I designed this replica of a Fell Beast from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001-2003) in collaboration with Build Better Bricks (B3). Despite their limited screen time during the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) films, the Ringwraiths’ dragon steeds known as Fell Beasts are some of the most striking creatures from Jackson’s take on the Tolkien universe. I was excited to revisit this subject; the last time I made a Fell Beast was actually back in 2012, when my building skills were nowhere near as practiced as they are now.
Read on to learn more about the design choices that culminated in my finished Fell Beast model—and stick around to the end of this post to see my 2012 version, too!
In approaching this project, I knew—based on B3’s goals of brick-built, folding wings—that the finished Fell Beast would be extremely top-heavy, and therefore would likely benefit from a sturdy display base. I wanted this stand to provide a meaningful sense of place to the overall presentation, so I opted to build a chunk of the ruins of Osgiliath, a Gondorian city laid waste to by the forces of Mordor. In The Two Towers—the middle movie in the trilogy—a Fell Beast swoops over Osgiliath just as Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum pass through on their mission to destroy the One Ring. The Fell Beast’s encounter with Frodo is one of the most signature scenes of that film, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to recreate it in brick form.
In the LOTR movies, the Fell Beasts are darkly-colored creatures. Their scaly skin falls, as far as my eye can tell, somewhere between LEGO’s black and dark grey shades. I opted for the lighter of these two colors because several of the best joint pieces I knew I’d want to use come in dark grey, but not black, and also because I thought a dark grey body would look less at odds with a pale, tan underbelly.
Even if building a murky-colored animal, I’ve learned to throw in more color where possible (thanks, Brickmaster Amy!). I relished selecting vibrant pinks and purples for the tongue and exposed skin at the corners of the Fell Beast’s mouth.
I think the Fell Beast I’ve designed cuts an impressive silhouette, especially with its huge wings open. All told, the model is quite large. My Fell Beast measures more than 28” (72cm) long with a wingspan of more than 20” (53cm).
One of my favorite details of the whole creature is the spines running along its dorsal line. I’m using thin 3L Technic liftarms to hold the black spikes in place, and jumper plates to hold those in turn.
Of the challenges posed by this model, none was trickier than creating brick-built, folding wings. I’ve designed many dragons with folding cloth wings in the past, but brick-built wings are bulkier and much, much heavier than those. I actually never thought it’d be possible to build convertible wings in this technique, but here we are!
To hold the wings in all positions, I had to engineer extraordinarily stable joints. The shoulders are especially sturdy, composed of LEGO’s most intense click hinges, plus doubled-up extra-friction ball joints. This heavily Technic solution isn’t the prettiest, but it gives the Fell Beast a full range of motion.
The forward and backward pivot of the shoulder joints is controlled by a worm gear concealed within the Fell Beast’s torso. I leaned on the inexorable strength of that gear here to control this essential—and necessarily powerful—point of articulation.
When the model stands, turning the gearbox’s activator (which peeks out just behind the Nazgul rider) will slowly tilt both wings either forward or backward. The finesse of this rotation turns this little gear into a balancing mechanism, allowing you to find a sweet spot where those hefty wings won’t cause the Fell Beast to overbalance.
I really enjoy the way the talons came out on this creature, especially how the outer toes can abduct!
I decided to use gold for the Fell Beast’s claws and teeth, and this is one of my favorite choices I made on the model; gold gets around the potential visual confusion of re-using tan (already employed in the underbelly and on the base), still reads as dirty (unlike, say, white), and looks far duller than a standard yellow or orange.
The head of the Fell Beast was the first piece I designed of this whole scene, but it continued to evolve over time. The addition of a helmet—technically only accurate to the Beast’s armament in the third LOTR movie, but so cool I couldn’t pass it up—came rather late in the game, but I think it looks great.
I’m pretty pleased with the compactness of the head, and think this is about as small as I could possibly have gone while still preserving the beast’s most signature features. Still, the size of this head proportionally dictated a certain size of body, one which turned out just slightly too large for minifigure scale.
The base presented two requirements. What I built had to look dilapidated, yet simultaneously be strong enough to support and counterbalance the enormous weight of the Fell Beast. Inspired by the work of some terrific LOTR collectibles’ sculptors prior designs, I settled on this shape which, with its several arches and delicious asymmetry, fulfilled both requirements.
The enormous masonry blocks felt an appropriate choice for this ruin, architecturally. They look hardy enough to hold the Fell Beast, and add texture to what could have otherwise been a dull surface.
These two Gondorian guardsmen aren’t official LOTR minifigures, since the LEGO Group never produced any of these characters in their product line from 2012-2013. I just gave them generic, full-body silver armor to best approximate their look from the movie.
I’ve left a spare helmet on the ruins base, just to indicate how quickly the scene in Osgiliath flipped from relative peace to total panic upon the Fell Beast’s arrival!
This scene wouldn’t be complete without Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum! I’ve positioned these three protagonists underneath the broken arch of the ruin to best hide them from the Fell Beast perched above.
In the gradient I’ve added to these photos’ backdrops in post-production, the brownish hue on the bottom is pulled directly from the dark tan base of the model. I like to try to tying the bricks into their backdrop to create a more immersive impression!
As promised: here are some pictures of my 2012 Fell Beast. Needless to say, my newer version of the dragon is superior in just about every way! I cringe to look at this old model again, but I thought it would be fun and beneficial for my younger followers to see how far a person’s building skills can come in 8 years. Never stop building, never stop growing!
Thanks for reading! If you have any other questions or thoughts about this model, feel free to leave them in the comments below.