Brick-built Animals VS Molded Animals

[Lego David]

A common subject I see people being split on is the topic of how LEGO animals should be made. Some want everything to be brick-built, while others are completely fine with fully molded animals and creatures. Some don't like molded because it doesn't look "LEGO-like" while others like it because molded elements looks much more realistic than anything fully brick-built would achieve. 

Either way, animal and creature molds seem to be a big selling point of many sets, often times just the animals alone selling for almost as much as the set it came in originally retailed for. So there is clearly a demand for them, even though other people aren't really fans of molded creatures at all. 

Personally, I am kind of in between the two camps. I like both molded and brick-built creatures, depending on how good they look on their own. If given the option though, I'd say a combination between brick-built and molded would be ideal for me. For dragons, for example, I'd say the head and wings should be molded, and everything else should be brickbuilt. Despite that though, there have still been some awesome fully molded dragons, such as the magnificent Smaug from the Lonely Mountain set. 

What's your opinion on the subject? Do you prefer fully molded, fully brick-built, or something in between? Discuss! 

[Jack Sassy]

I don't really like those brick-built animals that are included in Creator sets but new Medieval Castle has a very good looking dragon. I do side more with molded animals but some brick-built ones are pretty good, though the fact that they would replace molded ones is not pleasing to me at all. Gone are the days when Lego would include more than one animal in a set...

[1974]

Back when CC hit us like a ton of bricks in 1984, brickbuild horses we're TOTALLY uninteresting and the yellow castle old hat in an instant

I still feel the same today

[Stuartn]

For me it depends on the animal, while some brick built small animals are well done, I much prefer moulded smaller animals, as I feel it is difficult to get all of the shapes correct.

In terms of large animals though (anything bigger than cows or horses) I prefer brick built or partially brick built. I think the creator orca and the Star Wars luggabeast and dewback (they might not be real but the point still stands) show that larger animal builds can have substantial detail if not more than possible with a mould, as well as better posability

[1963maniac]

I do like Molded animals best. But, in some cases, like a camel for instance, they are so expensive! I think even brick built ones would be cheaper. Building an animal to minifig scale is impossible in many cases.

[MAB]

Molded for smaller, built (but with molded parts) for larger such as licensed Smaug, brick-built for non-licensed large animals.

It would be nice if they did minifigure style animals, in the sense of a standard size across all animals with parts for back legs and torso, front legs and torso, head. You could mix and match dog parts, cat parts, lion parts, and so on. Probably scale doesn't work though.

[adwind]

Depends on a scale. The Jurassic Park tyrannosaur is awesome while it's still can be considered as a minifig scale, right? But in most cases molds are far better to me, I like and collect new dog molds they made recently

[caiman0637]

Large animals should be brick-built, while smaller ones should be molded. Never have I seen a decent brick-built frog. 

[Karalora]

It might be worth defining brick-built for the purposes of this discussion. A lot of larger animals are constructed from smaller parts, so technically built, but the more visible parts are molded specifically to be used as that animal. When I think of a "brick-built" animal, I assume most or all of the parts are standard bricks, plates, slopes, and wedges, plus some Technic for articulation.

All that said, I generally prefer molded animals (or animals constructed from specialty-molded parts). It's not that brick-built ones don't look "realistic,"--it's LEGO, everything is a simplified plastic cartoon--but they don't usually look alive. Being made from ordinary parts puts them on the same level as the houses and cars, so at best they tend to like kind of robotic. The smooth, detailed shops possible on a molded animal help it look like a living thing.

[hagridshut]

I like both.

Molded animals look more detailed and match the minifigure aesthetic better, but I appreciate the cleverness of the brick built animals.  Brick built birds, for example, are interesting in that they are so simple, yet very recognizable.  

[Peppermint_M]

Both, both is good. I like to build creatures and I also like the molded kind. It is all depending on where and how I want to use them. 

Though, we do need more dog breeds and cat colours/prints made. I need a Corgi. 

[dr_spock]

Both here too.  Depends on the size and usage.

 

[eldiano]

I am completely split on this subject, on creator sets it’s completely under stable to have brick built animals, but if it’s a regular set i expect molded animals with that said though I prefer molded animals.  The creator dragon looks amazing so far but I dislike the chicken bricks and parrots that completely look like half the size of a Minifigure TBH

[Lord Insanity]

Generally speaking I prefer molded animals for the same reason I prefer minifigs compatible sets.  It's all about building my own world.

