LEGO Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Minifigures

After three years of anticipation, here we are! Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has finally been released in theaters, and my god it was amazing. I've already seen the film three times while in Kansas City. It was everything I hoped it would be. The entire movie is incredible. It truly is the kick starting of the DC Cinematic Universe, and I could not be more excited for Justice League Part One in November 2017!!

 

Alright, here we go!

(this is all very rough, so please bare with me lol)

 

Batman:

Ever since the initial black & white reveal photo of Ben Affleck in the Batsuit, I had always wondered "How the hell am I gonna make that cowl?" That question was answered for me toward the end of 2015 when I came across minifigmadness' Batman cowl. As soon as I saw it, I knew with a little sanding, I could make it look a hell of a lot closer to the BvS cowl than anything I'd be able to do by modding Lego's. As soon as I got a hold of one, that's exactly what I did! I know not everyone will agree, but I think it turned out great! Also, thanks to a lot of feedback later on in the process of making the figure I sculpted a chinstrap onto the cowl that really completed the whole thing. That in itself was a real challenge, because I had already painted the cowl in my own black color, and sculpting onto something after you already painted it tends to mess things up pretty bad. Anyway, the chinstrap was sculpted in three sections, the main strap itself, and then the two separate pieces that create the curve in each corner. I had a couple of major concerns with it though, the sturdiness of it for one, and how consistent it would look with the rest of the cowl. A few days of sanding and a ton of sealant/various layers of thick paint later, I managed to solve both of those issues! The rest of the figure was really just continuing the pattern that Lego already had going on their printed torso, and if there's one thing I absolutely hate while making figures, it's repetition. Painting the exact same two little lines all over the entire figure while trying to keep it all organized wasn't exactly what I would call enjoyable. Regardless, I knew it would look awesome in the end, and so I pressed on lol. Throw a few black lines in certain areas on top of that, and I had a properly upgraded Ben Affleck Batsuit! Finally, for his weapon, I decided to go with the grenade gun that he uses during both his fight with Superman, and when the Trinity assembles to face Doomsday (hence my decision to allow both the regular Batman and the Armored Batman to share it). At first, I tried to heavily modify a BrickArms D9-8R and glue on a Tiny Tactical grenade launcher attachment. That failed miserably, so I ended up modifying a Coreburner instead, and then I cut the grenade launcher off of a CombatBrick gun instead of potentially wasting another one from TT. This version ended up being a much better idea, and once all of the base colors were applied I painted a fair amount of detail on both sides. Oh and he has a pair of TT glove tops as well, because they're great, they look great on so many figures, and I don't care what anyone else says ;)

 

Superman:

Ok, this figure was definitely a lot simpler. When it comes to body suits on characters, I can paint them with a decent amount of reference over a period of time no problem. However, getting likeness to an actor right is never an easy thing to do. Thankfully, and I realize not everyone will agree here either, but I think I nailed it on the first try. This isn't always the case, but I'm glad it was this time around! His hairpiece is the same one that Lego debuted with the official BvS Superman minifigure, and despite me saying I wasn't going to use it and that it wasn't Henry Cavill's hairstyle, I quickly realized (thanks to epicnick100) that sanding the sides of it down would make all the difference. Originally, I was going to use a classic Superman hairpiece and just slice off the 'S' curl and paint over that. I still think that could've worked just fine, but this I feel was the better option of the two. Then the rest of the figure's look stems from the printed torso, and to give that more depth, I painted various areas in my own dark blue and metallic blue colors. Kal-El also sports a pair of TT glove tops, but this time painted in metallic blue. Right above that on each arm is the wrist design he now has that I've painted on as well (and it wraps around the entirety of each arm by the way). Finally, his thighs both feature the same metallic blue details on the sides, and his boots are painted to wrap around all four sides of each leg as well. Also, for whatever reason, painting the front of each of his boots was a living hell and I have no idea why lol.

 

Wonder Woman:

For a printed minifigure in a set, I thought Lego's Wonder Woman figure was brilliant. The new hairpiece, shield, head, torso designs, and leg printing…everything is great. It was one of their best superhero minifigs in recent years, but I wanted to take it a lot further. So that meant taking their amazingly printed minifigure, and dropping the sword, legs, and torso. As I mentioned, I loved the super accurate torso designs on the original fig, and I did my best to paint my own version of them over onto an Arealight curved torso while also making the straps 3D. The heavily modified/painted CapeMadness waistcape that I decided to make in favor of Lego's printed version was by far the biggest change I made. Before even attempting it, I first had to steal and brasso a pair of flesh legs from the bacta-tank Luke Skywalker minifigure. For whatever reason though, despite the more precise cutting that was involved with Wonder Woman's waistcape, I found it easier to make than any of the ones I did for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. As you might be able to tell, the painting process of it was definitely more than just the denim lines. I had to extend the gold plated and heavily detailed armor that I already had on the torso onto the waistcape itself. It wasn't easy to keep it consistent, but I think it turned out pretty good and I definitely tried my hardest. So back to talking about the legs; they were easily the most time consuming part of the figure, and it was almost like painting an Iron Man suit due to all of the detail selection I had to do in order to make sure what I painted would be as accurate as possible. I'm really happy with how they turned out, and the gold areas do have a bit of mild weathering as well. Her gauntlets were painted to be a full wrap around extension of the small chunk Lego had already managed to print onto the arms in the first place. I think it worked out quite well, and I'm especially fond of the painted details on them that are closest to the torso. For the longest time, I had planned on making my own Wonder Woman face using the tiara design that Lego already had on their head, but in the end I decided that there was really no reason for it. Lastly, I decided to scrap the sword she came with in the set, and paint one of BrickForge's instead, with weathering added to the sword's guard as well. Oh and the shield is the same one from the set, but I gave it plenty of battle damage :)

