Arealight’s Custom Work – Overview

WEBSITE: Arealight Custom Work
LOCATION: Taiwan
STORE: Arealight Custom Shop
GALLERY: flickr 
PRICE: worth the price! 😀
SHIPPING: $5 flat rate (tracked & registered)
SHIPPING TIME TO USA: 8-10 days

Bluce Shu (aka. Arealight) is a Taiwan based LEGO customizer. He hand-fashions each of the original pieces used for molding his LEGO customs. His artistic skills are amazing!

Originally Arealight used to cast his LEGO-compatible custom pieces in dyed resin. I’m fortunate enough to have many of these original pieces. They were expensive, as each of them had to be individually cast, but they were stunningly beautiful! Those days his line of work included historic Asian-style helmets and some LEGO Star Wars related pieces to fit minifigures.

He also made beautiful, flowing capes, cast in resin. This is my most favorite piece from Arealight! I much prefer these capes over LEGO’s own cloth capes and they fit LEGO minifigs beautifully.

Arealight also added a few custom hairstyles to fit LEGO minifigures. They have somewhat of an Asian anime style.

Arealight also designed a really cute scooter for LEGO minifigs that fits well in any LEGO City setting. (This piece is now available from BrickForge in several colors, with or without print.)

Arealight shares some photos from his workshop, giving you a sneak-peek into the interesting nuances of LEGO customization. (You can see a lot more pictures in his flickr gallery.)

A couple of years ago Arealight upgraded to ABS plastic, which is more durable than resin, and a lot easier to cast in quantity – bringing the price down. He no longer makes the historic pieces and capes, although I hope one day he will re-introduce them. The hair pieces are still available.

Arealight’s focus now is to create custom pieces in the Star Wars theme. He fashion helmets, visors and jetpacks for LEGO Star Wars clone commandos and Mandalorians.

And perhaps the pieces Arealight is most famous for are the custom head and accessories for the Star Wars character, Twi’lek. He also fashioned female-style curved torsos that can be used for Twi’lek or other female characters (available both printed and unprinted).

QUALITY: the quality of Arealight’s custom LEGO parts is amazing! Especially if you consider that the original pieces used for creating the molds are hand-fashioned! There may be some very slight imperfections due to the hand-made nature of the pieces; like lines or angles may not be as sharp as on a computer-designed piece. But these are so slight it is really hard to notice them. This is what makes Arealight a great artisan!

MOLD-DETAIL: once you see the details on the pieces you will really appreciate Arealight’s artistry. And remember; the pieces may look large on these pictures, they are LEGO minifigure scale, and are actually very small.

COLORS: Arealight put great effort into matching his custom pieces with LEGO’s official colors. He offers his custom LEGO parts in a great range of LEGO compatible colors. And many of them are also custom printed.

SUMMARY: If you are into LEGO Star Wars, and would like to add a greater variety to your LEGO Star Wars minifigure collection, by all means check out Arealight’s customs! They are really worth it! You would also be supporting the work of a true artist.

I must also add that Arealight is a super nice person. If you have any questions about his customs just ask him! You can reach him through the “Contact Us” link on his website. 😀