The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 38 • February 2016
8.95
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Feeling the Need for Speed!
Building LEGO MINILAND cars by Stephan Sander Also: Car Builders Andrea Lattanzio and Marcus Paul Instructions AND MORE!
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Issue 38 • February 2016
Contents
From the Editor....................................................2
News A LEGO TARDIS on Bondi Beach?................3 The Force Awakens at Hong Kong Times Square.....................................................4 The LEGO House: A BIG Project....................6
People Builder Spotlight: Marcus Paul.....................................................10 Builder Spotlight: Jordan Schwartz...........................................14 Builder Spotlight: Andrea Lattanzio..........................................17 Spotlight: Paul J. Boratko’s Shuriken..........................20
Building
Community
Building Distinctive Cars..............................22 Building a Mistress of a Supercar.............30 Color Your Life...................................................38 You Can Build It: MINI Batmobile...............................................44 BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Red Choo Choo.............................................47 You Can Build It: MINI A-Team Van...........................................49 MINDSTORMS 101: Giving Your Bot a Voice..............................54 Minifigure Customization 101: Some Say He Looks a Lot Taller on TV and Not Made of Plastic.. All We Know is He’s Called the Stig................................................58
Event Report: Skaerbaek Fan Weekend...........................60 LEGO Fans Help Refugee Kids!..................67 Event Report: Japan BrickFest..............................................68 Japan BrickFest Brick Master Building Competition.................................72 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 AFOLs....................................................................80
From the Editor: Hi! This issue is themed to the automobile, and there’s been a surprising amount of builds to look at and check out. There’s articles on minifigure-scaled cars and Technic-built cars. In fact, two former LEGO designers talk about building LEGO cars, which is a nice surprise!
February 2016 Issue 38 Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan
We’ve also got some event reports from places overseas, including Denmark and Japan. Both have events that are much different from the conventions in the US, and worth reading about. Finally there are some great MOCs to look at on the pages of this magazine. Enjoy!
West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon
Joe Meno, Editor
Contributors: Paul J. Boratko, Jared Burks, Jared Chan, Christopher Deck, Matthew Hocker, Damien Kee, Andrea Lattanzio, Ryan McNaught, Jeroen Ottens, Marcus Paul, Jörg Ruckel, Stephan Sander, Ralph Savelsberg, Jordan Schwartz, Tommy Williamson, and Greg Hyland. Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
P.P.S... Yes, BrickJournal has a website — www.brickjournal.com! Twitter? Yep, there too — http://twitter.com/brickjournal. Facebook? Yup — http://www.facebook.com/group. php?gid=58728699914&ref=mf. Or you can scan the bottom codes with a QR reader!
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
www.LUGNET.com, www.Brickshelf.com, www.peeron.com, www.brickmodder.net www.rustyclank.com
About the Cover: Stephan Sander’s colorful cars take the cover. Photo provided by Stephan Sander. About the Contents: One of the many hot rods built by Andrea Lattanzio—a green T-bucket. Photo by Andrea Lattanzio.
P.S. Have ideas or comments? Drop me a line at admin@brickjournal.com. I’m open to suggestions and comments and will do my best to reply.
P.P.P.S. If you want info on a subscription, you can go to: http://twomorrows.com/index. php?main_page=product_info&cPath=78&products_id=616 or scan below!
Website
Glossary AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) NLSO (Non-LEGO Significant Other) MOC (My Own Creation) TLG (The LEGO Group) BURP (Big Ugly Rock Piece) LURP (Little Ugly Rock Piece) SNOT (Studs Not on Top)
Subscriptions
POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club) DARK AGES (usually teen years, when you drift away from building) STUDS OUT (building where the studs on bricks face the viewer)
LEGO®, TECHNIC, MINDSTORMS, Belville, Scala, BIONICLE, ExoForce, Mars Mission, World City, and other LEGO theme lines are trademarks of the LEGO Group of companies. All articles, photos, and art are copyright BrickJournal Media, LLC 2016, TwoMorrows Publishing and the respective writers, photographers, and artists. All rights reserved. All trademarked items are the property of their respective owners and licensees. Subscriptions are $50USD Media Mail, $68 Canada, $78 International Surface, $180 International Airmail and can be purchased at www.twomorrows.com or payment sent to: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. The editorial/advertising office address for BrickJournal is: BrickJournal Editor, 5610 Briar Oak Lane #510, Raleigh, NC 27612 USA or admin@brickjournal.com. First Printing. Printed in the USA. ISSN 1941-2347. BrickJournal and its staff would like to thank the LDraw community for the software it makes available to the community, which we use for making all of the instructions and renderings in this magazine. We would especially like to thank Kevin Clague for his continued upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of2the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
A LEGO TARDIS on Bondi Beach?
News
Article by Ryan McNaught (the Brickman)
On November 10, 2015, a blue police box appeared at Bondi Beach, Australia. The box is actually built out of LEGO elements by my team in our workshop: Clay Mellington, Luke Cini, Claire Ashworth and myself. Designed by both Chris Steininger and me, it took 65 hours to design and 206 man-hours to build. Built to the exact specs that the BBC archivists provided about the TARDIS, it is 316 bricks high (including the light), so that is 303cm or just short of 10ft tall. It’s about 90,000 bricks, give or take. It has a functional door, as it was designed for Peter Capaldi (the current Dr. Who) to emerge from at the Dr. Who Festival in Sydney on the 21st and 22nd of November. It has a fully working light and even comes with a matching sonic screwdriver! (Thanks to Rob Hendrix at Lifelights!) The model also has an internal steel frame, mainly because it has to be transported around to various events and locations. The door handles and labels are the only real detail on it; it’s pretty much a giant Box. It may in fact be bigger on the inside; it certainly felt like it when we were building it!
The TARDIS at the beach.
Ryan McNaught explains: “The signs are an interesting point, as there was a TARDIS built by Bright Bricks in the UK for the BBC as well. Our TARDIS did differ in the build, however we did work on the signs together; they did the St John’s cross for the right door while we did the police information on the left door, and we copied each others signs!” Left: The build team.
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News
The Force Awakens at Hong Kong Times Square!
Article by Joe Meno Photos by Jared Chan and Hong Kong Times Square 4
Hong Kong Times Square and LEGO Hong Kong Limited hosted a display to celebrate the opening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The exhibition was first planned back in late April, according to Jared Chan, a local LEGO builder who assisted with constructing the models in the display. He explained, “As you can imagine, Disney and Lucasfilm were also involved in this project and we sought their approval and input. I was invited by LEGO HK since they knew I’m a LEGO SW fan and I had worked with them in previous projects.” When asked about what he did, Jared replied, “I picked the scenes and models, built them in LEGO, and sent them to a factory that specializes in making large model decorations/ displays in China.” Setting up was a little harder. Jared explains: “The schedule was very tight for this project and there was only a little more than 3 months to manufacture the large models. Things were a bit better for the classic SW display; but for EP7, we knew nothing more than the general public, nor do we know anything before everyone else, so there was little time to build the minifig scale EP7 diorama and large scale new X-Wing, which was revealed on December 4.” Besides the LEGO-built displays, there were 40 figures produced for the display that were made 20 times the size of their minifigure counterparts. There were also four models built in this scale: the X-Wing in The Force Awakens, an Imperial Shuttle, an AT-AT, and a Snowspeeder. In the enlarged scale, the AT-AT is over six meters tall!
A crashed TIE fighter is part of one of the LEGO displays.
For all the preparation and building, the exhibition was only temporary. The display closed on New Year’s Day 2016. There’s no word on when the Empire will strike back!
Previous page: Snowtroopers rush Hong Kong Times Square! Right: A LEGO built diorama... Below: and its large-scale counterpart.
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News
A rendering of the completed LEGO House.
The LEGO House:
A BIG Project! Article and Photography by Joe Meno and the LEGO Group Art provided by BIG Renders by Adam Rollins
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In 2014, the LEGO Group announced the plans and construction of a new experience center to celebrate the company’s history and heritage. Christened the LEGO House, this facility will have hands-on/minds-on activities showcasing the almost infinite possibilities of LEGO building and play. Design of LEGO House is being spearheaded by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), an internationally known architecture firm that is working on many projects, including reworking and modernizing the Smithsonian Institution complex in Washington, DC. Compared to the Smithsonian, LEGO House is much smaller, but has the same mission: preserving and celebrating a community, in this case, the LEGO community. BrickJournal got an opportunity to talk to Bjarke Ingels at the opening of BIG’s display “HOT to COLD” in the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. There, he told how he and his firm got the LEGO House Project.
Designing the LEGO House
As Ingels recalls, “I came and I spoke at the LEGO Idea Day in 2010 and afterwards I went on a drive around the city. The vision for the city is to become the Capital of Children, which inspired our design for LEGO House.” At that point, the idea was still pretty broad. Ingels explained, “The LEGO house was planned to be some kind of expansion of the LEGO Idea House they have right now, on a much bigger scale. The plan was to build it where the city hall was, as the city hall was moving and merging with another city municipality, so suddenly there was street space.” Finally, in 2013, the LEGO Group reached out to us and asked us to come to Billund and present some of our reference, and then they asked us to spend six weeks on trying to address what we would see as the challenges of making a LEGO House on that location.” At this time Ingels began working on the project: “I rallied the troops and put one of our best young project leaders on the project, a guy who actually just became a partner of BIG: Bryan Yang, one of my former students from Harvard. I told the team that if BIG had been founded with the purpose of building a single building, then it would be this building. We really had to win this project. So we went completely nuts and did all kinds of work and we took all our work and all our sketch models—all that we have done and thought, put it in the back of a van and we drove to Billund and we filled conference space with stuff.
“The LEGO Group had asked several other architects to make a proposal, but I had a feeling that ours went well. What happened right after that, was that the company invited us to come to Billund for a two-day workshop where we would present our thinking to them and then we would get feedback. “Some specific things came out of the workshop, including the idea of creating a cloud of interconnected galleries, almost like interconnected LEGO bricks, and also a central gallery that we called the Keystone Gallery, with 8 skylights, 2 x 4 with the same iconic proportions of a LEGO brick. BIG took those suggestions and incorporated them into the design.
A form study of the building, seen at the National History Museum in Washington DC.
“You try to understand the traditional typology or the local vernacular and then you depart from that typology by doing something to it by adapting it to a certain situation, and you put new life into it.”
“ I am very passionate about play and how children learn through playing with LEGO bricks. This is essentially the LEGO idea and what the LEGO House is all about. I look forward to seeing the long time dream of having one place where anyone can experience the LEGO idea come true.”
Construction of LEGO House will be completed in 2017. With that, BIG will have created a place that touches on the past, present, and future of the company by celebrating the LEGO Group. It will be, for the community and the company, the ultimate LEGO creation, or as the community would call it: the ultimate MOC.
Bjarke Ingels at the 2010 LEGO Idea Conference. A rendering of the roof terraces, showing how color will be used to visually tie in galleries.
—Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, LEGO Group Owner
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A view of the central space inside the LEGO House, LEGO Square.
“I told the team that if BIG had been founded with the purpose of building a single building, then it would be this building.“
—Bjarke Ingels
LEGO House Facts Facts about the LEGO House • The LEGO House will be 12,000 square meters. • The LEGO House will be 23 meters tall. • There will be public access over and across the house using stairs and terraces. • There will be public access to a 2,000-squaremeter covered square inside LEGO House with a café and a LEGO store. • The largest part of the LEGO House will be for paying visitors, consisting of four specially designed play zones. The play zone exhibits and activities will offer guests completely unique LEGO experiences, inviting them to use their minds as well as their hands. • Visitors will also be presented the story of the family company including the development of the LEGO products, the LEGO brand and the LEGO Group. • On the top of the building the Keystone Gallery is situated, completely shaped as a classical LEGO brick. • The project is expected to be completed in 2017. • The LEGO House is one of the LEGO Group’s contributions to the vision of Billund as the Capital of Children.
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Announcing the LEGO House On August 19, 2014, construction began and was announced by this press release: In 2016 LEGO fans of all ages can experience the LEGO® story and the endless possibilities of the LEGO brick in a 12,000 m2 experience center in Billund, Denmark. Today the foundation stones of the unique “LEGO House” were laid. Three generations of the owner family of the LEGO Group today laid the six foundation stones of the LEGO House in Billund, Denmark, the hometown of the LEGO Group. The six stones— precisely dimensioned to represent six classic LEGO® bricks—symbolise the values which are at the heart of all LEGO experiences: Imagination, creativity, fun, learning, caring and quality. “For my family and me, the LEGO Group has always been much more than just a company and our products more than just products. I am very passionate about play and how children learn through playing with LEGO bricks. This is essentially the LEGO idea and what the LEGO House is all about. I look forward to seeing the long time dream of having one place where anyone can experience the LEGO idea come true,” says Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, grandson of the founder and current LEGO Group owner.
Roof Level The roofs of all of the levels are accessible to visitors and have play spaces, such as a LEGO Maze and other LEGO-themed items.
