Big Wheel is without a doubt one of Spider-Man’s strangest villains. However, this week’s Custom Corner from Blocks, the Lego magazine for fans, shows that to a good customiser no design is unsalvageable.
One of the most popular types of custom minifigure on Instagram is the ‘verse custom’, which is essentially just a customiser’s own version of a character. These can be anything from swapping a few parts of an official figure, to making a completely new design, to a whole group of figures with a fully fleshed-out backstory. They’re known as ‘verse customs’ because these figures are usually captioned with the name of the customiser’s universe, which is based on their account name (for example Loft-Verse for @the_lego_loft, IPL-Verse for @ipostlego, or J4J-Verse for @j4j.films). The Rye-Verse, by @rye_bricks, is one of the most unique out there, and has its own distinctive style, very mechanical and cyberpunk inspired. This figure in particular is a perfect example of this, as it incorporates a lot of elements from Big Wheel’s design, but is so stylised that it bears almost no resemblance to it.
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Needless to say, it’s a vast improvement over his ridiculous comic book design. The reimagining of the huge wheel as a kind of unicycle mech suit is ingenius, allowing for both the titular wheel and the vehicle’s ‘arms’ to be incorporated without either looking out of place. It also means the arms can be a lot bulkier and more menacing than the long clawed poles of the original design. The design of the suit’s hands is very impressive, and the Technic pins on its fingers fit the style perfectly. The guns being positioned on the shoulders rather than just next to the arms is a nice touch, and the Technic parts used to represent them work very well.
The suit’s hip joint is also very well-designed, featuring a very clever use of the handlebar piece. A minifigure drill accessory with 2 1×1 tiles with clips has been attached to the torso in order to achieve a more rounded shape, another inventive part usage. The figure’s colour scheme has also been changed, swapping the garish yellow for silver and grey, and making the green less vibrant, but keeping the yellow visor the same. Altogether, this is one of the best ‘verse customs’ out there, and it is criminally underrated. If you like this style, check out @rye_bricks‘ other work, because it’s all equally impressive.
