Snoopy
I've been wanting to build a Snoopy sculpture for a while, but this year has been really rough between relocating and starting a new job, so this is my first MOC of 2004, and it's December. Anyway, on with the build..
Color-wise, Snoopy is very easy to build: a lot of white bricks, some red, and some black. I'm very happy that there is a LEGO store in the local mall, because they had lots of white 2 x 10 bricks at the Pick-a-Brick.
Snoopy consits of mostly bricks, and the feet are solid. The head was created to make sure it was weighted properly. If it wasn't, the head would tip forward because it is naturally front-heavy.
I started with the head and built the body from that point. I wanted to make sure the face looks right, not only from the side, but from the front. Even though Snoopy is mostly basic bricks, the nose is a 4 x 4 turntable, and the eyes consist of hinges and hinge plates.
I was trying to make Snoopy as movable as possible. After the head was completed, it is mounted on the body and able to rotate. The ears are also hinged so that they do not interfere with the head movement.
Snoopy is proportioned where is head is the biggest part of his body. Snoopy's head is as long as his body is tall. His feet also had to be a fairly large size (he's drawn this way as well) to support the sculpture.
I wanted to make the arms articulated, but I thought that would take away from the sculpture. The other thing I did take into consideration is how much Snoopy has changed over the years. His ears and face changed considerably, but given that the Peanuts comics ran for 50 years, it's not surprising.
I was pleasantly surprised that I had enough bricks during the entire build process. It was nice to build him and not have to run out to the store to buy more bricks.
The only thing that gave me grief was the arms. They took a while to do because I had to redo them a couple of times. I had originally started with plates, but the arms look better built in bricks. When I did finally get the arms right, I had to reposition them a few times to get them placed right on the body.
Some stats: about 2 feet tall (same height as the space minifig and Albert), not as heavy as the space minifig (Snoopy is not as solid), lots of white bricks, and between 1,500 and 2,000 total LEGO bricks and parts.
Building process pictures are in my Brickshelf folder.