MOC: Jem and the Holograms

[Hobbestimus]

One of my wife's favorite things from childhood is Jem and the Holograms, so this Christmas I decided to make her a whole Lego line-up of her favorite cartoon.

So, I bought a bunch of official Lego sets that were appropriate for the theme,

I assembled the relevant bits from each set.

Photographed the sets with custom minifigures of the show's cast.

Then used those photos to create (reusable) "packaging" for each set.

Then I disassembled every set piece-by-piece and placed it all into its custom package for her to assemble on Christmas morning.

There's not much MOCing going on, since I wanted her to be able to follow the official instructions to build them herself, but here are my photoshops, followed by some pictures of the final packaging.

This morning when she opened it, she briefly thought they were official Lego product. So I guess I did good.

Edited December 28, 2012 by Rufus
Indexed

[LEGO Family]

Lovely .... Well done .... They do look very professionel i must say. :)

[jonwil]

Nice job.

[Another Brick In The Wall]

Truly, truly, truly outrageous!

Edited December 26, 2012 by Another Brick In The Wall

[badbob001]

This looks great and similar to what LEGO would produce. Is the person holding the boat face trophy Eric Raymond? And no Synergy? Perhaps next year. :)

Are the blue and white Misfits hair official LEGO pieces?

[Hobbestimus]

This looks great and similar to what LEGO would produce. Is the person holding the boat face trophy Eric Raymond? And no Synergy? Perhaps next year. :)

Are the blue and white Misfits hair official LEGO pieces?

That is Eric.

The white Misfit hair is from Arealight Customs. The blue Misfit hair, along with Rio's purple hair, the drumsticks, and the pink and green guitars are Brickforge.

And Synergy may have to be next year, lol.

[Leela]

This is brilliant! I like Jem and the Holograms and your sets are so great and instantly recognizable.

How nice of you to create these minifigs and sets for your wife, that's a wonderful gift.

[King Aragorn]

Better than Paradisia!

I love this professional work!

[Lyichir]

Did... did you make your own manuals? And include the "WIN" kid? That there's dedication.

[King Aragorn]

...time for a little question ...have you planned to do other set about Jem and the Holograms?

I love your creativity!

[Crownie]

This has to be the most awesomely thoughtful Christmas present ever. These turned out incredibly well; when I first read the title of the thread, I was like "What the Hell?" - then I read your name and thought "Well if anyone could pull it off..."

And you did! Man, I could just live in the 80's sometimes. Seeing your customs always brings a grin to my face; thank you so much for sharing!

[dvsntt]

That is such a cool idea. My wife would love that too. You are brilliant sir, and I may "borrow" that idea for Valentines day.

[Hobbestimus]

Go for it.

[Brickscape]

Utterly amazing stuff all around! I remember the cartoon fondly myself and these wonderful MOCs have me singing the theme song. Great work!

[Crownie]

Something I've been meaning to ask you Hobbestimus - Is there a particular reason that you use traditional yellow minifigs for most of your customs instead of the flesh-colored? Personal preference, greater variety? I find I like both, but as we get more and more licensed figures, I'm thinking it'll become harder to match minifig parts as seamlessly. What do you think?

Edited December 31, 2012 by Crownie

[Hobbestimus]

Something I've been meaning to ask you Hobbestimus - Is there a particular reason that you use traditional yellow minifigs for most of your customs instead of the flesh-colored? Personal preference, greater variety? I find I like both, but as we get more and more licensed figures, I'm thinking it'll become harder to match minifig parts as seamlessly. What do you think?

I actually prefer flesh, especially when I'm MOCing an existing property, but the yellow heads are more numerous - not just in my collection, but in general, and I find they tend to offer more variety.

At first I was just mixing flesh and yellow without worrying about it (i.e., I'd make one GI Joe character yellow, but another one flesh based on whatever I thought worked for the individual character).

But as I made more and more figures, I found myself becoming a little more OCD about it, so I went through and rebuilt them by theme. So now I have the human characters from Ninja Turtles and Transformers as well as my superhero characters in flesh. But my GI Joes, my Ghostbusters, and my He-Man characters are all yellow. It's not a perfect system, but at least it makes group shots look more cohesive.

[Amset-Rah]

Amazing sets! I too kind of remember Jem (Thank you Hub) and I always rooted for The Misfits. I love how both bands have their own set, as well as two vehicular conflicts. My only gripe is that the models themselves are taken from official Lego models, but the minifigs and Photoshop work are second to none, and I may have to borrow this idea as well.