Tattooed Lego minifigs

Craft & Design Fun & Games
Tattooed Lego minifigs
legot2.jpg

This is a viral marketing campaign for some kind of extra-fine point Pilot pen. I love the minifigs themselves, but the campaign bugs me for a couple of reasons: 1) I’ve been Googling around pretty hard and can’t seem to figure out exactly which of Pilot’s many pens these photos are promoting, and 2) nowhere does it explicitly state that the art on the minifigs was actually done with whatever pen they are advertising. So even if I could figure out which one that was, it’s not at all clear that I could actually use it to tattoo my own minifigs. In any case, any kind of super-fine-point permanent maker would probably work. [via Boing Boing]

10 thoughts on “Tattooed Lego minifigs

  1. swanqueen says:

    “1) I’ve been Googling around pretty hard and can’t seem to figure out exactly which of Pilot’s many pens these photos are promoting”

    the first link you gave shows the tattooed legos with the pen IN the picture and also lists the pen as Pilot Extra-Fine ball-pens. not sure why the picture in your article no longer has the image of the pen in it, but you can see where it used to be in the upper left hand corner.

    “In any case, any kind of super-fine-point permanent maker would probably work.”

    most of the super fine markers i’ve used can’t get the *tiny* detail you see on those legos. it would have to be suuuuuper fine.

  2. Shadyman says:

    I question the depth of field and/or lighting of the tattoos on the ‘chests’ of the minifigs with tank-tops.

  3. thekiyote says:

    It looks like the High-Tech C series of pens, which I’ve only been able to find in Japan (and Japanese supermarkets/bookstores that import Japanese stationary and office supplies).

    Here’s a link:
    http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/gel_ink/hitecc/index.html

  4. thekiyote says:

    In the photos, it looks like the High-Tech C series of pens with a different label, which I’ve only been able to find in Japan (and Japanese supermarkets/bookstores that import Japanese stationary and office supplies). I can vouch, they really can write out that small. They are by leaps and bounds the best pens I have ever used.

    Here’s a link:
    http://www.pilot.co.jp/products/pen/ballpen/gel_ink/hitecc/index.html

  5. John Baichtal says:

    Shadyman is right, this is a better-than-average photoshop job. The only obvious part is the chest — not quite right.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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