Beware the Red Hot Bloodsucker

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Summer is just around the corner, which means fun in the sun.. and bugs! YUCK! Here in the mid-Atlantic, I’m watching the world become overrun by cicadas, from which I’m sure many will draw inspiration. Builder Max Howell (Flickr/Instragram) was inspired by a more annual enemy: Culicidae, otherwise known as the mosquito.

Max drew inspiration for this build from three MOCs made by his opponent in a one-on-one MOC-off: a flaming spaceship, a bug-eyed flying insect, and a renaissance devil. The result is a flame-throwing insect from hell!

There is some delightful parts usage on display:

I reached out to Max to learn more about this build.

Grayson: Where do you live, and how did you get into building MOCs like this?

Max: Right now I live in British Columbia, Canada. I’ve always loved LEGO, and when Bionicle G2 came out in 2015, I really got into building with CCBS. Before long I created a Flickr account to share my builds, but I stopped building in 2018 after an embarrassing stint in the custom minifigure community. Quarantine had me bored out of my mind, so I decided to get back into building Bionicle. I joined Bionicle Discord servers and made a new Flickr account to showcase my creations, and the rest is history!

Grayson: I see that this MOC is a combination of three different MOCs made by an opponent of yours in a MOC competition. Besides those builds, were there any other inspirations that you had for the build? Did you find yourself referencing real-life insects frequently?

Max: The main three builds that influenced this were VB’s fantastic “Peloria,” Princess_Mittens’ “Mosquito” and Djokson’s “Culex Drone.” And of course, I took inspiration from Mucus Drizzle’s “Lava Lancer”, “Nui Rama”, and “The Last Judgement”. A lot of my inspiration comes from other builders, so most of my builds have a similar laundry list of influences.

I referenced real-life mosquitos a little. I like to get wacky with proportions in my builds, so adhering to realistic proportions and anatomy wasn’t really a priority to me.

Grayson: You mentioned that you most often build humanoid characters, not creatures. Were there any challenges that surprised you? Is there anything that you feel like you learned if you make another creature build in the future?

Max: I had the most trouble with the head. Heads are usually the hardest part of the build for me, and this one took me a couple tries to get right. Other than that this came together without too much trouble, it was mostly just polishing rough shapes.

If I learned anything from this, it’s to not be afraid of building creatures—the main reason I haven’t built many up until now is because I thought they were way harder than the robots I normally make. I’ve had a ton of creature ideas, but I’ve never attempted them because I thought I wouldn’t be able to do the concept justice. However, this build really got me out of that mindset.

Be sure to check out more of Max’s builds on Flickr/Instragram!

What other bugs have you seen made in LEGO before? Let us know in the comments!

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