The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 45 • May 2017
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Anuradha Pehrson’s Pyke Castle! Fernanda Rimini’s Microscale Models! Breann Sledge’s Bionicle Builds!
Birgitte Jonsgard’s LEGO Art!
Instructions and MORE!
ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-075-5 ISBN-10: 1-60549-075-X 50895
9 781605 490755
Spotlighting Female LEGO Builders!
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Issue 45 • May 2017
Contents
From the Editor........................................................2
News To the Batmobile!...................................................3
People Female Builders Spotlight: Introduction....7 Fernanda Remini....................................................8 Birgitte Jonsgard..................................................13 Deborah Higdon.................................................18 Anuradha Pehrson..............................................23 Suzanne (Rich) Eaton.........................................28 Terri Landers...........................................................33 Breann Sledge.......................................................36
Building One Brick, Two Bricks, Red Bricks ,Blue Bricks!...................................40 You Can Build It: Sneetch!................................................................46 Godzilla Strikes!....................................................49 BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Camera Dolly......................................................52 You Can Build It: MINI U-Wing.......................................................58 Minifigure Customization 101: Philanthropic Endeavors..............................62
Community R ob Coleman: Bringing The LEGO Batman Movie to Life......................................66 Community Ads...................................................78 Last Word.................................................................79 AFOLs........................................................................80
From the Editor: May 2017 Issue 45
Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
Contributors: Jared Burks, Anuradha Pehrson, Fernanda Remini, Birgitte Jonsgard, Deborah Higdon, Suzanne Eaton, Terri Landers, Breann Sledge, Kyle Keller, Kelvin Low, Rob Coleman, Tommy Williamson, and Greg Hyland. Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
We’re going all over the place in this issue—which is an indicator of how much the hobby has expanded. It wasn’t too long ago that the only Batmobiles came from the DC comics and movies. It wasn’t too long ago that BrickJournal focused on the LEGO hobby only. It wasn’t too long ago the magazine only had one or two sets of instructions. It wasn’t long ago that I was asked on a visit to Billund about how to make LEGO more appealing to girls. And it wasn’t too long ago that we only had one female builder in a BrickJournal issue. This issue shows how far things have changed since BrickJournal started. The community has grown in all directions along with the company. And with this growth, more people have joined and made their own niche. BrickJournal has done spotlights on Steampunk, Space, and Robotics, so now is the time to spotlight another expanding group: Female builders. It’s been a bit overdue. Build on! Joe Meno, Editor 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.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! 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
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About the Cover: Pyke Castle, by Anuradha Pehrson. Photo provided by Anuradha Pehrson. About the Contents: A view of Snugburg, a town layout by Birgitte Jonsgard. Photo by Birgitte Jonsgard.
Glossary AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) AFFOL (Adult Female Fan of LEGO) TFFOL (Teen Female 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) POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces)
SNOT (Studs Not on Top) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club) MECHA (a large armored robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside) MECH (a large piloted combat robot) 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 2011, 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
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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.
News
The Batmobile in Detroit.
To the Batmobile: Building the Speedwagon Article by Joe Meno
On January 14, 2017, a new vehicle was unveiled in Detroit at the North American International Car Show. However, it wasn’t an upcoming model or concept car. It was vehicle for an upcoming film The LEGO Batman Movie, due out a couple of weeks later. The vehicle was the Batmobile, or as Batman calls it, “The Speedwagon.” Flanked by children from the local community, the car quickly became a online celebrity with photos and video going viral within hours after revealing it. But how did it get there and how was it made? What is the story behind the Speedwagon? Well, the story starts in Enfield, Connecticut with LEGO Master Builder Erik Varszegi a few months before. In a phone interview, he talked about the model.
Starting Up
The idea to build a vehicle came from Chevrolet, who signed up to be a sponsor for the movie in 2016. Initial ideas for the vehicle were discussed during early summer. Erik explained, “The original concept of the car [with] Warner Brothers and Chevrolet was that it was going to be an actual LEGO representation of one of Chevy’s real cars. It was going to be a Chevy Traverse at first, but tricked out to look like Batman got his hands on it, so it was going to be all in black, and there were going be Batfins and stuff on top of this Chevy SUV, with red windscreens and bats on the tires, maybe even some kind of armor and stuff like that all over the car.” However, it became apparent that the car wasn’t quite LEGO enough. The decision was made to recreate a vehicle from the movie. The problem was that this was before trailers were out for the movie, so there was no clear idea of which vehicle was going to be chosen to be built. Batman has a lot of different vehicles, so Erik needed to know which one to build. To find out, he got some virtual models of the things in the trailers and started asking which vehicle to use. He had to build the vehicle, but in order to do that, he had to know which vehicle was the main Batmobile in the film.
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14x scale SpeedWagon compared to 15x and 18x versions previously discussed.
The Batmobile in different scales. 14x would fit the Model Shop’s doors, 15x would scale much easier with bricks and plates, and 18x also was easy to scale. Based on scale comparisons, it was decided to build at 18x scale.
The answer came at the San Diego Comic-Con, when LEGO teased the Speedwagon. With the teaser and the trailers showing off the Speedwagon, Erik pretty much knew that this was going to be the model. In watching the trailers and seeing the set, it became a building challenge. As Erik stated, “We had to figure out how to get the Batmobile to work with the giant spread-out wheelbase it has, as well as some other engineering challenges, such as getting it in and out of the Model Shop’s doors.” With the software they have, the model itself would be a sized-up version of the actual car, so visualizing the model wouldn’t be hard. Making it sturdy enough to travel was an entirely different challenge. But first, Erik had to do some measuring. Erik measured every door in the Model Shop, starting with his office and continuing to the width of the doorways. He also measured the back dock doors and lift plate. Armed with these dimensions, Erik began to make scale conversions of the digital model of the Speedwagon. Based on the door widths, the largest scale that the Speedwagon could be built without disassembling for shipping was 14x—so a minifigure would be 24.5 inches tall at that scale. The problem with that scale is that conversions would be troublesome. By raising the scale to 15x it would be much easier to scale: one plate high would size up to 15 plates high = 5 bricks in height. Erik wanted to build at 15x, but his Project Manager wanted it to be 14x so it would be able to be moved out of the shop without any disassembly. The drawback? It looked really small. As a result, plans were set to build a 15x model... until Warner Brothers and Chevy realized how small 15x was. They wanted something big and impressive, so Erik sized-up to the next multiple of three: 18x. At this scale, a minifigure would be 31.5 inches tall. As he puts it, “They were like, ‘No, we need it huge and impressive,’ so that’s when the sliding scale went back up to 18x to really, really knock it out of the park and make it hugely impressive at the auto show!” In this case, though, ‘hugely impressive’ meant bigger than the doors, so the Speedwagon 4 would have be built to disassemble.
A scale comparison for a 14x Speedwagon.
14x Speedwagon inside a car carrier. At this scale, the vehicle could slide in.
15x Speedwagon scale comparison.
The Speedwagon.
Getting into Gear
Erik’s engineering skills were put to use to solve a couple of challenges: 1. Making the model sturdy 2. Making the model able to disassemble for transport. Making the model was relatively easy, since the design was already done in terms of the look of it. Combining the model with the armature and figuring out how it could be moved around would be the real challenge. To do this, he designed an aluminum armature that could hold the weight of the LEGO elements. For transport, he made the wheels detachable, so the main body could be moved easily through larger doors. The frame itself had a hidden armature underneath with rolling casters to move the body. Erik described the armature as looking “like one of those big giant water strider bugs—imagine one of those with a rolling caster under each leg.”
A close-up of the hood ornament.
Because of the design of the Speedwagon, there were certain weak points, such as the axles of the wheels. The 39-inch diameter wheels themselves do not move, as they are LEGO-built and weighed on the average of 100 pounds each when they were completed. Because of the stress, the axles were reinforced as well as some other weak spots. When completed, the Speedwagon could break down to the body and its four wheels. It took Erik 222 design-hours to work out the construction of the Speedwagon, and then it took another 1833 hours to construct the model. Construction started in late October-November, with a team of anywhere from four to eight people working on it at any one time.
The built wheel and hubcap.
