No matter the character, there are some shared issues that all buildable figures face; here's how LEGO Ideas 21361 Gizmo overcame them.
LEGO buildable characters can be hit or miss. You either get a triumph, like 43249 Stitch or 76217 I am Groot – or you get 75371 Chewbacca. With 21361 Gizmo, the Gremlin has been both faithfully rendered and adorably built, as we noted in our in-depth review.
Any buildable figure, especially those based on furry characters, will face some of the same challenges. With 21361 Gizmo seemingly learning from those that came before and nailing it, we've gathered together some comments from the LEGO design team who worked on the set, given during a roundtable with LEGO Fan Media, about how each of those potential pitfalls was overcome.
The texture of fur
Getting the texture of fur right is a tricky thing with LEGO bricks. How can smooth plastic pieces translate into soft, textured fur?
75371 Chewbacca is an example of it going wrong when too many pieces are used to try to recreate that shaggy look. In the case of 21361 Gizmo, LEGO Designer Chris McVeigh went in the opposite direction, opting for minimalism.
"I thought about a lot going into this about how to extract the texture," said Chris. "In certain models, you want to bring that fur texture out, and in other cases, focusing on the fur texture may be a distraction from the overall shape of the model.
"When I was looking at how to design this, one of the things that I knew I wanted to do well was capture Gizmo's fur. I realised if I tried to overrepresent the texture of the fur, it would be a distraction from his basic shape. I chose to focus on including texture in other ways.
"One of the key ways you may have noticed is that I used what is externally called our pagoda plate, the 2x2 plate that we created for 21361 Himeji Castle," he continued. "It was just the perfect shape to flare out and away from the model itself, so I wanted to represent that in several places. You see it a couple of times in the legs, on the arms, and for a few other fur textures here and there, around the ears. The key thing for me was not to overrepresent a texture for the fur."
That 'less is more' approach leaves 21361 Gizmo with a polished yet still clearly furry look in perhaps the best example of brick-built fur we've seen so far.
Strike a pose
Unlike 75430 Wicket the Ewok, 21361 Gizmo is posable, but not in the same fluid way as 75434 K-2SO. The LEGO Ideas needs to be rebuilt, similar to 43269 101 Dalmatians, but with much more rebuilding required, especially when going from standing to sitting.
It's not the kind of posability that many LEGO fans hope for in their display-ready builds, but the decision was made to keep whichever version of Gizmo you pick as cute and authentic as possible.
"Out of the gate, we wanted to do something like LEGO Creator 3-in-1," explained Chris. "Just by nature, you have to repurpose bricks to make different poses or make different models. That was decided very early on."
"I think we could have had him posable, but then you take away a lot of the cuteness, because you have all these gaps when he's sat down," added LEGO Ideas Design Manager Jordan Scott. "Chris found a really clever way of doing it in a simple and effective way, where it's minimal changes that you need to do, but it does give you that option."
When we had 21361 Gizmo for review, the changes felt far from minimal, with switching between those two builds requiring you to take apart almost all of 21361 Gizmo.
While 43269 101 Dalmatians was being designed around the same time, a similar approach for 21361 Gizmo was considered but ultimately abandoned in favour of greater accuracy.
"One of the key things with this model is that we wanted it to be as accurate as possible," said Chris. "When we chose to do two poses, we wanted the model to be as accurate in both poses as we could.
"We could have simplified the leg structure. We could have had no detail on the back of the legs, so that it could be completely flat on the table. I thought very carefully about how to achieve that: Should I just remove all the detail so that we could have a five or 10-step conversion, versus the partial rebuilding of the legs?
"Ultimately, we discussed it and felt very strongly that it needs to look as good as possible in both poses. Going back to Creator 3-in-1, they do models that have three options, and it's just a foregone assumption that you're going to take apart part of the model and then reassemble it to create something else. We approached this with that same idea, just wanting that final product to be as true to the original as it could possibly be in LEGO bricks."
No minifigure
Another common request from fans when it comes to brick-built characters is a minifigure companion to the larger build. In the case of 21361 Gizmo, that didn't come to fruition, with Jordan saying that resources were preserved to make the main model as good as it could be – as well as the drains on LEGO Ideas frames from other sets.
"We have certain frames, and we also have a lot of other Ideas products in the assortment for this year that do require new specific vaults," explained Jordan. "We really wanted to focus on Gizmo."
Although the Dimensions Gremlins minifigure pictured above does already exist, returning to older moulds is not as simple as you might think – and it certainly doesn't come for free.
"The dimensions element existed, but that was around 2017 or maybe even earlier," Jordan went on. "It's very, very old. There are different ways to manufacture things now, so that mould is just gone. Even bringing it back would have been a challenge, so we scrapped the idea and really just wanted to focus on Gizmo. People voted for a brick-built Gizmo, so we're going to give them the cutest, most adorable Gizmo, the best we can get."
LEGO Ideas 21361 Gizmo is available to pre-order right now ahead of its release on October 1, retailing at £89.99 / $109.99 / €99.99.
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