Chima early concept work

[Toth]

http://www.lego.com/en-gb/chima/explore/story-10/chapter1

[Burrski]

Nice! I love that quote "freedom is to choose our constraints"

[TheLazyChicken]

Wow some of those concepts look better than the real sets...

[LegendsOfNinjago]

I was thinking the same thing. I like the Gold mask thing going on, and I kinda wish they had gone with some of there earlier Ideas. would hvae been a much better series. I didn't however like the use of the rats.

[CM4Sci]

Wow, I love it! I guess this actually means it's over.

After actually looking through it, the minifigures rock! I love some of the early designs. .

You're Alexandre Bourdon, right?

Edited June 11, 2015 by CM4Sci

[DuckBricks]

These all look pretty great, except for some early Minifigs. I really like the concert Fire vs ice figs though; they look stunning! Saving them to my iPhone reveals the exact date and time these were made... I love how the 2013 sets and figs are dated to 2011 (when they presumably started working in the line) and the 2014 set concepts are from 2012...

It seems like the legend beasts went through different design phases, some portraying them as robots and some as completely organic animals. I have to say, while the robot lion that gets up on two legs (in the two steps picture) looks pretty awesome, it also looks like a bad guy creature. It's actually quite scary!

I just hope Ninjago gets something like this, but it would probably only happen if (gasp!) Ninjago were to end...

Edited June 10, 2015 by legozebra

[Lordofdragonss]

Once again preliminaries are vastly supperior! :D

I would love Chima even more if it was made as savage minifigs wearing Animal-themed gear. I love green-colored gorillas. IMO they look thousands times better than that what we get.

I will try and MOC that Ripper-like vechicle with click-hinges. It looks like great idea!

Edited June 11, 2015 by Lordofdragonss

[TheLegoDr]

That stings... I actually would have purchased sets. SO many cool animals. I like the "humans" wearing animal helmets and things instead of humanoid animals being the actual. And lots of neat torso ideas.

That is what has limited the appeal to me. I realize the CHI is important, but having CHI on every torso made me not want any. Otherwise there were great colors and designs.

It has a very Thundercats feel to these lions. I would have been all over that. And those gorillas are perfect Planet of the Apes.

[---Vertea---]

Woah. Those insect concepts look so cool....Why on earth didn't we get those??

[Boogly22238]

I am digging those insect concepts..

I can sort of see them being used in Galaxy Squad

[Lego_Hero]

I could spend the day drooling over these! I think my favorite parts/concepts are:

The paws and claws! so many great designs!

The eagle! Is that close to the Lords of the Ring eagles?

The insects!!! The insects!!!

[Robert8]

Wow, some of these look pretty interesting!

Were those Scorpion guys included in a set?

I'm unfamiliar to LEGO Chima

[BrickJagger]

^ I think that they were, but there were only a few of them.

Woah. Those insect concepts look so cool....Why on earth didn't we get those??

Galaxy Squad came out the year that Chima did, so I guess Lego never used those insect concepts (even in 2014) because the GS bugs were fresh in customer's minds. After the Outlands arc was over, it would have been impossible to use them because of the Fire and Ice arc, followed by the end of the theme.

[Khorne]

Great stuff there, thanks for posting! I'm not that heavy into the whole Chima stuff, but man, those concept drawings are amazing! I really like the Aztec/Meso-American vibe going on in the first iterations of the Chima characters.

I like drawing and designing my own stuff, too, and these are definitely a great inspiration!

[WhiteFang]

Excellent insightful stuff to see how an original LEGO theme is being developed. Thank you Toth for bringing this to our attention and sharing it with us.

[Back to the Brick]

Thanks for the link. Very interesting, especially those zombie animals!

[Venunder]

I think Humans dressed up as animals would have been a better theme for most Lego Fans, but TLG had to go with a more original idea.

TLG kind of pitched the theme too young, 6-9?, so that cutesy animaloids worked better to draw youngsters in?

Possibly TLG thought parents would see the theme as less "dangerous","scary", for children in this cutesy way?

I also think the Insectoids were a great idea. But kind of clashed with the Galaxy Squad theme.

The insects might also have pushed the theme to an older audience? Same with the zombies?

The Swamp creatures kind of worked, but would have been a rehash of the Monster Fighters Swamp thing.

The Gorillas had to be different to Planet of the Apes otherwise there could have been copyright problems.

[8BrickMario]

Those Atlantis lobster claws really should have been reused for the Scorpion tribe...shame they weren't.

I think the idea of animal themed tribal humans was a lot more interesting, and I really liked the cobra-themed one, as well as the rats. The swamp monster looked cool, but didn't fit.

It's interesting to see the evolution of the zombie-like Ice Tribes.

Anthropomorphic animal heroes is far from a new or exciting concept. In the theme proper, the Phoenixes and Spinlyn were the only figures I really liked.

I guess it's not a big issue now that we've seen the end of the theme, but I think it could have been so much more interesting and unique if it stuck to the earlier concepts.

[SEE AR AR THREE]

This was a really cool link! Very interesting to see how they come up with designs. I want a minifigure wearing a wolf head! More AFOLs probably would have gotten into Chima if they had gone with these original concepts.

[TheOneVeyronian]

This made for a very interesting read and browse through. I love some of the concepts, and now I'm kind of tempted to try making custom figures of some of the tribe members we didn't get based on that concept artwork.

By the way, Chapter 5 doesn't seem to work. It doessn't bring up anything, just the obligatory header and footer, and none of the links to the other chapters work there. Does anyone else have these issues? It's a shame, I love seeing some good fantasy landscape artwork myself.

[KeteR_u_S]

I so like figures from the earlier concepts... They could be more useful and good looking then real Chima figures

[Lyichir]

Those Atlantis lobster claws really should have been reused for the Scorpion tribe...shame they weren't.

The funny thing is, the giant foam claws sold at Lego stores alongside the Atlantis theme WERE redecorated and reused for Chima. Makes you wonder why the sets themselves didn't end up using them.

[robuko]

Beautiful art concepts.

[Lord Tyrus]

Thanks for sharing this, I like the concept of actual tribes worshipping different animals, and embodying them in a ritual, with lion headdresses and the like. I personally would have preferred that to what was actually released...

[Borex]

Thanks for sharing! A lot of great ideas! Seeing these sketches i immediately think of zodiac signs too. Maybe tlg can start a zodiac wars line? Chinese and western zodiac signs that save the world from baddies.