The pieces were glued in place around the armature and eventually, the Speedwagon took shape. Because the final model was so large, Erik used almost exclusively LEGO bricks to build it. He pointed out, “There were a few places where I plated things, including the hood ornament, to give it a little bit of strength in case someone was a little too rough in transporting it.” The scale also made it easy to build most of the model. The hardest thing to design turns out to be an item that wasn’t in the movie. The front license plate was customized to include the Chevy “bowtie” logo. It took Erik four redesigns to render the angles of the bowtie to Chevrolet’s satisfaction. The most challenging thing and most fun thing to do on the Speedwagon was rendering its name on the sides of the car. He remarked, “Trying to write that on the side of the vehicle out of LEGO, especially since it’s a cursive script, was a fun challenge to try and pull off. You can actually read it—I was impressed with how legible it was once you stepped back from the vehicle.”
The front license plate, with the Chevrolet “bowtie.”
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Speedwagon Facts:
Height: 83 inches (6.92 feet) high. Length: 204 inches (17 feet) long. Width: 111 inches (9.25 feet) wide. Total weight: 1,695.5 pounds. Total number of LEGO® colors used: 17 The interior frame is made from more than 86 feet of square tube aluminum and weighs 282.5 pounds. Total number of LEGO® bricks used to build the Speedwagon: 344,187
The completed Speedwagon weighed in at almost 1700 pounds, including the aluminum frame. While not the largest model built by the LEGO Model shop, it is certainly one of the longest single components built at the shop. With so many elements glued together on the frame, there was an audible groaning and creaking when the model was allowed to settle on completion. There is actually a tiny bit of flexing when the Speedwagon is lifted with a forklift at the center, but as Erik notes, “You can hear it more than you can see it.”
Hitting a Speed Bump
As the Speedwagon was built as a custom model, it was designed to be delivered by truck to shows and displays. The wheels are packed in two crates, and the body is secured down—the metal frame points for the tires extended out from the body of the model, so they served as bumpers to keep the LEGO body from harm. All of this was designed and planned by Erik to make shipping and set-up easy, until the transport service showed up to deliver the Speedwagon to Detroit. The transport service sent a car carrier, which is a dedicated tractor trailer. The Speedwagon was designed to fit a regular trailer truck, which is 90 inches wide. All it would have taken would be pushing it in and strapping it down. The car carrier was 90 inches, but had tire grooves for cars that were 84 inches, so it was too narrow. As Erik noted, “There was a lot of wrangling and a lot of head-scratching to try and get it in the truck, but it finally had to happen and somehow they got it in.” From there, it went to its first of several auto shows and, of course, the movie premiere. The story of building the Speedwagon ends there, with it beginning its tour. As for Erik, he was pretty happy with the finished model. At the beginning of the project, he wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of building a LEGO version of a real car, as he’s done those before (a life size Volvo and a life-size Ford Explorer for the LEGOLand parks) and also built Lightning McQueen in life-size. For him, he wanted to build something really cool… and based on the crowds that have seen the Speedwagon on display, it fit the bill.
The cursive graphic on the side—rendered with LEGO elements. The Speedwagon’s business end.
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People
Female Builders Spotlight
Introduction
Only a few female builders are written about and highlighted on their own merit. Many times they get overlooked because either they are online lurkers, build smaller MOCs, don’t build ‘pop culture’ or popular themes, or are building with their spouses/children so don’t do much building of their own. At Brickcon this year, I also realized that many women hide their hobby from their friends and family. The ladies highlighted in this issue are from various countries, have great builds, and a few of them have been part of the LEGO community for a long time and have seen changes over the years. From these builders we can see new and old perspectives and views from around the world. Gender should not be a factor in highlighting or writing about a builder—no one has written an article ‘highlighting male builders’—but the truth is this is a male-dominated hobby. As a result, I think it becomes necessary in some way to bring attention to the fact that there are a number of very good female builders who follow their inspirations and who don’t necessarily build Elves, Friends, or build in ‘pink and purple’. Hopefully, this will inspire other women and young girls to build any genre that inspires them, and pursue their artistic lead. Also, when parents see that there are a number of us that are building and publishing our work, they may also encourage their daughters to build more. Generally, on online forums, when people see a MOC they automatically think it’s built by a male builder. I wish to make a crack in that thinking process. So again, by writing about all of us, I’m hoping a few more female builders ‘come out’. I’m not sure if this feature will achieve any of these things, but it’ll be my contribution in that direction…
—Anuradha Pehrson, Guest Editor
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People
Female Builders Spotlight
Fernanda Rimini What genre or theme do you like to build? At the moment I’m essentially a builder of architecture and microscale LEGO MOCs, but I have built lots of vignettes in the past. How long have you been building? I’ve been building, as an adult, for about 13-14 years now. Tell us a little about your background. I have a degree in Physics and I’m lucky enough to work in research—Nuclear Fusion research, to be precise. But I don’t make bombs. I’m Italian but my job brought me to the UK, the USA, then to France, and now back in the UK. When and how did you start building? I’m a child of the Sixties, so LEGO was the toy of choice when I grew up. I remember building houses; very traditional, red bricks and windows with green blinds. And lights—I had a few precious, transparent bricks with a little light bulb inside, to be connected to a battery. At some point I got the “LEGO family”, so I started building to their size. Then came the Dark Ages and my mum gave my huge box of LEGO away. Centuries later I had kids of my own, started them off with Duplo and LEGO, built with them for a while until I realized that, actually,
Casa Milan
One of my most recent builds, this is the headquarters of the AC Milan Football Club. It happens to be just across the road from my parent’s flat. I followed with curiosity the progress of this building and the result, with its striking stripes in the colors of the football shirts, did not disappoint.
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I wanted to build stuff for myself and not just to play with them. What keeps you going? LEGO relaxes me. It’s challenging without being too stressful. I mean, it keeps my mind occupied and seems to push my worries aside. And it gives me some sort of gratification when I share my MOCs online and people make positive, constructive comments. Why did you pick this/these genres to build? I’ve always been passionate about architecture in the real world. LEGO gives me the freedom to imagine buildings and make them real, although in very small scale. Or to rebuild in LEGO some of the brutalist architecture examples that I find online (I just love the ugly, concrete look of the Socialist/Communist Eastern European period). If you had no limits of time, space or parts availability, what would you build and why? I have recently seen somebody building a microscale reproduction of Copenhagen and, if I had no time/money/space limits, I would like to do the same with my hometown, Milan in Italy. Tell us about your building area/space. I used to squat in a mezzanine in my son’s room. But now that he is a teenager I had to move out and I’ve equipped for my LEGO a corner in what is actually the laundry/storeroom/pantry. Not a lot of room but fairly well organized in terms of storage and light, Internet access—and music! What has the response from your family and friends been to your hobby? My family is very supportive. And they say that my hobby actually helps choosing my presents for birthdays, etc.: they know that an expensive LEGO set
Marina Baie des Anges
Another “real” building, this is a very exclusive residential complex near Nice. I’ve worked in the beautifully sunny South of France for about 10 years and this complex was visible from the main motorway. I loved it, the curves and the sloping edges of the buildings, giving fully exposed terraces at all floors. It was just asking to be LEGOized !
is always welcome. Some of my friends don’t quite get it; they see my LEGO hobby more like being childish than unleashing my creativity. But most of my friends and colleagues like what I build and, sometimes, go as far as giving me suggestions for what to build. I have also done some LEGO MOCs to help the Public Relations of my lab, showing aspects of our research like our work in the Control Room using minifigures. As a woman builder, are there any particular challenges you face in a maledominated hobby? Apart from the odd comment online “I thought you were a guy,” I confess that I haven’t really faced any problem. I guess the main challenge is to actually find time for my hobby, which is particularly difficult for a woman balancing family life and a full-time job. Do you think female builders build differently from male builders? In what way? From what I see online and at LEGO shows, I think female builders tend to shy away from military themes and spaceships and trains, and do more architecture and vignettes. That doesn’t mean, though, that we just build pretty houses and interior design. We invent and build big buildings, entire cities.
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Hillside Villa
Well, it’s an obvious homage to Fallingwater, The Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece, which I absolutely love. It’s not an exact copy; the proportions are not quite right, but the colors are exact. Sooner or later I’ll try to do a better job. Or, maybe, I’ll just ask Father Christmas to buy me the official LEGO set...
