Fifteen Millimeters

That’s the standard waistline of a Lego person. Why do I know this? Because, inspired by the Brick Testament, I’m thinking over the possibility of depicting some scenes from early church history in Legos.

Yesterday, Pippa hauled the three-children’s-worth collection of Legos upstairs from the basement, and we started taking a census. It turns out that we have a lot of Lego people (“minifigs,” in the jargon of Lego). Unfortunately, many of them are missing significant body parts — arms, hands, heads, you know, minor stuff such as that — due to a phase Pippa and her friends Monica and Emily went through, wherein they totally disassembled every Lego person and lost as many bits as you’d expect. Moreover, the Lego people in our collection form a demographic uncharacteristic of any segment of early church history with which I’m acquainted. We have space people (Voltron and Blacktron, mostly), Robin Hood characters, knights, doctors, police officers, and especially pirates (I could use some of these to illustrate the dominical saying, “If your right eye offends you, pluck it out,” I guess).

I figure I’ll use some of the full-page sticker paper to print templates of a Lego torso, to cover up the painted-on adornments. That’ll leave mostly the difficulty of the missing limbs.

When Margaret tackled the prosthetics problem (are they properly called “prosthetics” when both the original limb and its substitute are the same plastic?), she discovered the thriving market in Lego parts. We’re trying out BrickLink; when our orders for Lego hair, utensils, and other elements come through, I’ll be sure to report on how the service was. And in the meantime, if you have Legos that you want to contribute to this noble effort to record in jointed plastic the events of the first 600 years of the church, feel free to let me know!

4 thoughts on “Fifteen Millimeters

  1. Here’s some advice from a hardcore Lego fan (I was directed here by my brother of 40bicycles fame):

    If you are planning to do a big project, I suggest investing in enough Lego to supply a fair sized county (Most adult lego fans have 100k+ pieces).

    Martin Luther Has been done.

    Before you build anything major, hang around some LEGO® fan pages. Your building will improve dramatically.

    The average waistline of a Lego person is well, bigger than 15mm, be warned.

  2. Is “Legos” a uniquely North American plural for Lego. And if so why not “Legoes?”

    Growing up in Britain and New Zealand “Lego” seemed to be treated as a collective noun. Wasn’t until I came across some North American blogs referring to Lego that I encountered “Legos”.

  3. Most Lego fans get annoyed when LEGO is called LEGOs. You don’t call K’NEX K’NEXs do you? Actually, the LEGO company say ‘LEGO’ is only supposed to be used as an adjective, not a noun. So, technically, LEGO bricks is correct, while LEGO and LEGOs is not.

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