Yesterday the LEGO Group revealed the latest LEGO® Ideas set and my review of the set was also published. The set features a fun little Minifigure skeleton dubbed ‘LEGO Sapiens’ which is sporting a fetching adventurer’s hat. In the sets instruction booklet is a snippet of information about its LEGO Designer Niels Milan Pedersen, who is sporting the same sort of hat. BricksFanz reader ‘RDFLEGO’ asked on Twitter if the skeleton was a reference to famed LEGO explorer Johnny Thunder. I assumed it was a nod to the designer. Well it turns out it’s a far more intersting story that a simple reference. One of my favourite LEGO Designers and all round awesome chap Justin Ramsden also pointed out the Niels was in fact the inspiration for Johnny Thunder. So the skeleton is partly a reference to Johnny Thunder, who in turn was modelled on LEGO Designer Niels. But it goes far beyond using his appearance, as well as being at LEGO Designer in Billund for almost 40 years, Niels is quite the archaeologist. His love of paleontology goes as far as recreating dinosaur bones using a mixture of gypsum and acrylic. So not only is he the inspiration for Johnny Thunder, he is also the perfect choice to create the LEGO Ideas Dinosaur Skeleton set. In turn Johnny Thunder was also honoured in the latest series of LEGO Minifigures, with the Jungle Explorer character.
Top image via jv.dk
17th October 2019
I remember reading about Niels being the inspiration for Johnny Thunder earlier this year. I think Edd at BrickSanity Customs posted a snippet on his Instagram page and recently posted a photo of the pair of them at the SFW event.
Awesome story!