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LEGO Ideas Project: Baby Builds

(Written by Geneva – gid617)

You may remember the first LEGO baby, who showed up in 2016 in the #60134 LEGO City People Pack. When my sister got that set for her birthday, I borrowed the baby for a little vignette. Before long, I bought a dozen or so babies of my own and started building little vehicles and buildings for them to play with.

After giving several baby-scaled builds away to friends of mine, I realized that the concept was perfect for a LEGO Ideas set. That was well over a year ago, but with the help of some free time in quarantine I finished the project and now Baby Builds is in the voting stage on LEGO Ideas! For those unfamiliar with how that works, LEGO Ideas is a platform where builders can post creations, campaign for votes, and have their project reviewed by LEGO for potential production as an official LEGO set once it reaches 10,000 votes.

Behind these four models is a lot of thought and work and a few failed prototypes, so let’s take a closer look!

First of all there’s the castle. This was really where the idea all started; when I borrowed my sister’s baby, I built an 8×8 vignette with it in front of a micro castle. There were several things I didn’t like about the way that turned out—especially the border, which distracts too much from the rest of the creation. Also, the castle is a little small.

As you can see, my first baby castle looks nothing like the one I built for the Baby Builds project! This time, I decided on a scale that would be almost right if the baby were a full sized person. For a LEGO set idea, I needed a substantial build, but it still had to be small enough not to overshadow the baby.

Around back there are a couple of windows and the rest of the moat.

I built the castle itself in a matter of minutes, though it took me hours of thinking it over while working on other things to decide what scale and shape it should be. Afterwards, deciding on the right kind of landscaping and moat took several revisions. At one point, I had green bricks and micro trees all around the moat. That messed with the scale too much though, and also distracted from the castle itself. Several revisions later (some of them digitally in Stud.io), I had a little bit of rocky landscaping, but mostly just the moat.

Next up is the longship! This actually started out as a pirate ship, but unfortunately the recently released #21322 LEGO Ideas Barracuda Bay made a pirate ship an IP clash on LEGO Ideas. That was too bad, because I had this miniature galleon all ready!

When I realized the pirate ship would have to change, I started to brainstorm other kinds of ships. A longship seemed like it would fit nicely into the lineup, and also bring some welcome color. Keeping the same basic hull design from my pirate ship, I had fun changing the six fiddly white sails for one striped one!

The longship was a quick design that didn’t go through many revisions—except the big revision when it stopped being a pirate ship!

Of course I couldn’t claim to have taken the LEGO baby everywhere unless I had a spaceship! Just like with my pirate ship, I faced an IP clash here too; I wanted to do a “normal” space shuttle (complete with opening hatch), but found out that idea was restricted because it had been done already in the #21312 LEGO Ideas Women of NASA set.

So I went back to the drawing board. Naturally, I had already thought of a Classic Space spaceship—blue and light-grey, with transparent-yellow windshields. But I wasn’t quite sure the helmet would look right on the baby. With a little maneuvering, it did! (It tends to slip backwards though.)

Although my original space shuttle took me a long time and went through several revisions, this spaceship turned out to be much easier. The trickiest thing was getting enough details in there without making the spaceship cluttered. In the end, I just tiled whatever I could!

Last of all came the explorer. With two vehicles already, I needed another stationary vignette. Since I had used blue and red on the other baby builds, green vegetation sounded like it would be a good complement. I did try for a small pyramid, but wasn’t able to design one that looked right to me. Instead, I went for a simple pillar and micro-figure statue.

I had to pick between hats too; a cowboy hat would also have looked nice, but the brown was too confusing with the brown dirt and a tan hat would have been even worse.

So that was the journey that led to the Baby Builds LEGO Ideas project! If you like the concept, I would really appreciate your support! Hopefully, the design process has just been the first step on the road to a LEGO set. But even if not, I’ve enjoyed building these and am happy with how far it’s come already!

What do you think? Have you considered doing a LEGO Ideas project? Do my design choices make sense to you? What do you think about a new “baby-scaled” LEGO set? Feel free to share your comments and questions below!

And again, if you’d like to see the Baby Builds as an official LEGO set, give the project your support on LEGO Ideas! Also, if you’d like to see other baby-scale creations I’ve built, check out my Tiny Trailblazers album on Flickr.

{ 23 comments… add one }
  • Ian November 18, 2020, 11:10 AM

    Haha. So cute. I especially like the small viking ship.

