Fan-designed LEGO Pokémon builds highlight where the community wants to go
LEGO Pokémon is officially on the way but fans have been telling the LEGO Group what they want from a partnership for years now.
The LEGO Group is officially partnering with Pokémon next year, but any sets that come out will have some tough competition to go up against. That’s not just past MEGA Pokémon sets (although those present a challenge all of their own) but those made by diehard fans within the LEGO community.
In the absence of official LEGO Pokémon sets so far, fans have worked away at bringing the world to life in brick form in various styles and formats. There are so many fan-designed builds, in fact, that it offers some clues as to what fans would want from the future partnership. Some are unlikely to happen (much as we’d like them to) but others are more realistic to hope for…
The bigger, the better
Kicking off well towards the end of ‘unrealistic’ on the spectrum, far and away some of the most popular LEGO Pokémon builds are life-sized (or near enough) display models. Those pictures above are built by Ddave_ and PaximillianRex respectively and highlight just how many details you can capture when you build at that scale.
Of course, unless LEGO Pokémon is about to become the most expensive theme ever known, builds of this size are unlikely. That said, any potential promotional events around Pokémon could see some novelty builds like these, much like the true-to-life LEGO Formula 1 cars that accompanied that partnership.
But it’s really all in the details
Even when you shrink down Pokémon to more realistic sizes, that doesn’t mean you need to skimp on detail. These two fan-designed builds from Pet Project and stefception underline the ever-growing love of LEGO sets that are purpose-built for display. You don’t need to display the entire Pokémon in order to pack a punch and these more adult-focused sets would certainly appeal to those who know and love Pokémon from their childhood and now have adult money to put towards memorabilia.
LEGO City meets Pokémon
It’s not all about recreating different Pokémon, however. As a game, Pokémon is all about exploring, which lends itself well to a series of LEGO City-style sets of iconic locations. We’re thinking a Pokémon Centre like the one designed by 5genki5 above but also various gyms, wild landscapes with play features for miniature Pokémon to jump out from, or the lab where every Pokémon main character means their knowledgeable benefactor. The world is a brick-built oyster.
Thinking outside of the box
Truly, there’s a wealth of possibilities out there and we’re personally hoping that the LEGO Group gets creative. LEGO Harry Potter played around with a more abstract art style in 76443 Hagrid & Harry’s Motorcycle Ride and, although realistic display models might be what first comes to mind when it comes to LEGO Pokémon, there’s room for further experimentation too.
That’s perhaps more necessary with this theme than any other, considering it’s already pretty well-trodden by a competitor, but there’s plenty of untapped potential still out there. PokemonDev‘s LEGO map would fit in neatly alongside LEGO Art sets, for example, and could be adapted to feature all the major Pokémon regions.
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