[MOC/Mod] Behold the beholder! Iconic D&D monster

[AmperZand]

When I first saw pictures of Gargantos from set 76205 Gargantos Showdown, I thought 'if I flip that beauty over, I'll have the beginnings of a cool beholder.' And that's exactly what I did! I bought it almost as soon as it was released, but rather than build it entirely as instructed, I modded it as I went using building techniques running in opposite directions: up-to-down and down-to-up.

For those who don't know, a beholder is a classic D&D monster from the game's earliest days. They can take many forms and colours but all the 'true' beholders have one central eye, a mouth and 10 stalks each ending in an eye.  

Here's mine:

 

[Wout]

That's a nice moc. It was also the first thing I thought of when I saw that set.

I now imagine people who buy this set as an army builder. 

[Celebrian Telrunya]

Yes! Beautiful! I want to try this now!

What set are the eyes from?

[luizfranca]

Great MOC, that set was meant for a beholder.

[AmperZand]

On 1/13/2022 at 6:41 PM, Wout said:

That's a nice moc. It was also the first thing I thought of when I saw that set.

I now imagine people who buy this set as an army builder. 

LEGO's Gargantos does look quite a lot like a beholder, doesn't it? I expect you and I were not the only ones to think that  

An army of beholders? That's a scary thought! Per D&D lore, that is possible. Beholders reproduce by dreaming their progeny into existence. Usually, the parent and offspring then fight to the death. But sometimes, a parent dreams of a beholder - or even beholders - identical to themselves and the pseudo-clones get along. So multiple beholders acting together is theoretically possible. Several of them in LEGO with an army of underlings would be so cool. Please post a picture on EB if you do that with a link to this thread.   

On 1/15/2022 at 1:29 AM, Celebrian Telrunya said:

Yes! Beautiful! I want to try this now!

What set are the eyes from?

Thanks for your kind words.

The 1 x 1 round tile with eye print is this from set 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage.

If you copy my MOC, please credit me with a link to this thread. Thanks 

On 1/15/2022 at 11:40 PM, luizfranca said:

Great MOC, that set was meant for a beholder.

Thanks for saying you like my creation. I'm not sure everyone would agree, but then, beauty is in the eye of beholder! 

By the way, you have a cool avatar picture.

Edited January 19, 2022 by AmperZand

[Feuer Zug]

Nice adaptation of the Gargantos into a Beholder. I had the same thought when I saw the set. By flipping it, you've created the perfect adventurer bane for any D&D dungeon crawl.

[AmperZand]

On 1/20/2022 at 1:45 PM, Feuer Zug said:

Nice adaptation of the Gargantos into a Beholder. I had the same thought when I saw the set. By flipping it, you've created the perfect adventurer bane for any D&D dungeon crawl.

Thanks @Feuer Zug. I hope your D&D characters never encounter one of these terrors! 

[Feuer Zug]

12 hours ago, AmperZand said:

Thanks @Feuer Zug. I hope your D&D characters never encounter one of these terrors! 

I've encountered them on one side of the screen, and run them on the other. Interesting beasties either way.

[Buildersam]

I thought the same thing when I saw this set! I just bought mine, and I saw your post. Could you provide more pictures? I'd like to emulate yours if possible, it's very well done.

[BardDandelion]

Nicely done!

I'm going to turn mine into head of a cyclops. One of the best superhero sets they ever made.

[AmperZand]

On 2/8/2022 at 4:42 AM, Buildersam said:

I thought the same thing when I saw this set! I just bought mine, and I saw your post. Could you provide more pictures? I'd like to emulate yours if possible, it's very well done.

Thanks for your kind words and for wanting to imitate MOC 

I only have one other picture, below. It shows the top of the head with the build in both directions: upside-down above the forehead, then right-side-up across the top of the head and the top sides. I don't have a picture of the back, unfortunately, where I used upside-down building until the very uppermost piece which is right-side-up. 

The beholder is now in my display collection and not at all easy to access and re-photograph. So I hope the below is enough. If you get stuck, please post your own pictures below or PM me.

9 hours ago, BardDandelion said:

Nicely done!

I'm going to turn mine into head of a cyclops. One of the best superhero sets they ever made.

Thanks 

I thought about modding it to a cyclops too but a) I couldn't resist the idea of adding a beholder to my collection (I already have cyclopes, albeit minifigure/bigfig sized ones - see picture) and b) if the cyclops's body were to scale with its head, it would be huge. I'd run out of olive green parts! If you do make a cyclops of Gargantos, do please post pictures. I would love to see that.