Three generations of Kristiansens, from left to right: Agnete Kirk Thinggaard (daughter of Kjeld), Camilla Kirk Kristiansen (wife of Kjeld), Edith Kirk Christiansen (Mother of Kjeld), Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Sofie Kirk Kristiansen (daughter of Kjeld), and Thomas Kirk Kristiansen (son of Kjeld).
The LEGO House Level by Level
Gallery Level The Keystone Gallery in the center has eight skylights to represent the studs on a 2x4 LEGO brick. It also connects to the other galleries: • Expressions • Stories (in the rear) • Sciences • Design & Manufacturing
Ground Level (Children’s Square) As the entry level to the LEGO House, all everyday operations and support are placed here with a central space, called LEGO Square. Facilities include: • The LEGO Store • Delivery • Kitchen • Cafe • Administration • Ticketing • Washrooms • Forum
Basement Level Located under the LEGO House in a bunker is the Vault, which will hold all of the LEGO sets ever produced.
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People
Builder Spotlight:
Marcus Paul Article by Joe Meno Photography by Marcus Paul Marcus Paul (known as er0l online) is a 48-year-old freelance journalist and copy editor who is one of many LEGO builders that is an expert on cars. Though he may not say it, his automobiles have a level of detail that is hard to maintain in a minifigure scale. His models caught my attention when I saw his Aston Martin DB5, otherwise known as one of James Bond’s cars. Marcus has done a couple more of the Bond cars, but also has some classic roadsters. Outside of cars, he also built a yacht that is definitely eye-catching. I asked him a few questions about his building and models for BrickJournal.
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Paul’s DB5 from Goldfinger.
BrickJournal: When did you start LEGO Building? I restarted my LEGO building in 2011 after an unusually long Dark Age. Some years ago I had given away all of my childhood LEGO to relatives; I didn’t know anything about the actual LEGO at that time and couldn’t imagine that there was such a great worldwide community of adults building with LEGO. My first encounter with “modern” LEGO was an iPad stand built out of LEGO which I saw on the Internet. I wanted to do that, too, so I bought a set and built an iPad stand (which looked horrible) out of a Technic jeep. I was hooked. My first MOCs were Technic builds— hardly anybody knows them, and that‘s better, I guess … ;-) It wasn’t until I saw those nice 7-stud wide minifig scale cars by a great builder named danthaman11 some months later, that I understood this was the real thing for me. What are your favorite themes? My favorite theme is City, of course, or let’s call it contemporary LEGO in minifig scale. Within this range I’m interested in practically everything, including trains, and I have a weak spot for the monorail, one of the best things TLG ever did (in my opinion). Regarding sets, I like the modular buildings, and I also like the Friends line. Both themes have widened our possibilities as Town related builders very much. However, I’d rather buy a set regardless of the theme when it has nice parts at a decent price. I’m not much of a LEGO collector compared to building. What got you interested in the James Bond cars? Building movie cars is a common thing among minifig scale
Paul’s version of the Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me.
Another view of the DB5.
car builders—there’s hardly a movie-based car which hasn’t been built out of LEGO. Quite a few of those builders are incredibly talented—you just don’t want to build something that doesn’t match up, or is rather a copy of an existing model. That’s why you try to find subjects that aren’t already overcrowded with MOCs. James Bond seems to be one of those subjects. Another reason: I’m a Bond movie fan. I like the way the franchise has developed over the years. The final reason was, of course, the upcoming and now released Bond movie. Tell us about the DB5 and the Lotus Esprit. DB5: One morning I woke up and had an idea of how to build the typical radiator grille of an Aston Martin. It took perhaps ten minutes to see if it would work or not. Since it worked, the rest of the car had to be built—which was more difficult and took more time than I had expected. However, the DB5 is my most successful model to date.
Top view of the Lotus Esprit in submarine mode.
Lotus: Similar. The main idea was to build the front end without curved slopes since there’s only a very light slope on the original car. But it took several days to find a—more or less—adequate solution. It took some time to build the submarine version, too, whose boat-like understructure had to be built upside-down. How do you plan your builds? I try to find good photos, and I look at what‘s already existing in LEGO. Sometimes videos are important to see how a car moves, which may be a part of its character. The next step is building a (rather colorful) preliminary model which serves to define the main aspects and to solve the main technical problems. I always begin with what I think is the most crucial part of a car. If you fail here, you can drop the whole thing quickly and not lose time. For some time now I’m trying to build closer to the scale I’ve found to be suitable for my MOCs. Regarding cars, the main measure is the wheelbase. If the wheelbase is—more or less—correct, the whole car won’t be completely out of proportion.
Rear view of the Lotus Esprit in submarine mode.
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A group shot of a Ford Mustang, the DB5, and the Rolls Royce Phantom III from Goldfinger.
Another view of Auric Goldfinger’s Rolls-Royce.
You built a set-up for moving cars on a layout. Tell us about it. Like on model railways, where moving cars have become more and more important due to the Faller Car System, I guess it’s a great thing to have a LEGO city with moving traffic or even railway crossings passed not only by trains, but also by cars. Making the cars move was really the fulfilment of a dream. There have been quite a few attempts in this subject over the years, however, our car system seems to be the first that’s built completely out of LEGO (which was a major requirement) and is able to move several cars on one track at the same time. The system is even strong enough to pull a heavy Power Functions-equipped aircraft like the Canadair waterbomber on a taxiway. The original idea was developed by fellow builder Michael Altezza, with whom I was planning a San Francisco-style city layout at that time. While building a cable car with a moving cable underneath the road surface one day, he told me: ”Guess we can move the cars likewise.“ But it took half a year and three prototypes until the system worked properly. Going straight wasn’t too much of a problem—the curves were. Not only the tread system and roads with a slot had to be built—also the cars had to be modified or newly built since they needed a working steering and a proper suspension to make all wheels move permanently on uneven SNOT roads. There were times we wanted to throw the whole thing out of the window… however, we had a lot of fun with this. Taxi!
An overhead view of the car movement system developed by Paul. The cars are driven by a tread under the road, with the cars having steering mechanisms to take curves like slot cars.
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Paul’s yacht, the Sirius.
What inspired you to build the yacht? I’m trying to build not only cars, but the whole range of Cityrelated vehicles. For me it’s a great thing to combine the several elements with each other. That’s why I wanted to build a ship or boat one day, too. I found a yacht to be suitable scalewise—I don’t have enough room for a ship that matches the cars in scale. But I wanted to have something in a vintage style which would go well with the oldtimer cars I’m building. Well, there was a wonderful LEGO commuter yacht “Mohican” designed by a very talented young American builder named Joshua (JBIronWorks). I took it as an inspiration and built something similar in style: the yacht Sirius. And since I like putting technical stuff into a vehicle, if there’s enough room for it, it is equipped with full lighting (which is another aspect I’m deeply interested in). Rear view of the Sirius.
Canadair waterbomber and fire truck built by Paul. Each prop on the plane is powered by a Power Functions motor.
A look at the lighting of the Sirius.
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People
Builder Spotlight:
Jordan Schwartz Article by Joe Meno Photography by Jordan Schwartz
Jordan Schwartz has been building for almost a decade, and it’s taken him to the top of the AFOL scene to working for LEGO (he did design work for the Palace Cinema Expert Creator set). He’s slowed down, though, and at 23 lives in Providence RI and attends college where he studies creative writing. He still builds, and has now turned his attention to classic cars. Jordan was happy to talk to BrickJournal about his time at LEGO and his more current builds. BrickJournal: How did you get an internship with LEGO? Jordan Schwartz: I heard that the company was looking for new designers when I was at BrickWorld in Chicago back in 2010, and my friends encouraged me to apply. I had just graduated high school at the time and was slated to begin at an art college in Boston, but I thought I’d apply just for fun. I was thoroughly surprised when the company got in touch and invited me to a workshop in Billund! That was a great experience in itself (it was my first time visiting Europe), and I would’ve been happy just for that experience. But a week into my first semester, they called me up again and offered the internship. It was a unique arrangement since they were looking for full-time designers; I was only eighteen at the time, hence the offer. I was treated like all the other designers, and had virtually the same responsibilities, but my contract was temporary! This turned out to be a great thing for my superiors and myself since I ended up deciding to return to the states in order to pursue my education.
1936 Cord.
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How was working at the company? It was tremendously fun: get paid to build with LEGO bricks? It’s as unique a job as it sounds. It gave me an authentic taste of what working in the design industry is like. I must confess that adapting to Billund after coming from Rhode Island was difficult. Combine the slow-paced life
of Billund with my desire to get my degree and I couldn’t possibly stay with the company at that specific moment in life. Maybe I will be ready to settle down in Denmark later in life, and if the company would have me back, I would be only too grateful. What brought you back to the US? Again, I had to get my degree! I’m enrolled at a private college in my hometown of Providence, RI, where I study creative writing. I haven’t the slightest clue of what I would want to do with such a degree, but I do dream of working in the film industry in a writing/editing capacity. In my spare time, I also slave away at a couple of novels that—at the rate I’m going—will never be finished! What got you interested in the ’30s? I’ve always loved antiques. My father is a collector of really unusual, rare and high quality pieces: from 1920s gumball machines to 1960s pinball machines, and everything in between. So I’ve always been around old things. I don’t know why, but I have an intrinsic love of the 1930s over all other decades. I suppose because it was an interesting time; in many ways, it was a decade that should not be unfamiliar to us. It was modern, “easy living” was more easily achieved than ever before, and though economically depressed, things seemed optimistic (retrospectively, anyway). I am especially interested in 1930s interior design, pop culture and fashion. To demonstrate how intrinsic this interest is to me, my father’s mother (who passed away before I was born) owned a vintage clothing store and was an avid art deco collector. I never met her, and those aren’t things I grew up with by any means, and yet: that’s what I’ve naturally fallen into! Talk about nature over nurture! When did you start building classic cars? I’ve been building them for years, but only recently have I started exploring the subject in-depth. What I like about building cars is that they are compact, but highly detailed and generally very organic-looking. That makes for a very fun challenge, and makes the models very puzzle-like. If I see a car that really gets my blood pumping (which is almost any pre-1960 automobile), I think to myself: “I just have to build that. I don’t have a choice. The car is far too beautiful for me not to try.” So I try!
1955 Ford Fairlane Victoria. 1937 Willys Overland.
1951 Ford Woody.
How do you approach building the cars? I aim for as much realism as I can, and I almost always stick to minifigure scale. Generally, I start with the grill, hood and windscreen, as these areas are the most defining of any automobile. It takes me days to get all of these areas looking right. Then I’ll work with the wheels; I almost always use the same size wheel because they’re small enough to allow me to cover them up with tiles if that’s what the design of the vehicle calls for. And lastly I work with the side windows and rear of the vehicle; I put the least amount of time into these parts unless the back is really distinctive, like in my 1947 Buick Sedanette. What other items do you want to build? I have a big list of things in my head! Certainly more automobiles, but I don’t have any specific ones on my agenda at the moment. I’m been itching to build the Industrial Trust Tower—a famous art deco skyscraper in Providence (or should I say, the only skyscraper in Providence)—in microscale, or a scale between micro and minifigure scale. But that would be my magnum opus, so who knows if I’ll ever be ready to tackle such a project! 1956 Nash Ambassador.
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People
Builder Spotlight:
Andrea Lattanzio
Article by Joe Meno Photography by Andrea Lattanzio
Andrea’s Hot Rod Garage.
What got you interested in hot rods? Recently I discovered the Kustom Kulture reading Italian magazines about this subject. I loved this underground culture which includes car design, pinstriping, hot rods, muscle cars, and custom vehicles in general. Kustom Kulture is the essence of creative and of the DIY (do it yourself) way of life. I also discovered “Rat Fink” mascot and Eddy Roth (and other show car designers like Tom Daniel who designed the yellow Beer Wagon) which are icons in your country, but quite unknown in Italy. I was looking for something strange and unconventional to build and the hot rods and Seventies show cars were perfect for this. I especially love the early Kustom Kulture (from Fifties to Seventies).
Andrea with his Hot Rods and VWs.
Back at BrickJournal #35, we got to see a LEGO-built diorama of a Vespa garage from builder Andrea Lattanzio. Known online as Norton74, he restores classic motorcycles and bicycles, so a garage with scooters was a good subject to build for him. Since then, he has gone on to build other vehicles, including hot rods! BrickJournal got to talk to him about his car models.
Your hot rods are the classic era cars along with your VWs—why not build modern era cars? I don’t like modern era cars; it seems to me they have the same shapes and design. Even in my real life I drive a 26-year-old Mercedes Benz station wagon, an old Vespa, and a 1980 BMW motorcycle. I think car design reached its apex in the Seventies and from that era on, the style has slowly declined. According to your previous article, you did the Vespa garage after you built the VW garage, so did you build the VW stuff first, then Vespa, then hot rods? Yes, that’s right. And before garages, Vespas, and Hot Rods, I built big European trucks (from 2006). 17
Volkswagen vans built by Andrea. Red T-Bucket...
