Sunday 5 January 2014

Fighting Fantasy LEGO!

Happy New Year all! Now that the pre-Christmas deadlines and Christmas itself are out of the way, I thought I'd better get back to the blog.

One of my childhood passions, long before I'd even heard of Fighting Fantasy, was Lego, especially classic space Lego. Birthdays, Christmas and summer trips were eagerly awaited so that I could get my hands on a new set or two. My interest in Lego waned in my later teenage years and 20s, but like many an FF fan in the same situation, I rediscovered Lego later in life, coming out of my 'dark ages' and becoming a proper AFOL (what's the FF equivalent I wonder - an AFOFF?). In the time I'd been away from Lego, it had changed dramatically, from a pretty basic set of bricks and building techniques, where all the characters had the same simple smiling face, to a much more complex array of pieces, complicated building procedures, and minifigures with all sorts of faces, fashions and accessories. You can now buy anything from a Super Star Destroyer to Helm's Deep, and when it comes to making your own creations (MOCs), the only limiting factors are your time, imagination and money, especially since you can source any amount of spare parts online.

Perhaps naturally enough, it has occurred to me that combining my passions for Lego and FF might be fun. But it turns out that I'm not the first person to think of this. Indeed, latter-day master of Fighting Fantasy Jonathan Green has seen the potential and has done some mini-MOCs of characters from his own FF books - see here, here and here for example. Great stuff, and certainly an inspiration to me to do the same sort of thing.

So I thought it might be fun to build some MOCs on an FF theme myself. The problem is that this takes a lot of time and more than a little bit of cash, to accrue the necessary bricks and to get things looking right. So I don't have any proper builds to offer you right now, but it is something I'm hoping for in the future, so watch this space. But in the meantime, I thought it might be fun to throw together a few simple dioramas based on FF, and to let you guess what I'm trying to represent. The first one, not polished by any means but pretty obvious anyway, is this:

Who's this tosser?
So can you work out what FF scene this is based on? 5gp to the person who gets it first!

13 comments:

  1. City of Thieves, 398

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  2. since i have not find how to post with my Facebook profile, i'm Planete LDVELH ^^
    this riddle was very fun. happy new year to you too

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    1. Well done! Glad you liked it. Alas, a pickpocket has just stolen my purse so the 5gp will have to remain unpaid...

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  3. Excellent likeness :-))

    I'd have recognised that cannonball-catch guy anywhere.

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    1. I was inspired by this one by getting a couple of those 'cannonballs' recently and, especially, by the bare muscle-bound chest and cheesy grin of that fingure (the 'Jungle Boy' - i.e. Tarzan - from the 6th Lego minifigure series). I swapped his hair for the hair-piece from Frodo Baggins to get the curly effect.

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  4. deadshadowrunner6 January 2014 at 05:57

    Ha ha,very funny.I have been waiting for another post after such a long break.:)

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    1. Thanks! I'm afraid a variety of pre-Christmas deadlines and then the laziness-fest that was Christmas itself conspired to keep me away from things. It's kind of how I work anyway - spells of activity interspersed with periods of inactivity as real life takes over, but I'll do my best to keep them coming semi-regularly and will advertise when I do in any case.

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  5. That's an easy one, but I'm late to the party, as usual!

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    1. Yes, I shall have to see if I can come up with something a bit more obscure for next time. Although half the fun is just in recreating something recognisable and iconic.

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  6. Great stuff! Glad you liked mine.

    Here's another one you might not have seen: http://jonathangreenauthor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/gamebook-friday-my-fighting-fantasy.html

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    1. Brilliant! Both mostly from the excellent Monster Fighters Vampyre Castle aptly enough.

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  7. Two BARBARIANS fighting! No reward, it was too easy!

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