Red Robin, Huntress, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon

The Batman Family has changed and expanded over the years--the Robin I grew up with also grew up, so Dick Grayson, once the Boy Wonder, has become Nightwing. LEGO released him in one set about five years ago, and the only thing I changed about that minifigure was the hair.  The others are all new, including Tim Drake (the third Robin, now "Red Robin), Damian Wayne (the current Robin), and a personal favorite of mine, Barbara Gordon as Batgirl.  I updated my Huntress and Commissioner Gordon minifigures to give them the "light flesh" faces instead of yellow faces, since the LEGO  Super Heroes line uses more realistic skin tones than classic LEGO does.  LEGO has finally released a Commissioner Gordon this year, in a set based on The Dark Knight Rises...I'm thinking I'll keep my cartoon/comics based version around too.

My Proposal for Muppet LEGO

So if you know me at all, you know that I'm a fan of the Muppets, and I'm also a fan of toys.  And in my opinion, there aren't many better toy companies out there than LEGO.  I really didn't discover LEGO until I was a teenager, but once I did, I never really let it go.

Last year LEGO debuted a sort of crowdsourcing way to get ideas for new sets--fans could make proposals with text and images, put them on a LEGO CUUSOO website, and then if a proposal received enough votes, than the LEGO people would look at the practical business issues of getting the set made.  My proposal is about the Muppets.

Camilla, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear

The Muppets have been a part of my life since my childhood, and despite their toy-like nature (they are puppets, after all), they haven't ever been presented as any part of a building set.  I think there's a lot of potential there.  There could be minifigures, playsets, vehicles, and other ways to bring the magical mayhem of the Muppets home.  The key is showing LEGO that these could work.  So I put together my own version of Muppet Minifigures...there are 24 so far, and another couple of dozen in the works.  Why?  Because I'm obsessive.  And compulsive.  And sometimes, obsessive-compulsive.   

Here are a few more pictures of the minifigures:

The Electric Mayhem (and Rowlf)

 Scooter, Rizzo, Stunt Gonzo, Chickens, Pepe

Bunsen, Beaker, Sam Eagle, Swedish Chef, Waldorf and Statler

These are understandably rougher than the "real" versions that LEGO would make, but I wanted to show that it would be possible to make Muppets in the same size as LEGO minifigures.  I've also been working on  LEGO Digital Designer computer-rendered versions of some key sets, like the Muppet Theater, the Swedish Chef's Kitchen, and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's Laboratory.  ...and I've got some rough sketches of the Pigs in Space Spaceship and the Electric Mayhem Bus and some other things.  

Swedish Chef's Kitchen

Muppet Labs

Muppet Theater

The key at this point is getting the word out.  As of this writing, more than 1,000 people have voted for the Muppet LEGO proposal, which is fantastic--it's enough to get noticed by LEGO.  To get the official review, it needs 10,000 votes.  Which seems like a lot.  It is a lot.  I'm hoping there are enough fans of the Muppets and LEGO out there to get it made.  If you're interested, go to the link for Muppet LEGO, register, and vote!  It won't sign you up for all kinds of spam, it won't cost you anything, it just demonstrates that you support the idea.  You know you want to.  

A few more sketches to leave you with:

The Pigs in Space spaceship, the Electric Mayhem Bus, Great Muppet Caper Hot Air Balloon, Gonzo's Stunt Cycle, and the Muppet Theater

A bunch of Muppet minifigure sketches.  More to come.  

Avengers Fisher Price Little People

So, like just about everybody else on the planet, I'm a little excited about the Avengers movie that's in theatres.  I've been watching Iron Man and Thor and Captain America with my boys leading up to the Big Movie, so I've had Marvel's superheroes on my mind.  Which is unusual for me, simply because I'm really more a DC Comics guy.  Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, those guys.  

Anyway, after being prompted by a friend's 5 year old son, I thought it was time to branch out and make some Avengers.

I don't show this part very often, but here are my sketches for the Avengers Fisher Price Little People.

Then the victims--the raw materials that will become the Avengers.

Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Nick Fury

Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and Hulk.  

I decided to add the winged helmet to Thor and the little wings to Captain America's headgear.  I guess I like winged hats.  Go figure.  I think Iron Man and Captain America turned out best.  Hulk...needs some work.

All seven Avengers together.  Hope the movie doesn't suck.

G. I. Joe Fisher Price Little People

I never had any GI Joe action figure when I was a kid. I was very much a Star Wars kid, so my action figures were all Kenner, all the time. But I loved the GI Joe cartoon, up until about the time they brought in Sgt Slaughter and Serpentor and all those other characters. So really, probably only the first two seasons of the cartoon or something.

Still, GI Joe was fun. Stalwart heroes, ridiculous villains, and a nice moral at the end of each episode, so you could overlook all the guns-a-blazin' over the previous 24 minutes. This is one of those shows that, once I started making Fisher Price Little People versions, I wouldn't stop, so I decided to stick to three heroes and three villains:

Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes; Cobra Commander, Destro, Baroness

I like how they turned out, although Destro's collar isn't quite right; Scarlett does have a long ponytail not in view in that particular picture. Anyway. I made them. So now you know. And knowing is half the something-something.

Bear in the Big Blue House Fisher Price Little People

My very first customized Fisher Price Little People were based on Sesame Street characters. Shortly after that, I made some Muppet Show Little People, and eventually I got around to Fraggle Rock (not a series I grew up with, but fun all the same).

A production that I ended up really enjoying was Bear in the Big Blue House. Initially it ran from 1997-2007 on Playhouse Disney, and you can still find it on various channels and on DVD from time to time. Centered on a core family of characters, and developed by the Jim Henson Company, it has a lot of the same magic that Sesame Street and the Muppets in general have. By the time we had our own children, I loved Bear in the Big Blue House, and so of course I decided I had to make some Fisher Price Little People of the main characters.

More than some of the other properties that I made figures of, there are radically different body shapes and sizes, from Tutter--a small blue mouse, to Bear--an enormous full-body puppet along the lines of Big Bird, to Luna, a floating moon that sings a goodbye song with Bear every night. (Still one of my most favorite songs, and I included Luna in our Toy Room Mural.) So I had to depart from the usual Fisher Price Little People design more radically than usual, but tried to keep that same design sensibility in place. So here's the result:

(From left to right) Bear, Tutter, Treelo, Pip and Pop, Ojo, and Luna