How to build Lego birds:

"Jim Spanfeller" (awesomeaustinv) 04/27/2020 at 21:00 • Filed to: Lego

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For anyone interested, here’s a beginner’s guide to building Lego birds. I’ll be showing you how to build my hepatic tanager model, and talking about some of the different building techniques used in my Lego birds to help you build your own birds. But first, the hepatic tanagers:

I’ll be showing you how to build the female one, but if you want to build the male one, the only real difference is the colors.

The rounding on these birds is inspired by the Lowell Sphere technique, which is one of the smallest and most effective ways to create a convincing sphere out of Lego:

There are many ways to build bird legs, and in this case I’ve used droid arms. Th ey tend to work well on birds that have smaller legs.

Those little “rail” pieces are helpful for rounding the corners when the parts change direction (a major part of the Lowell S phere technique) and you don’t have enough room to fit jumper plates in that space. And with that, now it’s time to build the top part of the bird!

Half-stud offsets are your friend. Here, it’s used to mount the head of the bird. Sometimes it works to just mount the head flat on the body of the bird like this , but often it’s better to mount the head on a hinge.

Since the top and bottom of the bird are both built studs-out, it needs a SNOT (Studs Not On Top) core to let you connect the bottom upside-down. This technique is one of the most compact solutions, taking up the height of only a single brick.

Joining the two halves of the bird’s body is the most satisfying part IMO ;)

There are loads of ways to build wings. In this case, the wings blend well enough with the bird’s body that simple rectangles with pointy ends work well enough, but other birds require a bit more shaping to the wings.

Using a jumper plate on the “chin” of the bird helps round it out a bit, sort of like a smaller version of the Lowell Sphere technique.

Ta-da!

Here are some alternate techniques you can use on the inside of the bird, depending on what parts you want to use.

The hepatic tanager isn’t too complicated, but where this starts to get more challenging is when replicating birds with more fancy plumage, such as this blue jay, which is a lot more complex than the hepatic tanager.

Here’s an exploded view of the blue jay to get an idea of some other techniques you can use.

Enjoy!

UserNotFound > Jim Spanfeller 04/27/2020 at 21:15

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Tweet tweet, motherf* cker.

For Sweden > Jim Spanfeller 04/27/2020 at 21:49

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Where do you put the battery, motor, loudspeaker, and surveillance equipment?

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Jim Spanfeller 04/27/2020 at 22:05

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But how do you build a less murderous bird whose name begins with Thunder?

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Jim Spanfeller 04/27/2020 at 23:00

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Th ose are  great. I think I'm going to have to scrape the parts together for that. 

shop-teacher > Jim Spanfeller 04/27/2020 at 23:21

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Those are nice models!

Jim Spanfeller > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 04/27/2020 at 23:33

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Now that’s a significantly larger and more complex model... And g iven how long it took me to make instructions for the hepatic tanager, I shudder to think how much work would be involved in making instructions for the Thunderbird...  Not to mention it uses an absurd quantity of 1x1 slopes (I had to buy them in bulk specifically for this model).

Jim Spanfeller > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap 04/27/2020 at 23:34

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Thanks! Please post if you do.

Jim Spanfeller > For Sweden 04/27/2020 at 23:36

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Hmm, I’m afraid you’ll have to design your own bird for that. These may be just a wee bit too small...

Jim Spanfeller > shop-teacher 04/27/2020 at 23:44

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Thanks! You can see more here, in case you missed it: https://oppositelock.kinja.com/bird-watching-with-awesomeaustinv-1843092753