What is your favorite build? My favorite builds are the Garages, and I’m particularly fond of the VW which was the first I built, and which boosted my “reputation” in LEGO community all over the world. I love the garages also because nobody had built a garage like that before (so detailed and in a bigger scale than minifig scale). Is there a favorite thing you work on in each model? Utensils for the dioramas (air compressor, welder etc..) and the bodywork for the cars. I love working on shapes and colors.
...and separated.
How do you research your models for accuracy? Internet (forum, blogs, websites) and especially car magazines. I’ve a huge collection of magazines.
Blue T-bucket.
Beer Wagon.
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Hod Rod Tow Truck. Black and gold T-Bucket.
The rear of the Hod Rod Tow Truck.
A few times a year I visit classic car shows and events and I can find inspiration there for my MOCs. What scale are the models? Approximately 1:14/1:16. What do you focus on in your building? Above all, details and “clean” design. My mottos are “God is in the details” and “Less is More” (both mottos are from the German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1886–1969). I try to have a personal style, which means for me smooth design but rich in the details. Even if I love classic LEGO, I prefer not to show the studs. The models seem more realistic in this way. When people look at my MOCs they always think they aren’t made of LEGO, they think they are pictures of real things. And this is the effect I look for: astonishment.
You can follow Andrea Lattanzio on Flickr—Flickr account Norton74—and on his Facebook page—page name Norton SevenFour.
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People
Spotlight:
Paul J. Boratko’s Article by Paul J. Boratko
What happens when a car building expert decides to try his hand at transforming vehicles? If you’re Paul Boratko, builder of Technic supercars, you’ll end up with something spectacular! Here, he talks about building the Shuriken. I had always wanted to do a car model based on the ’80s television cartoon M.A.S.K. which featured various vehicle models such as cars, trucks, and helicopters that had the ability to transform into an entirely different vehicle. A helicopter could become a jet, a ’60s style muscle car could become a tank, or an oil tanker truck could become a rolling command base. Inspired by the “Enforcers versus Bandits” Eurobricks Technic Challenge last summer, I had decided to build a model for myself that would be true to the contest rules. The “Good Guy” Enforcer models must be black and white while the Bandit “Bad Guy” models could be any other color except for black and white. I took full advantage of a new Technic part, the friction pin with pinhole that was only available in black, along with an old part that I’ve had in my inventory for years but could never find a use for: the round curved fin pin connector.
Inspirational parts of the Shuriken.
Rear overview of the Shuriken. Forward overview of the Shuriken.
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Since I specialize in car models, it was a given that I would be doing a car. Gull-wing doors made the most sense to turn this rolling street machine into a vehicle of flight. I incorporated a knob in the rear end that when turned counter-clockwise, works a mechanism that folds all four wheels downwards while opening both gull-wing doors, simultaneously revealing two flick fire missiles on each door.
The Shuriken, ready for a fight. The machine guns and missiles are easily seen.
When the spoiler is extended, the rear bumper also folds down revealing two previously hidden defensive smoke screen throwers. There is also a switch between the seats that pops out two machine guns from the front fascia.
Top view of the Shuriken.
I named the car the “Shuriken” for two reasons: 1) because of the sleek lines and sharp edges it had, and 2) shuriken in Japanese actually means “sword hidden in user’s hand” which is very similar to the deadly weapons that are concealed under the car’s exterior. I really enjoyed designing such an unusual model, and it was a lot of fun and sometime different from the normal supercars that I build. I am hoping to someday do a second model in this style and scale, possibly a rival to the Shuriken. Just need to come up with a interesting design, and of course, a really cool name. Rear view of the Shuriken, showing the spoiler and the knob for transforming.
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Building
Building Distinctive Cars Article by Ralph Savelsberg
Several accomplished or, dare I say, famous builders have told me that the one thing they cannot quite wrap their heads around is building cars. I also know plenty of people who will happily confess that, when building a City display, they use cars from LEGO sets, because building cars of their own is too hard. I have been building LEGO cars for pretty much as long as I can remember and I think it is not really all that difficult, as long as you keep a few things in mind. I will share a few tips and tricks and will illustrate them using a Pontiac Bonneville and some of the other distinctive cars that I have built recently.
Finding Inspiration The first step is finding a suitable car to build. This is far from trivial, because not every car will work as a LEGO model. For me, the inspiration can come from a lot of different sources. Often I find something I like on the Internet. I am an active member of LUGNuts, which is an online group for LEGO car builders and the subject of BrickJournal #21. Our monthly themed build challenges have regularly prompted me to find something interesting. I also have a collection of books on classic cars. I picked up Quentin Wilson’s Cool Cars many years ago in the UK and, while on a holiday in the US, I bought Cars of 1965. I also have a book called Ultimate American Cars. Many of the cars that I have built are from these three books. Earlier this year, whilst visiting a car show, I came across the 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. This just happens to be one of the coolest cars in my Cars of 1965 book. It is big and sleek and, even though the weather was overcast, its metallic blue paint seemed to sparkle. I decided there and then that I wanted to build one.
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The 1/22 scale LEGO model (above) and the real Pontiac Bonneville on a typically gloomy Dutch day (right).
Another source of inspiration is some of the more interesting cars from my childhood. For more than twenty years my parents owned a green 1969 Volkswagen Beetle. It rarely let us down. We went on family holidays with it, as well as on countless trips to my grandparents, and when I left home for university, the Beetle was used to move all my stuff. It is no surprise then that Beetles feature heavily in my car collection. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine challenged me to build a Citroën DS. I have fond memories of my aunt giving me a ride in hers when I was a teenager. It was already a classic car then and, apart from the bits of insulation foam that occasionally would be coughed up by the ventilation system, to fly in my face, and the sun visor regularly drooping down, it was one of the most comfortable cars I have ever been in, like a magic carpet.
A model of my parents’ 1969 Volkswagen Beetle (left) and the Citroën DS (right).
One thing these three cars have in common, as do most of the other cars I build, is that they look distinctive. This is part of what makes them interesting as cars, but also what makes them suitable as LEGO models. You may love your father’s Toyota Camry, but there are so many similar-looking cars out there that you will be hard-pressed to build a recognizable LEGO model of it at any reasonable scale. Basically, the more distinctive your subject is, the more mistakes you can get away with.
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Size Matters Once I have found a car I like, it is time to do some planning. For me this starts with finding photographs and information about the real car, either from one of the books or by searching online. This helps to work out what the size of the model ought to be.
From left to right: a Smart Car (8 studs wide, 9 studs including fenders), the VW Beetle (9 studs), the Citroën DS (10 studs), the Pontiac Bonneville (11 studs), a Ford F350 Ambulance (with a front that is 11 studs wide and a rear of 13), and a Kenworth truck (14 studs wide).
I tend to be very fussy about scale. I like to be able to combine different vehicles in displays and these look an awful lot better if they are all the same scale. No matter what scale you pick, to make multiple vehicles look right together, ones that are larger in real life really ought to be larger as LEGO models as well. This may seem like stating the obvious, but I have seen plenty of LEGO City displays at events where the cars are an ill-matched combination of different scales and, consequently, they just do not look very realistic. I chose a scale of 1/22 a long time ago, because on this scale the different sizes of wheels I had at the time would allow me to build both trucks and regular cars. I have stuck to it ever since. It offers a nice compromise between the models being large enough to accommodate details and working features far more easily than in models intended for LEGO minifigures, but without becoming so large that they require too many parts. This is particularly important if I want to build a car in an unusual color, such as the Bonneville. The importance of size applies to the wheels too. An off-road vehicle typically has smaller wheels than a truck and a car has smaller wheels than an SUV. Some small cars, like the Smart Car, have wheels that seem more suited for a skateboard. Most cars in LEGO City sets have similarly sized wheels and this looks a bit wrong.
The Ford F350 Ambulance above uses 30.4 x 14 VR tires stretched over pulley wheels; an idea I picked up from fellow builder Bram Lambrecht. The Land Rover at the right uses suitably knobby off-road tires made by stretching a smaller tire over an over-sized wheel.
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Finding wheels and tires has become a bit easier in recent years, as there is a lot more variety now than ten or twenty years ago. Tires do tend to come only in certain standard sizes, however, and some of the larger ones are a lot wider than I would like. Fortunately, some of the tires are surprisingly flexible and there are many different ways of making intermediate sizes, as I have done for my Ford F250 Ambulance and Land Rover. For these vehicles the standard sizes would have been either too large or too small. However, if you build a standalone model, you might as well pick a wheel and tire combination you like and base the scale of the car on that. This is something a lot of car builders do.
The main measurements I use for working out the size of the car are the wheel base, the overall length, and the width, and I convert these to the correct number of studs. This is not an exact science. The Bonneville technically ought to be 30.9 studs long, 11 studs wide and have a wheelbase of 17.3 studs. The finished model is 31.3 studs long, 11 studs wide and has a wheelbase of 17.5 studs. This is about as exact as I can get it, but there is always a bit of wiggle room.
Making Your Model Resemble the Actual Car With the car chosen, the size set and the right wheels selected, I now get to what is probably the most difficult bit: making the model look like the actual car. Still, getting this right is mainly a matter of paying attention to a few important details and proportions. To get a good look at the proportions from different sides, I try to find a three-view drawing of the car and I usually make my own simple drawing of the side profile on graph paper, to serve as a useful guide when building. It is much easier to correct a mistake on paper than it is once I have already started building. There are a few more proportions besides the length and wheelbase that matter: how high the roof is in relation to the body, how much the car’s body sticks out over the front and rear wheels (called the front and rear overhangs), and where the windshield sits in relation to the front wheels. How thick and sloped the rear pillars are is important too, as you can tell from the Bonneville. The Buick Roadmaster Wagon, typical for an American full-size car, has a windscreen that sits aft of the front wheels, with a fairly long hood. It also has a massive rear overhang. On the Smart Car the wheels have been pushed to the very corners of the body and its windshield sits practically right at the front of the car.
Using reference material such as photographs and three-view drawings (or a four-view drawing in this case), I normally make a little drawing to serve as a guide when building.
The fenders on most cars have a lip, but this is normally so small that it is insignificant on a scale model. On the Smart, however, the wheels and fenders stick out visibly. They usually also do on SUVs and pickup trucks, because this gives the vehicle a more The Buick Roadmaster wagon is a traditional full-size American car, with a fairly large front overhang and a rugged look. LEGO makes suitable massive overhang at the rear. fender pieces for the Smart’s dinky wheels, that stick out half a stud. The larger diameter tires and wheels on the Ford F350 Ambulance meant having to build wheel arches myself and having them stick out by half a stud, using jumper plates. When building a car for your minifigures, it might be tempting to use one of the ready-made fender pieces, but if you are trying to recreate a 25 real car, this often will not look right. The fenders on the real car simply do not
jut out as much, and leaving them flush with the sides of the car is often the better option. Notice how the rear wheels on the Roadmaster, the Citroën DS and the Bonneville are covered. This is one of the things that make these cars recognizable.
The Smart Car is a small European city car, with just about the smallest exterior dimensions you can fit around an engine, two people and their shopping.
Have you ever noticed that the front of a car often looks like a face, with the radiator grille as its mouth and the headlights as the eyes? These are details with a large impact on how recognizable your model is. The Roadmaster has a wide radiator with fairly low rectangular headlights, but in 1965 double stacked headlights, like on the Bonneville, were all the rage. The location of the headlights on the Land Rover is a major feature in recognizing the actual type of Land Rover. Not getting the ‘ face’ of the car right can result in the whole car looking wrong.
Color can come in very handy to make your car model more recognizable too. On the Smart Car, the body panels often have a different color from the vehicle’s safety cage and this is then visible on the outside of the car. Had I chosen to make it all grey, it would have looked far less like a Smart. Not every classic Land Rover has a white roof, but a lot of them do, so the combination of a green body and the white roof helps. Similarly, not every Buick Roadmaster has (fake) wood paneling on its sides, but making the sides of mine tan with a lighter line on top immediately evokes the right look. Such trim details can make a big difference. The grey and black stripe that runs all around the car, only interrupted by the front wheels, is typical for the Roadmaster too. The Bonneville has a chrome strip, built using pearl grey plates, running along the length of the car. It separates the sand blue above it from the grey underneath and the manner in which it dips just in front of the rear wheels and then swoops up towards the tail lights is very distinctive. This is the sort of detail that I plan from the start and it was included in my drawing. However, you will not be able to capture every detail of a car in a LEGO model, so some compromises are unavoidable. It is sometimes okay to exaggerate features a bit, since emphasizing the salient bits can actually help to make your model more recognizable. This applies to my cars scaled 1/22, but even more so to cars intended for minifigures.
www.brickcoaster.com
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Custom Roller Coaster Tracks, Sets and Accessories
Incorporating Working Features I am usually not content with a car that looks recognizably like the original. I always enjoy adding a few working features and, even though it sometimes makes getting the shape right more difficult, these do add to the overall realism. A part of this is a steering mechanism. If you can turn the wheels just a bit, your model will immediately look more like a real car. On a car built for minifigures this is very hard to pull off, but at 1/22 it is usually relatively easy. On my cars the front wheels are interconnected such that they remain aligned, but not actually connected to the steering wheel because there is not enough room.
