The Glow Demon: Si-MOCs vs. Monkie Kid

Simon Liu (@si_mocs) returns as our guest builder today! A stalwart of LEGO® fan communities both in Canada and online, we knew Si would just love to take on another MOCcing challenge. Products in this article were provided by LEGO®; the author's opinions are their own.

For my previous New Elementary guest article, I had the ‘privilege’ of reviewing 31200 LEGO® Art The Sith mosaic set, which was chosen for me. Much like the Iron Builder contest I help to run, the set offered pretty specific pieces to work with: about 3000 Plate Round 1 x 1. This time around, perhaps having proved myself a bit, I got to choose the set I would build MOCs out of. So I went off looking at sets that had an abundance of ‘interesting’ pieces.

One thing I’ve always loved working into my builds are LEGO pieces that are reactive to ultraviolet light. This gives MOCs that extra sci-fi feel, and there was only one set at the time that included a bunch of White Glow (aka Glow in the Dark) elements: LEGO Monkie Kid 80028 The Bone Demon.

It seemed like the perfect choice: it has 9 unique White Glow pieces, with a grand total of 74! Plus, two minifigures with 3 unique White Glow bits. Good deal!

As for the set itself (which I did build first!), it's fantastic. The combiner functionality is well done, and makes for engaging play. The extensive use of glow in the dark pieces adds an additional layer of play, and while expensive it is a strong entry into the wonderful LEGO Monkie Kid line.

The Flower Gate

There were quite a few White Glow pieces to choose from for my own creations, but one stood out to me as having less of a sci-fi feel: a very interesting foil piece. Here are the parts I chose as seed parts for my first MOC:

Brick 1X1X3 1/3, W/ Arch in Glow White (6347950|30935)
Punching Foil Sheet, No 44 in Silver Metallic (6347505 | 78820)
Mini Head No 3527 in Glow White (6349739 | 78927)
Mini Upper part No 5734 in Black (6356553 | 76382)
Mini Ghost Lower Part in Muilticolour (6381706 | 82434)

So while the reflective foil piece was something that I instinctively wanted to use, its pattern made it somewhat difficult to put into a build. After a lot of reflecting, I decided to simply flip it upside down.

Using the ample Brick 1X1X3 1/3, W/ Arch I was able to create a magical gateway, and the reflective foil created a magic pool where this little gate stood. A few minifig bits were scattered in the base of the tree to suggest some mushrooms and snakes. The flowers were created to add some height and anchor the build in pure fantasy, and they use White Glow pieces from other LEGO sets, which I ordered for this project.

It was a bit of an adventure figuring how to build the ‘stem trunk’ of my monster flowers. Anchoring them with the Flex Tube, 21 module W/ 3.2 Hole (6299954 | 27965) and twisting them actually allowed them to stand up largely on their own, with only a few bricks to help guide them to grow up … much like real plants!

TRON cycle

The second build was the one I’ve always wanted to do - a proper glow in the dark TRON cycle. This has been done by many builders over the years at different scales, but usually they relied on a transparent blue or maybe an azure. So I was determined to find the pieces to make this work. This set introduced the perfect piece for building a TRON cycle, the quarter Arch Brick 3x3!

1/4 Arch Brick 3X3, W/ Cutout, NO. 1 in White Glow (6348163 | 65617)
Brick 1X1X3 1/3, W/ Arch in White Glow (6347950 | 30935)
Left Plate 1X2, W/ Bow, 45 Deg Cut in White Glow (6347942 | 29120)
Right Plate 1X2, W/ Bow, 45 Deg. Cut iin White Glow (6347943 | 29119)

The scale of this was actually a bit difficult to get right. I wanted the nifty swoosh that the Brick 1X1X3 1/3 W/ Arch created, which meant that the body had to be only 1 tile thick sandwiched between the two pieces, which created some fun headaches.

While I was tempted to remain basking in White Glow, I did actually look at some of the other pieces available in the set, which is primarily coloured in White and Dark Purple/ Medium Lilac. I decided to pick some of the pieces that I didn’t yet own (i.e. new to me, not necessarily new to this set) and to use those as seed parts.

BeYonder

The next build is actually part of a Star Fighter Telephone game. This game works by having one person build a starfighter, and then the next person must take the design language established by the previous fighter and build their own version of it. I was the last player to go, and I initially dropped out altogether, since I had to work on a very important article for New Elementary. But… after noticing that the colour scheme was white, I decided to do both!

Cockpit 4x5x1 W/ Shaft No. 1 in White (6341902 | 27262).
Left Roof Tile x3x Deg 45/18/45 (6254601 | 42862)
Right Roof Tile x3x Deg 45/18/45 (6254602 | 48165)

I was fortunate enough to go after fellow New Elementary contributor Thomas Jenkins, and so iterated on his brilliant design.

I built the Beyonder. I initially struggled with following Thomas’ beautiful fighter as I didn’t have a cockpit that flowed nicely into his triangular shape, until I grabbed the cockpit piece. Using the three of them, the entire build became an exercise in angles to leverage the white angular shapes to form the fuselage. I also lucked out that the Roof Tile 3x3 was the right angle relative to the cockpit, to form both the top of the fighter and to shape out the rear engine sections.

Ye Brcyenton

The final build was actually one I started tinkering for the longest. This set has ample amounts of Dark Purple tiles and bows to play with.

Plate W/ Bow 2x2x2/3, 45 Deg in Medium Lilac (6351826 | 66956)
Flat Tile 2x3 W/ Angle in Medium Lilac (6245266 | 35341)
Mini Armour, No 13 (6353889 | 41637)

Newly introduced in Dark Purple by this set was the Plate W/ Bow 2x2x2/3 45 Deg; the critical seed piece to build the start of the tower in Ye Brycenton.

Combining the Plate w/ Bow and the Flat Tile by using a lot of weird connections, I created this wonderful conical tower. I originally thought about building a turtle with this configuration, but in the end decided to build out a little chunk of a town with purple roof motif and some Cool Yellow accents.

The Flat tile with its 45 degree point created the ability to create some interesting roof geometries, and I used it several times from the roof of the clocktower and again on the entryway of the square building on the right.

Conclusion

Surprisingly, this turned out to actually be harder than my last article. The limitation of having two difficult pieces to build with was actually more inspirational than having so many different unique pieces and being paralyzed by choice.

As silly as it sounds, it’s not actually easy to choose a set… there’s so many out there! This is all somewhat ironic as it’s a pretty standard process for me: I buy sets less so for the build, and more for the pieces. If you're going to buy the Bone Demon from LEGO.com, please consider using these affiliate links; New Elementary may get a commission – USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop | UK LEGO Shop/for Europe 'Change region'.

In the end I’m excited to have this wonderful set, and grateful to New Elementary for providing me with a good excuse to try to build things that normally I would not!

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06 May 2022