For larger animals and creatures I think a mix of a few specialized parts to enhance a mostly brick built base works very well.  The Queen Dragon is in my opinion the best dragon LEGO has made so far.

I will never understand why so many people like the molded Smaug.  The proportions are just wrong.  Smaug should have been partially brick built and beefed up considerably, more like how the Queen Dragon looks.  For only special molded, I will take the fantasy era castle dragon over Smaug every time.

Cue the; "Smaug isn't even a dragon, he is a wyvern." crowd.  To which I would reply that statement is illogical.  You don't point at a large black bird and say; "That's not a bird, its a raven."

[Mylenium]

Pretty much depends on the scale of the scene, what the animals are and how big they are. I for instance can't quite understand why LEGO isn't using this little guy more and producing it in all colors. Same for the "rare" seagulls and some others. Larger animals are okay to be built from bricks and can look quite nice, though when looking at the Fluffy triple-headed dog from one of the new Harry Potter sets I'm not too sure about that. So I guess it's still a matter of how well they have been designed.

Mylenium

Edited May 1, 2021 by Mylenium

[TeriXeri]

3-in-1 birds like parrots/seagulls/songbirds could easily be replaced by moulds, but some dogs have been really nice in 3-in-1 form, bonus for moving parts :

Usually the bigger animals with moving parts work even better in brick form.

Good examples are the dolphin in 3-in-1 Surf House, shark with 3-in-1 Pirate Ship, but worse examples would be the crocodile in the Riverside Houseboat (talking mainbuilds here, the croc in the Safari Treehouse is a bit odd but for an alternate build it can be forgiven, it still looks better proportioned compared to the Houseboat croc imo.)

 

I'd love to see more (City) sets with normal cats and not just Friends style cats, wouldn't mind if Creator 3-in-1 went with including regular dogs and cats in their set however.

The 2021 Friends Kitten works well enough for a minifig cat, not as overly Anime/Cartoon eyes compared to the full sized cat.

I also hope for more Moulded Horses again in non-licensed sets, minidoll horses have been dominant and frequently made, while the minifig horse it took a few years to appear in a non licensed set again (IDEAS Blacksmith)

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Aanchir]

For my part, I enjoy both molded animals and brick-built ones. Which I prefer in any given situation depends heavily on the theme and type of animal.

In themes like Classic and Creator 3-in-1, for instance, the creative ways that the same bricks are used for different builds (including animal builds) is a big part of the theme's appeal. So I have no problem with ALL animals in those themes being brick-built, even if they end up looking much more blocky and less lifelike than I would expect in "play themes" like City, Friends, Castle, or Pirates.

I would be similarly disappointed if larger creatures like dragons in a theme like Ninjago or Elves were constructed primarily from specialized molds, like LEGO Castle dragons or Jurassic World dinosaurs. One of the great things about those themes' 7+ building level is that they ARE able to achieve highly lifelike designs using standard LEGO parts and building techniques (plus, in some cases, a small number of specialized molded elements like faces and wings).

But on a more general level, I prefer when animals in "play themes" feel at least approximately as lifelike as the minifigures or mini-dolls they're meant to accompany. Achieving that goal calls for a certain level of facial detail and a certain balance between geometric and organic shapes which specialized, printed animal molds can achieve much more easily than standard bricks — particularly in the case of animals that are "bigfig" sized or smaller (horses, cows, bears, tigers, crocodiles, sharks, etc).

6 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

I'd love to see more (City) sets with normal cats and not just Friends style cats, wouldn't mind if Creator 3-in-1 went with including regular dogs and cats in their set however.

The 2021 Friends Kitten works well enough for a minifig cat, not as overly Anime/Cartoon eyes compared to the full sized cat.

In general, smaller animals like this tend to work about as well with minifigures as with mini-dolls, regardless of which they were originally designed to accompany. Some other examples include the songbird, chicken, frog, fish, crab, lobster, spider, baby bunny, baby sea turtle, baby dolphin, puppy, hamster, and seahorse . And in fact, a number of these animals have already appeared in sets alongside both types of figure!

 

[koalayummies]

Prefer moldy animals. Wanted: kangaroo, beaver, buffalo, goat.