The front wheels on most of the cars are attached to a steering mechanism that moves them together.
I also like to have opening doors, to give a nice view of the car’s interior, as well as an opening trunk and a hood, with a representation of the engine underneath. The way the doors are hinged can differ from one model to the next. This mainly depends on how thick the doors are and on the color of the body. I usually attach doors that are just a brick thick or even a brick and a half using a plate hinge. The doors do stick when trying to open them, but there is usually enough play to not cause too much trouble and they are very straightforward to build. For thicker doors or in cases where plate hinges do not exist in the color I need, as on the Bonneville, I use an alternative method using a Technic construction that slides out. Rear doors are usually much easier. The rear doors on the Buick Roadmaster The Bonneville has two opening doors. Since these are fairly thick and plate hinges do not exist in sand and the Cadillac Fleetwood, for blue, they are attached to arms that pop out, sliding along a Technic axle, before the doors rotate forward. instance, simply pivot on studs at the bottom of the door and the bottom of the pillar that connects them to the roof. Because this pillar is stepped in by half a stud, the bottom of the doors is attached to a jumper plate. The only drawback of this arrangement is that, to open the rear doors, the front doors need to be opened as well.
Putting it All Together
The ’65 Cadillac Fleetwood has a big V8 engine lurking under its long hood, and plenty of legroom in the back.
I have gone through the planning process and now have finally reached the point of actually putting bricks together. I think most of the thought that goes into building cars goes into making choices on what to build and what details to incorporate to make the car look right. This will not necessarily make building a car easy, but it certainly helps. When I finally do start building, I tackle the difficult bits first. This is usually the front, because its shape can get complicated and because, as I have explained, it can make or break the look of the car. The whole project can still fall flat on its face at this point if I cannot figure out how to get certain bits to fit where I want them to, or a shape to curve just right. However, I usually realize fairly early on in the planning process if there are bits I cannot do.
I have a whole list of cars that I would love to build, but have not started yet because I do not know how. Once I am happy with the front, I continue building the outer body shell, working from the outside in. The internal structure needed to keep everything together comes later. Most of the structural strength of the model comes from the floor pan and a long beam, built out of stacked plates, that runs along the center of the car. I attach cross members to this, to strengthen the connection to the door sills and side panels. I know my brick-built windows are not everybody’s cup of tea, but I happen to like them and they add a lot of structural rigidity. Interior details are usually last to be finished. The dashboard and firewall are built as one large integrated structure, to add strength to the front. Ultimately, building cars is something you cannot really learn from reading a magazine article. Like most things, getting good at it requires practice. Furthermore, what works for me may not work for everybody. However, I hope that some of the insights I have provided into my car building process may inspire some of you to finally use those wheels you have had sitting in a box gathering dust in your build area. For more inspiration, I can recommend: My Flickr stream- https://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist The Brothers Brick lego blog that includes lots of carshttp://www.brothers-brick.com/ The LEGO car blog- http://thelegocarblog.com/
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LUGNuts- https://www.flickr.com/groups/lugnuts/
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Building
Jeroen Otten’s Mistress.
Building a Mistress of a Supercar! Article by Jeroen Ottens
The LEGO brand has a very diverse offering, ranging from the Duplo (or even Primo) to the UCS sets. But until the appearance of the UCS sets, the older age group was serviced with the LEGO Technic brand. And within that brand the ultimate challenge, the pinnacle of engineering, the top of the bill is the LEGO Technic supercar. Since the introduction of LEGO Technic in 1977, eight supercars have been released with various functions. There is not a well-defined definition of what a supercar has to offer in terms of features (and not all LEGO supercars offer all features), but it should have at least most of the following: • Big wheels (at least 9 studs diameter) and therefore be a big model (~60 studs long) • (independent) suspension on all wheels • Steerable front wheels • ‘Fake’ engine (where the pistons actually work, but does not provide power to the engine itself) • Gearbox (nowadays with at least 6 gear ratios) • Something special (Gull wing doors, AWD, pop-up headlights, or modular build, for example) When I joined The LEGO Group in 1998 (yes, that is right, I was a LEGO Technic designer in the previous century), the fifth supercar, the Super Street Sensation, was in the last phase of its development. It was a true supercar, with independent suspension, a 5+R gearbox, a modular chassis design and reconfigurable bodywork. I had the privilege of designing two other sets before I left the company. In that same period LEGO Technic went through its most drastic change since its start in 1977. We started to abandon the studs. At first only the bodywork became studless, but by 2003, the internal chassis had also become studless. This revolutionized the way of building with LEGO Technic. Instead of the traditional stacking of bricks, it now became possible to design in every direction. You could say it was SNOT galore in the Technic brand, only without the S.
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In this article I would like to describe how I designed my latest studless supercar, the Mistress, and compare that to the way I designed the studful Power Puller when I still worked at LEGO.
Starting the Model
Every design starts with inspiration. For the Power Puller it was the idea that we should offer a Racer theme. We searched for pictures and photos and even went to a Power Puller contest to get inspiration. For the Mistress, I drew inspiration from other MOCs and modern supercars like the Lamborghini and Ferrari. Once I had an image in my head, I started to think about the functions. For the Power Puller that was clear from the beginning: It had to have big wheels (the biggest ever released by LEGO), configurable engines, a sled that could be pulled along, it should be motorized, and it should tilt upwards when it had pulled the sled a certain distance. For the Mistress, I wanted to have as many supercar functions as possible. I wanted to have four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, scissor doors, a 5+R gearbox, a gearbox to switch between two-wheel drive, four-wheel drive with differential and four-wheel drive with locked differential, and finally a sleek (and as closed as possible) body.
Jeroen’s Technic set.
So far the design process was pretty similar, but now the paths started to diverge, partly due to the difference between studful and studless building. For the Power Puller, we (I worked together with Markus Kossman on this model) started to build crude versions of tractors and sleds. Every time we ran into trouble we put the model aside and started anew. As you can imagine, our workplace got cluttered fast with piles of unfinished prototypes. For the Mistress, however, I started digitally (with LEGO Digital Designer— LDD). The most complex part of studless building is the interlocking nature of it. Since there are no studs to connect pieces to each other, you have to rely on pins and axles to connect pieces. Furthermore, a lot of parts have the ability to connect in perpendicular directions. For the strength and rigidity of the model it is important to make designs that lock themselves in all directions so that they do not fall apart when pressure is applied. The consequence of that is that it is not too easy to take them apart again. That, in itself, wouldn’t be a problem if you could simply start anew whenever you ran into trouble, but unlike at LEGO I don’t have an infinite amount of pieces at my disposal at home. But LDD does have an infinite amount of bricks. So here are my first digital iterations on the front and rear axle set-up:
Prototype axle set-ups.
This is the digital version of the first pile of prototypes. The actual number of prototypes is considerably larger than the few displayed here. Each one has gone through its own set of iterations to come to this point. I think it is a safe bet that I designed over a hundred suspension set-ups for this car...
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Getting The Looks Right
During the design process of the Power Puller, the marketing department of LEGO contacted the Danish Power Puller champion team Fox Larsen for a sponsoring deal. We were working with a color scheme of blue and silver with some yellow accents. However the team we wanted to sponsor had yellow as their trademark color and didn’t want to change that, so in the last month of our design process we had to change to yellow as well. For my Mistress I played with different color schemes as well, however I could not simply order parts in any color I wanted, I had to use the existing palette part combinations. At first I wanted to try to make an orange car. At this point the axles were still in development (as you can see from the different rear axles) as was the door mechanism. I wanted to use the dampersprings that were released in 2000, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to harness the forces in the available space. In the left picture the mechanism was still spring-based, in the bottom picture I had abandoned that idea and used a worm gear instead. Preliminary body designs. The doors are set up for this version in a spring-loaded opening mechanism to swing up.
The door opening mechanism in this model is now a worm gear by the engine that uses gears and linkages to move the hinge at the door front.
It soon became clear that I really needed one particular panel (and its mirror) in orange that was not available in that color. I therefore decided to switch to red for the color of the car. By now I was also starting to build the bodywork in real life. Getting the curves right is simply impossible in a digital model, as I just can’t see it on a monitor. I didn’t have the parts yet to build the axles, so I used simple mock-ups instead while I waited for my Bricklink orders to arrive (this would cause some grief later on). The panels that changed the Mistress’ color.
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Designing the bodywork was an iterative process between real and digital. I would first simply hold a panel in place by my hand. Then I would build a bulky set-up to position that panel in exactly that orientation (a lot of panels on the Mistress are rotated over at least two axis). Then I would recreate that set-up in LDD including the panel. As a next step I would remove everything except the panel so that it would float in the air in the right orientation, then find a (much smaller) digital solution to connect the panel to the frame, and finally build that simple solution in real life again—and repeat that for the next panel.
Personally I find this part of the design the most difficult. I am not that good at visualizing what a certain solution will look like, so I have to physically build it, try crazy things and then hope it works. The big sloping windscreen was created like that, as was the rear window. I played with bricks until I thought, “Hey, this might actually work,” and then put it on. In the digital world the car really started to come alive.
The panels begin to shape the car.
The body of the Mistress takes shape.
Writer’s Block (or The Design Equivalent)
Over the years I have designed many things and I never was able to avoid this phase. It is usually between one- or two-thirds into the process where you run into a roadblock that seems insurmountable. In the case of the Power Puller it was early on with the front end of the chassis. We had somehow dug ourselves in a hole where we thought we needed two beams stacked upon each other. However that meant that the big motor assemblies would stick out way too high above the tractor. We consulted some more experienced designers and reached a breakthrough when we realized that we could make it work with only one layer of beams in combination with a different steering mechanism.
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At some point in the build of the Mistress I went back to real bricks—first to work on the body, but also because I was worried that I might have too much backlash in all the gears needed for the four-wheel drive and steering. After all the hours I had spent perfecting the axles, it was a big disappointment when I found out that my worries were true. The rear wheels didn’t move at all when I turned the steering wheel. There was too much friction and too much backlash in all the gearing.
The first complete model (that eventually had to be redesigned on the inside).
It was decision time now. I saw three options: 1) Stop the project 2) Solve the backlash 3) Get rid of the four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering I had chosen option 1) on earlier projects, but this time I liked the looks already too much to stop now. I did consider option 2) for a bit, but I knew I had already done my best to reduce the number of gears in the steering train as much as possible, so it would be very hard (and hinder the gearbox very much) if I would reduce the number of gears even further. And to be honest, fourwheel drive and steering isn’t typical for supercars in real life anyway. So I chose option 3) with the added challenge of reducing the part count to below 1600 parts. I also didn’t like the look of the air intakes near the rear wheels. The 45-degree surface sloped down too fast. So I wanted that changed as well.
Finishing Stages
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When I worked on the Power Puller we had to comply to a lot of rules. We should use the ‘active’ elements as much as possible, we should work in the color scheme that fit with the rest of the product offering of that year, a nineyear-old should be able to follow the building instructions (which meant, among other things, that parts that were similar in shape had to be of a different color), it should be possible to make building instructions, certain parts had to be used, and of course we had to meet a price target. The technical department would test the model against all kinds of requirements and give us feedback. In our case they showed that if you took the model, added an extra motor (we did design for that) and raced it against the wall it would churn the gears to pieces. It is for that reason that the Power Puller is equipped with a gear on a pivoting beam. If the wheels get blocked, this gear will disengage itself and prevent further damage. I think that at least half of the design time was used to tweak the design so that it complied to all the rules. If it was a MOC, the design would have been finished way, way earlier.
For the Mistress the redesign of the chassis to a normal rear-wheel-driven car was not too difficult. It mainly involved removing elements, which is a lot easier than adding elements. Also, the modular design of the chassis helped a lot in containing the changes locally. After a few more weeks of optimizing towards my self-imposed limit of 1600 pieces, the car now looked as follows: As you might have noticed, I had now used a different CAD program (LDCad to be precise). The reason for this was that by now I had received multiple requests for building instructions. Whilst LDD has a building instruction feature, it is laughably inadequate for Technic instructions. Furthermore, the collision detection mechanism was preventing me from modelling parts that aligned perfectly in real life; especially the redesigned air intake near the rear wheels is near-perfectly flush when built with real bricks, whilst it apparently collides in the digital realm.
The first fully functional model with redesigned air intakes.
When working at LEGO we had a special department that made the building instructions for us. We guided them through once or twice (if they found parts of the building sequence that needed a redesign to better suit the age group) and then they would go their way and we would start working on the next project. Not so with a MOC... In retrospect I have really learned to appreciate that department. It almost took me as much time to make instructions as it took to design the model (okay, that is exaggerated, but still, it took a lot of time). I hope this article has given you some insight in the design process of a complex technical model like a supercar or a Power Puller. To finish this article, here are a few more shots of the Mistress that showcase her curves the best I think: Leg godt, Jeroen Ottens Side view of the Mistress.