Anything else you would like to tell us? I like loud music, very loud. It helps me relax. Heavy metal music for me is the perfect soundtrack to an afternoon spent building with LEGO. In all the years you’ve been building, what changes have you noticed in the LEGO community in general and with regard to women builders? I think what I have seen in the last few years is that mainstream media are now paying more attention to the LEGO creations by adults. Even without going to the excellence of people like Nathan Sawaya, we have articles in newspapers, and LUG meetings do attract the attention of the general public. Social media is, probably, behind a lot of this. There seem to be a general acceptance that building with LEGO can be considered as part of the “creative” hobbies that an adult can take up, like painting or playing music. I don’t know if the situation for women builders has changed; I can’t quite judge whether there are more or less of us. I guess we’ll have to wait a few years to see if the LEGO Group policy of enticing girls with the Friends sets has worked, and we’ll have an increasing number of FFOLs.
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Red Houses
Microscale builds, not only mine, tend to be either completely invented buildings/structures or representations of something real or realistic. This MOC belongs to this second category. These are typical English terraced houses, with their little tidy gardens at the back. I’m particularly proud of the gardens and, if you look carefully, one of the houses even has a conservatory. ;-)
Would you like to say anything to young/newer AFFOLs and TFFOLs? I would tell them: ”Don’t listen to AFOLs who try to tell you what you should build. Build what you want, as long as you are creative and challenge yourselves either on technique or on the backstory for your MOCs. Make it interesting—make it yours.” You can see more of Fernanda’s work on her Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/people/53534482@N02/ or by scanning the QR code!
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People
Female Builders Spotlight
Birgitte Jonsgard What genre or theme do you like to build? I try to avoid specializing within a theme, but ideas for creatures and buildings with interiors and surroundings seem to pop up in my head more often than others. Tell us a little about your background. I have a Master’s degree in biology and am currently working as a high school teacher. When and how did you start building? Five years ago I came across an article on the Internet with photos of some pretty impressive architecture models. I had no idea LEGO was used in this way by adults, and immediately realized this was the perfect hobby. As a child I loved playing with LEGO, and I was pretty sure it would still be great fun. The LEGO boxes were retrieved from my mother’s attic; I discovered Bricklink and started putting bricks together. What keeps you going? The joy of getting an idea and turning it into an object. Why did you pick this/these genres to build? I think the things we build reflect our interests and personalities. You can get to know a lot about a person by looking at how they choose to
Still LIfe
With the still life photo I tried to recreate the lush look of those old paintings of tables overflowing with food and kitchenware. I built a small table and arranged food items and objects that appear on these paintings. The frame came later. While sorting I noticed I had a large selection of parts in gold, and was curious about how an all-gold object would look. A gilded frame was the first thing that crossed my mind. When finished, it was obvious what to use it for. And they kind of belong together, both new, cheap plastic versions of exclusive and expensive objects.
use their bricks. I’m interested in art, design and architecture, so I enjoy making models that capture a specific style or look. Some ideas are inspired by things I’ve seen, others seem to be just random stuff that I have no explanation for. If you had no limits of time, space or parts availability, what would you build and why? My use of bricks is usually quite straightforward. I get an idea and build it in the simplest possible way. LEGO has so many possibilities I haven’t explored yet. There are lots of elements I don’t know how to use, and I would probably spend time working out surface structures and more sophisticated color combinations, using a wider range of bricks than what I do now. Then I would have used it for a spectacular creature. Tell us about your building area/space. When I started building the bricks were kept in a corner of the living room. It quickly became obvious that the activity needed its own room. The mess was moved into a room in the basement; I made a horseshoe shaped building area to make it easy to reach the bricks, a set-up for photographing smaller models, and put up shelves for storing some of the MOCs. I’m not a tidy person and the room usually looks like it’s been hit by a bomb. What has the response from your family and friends been to your hobby? When I tell people about my hobby, they seem to get a bit confused at first. Then I explain some more, and they get it. LEGO is a very common toy in Norway, everyone has a relationship to it, and people are both interested in and supportive of my hobby. I get a lot of response from non-AFOLs, and I often discuss ideas, both visual and concepts, with friends. These days I am
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To the Lighthouse
The lighthouse is, as most of my buildings, not a particular lighthouse but a kind of summary of these buildings. The model is part of a larger layout with typical landscapes, buildings and other installations from the western coast of Norway.
preparing an exhibition of MOCs and photos aimed at non-AFOLs. As a woman builder, are there any particular challenges you face in a male-dominated hobby? I normally don’t notice if I’m in a male-dominated setting. Men are mostly good guys and easy to be around, but the LEGO community is different. It’s hard to explain what this is, but lots of little things add up, and it’s like you never really become “one of the guys”. To be fair, I don’t really know how much of this has to do with being a woman. For all I know men could have the same experience with the LEGO community. I have to add that I have met lots of nice, interesting people through this hobby, both online and 15 in real life.
Do you think female builders build differently from male builders? In what way? Women do very different things with LEGO, and I can’t think of anything that applies to us all. I do however think there are some aspects that are more common among female builders, although this is highly subjective. Women seem to build themes with less conflict and aggression, have a more advanced use of color, and generally have more focus on the visual part of MOCing—it simply looks better. It may seem negative to characterize female builders (including myself) in such a stereotypical way, but it’s not. It just proves that many women appreciate and master different aspects of the hobby. Women also seem to be less influenced by the trends in the LEGO community, like themes inspired by the geeky side of popular culture. We keep on doing our own thing, whatever that may be.
Snugburg
As a fresh AFOL, I made a large model of a “medieval” village in the same colorful and naïve style as Snugburg. I liked the look, but it didn’t work as a model. With Snugburg I made buildings in the same style, but reduced the size and joined some of the volumes into each other to make a compressed town on a 48x48 stud plate. If you look at it carefully, there’s a lot of things that don’t make sense. It is also an exercise in avoiding visual collapse when combining lots of colors, shapes and details. Making this thing was like solving a puzzle. There is a right solution—something looks right, you just have to try lots of variations to see what it is.
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In all the years you’ve been building, what changes have you noticed in the LEGO community in general, and with regard to women builders? I’ve only been into building for five years, and the first year I wasn’t really following the LEGO community. When I started working on the models for The LEGO Adventure Books I became more involved, and was surprised to find so few female builders. I haven’t noticed any change the latest years, but I wonder if there might be more female builders than it appears; they’re just less visible online. Would you like to say anything to young/newer AFFOLs and TFFOLs? Find what you enjoy doing and go for it! And even more important: Don’t listen to advice! :) You can see more of Birgitte’s work at her Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/birgburg/albums or scan this QR code!
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People
Female Builders Spotlight
Deborah Higdon
What genre or theme do you like to build? Predominantly architecture and design, furniture and real-life articles. Tell us a little about your background. I have a degree in Italian literature and English as a second language education. I am now a retired teacher—kindergarten, computer, library, ESL (English as a Second Language). When and how did you start building? I discovered it at age 7 at a family friend’s house and couldn’t get enough. I got a little bit as a child, started buying it for nieces and nephews as an adult, then for myself at age 40, only to discover the online adult community a few years later.
Building Style
Furniture design is sometimes inspired by something I’ve seen (usually on the ’Net), or a particular piece of LEGO. I have drawers of sorted “small bits”, the smallest pieces of LEGO, that usually would not go together in sorting categories, but they’re the size I might need when creating miniature models. Perusing them will sometimes inspire furniture designs, but keeping an eye on styles/eras will also help when creating furniture.
