At Brickvention 2011 I met Kris Buchan. His display of minifigs was gaining lots of attention, from young and old alike — and so it should. He has been modding Lego minifigs for quite a few years now and has built a nice pop culture collection that revolves around diverse subjects from horror to Star Wars and sport.

When my boys got home, they began rearranging minifigs and displaying them en masse, obviously inspired by the work Kris had done. So, I took the chance to ask Chris a few questions about not just why, but how he goes about his craft and what tips he might have for aspiring Geeklets who want to start getting creative with minifigs.

Plus. It was a chance to get some great photos of his work. Like these zombie minifigs...

GD: How did the modding of minifigs begin?

Kris: I’ve always loved Lego since I was a kid, particularly their original space series, (which for some reason predicted that space colonization would result in a lot of Blue space ships and moon bases?). I would play out complete sagas and each individual minifig would have their own name and personality. To remember who was who, (given all the spacemen minifigs only came in red or white), I would mix up the color combos by interchanging their arms. For example "Major Dev Maverick" was red with a white left arm, "Lt Pete Smithson" was white with a red left arm, and so on. And frankly I thought they looked cooler that way, like the different colored arms were a sign of rank. So that was where I began.

Like many AFOLs (Adult Fan Of Lego), there was a period where the Lego got packed away gathering dust for many a year, until Lego brought out the first of their "Star Wars" sets. They combined 2 of my childhood loves, and the passion was back. They then started doing sets for the "prequels," (love them or hate them, they are now part of Sci-Fi history), and George Lucas in all his merchandising foresight, decided that in Episode III the Clone troopers would no longer be just plain white like they originally were, or would end up being when they became Storm troopers in the original series.

So I decided that I would start customizing the plain white clone troopers, to look like the different ‘Commanders’ and squads in the movie. At first I just used good ol’ paint like I used to in my airplane modelling days, but came across the waterslide decal work of Jared Burks, (aka Kaminoan in the minifig customization world), and it was brilliant. So a lot of my original customs combined paint, sculpting waterslide decals from Jared and if they needed custom cloth accessories, I got those from Mark Parker, (aka MMCB). I guess you could look at it as ‘sub-contracting’ out some of the work, LOL!

GD: What are some of the specific techniques you have developed?

Kris: One of the first techniques I applied to customizing from my modeling days was when painting, always use masking tape to mask of areas you don’t want the paint to get to, and it gives you a nice sharp line. I cant stress highly enough that if you primarily use paint and need a clean straight line, that’s the way to go.

I have also become quite adapt and sculpting, using a modeling clay. Lego Purists hate that, but then certain "purists" hate minifigs anyway if they aren’t part of some massive diorama, but to each their own. To sculpt I use a product called "milliput," it’s available at all modeling shops and it’s a two-part compound. Knead two equals parts together and you get a great modeling clay that you can easily shape, cut, stretch and the best part is it air dries, i.e. does not require it to be baked in an oven like some other types of sculpting clay. After 6 – 8 hours, it is as solid as concrete and you can file, sand, drill it, etc. It’s great for creating chest bursting effects (as seen in the pic above).

I learnt to not have any fears when it comes to cutting parts up, and a hobby knife is the best tool for that. Also needle files and modeling sand paper to smooth out the cut pieces, to get end results like this guy. You can get these tools quite cheaply from a hobby shop.

Finally After being inspired by such great decal designers such as Jared and Flickr members Roaglan, Triump and others I decided to try and do some custom decals myself. The end results have not been too bad. I’m not as savvy with programs like ‘Photoshop’ and other vector graphic programs, so I tend to use the most basic of all, Microsoft Paint. Yep, that free program that you get with your Windows O/S. The lines can be blocky, but the trick is to do a large version than reduce it in size when doing the print. It then looks perfect to the naked eye once in minifigs scale. Then you simply print away on a color laser or Inkjet printer. Waterslide decal paper is easily ordered from many printer paper supply online shops, just Google "Laser or Inkjet Waterslide decal paper." A very important tip for decal application is to apply Decal Setting solution to the minifigs surface that you want to apply the decal to, this allows you to move the deal into its correct position and then also helps the adhesion as it starts to dry. Then once applied, use a Decal softening solution, which helps the decal set and is very helpful for when applying to curved areas like the head or arms, and makes the decal look like it’s been printed onto the piece once it’s dried. Again, these types of products can be found at any good hobby shop.