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Dimensions: 48 x 25 x13 cm Weight: 1.352 kilograms Part Count: 1608 parts (red version) 1612 parts (white version)
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The Mistress
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Building
Color Your Life! Article and Photography by Stephan Sander
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If you are a longtime reader of the fabulous BrickJournal, you might have noticed that there is already an article about Miniland-scale cars. To be precise, it was the Spring issue of 2008. Since then a lot of things have changed, but my love for cars in this scale hasn’t changed at all, and there are no signs that it will in the future. The Miniland scale is still used within all the LEGOLand Parks, but for some reason not at the LEGO Discovery Centers. This is quite understandable as space is very limited in big cities where the Discovery Centers are located. I guess the Miniland scale of 1:20 was the best balance between use of space and recognizability for the creators of LEGOLand. The visitors would hardly see what the models were supposed to be if they had built in Minifig scale of 1:42. It’s also a good balance between the number of elements used and the number of details for AFOLs to build cars. Obviously the bigger the model, the more detail it will need. The Miniland style might be seen as a bit basic. The surface looks rasterized, because for the LEGOLand models the designers use mainly plates and tiles and no big transparent elements to build the windows. This means the look (especially of the windows) always has that shattered touch. But even with this basic look you might need a single special element to include one more detail to make the model simply perfect. The basic colors offer you the widest range of elements, of course. The actual Bricklink color guide says that the LEGO Company produced 78 different colors throughout the years (transparent, chrome and all the other special ones are not included in this count). Black, white and red are the clear rulers of the list, because the largest variety of different elements were made in these colors, which is good news for all Ferrari fans! Good news to me then; over the past 10 years I’ve built nearly 100 cars and 14 of them are different Ferrari models. It’s pretty much the same with white and black. Both colors suit many cars very well and you’ve got such a wide choice of elements to use. These basic colors are the perfect start if you don’t want to worry about having enough choices on hand.
But what is it with the other 75 colors? Are they any good? Could you build whatever you want in each available color? Well, this might depend on the model you want to build, but if you want to build cars, you have at least a lot of opportunities. Orange, for example, came out in 1993 and is middle-aged compared to the old classics and new colors like medium azure. When it came out it was very rare and it wasn’t easy or cheap to get enough elements for a nice model. Orange contrasts well with very bright or very dark colors and it was a good addition to the then-existing palette. This facilitated nicer sets and might have been the reason why the number of existing elements has continuously increased. As a true child of the ’70s, I think this color gives car builders like me a good opportunity to build real classics, like General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard or the Mercedes C111 Prototype. Regarding colors, the LEGO Company had its own dark age, too. In 2003 it decided that brown and grey did not fit in with the other colors and “corrected” the palette. Nobody within the compaMy own creation with my own creation in black, red and white. ny intended to annoy or anger AFOLs. It wanted to make improvements. But as we all know, that was a big mistake. The problem was that the old shades of grey (and brown, of course) didn’t fit with the new ones. Compared to the new light grey, the old bricks looked like they were yellowed by the sun—even if they were brand new. But there is also a bright side to this change. It was a big thing and many, many AFOLs were very unhappy and made this very clear to the LEGO Company. And it listened! While the change was not reversed, the LEGO Company learned the significance of what it did and what it meant to the AFOLs. The price for learning was high, but I’m confident that the company is more careful now and changes like this won’t happen again without discussion. And there is another plus side! With the right combination of new and old grey elements, you can achieve quite an interesting used look. I’m just wondering if more than ten years after this big change, is this the right time to change the names to “old grey” and “grey” on Bricklink? How many younger AFOLs are confused because of the weird naming?
More in the air than on the road: General Lee.
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Moving on to colors which have gone completely out of production: Turquoise was available between 1998 and 2005—that means you know exactly what you are getting yourself into when you start to build models in this beautiful color. You need 100 1x1 plates? Good luck, then! These plates were only made for one single set in 1999—a nice one, but still just one set. Not very surprising then that the LEGO company’s costs were rising steeply in those days. Fortunately there are enough different basics made to build a proper car. And there is even my favorite element available in this color: the 2x4 brick with curved top. I can’t say why I like this one so much; maybe it’s because it is so different to the standard squared bricks.
All you need to build a car.
Pretty in pink. Elvis would have loved it.
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Pretty much the same applied for pink. And I’m talking about just pink—not dark, not light, not bright and not the other shades of pink. Born in 1996 and shut down in 2006, it was mainly used for the “girly” sets well before the huge success of LEGO Friends. The story of the shades of pink might fill a whole article itself, but I will still focus on building cars. There are a lot of basic elements available in this pastel dream—perfect for any ’80s Miami Vice-themed creation. The standard plates and tiles are the foundation, but to include fancy details it is necessary to have some more special elements at hand. And again, these are either super rare, or simply just don’t exist in pink. Maersk blue: Lovely color, exclusively made for the sets representing the Maersk company. This company is another big player in Denmark, and it’s the largest container shipping company in the world. Maersk had its own color, and their first sets were first made in 1974 for a big container ship—not very surprising for a container shipping company, is it? The last one was made in 2011 and it definitely will be the last one, because for the new Triple-E Line the LEGO Company changed the color. The new one is very close to the former medium blue so there is no need for a specific color anymore. This is good news, because
Maersk blue is a nice color, but not easy to build a car with.
it means you’ll know exactly which elements are available and which are not. No point in waiting for another element to be made in the old Maersk blue. But fortunately for the AFOLs, everything you need is already there: basic plates, tiles, jumpers, and even Erling (headlight) bricks—no excuse not to start immediately. Well, the price could be a bit of a problem! As usual, parts going out of production means higher prices. As sure as night follows day, whatever you do, they come together. Wouldn’t it be nice to build a pearl-gold car? Maybe one from the collection of a super-rich sheik? Goldfinger’s Rolls Royce Phantom III perhaps? It really would be a nice eye catcher at every exhibition. But somehow it would be extremely complicated to build one. You’d be able to get tons of freaky masks, weapons, or other decorative stuff in pearl-gold, but basics? Nope, nearly nothing at all. And 1x1 plates are simply not enough. Back to the bright side: it’s still in production, so there is still hope for more. While there is still hope on pearl-gold, a miracle might be needed for chrome silver. To coat the elements with the shiny silver has cost the LEGO Company a fortune, and so they’ve stopped making these elements. Well, there are still some laser swords in a few sets, but none of the brilliant tubes. So why not buy them from a fan-driven shop? The offer is big and it’s really tempting, because you might get whatever you need. But for me this is like painting the bricks. If a specific element doesn’t exist in dark blue, I also wouldn’t paint a white one to get the desired brick. But decide on your own: the puristic bright side, or the dark side with their custom bricks?
Same car, different colors.
Different colors, different cars. Color thief at work!
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Overall I say, this rareness of some colors is more a challenge than a disadvantage and makes it more interesting to build a model with them. We are just a footstep away from 3-D printers, which will be able to create all the bricks we need that somehow never were made by the LEGO Company. But would it still be the same fun if there were no limits? It’s very similar to building virtually. With tools like LDD, or MLCAD you’ve got unlimited bricks in all colors you could imagine, and people do incredible things with their computers. But is this the same as building with real bricks? If somebody works for quite a while on a model and spends the time to optimize the details, you might not recognize this specific detail, but you will still notice that the builder has spent a lot of time finishing it. The limits help us find new ways, different solutions, and get the maximum creativity out of us.
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You Can Build It MINI Model
MINI Batmobile Design and Instructions by Matthew Hocker
The scale of the car lets you use a few parts to make an iconic vehicle. If you don’t have any chrome wheels, you can substitute light gray wheels instead. Have fun!
Parts List
(Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Color Part 1 Trans Clear 3023.dat 2 Trans Clear 54200.dat 1 Trans Neon Orange 64647.dat 4 Yellow 4624.dat 6 Black 87747.dat 1 Black 41854.dat 1 Black 59900.dat 2 Black 2654.dat 1 Black 4740.dat 1 Black 85975.dat 2 Black 61252.dat 4 Black 4081b.dat 3 Black 3023.dat 1 Black 15573.dat
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The model that led to Matt Hocker’s Batcave in BrickJournal #36 was his Batmobile, so it ended up here to be with some more cars! His Batcave is still on the LEGO Ideas website, so you can still vote on it!
Description Plate 1 x 2 Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Minifig Plume/ Flame Triple Wheel Rim 6.4 x 8 Bar 0.5L with Curved Blade 2L Car Mudguard 2 x 4 Swept Back Cone 1 x 1 with Stop Dish 2 x 2 Dish 2 x 2 Inverted Minifig Hat Fez Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Horizontal (Thick C-Clip) Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Light Type 2 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud
Qty Color Part 4 Black 2540.dat 1 Black 3022.dat 1 Black 10247.dat 2 Black 4600.dat 1 Black 3020.dat 1 Black 47458.dat 1 Black 30602.dat 1 Black 41855.dat 1 Black 3700.dat 1 Black 3070b.dat 4 Black 3139.dat 2 Blue 4274.dat
Description Plate 1 x 2 with Handle Plate 2 x 2 Plate 2 x 2 with Hole and Complete Underside Rib Plate 2 x 2 with Wheel Holders Plate 2 x 4 Slope Brick Curved 1 x 2 x 2/3 with Fin without Studs Slope Brick Curved Top 2 x 2 x 1 Slope Brick Round 2 x 2 x 2/3 Technic Brick 1 x 2 with Hole Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Tyre 4/ 80 x 8 Single Smooth Type 1 Technic Pin 1/2
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LEGO fans: You Can Build It!
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Tommy Williamson is no stranger to BrickJournal, having been featured previously for his Jack Sparrow miniland scale figure. Since then, he has gone farther into building, making some remarkable Star Trek props and other models. He’s now doing a column for BrickJournal: DIY Fan Art. Here, Tommy takes a little time out from his busy schedule at BrickNerd.com to make a model of his choosing for the magazine.
Parts List
(Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)
Qty Part Color 1 3023.dat Trans Clear 2 2921.dat Red 2 4070.dat Red 1 30165.dat Red 1 3023.dat Red 1 60478.dat Red 2 3022.dat Red 1 3020.dat Red 1 85984.dat Red 1 2555.dat Red 1 3069b.dat Red 1 3942c.dat Dark Bluish Gray 1 3300.dat Dark Bluish Gray 2 30374.dat Black 1 4073.dat Black 2 60470b.dat Black 1 32028.dat Black 1 3048.dat Black 1 3022.dat Light Bluish Gray 1 2817.dat Light Bluish Gray 2 4600.dat Light Bluish Gray 1 3176.dat Light Bluish Gray 2 3673.dat Light Bluish Gray 4 4624.dat Light Bluish Gray 2 56902.dat Light Bluish Gray
Description Plate 1 x 2 Brick 1 x 1 with Handle Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight Brick 2 x 2 with Curved Top and 2 Studs on Top Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 with Handle on End Plate 2 x 2 Plate 2 x 4 Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 Tile 1 x 1 with Clip Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Cone 2 x 2 x 2 with Hollow Stud Open Slope Brick 33 2 x 2 Double Bar 4L Light Sabre Blade Plate 1 x 1 Round Plate 1 x 2 with 2 Clips Horizontal (Thick C-Clips) Plate 1 x 2 with Door Rail Slope Brick 45 1 x 2 Triple Plate 2 x 2 Plate 2 x 2 with Holes Plate 2 x 2 with Wheel Holders Plate 3 x 2 with Hole Technic Pin Wheel Rim 6.4 x 8 Wheel Rim 8 x 18 with Deep Center Groove
Red Choo Choo Design and Instructions by Tommy Williamson
About this issue’s model:
The genesis of this model is also a handy lesson, namely to remember to tinker. This hot rod of a train came to be because one evening I was just playing with table scraps and fun connections, tinkering. When I connected the two 2x2 plates with axles I noticed they had good clearance and still rolled. That got me wondering if the dimensions would work for a larger wheel back behind. I was pleased and surprised to see that it would, and it sort of looked like a set of train wheels. A little while later, and with a little channeling of Big Daddy Roth, the Little Red Choo Choo was born—hope you like it.
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You Can Build It MINI Model
MINI A-Team Van Design and Instructions by Christopher Deck
Hello everybody! I’m very glad to again join BrickJournal! With the magazine being themed to cars this time, we also want to build something out of this fascinating field. When you think about iconic cars seen on television, the A-Team’s van is—among many others, of course—a quite memorable one. It’s big, dark, and has a catchy red stripe across the sides. Together we will build this van on the next pages.
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While the van itself can be shaped out quite easily, it’s that red stripe that is really tricky to build without using stickers. In this model, we are just using bricks. What we can learn from the following instructions is how to use the relatively new 1x2 tiles with grille in normal orientation and upside-down to generate a diagonal stripe made with bricks. It’s a very useful approach which can be adopted for many other building ideas you certainly have. The resulting red stripe is a bit wider than on the original real-life model, but we attribute this to the artistic freedom. The A-Team’s van should be a nice addition to your personal collection of remarkable movie cars! I wish happy building to you, and see you next time!
