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12 December 2018

LEGO® Minecraft animals: Silverfish and Chicken

Posted by Admin
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.


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Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.

15 comments:

  1. Maybe I'm not very creative but I can see a stadium of chicken hat wearing fans of the Lego City Chickens sports team. With Chicken suit mascot.

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  2. I quite like that little house. The troll legs are just genius.

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  3. Your pictures of the silverfish made me imagine the possibilities it could have for some sort of microscale diorama. The curving tail has a neat staircase-esque look...

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    1. The tail looks indeed a bit like stairs, but I didn't use the idea as the spikes unfortunately destroy the effect for me. But if you find a way to use them, please share it with us. Would love to see it!

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  4. That house scene is amazing. Brilliant use of that part. I love these articles on new pieces, especially from such a creative and inspiring mind. Thank you!

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    1. Thanks Lee! Great to hear they hit the mark.

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  5. Sorry, I forgot to mention that troll -> That is spectacular!!

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  6. Oh no, Minecraft animals are coming to disrupt the system. Tim's defence was that's the whole appeal. I guess he was right. Throwing Jonas in the pit with those creatures is very entertaining.

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  7. Am I missing something here? The Chicken Coop was released this time last year, and its inventory is in fact listed on Bricklink

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    1. Hmmm that's weird, could have sworn inventory was not there - have removed my erroneous claim! The set is considered a 2018 set though, if that's what you meant.

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  8. At first I figured those were some naughty silverfish, but on a closer glance, I realize they're placed head-to-head, and might really only be acrobatic...

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    1. Haha I thought exactly the same thing!

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  9. Hello,
    Do you know the mold number for this part? It's the 5-digit number on the inside of the brick.

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    1. Hi Tobias, LEGO call that the Design ID, you will always find that in our articles. I'm not sure which of the 2 parts you are referring to, so take a look at the article to find it.

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