Moving Photos: Adding Movement and Magic to LEGO BrickHeadz

BrickHeadz are an interesting product. They are supposed to be a recognizable brick-built, blocky visualization of your favorite character from movies, TV shows, books, or even LEGO-owned themes. Yet one of their key features is how static they are. There is little to no inherent movement in a BrickHeadz character which makes photographing them both easy yet hard because they are made in the style of figurines. Today I will try to change that.

The LEGO Group generously provided BrickNerd with these three new Harry Potter-themed BrickHeadz, and the team challenged me to give them a little bit more life.

Harry Potter's Wizarding World is full of magical spells, moving portraits and surprising transformations. For today’s charms class, we're going to try six fun "spells" to create scenes with movement to bring these characters to life.

Improvised Action Poses

The most popular sport in the magical world, Quidditch, is an extremely dynamic show with flying balls, broomsticks and a Golden Snitch. With the new BrickHeadz featuring all the house robes, I just had to put them in the stadium from set 75956 which I used as a background. Ravenclaw’s Seeker Cho Chang demonstrates a perfect capability to hover in the air in a pose of triumph!

I modified her left leg to hold a broomstick while Cho was lifting her hands up in joy with the Golden Snitch she had just caught. Then I digitally changed the leg's color to the same tone as her Ravenclaw clothes.

One note that might not be evident from the pictures is that Cho comes with several elements in the new Medium Tan color—the first time the color has been available in brick form rather than just skin tones in minifigures and minidolls.

Special Effects

We continue our Quidditch match with flying objects, lighting effects and a good dose of danger! The thrill might test the nerves of Hufflepuff’s Cedric Diggory…

For the nerds among us, here is an interesting fact: Cedric Diggory plays Quidditch in the "Prisoner of Azkaban" movie before he was officially introduced to the cinematic universe of Harry Potter as portrayed by Robert Pattinson. He was the new Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff team during Harry's first defeat on screen.

As you can see, this clever and risky scene shows the connection between magic and physical phenomena: lightning struck the snitch just as Cedric was trying to catch it which led to a shocking encounter.

Taking this as inspiration, I filmed a sequel starring BrickHeadz Cedric who tried to catch the Snitch with similarly spectacular consequences, just like in many cartoons. I’ll let this moving photo speak for itself:

To shoot this longer scene, I used a Quidditch stadium for the background and placed Cedric in a strictly static position. I added some weights along the edges (beyond the photo’s cropped frame) so that the field wouldn’t move when I changed the character's head. Also, be sure to have your camera on a steady surface or a tripod to make sure you get the exact same position from shot to shot just like if you were making a stop motion film.

Painting the lightning strike, I was inspired by my own experience of catching some lightning on a camera (I'm a big amateur!): here's an example taken on a simple phone:

I created a "ghostly" transparent head especially for electrified Cedric that looks like a fun ice cube if I switch off the light inside. The new head recreates the construction of the BrickHeadz body.

A Mini-Movie

When it comes to Quidditch, Gryffindor always wins. In the first movie, Professor Dumbledore gave me the idea for our third scene when the green and silver hanging Slytherin decorations transform into the red and gold Gryffindor colors. I created a mini-movie about Draco and Harry's conflict not only on an emotional level but a magical one too. The Slytherin snake and the Gryffindor lion will tell you about it without any words:

As for the emotional conflict, it's illustrated with physical contact in a very aggressive form, with Harry knocking Draco off his perch by adding a bit of motion blur.

This magical movie was created by using ten brick-built images of the banners transforming from Slytherin to Gryffindor. I tried recreating the emblems of the snake and lion from each of the houses’ Quidditch robes.

Color Change

Needless to say, the BrickHeadz version of Tonks seems to be made for animated stories! Gifted with rare Metamorphmagus abilities, Tonks changes her physical appearance at will.

The easiest way to play with the appearance of the BrickHeadz is to build a second head with different colored hair and replace it as carefully as possible without moving the diorama.

"Don't call me Nymphadora. It's Tonks!"

I thought that Grimmauld Place, headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, was the perfect location for Tonks. She posed for several basic shots and with different hair, but that’s not her only trick…

Physical Transformation

One more ability that Tonks loves to demonstrate is the transformation of her physical traits to make others laugh, including this scene where her nose turns into a beak of a duck and the snout of a pig.

All you need to recreate this scene is to choose several faces with different noses/eyes/features and add some transitional phases for more realism. Movement achieved!

Here's my preparation for the trick with six different faces...

“What Tonks are you today?”

….. and here's the result, blending them all together. Which is your favorite face?

Moving Environment

Lastly, instead of moving the BrickHeadz, let’s move the environment around them. Brave auror Kingsley Shacklebolt turned out to be very inspiring in BrickHeadz form because he's always connected with energy and speed. Our cinematic experience with him begins with a beautiful flight through the streets of London at night.

I combined several different crafting techniques to set up this night scene so that Kingsley could fly over the Thames and around the ships on the water.

The most interesting part of this magic trick was building the riverboat he zooms by—the boat actually exists in real life so I had some reference photography to work from.

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This riverboat is called the Golden Salamander. I studied its construction from pictures taken on London water tours and tried my hand at shipbuilding. I had so much fun!

This photo was the most difficult since it presented a few new challenges like the brick-built ship, the watery background, flying at speed, and the nighttime setting.

I think Kingsley looks great in his purple outfit against the background of the dark blue evening sky with the lights of the Golden Salamander reflecting off the water. And I re-used the action pose so it looks like he was riding his broom.

Moving Portraits

So there you have it—six new spells to bring BrickHeadz to life. Though they might seem a bit static, adding movement to BrickHeadz photography is actually quite possible—and I only scratched the surface of all the creative possibilities. Hopefully now you can experiment and make moving LEGO portraits of your own!

DISCLAIMER: These sets were provided to BrickNerd by LEGO. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

What other ways could you add life to LEGO BrickHeadz photography? Let us know in the comments below.

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