The Portal games have very few characters, and yet every one of them is memorable. The personality spheres are especially charming in their own awkward ways, so it’s no surprise that someone decided to craft their own. The amount of detail in these mini replicas by Chris Myles is astonishing and I can’t even imagine how much work went into them. Not only do they look exactly as they do in game, they’re actually “functional” in that they light up with an appropriately-colored LED and swivel to allow the ranges of movement the spheres have in Portal 2.
We meet some personality spheres in the original Portal, but in the sequel they truly steal the show. Right off the bat, we’re introduced to Wheatley, a confused and awkwardly helpful personality core. Hands down, he gets the most screen time of the four, and he also seems to shine with the brightest light (despite not being the brightest crayon in the box). Next up is the Fact Sphere whose ‘iris’ has a sort of sunburst pattern and glows pink/purple. In game, he spouts out such helpful facts as “Humans can survive underwater. But not for very long,” and such “facts” as “Before the Wright Brothers invented the airplane, anyone wanting to fly anywhere was required to eat 200 pounds of helium.”
The Adventure Sphere, who refers to himself as Rick, glows green and has a sort of grid pattern to his iris. He essentially hits on the protagonist and tells war stories. In this miniature replica, his “eyelid” is even partially closed as if flirting, giving a “John Wayne” stare, or most likely a mixture of the two. Lastly is the Space Sphere, who has pretty much become the primary meme from Portal 2. While his quotes haven’t quite reached the level of “The cake is a lie”, they are still plentiful (and repetitive). He talks of little else but space, his orange-red iris featuring a pattern not dissimilar from a human’s. His eye is wide open, as shown, which does a perfect job of emulating his hyperactivity and curiosity.
Unfortunately, none of these cute spheres are for sale, but we can at least hope Valve will take notice of these brilliantly-crafted tributes to their new hit game and hire on the designer to help mass produce them as official merchandise. For more awesome Portal fan works, check out this LEGO Recreation of Portal 2 and especially this Replica Portal Gun.
