Lego is expensive, so I made my own out of clay

hi folks my name is Adam and I like Lego however that stuff is hella expensive and I'm a millennial in my 30s so all my money goes towards paying my landlord's mortgage and that means I don't have a whole lot of cash left over to spend on children's toys what I do have though is a YouTube channel dedicated to making weird stuff out of clay and I got a whole lot of clay so why not make my own Lego but like weird obviously now for those that don't know this is the humble LEGO minifig and he's what I'm gonna be making today of course I've made a minifig before but he was an extra big minifig and totally static so my goal this time is to make a properly sized minifig with swappable posable body parts so right off the bat I need some way to make sure I stick to the proper scale which is where this two-part silicone putty comes into play this stuff is the tits basically you just pull out two equally sized lumps of part A and Part B and blend them together until you're left with a little lump of moldable silicone into which you can press whatever it is that you want to make a mold out of this time it'll be a minifig chest piece so I can stick to a specific scale now to make my posable playable minifigure I'm going to be using cosplay since it's super flexible and rubbery when cured which means that if I make the various insertion orifice is slightly undersized than when I press the limbs in place they should be able to stretch ever so slightly to hold the position without breaking or cracking like normal clay would I'll fill my minifig form with an appropriate amount of hideously yellow clay then cut away the excess and toss it in the oven to cure once it's cooled down I can pop it out of the form and chop off the flashing until I've got a mostly recognizable limbless headless Lego torso [Music] as it turns out in lovely twist of fate the little lengths of dowel that I have are the perfect size for a minifig head so I'll drill A Little Neck hole on the top of Carl's torso using my fingers as the drill to keep from splitting the clay then I can measure up the length of the dowel and chop off a tiny bit off the tip before dry fitting it to make sure it lines up and my head still fits a quick bit of surgery will make sure Carl's shoulders are equally sized and I'm finally ready to start building out his bulky belly I could of course just make a normal little Lego minifigure and call it a date but that's not really on brand for this channel so instead I'm going to be making a realistic interpretation of a Lego man but with a big fat hairy belly oh and of course he'll be wearing some tighty whities because I mean why wouldn't he be so once I've added a nice round beer belly and bolt down his back with ample rolls and fat folds I can bake it in the oven again to lock the shape before getting on to making his head as I mentioned before this Dell is the perfect size for Carl's neck hole so I figured it'd be easiest just to build his head directly on top of the tip however one thing to remember is that clay won't stick to wood without some sort of glue but I want to be able to remove the head once it's finished so I'll start by making a thin layer of clay that's just thick enough to be a mini fig neck I'll then cut it down to the correct size and length and bake it so I have a nice solid clay base that I can build the rest of Carl's thinking box on top of once it's been baked it's got just enough bite to stay stuck on the dowel but it should be easy enough to pop off later then it's just a case of adding clay bit by bit using the mini fig faces reference to make sure my sizing is mostly correct I'll add the little knob on top to make sure I can add a hat or hair later than some final smoothing and rounding of the edges will finish the shape and I can start to add the detail starting by poking some little eye sockets that get filled with little black eyeballs [Music] some gentle poking with a rounded edge of a silicone shaper will help give Carl some much needed expressiveness around his eyes and I can start to add his happy little smile if Carl looks extra sweaty here it's because I'm using a tiny bit of Vaseline on the tip of my tool to help smooth the clay also there's a heat wave where I live and Carl doesn't exactly have a body built for warm weather so it's possible that some of the moisture is his body trying to cool down now I wanted Carl to have some ears but in keeping with the rounded Lego man Anatomy I don't want them to stick out so I'll poke a couple deep divots into the side of his head where his ears would be finally some final Aura fishing on his top knob will bring my head to completion and if you're having trouble telling which is which the original Lego man is on the right while Carl's head is on the left once it's been baked I can twist his head off the dowel and admire the perfectly sized neck hole a quick dry fit on a Lego body to make sure both parts are compatible and I'm ready to get work making Carl's legs I'll use my minifig legs to line up the leg attachment sphincters by painting the tips with a bit of white chalk and pressing both parts together this will leave me with the correct location for the sphincters which I can drill out using my finger power drill then double check the spacing using my LEGO legs [Music] to make Carl's legs I made another silicone mold but of the front of the mini-fig legs which I'll then cut down into the individual legs and drill out a couple mounting holes on the sides I know the legs will be the most awkward part to make movable since the connection points will be very thin and flimsy so I'm gonna try to make his crotchal region out of tongue depressors these particular tongue depressors are made out of natural wood so you know their high quality and should be able to handle the stresses of an overweight Lego Man's legs I'll cut the tip off the stick then drill a little hole in the center so I can fit my leg through and to Mark out the proper size for his crotch I'll then cut away the excess and try and force the leg back through the hole making sure to snap the center piece in half I'll then remake the crotch from a new piece of wood and attach it to another little custom strip of tongue depressor that will be the upper portion of Carl's legs I'm using extra thin CA glue to connect the pieces as I'm hoping that this will soak into the wood and help reinforce the fibers to attach my legs to my torso I'll fit a couple short lengths of my neck dowel into Carl's torso holes then add a couple dabs of CA glue and press the legs into place and once the fit is firm I can remove the legs and start to cover the wood in tighty whitey white clay to help the clay adhere to the wood I've painted the surface and bacon bond which should both