This build might be the most fragile thing I have ever made and genuinely causes me pain and suffering every time I have to set it up. Besides from that, I think it’s an awesome little build and I was happy to add another lengthy animal to my army!
Project Background
The motivation for this build came from Syrdarian and Carson’s monthly challenge titled “NovHENber“. This challenge came during a really busy season for me in school, so I took the opportunity to build something small the moment I had a free day. Although I never finished it in November, nor posted it for a long time, the build has been practically done for many months. I had just been missing the hard to find red plume feathers with clip for the wattle!
Starting
Seeing as how this is a pretty small build, there isn’t much to say about the design process, but wow there is some extremely over-complicated tech in here. I actually started this build with the feet, and the concept dates back awhile. Using the newer 3 palm leaf for chicken feet was an idea I had the second I saw this part being released. I was generously gifted 2 of them by my friend Brickspiration over the summer at Brickworld Chicago 2025, so when November rolled around and I still hadn’t used them, I figured I should for this challenge! Sticking with the lengthy animal theme I started with my frogs, I chose the simple route of just having dino tails for legs. From there, my foundations were solid and I moved onto the rest of the build.
Body Build Out
The body for this build is something I so severely regret doing in this manner. This was the predecessor to my hummingbirds “single bar holding the entire frame” yet this one never got replaced. It is well and truly an internal nightmare, but if you ignore that, the exterior looks solid. I got great value out of the larger angel wings, and was able to maximize simple shaping with the fur part and shoulder shells forming the rest of the body. Outside of that, the body isn’t too special, but I am a big fan of the additional barbs in the front to add a feathery texture!
Headless Chicken
With the body done I moved onto the head, which is where the more complicated tech lies. Although still fragile and mostly held together by Lego rubber bands, once assembled this section is surprisingly strong. There is one white rubber band connecting a bar assembly, which contains the beak and waddle, to the top of the head. Then, there is one red rubber band connecting the comb to the beak. These two connections can be precarious, especially since the beak tends to go firing off the hot dog they are attached to relatively frequently, but for me it is worth it to capture a great look. The last thing I was left to figure out was the eyes. As with every creature, the eyes are very important in dictating the vibe you want to convey. For this build, I wanted to lean into the cartoon aesthetic while capturing the stupidity of this chicken I pictured in my mind. After experimenting with a few designs, I decided the tow ball bar into an inverted dish was the right combination for the job.
Based
The last thing to do for this build was to put it on a stand. For this, I took inspiration from Rickard Stensby’s chicken, which sits over nicely made grass. I decided to downscale his technique by making a base entirely out of upwards facing d-snot, which proved to be yet another structural nightmare. The tight packing of 3 leave stems tends to explode the base, but it is simple enough to put back together. I left two open studs for the feet to stand on, and with that I called the build done!
Hard Boiled Photography
Fun fact at the time I photographed the build I still had the white feather on. I didn’t manage to acquire the red one until Aiden gave me one in May or so, but when I got it I was able to take one bad photo and use that to layer the red feather on top of the original photo.