You can view Christopher’s webpage by going to www.deckdesigns.de or scanning this QR code!
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Parts List
(Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Color Part Description 1 Black 6187.dat Bar 1 x 4 x 2 2 Black 87087.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Stud on 1 Side 7 Black 3004.dat Brick 1 x 2 2 Black 3788.dat Car Mudguard 2 x 4 1 Red 3822.dat Door 1 x 3 x 1 Left 1 Red 3821.dat Door 1 x 3 x 1 Right 2 Trans-Black 60601.dat Glass for Window 1 x 2 x 2 without Sill 2 Black 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 2 Red 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 4 Trans-Red 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 2 Trans-White 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 2 Trans-Orange 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 9 Black 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 2 Red 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 5 Dark-Bluish-Gray 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 2 Dark-Bluish-Gray 32028.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Door Rail 10 Black 3794a.dat Plate 1 x 2 without Groove with 1 Centre Stud 2 Black 3623.dat Plate 1 x 3 1 Black 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4 5 Red 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4 2 Dark-Bluish-Gray 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4 1 Black 3022.dat Plate 2 x 2 4 Black 2420.dat Plate 2 x 2 Corner 2 Black 6157.dat Plate 2 x 2 with Wheels Holder Wide
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Qty Color Part Description 2 Black 3021.dat Plate 2 x 3 1 Black 3832.dat Plate 2 x 10 1 Dark-Bluish-Gray 3031.dat Plate 4 x 4 4 Black 61409.dat Slope Brick 18 2 x 1 x 2/3 Grille 4 Dark-Bluish-Gray 61409.dat Slope Brick 18 2 x 1 x 2/3 Grille 8 Red 61409.dat Slope Brick 18 2 x 1 x 2/3 Grille 2 Dark-Bluish-Gray 11477.dat Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 1 Dark-Bluish-Gray 15068.dat Slope Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 0.667 2 Trans-White 98138.dat Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove 2 Trans-Orange 98138.dat Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove 1 Black 2412b.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove 5 Red 2412b.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove 2 Red 2432.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Handle 1 Dark-Bluish-Gray 2431.dat Tile 1 x 4 with Groove 4 Black 30028.dat Tyre 8/ 40 x 8 Slick Smooth 4 Red 30027b.dat Wheel Rim 8 x 8 Notched Hole for Wheel Holding Pin 2 Black 60592.dat Window 1 x 2 x 2 without Sill 1 Trans-Black 2437.dat Windscreen 3 x 4 x 1 & 1/3
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Building MINDSTORMS 101:
Giving Your Bot a Voice!
1
Open the EV3 Sound Editor
The EV3-G software has a built-in sound recorder/ editor so that you can create your own sound files. You can access it via the Tools menu at the top of the Programming Canvas.
Article and art by Damien Kee
The sounds that are built into the EV3 system are numerous and awesome. Someone obviously spent a lot of time choosing, recording, cleaning them up and I’m really thankful—truly I am! However, in the 127 preloaded sounds that come with the EV3-G software, nowhere could I find the phrase “Number 5, is ALIVE!” (For those who don’t get the reference, Google it. It is a classic piece of robot cinema history!) Now while I’m saddened that the EV3 software developers chose not to include this phrase (along with “The chances of survival are 725… to 1”) I do understand that there are limits to what is possible. So how do we get around this?
Dr Damien Kee has been working with robotics in education for over 10 years, teaching thousands of Students and hundreds of Teachers from all over the world. He is the author of the popular “Classroom Activities for the Busy Teacher” series of robotics teacher resource books.
You can find more information at www.damienkee.com or contact him directly at damien@ damienkee.com. Or you can scan the QR code at the left!
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2
Record Your Voice
There are several parts to the Sound Editor, the most important being the ‘Record’ button. Make sure there is a recording device attached to your computer. I use the microphone built into my webcam. Press the ‘Record’ button and in your best voice/accent/ character, say your phrase. Press the stop button when you’re finished.
If all goes to plan, you’ll see a waveform that graphically shows you what was just recorded. If you flub your lines, just press the record button to re-record over the original recording.
3
Edit Your Sound Bite
5
Use Your Sound
Press the green ‘Play’ button to listen back over what you have already recorded. You’ll notice my recording has a bit of empty silence at the start and the end. Click and drag the Trim arrows to crop out only the parts that you need.
4
Save Your Sound
Press the ‘Save’ button when you’re happy with how it all sounds. Give your sound file a name that enables you to know what was recorded. ‘SoundEffect1’ is not a good name. ‘Im Sorry Dave’ is a much better name.
Once you’ve saved the file with an appropriate name, close down the Sound Editor to be returned to your normal Programming Canvas. Drag out a ‘Sound’ Block to use in your program. Click the ‘File Name’ section and go to the ‘Project Sounds’ section. If everything has gone to plan, you should see your new sound file there, ready to go!
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Export Your Sound
So you’ve got this awesome new sound file and you want to share it with the world. Unfortunately, at the moment your new sound file is only part of the project that you’re working with. If you opened another Project, that new sound file wouldn’t be there. You can however export the sound file through the Project Properties Page.
1
From the Programming Canvas, select the Project Properties Page by clicking on the wrench graphic and pulling down.
2
Click on the Sounds Tab. You’ll find the sound files used on this Project.
3
Click on the Sound to be exported and click on the Export button on the bottom.
4
Export the sound. This sound was sent to the desktop, but you can place it wherever you want.
You can import sound files of nearly any length into the Sound Editor, but only sound files no longer than five seconds (maximum 64 KB) can be saved. Lengthy load times may be expected for large sound files. The Sound Editor accepts .wav, .mp3, and .rsf sound files. The editor exports .rsf files.
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The Project Properties Page can also import sounds, but only accepts .rsf files. Other formats have to be saved through the Sound Editor.
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Building Minifig Customization 101
Some Say He Looks a Lot Taller on TV and Not Made of Plastic... All We Know is He’s Called the Stig!
Article by Jared K. Burks
Given that this issue is all about cars, I thought it appropriate to tackle a car-based custom figure. Choosing the Stig was simple, yet oh so complex. If we get a good look at the Stig, there isn’t much to his outfit. It is a set of racing whites, gloves, and a helmet. Yet there are very subtle differences from episode to episode and likely from driver to driver that portrayed the Stig. So this column will feature some details we haven’t talked about: research! You must know your subject if you are going to create a custom figure that really resembles the figure you are after. It is therefore very important to extensively research the character or person you are attempting to create in custom minifigure form. If we look at characters from a film franchise, Star Wars for example, they are constantly changing small details. Just search Han’s Blaster and see how many conflicting pieces of information are out there. Or for simplicity, watch Jamie & Adam Tested: Adam’s Savage’s One Day Builds: Han Solo’s DK-44 Blaster (https:// youtu.be/4sCReGjfZ_AA). Creating a custom figure is just as detailed and the process of research is just as critical, even if you are creating a custom figure of your own making instead of basing it off of a character from TV, film, or real life. These custom figures will have clothing, weapons or gear, and other parts and pieces that will be inspired by actual items. Looking at those items will help create the details in your custom figure. Okay, back to the Stig. Some say he’s not the Stig. But he is the Stig’s Danish plastic cousin. Because we are creating the Stig’s Danish plastic cousin, we have to be careful to capture the critical details without overdoing the design, as we don’t want the figure looking out of place with the awesome cars LEGO has recently given us in the Speed Champions theme, especially as the Stig has driven many of these cars in the show Top Gear.
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Where do we begin to research the Stig? Luckily we live in the age of the Internet and Google is everyone’s friend, or at least they want to know as much about you as possible,
but I digress—back to our Google search. With a bit of digging, luck, and the fact that there are superfans of the Stig out there, webpages exist featuring screen shots from every episode the race car driver has ever appeared in. Furthermore, said superfans have created compendiums online for our viewing pleasure: https://forums.finalgear.com/top-gear/stigs-clothingcompendium-image-heavy-34439/ Now to decide which Stig outfit to create and how much detail will be included in the minifigure version of the Stig. Clearly the helmet, gloves, and shoulder regions are key. I have decided to go with the Alpinestars suit, featuring a Simpson helmet, and Alpinestars gloves. Trying to determine the glove details will be difficult, but will tackle them with a touch more research! Clearly the helmet is going to be the most difficult item to create if a custom or modified helmet is selected. Suits: http://www.alpinestars.com/auto/suits Helmet: http://simpsonraceproducts.com/snell-sa2015/ diamondback-snell-2015/ Gloves: http://www.alpinestars.com/auto/gloves If you are simply a fan of Stig quotes, there is even a website for that: http://www.motoringbox.com/stig-quotes/ As you can see from the figure, I went with the classic LEGO helmet. I had tried the new spaceman helmet as well as a modified Jack Stone helmet, but decided to stay closer to classic LEGO. I created this figure using simple details of the stitch patterns of the racing suit and the various manufacturers’ logos. This makes a simple yet recognizable figure that developed out of the research. I also kept the gloves quite simple, but then added details to the shoes. These are actually the most patterned items of the entire outfit. The one active decision I did make is to not include wrinkles or fabric rolls. This is because these would be too small and look out of place at this scale given how this fabric behaves. So the stitch lines were made wavy to give the appearance of 3-D texture.
Reference photos of the Stig.
So the Stig is now ready to test drive any vehicle you create out of LEGO. Be sure to set-up the track and the board of all the times, and report back on your fastest car! You can view Jared’s webpage by going to http://www.fineclonier.com/ or scanning this QR code!
Don’t miss Jared K. Burks’ two books Minifigure Customization: Populate Your World! and its sequel Minifigure Customization: Why Live In The Box? (both are available now at www.twomorrows.com)
Reference photo of the racing suit.
The completed figure.
Come back next issue for more Minifigure Customization!
Events
Event Report:
Skærbæk Fan Weekend
Article and Photography by Stephan Sander 60
Enchanted Forest by César Soares and Hugo Santos.
Over a decade ago, the first LEGO Fan Weekend was held in Skærbæk, Denmark. As the years went by, the event grew from a small gathering to one of the major meetings for AFOLs in Europe. However, the tenth LEGO Fan Weekend would be the last one ever to happen, and many thought it marked the end of an era... until another event was created to take its place. Skærbæk Fan Weekend premiered this year, and heading this first event was AFOL Stephan Sander. Here, he reflects on the past, present and future of Fan Weekend.
BrickJournal: Tell me about the history of the event—how it began, and how it grew up to last year, when LEGO was still an official part of the event. Stephan Sander: The very first LEGO Fan Weekend took place in 2004. Sadly I missed that one. But I know that it was small and cozy and a nice get-together of a couple of fans. The Skærbæk Fritidscenter (Conference Center) has two sport halls, but only one of them was barely filled with models. I guess back then nobody expected that this event would grow to what it became today. There were two facts which made this different from all the other great events I know. The first thing is the short distance to Billund, the heart of LEGO. It’s just one hour by car to drive and compared to the distance to most participants’ home, it’s literally just around the corner. This means it’s a good opportunity to visit LEGOLand. This also means that curious LEGO employees might show up at the event and check out what other AFOLs are doing with the bricks and get in touch with them.
Skærbæk is relatively close to Billund and LEGO headquarters, making it an ideal location for a LEGO fan event.
DENMARK Billund Billund
Skærbæk Skærbæk
Fredriksbergs bruk by Anders Nilssons.
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The other big advantage was the location itself. Skærbæk is a very small town with about 3,000 citizens, located at the south of Denmark. No offense to the nice people of Skærbæk, but for the rest of the year it’s maybe not the most exciting place in Denmark and doesn’t offer many attractions. But it has a Fritidscenter. And this contains the previously mentioned sport halls, a swimming pool, a bowling lane, a restaurant and most importantly, there are a lot of cottages located at the same site. These cottages offer a nice and cozy place to sleep for a reasonable price. Everything is at one place so wherever you go, you’ll meet other AFOLs. You can go for a short nap, or cook your own meal, or maybe join other people to discuss upcoming projects. There’s no need to drive to a hotel far away. In Skærbæk you are in touch with the other AFOLs up to 24 hours a day, depending on the capacity of your coffee machine.
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You might wonder if there are visitors during the weekend, too. Yes, there are and usually I say, “The visitors are allowed to see the brilliant models, too.“ Amalienborg, DK by Morten Dalermoen and five Danish AFOLs.
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Sailship (Christian Radich) by Henrik Lorentzen. Yuri Gagarin by Gary Davis.
The place doesn’t allow thousands and thousands of visitors, because there are no big cities within a short distance, but this has never been the major focus. In spite of the location, I’m surprised every time by how many people show up there. Through the years the event evolved and I think it was mainly the effort of the continuous work of the LEGO CEE (Community Engagement and Events) Team to tell the people about the event. There are so many great events out there, but I don’t know a single one where you’ll find people from more than 20 different countries—all of Denmark’s neighbors, most of Europe, but also Brazil, Australia, America and even from Hong Kong!
