Keychains
National Flags Keychains
The idea of creating these key-chains came to me due to my passion for flags and of my friendship with several sportsmen and coaches from the handball world, who were tied during their career to the two clubs from Baia Mare, HCM and Minaur, for a longer or shorter period of time.
In the case of representing the national flags out of LEGO parts, it is important to keep the scale and its colours.
The keychain parts were glued, only those undetachable parts remaining mobile.
I didn’t reproduce the coat of arms which some national flags have as that would have been impossible to be made out of LEGO parts at this scale and the use of a sticker wouldn’t have passed the “time test”.
Technical details
- Dimensions: 5 X 3 cm or 4 X 3 cm
- Number of pieces: 6 – 15
My first keychain was created for my Dutch friend Erik Huizing, an ex-national team handball player. I added an orange stripe to the national flag, which is the symbol of the Dutch Royal House, as it is the custom during each celebration in his country. His father, Hendrik Huizing, received the most commonly version of the flag.
Lois Abbing, Holland National Team player, and also HCM Baia Mare player, received another Dutch flag keychain.
The most difficult flag keychain to be reproduced was that of Brazil, which was given to Alexandra do Nascimento (World Champion, Pan-American and Austria’s Champion, the best handball player of 2012, a HCM player)
A Brazilian flag keychain was given to Barbara Arenhart (World Champion, Pan-American and Austria’s Champion, a HCM player). For both players, I managed to reproduce the complexity of the flag with the yellow rhombus on which the Earth Globe is represented, but also the numbers worn at the Brazilian National Team and that of HCM.
Not as complicated as flag but as hard to be acquired because of the white star which is represented on the Chilean flag, proved to be the two identical flag keychains given as a present for the twins brothers Martinez-Chavez, Pato, (handball player, Romanian’s Champion with Minaur) and Leon de Guardia (tenor in Austria). The little white star was produced by LEGO in 2004 and it can be found in only 3 official LEGO sets and I had to order it from Germany as it was the only shop in Europe where it had been available.
Nikola Eklemovic (EHF Champion, Hungary’s Champion, Romania’s Champion, Serbia’s National team player and then of Hungary’s, but also Minaur’s) received two keychains, one with Serbia’s flag and the other with that of Hungary’s.
Peter Tatai (EHF Champion, Hungary’s Champion, Romania’s Champion, Hungary’s national team player but also Minaur’s) received a Hungarian flag keychain.
Due to his volcanic behavior in the field, I designed especially for Peter Tatai a keychain with two head of minifigures having two heads each, a quiet one and a screaming one. A head had a microphone and it represented the referee Peter had a fight with. Though fixed into the keychain, both heads were mobile, their faces being able to be changed depending on the evolution of the situation during the match.
For Antonio Pribanic (Romania’s Champion with Minaur) I created the flag of Croatia.
From the keychains made for the coaches, the one with the flag of Denmark was received by Lars Walther (Romania’s Champion, coach for Minaur). I added to this flag two stripes, an orange one and a black one, the traditional colours of Minaur.
For Minaur’s second coach, Petre Pop (ex-player of the national team, Romania’s Champion, Italy’s Champion, and Romania’s Champion as a second coach) I created a keychain with the traditional colours of the club, including the edited letter M.
The new-comer in the Minaur team, Tamás Iváncsik (EHF Champion, Hungary’s Champion, Hungary’s national team player) received a keychain with Hungary’s flag.
I also gave a keychain with the national flag of Croatia to Katarina Ježić, who is a member of the national team. Katarina is Montenegro’s Champion and also a player for HCM.
The flag of Macedonia was also impossible to create at a keychain scale/size, so, I made a special keychain for my good friend Elena Gjorgievska with her name and her favourite number, which she used in her handball matches.
I created Transylvania’s flag for Sabin German, a journalist, publicist, TV shows producer and author of the manifesto “I’m fed up with Romania”.
Being impossible for me to create Norway’s flag at the scale of a keychain due to the double cross (white and blue) I decided to make a more special gift, a flag at a bigger scale out of LEGO parts, for two special sportsmen. The family of champions the wife, Camilla Herrem (Olympic World and European Champion) and the husband, Steffen Stegavik (Norway’s and Romania’s Champion) share this model made of 134 LEGO parts. I kept as much as possible the scale and colours of Norway’s flag, having at the end flags with HCM and Minaur’s logos, representing through dedicated stickers the teams where they played in Romania. A pleasant surprise was the photo I received from them with the model and the medals they won in Romania.
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Keychains
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