Welcome to part three in our series examining the evolution of LEGO® Dragons. In Part One, we looked at the development of the classic LEGO Dragon from 1992. In Part Two we followed the evolution of premoulded dragons, and examined the Legacy of Galidor in LEGO Creature design. Today, we are taking a look at the development of brick-built dragons, and the years where LEGO Bricks began to extend beyond the standard rectangular brick.

In the early years of this century, while the classic dragon was on its last legs, we started to see brick-built dragons appearing around the world. They were mostly hanging out in LEGOLAND parks, training for their future vocations, all the time, knowing that only a few might make the grade.

Some would graduate to providing tourists with directions around the parks, while others headed off to work in Retail settings. A privileged few would go on to lead the roller coaster around the LEGOLAND Parks’ castles.

For consumers, we saw the arrival of the ‘Advanced Sculpture’ Ollie the dragon in 2001. Based in part on those seen around the LEGO Parks. Ollie was built with over 1500 pieces and served as a happy reminder that dragons are not always in an adversarial role. But he is a little bit rigid, quite blocky and relatively low in play value.

There were also smaller, simpler models that existed as souvenirs of the parks. While these dragons look good on a shelf, they are essentially static and, indeed, glued! Overall, their play value was limited.

Bring On Bionicle

It was going to take a radical change in the paradigm to bring us dragons that were able to act as posable, dynamic creatures, within the LEGO System of play. The imminent arrival of a new LEGO Theme would bring that radical change to the way that LEGO figures could pose and move.

That theme was Bionicle. 

Bionicle appeared in 2001. With strange faces and body parts, to say nothing of engrossing story-telling spilling into Comics and Movies, these characters captured the hearts and minds of a generation with elements designed to ensure that not every LEGO model needed to be restricted to a world of blocky right angles.

Originally rooted in Technic, some of these elements began to creep out into the world of System bricks. At the same time, curved slopes began to proliferate, allowing for sleeker, more organic shapes in regular system builds.

Up until now, the majority of bricks had been square or rectangular in all planes. Slopes had existed in very straight and rigid forms for a few decades, but were limited. It was around this period that elements with curved slopes were introduced – rolling out in 2002 in themes such as Alpha Team and LEGO Star Wars. These curved elements brought a new level of organic forms to our minifigure’s adventures.

In 2004, the Designer Sets (precursors to today’s Creator 3in1) broadened the range of curves – upright and inverted, with others folding in up to 3 directions. Shell elements also arrived, curving nicely over the 1×6 curved slope. Prehistoric Creatures and Deep Sea Predators gave us our first insight into crafting curvy creatures using regular bricks: While the dinosaurs came first, dragons would follow a few years later.

As a separate example of how the LEGO System was evolving, Mechs as we knew them were pretty blocky to look at prior to these changes: Compare this “Life on Mars” mech from 2001 with 4508 Titan XP (2004) with its curves and click joint hips: there is no doubt that it represents the prototype of the mechs that we see today. You can see that over the course of just 2 years we have seen this very blocky concept evolve into the beginnings of an organic form.

Bionicle meets System with LEGO Vikings

Digging deep into Norse Mythology, 2005’s Vikings theme built on all of these innovations: bringing bionicle techniques and elements, combined with curved sloped elements (and more) to create fearsome creatures with the LEGO System. Although the presentation of the stereotypical Viking helmet with cowhorns might be somewhat apocryphal, the theme brings a prototype of dragon construction that would be built on into the future.

These Vikings sets brought the Bionicle ball joints to the world of dragons. Through a combination of Bionicle and System elements working together, they brought so much more to the game. While Bionicle ball joints provided much of the articulation, and a Bionicle-style pre-molded head helped to define the look, the sets also embraced the use of curved slopes to shape the dragon’s body. The head was enhanced through the addition of teeth, horns and flame.

Despite being released over the course of just the one year, Vikings’ Fafnir Dragon served as the prototype for many of those dragon characteristics that we now take for granted, twenty years later:

Along with being the first dragon models with a curved slopes on the body, they also marked the first appearance of the tooth and tail elements that we still use today, although these were still made of a fairly firm plastic, rather than the softer rubber elements that we see today (something something child safety).

The Dragon wing elements introduced in these 2005 sets remain relatively unchanged and are still a vital part of the palette today, forming the basic templates for the ‘wing family’ of elements.

And while the majority of the joints are Bionicle ball joints, a Galidor ‘click’ joint allows the tail its flexibility and stability at the same time.

Creator stretches its wings

Moving forward, a number of elements began to appear that would shape the development of Dragons in the future:

The Creator theme had a number of sets dedicated to dragons over the years. The first was 4894 Mythical Creatures, released in 2006. The head and body were constructed using System Bricks, while a fabric sail would form the webbing, stretched over the wing, and secured in place with hope and optimism as you slipped them into place over a couple of modified plates with bars. This technique would be further improved, a couple of years down the track.

The Bionicle ball joints were used in more and more system sets from 2007 onwards, working together with the Technic Click hinge in Exoforce, to ensure the mechs would keep upright. This theme also gave us the now ubiquitous ‘Bad Robot Arm,’ which has gone on to become a very versatile element, providing many a claw and face details in dragons yet to come.

2009’s 6751 Fiery Legend drew upon the previous ‘green dragon’ using small technic balls, rather than the plate with bar to secure the fabric in place. This technique was also used on the 10196 Grand Carousel from the same year. These ball-on-connector elements were, for the time being, relatively limited – it would be a few years before a socket became available that would up the ante on what these balls were capable of.

Atlantis: the Prototype for the Next Big Thing…

Atlantis arrived in 2010, bringing with it a number of ingredients that would be the prototype for original playthemes going forward.

The theme had an animated TV special to act as a launching point: a chance to develop the backstory, and to generate some engagement with the young folk.

From a creature/dragon point of view, Atlantis brought us a number of underwater beasties which became ever increasingly organic in appearance. They played on existing techniques, and drew on aspects of the new Character and Creature Building System – introduced initially in Hero Factory ( and also used in the short-lived Bionicle reboot, to say nothing of Superhero and Star Wars Constraction figures of the mid-2010s).

These sets brought us a new rubber tooth element: – these elements that were creating ‘points’ in models were now being made of a rubbery material, in the interests of child safety, rather than the hard ABS which is somewhat less forgiving.

As a casual aside, Atlantis also brought us the first documented use of a portal as a narrative device within any LEGO Play theme. (I acknowledge such things appeared in the Time Cruisers Comics during the 90s, but I digress) I’m sure we never hear anything about this story-driving contrivance in years to come, going forward…

This format: animated story to introduce characters and situations, to say nothing of creatures as they were being released in brick form, became the template for every in-house play theme going forward.

While none of the creatures featured in Atlantis is, strictly speaking, a dragon, the elements used here continue to play a part of dragon construction to this day, and certainly paved the way for the generation of the next generation of LEGO Dragons, which we would see in Ninjago.

In our next installment, we will take a look at the ongoing wold of Ninjago and other playthemes incorporating dragons in the 2010s. The internal struggle between brick-built and pre-moulded heads and the further evolution of the LEGO System in play come to the fore in the fourth part of our look at the Evolution of LEGO Dragons.

This series started life as a presentation at Paredes de Coura in 2023, the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend in 2024, Japan Brickfest in 2025 and Brickvention in 2026

 

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!