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What keeps you going? Traveling for inspiration and reading design blogs. Wanting to design new pieces, figuring out new techniques to replicate building features, furniture designs, and using pieces in unconventional ways. Why did you pick this/these genres to build? I wanted to be an architect or interior designer at a young age. I was always
interested in design, in form and function, and aesthetics. I didn’t go that way in my education/career but I explore it a lot with my building. What are your aspirations as far as building goes? I don’t have huge aspirations—I have a long list of ideas, don’t know if I’ll get around to them, just happy to check a few off my list, but new ideas are always getting in the way. I see myself as a modeler—I have always loved miniatures and miniaturism; not the dolls, just the structures and the bits that go with them. It’s probably the reason I don’t care for minifigs, though I like building in minifig scale. I never think about setting up a diorama, an action scene; there is rarely anything going on in my MOCs. If you had no limits of time, space or parts availability, what would you build and why? I like the idea of creating organic space with a very non-organic material. It would be nice to replicate the Gardens of Versaille to scale—buildings, gardens, waterworks. I don’t really have huge aspirations that way. I’ve thought about replicating furniture at human scale, but it doesn’t seem to be all that much of a challenge—the bigger the scale, the easier it seems to be. I prefer modeling in miniature. I’d love to do the completely mechanized opening of Game of Thrones. That will never happen, I’m not committed enough to building giant things—I don’t think I have the attention span, and I like to travel too much to spend that much money on a MOC. Tell us about your building area/space. I have a dedicated LEGO room/studio—it’s nicely decorated in my favorite LEGO colors (white, dark tan and dark red) and pretty well organized—I used to be a teacher-librarian, so it’s catalogued, inventoried. I sort by usage, and favorites. I sort mostly by part, but then I have a drawer called small bits—which contains a large variety of the smallest parts—because that’s where I’ll go for furniture design, or ornamentation. My tower of drawers with tile are closest to my building table, wheels and car parts the furthest. The building table isn’t big enough but I make it work. Minifigs are thrown in a drawer, their hands pulled off and put into the small bits drawer. Apart from MOCs that are packed in bins in the basement, LEGO does
Chesterfield Set
The newish “brick, modified 1x1 with scroll” instantly made me think of the old scrolled wooden legs of chesterfields, so I used them to create the tan sofa from this set. I wanted that sofa/chair combo to have soft, shallow curves so the “slope, curved 2x2 no studs” had the right radius. Making the ends of the sofa was much easier than figuring how to get the seat back attached. All the newer bracket styles and SNOTed bricks help to point pieces in the right direction. This type of furniture is usually very delicate, being held together precariously with only 1 or 2 connections, but the wanted style is achieved. The matching bookcase comes from the desire for thin shelving, and the older style panels with the thinnest smooth surface are ideal and a technique I use often in different configurations.
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Armoire Set
This armoire bedroom set was directly inspired by the modern armoire which in turn was inspired by older dutch designs. I built the armoire first, copying the color palette and the general style. Once the snot was figured out to create the armrests of the armoire, the same technique was repeated in the bed, dresser and night stands, but for legs. SNOT is very important when building furniture, and the varied connections allow for creating interesting patterns as bed linen and studless surfaces.
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not spill out to the rest of the house. My husband is not a LEGO fan, and I don’t feel the need to decorate the house with LEGO MOCs. What has the response from your family and friends been to your hobby? They seem to be proud of my work/achievements, though I’m not sure they understand my motivation. I’ve always been the creative type, having some project on the go, but when I gave up most of the other hobbies for LEGO about 16 years ago, they thought it was cool, if unusual. My mother was my biggest fan—she was fascinated by my work, and I started buying sets for her, to do them with her (the only time I built sets) and we discovered a lot about our ourselves, and how much I was like her and got my talents from her. She wouldn’t dare try to build MOCs but I think if she’d started earlier, and had more confidence, she’d have been a MOC builder. She passed away a few months ago, and I miss our building sessions terribly. Friends think it’s neat, cool and like that their kids get to visit, but neither friends nor family are interested in the details of my building. As a woman builder, are there any particular challenges you face in a maledominated hobby? I don’t seem to notice them particularly, or I try not to. The most obvious challenge to me is, when displaying at a show/fest, it is often assumed that I am the wife/ partner of a builder. Being the actual builder is not the first thing that comes to mind when people see a woman behind the tables of MOCs. From the AFOLs themselves, I think most guys assume I’ll like the more “feminine” colors, the “girls’” sets, until they get to know me, or my building style. Do you think female builders build differently from male builders? In what way? Again, I try not to notice if there are differences. I’m looking to see if the MOC is original, integrates innovative techniques, is a good model of whatever it’s supposed to be and/or is aesthetically pleasing. I’m very detail oriented, I want to evoke the feeling that you could shrink and be in my model, or that it is instantly recognized as modelism. Some women are able to do that as well as some men are. Some men don’t see the details, or care about them, as some women don’t. I do think that there is sometimes much surprise when a good MOC turns out
to be made by a woman. I don’t like it when it’s pointed out that I’m a female builder. There’s no need, in many respects. We still have to fight stereotypes in the LEGO community. I’m not interested in typically “girly” things, but if someone doesn’t take the time to check out my work, they might assume I don’t care about engineering/design/architecture. Perhaps I have to work against that, but I think my work speaks for itself—if you’re interested. Any funny anecdotes about LEGO or the hobby in general? I was displaying at a show, and on the tables I had many of the models I created for the Dorling-Kindersley publication The LEGO Ideas Book. A young child noticed them, and said, “Oh, look, that person just copied the stuff from the book,” and obviously didn’t think that was a very original thing to do. Anything else you would like to tell us? I struggle with the role a female builder has to play in the community. I don’t want to be recognized in any way just because I’m a female builder, but I do want girls/ women to recognize that it’s a toy/tool/medium for everyone, to not dismiss it because somewhere the opinion has been formed that LEGO is for boys/guys. So I want to promote good building to all interested people, to develop their creativity and maker skills, to get them thinking technically, mathematically, artistically while enjoying the best the community has to offer—encouragement, fellowship, and like-minded thinking.
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How long have you been building? As an adult, 16 years. In all the years you’ve been building, what changes have you noticed in the LEGO community in general and with regard to women builders? Because of its burgeoning popularity, LEGO has brought a lot of new fans out of the closet. Not all of them are builders, and not everyone has to be, but I’d like to see more people trying to build on their own, after they’ve built the sets. There are a lot more collectors now, perhaps looking to make a retirement nest, but I regret that they may not be getting the full benefit of building with the brick. Also the bar is constantly being raised—MOCs are getting more complicated, more polished— which can intimidate beginning builders much more than ever before. Being a geek is also becoming more mainstream, so the hobby is becoming more acceptable in pop culture. In regards to female builders, we might experience one benefit more than the male builders. In the 16 years I’ve been building as an adult, I’ve never heard anyone deride me for still “playing” with a children’s toy. It seems it’s generally acceptable for women to still be doing more childhood activities, but less so for the men, as I’ve heard anecdotally from some of my male AFOL friends. Would you like to say anything to young/newer AFFOLs and TFFOLs? I have encountered a few adults who are appalled that the expensive LEGO set they bought for their child is now laying in pieces in the playroom. Do not fall into that trap. It’s a medium to explore anything you can think of. Be inspired by what you see in the world. Be curious, be in awe. Do not accept the status quo of the LEGO set and its instructions. Satisfaction lays in the “making,” there is no wrong-doing. You can find more of Deborah’s models at her Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/buildingsblockd/albums or by scanning the QR code!
Christmas Bookends 22
These bookends were built with a 12 days of Christmas theme. A bookend has the first five gifts, while another has the other seven wrapped, and slightly damaged so that hints of the gifts inside can be seen.
People
Female Builders Spotlight
Anuradha Pehrson
How long have you been building? As an adult builder, since 2001.
What genre or theme do you like to build? World Architecture is a passion of mine. In the beginning I mostly built city stuff, but now I enjoy the challenge of landscaping. Making standard shaped finite pieces look organic and natural is a lot of fun. Tell us a little about your background. I grew up in India; there wasn’t a lot of LEGO available at that time. Around age 7-8 someone gifted my brother a set that I commandeered. It was one of those LEGO system sets that had three different options for building. I built all three and then went on to build many more with a few design changes here and there. Having just this one set laid the groundwork for building different things
Brownstones
This MOC was an inspiration from watching The Wire and a visit to New York City. Architectural details in these types of buildings are gratifying to recreate in LEGO. The Brownstones are a part of a larger layout I plan to build where the city blocks change from lively neighborhoods to boarded up, run down townhomes.
with limited pieces. Then came the Dark Ages until I moved to Seattle in 2001 and started building again. On a recent visit to India, I found the same set intact with instructions and all sorted by color as I had left it maybe 30 years ago. Not only that, at that age, I was so obsessed with organization that I had written, or rather drawn out my own inventory for the set, and kept it with the instructions. I called the Technic brick ‘with hole in the middle’ and actually drew it out in two dimensions. It is uncannily close to the way we catalog nowadays on Bricklink or Brickset. Even today, I have an account of all my sets and loose brick. I guess being a little obsessive and building with LEGO go hand in hand for many of us! I wanted to study architecture, but circumstances didn’t lead in that direction. I had to pass a drawing exam to get into architecture school, but couldn’t draw freehand at all. I failed the exam. I got a Bachelors in Accounting and Management. What is your story of becoming a LEGO builder? My life changed in 2001 when I moved from a country that had a warm climate, vibrant colors everywhere, and great food, to Seattle, a place that was cold, rainy and grey, and I found most of the food tasteless. Finding my bearings here was going to be an uphill task! One day walking around downtown, I happened upon a FAO Schwarz toy store with piles of LEGO buckets in the window display. Without hesitating, I went in and bought a few. I had found something to connect me to my former life; something to hold on to, in this grey and rainy place. It was probably the happiest day of the first few months of living in Seattle! Being able to build with LEGO, I delved deeper into my passion for architecture and studied different styles from around the world. Each interest fed the other. This process continues even today. I built by myself for a few years when, accidently, I discovered the worldwide LEGO community, BrickCon and various LUGs. It was a relief to learn that not only was I not crazy, but there’s actually a descriptive acronym for me: AFFOL (Adult Female Fan of LEGO). Although, personally I would like to change that to AFBOL (Adult Female Builder of LEGO).
