Brickheadz is a theme in Lego that has been of vague interest to me for a while. There was something about their cartoony look that kind of appealed to me, so in the last few weeks I've decided to explore them a little more.
For the uninitiated here are some basic facts from the Wikipedia machine.
The product line focuses on the buildable characters. Each set measures over 2” (7 cm) tall and contains at least 143 pieces. The legs are 4 plates high and are usually constructed from four 1x2 plates. The torso is usually constructed on a 4x4 plate, and is two bricks and one plate high. The arms are usually formed around a 2x2 plate and a 11476 Plate 1x2 W. 1 Horizontal Snap for the hand. The head is the most distinctive part but the core of it is the simplest and common to all models. Twelve 22885 Brick 1x2x1 2/3 W/4 Knobs are mounted on a 4x4 plate or equivalent. Also included Baseplate measures over 1” (4 cm) square and under 1” (1 cm) high for the buildable character to stand. The sets were designed primarily for children with an age rating of 10+ or above.
Simple right, well let's have a look at one because then it might make sense, here is one I whipped up...
As you can see, in human form they have a very distinctive look, and it's blocky and cartoony and somehow still Lego-y They are simple to create once you get used to the back process, Legs (super simple, literraly 4 bricks on top of eachother. A torso which is is a four by four square with a joiner on the side and then some arms. Then a third cube for the head, the biggest of the three and it's where all the cool work is done.
To better explain it, her is a photo from Brickset showing the underlying Chassis of a Brickheadz, one of my favourite bits is the Pink 2X2 brick which is the brain in the middle of the head (you never see it in the final model but it's important it's there.
Now the official Lego Models are mostly licensed characters - marvel, Disney, Harry potter etc, which are not really my bag, Although they do Animals which we will get back to. But as always there is a big community of designers out their producing stuff so after looking at a lot of pictures I thought I'd give it a go, and whilst I don't have to down to the 'Should take 10-15 minutes to build' instruction from Lego, It is still a quick way to design and build something unique.
So as I said first up was the Nerdy, glasses wearing guys above, which I think works, I think the haird could be better but you know I never have enough pieces.
Second up was one which I say of picture of on the Internet and though, I reckon I could make that, and well, I think it turned out okay - good classic vampire vibes from this guy.
And finally I tried the other genre of Brickheadz - Animals. This is is a Lucky Cat and is actually a pretty close to a official Lego set - I never bought the set which is fairly rare, I think maybe only selling in North America and coming a gift with purchase in some other markets, but as with all Lego all set instructions are on line so if you can find the pieces and adapt a little a I had to you can make it.
So here it is - a Lucky Cat.
Animals don't follow the same building format, but it's more along the using of tiles on knob bricks and a general aesthetic that binds them together.
Anyway I had a lot of fun with these three, and I think there might be a fair few more Brickheadz in my future, lots of great characters would could be created.
