We love this Lego Hollow Knight build, which replicates the Watcher Knight boss from Team Cherry’s metroidvania game in perfect detail, and incorporates some very tricky shapes. It was created by Canadian animator Sandro Quattrini, 24, who specializes in bringing characters to life in Lego.
Quattrini says he’s been hooked on Lego ever since he was a kid, where he started off with Exo Force and Bionicle sets – kits with robotic themes that are still visible in some of his fan made creations to this day.
While he’s made buildings and vehicles in the past, Quattrini, RosesMustBuild on Instagram, loves the visual storytelling that comes from designing and crafting Lego characters.
“The question that always lingers on my mind while building a character is how will it be posed,” he tells Wargamer. “There’s something about building characters that – once they are completed – makes it much more believable that they could suddenly come to life and start jumping around the room.”
According to Quattrini, building Lego characters is all about “creating organic shapes with very basic polygons”. He describes it as a constant juggling act. “Using too many pieces can give you very wrinkly results, while using the right ones allows you to capture every little detail while keeping a clean design.”
This particular build was made for the community challenge Dreams of Hallownest, where each participating designer was tasked with bringing one Hollow Knight boss to life. Why go for the Watcher Knight? “I love the challenge of building corpulent characters, and I have way too many blue pieces!” Quattrini explains.
Creating the ball-shape of the Watcher Knight – who in Hollow Knight can curl up in a ball, Sonic the Hedgehog style, to deliver hard to dodge attacks – was a serious challenge. “My first attempt at building it was larger, but it didn’t look round enough, so I scaled it down… It was super satisfying figuring it out.
“The head was also very challenging,” Quattrini continues. “At such a tiny scale, trying to keep a clean build depends on every piece you use. I had to compromise on the smaller horns on the sides of the head, dissimulating the black clips that hold them, albeit exposed.
“Hollow Knight characters’ eyes are built in a myriad different ways online, but for the sake of the Watcher Knight, I thought the quarter-circle tiles did the right job capturing the boss’ angry stare.”
Quattrini also says he’s “quite proud of the backside of the little guy” where he’s used Technic parts to create the shape of beetles’ wings. “Usually there’s some angle of my characters that I’m not 100% satisfied with, but I can say that I’m really happy with the Watcher Knight from whichever angle you look at it.”
Quattrini teases he has six characters in the works based on a beloved LEGO franchise, but tells us after that he’d like to try and stick to original creations.
“There’s always some influence coming from somewhere,” he says. “My “Animal Death” guy is heavily inspired by Pokemon’s Cubone, while my Robo-Kid is heavily influenced by the classic ‘suited character with arm cannon’ like Mega Man or Metroid’s Samus.”
There are pros and cons of striking out with original characters versus making a replica. “I’ve had a lot of fun designing original characters by letting the pieces I have in hand dictate what it will look like, but the challenge of sticking to a specific, original vision, and succeeding in building it, is a very satisfying achievement.”
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