Island Village
The village was just filler here; the real MOC is the rock island. I was in Hawaii and noticed all the different ways in which Land meets Water. Sediment settling one layer over another has very interesting visual effects. This MOC was an attempt to mimic some of the rocks and arches in that area. Using plates to get that effect seemed like a good challenge. The result was a bowl-shaped island that I built into a self-sustained village, with farms, orchards and fresh water wells. It was a lot of fun building out the little village and adding all the little details, like the blacksmith roasting his fish on the fire, or children feeding the chickens. The use of tiles spread around as water gave a nice wavy effect.
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What keeps you going? The simple joy of building and completing a MOC. Building to me is like meditation, my quiet space where I collect myself. Simply put, it’s my ‘happy place’. Also, turning an idea into a displayable model and pushing my own limits of technique usage is inspiring. Every time I build something I aspire to use an element in a way that hasn’t been done before. What are your aspirations as far as building goes? If you had no limits of time, space or parts availability, what would you build and why? So many ideas pop into my head all the time. I’d like to do a real city in minifig scale. Or I’d like to build the entire Game of Thrones world because each of the areas is so fascinating, architecture-wise and in other ways. Tell us about your building area/space. Unfortunately it’s not very big. I don’t have a dedicated LEGO room. There is a laundry/utility area in a corner of my home that has some extra space, which stores most of my LEGO. There is room for a small table there, which is where I start building, but very quickly each module starts moving to my dining table and then takes over my entire dining and living space. What has the response from your family and friends been to your hobby? In the beginning, maybe most of my family thought it was weird for a grown woman to ‘play’ with LEGO. My husband was the most supportive person and encouraged me to follow my dreams. Slowly, everyone realized that I wasn’t just ‘playing’ and since then they have been very positive and complimentary. I think people who haven’t seen a LEGO exhibition or haven’t been to a LEGO Convention don’t understand that LEGO is not just a child’s toy, but also a very creative medium of Art. A single show is enough to change their minds, or maybe just seeing a MOC (My Own Creation) or two. As a woman builder, are there any particular challenges you face in a male dominated hobby? In general, the LEGO community is a very inclusive and friendly place. A builder is not judged by their gender but by the work/building he or she does. But it is a male-dominated hobby, that’s a fact. The same problems that occur in the
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Pyke, the seat of House Greyjoy, from Game of Thrones
I’m a huge fan of Game of Thrones, so decided to build something related to that. The obvious castles would have been King’s Landing or Winterfell, but to me Pyke seemed more interesting, visually. I could build according to the description in the books but add something of my own as well, and end up creating my version of it. Also, I had an opportunity to do some more rockwork—how could I let that pass?! I used curved slope on plate for most of the rock.
real world also exist in our hobby. At conventions, unless people know you as a builder, its assumed that you are a spouse/partner of a male builder. A question I’ve been asked frequently is, “You built this, all by yourself?” Nowadays, I just wear a brick badge that says “Yes, I built this, all by myself.” Online, when a MOC is posted, again, it’s presumed that it’s built by a male builder, and I’ve been addressed as ‘bro’, ‘dude’ and ‘man’. I wish this thought process would change a bit. Stereotyping that women build ‘girly pink and purple’ and men build ‘big and powerful’ isn’t the case.
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Do you think female builders build differently from male builders? In what way? Yes, female builders build differently in certain aspects. Attention to detail seems to be their forte. Some men do that too, but MOCs built by women have a more ‘finished’ feel to them.
Mini Modulars
LEGO produced a set of Mini Modular buildings a few years ago. They were fun to build, so I built a set of my own. At first, building in this scale seemed very difficult, but once I started, the ideas kept pouring in. The advantage to building in this scale is one doesn’t need hundreds of parts, and storing the MOC is pretty easy. Any funny anecdotes about LEGO or the hobby in general? One of the first Conventions I went to, I poked my head into the exhibition hall where everyone was setting up and asked in a loud voice so as to be heard, if anyone needed any help. The entire room of ‘white males’ went completely silent for what seemed like a whole minute. I guess they were trying to process the fact that there was a woman builder in the room. After nearly a minute someone spoke. In all the years you’ve been building, what changes have you noticed in the LEGO community in general and with regard to women builders? The LEGO community was smaller, and the hobby was less known. Most builders knew each other personally or online. We had our LUG meetings at each other’s home and built strong friendships. Our MOCs were simpler because we didn’t have access to bulk parts and had to procure our parts by drafting, or buying multiple copies of sets. Pick-A-Brick came a few years later and that really opened up a lot of possibilities. The community is much larger now. The quality of MOCs is staggering and pushing the boundaries seems to be the norm. I find this very encouraging and inspiring. Online communities have also increased in numbers and I appreciate seeing different styles from builders around the world. With regard to women the obvious change is that their numbers have increased. I see a lot of women attending LEGO events by themselves as builders (not spouses/partners, or Moms) bringing some great creations of various themes/genres. I’m hoping that this trend continues and more and more young girls take to this hobby. I would like to see more mother/ daughter teams building out there—or father/daughter will do for now. Would you like to say anything to young/newer AFFOLs and TFFOLs? Don’t let anything or anyone stop you. Express your art in your own style. Be as creative as you like and build for yourself. I’d like to also tell parents to encourage their daughters to build and explore any theme or genre that appeals to them. You can see more of Anuradha’s builds at her Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/anupehrson/ or you can scan the QR code!
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People
Female Builders Spotlight
Suzanne (Rich) Eaton What genre or theme do you like to build? I like a wide range of stuff—from DUPLO to robotics. I’ve modeled town/train, castle, etc. and built mosaics, sculptures and games. I love Steampunk, Mecha, and GBC modules, though I’m not as skilled there. I also collect specific things, like: Technic motorcycles and LEGO Dacta (educational) sets. My three latest MOCs are Friends-themed, only because I was entering the LEGO Rebrick “Best Friends” contest. Next, I might build some hand-cranked automata. Tell us a little about your background. I have a degree in art and have worked as an illustrator and magazine designer. One of my clients, actually, was LEGO Futura (R&D) in Boston. When media publishing went online, I taught myself how to build websites and worked at Last year, when I heard about the LEGO Rebrick “Best of LEGO Friends” contest, I felt super motivated to enter. I hoped I might have a shot at winning because there aren’t too many people building in that theme and the AFOL events I planned to attend would each be picking a semi-finalist. In actuality, there were many excellent entries and winning at events wasn’t simple. But the contest did give me a “mission” and motivated me to finish my models, which is normally my biggest hurdle in creating MOCs.
