Go behind the scenes of LEGO Ideas 21366 Floating Sea Otters and learn how the LEGO Ideas team went about maximizing the cuteness for the final set.
21366 Floating Sea Otters is on the way – the set uses 1,234 elements, is priced at £99.99 / $119.99 / €109.99 and launches on March 1. LEGO Ideas Model Designer Chris McVeigh and Design Manager Jordan David Scott share insights into packing as much cuteness into 21366 Floating Sea Otters as they could, inspired by fan designer Maximilian Lambrecht’s original submission.
Max’s LEGO Ideas submission achieved the necessary 10,000 supporters and won over the LEGO Ideas team for its cuteness — what’s not to love about an otter enjoying a relaxing afternoon floating around at sea? And while redesigning the model for release as an official set, Model Designer Chris McVeigh wanted to keep the spirt of Max’s model while filling it with even more otter cuteness.
The most eye-catching difference between the fan model and final set is the addition of the otter pup resting on the mom’s belly. This was something that the LEGO Ideas team was keen to add from the start.
“There’s a couple of reasons we added it. One, it’s adorable to include,” smiles Design Manager Jordan David Scott. “We know with animals being a big passion point, we’ve seen with other products the combination of a parent and younger animal working really well.
“Another reason is also when you see the sea otter lying down, it’s very flat. So it was, it was a way to bring some extra height to the model because otherwise it is very flat when you just have the base and most of the otter submerged underwater. So we really wanted to bring something on top of it. And a lot of people recognise fully sea otters either from their facial expressions or holding a small pup. So it was just an idea to add one, and I think it brought a lot more emotion to the set as well.”
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“We had opted to try different colours for the pup,” Model Designer Chris McVeigh chimes in. “Like sand yellow or brick yellow. But they came across as being just too light and too different from the colour we already had.
“We did go through a couple of loops on how the sea otter pup would look. And one of the main revisions we did from the first build was to make the shape of the head match the design language of the mother’s head much more closely. What we found when I was doing my concepting on this was that it created too much contrast. It drew a little too much attention to itself. So we stepped back from that and stuck with brown.”
Another cute detail added to the final model is a little shell floating beside the otters; this was something that had a great deal of consideration put into it despite being a relatively small part of the completed set.
“It was a fairly early addition,” Chris says. “We talked about having a rock because otters often have a favourite rock or pebble, but we wanted something that was a little bit more decodable in LEGO bricks. So we chose the shell. I did also consider things like a sea urchin, but the shell was the most obvious to go with.”
The last element of cuteness Chris and Jordan wanted to be sure to get into the model isn’t something that’s immediately noticeable, and it starts with the challenge of making the elbow a moveable joint.
“The elbow join had to somehow go underneath the base in a way that didn’t break the illusion of the otter being in the water,” says Chris. “We couldn’t have a large, open cavity there. So finding just the right pieces and then doing a sort of triplet articulation for the elbow underneath the water level was an interesting challenge.”
An impressive feat on its own, the posable arm allows for an extra feature for those who purchase two copies of the set: the two otters can hold hands just like they do in the wild, so they don’t drift apart. This is achieved with the design of the elbow as well as modular elements in the base.
“The model is made in four different modules, essentially,” Chris explains. “There’s the centre module with the mother, there’s the front of the base, the back of the base and the then the otter pup. The front and back sections can pull off; they’re fully separate assemblies. That way if you have another otter, you can put them together. Then you just have to pull the arm out, rotate it 180 degrees, and then it can rest up against the other otter’s hand.
“It’s something that was in our minds from the beginning. We knew people would want it. So we made sure there was a way that it could be done. And we wanted to treat it more like an Easter egg than an actual feature because it’s not set of two otters.” Chris pauses to look at the model. “Well, it is, but it’s not a set of four otters!”
That might be all the cuteness for the otters themselves, but there’s one extra little detail included in the set as a nod to the fan designer, Max.
“Max asked for a compass tile, a 1×1 printed compass tile, and we built that right into the centre of the otter pup,” Chris says. “So there’s this little sort of pedestal that you build and a compass that goes on top of it. It’s hidden in there. But I imagine we’re going to get a lot of questions about why there’s a compass inside the otter pup. It’s for Max.”
“I felt it kind of captured my personality,” Max concludes. “It’s a reference to my username, HisBrickMaterials, which is based on one of my favourite books, His Dark Materials, which features the Golden Compass. Just a little reference to that.”
All the care and little details that went into 21366 Floating Sea Otters truly shows in the cute, realistic look of the mother otter and her pup. Learn about some of the challenges in capturing that realism and read about Max’s original model and journey with LEGO Ideas.
Ideas has much more on the way – Chris recently unveiled his other new set, 21376 Orange Cat, then a huge slate of fan-designed sets have been announced for the next two years, including Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Downton Abbey, Ramen, Vintage Sewing Machine, E.T. The Extra-terrestrial, Smurf Village and La Catrina. Another 75 product ideas are currently under consideration.
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