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How was the reaction from the AFOLs when LEGO announced it would not be continuing the event? The announcement of the CEE management to discontinue LEGO Fan Weekend was announced a few days before the 2014 event. Nobody understood that decision, and there was no reasonable explanation to stop such a successful event. So mainly all the AFOLs were very confused and some were quite upset. Nobody knew if the event would be continued. A group of AFOLs talked to the CEE management and tried hard to change their mind, but without
success. So during the very last LEGO Fan Weekend, most of the participants enjoyed the event, but it was bittersweet. When did you decide to lead the event? Jan Beyer, the head of the former steering team, asked me during the event if I would like to join the new steering team. I have worked together with Jan for ages and it was a nice compliment that he confided in me. But at this point I had never managed an event, not even a very tiny one. So I had no experience at all. Perfect requisites, huh? Jan told me that it wouldn’t be very much work, but I thought this was a lie—but not a bad one, of course. There were two factors which made it very easy for me to accept the challenge: Thomas Wesselski and Caspar Bennedsen. They’ve also been steering team members and are not LEGO employees. They had all the needed experience and I knew both of them for years now. Working together with highly encouraged AFOLs, what could possibly go wrong? How long did it take to plan? Easy to answer: the entire year. Well, it was literally the entire year, but it was not as bad as it might sound. A lot of things had to be clarified. The time I had spent on the event increased the closer the final date came, of course. If I agree to take over a job, I always want to make it as good as possible. So the goal was to let the AFOLs not see any difference compared to the last event. Mosaic of African Sunset by Cornelia Kirsten. Classic Space by Søren Johansen & Reier Pytte.
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More of Classic Space by Søren Johansen & Reier Pytte.
Were you able to participate as a displayer? I’m still an AFOL and this event is still my favorite one, so you would have needed weapons, or at least Playmobil figures to stop me displaying some of my models at the Skærbæk Fan Weekend! So yes, I displayed a few of my models, but my layout had just half of the size it had the year before. One of the big differences between being an exhibitor and a manager of a fan event is that you have no time to stay at your layout and talk to other people. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute, but believe me if I say that it is way more relaxing if you are only a participant of a fan event. What did the participants do with the LEGO Group during the event (presentations, trips, etc.) ? Enchanted Forest by César Soares and Hugo Santos.
During the event, workshops/presentations and a Q&A session with Jan Beyer (CEE) and Jamie Berard (LEGO Set Designer) were offered to the AFOLs. You could easily imagine that it was a very funny Q&A session. On Monday, after Fan Weekend, we were invited to attend a presentation about the progress on the LEGO House which is currently being constructed in the middle of Billund. This presentation was held at the LEGOLand hotel in Billund and afterwards we all had a look at the construction site from the visitor platform. That was really a nice addition to a superb weekend. As mentioned, many AFOLs came from a far distance and spent so much money and took days off from work to join the Skærbæk Fan Weekend, so the goal was to stretch the weekend a bit to get the best experience for them. What are your plans for next year? To make it even better! There were no real issues, or problems. Nothing needed more than five minutes to be solved. But of course there are always details to be improved and working on that has already begun. It is just sad that the biggest problems of all can’t be fixed: the space for AFOLs and their MOCs is limited. But for those who will be lucky to join the Skærbæk Fan Weekend, I’ll do whatever I can to make it fantastic!
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Jörg Ruckel (above) is a media teacher in a local public access TV station in Germany who also works in schools with pupils, teachers and parents in all things concerning “new media” and media literacy (mobile phones, social networks, games, law, etc.). Thanks to his first son, he returned to LEGO building from his Dark Ages at 28. Jörg began to get all his childhood sets, then continued from there. He’s more a collector than a builder. But he started doing something else besides collecting LEGO. He started giving LEGO. He began in October 2015 when Syrian refugees started to arrive in Germany. As with everyone else, the plight of the refugees weighed on his mind a lot. Having five large refugee camps in his area meant that there were hundreds of children who definitely haven’t enough toys—and not any LEGO bricks. As he tells, “The last days I went to two camps (bringing clothes and helping to organize and talk with the refugees) and I thought about what an AFOL like me could do.” He went to his LEGO room and gathered parts he collected the last few years: Minifigs, bricks, slopes and more. His idea was to give a bag to each child that was between maybe 6 to 12 years old. It didn’t bother him to give parts to the children, so he packed the first bags. His wife Jenny also got involved, and once the word went out, they got donations from German AFOLs from 1000steine-LUG (the national LEGO Users Group), from “Fairy Bricks,” a charity group in the UK, “New Elementary,” a website in the US, as well as a lot of locals. He and his wife took all the bags and big play-boxes directly to the children.
LEGO Fans Help Refugee Kids! Article by Joe Meno Photograph by Kristina Bräutigam
As a result, this has become an ongoing project. To maintain this initiative Jörg needs bricks... polybags... or LEGO parts. Everyone is welcome to donate. Because of customs, it would be good to contact him first at his e-mail: gen@ruckel.de.
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News
Japan BrickFest 2015 Article by Nathan Bryan Photography by Tomoyuki Wakata and Nathan Bryan
Tomoyuki Wakata’s Godzilla poses in front of Edwin Knight’s Osaka Castle.
On July 6 and 7, 2015, in the Black Box Theater and Gymnasium of the Canadian Academy on Rokko Island in Kobe, Japan, the first Japan BrickFest was held. It had been a long road and a dream come true of many years for Edwin (LEGO User Group Ambassador) and Miki Knight (founders of the KLUG, the Kansai LEGO Users Group). It was a charity event with proceeds going to local orphanages such as the Salvation Army Orphanage as well as to charities chosen by the Canadian Academy. The event amazed all who attended. Over the two-day period, more than 1,500 kids, adults, LEGO fans and LEGO newbies gathered in the 1,161 square meter space to see incredible LEGO MOCs and find out about the many wonderful ways in which LEGO bricks can be put together. There were LEGO play areas for kids, various brick competitions for kids and adults, LEGO quizzes, several food vendors including Cafe Sheep (where KLUG usually holds their meetings), various set and part seller booths, magazine booths (of course, BrickJournal was there!) as well as nail art, face painting and live music by a local band “Ofuro Mates” (Bath Mates), to make a wonderful atmosphere for the whole family. Kobe Port Tower—the most iconic building in Kobe.
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The first Japan BrickFest “Brick Master Competition” was sponsored by BrickJournal and more information about that can be found in the article “Japan BrickFest “Brick Master 2015 ” Building Competition.”
Many groups had displays including KLUG, JP-Sakura LUG, Osaka University LUG, and a large train set-up by Akira Sekiyama and Ricky Mazta-k Tamba. The Canadian Academy students had a display as well as one by the school teachers. The list of Japanese builders with displays was a “Who’s Who” of Japanese builders and included TV Champion’s Akinaga Sachiko (she brought part of her “Monster Party” MOC), Yoshikazu Saito (Dragon’s Castle), Team BTTF Masashi (creator of the LEGO Cuuso Delorean), Masao Hidaka (Monorail and Piece of Piece Builder), Minifigbuilder Sakuretsu, Kanna Nakayama (LEGO Discovery Osaka Master Builder), Tomoyuki Wakata (aka Waka, who brought his Godzilla), Keisuke Yoshida (LEGO Musical Instrument Builder), Takamichi Irie (LEGO BB-8), Will Galbraith (LEGO Mad Max), Taka Ai (LEGO Puzzles), Shigeru Ogawa, Yuko Murakami, Ken Ito, and many more. Akiyuki Kawaguchi of GBC fame brought and set-up a huge display of over 20 GBC modules. It was the first time that his GBC has ever been displayed to the public. (There are lots of YouTube videos about them though.)
Masao Hidaka’s monorail.
There were also builders from overseas that attended and brought models, including Schneider Cheung, Willam Wong, Brian Yu (BrickMaster KOR), and Hanmin Lee (custom figures Zero Baek). With all of these famous LEGO builders there was an impromptu Japan BrickFest Poster signing set-up that quickly became very popular! On Saturday night there was a VIP Party to give the various LUG members and builders a chance to get to know each other and talk brick. Jan Beyer (the Community Manager at The LEGO Group) joined in via Skype to share a few words. Akiyuki Kawaguchi’s Great Ball Contraption goes through its paces.
Schneider Cheung’s ice cream, elephant, and dog.
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It was a lot of work for Edwin and Miki Knight and the entire Kansai LEGO Users Group to put together and run the first Japan BrickFest, but as soon as the event ended and clean up started, everyone was already talking about how to make Japan BrickFest 2016 even bigger and better. Hope to see you there on June 4th and 5th, 2016! To get an even better idea of all the great models and builders, check out these various YouTube videos of the event: Hiroko’s Japan Brickfest 2015 JP-LUG SAKURA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVoCR6DaMX0 LEGO Japan BrickFest 2015 “The city of Kobe-style” JP-LUG sakura https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkP_HipG-1E Akiyuki’s Great Ball Contraption(GBC) at Japan Brickfest 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZPU3d225RY Hidaka Lego Monorail in Japan Brickfest 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN_r3KUZw2E
Edwin Knight’s Osaka Castle.
Sekiyama & Ricky’s Lego Train Island in Japan Brickfest 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URd8UUrysZU JapanBrickFest “Brick Master Competition 2015” Awards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRwcEIgH-Pw
Team BTTF Masashi’s Delorean Collection. Takamichi Irie’s Star Wars models. Takamichi Irie’s Star Wars models.
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Folklore Characters by Yoshikazu Saito—can you name them all? (From left to right: Werewolf, Kappa, Tengu and Dracula)
Keisuke Yoshida’s music-themed MOCs.
LEGO fans: You Can Build It!
YOU CAN BUILD IT is a new ongoing series of instruction books on the art of LEGO® custom building, from the producers of BRICKJOURNAL magazine! Spinning off from BrickJournal’s popular “You Can Build It” column, these FULL-COLOR books are loaded with nothing but STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS by some of the top custom builders in the LEGO fan community. BOOK ONE is for beginning-to-intermediate builders, with instructions for custom creations including Miniland figures, a fire engine, a tulip, a spacefighter (below), a street vignette, plus miniscale models from “a galaxy far, far away,” and more! BOOK TWO has even more detailed projects to tackle, including advanced Miniland figures, a miniscale yellow castle, a deep sea scene, a mini USS Constitution, and more! So if you’re ready to go beyond the standard LEGO sets available in stores and move into custom building with the bricks you already own, this ongoing series will quickly take you from novice to expert builder, teaching you key building techniques along the way!
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Events
Japan BrickFest:
Brick Master 2015 Building Competition Article by Nathan Bryan
Photography by Tomoyuki Wakata
Models from the Children’s Brick Master finalists.
At the first Japan BrickFest there was a “Brick Master 2015 Building Competition” sponsored by BrickJournal magazine. There were two building categories: a “Children’s” group for ages five to twelve and a “Masters” group for ages thirteen and up, which ended up being all adult builders. For the younger group, KLUG (Kansai LEGO User Group) provided LEGO bricks for building. For the “Master” group each competitor was allowed to bring 2kg of their own parts (which had to be fully separated, so there was no “pre-competition” preparation). Brick separators were not included in the 2kg weight. There were 25 in the “Children’s” group and 4 adults in the “Masters” group that participated. The “Children’s” group was split into five builds of five children with the winner of each going on to the final round of five children. The “Masters” group had a preliminary round from which three builders remained for the final buildoff. Each competition was a 20- or 30-minute build with a random theme that was announced at the beginning of the build. The preliminary competitions were held on the first day of the Japan BrickFest with the final rounds being held on the second day. The judges consisted of members of KLUG as well as other builders that attended the event. The general public also got to judge by each getting a single brick that they would put in front of the builder that they thought created the best model. The bricks were then stacked up with the highest being the winner for each round. The public had a great time encouraging the builders and watching the various building styles of the competitors. The final “Children’s” competition theme was “Park” and the “Master” competition was “Personal Hygiene Products.”
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The winner of the “Children’s” group was nine-year-old Ryota Inutake. He has been building from about the age of four, loves Chima and really all the various themes of LEGO, and is a big fan of the LEGO Certified Professional Builder Jumpei Mitsui.
He traveled all the way down from Tokyo to visit the Japan BrickFest and compete and often travels around Japan with his family to visit various LEGO events. He builds about 50 minutes each and every day, and hopes to build large LEGO models when he grows up.
Children’s Brick Master finalists.
Ryota Inutake’s winning model.
For the “Master” group, the winner was Kanna Nakayama who recently became the Master Model Builder for the newly opened LEGOLand Discovery Center Osaka. She has been building with LEGO since she was one year old, and this was the third building competition she had ever participated in. She especially loves the LEGO Education theme sets and says LEGO is wonderful because of its high quality, high compatibility, educational aspects and limitless building possibilities. Brick Master participants.