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Once I settled on a concept, I built three giant Friends accessories in LEGO Digital Designer (there was also a spray-bottle in medium azure). I was checking to see if convincing replicas were possible at human scale, given part availability in the Friends color palette. Once satisfied, I started placing BrickLink orders. It took a few months (and more money than I’d like to admit), but I finally gathered all my supplies and it snapped together easily. Making the comb “usable” however was a challenge. A core of stacked plates adds strength and works pretty well. It’s been passed around to many people at events, but hasn’t broken yet!
a dot-com company. Soon after, my then-partner (Todd Lehman) and I turned our LEGO hobby into a full-time business at home. I attended grad school for educational technology and worked in the MIT Media Lab, where LEGO was a sponsor of our research. In more recent years, I’ve been focused at home, on my family. But, now that our son is in school, I’m getting back into the hobby— building, exhibiting, and contributing reviews to the Friends Bricks community. What is your story of becoming a LEGO builder? As a kid in the ’70s, I had LEGO I played with. My parents bought me homemaker-type sets, but then I took over my brother’s town stuff and asked for Classic Space when it was launched. In college, I dabbled with LEGO a bit, as an art medium, while working on my BFA. But I didn’t really get heavily into buying and building until I had the regular income that comes with a career. Then, once I saw 9v trains (in the model railroad section of a TRU), I was hooked. That was in... probably ’94. Around the same time, I discovered rec.toys.LEGO and met up with other fans in my area. What keeps you going? My local club, NELUG (New England LEGO Users Group), really motivates me. I love getting together and we have a steady flow of events throughout the year. They’re my best friends and are definitely “enablers” in my LEGO habit. Other things that keep me going: showing my work at BrickFair, entering contests, talking with kids about what I do, and viewing others’ amazing creations. Why did you pick this/these genres to build? If there’s a running theme in what I build, it may be “hands on” or “community.” I like the social aspects of making things with other people and of building objects that folks can interact with. At BrickFair Virginia last summer, I made a human-scaled figure accessory (a big purple Friends comb) which people could handle and pose with. I really enjoyed sharing that experience. I’ve also made a working Lite-Brite and a Settlers of Catan game for friends to play with. And probably the MOC I’m most proud of (which wasn’t even built of LEGO) was LUGNET; a community. So perhaps, when it comes to this hobby, I thrive on interaction—which is funny because really, I’m an introvert. If you had no limits of time, space or parts availability, what would you build and why? One of my favorite LEGO experiences ever was when I helped build a
Friends Chess Set
The chess set came about because I wanted to work on a project with my husband (fellow AFOL David Eaton) where we each had separate clearly defined assignments, but our MOCs would function and display together. Our chess board is modular. It splits in the middle and each side has its own “team” and decor along the edge. David built a wonderful Elves chess set to battle with my Friends. It was a great collaboration and we hope to build additional themed sets in the future. For many evenings, we’d peek in on each other’s work, spurring the other on. I enjoyed telling a little story on each of my 6x6 vignettes and decorating my half of the board. Mainly I focused on representing the breadth and depth of the Friends line, but the pieces do have enough chesslike visual qualities to make it a playable game.
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massive scale model of historic Manchester, NH along with members of my LUG and the people of that community. We had (what felt like) unlimited support from the LEGO company, including millions of parts and two Master Builders who organized building sessions. It was fantastic. Everyone had fun and I learned a ton. So, my fantasy would be to travel and keep doing that in other cities and towns around the world. Tell us about your building area/space. My husband, Dave, is also a long-time AFOL and we each have amassed substantial collections. Since moving to our new house, those collections are crammed together in a ~500 sq ft. space with rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves, and are in an awkward state of being combined. (It’s a bit like one of those mixed-up sliding puzzles with only one space free—and you’re standing in it!) We’re looking into having some custom storage trays manufactured to match a system we got from LEGO’s model shop, years ago. Hopefully, that will help and we’ll get it all sorted out soon. Until then, I stick to very small projects on our living room rug! What has the response from your family and friends been to your hobby? It has been very positive. I worry a bit about appearing obsessive or even ill (picture an episode of Hoarders); but most folks seem to think it’s interesting and they appreciate that I get enjoyment from a playful hobby. It probably helps that LEGO has such universal appeal. As a woman builder, are there any particular challenges you face in a male-dominated hobby? I can’t say it’s caused any challenges for me. Throughout my life, I’ve had many interests that happened to appeal to more men than to women, so I’m used to that. Honestly, I’ve found the people in this hobby to be tremendously supportive and friendly. I’ve never felt unwelcome or unappreciated, as a builder. Thankfully, ours is a level playing field (no female disadvantage, as you might find in more physical activities), so there’s a simple path to earning respect—just build great stuff!
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Do you think female builders build differently from male builders? In what way? First off, it’s my belief that gender is somewhat of a spectrum and that each person is unique. So, I personally would not make assumptions about any individual male or female builder. That said, as a grad student, one thing I studied was how children play; and certainly there were
detectable differences, on average, along gender lines. The LEGO company has put a lot of effort into understanding how this applies to their products and some of their recent findings have been interesting. As for our community of adult fans: while I see some trends in, say, what female builders might gravitate towards; I feel I’ve observed less dramatic variation in mindset than I might expect from the general population. So, I’ll be interested to see if LEGO’s effort (to get bricks into more/new hands) leads to new ground being broken in AFOL territory. Already, I believe this may have started to happen. Any funny anecdotes about LEGO or the hobby in general? I’m suddenly reminded of a funny thing I did twenty years ago. At that time, I was not pleased with how LEGO was marketing sets to girls. For example, I was horrified that there was a pink bucket which actually said, “Specially for Her” on the front. I also was feeling paranoid that other fans may assume that (because I was female) I must build very girly things. This fear was probably due to my experience in other hobbies (motorcycle riding, playing bass guitar, etc.) where people often falsely jumped to conclusions. Anyway, I made this graphic for the front page of my website which declared “No pink LEGO on this site.” It showed a pink brick with a red circle and slash through it. It was my “anti-girlie” badge. I even purged my Paradisa sets of their pink elements and auctioned those off. I chuckle about this today because I no longer feel such anguish—okay, maybe the Disney Princess stuff does make me a little queasy, but at least I understand that I’m simply not part of that target market. No one is making me buy princesses and my MOCs will speak for themselves. How long have you been building? I’ve been an adult builder and collector for about 22 years. In all the years you’ve been building, what changes have you noticed in the LEGO community in general and with regard to women builders? In general: Gosh. Over twenty years, a lot has changed! Individual parts are now easier to come by. Rare/old sets are no longer found on dusty shelves of “mom & pop” toy stores. The online community has mushroomed in size, diversified and fragmented. We’re each more aware of other builders now, and how our collection and creations compare, on a global scale. Thus the standard of building has certainly risen. And finer-scale parts have contributed to that too. The relationship between the company and adult fans has developed and evolved into something really nice. Yet, many things remain the same. For example, we still discuss our “common ground” topics: new releases, parts usage, storage systems, etc. And we still enjoy shopping, sorting, and displaying together. In regard to women who build: Hmmm... I can’t think of many changes I’ve personally experienced in that regard. Making female sig-figs is easier now. I guess now we have a few catchy new labels, such as “AFFOL,” but I don’t tend to use those terms. It has been nice to see more female builders out there having success— turning their passion into a business and making truly amazing things. But I’d say the same for the guys in our hobby. While I know more female
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builders now, I also know more builders in general. So, I don’t think the ratio of female/male interest in LEGO has changed much, if at all. It will be interesting to see what impact the newer lines, like Friends and Disney, have on our next generation of adult enthusiasts. Will there be a new wave of female builders showing up at events, perhaps with a very different viewpoint? Possibly! I’ve seen some amazing stuff from teen builders, such as CheeriosandLEGOs1, on the official LEGO site gallery. I’ve also seen a few moms posting to Facebook, saying that they want the new Disney castle for themselves! I know the company is striving to appeal to a broader range of customers and I’d be happy for those efforts to succeed.
You can see more of Suzanne’s work at her Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/suzeaton/ or you can scan this QR code!
Would you like to say anything to young/newer AFFOLs and TFFOLs? Be yourself. Do what you love. And don’t worry about what others think!
Settlers of Catan Gameboard
There are many things I love about Settlers of Catan (the colorful hexagons, the idea of a reconfigurable landscape, the fun gameplay...). So, soon after learning the game in 2005, I set out to create a LEGO version. The trickiest challenge was the hexagonal grid. I’ve since seen people make gorgeous SNOT-y hexagonal tiles utilizing cheese slopes. But, back then, the parts weren’t available. It made more sense to build a honeycomb frame and fill it with circular disks. Many, many tan plate hinges went into that frame and I think it’s an appealing object on its own. For a long time, it hung on our living room wall as a decoration and conversation piece. The disks are meant to match the graphics of the original German game, which is what I learned on. I later added the Cities & Knights and Seafarers game expansions and in 2009 I swapped in LEGO’s new official dice. I hope to redesign it soon, using some of today’s finer detailed pieces.
