Two Chinese Action Figures Guarding the Door
It’s always nice to see a great MOC with a neat backstory, like these incredible action figures made by JNCE. At first glance, you just see two Chinese warriors, but there’s more to it—and JNCE was willing to share that with us at BrickNerd in a quick interview!
Marco: Can you tell me what inspired you to build these action figures?
JNCE: There was a MOC contest in the Chinese community and the theme was something related to Chinese traditional culture with double/dual definition. It was a little bit difficult for me to find a good subject to build. Finally, I choose these action figures to reflect Chinese Door Gods which I thought is quite suitable to the requirement.
Marco: Can you explain what these figures mean in Chinese culture?
JNCE: It's an old tradition in China that people post two images of ancient generals (Qin Qiong and Yuchi Gong) on the front door of the house for the sake of peace and safety when approaching Chinese New Year. They are still very common to see in the Chinese countryside.
Marco: How did you build these characters? How long did it take to make these, and were there difficult issues that made you rebuild some parts? Do you build digitally, or do you sketch or do you just start building?
JNCE: I just actually built one of them with bricks I had. Starting from the head, then I built the torso up to the feet. It only took 20 days to make them since the contest had a deadline and I started building quite late. Luckily I can copy one from the other to save some time since most of the parts are mirrored. I also recorded some WIP pictures over the 20 days. Sometimes I had to stop building to wait for the delivery of the missing parts from abroad, which was quite challenging.
The shoulder part is one of those difficult issues where I wanted to build the armor shape with a beast pattern in such a small space. Another challenge was the hip connection with the legs. I changed it several times before I had a solution because it’s hard to support the weight of the body with just ball or rotation joint parts. Thanks to the newly released part, Technic Rotation Joint Disk 80563, this issue was resolved because that was strong enough.
Marco: What do you like most about the MOC? For example, I really like the use of the mudguards on the shoulders! Do you have a favorite part?
JNCE: The mudguards on the shoulders are definitely one of the highlight of this MOC, like I mentioned before, I tried a lot of different ways to build the shoulders armor, and the mudguard parts just allowed me to shape the beast face perfectly.
Another part is the head of the figures because there are not too many MOC/LEGO set examples I can refer to for ancient Chinese general faces. I used some SNOT techniques while building, especially for the mustache and beard. I am also very happy to put roller skate part 11253 to great use in eyebrows.
Marco: Thank you for your time! I’m looking forward to seeing more of your work!
Are you inspired by these action figures? What other cultural symbold could you bring to life using LEGO? Let us know in the comments below.
Do you want to help BrickNerd continue publishing articles like this one? Become a top patron like Charlie Stephens, Marc & Liz Puleo, Paige Mueller, Rob Klingberg from Brickstuff, John & Joshua Hanlon from Beyond the Brick, Megan Lum, Andy Price, John A., Lukas Kurth from StoneWars, Wayne Tyler, LeAnna Taylor, and Monica Innis to show your support, get early access, exclusive swag and more.
