Halloween 2012 will be Bricktacular

I intimated in my last post that I was looking forward to having a clean costume slate and having generations of pop culture to derive an idea from. Well, I now renounce that anticipation as folly and naive. It shouldn't have happened, but I have struggled for ideas. A Google document I opened several months ago for brainstorming purposes has remained pitifully unpopulated. However, I have been forced to give the issue greater thought as the days start falling off the calendar; building season is already upon us.

Full disclosure: I am an unashamed LEGO fanatic. I have a modest collection by most hardcore AFOL (adult fan of LEGO) standards, but quite possibly a ridiculous collection by the standards of most normal 25 year-olds. According to Brickset the tally is 71 sets spanning some 25,000 pieces. Among those sets are seven series of the Minifigures theme (better known by their unofficial title of 'collectable minifigures', or CMFs). The CMF line was introduced in May 2010. The premise: 16 unique minifigures (of diverse archetypes, derived from historical figures, pop culture, sports, and numerous other walks of life) packaged in opaque bags so the collector has to buy 'blind', not knowing which minifigure he or she is getting. As the story goes, The LEGO Company underestimated the demand that this theme would generate, and as a result demand far outstripped supply in certain territories; supposedly US collectors in particular suffered; making Series 1 extremely hot property. In the aftermarket full sets of 16 have been selling for in excess of €100 even with the bags opened (judging from a courtesy glance at a few eBay auctions in recent months). The minifigures command a recommended retail price of €2.49 (varying slightly depending on retailer mark-ups and territorial variances) netting you around two-and-a-half times what you spent if you managed to secure a set. 

Anyway, enough collecting and reselling talk. The relevance to the current article is this: one of the 16 Series 1 minifigures was the first ever LEGO zombie. The zombie proved to be ridiculously popular; between its general awesomeness and the scarcity of Series 1, it fetched (and continues to do so) in excess of five times its RRP in the aftermarket. Here he is in all his glory:

I've often thought of doing something LEGO-related for Halloween. I like to combine hobbies; I regularly do so with LEGO and photography (the above image being a product of it) and I always felt that it would be fun to do so with Halloween. When I was trying to figure out Halloween-appropriate ideas that would involve LEGO, this charming fella popped into my mind. With this in mind, I present my Halloween costume for 2012.