Dark Side? Light Side? Take a walk on the Wild Side of Star Wars [Minifig Monday]
Star Wars canon is packed with bizarre aliens and over-the-top villains, but sometimes the franchise plays it a little too safe. For today’s Minifig Monday we’re highlighting original Star Wars characters that take risks, push boundaries, or even get a bit silly. Which in a universe with characters like Elan Sleazebagano and Therm Scissorpunch is saying something!
Our first set of characters comes from Tylar, whose Islamic astronomy tower wowed us last year. Tylar re-imagines the Geonosians from Attack of the Clones as masters of pre-historic Earth, armed with bronze age weaponry and even taming dinosaur mounts. Killmonger‘s mask from Black Panther fits perfectly with the aesthetic of this remixed faction. Minifigs aside, Tylar poses his characters on some truly epic brick-built sand dunes.
Sticking to the prequel era, here we see Padme and General Grievous in fine fantasy form courtesy of Expansion Bricks. I’m getting strong Ray Harryhausen vibes here with the living skeleton and Padme’s swashbuckling accessories. Grievous’ large golden sword is an impressive little sub-build on its own.
Expansion Bricks created another imaginative Star Wars focused on force users. The builder sets these characters in the ancient era of Jedi that’s yet to be seen on screen. I appreciate the custom prosthetic arm for for the ambitious padawan which uses a small horn element pushed into the arm socket and held in place with friction to create a connection point. Nice micro droid companion too!
We’ve featured Ryan McBryde‘s impressive Star Wars builds before, but this time we’re just looking at his latest original characters created for the Star Wars Factions RPG. Dirty Mike is a Keredian, a race seen in Andor after the protagonist’s prison escape but never released in LEGO. Ryan makes the grotesque alien using The Hobbit‘s Goblin King bigfig with his arms swapped with those of a dinosaur. My favorite character has to be the droid, RNA D-T, with his rapier arm, mismatched legs, and fur collar.
Red Impala is is featured again for good reason – there are few builders making such innovative minifig designs from official parts. This is the bounty hunter Kael Saren, who wears a repurposed snowtrooper mask and wanders the Outer Rim with his droid companion Vex.
TheNovaStandard is an amazing minfig builder who mostly focuses on Dark Fantasy, but for this Star Wars build, he goes full light side with original character Jedi Paladin Calloway Xe Char. Plenty of famous Jedi have had to replace a severed arm, but this is the first time I’ve seen one use a translucent sparkling arm (courtesy of CMF Orion)… and it even matches his saber! The color-coordinated clone troopers are a nice touch, especially with the beautiful plumage from the CMF Battle Goddess.
Finally, we have a few recent characters from TBB regular and prolific SW builder Tim Goddard. In a recent garden series, Tim created a mix of new characters and droid companions. I don’t know what species this fellow is supposed to be, but the Chima face pairs nicely with jedi-adjacent clothing. I love the gardening droid that uses the printed dome top head from Tenoo Jedi Temple.
Tim’s gardens are also populated by this elegant Kaminoan and her teal and copper companion. Very nice parts usage with the ray gun chest and abdomen and sprue feet!
Closing out our tour of the less conventional corners of the Star Wars universe we have Tim’s latest creation, a pair of Sullustan herders and their “Arama” beasts. Tim proves just as adept at creating brick-built creatures as he is at droids, and it’s nice to see more Sullustan represenation beyond our beloved Nien Nunb!
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