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Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 2:10 am
by Str0ngbad
Image Image
This is the first finished product I've done with melted LEGO pieces. The benefits of this as opposed to painting them are precise color matching and improved durability.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:08 am
by royalbrickcustoms
Str0ngbad wrote:Image Image
This is the first finished product I've done with melted LEGO pieces. The benefits of this as opposed to painting them are precise color matching and improved durability.
That is absolutely incredible Str0ngbad . One quick question, does it make the ears thicker (then they already are) after applying the "paint"?

~RBC

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:14 pm
by Eklund
That is a cool technique, I hadn't heard of it before.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:33 pm
by Str0ngbad
royalbrickcustoms wrote:That is absolutely incredible Str0ngbad . One quick question, does it make the ears thicker (then they already are) after applying the "paint"?

~RBC
Thanks guys. I hope I'm able to make use of it elsewhere since I prefer fleshies anyway. The ears aren't noticeably thicker as all you need is 1-2 thin coats. I'm trying out modifying a sword handle today so that I can test its durability compared to paint.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 2:03 pm
by Kev
My suggestion would be to create a mold of a pair of lego elf ears, then cast sets of ears using lego yellow abs. You could then modify almost any existing hair piece into an elf by adding the ears.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 4:12 pm
by Str0ngbad
I had considered this but after working with the stuff it didn't seem as practical to me. I haven't done any molding though so I might be wrong. If that's something in your skill set, I would love to see how it works.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 5:26 pm
by AK_Brickster
Like I said in my PM, this looks amazing.

I'd love to get a few sets of modified ears so that they could be female elves and I'll just use my short elf hair for the males.

Do you think that the werewolf hair could be used for this as well?

Image

I wonder if the brown would be too dark for the yellow to cover very well without multiple coats.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:43 pm
by Str0ngbad
AK_Brickster wrote:Like I said in my PM, this looks amazing.

I'd love to get a few sets of modified ears so that they could be female elves and I'll just use my short elf hair for the males.

Do you think that the werewolf hair could be used for this as well?

Image

I wonder if the brown would be too dark for the yellow to cover very well without multiple coats.

I'd be happy to give it a go if you want to send me one. It might need a light basecoat of white paint. Are the ears reddish-brown? I can try coating the side of a brick the same color to test it.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 9:24 pm
by AK_Brickster
Yes, reddish brown. If the test works, I might consider it. I only own one of them at the moment so would be hesitant to part with it.
(I guess it's time to fire up the ol' bricklink again.... :P)

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 2:12 am
by Justin M
Quite impressive! :)

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Sun Mar 31, 2013 1:11 pm
by athronieth
Looks awesome. I do not use any fleshies and am not opposed to modifying LEGO pieces. Tempting to give it a try, although I would prefer one of the custom vendors starting a new line of elf hairpieces with the standard yellow ears!

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2013 2:36 pm
by AmperZand
athronieth wrote:I do not use any fleshies and am not opposed to modifying LEGO pieces.
Same here. I have used the Sharpie method to recolour Legolas and Tauriel's ears. True, the colour match isn't perfect but it's really very close. If you didn't know that TLG didn't do LotR elf ears in yellow, you wouldn't guess from casually viewing the minifig. As for durability, I brushed them with Humbrol satin cote. No amount of handling will remove the yellow now.

I have a picture on my phone of my Legolas with yellow head, ears and hands. Unfortunately, I can't upload it from my phone. I can only e-mail it. :cry:

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 7:40 pm
by Ferretclaw
Thats great looking! Personally, I definitely prefer flesh to yellow. But I'm wondering if you could make the yellow paint as flesh instead, and paint the ears on the series 3(?) elf hair and the werewolf hair. One quarrel i have with the lotr elf hair is that you cant really put a quiver on the elf that has it (well, you actually can, but the hair pops off a lot a looks kinda weird with the quiver on). As for molding, it would be really cool to do a helmet with elf hair hanging out the back, like on the lothlorien troop in the helms deep level on the lego lord of the rings game.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 4:35 am
by OverLoad
Ferretclaw wrote:Thats great looking! Personally, I definitely prefer flesh to yellow. But I'm wondering if you could make the yellow paint as flesh instead, and paint the ears on the series 3(?) elf hair and the werewolf hair. One quarrel i have with the lotr elf hair is that you cant really put a quiver on the elf that has it (well, you actually can, but the hair pops off a lot a looks kinda weird with the quiver on). As for molding, it would be really cool to do a helmet with elf hair hanging out the back, like on the lothlorien troop in the helms deep level on the lego lord of the rings game.
The question of that would be, what would you melt down to get the fleshy color? You could melt down some heads, but I'm not sure how the printing would help with that. If you had blanks, maybe.

As far as I know, there aren't flesh bricks, or at least, not ones that are easily attainable. Feel free to correct me if I am incorrect in this.

Re: Elf Ears Coated with Yellow LEGOs

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:53 am
by AK_Brickster
You could use arms and hands. Both are pretty readily available. As for painting the werewolf hair, it seems like you'd need several coats to cover the brown.