help keep the clay from peeling off but also reinforce the connection Point make sure I can happily remove my legs whenever I want without fear of the dowel coming loose also once I've got the general tidy weighty design built up I can press the crotch into Carl's torso and not as overhanging belly deform the clay so that I have a perfect fit I'll then refine the shape of the underside so that my legs are form-fitting to his man panties and I can remove the two sections so that I can then bake the slightly unset slightly possibly stained underwear by itself in the meantime I'll get to work refining the shape of his legs we'll remove some of the sharper edges then chop his foot off so I can replace it with a slightly more natural looking lump of clay that will be his eventual single toe I'll then drill a hole in the back of his leg for the ever important Lego man back of the leg sphincter before adding some slightly wonky knees to make his legs look a little more like like I can't add much detail the tops of his legs since they need to conform to the shape of his tidy whities but I can add a lot of detail to his single big toe now for those unaware of Lego Anatomy your standard minifig doesn't have toes rather they have a single big toe dead center of the foot repeat this entire process but mirrored to give me my right leg and all I need to do is drill out the bottom of the foot to give me my bottom foot grippy sphincters and my legs are finished for the arms I'll eyeball the center of Carl's torso then drill out a couple's shoulder holes since the clay is a bit thicker thanks to his ample upper body I can use the drill here to speed up the process since the arms are a bit thinner instead of dowel I'll use some kebab skewers which are conveniently the same size as a standard minifig shoulder socket and once I've trimmed them down to size I can fit them into Carl's side holes so I can build the arms directly on top of his body also to keep the uncured arm from sticking to the Torso while I sculpt it I've painted a thick layer of Vaseline over Carl's side otherwise I can attach some slightly skewed yellow clay sausages onto the exposed shoulder skewers and refine the shape until I've got some ever so slightly muscly looking Lego arms I'll then poke some teeny tiny divots into the tips of Carl's arm Nubs until I've got a big enough hole to fit a hand I'm sorry that is a it's a poor choice of words same as the legs I'll do it again on the other side which will leave me with a pair of mostly finished Lego arms that just need a couple little Lego claws fortunately not only are my kebab skewers the perfect size for shoulder sockets but they're also exactly the correct size to fit in a standard minifig hand so I guess if you're short on Lego weapons you can arm an entire Lego army with teeny tiny bow staves if you stuck up on Kebab sticks after stumbling home from a late night out and in need of some greasy stomach lining to make my hands then I can wrap some teeny tiny Blobs of clay around my little Turkish bow staff until I've got some teeny tiny yellow Lego claws I'll use my mini-fig hand for reference to get the shape and size correct then same as the foot I'll give my single fingers a single oversized nail as well as plenty of wrinkles around the knuckles I can then attach a couple cut to size toothpicks to The Backs before wrapping them in a thin layer of yellow clay once they've been baked they'll slide up and off the skewers so I can friction fit them into Carl's armholes with that I can sit back and admire my work [Laughter] finally I've got a fully functional completely posable homemade minifig which means the only thing left to do is add a bit of life to Carl by painting some details in fortunately he comes apart easily to make painting each section really simple at this point as tidy whities look a little bit too much like a diaper so I'll give it a quick base coat of white to cover any of the wood that's showing through then I can add some banding with light gray which I think helps to sell it as a pair of underwear instead of a pair of adult diapers I'll then give the entirety of his body a quick sponging with a similarly yellow yellow to help hide any of the discoloration the clay picked up while sculpting as well as give the surface a bit of texture then I can add a touch of pale flesh skin tone by gently dabbing the surface with a thin light pink to add a bit of shading in the skin folds and various orifices I'll wash it all with a very transparent Brown wash followed by an equally transparent yellow to help tie all the shades together next I'll base coat the toenails and fingernails in a white that will then get top coated with a heavy sepia wash to make them look extra gnarly and natural then I'll come back with my tiniest brush covered in a reddish brown paint to add lots of reddish brown hairs on his legs and arms as well as build up a nice patch of manly hair on his chest and belly and backside each of his exposed leg sphincters will get a radish wash to add some highlighting and I'll do the same to his ears mouth and the rims around his eyes of course you can't forget to add a little to his top knob then I'll paint his eyes a deep dark black and add a tiny bit of UV resin to finish them off [Music] finally I can reattach all the parts and Carl is complete and looking exceptionally handsome in fact apart from the differences in clothing I think it's nearly impossible to tell these two apart not only that but I managed to make Carl in such a way that every single one of his Parts can be swapped out with a standard mini fig so the options are endless otherwise I think we're done here and onto the Glamor Shots [Music] thank you [Music] as always a huge thank you to the wonderful patrons of patreon who continue to help me pay off someone else's mortgage at a big hey how are you to my newest patrons Brian Carson Matthew Taylor Travis sharp Heather Engel Marie Spalding Kirsty belzaneff Deadpool Inc Darian Ellen and happy birthday Jillian the waffle you are the pristine tidy whities over which this beer belly of a channel hangs I have to say I'm chuffed to bits with how Carl turned out and I can't believe how many baller outfits he can pull off as you watch him spin around in the background leave me a comment down below letting me know which version is your favorite otherwise we'll uh see you next time cheers [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: North of the Border

Views: 4,838,154

Keywords: Lego is expensive, so I made my own out of clay, lego moc, lego creation, lego meme, lego builder, lego minifigure, lego ideas, lego memes, lego tutorial, clay tutorial, lego diy, minifig, make your own minifig, north of the border

Id: HsMoSjNMlZM

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023