Lion Dance Bricks Builds Completed

Yay!  I finally finished my "Lion Dance Minibricks" build this afternoon (after spending the last 3 weekend afternoons working on it)!  🥳

Got this one in Vancouver last year (having originally wanted another one that I ended up having to internet order instead).

Of all these Chinese designs I've built recently, this one is perhaps the most solid + structurally sound of all of them. The only problem was trying to figure out how the layers lined up, as a few layers had lots of bricks packed into tight arrangements that it became hard to figure out which was which! 

(The problem was such that today I had to redo part of the girl's face, as I'd added the middle between-eyes chunk one row too far back!  Fortunately, the whole lion-dance head came off relatively cleanly, and apart from one or two stragglers that needed to be manually placed first, I managed to get the whole head to snap straight back on after I'd made the tweaks... not once, but twice!  Phew! Things would've been bad had I had to undo all that to get back down!) 

The Other / OG Lion Dance Figure (JK5131)

For reference, here is the *other* Lion Dance model I'd recently completed.

This one is a Jaki "JK5131" (i.e. "Lucky Lion") model, and is the one I had actually originally wanted to get and build when I saw one in in a shopfront in Richmond / Vancouver, when I visited in June last year. 

(The mall, it seems was slated for closure + demolition starting September 2025... which isn't surprising given how dated the place looked, and the way that it felt like: "a daycare / holding pen for elderly and/or retired Chinese Immigrants"... 😜)

Major Challenge 1 - Figuring Out What It Was Called and Where/How to Get One

The first major challenge was trying to get hold of one of these JK5131 models. Which is why, with like only a day left in town, I headed back into the labyrinth of a mall to visit the store again to ask them if they had one of these... which is how I ended up with the *other* one that I just completed today! (Either they misunderstood me, or they didn't have any in stock... in any case, I got the first one in this post + a simpler "Lucky Cat" one, BUT didn't get the one I really wanted! Oh well... walking away with some cute CNY brick model of some form was better than none in my books!)

Thus, when I got home, I finally started to search for the elusive model that I had only seen in that random shopfront (without finding or obtaining one), AND been drawn to seek out again at least once by this point. But, I was only armed with a single, small, blown-out / overexposed quick snap of it on my phone (as the sun was shining directly on it at the time I snapped it during that first early morning walk we took around the block)...

Long story short: 

* It took 2 rounds of reverse image search, several months apart, to finally find a high quality search match of a promo shot of this model

 

* It took a bunch more searching using this high quality image to then find a site stating the ID + Name of the set in question  (i.e. usually it was included in a page discussing a "set" of these designs, with only two of the other ones usually mentioned in the name, and then you'd have to dig through the image carousel to find that one of these images showed the one in question... only on one of those pages did I finally find the ID at last!)

 

* Searching for that ID, I found 3 options for buying it:

1) On AliExpress from an online shop from China / Beijing

2) From the online shop in question directly

3) From another China-based online shop, probably also Beijing

4) From what touted itself as the "Official Store" for various brick-model-sets from China, aimed at a foreign audience

 

* Being wary of shopping directly with Chinese stores, I tried buying from number 4. Only to get most of the way through the process before meeting a hard wall, where they said their Paypal (?) payment method couldn't be used with my region / country (NZ). Arrgh!

 

* After more deliberation, I went for number 1. I will say, that AliExpress did have some interesting efficiencies and polish that other ecommerce sites don't have...

 

Major Challenges 2a - Difficulties in the Build

I built most of it over one very long evening, after my last workday of the year (i.e. my late grandma's birthday!) 

"Most", as I ended up having to "finish" the last 2 steps of build the next morning, as I was forced to give up late the previous night, as my eyes were blurring over (and I kept breaking more and more of the built parts!)

The two steps remaining at that point:
   1) Constructing the ears (i.e. there were too many small steps involved, and I was getting too tired to push through one last push of figuring those out)

   2) Trying to get the head on the body (or even keep the central triangular piece on the face) *ahem*

 

Major Challenges 2b - More Details About Difficulties in the Build

Even now, I *still* haven't actually gotten the head attached to the body. In that photo, I managed to get the head to balance on the body for just long enough to stably take a bunch of photos, but it's certainly NOT attached properly (so is very much not quake-safe).

In fact, for the meantime, I've just improvised with the leftover pieces to give the head a booster "mounting stand" - i.e. about 6 small pieces stacked to form a bit of a pole with a flared base.

(I temporarily removed the stand to get that photo, as having the stand makes the head stick out a bit too much), but yeah... I may come back to this when I have more spare pieces to play with after the other few...)

The problem trying to attach them is that the head is *very heavy*, but the legs are "barely" attached to the body (by like 1 jutting out piece that the rest of the leg assemblies are built out around!!!) So, every time you go "for the squeeze" to force the tiny mounting points together, you end up taking 2 or more of the legs apart! Like completely! If I have more spare pieces, I may try reworking this flawed design!

Yeah, and speaking of pieces that didn't mesh:
That triangular piece in the center of the face? Yeah, the weird "attachment pole" thing just kept falling out / off, and required so many attempts to mount it, as the pieces just wouldn't hold! (I ended up fixing it by adding one of the spare pieces along that chain (i.e. at the mounting point at the very end actually) which seems to make it just long enough to actually work now!

Other Minor Challenges During the Build

During the build, there were two mildly annoying things:
1) I really need a projects desk over in this house too! (I had a dedicated desk for building stuff over in my other office setup - which is where I did that first build up above... In the meantime, trying to do this with the bed as a second desk wasn't working, so I ended up having to take over my main desk instead, as my back + knees were *killing* me)

 

2) They've been very annoying, and scattered random bricks in other non-sequentially numbered bags! So, you can't just open them in order, but must have all of them open, and go hunting for the part you need!

It turns out that that organiser box that I got from Bunnings is *perfect* for doing this sort of thing! Pouring everything out into that tray and putting on my desk beside me has made everything 1000% easier