Set Review: Crazy Legs
Tuesday, January 11th, 2022 at 6:16am by Jason, BZPower Reporter
Today we're going to do something a little bit different. Instead of looking at an official LEGO set, we're going to look at a supplemental fan designed parts. Crazy Legs by CrazyBricks was a Kickstarter that went on last year, and BZPower Reporter Xccj just received a batch. Read on to see what they're like.
If you're a fan of custom made minifigure parts, you may be aware of CrazyBricks. They tend to run Kickstarters to raise funds for ridiculous designs to use to customize minifigures in ways that LEGO just doesn't go for. I've backed their Crazy Arms and Dino Dudes projects, but the latest one I got in the mail was Crazy Legs. I'm having fun using them for minifig poses, so I thought I'd give a quick review.
For the Kickstarter, they released two different packs with three types of legs each. The Tactical pack (in blue above) has Sniper, Step Up, and High kick legs, the second Super Pack (in green) has Super, Flight, and Kneeling legs. And they offered them in a variety of colors. I ordered five packs: Tactical in white, red, and blue, and Super in green and black.
In general, the legs are pretty sturdy, and the designs are very reminiscent of standard minifigure legs, just bent in unusual ways. That's not to say this is something we've never seen before; LEGO plays hard and fast with leg motions in their video games and television shows and other artwork. But, of course, regular minifig legs only have a limited number of poses and lack knee articulation, so that's where these custom molds come in. They all have an anti-stud at the bottom of the foot, even for the feet that are kicked up in the air. But there is not the standard anti-stud on the back of the leg that minifigs use for sitting; it's solid plastic there. And suffice to say, there is no motion on the hips; these are single solid pieces. This means they're great for display, less so for roleplay. And finally, the top of the hips have gaps in them that regular LEGO hips have, thus allowing the application of Crazy Arms. (That's a whole thing where they created an internal connection to hold onto their custom arms that fits inside the torso and connects to the top of the hips.) Unfortunately, some of the hips don't quite fit flush into the torsos; the gap isn't big but perfectionists would be upset.
Sniper Legs
This is a good kneeling position for taking aim. The left leg is knelt down and back to rest on the knee, while the right leg is bent and posed to the side. It gives the figure a solid foundation, and the left knee is about flush with the bottom of the right foot. However, this does mean that you can't pose this on a plate, because the studs would hit the left knee, but it works okay on tiles with a jumper connection. Using the Crazy Arms to hold onto a ranged weapon helps with this look, and I'm sure that was entirely intentional on their part.
Step Up Legs
These really give a dynamic action pose, as if capturing the figs in mid run / leap. The left leg is bent into a kneeling position and the right leg is arched back slightly. If you connect to the left leg to a plate, the toe of the right leg reaches too far down and would hit the plate. Connecting the right leg has the figure leaning backwards in an unsatisfactory pose. As such, I used the clear angled bar element with stud introduced with the Super Hero CMFs to elevate them a bit and allow for a better pose. And it looks great!
High Kick Legs
This seems to be the most basic of the leg designs, as each leg is straight but bent out at an angle. The angle between them is a little more than 90 degrees, so it's not a solid right angle. But it works for delivering a high kick pose. I suppose if you're willing to use an angled bar element you can make a figure do the splits.
Super Legs
I think this might be my favorite design. The left leg is knelt down and the right leg is straight but angle downward and to the side. It looks like an awesome flying kick, but I guess it's also supposed to represent the Super Hero landing pose. (Like the ones they made fun of in Black Widow and Deadpool.) The bottom of both legs are flush, which means they won't work on a studded plate but are fine on tiles, although elevating them just makes the pose look that much better.
Flight Legs
These legs are supposed to represent a Super Hero in flight, or at the very least at the beginning of a big leap. It's very similar to the Step Up legs, as the right leg on both is the same shape. However, for the Flight legs the left leg is still bent but angled backwards. With both legs angled back, it does mean there's no downward connection you can make to connect the figs to a plate; in this case an angled bar element is almost required to get a decent pose.
Kneeling Legs
We get another kneeling position, although this one angles the torso down a bit so it's less for aiming and more for observing something closer to the ground. The left leg is kneeling forward (in the same shape as the Step Up left leg) while the right leg is bent backwards (in the same shape as the Sniper left leg.) Both legs are flush to the ground, but again that means they work on tiles but not studs. This is a bit more of a subdued pose than some of the others, but it still works.
Overall, I'm fairly pleased with how these legs worked out, and some of the poses can be quite fun. It is a bit annoying that many of these won't work on a studded plate because the legs would hit the studs, so to throw together a quick display I had to create a tiled surface, and others require angled bar elements to make them look decent. Most of these are for display purposes only. (Although the high kick one works better for more basic fig play.) And, of course, some of the designs are better than others. I'm not particularly fond of the kneeling designs, but although I was skeptical about the high kick, it's growing on me. My favorite is still the Super design.
Of the five colors I got, the plastic shades all nicely match the LEGO element colors, so no worries there. Although some of the legs have very visible seams on the side from the mold; I'm fine with this since it's a third-party element, but it would be unacceptable on an official LEGO piece.
Crazy Bricks is selling these on their site. At the moment, it looks like the individual packs with three legs each are selling for $11. It's expensive for essentially three pieces, but that's what you get from a custom fan design. (I paid $9 per pack through the Kickstarter, but that ship has sailed.) I'd say it's only worth it if you have a very specific need and are willing to cough up the dough. And you are also fine with third party elements in your display. Purist can safely skip these. A few of the things that Crazy Bricks has made have popped up in official LEGO sets, but I doubt that LEGO will be changing the classic design of their minifigure legs any time soon, even to help make these cool poses.
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