LEGO® Minecraft animals: Silverfish and Chicken

I've always been intrigued by the animal head elements that were specially introduced for LEGO® Minecraft sets. They're highly specialised and don't entirely conform to the System, but their blockiness and intriguing shapes made me wonder what else could be done with them. Who could I challenge to take on such a challenging challenge? The brilliant Jonas Kramm accepted my evil task! Over the course of three posts he will examine six Minecraft animal moulds.

Under the radar of most AFOLs, LEGO® has added several new Minecraft animal moulds to their assortment, which seem to be quite strange on first sight. But in a series of articles here on New Elementary I will dive into the blocky world, analyse the geometry of several Minecraft moulds and show you examples for the capability of these elements.

Silverfish (Element ID 6227307|Design ID 38774)

To attract your attention we start with the strangest new mould, the Minecraft silverfish (called Creature, No. 73 by TLG). I didn’t know silverfish existed in the Minecraft universe and I don’t know why they are so important as to warrant a new mould, but here they are.

The silverfish only comes in Sand Blue and has printing on the front end. It can be placed on a 1x3 plate, but due to the strange shape and the asymmetrical tail it overlaps on all sides but cleverly misses all nearby studs.

To visualise that, I have marked in red all the surrounding studs were you can’t place a 1x1 brick.

In the second example the silverfish sits on jumper plates, which makes the footprint a bit smaller.

Between the intended connection points on the bottom and the stud on the top, two silverfish can connect to each other in a highly illegal way by pushing together the spikes on their back.

Because of the asymmetrical shape, I find the pieces to be best for organic builds. So for my first creation I made the mountain troll from the first Harry Potter movie.

Using mostly Sand Blue for this creature was quite a challenge – I even had to use a sausage to connect the arms. (Buying a bulk amount finally paid off!)

Silverfish currently only come in one set, 21147 The Bedrock Adventures (Amazon USA), which contains two. The element (and indeed the set inventory) are not yet listed on BrickLink.

Chicken (Element ID 6217227|Design ID 37276)

The chicken (Animal Head, No. 28) is the smallest new Minecraft animal mould. Not only is it printed, it is also moulded with two different coloured plastics: White for the head and Flame Yellowish Orange [TLG]/ Bright Light Orange [BL] for the beak.

As you can see in these comparison shot the chicken’s face is close to being as thick a plate, but is actually a bit thinner.

Instead, the beak is a one-plate thickness, and can be clipped.

The bottom of the mould has the same tubes as the new jumper plates, so you can place it with a half brick offset.

I think it’s a great part for microscale. When you use several copies of this new element it doesn’t look like a chicken anymore.

To make the effect even more convincing I combined the chicken mould with the White 1x1 Plate Printed With Black Square (Element ID 6202501) from 70620 Ninjago City, which will appear again in the upcoming LEGO Architecture skyline set 21043 San Francisco.

Thanks to its small size I’m sure I will use the chicken head again in future builds. What ideas do you have for these pieces?



Chickens currently only come in one set, 21140 The Chicken Coop (Amazon USA), which contains three.

READ MORE:
Jonas explored other Minecraft animals too:

• Part 2 uses the cat and rabbit elements to make a water wheel and a buccaneer 
• Part 3 uses the horse and wolf elements to make an exotic Shrine of Nature 

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