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People
Female Builders Spotlight
Terri Landers:
Making Things Beautiful is a Good Thing My name is Terri Landers, and I am a LEGOholic. I am a member of SEALUG and PSLTC (enabler groups). My husband and I are part of the group that runs BrickCon, a convention for builders hold in Seattle every October. This year will be the 16th convention, with expectations of 475 builders from all over the world. I love to view the many, many builds in every theme each year! It is amazing what different people do, using the same medium. I have helped judge individual entries and can testify that it is incredibly difficult to select “the best” display because every entry shows creativity and techniques that are simple, brilliant and inspiring. Beautiful! I have earned an AA degree, emphasis on Geology, a BA in Education and an MA in Administration and Curriculum Design. I taught Elementary and Middle School for 24 years and am currently retired and enjoying my grandkids, my garden and more building with LEGO brick. The first LEGO set I bought was a Technic helicopter, twenty years ago. Star Wars sets caught my eye and I
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opened my pocket book. I like to build Technic, sculpture and architecture. Last year I displayed a mash diorama of the Wizard of Oz and Dr. Who for Emerald City Comic-Con. I am currently working on individual animal habitats, to be displayed with the train club as a type of zoo. My husband Wayne and I are both builders, and we now have a double garage full of parts, organized by type and color. My aspiration is to downsize to make a more usable build space. There should be a place to access specific pieces for a build; build tables; and shelves to display specific builds and current projects. I think the challenges of being a builder include having too many ideas and not enough time! Also, despite having a huge, organized collection of pieces, we don’t have enough of the parts needed for a specific design. We order specialized pieces several times each month. The LEGO community has grown in the past twenty years from the “good ol’ boy” camaraderie to an inclusive group of people who are inspired by the Brick. I don’t think there are differences between male and female builders other than guys seem to have a greater ability to block out interruptions, whereas females are more aware of surrounding activities that disrupt focus. It takes me more time to finish interrupted projects, while Wayne can spend hours working on one aspect of a design. There have been changes in the LEGO community through the years. Back in the middle 1990s, people were just starting to meet online, sharing ideas, questions and problems. BrickCon was started as a way to bring builders face-toface, offering a public exhibit as a secondary activity. Now there is a fantastic Internet community and accessible local groups, consistently sharing news, builds, and inspiring an international generation of designers, creators and engineers. As women, we are a dynamic part of that community!
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My husband and I display a snow scene with PSLTC (Puget Sound LEGO Train Club) and this is part of my Snow Park at the base of our mountain. I use white flowers for snow, to break up the studs of the white base. At BrickCan, everyone received a beautiful model of an orca. I wanted to display mine, so created a tank complete with lights under the blue transparent brick to represent sparkling water. He is part of the Snow Display, as is the Wampa habitat. Wampas love lime popsicles!
Emerald City
The Emerald City took a lot of different green parts. It was challenging to create buildings on a smaller scale than my favorite, modulars. My biggest challenge was creating a tornado from brick. I thought about how I would draw a tornado by making swirls with a pencil. The next step was to decide how to create swirls with LEGO: a stack of curved plates! I built the plates into the background, creating a dark sky. The sky clears into a rainbow and opens up to the hot air balloon in the puffy white clouds. Rainbows are tricky to build, too. I used transparent bricks and plate hinges to get a ‘bend’ with the brick.
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People
Female Builders Spotlight
Breann Sledge
What genre or theme do you like to build? Bionicle/Technic. How long have you been building? Since 2004.
Tell us a little about your background. I got through high school and took a couple courses in college, but decided to pursue the trade of violinmaking instead, of which I worked as an apprentice and assistant for about ten years with John Osnes, a violinmaker in Anchorage. I built two violins and a viola under his tutelage. Currently I work as a captain on a 90’ salmon tender, collecting salmon from the fishermen in Prince William Sound, and taking the fish to the cannery in Seward. I do this in the summer, and process other fish for the same cannery in the winter months. I do artwork and sell collectibles on the side. Lately I have gotten into sculpting dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. It is a fun side hobby, and people really like my creatures. I also paint watercolor paintings of fishing boats. I really like to recreate old black and white historic photographs into full color paintings. The resulting painting often has enough realism to fool viewers into thinking it is an actual photograph until they get up close and see it’s a painting.
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What is your story of becoming a LEGO builder? When and how did you start? I bought my first Bionicle box at a garage sale, thinking they would make a neat little stop-motion movie. Komodo I ended up getting about $300 worth Komodo is one of the largest of sets for $35. It’s what started my creations I have made, rivaling the Bionicle affliction. size of a medium/small dog. Tail After obtaining my first LEGO haul in and neck outstretched, it measured the fall of 2004, I started making small over 5’ long! It suffered damage from figures and little stop-motion movies. being transported to a museum for I started to get into the Bionicle a show and is currently undergoing story and read the books. It’s quite a a rebuild. It took approximately compelling story once you get past two years to complete this creation, the first four books. I started to build working on and off on it, while also larger creatures and then discovered dealing with a move to a new home the BZPower Bionicle forum. I joined in the middle of the build.
and really got into building and discussing techniques, and participating in their building contests, and then started looking online. After a bit of time went on, and seeing the amazing builds by Bryce McGlone and many other awesome Bionicle builders of the time, I told myself that’s the kind of LEGO creations I want to make: big and awesome! From there my skills progressed, new parts came out, and I was having a ball! I don’t build as often as I used to, but I still am working on epic creations! What keeps you going? Coming up with new techniques will often start up a building spree. Also, when I take a break from building, and have a parts innovation, sometimes that will spur me on to create something new and awesome! I often get lost into a build for days if I am really into it—with my evenings filled with pops and clicks fueled by the strongest of coffees. Why did you pick this/these genres to build? I find Bionicle and Technic satisfies my love for making my own action figures. It’s a lot more forgiving than building with bricks alone, and offers up some unique solutions for making really organic looking creations. It works well with the way my mind imagines and creates things. I really enjoy the flexibility, and the visual texture of the parts. What are your aspirations as far as building goes? I build for the enjoyment of it. I was a little more competitive in my younger days, but it was always for the fun of building something cool to play with and display. My main love is building Rahi creatures versus building Toa humanoids or mecha robots.
Kanohi Vikora, Mask of Regeneration
Built for a competition put on by the LEGO group to win a one of a kind solid gold Bionicle mask of Creation. It didn’t place in the finals but got an honorable mention. The base frame was built to fit my head, and I built it from the face to the back of the skull, maintaining even color usage while creating unique and organic patterns to represent regrowth and new life and vitality. It’s the first truly serious wearable creation I have made that is 100% LEGO pieces.
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If you had no limits of time, space or parts availability, what would you build and why? I wish to someday build a costume of the Bionicle character Roodaka just because she is awesome! I would try to make it as accurate as possible. She is clad in black and silver and has trans blue lighted segmented hair and little blue bits here and there. She is very evil looking.
Dino-Riders
The Dino-Riders Monoclonius with Mako is based off of an ’80s cartoon called Dino-Riders. This was one of the lesser minions/troops of the evil Rulon Empire. The model is based off the toy originally produced by the Tyco company, but with different features than the original toy had. The head has a pull lever ramming action. The figures have been upscaled significantly from their original inspirational counterparts, with the humanoids being scaled up to 7” tall vs 3.75”. I’m currently working on making upscaled figures of the others from the line, incorporating motorized and NXT features into the largest ones, such as T-Rex and Diplodocus.
Build Process
Typically when I build a figure, I’ll start with pieces and “MOCk fit” them together to come up with interesting shapes, and build off of that. My creation process always starts with the head of a larger MOC so that the body will remain in scale with it. It is harder to maintain good proportions on a large creation if you build the body first, I have found. Sometimes builds can happen in days, but sometimes it also can take months or years. It all depends on the complexity of the MOC and my level of inspiration at the time 38of building it.
