Lego Unikitty! (stylized as LEGO Unikitty!) was a Lego theme based on the animated television series of the same name. It was licensed from The Lego Group and Warner Bros. Animation for Cartoon Network and the series starred the character of the same name from The Lego Movie and its sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. The theme was first introduced in August 2018. The product line was discontinued by the end of December 2019.
Overview
Lego Unikitty! was based on the animated television series. The product line focuses on Unikitty and her friends in Unikingdom. As the ruler of Unikingdom, Princess Unikitty has various misadventures in her land with her brother Prince Puppycorn, scientist Dr. Fox, bodyguard Hawkodile, and advisor Richard. They also deal with the threats of Master Frown from the neighboring Frown Town. Lego Unikitty! aimed to recreate the main characters in Lego form, including Unikitty, Puppycorn, Dr. Fox, Hawkodile and Richard.
In April 2016, Christoph Bartneck built a life-sized model of Unikitty from the Unikitty! animated television series. The Unikitty contained a total of 30,000 Lego bricks and was six feet tall.
Development
Lego Unikitty! was inspired by 2017 TV series Unikitty!. The construction toy range was based on the TV series and developed in collaboration with Warner Bros. Consumer Products. The construction sets were designed to recreate the story and characters of the TV series in Lego form.
During the development process of the Lego Unikitty! theme, Lego designers Yi-Chien Cheng and Janko Grujic explained the concept of the Lego Unikitty! theme. Yi-Chien Cheng explained, "It’s a unisex theme, for both boys and girls. I know Unikitty is pink, so that looks girly, but she's a very active character and there's a very exciting story. So we tried to use lots of colours and lots of crazy ideas, and created lots of cool characters with the new printed elements. So we hope the fans can use these to create something more. We look forward to seeing that!". Janko Grujic explained, "There's a lot of simple bricks, because we wanted to inspire kids to build, we wanted to inspire creativity, and to build in the simplest ways: Just stacking bricks. As Yi-Chien said, we definitely didn't want to exclude anyone, so there are sets that appeal more to the girls and sets that appeal more to the boys. But overall, we were trying to make something that would be for everyone."
The initial concept for the theme originated in a rough sketch created by Ed Skudder, Lynn V Wang and Aaron Horvath in January 2019. The sketch reveals how Unikitty! was developed for television and how the character was refined to transform from 3D to 2D animation on screen.