LEGO’s minifigs are the perfect canvas for creativity, as their simple plastic forms provide enough constraint to force people to consider their art and design choices. That’s exactly the kind of pressure that Wicked Makers’ Jaimie and Jay thrive under, leading them to build this delightfully realistic oversized animatronic LEGO minifig zombie.

While this isn’t as big as some of the Wicked Makers’ other animatronic projects, it is still quite large for a LEGO minifig. But the more reasonable scale gave them the ability to focus on detail and to make the whole thing portable. That latter factor was important, as the Wicked Makers took this to their son’s LEGO summer camp class as the ultimate show-and-tell presentation.

The minifig’s body is 3D-printed plastic covered in a layer of disturbingly realistic clay skin. The Wicked Makers put most of their time into the facial features and the detail is incredible. With some paint and handcrafted clothes, the zombification was complete.

To make the minifig move, they put large servo motors in the neck, arms, and pelvis. An Arduino UNO Rev3 controls those through a Bottango Servo Shield. That’s really nifty, because it integrates seamlessly with the free Bottango animatronic animation software. That let the Wicked Makers pre-program sequences of movements and also gave them the ability to enable real-time puppeteering via a PlayStation controller connected to the PC that runs the software. As you’d expect, this was a big hit at the LEGO summer camp. The kids all got to control the zombie minifig, which is sure to be an experience they’ll remember for life.