[Lego David]

10 hours ago, koalayummies said:

buffalo,

Fun fact, there were plans to introduce a Buffalo mold in the 90's Western theme, but they never ended up appearing due to unknown reasons:

Edited May 1, 2021 by Lego David

[Lord Insanity]

Funny how a days worth of news can put some things in perspective.

The upcoming Ninjago Water Dragon is a thing of beauty.  That might "dethrone" the Elves' Queen Dragon as the best built dragon Lego has made in my eyes.  The Ninjago Fire Dragon, while not quite as good looking as the Water Dragon, is still everything I ever wanted a LEGO Smaug to be.  In fact I might try modding Smaug's head onto that one. 

The City Wildlife Rescue sets look fantastic.  The elephant does seem a bit statue-like compared to the Orient Expedition version though.  The proportions and detailing almost looks too good.  The lion more than makes up for it though.

[TeriXeri]

The new Dragon in the Creator Castle still has vibes of the old 90s Dragon (especially the head), Brick Built does really work there, could even replace the wings with red parts to make it even closer.

That dragon also is iconic to LEGO stores and LEGOLAND so it has a legacy.

[TeriXeri]

New Croc is amazing , but also quite a bit larger then previous 3-in-1 animals, at a pretty impressive 44 studs long.

I'm kinda disappointed with no moving legs for the City Elephants however.

Edited May 3, 2021 by TeriXeri

[Rotbart]

i prefer brick-built animals. But I agree that it's quite difficult to get it right with smaller ones.

The new Creator wave shows us a good example each of well done and pretty bad: The mice in 31120 and 31121:

 

 

The castle mouse is really bad. I mean apparently even LEGO felt they needed to put a cheese slope next to it in order to make it recognizable. The snake food on the other hand looks really nice in my opinion.

[Flak Maniak]

Even if City elephants are to have a one-piece torso (and the torso could easily be made mostly of bricks if you wanted), it just seems egregious not to have movable legs connected by Technic pins. (And again, the legs could be some mix of specialized and common parts; either way is fine, but as long as there's that pin connection between the two, then a] you get articulation and b] you can use the legs or torso on other custom creations.) Even if the torso is a specialized piece and the legs are a specialized piece each, that's still better than being immovable.

Hmm, do we know how the head connects to the body? Maybe it's possible to use JUST the head, and make the rest out of normal parts to have some functionality. At that scale, it should work fine.

[Aanchir]

15 hours ago, Flak Maniak said:

Even if City elephants are to have a one-piece torso (and the torso could easily be made mostly of bricks if you wanted), it just seems egregious not to have movable legs connected by Technic pins. (And again, the legs could be some mix of specialized and common parts; either way is fine, but as long as there's that pin connection between the two, then a] you get articulation and b] you can use the legs or torso on other custom creations.) Even if the torso is a specialized piece and the legs are a specialized piece each, that's still better than being immovable.

Hmm, do we know how the head connects to the body? Maybe it's possible to use JUST the head, and make the rest out of normal parts to have some functionality. At that scale, it should work fine.

Presumably, the connection between this elephant's head and body molds would be the same as the mammoth from the 2018 Arctic sets (which is, in turn, the same as how the heads attach to larger Jurassic World dinos like the T. Rex or Indominus Rex, or to 2007–2013 LEGO Castle dragons). So the easiest way to attach it to a brick-built torso would be with a piece like 48370.

I suspect that legs hinged with Technic pins might not have been particularly feasible on an elephant this size, since there is so small a gap between the right and left legs. LEGO animals whose legs attach to the SIDES of the torso (like most Jurassic World dinos) tend to have a much larger gap between their left and right legs. So if this elephant mold had been designed with hinged rear legs, they'd likely have needed to be permanently integrated in the same way as the rear legs of recent LEGO bears, big cats, and horses.

That sort of added complexity would not be impossible, but it WOULD add to the already substantial cost of a large, pre-assembled torso component like this one, potentially even enough require sacrificing some of the other new elements from this wave. Considering how many other great new animal molds/recolors/reprints are appearing in those two sets, it may be for the best that LEGO made that particular judgment call. After all, as you point out, brick-built options are still available for sets or MOCs where lifelike proportions are a lower priority.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Aanchir