 

Armored Batman:

I'll say this first; my Armored Batman figure would either look drastically different or just flat out not exist at all if it weren't for Brickzalive. The entire figure is a painted cast made from his incredible sculpt of the movie's iconic armor that he worked on for several months. After collaborating with Josiah on the Halo 5: Guardians Arbiter, I was not only super excited that he was able to get this one produced, but just being able to work on another one of his sculpts in general! So, after a night of sanding and eventually priming the whole thing, I got to work on what ended up being a fairly simple paint job actually. Batman's armor in the movie does have some dark grays/dark metallic colors here and there (which I made

sure to portray on the figure), but it's mostly all silver with a lot of weathering. I was pretty specific with the order in which I painted everything; for most of it, I would start at the top and work my way down to the bottom. Once each piece was fully painted in its base colors, all of the weathering would always be the final touch. The cape is painted in a very dark gray color, because I thought black would've looked too invasive on the rest of the figure. Finally, as mentioned above, he shares the same grenade gun with the normal Batman, but to keep his accessories at least a little bit unique to him, I gave him one or BrickArm's grenade shells to represent a Kryptonite round. Also, I realize not everyone is big on toe sculpting, but it's not something that has ever bothered me really :)

 

Lex Luthor:

Man, this figure was about as last minute as it gets for me. Knowing Lex's outfit wouldn't be that difficult for me to tackle, I decided to put it off until I was done with everyone else lol. Let me start off by saying the entire figure was mostly based on his character poster, along with a few screenshots from the rooftop scene. The hairpiece I decided to paint for him was the obvious choice; the real challenge of the figure was getting the likeness right. I've painted a lot of faces before, but Jesse Eisenberg was a bit of a challenge. The main issue was definitely the mouth, at first I tried a smirk, I really didn't like it at all, and it almost made him look "older" than I wanted it to. Lex does smirk quite a bit in the movie, but he also has his fair share of serious moments as well. With that in mind, I went for a serious expression, and I think it looks a hell of a lot better than what I had originally. His coat is a modified CapeMadness trench coat, fully painted in dark gray with buttons galore. The figure's arms are also painted in my own dark gray color, with the wrist of each hand painted in white. So basically this entire figure is 100% painted, and that of course includes the torso, which may not be totally color accurate, but is mostly accurate nonetheless! Lex's legs are pretty basic, featuring only a couple of rings on his shoes, this was because I had pretty much no idea what they looked like aside from a blurry screenshot of his back, and they get covered up by the coat anyway. Lastly, I painted the bandage onto his right hand, and painting a design around the entirety of a minifigure's hand is something I rarely do. Poor Alexander will never be able to grip an accessory in his right hand ever again, but...WORTH IT!

 

Doomsday:

My third big-fig, Doomsday! I remember when him being in the movie was just a rumor, but the moment he was revealed in the second trailer, I knew any chances of making Alfred or the Knightmare Batman suit had just bit the dust. Regardless of what you might think about his appearance, Doomsday was absolutely incredible in the movie, the CGI for him was fantastic, and thankfully he really didn't go through any drastic changes during the fight, so my figure is still pretty accurate! When I first approached this, I knew I was going to use one of Decool's big-figs as a base once again like I did for The Thing. Eventually, I ended up ordering their Venom, and sanding away any part of it that resembled that character. I'm not at all ashamed of using it either, I think I turned it into something pretty awesome, and tearing off a Hulk hairpiece, or sanding the crap out of a Darkseid big-fig is just unnecessary. It was also pretty clear that more sculpting would need to be done on top of the bone protrusions. This involved sculpting entire sections around his eyes, chin, chest, and knees. None of which were particularly easy, especially the tiny bone protrusions on top of each eye section, but thankfully sculpting/painting the larger protrusions scattered around the upper half of his body were a little easier to do. A few of the ones you see behind his head along with most of the ones on his shoulders are meant to be accurate, however the rest on his back are pretty much all randomized due to lack of reference. The painting process was a little extensive as you can imagine, and once everything was sculpted on I started by basically lathering the whole thing in dark gray paint. Then came the light gray weathering and the brownish skin effect; finding a proper balance between the two was time consuming to say the least lol. Doomsday also had me struggling a bit with likeness again, as I got his eyes right fairly quickly, but the mouth was more difficult. In the end, I based the entire mouth off of Lego's Hulk big-fig. To wrap this all up, I do want to point out that the scar on his upper right breast was carved in on purpose, because it certainly stands out quite a bit on his body. Also, the scar that was on General Zod's face is Doomsday's face in the movie too, so of course I painted it onto my figure because that's just a really cool detail for me to pass it up.

 

These figures were a blast to finally make, and I'm really proud of each one. Why no Alfred though? Or Knightmare Batman? Or Lois? Well, I'm only one person, with one hell of a tight schedule for 2016, and I can't make everyone.

 

Thank you so much for reading through all of that, and if you drop this a favorite, let me know what you think in the comments too!!

 

Watch "LEGO Batman v Superman : Dawn of Justice Minifigures - Showcase" via YouTube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITxIVfXYcMw

 

Done