I really love the Elves theme except for two things: the same five mini-dolls in every set, and those big dumb dragon heads. So I decided to swap out the mini-dolls with mini-figs, which gave me a lot more options to diversify my Elves population. And, while I was at it, I replaced the dragon heads with brick-built heads. 

Here's the earth dragon. I like the blunt snout on this one. I think it looks like a chameleon. 

IMG_3320 by jkgross, on Flickr

And then here are some earth elves:

IMG_3325 by jkgross, on Flickr

 

Next up is the fire dragon. This one is patterned off the Ninjago "Green NRG Dragon (70593)" set. 

IMG_3327 by jkgross, on Flickr

And some fire elves to go with it. There just aren't nearly enough "dark medium flesh" mini-fig heads. 

IMG_3329 by jkgross, on Flickr

 

And then here's the wind dragon. This one went through a lot of iterations before I was finally happy with it. 

IMG_3331 by jkgross, on Flickr

And of course, some wind elves. The one on the right with the snarly face is on of my favorites. 

IMG_3333 by jkgross, on Flickr

 

And lastly, the big white dragon. This one is based on the Ninjago "Titanium Dragon (70748)" set. 

IMG_3336 by jkgross, on Flickr

And some more elves figures ...

IMG_3339 by jkgross, on Flickr

 

And then, just for fun, here are some bad guys.

IMG_3340 by jkgross, on Flickr

 

I hope to tackle the water dragon and the goblin dragon next, but I need to get some pieces first. Thanks for looking! Let me know what you think!

 

Nice work! I especially like the earth elves and the white dragon. I also appreciate that you've made different designs for each dragon rather than just redoing the same one in different colors. I recently bought an Elves set and decided to turn Azari into something of a fire elf berserker!  Thank goodness for the CMF Barbara Gordon head, there aren't too many other options right now.

Elves would be such a better theme if it didn't came with minidolls :-) god job

Nice work on these!

Personally, I like the minidolls aesthetic, and I'm also okay with their dragon designs, but your take on these sets is also very cool (especially because your brick-built dragon heads show that the rest of the build works also well without the cutesy heads). I also never really thought about how well the elf ear wigs of the dolls would work with MF heads, so that's also good to know.

Great modding and overall interpretations. Your version of Elves is an excellent showcase that existing LEGO themes are adaptable to each fan/builders preference.

Nice dragon head builds, although I don't see anything particularly wrong with the original ones. After all, it's not particularly unusual for animals and monsters in the world of minifigures (like Smaug, or the LEGO Castle dragons, or the LEGO City alligators) to have curvy heads with printed eyes. And I'm not sure how well the new heads all suit the bodies they're paired with. The fire dragon and wind dragon heads in particular feel a bit too large and gaunt to really suit the curvier and more streamlined bodies of those dragons, plus the wind dragon head's color doesn't quite match its body.

My favorite of these is probably the head you built for the queen dragon. It looks powerful and pretty well proportioned to the body, but also has a certain graceful elegance to it, rather than looking super harsh and aggressive.

On 9/27/2017 at 5:49 AM, ZORK64 said:

...  (especially because your brick-built dragon heads show that the rest of the build works also well without the cutesy heads) ...

I think that's what annoyed me so much about the original dragon heads. The Elves dragon bodies are pleasantly chunky and Lego-like. Then they plop those silly heads on top, and it's kind of jarring. The Ninjago dragons originally did the same thing, but at some point in that theme, they switched over to using brick-built heads, which look great, and open up a huge range of design possibilities. Every Ninjago dragon is distinct from the others because they all have different heads. It's weird that the Elves theme went back to the single-purpose head molds. I suspect the reason was because they wanted the cutesy print, with the big eyes and the swirly tattoos. Seems like they could have used some stickered slopes to accomplish that.

Lego dragons have come a long ways over the years, when you look back at the Dragon Knights castle theme, or even the Vikings theme. The Vikings dragons used mostly Bionicle parts, which gave them an odd robotic, skeletal appearance that I always associate with Bionicle. The current batch of Elves and Ninjago dragons are really impressive. 

Wonderful designs.  I love when someone changes something they don't like to make it suit their tastes better, and I love even more when the things they change are things I don't like.

On 9/27/2017 at 5:24 AM, Borex said:

Elves would be such a better theme if it didn't came with minidolls :-) god job

I absolutely agree, and these are great minifigures to accompany each dragon.

22 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Nice dragon head builds, although I don't see anything particularly wrong with the original ones. After all, it's not particularly unusual for animals and monsters in the world of minifigures (like Smaug, or the LEGO Castle dragons, or the LEGO City alligators) to have curvy heads with printed eyes.

Smaug and Castle dragons heads would be better than the cutesy Elves heads, but they aren't available in the same colors.  I'm also not particularly into the brick-built aesthetic of Ninjago and Elves dragons, and would much prefer to see a theme that goes back to the molded builds of Castle.  That said, I think the heads in this thread look much, much better than the cutesy dragon heads.  I wouldn't mind the Elves dragon heads if the prints were less cutesy, as the mold is perfectly fine.

@Joebot: Oh, I do like the specific head mold for those dragons - it's just that I prefer dragons with a more feral apperance.

Out of the Minidoll themes, Elves is the one that is most appealing to me, but since I'm already occupied enough with my ever-growing collection of sets for building robotic MOCs, I choose not to collect them (I did, however, recently purchase of the smaller Friends set, and I do like it).

Personaly I think  those heads are too long - but maybe it's the fault of the on head photos.

I like the aesthetic of the Elves dragons, but I think you've done a great job adapting them here to a chunkier, more obviously "Lego" style. I also have played around with using Elves hair on minifigs, and I think they look great. The only problem I have with my own collection is that I have very few fleshie minifigs, so my options are limited.

Great job, my favorite of yours is probably the wind dragon.

Great use of mini-figs to increase the number of characters.