The ever so popular Bumblee Girl has appeared in keychain form and its a going to somewhat be a hit I’m sure. I know I’m going to get my hands on one of them. At the same time I’d like to share a bit of my project of coverting a Minifig Keychain of the Joker to “almost” the real thing.
Part 1 of this article will cover my little project in pictorial form, and discoveries. Part 2 will cover the conversions of the how-to’s and pros and cons of a conversion and how the market may be affected.
Firstly, the reason why this Joker was selected because I couldn’t get it in any other set and that set is priced on the higher end. Yes, just like the Bumblebee Girl, it’s unique it its own way, and only appears in 1 set released by Lego. And Lego is pretty smart that they release keychains which are expected to be popular in the first place to cash in on the buying trends.
So once I managed to remove the keychain part, to make it an “almost-perfect” minifig, I had to have that same fedora without that hole on it. So prior to doing the surgery, I found out that it does exist in other figs (Note, this was the days before I learnt of the existence of bricklink). There was this other character that wore that same fedora under the space police series. Bingo!
So, basically, I went onto ebay and bought about 10 of these purple fedoras (without minifigs) and did a batch conversion of these keychain minifigs.
One thing that I learnt is that sometimes it can be hard to tell whether a “part” you have came from Lego or a 3rd party. I did some research with Fedoras and found that some comes with the Lego printed on them, some didn't. The brown fedora from Indiana Jones set didnt come with the Lego logo, but the black one from a CMF Cowboy did so.
So, with the finished result that I have for, you can see that the only difference between the REAL mini figure and a modified is the torso that’s glued to the the legs permanently. And yes, the little HOLE at the top of the head stud and the body (if it bothers you)
With my new minifig in place, it’s photography time! Enjoy the attempt at the ’scary’ looking Joker pose and photography.