Designer insight: Michael Svane Knap
Posted by Huwbot,
Many LEGO set designers use our BrickLists feature to maintain a list of the sets they've worked on and often provide interesting insights about their involvement.
Once a week we publish an entry from one of their lists on the home page to increase awareness of this information and to encourage more designers to create them.
Michael Svane Knap wrote this about their work on 70658 Oni Titan:
This was my first "mech" I build. I wanted to play with odd proportions to give a sense off scale in the model. In the show, this is a giant stone colossus and the challenge was how to capture that in the product.
the model was created in parallel with the writers finishing up the story for the season finale where it appears. This gave an opportunity to have a close collaboration with the writers of how they were seeing it and how they want to use it. we went through many different looks, somewhere closer to the Oni silhouette with giant horns and somewhere more human-like.
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12 comments on this article
Michael Knap is one of my favourite Ninjago designers!
Love this set, time to dig it out for a build.
71721: Skull Sorcerer's Dragon is a contemporary classic! He makes a grand appearance in my annual Halloween display.
Very cool mech. I love the tank treads hanging down, and the mix of nature and technology. And it has four fingers on each hand!
Not bad for Knap's first mech!
It's a great mech and set,but it's probably one of the least accurate ninjago sets out there,considering that the sets kinda come before some of the show.
I find it interesting that 71174 is the Only Dimensions starter pack he has on his Bricklist. I thought that all the starter packs all had the same builds and the only differences were in the portal devices and game discs. Was I wrong to make that assumption?
@StyleCounselor said:
"71721: Skull Sorcerer's Dragon is a contemporary classic! He makes a grand appearance in my annual Halloween display. "
I don't decorate for Halloween. but I've long thought Shelob from 9470 would be great for that, what with the string and hook allowing you to hang her up in a variety of places.
He did a great job on this set! Too bad it wasn't available at too many places over here and it quickly fell off my wanted list because it became unavailable forever.
I'd love if they made a bigger version of it, the size doesn't do Colossus justice. And maybe a Great Devourer too...
@Binnekamp: There are lots of sets on my wanted list that I have no reasonable hope of ever actually getting. Just because they're not for sale any more (or were never available to the general public) doesn't mean I don't want them.
@TheOtherMike said:
"I find it interesting that 71174 is the Only Dimensions starter pack he has on his Bricklist. I thought that all the starter packs all had the same builds and the only differences were in the portal devices and game discs. Was I wrong to make that assumption?
@StyleCounselor said:
" 71721 : Skull Sorcerer's Dragon is a contemporary classic! He makes a grand appearance in my annual Halloween display. "
I don't decorate for Halloween. but I've long thought Shelob from 9470 would be great for that, what with the string and hook allowing you to hang her up in a variety of places."
Good idea. I do use a ton of spiders in my display from:
79001 : Escape from Mirkwood Spiders;
4738 : Hagrid's Hut;
75950 : Aragog's Lair; and, yes, 3 copies of "the last child of Ungoliant" 9470.
I particularly like the Mirkwood spiders as their eyes glow in the dark, and create a nice effect.
I dont usually collect Ninjago but I remember having my eye on this set due to it's more 'natural' form rather than being a giant robot, but as mentioned above I don't think I ever really saw it widely available (or perhaps more accurately, on a significant enough discount for me to jump).
Great designer list. Full of hits and hidden gems (remember wanting the gamer's market and NRG dragon as well).
Dang, he’s made some bangers! His design portfolio is seriously impressive.