But the one thing you haven't figured out is how to do that cool scene where the knight takes a
spear right thru the chest. Dismemberment is easy, the heads, arms, and legs come right off.
But impalement is a bit tougher. Sure, you could do it with special effects, but to get the full
effect of the doomed knight staggering around before he collapses, you need something more.

You need a hand-held drill. Oh -yeah.

What's that you say? You would never do anything to permanently disfigure one of your prized
minifigs? Get real! Lego's motto should be "Destroy all you want! We'll make more!" Collectors
should realize that everytime a lego is permenantly altered, the value of thier collections go up a
little tiny bit. And the person doing the altering has something no body else has. Something
unique. So spare me. Anyways, you don't have to do it- but if you do decide you want to impale
a minifig, heres how:

IMPALEMENT

First you compare the spear with your drill bits to find one SLIGHTLY larger than the spear. I
used the 1/8 (inch) size. Then you decide exactly where the hole should 
be and go to it. I know from experience that plastic is real easy to drill through- goes right through like
butter. The torso on a minifig is not solid, so be sure to hold the drill steady as it punches through the front side and
keep holding it tight til it comes out the back. Make sure you use the proper safety equipment-
goggles, clamp, gloves- and kids, get a grownup to help you. In fact some of you grownups
might want to get a grownup to help you. The spear should slide right through, butt end first.
Now, how do you do the scene where another knight takes a spear through the head? Same way
of course, with some differences. You dont want to drill through just the head- the neck/post on
the torso will get in the way of the spear. You'll want to drill through the head while its attached
to the torso so your hole will go right through the neck/post as well as the head. You should
decide before hand if the spear will be going through the face or the side of the head. And since
its a knight who is probably going to be wearing a helmet, you will probably want to drill a hole
through the helmet too. Or you could have another spear knock the helmet off before the
second spear comes in and ruins the poor knights day. Be prepared to be stuck with the head
fused to the torso- the friction from the drill bit will probably melt the plastic so you can never
get them apart again. In fact, both the torso and the head will be pretty much useless except for
impalement scenes so try to choose the crappiest from your collection.

In my experiment, I found drilling through the head was much tougher than drilling through the
torso, mainly because the head is small, round, and keeps moving. How the heck do you clamp
something that small? I just went real slow until I had a hole started and then gradually sped up
the drill until I punched through. Rather than drilling a hole through the neck/post, it ended up
'cutting' the top of the post off. The plastic did not fuse, probably because of where I had to go
so slow. I drilled the helmet seperately, and had to use a nail to get the hole started.
That's it! Ten minutes and a power-drill later, and you're ready to film major mayhem! 

Now, what about the scene where the catapult shot takes yet another knights head clean off.
Making a minifig headless is easy- you just pull the head off... unfortunately, the neckpost
doesn't make it look truly headless- more like the head got squashed to the size of a soupcan.
No, if you want a minifig thats truly headless, you need to get rid of that neck/post.

TRULY HEADLESS - DECAPITATING A MINIFG

This is fairly easy- you need a sharp, serrated (saw-toothed) knife and a pair of pliars. You may
want to leave part of the post to represent the neck, or you may want to cut as close to the
shoulders as possible to get rid of it entirely. 

Once again, get a RESPONSIBLE grownup to help, one with good health insurance. Using the
knife, you start a cut in the kneck/post- keep going until you are about halfway through, then use
the pliars to snap it off. Use a file to get rid of any excess plastic. Now your ready for that
headless knight scene!

Mutilating minifigs is not for everyone- but a truly original director explores all possibilities in
order to make the best movie he can make. The sacrifice of one or two little plastic people in the
name of art is not a sin.

Next time on Mutilating Minifigs, we'll discuss supergluing bricks together so they will never fall
apart on you and support insane amounts of weight!

Doug (Sid) James
shootinbricks.com

Want to heap praise or critism on Doug? Email him here: stomp442usa@charter.net