    • gid617 November 19, 2020, 11:56 AM

      😀 Thanks, that one was a big hit with my siblings too!

  • Okosh November 18, 2020, 11:42 AM

    Do the helmets fit, or are they just loosely sitting on top of their heads?

    • Håkan Storsaeter November 18, 2020, 4:22 PM

      I’d assume they’re just loosely wobbling around… Not entirely swooshable…

      As far as I know, the only baby-compatible headgear is this rare Heroica part.

      https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=94162&idColor=85#T=C&C=85

      Perhaps it could be fixed with some trick involving an apollo stud brick, or something…

      • Håkan November 18, 2020, 5:10 PM

        Hmm, I don’t own any babyfigs, but now I tried it with a microfig from my old Lunar Command game, and the head has an actual stud so it’s compatible with regular headgear. They just look ludicrously oversized, but i guess a few round tiles between the head and headgear could fix it reasonably.

        • Håkan November 18, 2020, 5:15 PM

          Round plates, I meant…

    • gid617 November 19, 2020, 11:58 AM

      They’re loosely sitting, sometimes with a 1×1 round plate in between. The baby head has a tiny knob on top the size of a normal LEGO bar, but that’s not much use for attaching helmets too. I figure if it ever became a set, you’d need a new baby head mold with a stud on top.
      Oh and I do use sticky putty for photos and display… it just makes life easier… 😉

      • Håkan November 19, 2020, 12:39 PM

        Ah, I figured a baby head could use headgear, since a microfigure could. but apparently the studs are different…

  • jabber-baby-wocky November 18, 2020, 12:50 PM

    Adorable! I could see a whole world built for these little guys! 😀

  • j.j. November 18, 2020, 1:07 PM

    They are very cute, but wouldn’t Lego consider those loose helmets an illegal connection?

    • Master Builder November 18, 2020, 4:25 PM

      Possibly. But if this project gets popular they might consider making baby-compatible helmets.

      • gid617 November 19, 2020, 12:00 PM

        Yeah, or actually I’d go for a new head with a stud on it. That way people can customize with any ordinary LEGO hat.

        They had a policy about not doing new molds for Ideas sets (not even minifigure molds), but that mold got broken ( 😉 ) with the Sesame Street set.

  • mr. marmelade November 18, 2020, 2:11 PM

    This could make a good city pack. You know, how they now have city people packs. They could make a pack just with babies. 😀

  • Emperor P. November 18, 2020, 2:54 PM

    I really like your sailing ship. And Emmet would be proud of your spaceship building skills.

  • hushpuppy November 18, 2020, 3:23 PM

    Very cute mocs. Questions; what’s that piece above the door on the first castle? And how is the baby holding the shield?

    • gid617 November 19, 2020, 12:02 PM

      Let’s see – that’s the sprue from a pair of shurikens. It has a hole the perfect size for a stud on the back.

      The shield is likely not something that could make an official set… it’s just hanging on the baby’s hand.

  • ninelives November 18, 2020, 4:42 PM

    I like that the sails of both ships are brickbuilt. And the babies are cute. But like others said, it’s unlikely they will release a set with loose helmets and accessories. But the idea is very cute. Now I want to go and build something for my babies (I think I have two).

    • gid617 November 19, 2020, 12:04 PM

      Yes, that would definitely be something LEGO would have to think about – when I first got the idea I thought that might mean it would be a definite no; but as I mentioned in an earlier comment, the recent Sesame Street Ideas set came with a few new minifigure molds so the old no new mold policy for Ideas sets may not be quite so strict any more. And all you would need would be one new mold – a new head with a stud on top so ordinary helmets could attach. 😉

  • Håkan November 19, 2020, 6:28 AM

    Ah, first I thought it was a modified 2×2 plate/ tile.

    https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=33909#T=C

    But then, I realized it was just a clip plate above the tile, since the baby’s hands are too small to hold regular minifig tools.

    https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4085d#T=C

    And it looks like the shield is just resting on top of the hand.

    • Håkan November 19, 2020, 4:51 PM

      Sorry. I tried to answer hushpuppy above, but I realize now I misread the question and answered the query by referring to the other castle…

    • gid617 November 21, 2020, 10:22 AM

      Yeah, I think he was talking about the smaller one. You’re right about the clip plate though! I was happy to stumble on that piece when I was brainstorming attachment points, it’s nice and subtle.

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