Congratulations to everyone that participated in the first Japan BrickFest “Brick Master 2015 Building Competition!” We hope to see more builders next year! The winning model built by Kanna Nakayama is an exercise machine and a Technic model. The girl minifig is on the leg stepper and in front of her is a bar that moves back and forth for working on abs! By pulling the string the minifig with a hat starts to move, and it moves the weights up and down for a different type of workout.
Model built by Yagi Satoshi (current leader of the Osaka University LEGO Users Group). The parts are the toilet, bath (in front), toilet paper stand (left of the toilet), shampoo and soap dispensers (right of the toilet). They all actually fit together to make a Robot that can move to any place that a “toilet and bath” are needed and then disassemble to become useful.
Bridal cosmetic scene made by Tatsuya Okazaki. It is actually a build using just the pieces from the 31034 Future Flyers set (Tatsuya does many builds using just the parts from a particular set). It includes the mirror, bride (holding a bouquet), stand with various cosmetics, and a chair.
Below: BrickJournal Japan Bureau Correspondent Nathan Bryan (left) with Brick Master winners Ryota Inutake (center) and Kanna Nakayama.
Bring Home Some BrickMagic!
LEGO fans: You Can Build It!
Relive the fun and excitement of the 2015 BrickMagic LEGO Festival with our BrickMagic t-shirt and embroidered patches, while they last!
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(84-page FULL-COLOR mag) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95
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BRICKJOURNAL #6
BRICKJOURNAL #7
BRICKJOURNAL #8
BRICKJOURNAL #9
BRICKJOURNAL #10
Spotlight on CLASSIC SPACE SETS and a look at new ones, BRANDON GRIFFITH shows his STAR TREK MODELS, LEGO set designers discuss their work creating the SPACE POLICE with PIRATE SETS, POWER FUNCTIONS TRAIN DEVELOPMENT, the world’s TALLEST LEGO TOWER, MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, plus coverage of BRICKFEST 2009 and more!
Focuses on the new LEGO ARCHITECTURE line, with a look at the new sets designed by ADAM REED TUCKER, plus interviews with other architectural builders, including SPENCER REZKALLA. Also, behind the scenes on the creation of POWER MINERS and the GRAND CAROUSEL, a LEGO BATTLESHIP over 20 feet long, reports from LEGO events worldwide, and more!
We go to the Middle Ages, with a look at the LEGO Group’s CASTLE LINE, featuring an interview with the designer behind the first LEGO castle set, the YELLOW CASTLE. Also: we spotlight builders that have created their own large-scale version of the castle, and interview other castle builders, plus a report on BRICKWORLD in Chicago, ands still more instructions and building tips!
BrickJournal looks at LEGO® DISNEY SETS, with features on the Disney LEGO sets of the past (MICKEY and MINNIE) and present (TOY STORY and PRINCE OF PERSIA)! We also present Disney models built by LEGO fans, and a look at the newest Master Build model at WALT DISNEY WORLD, plus articles and instructions on building and customization, and more!
BrickJournal goes undersea with looks at the creation of LEGO’s new ATLANTIS SETS, plus a spotlight on a fan-created underwater theme, THE SEA MONKEYS, with builder FELIX GRECO! Also, a report on the LEGO WORLD convention in the Netherlands, BUILDER SPOTLIGHTS, INSTRUCTIONS and ways to CUSTOMIZE MINIFIGURES, LEGO HISTORY, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
BRICKJOURNAL #11
BRICKJOURNAL #12
BRICKJOURNAL #13
BRICKJOURNAL #14
BRICKJOURNAL #15
“Racers” theme issue, with building tips on race cars by the ARVO BROTHERS, interview with LEGO RACERS designer ANDREW WOODMAN, LEGO FORMULA ONE RACING, TECHNIC SPORTS CAR building, event reports, instructions and columns on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION by JARED K. BURKS, MICRO BUILDING, builder spotlights, LEGO HISTORY, and more!
A look at back-to-school sculptures by NATHAN SAWAYA, LEGO builder MARCOS BESSA’s creations, ANGUS MACLANE’s CubeDudes, a Nepali Diorama by JORDAN SCHWARTZ, instructions to build a school bus for your LEGO town, MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION by JARED K. BURKS, how a POWER MINERS model became one for ATLANTIS, building standards, and much more!
Special EVENT ISSUE with reports from BRICKMAGIC (the newest US LEGO fan festival, organized by BrickJournal magazine), BRICKWORLD (one of the oldest US LEGO fan events), and others! Plus: spotlight on BIONICLE Builder NORBERT LAGUBUEN, our regular column on minifigure customization, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, spotlights on builders and their work, and more!
Discover the world of stop-motion LEGO FILMS, with brickfilmer DAVID PAGANO and others spotlighting LEGO filmmaking, the history of the medium and its community, interviews with the makers of the films seen on the LEGO CLUB SHOW and LEGO.com, and instructions on how to film and build puppets for brick flicks! Plus how to customize minifigures, event reports, step-by-step building instructions, and more!
Looks at the LEGO MECHA genre of building, especially in Japan! Feature editor NATHAN BRYAN spotlights mecha builders such as SAITO YOSHIKAZU, TAKAYUKI TORII, SUKYU and others! Also, a talk with BRIAN COOPER and MARK NEUMANN about their mecha creations, mecha building instructions by SAITO YOSHIKAZU, our regular columns on minifigure customization, building, event reports, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR mag) SOLD OUT (Digital Edition) $3.95
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BRICKJOURNAL #16
BRICKJOURNAL #17
BRICKJOURNAL #18
BRICKJOURNAL #19
BRICKJOURNAL #20
Focuses on STEAMPUNK! Feature editor GUY HIMBER gives a tour with a look at his work, DAVE DeGOBBI’s, NATHAN PROUDLOVE’s, and others! There’s also a look at the history of LEGO Steampunk building, as well as instructions for a Steampunk plane by ROD GILLIES! Plus our regular columns on minifigure customization, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, and much more!
LEGO SPACE WAR issue! A STARFIGHTER BUILDING LESSON by Peter Reid, WHY SPACE MARINES ARE SO POPULAR by Mark Stafford, a trip behind the scenes of LEGO’S NEW ALIEN CONQUEST SETS that hit store shelves earlier this year, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!
Go to Japan with articles on two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus take a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of the BrickFan events and a pilgrimage site for many Japanese LEGO fans. Also, a feature on JAPAN’S TV CHAMPIONSHIP OF LEGO, a look at the CLICKBRICK LEGO SHOPS in Japan, plus how to get into TECHNIC BUILDING, LEGO EDUCATION, and more!
LEGO EVENTS ISSUE covering our own BRICKMAGIC FESTIVAL, BRICKWORLD, BRICKFAIR, BRICKCON, plus other events outside the US. There’s full event details, plus interviews with the winners of the BRICKMAGIC CHALLENGE competition, complete with instructions to build award winning models. Also JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customizing, building tips, and more!
LEGO SUPERHEROES! Behind-the-scenes of the DC and Marvel Comics sets, plus a feature on GREG HYLAND, the artist of the superhero comic books in each box! Also, other superhero work by ALEX SCHRANZ and our cover artist OLIVIER CURTO. Plus, JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customization, building tips, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
BRICKJOURNAL #21
BRICKJOURNAL #22
BRICKJOURNAL #23
BRICKJOURNAL #24
BRICKJOURNAL #25
LEGO CAR BUILDING! Guest editors LINO MARTINS and NATHAN PROUDLOVE of LUGNuts share secrets behind their LEGO car creations, and present TECHNIC SUPERCAR MODELS by PAUL BORATKO III and other top builders! Plus custom instructions by TIM GOULD and CHRISTOPHER DECK, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” section, and more!
LEGO PLANE BUILDING! Top builder RALPH SAVELSBERG takes off with his custom LEGO fighter models, there’s a squadron of articles on Sky-Fi planes by FRADEL GONZALES and COLE MARTIN, find instructions to build a Sky-Fi plane, plus our regular feature on minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, other step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!
STAR WARS issue, with custom creations from a long time ago and far, far away! JACOB CARPENTER’s Imperial Star Destroyer, MARK KELSO’s Invisible Hand, interview with SIMON MACDONALD about building Star Wars costume props with LEGO elements, history of the LEGO X-Wing, plus our regular features on minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!
LEGO TRAINS! Builder CALE LEIPHART shows how to get started building trains and train layouts, with instructions on building microscale trains by editor JOE MENO, building layouts with the members of the Pennsylvania LEGO Users Group (PennLUG), fan-built LEGO monorails minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, microscale building by CHRISTOPHER DECK, “You Can Build It”, and more!
MEDIEVAL CASTLE BUILDING! Top LEGO® Castle builders present their creations, including BOB CARNEY’s amazingly detailed model of Neuschwanstein Castle, plus others, along with articles on building and detailing castles of your own! Also: JARED BURKS on minifigure customization, AFOLs by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
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BRICKJOURNAL #26
BRICKJOURNAL #27
BRICKJOURNAL #28
BRICKJOURNAL #29
BRICKJOURNAL #30
CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL with builders SEAN and STEPHANIE MAYO (known online as Siercon and Coral), other custom animal models from BrickJournal editor JOE MENO, LEGO DINOSAURS with WILL PUGH, plus more minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, AFOLs by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and more!
GUY HIMBER takes you to the IRON BUILDER CONTEST, which showcases the top LEGO® builders in the world! Cover by LEGO magazine and comic artist PAUL LEE, amazing custom models by LINO MARTINS, TYLER CLITES, BRUCE LOWELL, COLE BLAQ and others, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, & more!
Learn what went into the making of The LEGO Movie and other brickfilms with moviemaker DAVID PAGANO, chat with brickfilmers The Brotherhood Workshop, sit in on a talk with the makers of LEGO: A Brickumentary, a look at MINDSTORMS building, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, & more!
TECHNIC hot rod builder PAUL BORATKO and editor JOE MENO diagram instructions on adding functions to your models, shoptalk with LEGO TECHNIC designers, and more surprises to keep your creations moving at top speed! Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, and more!
LEGO ARCHITECTURE with JONATHAN LOPES, a microscale model of Copenhagen by ULRIK HANSEN, and a look at the LEGO MUSEUM being constructed in Denmark! Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS building with DAMIEN KEE, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
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BRICKJOURNAL #31
BRICKJOURNAL #32
BRICKJOURNAL #33
BRICKJOURNAL #34
BRICKJOURNAL #35
Building LEGO bricks WITH character, with IAIN HEATH and TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Manga-inspired creations of MIKE DUNG, sculptures by Taiwanese Brick Artist YO YO CHEN, Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS building, and more!
LEGO ARTISTRY with builder/photographer CHRIS McVEIGH; mosaic builders BRIAN KORTE, DAVE WARE and DAVE SHADDIX; and sculptors SEAN KENNEY (about his nature models) and ED DIMENT (about a full-size bus stop built with LEGO bricks)! Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, MINDSTORMS building, and more!
LEGO ROBOTS! A talk with MINDSTORMS EV3 builders MARC-ANDRE BAZERGUI and ANDY MILLUZZI, designer LEE MAGPILI, CHRIS GIDDENS with his amazing robot sculptures, plus Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, other looks at MINDSTORMS building, and more!
TOMMY WILLIAMSON on the making of his YouTube sensation BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, BRANDON GRIFFITH’S COMICBRICKS PROJECT recreates iconic comic book covers out of LEGO, JARED BURKS and his custom Agents of SHIELD minifigs, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!
HISTORY IN LEGO BRICKS! LEGO pro RYAN McNAUGHT on his LEGO Pompeii and other projects, military builder DAN SISKIND on his BrickMania creations, and LASSE VESTERGARD about his historical building, JARED K. BURKS on minifigure customizing, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
GET THE ORIGINAL DIGITAL ISSUES!
BRICKJOURNAL #36
BRICKJOURNAL #37
MICROSCALE BUILDING! With JUSTIN McMILLAN’s micro house and other buildings, a look at the MICROSCALE Standard by TwinLUG, and featuring some of the best microscopic LEGO work from around the world, plus JARED K. BURKS’ minifigure customizing, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!
STAR WARS! Amazing custom ships by ERIC DRUON, incredible galactic layouts by builder AC PIN, a look at the many droid creations built by LEGO fans—truly, the LEGO Force has awakened! Plus JARED K. BURKS on minifigure customizing, step-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
Before becoming a print magazine, there were nine DIGITAL-ONLY issues of BRICKJOURNAL produced from 2005-2007, which are still available as DIGITAL EDITIONS for only $3.95 each at www.twomorrows.com (NOTE: These are DIFFERENT ISSUES than the ones shown in this flyer.)
Community Ads
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Happy New Year! I’ll be going to many conventions in the US, and if you haven’t gone to these events, I invite you to take a weekend out to see the builders who push the LEGO brick into new directions and new creations. They are fun and friendly events, as most builders are happy to talk about their models. A convention can be a inspiration to build. For me, the inspiration comes from seeing visitors awed by what they find. Hopefully BrickJournal captures that. If we don’t, we’ll keep on trying!
Last Word
See you next issue!
A new minifigure scale?
Vibranium is nowhere as heavy as LEGO plates.
79
80
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