"Few among the Vorgan have the might to tame a ferocious swamp dragon as their mount."
This build was made for round 1 of the 2025 Bio-Cup. From round 1 onward, we have brackets with subthemes. So, out of the overall round theme of mythical beasts, my bracket had the subtheme of troll/orc/goblin. My opponents included Eero Okkonen, who is a very skilled figure builder, two-time Bio-Cup finalist, and who also has made a number of goblin builds before -- meaning I had my work cut out for me.
The theme didn't immediately grab me -- in particular, a straight take on the theme of simply making some goblins or orcs didn't capture my imagination. And, I figured my best shot against Eero would be if I made a creature build as part of my entry, anticipating he'd make one or several humanoids. After some thought, what came to mind was Mega Bloks' Dragons theme, which I was a big fan of as a kid. In one of its subsequent waves, the line had an orc faction called the Vorgan, The Vorgan had quite unique, goblin-like dragons of their own, and recreating one of them in Lego for this round immediately appealed to me. In the end, I'm pleased that the dragon I made is quite faithful to the original material! A bit more creative liberty was taken with the Vorgan rider, to be sure.
For the Vorgan, I adapted the hunter figure I made for my Stygian Zinogre build. Instead of the hunter's slim arms contrasting with oversized armor, here I embraced a character with topheavy bulk, using large macaroni (a.k.a., maxaroni) for thick arms. The front of his torso is more armored than the hunter's, too, with a chestplate of a large batarang, while the legs are slightly bulked up with boat studs on the hips, and barbs on the inner thighs. The head of the Piraka Avak minifig made a perfect orc head, with the bar hole at the back allowing for some curling ram horns. Cattle horns used on the head proved a convenient choice, as these were also the only barb pieces sized appropriately for the claws on his hands.
Meanwhile for the dragon, I started with the head as I typically do. My plan was to use the new large horn as the big horns the swamp dragons have along their upper lip. Unfortunately the recolor in tan isn't readily available yet, so I had to make do with pearl gold, and thus made all of the teeth that color as well. The center of the lower jaw uses a steering wheel (covered up with a dark blue shoulder as the large tongue) from which newer horns with clip connected low enough to serve as lateral incisors. Larger teeth with clip along the sides of the jaw worked excellently for the prominent canines of the dragon as well. The teeth were the part of the build I spent the longest on, but I think it paid off in the end!
Another bit I'm proud of is the eye area. This also took some iteration, but another pair of the teeth with clip worked as eyebrows that gave the dragon a fierce expression. I've heard the advice that eyebrows can have an outsize impact on the impression of a build, and I think that certainly holds here! And it was an important trait for a grungy goblin-dragon to express an adequately grumpy expression.
From its head, followed first the arms, then legs. The swamp dragon toy figure props itself up by its fingertips, and to keep a similar posture in the build I used trans-clear 3x3 dishes on the palms to ensure that the arms would be propped up by the fingertips and edges of the dishes, leaving the palms in the air. I decided to make the lower arms brown both out of having an abundance of parts for fingers and toes in this color, but also to give a look like its hands might be covered in mud or earth. Earth-theming on the arms (and also the legs) is also enhanced with brown whips, which are like veins but also resemble roots curling out. Dark green complemented brown nicely and kept to earth tones, while adding more variety than if the dragon were simply brown and black -- the black coloration picked in the interest of having maximum flexibility for part choice in the face. I also have quite a few useful dark green parts for organically shaped upper limbs. In particular, there are CCBS shells, Rahkshi heads, Vakama Hordika heads, and the Great Mahikis, the last of which I don't think I used on a build in over a decade. The combination of round black shoulder to the curve of the Mahiki is another of my favorite spots here.
Beyond the head and limbs, there's less to say about the rest of the build. A Ben 10 torso is at the core, as was used in Drathax, and both shoulder ball joints are used to lock the arms into the necessary angle. For the rest -- an underbelly of a CCBS torso shell in brown plus a Belville saddle for the wrinkly underside of the neck; a relatively simple mane of black robot arms and horn pieces on top of the body; wings of dino tails and boat studs, and a tail of maxaroni -- and that's a wrap!
I'm very pleased with the end result here. It shares some themes with other Bio-Cup entries of mine from years past -- it's not my first dragon, quadruped monster, or beast alongside a small humanoid. But, I had a blast in making this, and recreating a cool creature from a childhood toy was great fun!
