Creativity seem to come and go. Every now and then I get to the point when my head is empty and I just can’t think of any new idea for a few days. Luckily, there are times when I burst them out. Sometimes I even end up lonely in the kids room as I just need to finish something up :)

One of the first things toddlers care about are animals. I love to explore basic silhouettes of them and try to build them out of simple Duplo bricks. Some creations are simplified to the bone, while others force me to include more details to keep them recognizable.

 

4 bricks

Not many animals are so distinctive to let you build them out of 4 simple Lego Duplo bricks. I did try hard to make this a reality :)

Snail

For this minimalist inspired build it’s best to use 2 different colors – in this case snail’s house really stands.

 

5 bricks

Duck and ducky

As you can see from the pic, I did two forms – one out of 5 and one out of 4 bricks, a simple duck with his junior. I bet you would have trouble to recognise it in a 4 bricked version, therefore I list both under 5 bricks. Anyhow both turned out great, Duck and ducky in a super simple design, with some help of colors to make silhouettes life-like.

Giraffe

Minimalistic concept of a giraffe, built out of only 5 basic Lego Duplo bricks. A creation with so few bricks like this one, needs  a little boost of imagination to help one associate it with a real animal. This simplistic build incorporates all the vital parts – head, long neck and legs and a tail.

 

6 bricks

This is where the party starts. As you’ll see quickly, quite a bunch of animals can be made out of 6 bricks.

Chicken

For a perfect farm with rooster, one surely needs a chicken too. The build is easy and I’m sure you did see this design before or made it out for yourself (good eyes will spot similarities with my seabird and duck). Color choice is, however, crucial.

Squirrel

Another minimalistic figure, a squirrel. This one has such a distinctive silhouette that I didn’t bother with correct colors. Note: I experimented with a darker background, so let’s presume squirrel was running late ;)

Dog (6-brick version)

I explored with a silhouette of a dog quite a bit. In its first figure I tried my best to keep it under 7 bricks. I opted for a slightly different head variant and combined a lined brick for lower jaw and tail. Color-wise the build is pretty lame, I know – I just don’t have all those bricks in a single color.

 

7 bricks

Camel

Here’s a long legged, single humped camel. In comparison to giraffe you can see that these two can be made using pretty much the same bricks. Camel silhouette build is a bit more complex, as we need to extend its neck towards. Tail comes somehow short but considering those robust Lego Duplo bricks, I think the overall silhouette is pretty neat.

A swan and the ugly duckling

Idea was to capture a swan and the ugly duckling silhouette as simple as it gets. I’ve managed to make a duckling out of 4 lego duplo bricks and swan out of 7.

Seabird

It’s very interesting how a color choice can affect a basic silhouette. Lack of long white bricks forced me to make it a 7 bricked version.

Note: I took the same concept for three of my ideas – a duck, chicken and seabird with the only difference being use of colors (very recognizable, don’t you think?). On a pic bellow you can clearly see what I talk about.

Dog (7-brick version)

Here’s another take on a Duplo dog. Different approach leg-wise, a bit more sleek overall. This is one of my favourite builds so far.

 

8 bricks

Ara parrot

This one is a classic – a colorful Macaw parrot. I made this one in two most distinctive color variants – classic scarlet macaw and blue-yellow macaw. I experimented a bit with beak and legs. As you can see, you can substitute them with some other darker tones with not much difference. Just keep those colorful ones in their place.

 

One thing – this creation won’t stand on it’s own, so I used a black colored stand.

 

Sea turtle

This extraordinary sea creature can be made out of 8 to 11 basic Lego Duplo bricks, considering the use of 2×4 instead of 2×2 bricks. In this exact replication you can see a 9 brick version. I opted for genuine colors, including yellow bottom.

 

9 bricks

Rooster

Down on the farm this time, spending time with a nice rooster. Colors are crucial with this silhouette, so you might have some trouble, as brown colors are pretty rare in Lego Duplo. Bottom orange brick can easily be replaced with a standard 2×2 one.

 

Wolf

In comparison to my Lego Duplo doggy ideas, I tried to make wolf look meaner. Therefore I decided for an open mouth with evident gnashers. This was accomplished with stacking 2 long, narrow and thin bricks on top of each other in a slight mismatch-way. This way we get a thin tail on one side and an open mouth on the other. head is made out of two bricks. Bottom one represents the upper jaw, while the upper one replicates top of the skull and ears.

The build itself pretty much covers a nice minimalistic silhouette, one that would look even more awesome if you use some wolf-like colors.

Lion

Highly distinctive beast, one of Africa’s most fearsome animals, an African lion. I opted for a really big head, which I took from my T-rex dinosaur creation. To get the curves of the silhouette somehow right, I used a long brick to implement and integrate a lower jaw and the back of the animal. I tried to keep creation small and therefore made a body smaller (proportion-wise) in comparison to the head. You’ll notice that I used a body similar to my dog and wolf creations, so it’s pretty basic. Due to overall strength of this animal I used basic 2×2 bricks for the legs.

Overall I’m satisfied with the final build, but there is some room for improvements on the body – it came out a bit thin.

 

10+ bricks

The following creations turned out to be really challenging and I had to use quite a few bricks, even thought I did try to keep them as minimalistic as possible.

Classic eagle

Apart from parrot I tried hard to build a minimalistic bird from Lego Duplo before, but with no mentionable results. This time I nailed down one of them, a classic eagle. It’s pretty much built out of basic 2×2 bricks, the only extra addition being a brick for legs with claws.

 

Dog (11-brick version)

Here’s my another take on a simple Lego Duplo dog. I added some additional colors to make it stand out (I didn’t bother about the breed yet).

Gorilla

Badass boy in heavy weight form – minimalistic gorilla silhouette from Lego Duplo’s. This one would definitely carve its own path through the jungle. I have to say it’s a real shame I ran out of black 2×2 bricks – this one would really look great in genuine black with silverback.

You can be creative and add another brick on the bottom of the head and get a visible mouth and teeth structure. I opted for a single brick, as I think this way it retains the proportions better.

 

Whale

There are many types of whales out there. I took a silhouette of a very distinctive “giant sperm whale”. Althought a funny name, this beast is known as the largest tooth predator. You might have trouble finding a 2×10 brick I used for a tail – it should work with 2×4 or 2×8 too.

Great white shark

I treasured my favourite one for the end of the article. The magic happened when I strugled hard to accomplish another creation. I started out with a simple idea of a Lego Duplo whale, but things didn’t get well. So I took my mobile phone and browsed the web for a silhouette of a shark. I think I ended up with three concepts, when I took the final shot and chose the one, containing the most basic bricks.

Tail-wise, I tried to keep the right proportions – longer upper fin.

For a jaw – I ran out of 2×4 thin blue bricks and had to use a gray one instead. It might even be better looking this way, what do you think? I put a black brick there to mimic his meat-greedy eyes. If you have any triangle shaped brick, it would look great on top of it, I had to stick with a standard 2×2 to keep it as basic as possible.

Enough words. Here it is in all its glory, the great white shark.