Wheel of Time Chess Set
This page contains photos of my lego chess set based on The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. I'm posting this just as the Wheel of Time TV show is about to premier, but the build itself is based strictly on the book. While I strongly approve of the casting choices made by the show, I printed most of my Wheel of Time lego minifigures before the casting choices were all announced, so the minifigures are based on the books alone.
Spoiler warning: minor spoilers can be inferred from the minifigures.
You can view the artwork either through the gallery below or the individual image links just below the gallery. Below that, I have included a discussion of the lego build, followed by copyright and use information. If you're on mobile, the menus are at the bottom of the page.
Gallery
Individual image links
- White chess pieces
- Black chess pieces
- Board from above
- Diagonal view 1
- Diagonal view 2
- Diagonal view 3
- Diagonal view 4
- Side view 1
- Side view 2
- Side view 3
- Side view 4
- Under the board: Juilin vs. Darlin
- Under the board: the redstone door
- Under the board: Slayer and Hopper
- Under the board: Birgitte and Gaidal Cain
- Under the board: Bair, Amys, and Elayne
About this build
A few people had trouble identifying some of the minifigures. The rooks are Nynaeve, Logain, Graendal, and Demandred. The figures in the base are Juilin vs. Darlin; Slayer vs. Hopper; Birgitte and Gaidal Cain; and Bair, Amys, and Elayne.
I used a variety of customization methods. The four flags/banners, the Myrddraal heads, and Rand's hands were made with waterslide decals. The custom designs used for Egwene, Mat, Perrin, Nynaeve, Logain, the Siswai'aman, Graendal, Lanfear, Ishamael, Elayne, Bair, and Amys were UV printed by MinifigFX and Bricksanity (I forget who I used for each). Nynaeve's hair is painted since an over-the-shoulder braid only comes in blonde. I used a variety of custom parts, mostly for the Trollocs, from BrickWarriors and BrickForge, and 1 piece from Arealight. For the maidens of the spear, I removed some but not all of the printing on their legs (I had to remove the yellow skin print from the thighs) by using a rotary tool and brasso.
I based my choices strictly on the books, and I used the Wheel of Time Companion extensively for fact-checking. I did occasionally have to guess, and I may have made some errors, but I think it is reasonably faithful to the books. That said, the choice to not follow the casting choices of the TV show does not imply any disagreement with those choices; on the contrary, I think they are great.
Legal stuff
The artwork on this page is copyright 2021 by Richard Martin. The source material is copyright by Robert Jordan.
Feel free to download the images in this gallery and to use them for non-commercial purposes. If you wish to re-post them online, you may do so as long as you give me credit by either citing me (Rick Martin) as the artist, linking to this site, and/or linking to my Facebook page or my Twitter account.
I am not affiliated with Robert Jordan or the Bandersnatch Group in any way.