Larger scale recreations of LEGO® Minifigures are nothing new. They have been transformed into wooden art pieces, clocks, lamps and even soft toys. But buildable Minifigures have a much more limited history. In recent years they have appeared in a couple of sets to represent giants or much larger characters. Going further back there was a much larger albeit rather crude looking buildable Minifigure. So when the rumours started whispers of Harry Potter themed buildable characters, it was hard to imagine what they could be. Well, it turns out they are a pair of brick-built recreations of a Minifigure and judging by some of the past efforts, they appear to be the best take on upscaling a Minifigure yet. So here’s my review of the Harry & Hermione Buildable Figures.
Product Description
Make a BIG impression on any young witch or wizard with the super-sized LEGO® Harry Potter™: Harry Potter & Hermione Granger™ (76393).
Large-scale, iconic figures
Kids can maximize the magical fun with these brick-built Harry Potter and Hermione Granger models. Both figures stand 10 in. (26 cm) tall and possess all the adjustability of the smaller LEGO minifigures: movable hand, leg and hip joints, plus a rotatable head for the Harry Potter figure. Harry has a removable, fabric robe and both models carry brick-built wands to help inspire magical stories for kids to play out. When the action stops, kids can put the 2 Hogwarts™ friends into a pose to create an amazing ‘Harry and Hermione’ display for their room. Individual sets of building instructions allow 2 builders to share the fun together.
- Set Name: Harry Potter & Hermione Granger
- Set Number: 76393
- Pieces: 1673
- RRP: £119.99/$119.99/129.99€
- Availability: LEGO.com, LEGO Stores & LEGO retailers
Most Minifigures are constructed of 10 parts – a pair of legs, the waist, torso, a pair of arms and hands, the head and finally, hair or a hat. Which is the exact same breakdown of sections for these larger-scale ones. Obviously, the construction is slightly more complex than simply popping a few pieces together.
Each part of the Minifigure is built independently from each other, with many of them housing an elaborate inner core. One thing which surprised me about this is the number of gaps featured within various sections. This isn’t a criticism, you just get so used to solid stacks of elements. These inner skeletally collections of elements help to recreate the unique shape of the torsos and heads.
Despite the complex builds to create the body and head, much of the big is focused on the hair. This uses a lot of pieces to create a textured mass of hair on both characters. This is also one of the areas the brick-built figure differs from the smaller muses. Although the hair matches the equivalent hairpiece, they cannot be lifted off the heads in the same way. The bigger character’s hair is actually built into the structure of the head.
Other differences include Hermione’s legs, they feature a splash of grey which I can’t link to any of the sets. Harry is also wearing a material cloak, which hasn’t been seen on any Minifigures and I must admit it looks great. Not sure if it would be as good on a smaller scale.
But the big draw of these builds is their similarities to the standard Minifigures. They have the same points of articulation as their smaller counterparts. That includes the legs, arms, hands and head. Although Harry’s can be fully rotated, Hermione’s can’t due to the hair, which I guess is the same as the actual Minifigure.
Thankfully, the graphic detail needed for the faces and torsos is all printed. Stickers would have totally ruined the finish of the build, which I would say is pretty much perfect. They really do look like blown up Minifigures, there are no awkward sections like some other attempts. Even the wands are nicely done and match the style of the very tiny versions, used for the Minifigures.
The possibilities for using this style of build for other characters are very exciting. Some characters may be a little tricky to recreate but I really hope we see more Minifigure characters blown up to this scale. They are fun to build and look amazing when finished, making them awesome display pieces.
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This set was requested by BricksFanz.com and provided by the LEGO group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Nintendo. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
