This build is my entry for the preliminary round of the 2025 Bio-Cup, for which the theme is “dream.” Pretty quickly when considering this theme, I wanted to make something that had a more abstract reading of “dream,” rather than a straightforward read like a nightmarish monster, or sleeping character. Of these, I found the idea of dream in the sense of creativity or aspiration the most interesting. In the vein of aspiration, I suddenly had the idea to make a penguin achieving what must be a long-held dream of flight — just with some outside help!
The build itself started with the head, with the orange Bohrok eyes chosen for the beak setting the scale for the head and the build overall. Its eyes are similar to what I previously used for my passenger pigeon and chromatic pheasant, but with a ninja scarf instead of a 2x2 dish for the sclera. New D-snot bricks in black came in very handy for attaching the eyes, and another recent addition, the CCBS shoulder with bars on the top, rounds out the back of the head behind the Nuva shoulder.
After the head, his body was built from the feet up. I used a bunch of curved white pieces for the round shapes of a penguin’s plump body — white Mahri visors for the legs, which connected nicely to a Nuva shoulder, and then a CCBS shoulder and finally a Rahkshi head for the breast. For the wings, I used the large new Ninjago armor piece in black for the first time to make almost the whole shape of the wing, with the remainder at the shoulder completed by more of the new CCBS shoulder.
A couple of other details that I enjoyed adding are the brown shoulder straps of the jet pack, to keep it sturdily attached to our little flier, and the control dial on the back of the jet pack. It’s left to the imagination how a penguin’s stubby arms can operate the dial!
In all, he’s ready to take to the skies with style, and probably too much thrust. Hopefully we’re jetting off to round one!