GD: How long does it take to create a unique minifig?

Kris: It can depend on the complexity and some times the time it takes is more dependent on waiting for paint, decals or sculpting to simply dry. A basic custom will require around 2-3 hours total work time, some of my more complex ones have had 20-30 hours put into them spread over a couple of weeks. So that’s a lot of work for such a small hobby!

GD: What are your favorite minifig mods?

Kris: I would say any mod that gives my minifigs a "3D" type of feel, like the Kane/Alien minifigs, my Darth Krayt minifig and my Zombie minifig. I also enjoy doing home made decals to create movie characters such as "The Bride" from Kill Bill and "Freddy Kruger." These were decals I designed from scratch, (the face decal for The Bride is Courtesy of Jared), and printed on my Laser printer. As you can see it’s not that hard to get a reasonable result using the above mentioned techniques.

GD: Have you had many requests - what are some of the strangest?

Kris: LOL, yes, I get requests a lot, "Do you sell your customs," "can we trade customs" and so on, but I have never sold one as that’s not what it’s about for me. Many have a lot of time go into them and it’s only really for my own enjoyment, so I’m flattered that anyone would be interested enough to inquire about one. And yes, I’ve had specific requests for customs, the stranger ones were someone saw my Zombie minifig and requested a bride and groom Zombie for their wedding cake, and someone asked for a, well, ‘adult’ female minifig. No idea what the end intent for that was, but unfortunately for both, I work a pretty busy job, I have 2 sons (15 ½ and 4 months). I’m just not equipped to handle requests.

GD: What is the usual response from friends and fans?

Kris: Friends and fans are always positive and I do always appreciate any constructive feedback, as I tend to border on perfectionism, so see tiny faults long after they’re finished.

It’s always very positive and at the Lego exhibitions I’ve attended, the kids have really love them. It’s funny because the parents will be "Come on Timmy, have a look at this big building/train/spaceship," and Timmy will be “it’s ok, you go and I’ll wait for you here!”. And I think that it works positively for Lego as kids love minifigs. They can pick them up and play with them (just like we did with Star Wars figures as kids), and not worry about it falling apart and having to rebuild it again, and like I did as a kid, they can give each minifig it’s own name, character, background story. You can’t do that with a spaceship for example.

The one common response from both kids and parents of my customs is they all find the ones involving a bit of blood and gore (My Zombie, Alien Chest-burster, Visible minifig), fascinating. Nothing like good ol’ blood and guts to get kids and parents on the same page.

GD: What suggestions would you have for GeekDads and kids interested in trying to create their own unique minifigs?

Kris: Firstly I would always say, keep at it. The first custom minifigs you build may not turn out how you expect it, or you might compare it to other ones that you see on the internet and think it’s no good. But in reality, it is a custom minifigs and that makes it unique, and with each one you make, you will refine your skills. And definitely be open to feedback, but as long as its constructive feedback. Also, don’t over complicate things to start with. Remember, just changing up combinations of hair pieces, heads, torsos and legs is a simple way to create your own custom minifigs. There is at present over 680 different heads, 1120+ torsos and 180+ legs, (before even adding in other Minifig parts), so that means an incredible 14 million plus different minifig combinations!

Also go on the internet, search websites such as Brickshelf, Flickr and others to get ideas or technique tips from other customizers out there. There’s nothing wrong with borrowing inspiration from other builders but if you use their decal design and just print it yourself, good etiquette in the Lego world is to always pay credit to the original designer or builder if you post your figure or model on the internet.

If you are going to use paint, using a water based paint is great in that you don’t have to use thinners and clean up is fantastically easy. Always allow plenty of drying time between coats, especially if painting a different color next to the first coat otherwise they will ‘bleed’ into each other. And if you want a supper smooth paint finish, you can try using spray paint but it’s not easy to paint fine detail with that.

And to the kids, PLEASE be careful if using hobby knives, and always have a parent on hand. I carry many "battle scars" from those including one instance that ended in 5 stitches, (though that was while building a remote control car). I broke the cardinal rule of knives, which is always cut away, not towards yourself!

GeekDad wants to thank Kris for his time and for the great work he does on his customised minifigs. Thanks Kris for the tips and you can seea full collection of his workon Flickr.