Tell us about your building area/ space. I have a 10x10 room dedicated to my LEGO and my hobbies. I call it The LEGOrium. I have several stacker drawer units lined up in rows, with my parts sorted by color, and also by generation. So far it’s mostly just sorted Bionicle, Technic and modern construction pieces, aside from a drawer with some system components. I have a stacker dedicated just to masks, my favorite storage container in the room. I also keep my vintage dinosaur collections and other interesting rarities in there to help spur my creativity. What has the response from your family and friends been to your hobby? They thought it was a little bit of a time waster at first until the creations started to get pretty rad looking. Once I started going to conventions regularly, it was more or less accepted. They think the things I make are pretty awesome now! :) As a woman builder, are there any particular challenges you face in a male-dominated hobby? Not really. I find that other builders are very accepting of my role in the hobby, especially since I work in such an oddball theme. I bring interesting things to be seen at conventions and have a bubbling and happy personality when I’m in convention mode. :) There is sometimes jealousy that happens at random times, but that’s true of any type of makers hobby. Everyone always looks forward to seeing what interesting new creations I have brought. Do you think female builders build differently from male builders? Yes and no. I see a lot of creativity from both sides, but there are sometimes differences. I see more
Akutahn, Makuta of Okoto
Akutahn was built for the first contest that the LEGO Group put on to win a golden mask. The object was to build the most diabolical villain, so I decided to build a Makuta. Amongst some seriously tough competition, Akutahn came out on top! There were some seriously awesome builds for that competition. The MOC changed form a few times when building. This one I took extra care to use as many of the newer figure building pieces in its construction. It changed from an all black character to one with red, and he just happened to be a big bad dude in the end!
builds that are linear and clean and concise come from both sides, but often there’s little additions and details you see in the ladies’ MOCs that aren’t as apparent in the guys’ MOCs. In what way? I see a lot of attention being put into pretty details on a lot of the ladies’ models and more utilitarian and sleek models from the guys, but overall, it’s not any notable difference, as everyone has their own particular style. Any funny anecdotes about LEGO or the hobby in general? You can always count on being asked the same questions by the public when you attend a convention! Anything else you would like to tell us? I hope to continue to wow the world with my creations. :) In all the years you’ve been building, what changes have you noticed in the LEGO community in general and with regard to women builders? More acceptance and a lot more female builders. I really have not seen any negativity towards women builders, only then there used to be less of us, and now there are more of us, and it’s not just the wives of the husbands who build who are getting into it either. I see gals who are into it and get their guys into it. Building with LEGO is just a great fun way to bring people of all ages together. Would you like to say anything to young/newer AFFOLs and TFFOLs? Yeah, don’t let your ego drive your building. Build for the enjoyment of it, and most importantly, be humble and kind and accepting. Discuss techniques with friends and build on! :)
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Building
One Brick, Two Bricks, Red Bricks, Blue Bricks! Article by Kyle Keller
LEGO has always been a solitary activity for me. When I typically build a MOC, it’s not for a display, it’s not for a collaboration with friends, it’s not for a specific event, and it’s not for an online post. It’s for me. I’m my audience. So the idea of building for an event was a new, interesting challenge. The event in this case was the Atomic Comicon at the Tacoma Public Library in Washington state. It’s a free comic book convention targeting young kids in an effort to promote reading and the library. For the first time, I was presenting my MOCs as part of a LUG, the South Puget Sound LUG to be specific. I assumed the superheroes would be very well represented , so I decided to go a different direction and target the younger attendees with six MOCs covering the works of Dr. Seuss.
The planning stage for this collection was more intense than normal due to my new audience. I had to answer the following questions: Which Dr. Seuss books are more well-known, and can thus act as anchors to the overall theme? How do I capture the curvy lines and somewhat-impossible forms of Seussian illustration using bricks? How does each piece stand out individually as its own MOC while still being a part of the theme? How can I draw in my target audience without a Deadpool minifig? Keeping the above in mind, I determined that I should do a brick-built “Green Eggs and Ham” and Minilandish-scale “Cat in the Hat” as the anchors to the theme. If I can pull them off well, then the rest of my MOCs become far more recognizable to the average attendee. “Horton Hears a Who” stops being just an elephant when he’s next to a giant green ham, which added him to the list, as well as “The Sneetches.” The last two MOCs were more of a stretch goal. “Yertle the Turtle” and “The Butter Battle Book” are less known, and the latter had me absolutely stumped on what the final MOC should be. Inevitably, I had to boot some ideas, so my apologies to “The Zax,” “On Beyond Zebra,” and “Oh the Places You’ll Go.” Maybe next time.
Green Eggs and Ham
The chartreuse noms that are Green Eggs and Ham were so easy that you could build them in a box, and you could build them with a fox. You could build them here or there. You could build them anywhere! It’s a freehand brick-built ham, some eggs with lovely dark green canopy yolks, and a plate that uses nearly all my light bley tile. This ended up being something simple and quick to anchor the theme in a recognizable way. It certainly won’t win any beauty contests, but Sam-I-Am doesn’t mind!
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The Cat in the Hat!
Balancing on a lime green ball, The Cat in the Hat is such an iconic part of Dr. Seuss’s literature that it was an autoinclude in the collection. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to get his left leg holding the teacup just right. I ended up employing a flick-fire minifig utensil to get the bend I wanted with the correct thigh thickness. The Cat’s head is built around a brick with studs on all sides (which seems to be the way I solve nearly every building problem I run into), and has some not-quite-complete clutches to give the noggin the correct shape while allowing his iconic hat to sit properly. I’m not thrilled with the Cat’s mouth, but sacrifices had to be made to get him a nice set of whiskers. Probably the most interesting bit of building is in his green ball. I finished this model too late for a part order, so I was forced to work with bricks on hand. That ball, built in the style of Bruce Lowell’s sphere, doesn’t use any corner plates and four 2x2 jumper plates. The inside is an absolute mess, but it looks great from the outside.
The ball dissected. Horton broken down.
Horton Hears a Who!
The build for Horton actually started with the backdrop. I wanted to capture the puffy nature of Seuss’s trees and bushes as seen in Horton Hears a Who. I found the 1x1 curve does the job nicely. Next came Horton himself. The two halves of his torso are nearly identical and held together by the legs. Horton’s face has studs facing every-which-way, with hinges leading to his curvy ears. I employed a lot of less-than-legal connections with the infamous WhoWhisperer, especially the bucket handle stud-reversal method to add stability to the trunk. After finishing the MOC, I went back and added the angled insert in the grass. It was far more about seeing if I could do it than fulfilling any specific design need, though. I’m very pleased with how this creation came together.
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The Sneetches
The Sneetches is the largest build of the six, and ended up being a huge sinkhole for all my yellow plate. The design for the Sneetch went through several forms, and ended up taking about a day to perfect. The bracket on top of its eyes ended up being so essential to completing the head, making the creature feel less like a muppet and more like a bird. I printed homemade stickers for the “stars upon thars,” as well as for some of the signs on Professor Sylvester McMonkey McBean’s fantastic machines. Speaking of the machines, I tried to give each its own distinct feel, deviating slightly from the reference material. I tried to get the piping and steam as close to Seuss’s illustrations as possible. This was the model where I most
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felt the blocky nature of my raw material. Once again, I abused the clutch power in partial connections to help give some bendy lines. And I worked to give the Sneetches each some unique character. That was specifically true for the two exiting creatures, falling out of a tube and sliding down a chute. Professor McBean got his own character in a build similar in design to the Sneetches, not to mention getting a large pile of LEGO $100s behind him. The tattoo application/removal business seems to be quite lucrative for him.
A closer look at one of the machines. A sneetch!
Yertle the Turtle
Originally written as an alLEGOry for Adolph Hitler’s rise to power, Yertle the Turtle is a lesser-known but much-beloved Dr. Seuss story. This MOC is made possible thanks to the dark blue 3x3 dish, matching the blue of Seuss’s stackable turtles perfectly. Each turtle is built around, you guessed it, a brick with studs on all sides, leaving the center of each turtle hollow. Through that hollow stud runs a piece of flex tubing, which gives turtle tower its bendable quality. Originally, the tower was sixteen turtles tall, but the structure would fold over under its own weight. Even after reinforcing the center of the flex tubing with copper wire, the problem persisted. In the end, I took a lesson from Yertle and settled on a tower twelve turtles tall (try saying that three times fast!). Yertle’s pond is some SNOT work using clear panels, with green plate underneath to match the green of the pond in Seuss’s illustrations. Occasionally, clear headlight bricks were inserted in with the panels as anchors for reeds. My one regret with this MOC is not finding a way to get a minifig crown on Yertle’s head. Alas and alack.
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A look inside the stacked turtles.
A turtle and his parts.
The Butter Battle Book
Finally, the oddest inclusion in this cavalcade of creations is “The Butter Battle Book.” Written by Seuss as an alLEGOry for the Cold War, the Butter Battle is played out between the Yooks and the Zooks all over the proper way to butter bread. The story describes an arms race between the warring clans, providing what I thought would be plenty of creative fodder for a MOC. Turns out, not so much. With a week before the event, I furiously sifted through the story for something that not only was buildable, but also different from the other five pieces in this series. Finally, my eyes landed on a propaganda poster in the background of an illustration. With that idea, I set to work. I promptly realized that my LEGO lettering skills are not what I assumed they would be. So the project became more simplified. And then I realized I’d have to tile in a piece of bread. At that moment, I walked away for an hour to regroup. Finally, I settled on making the bread three-dimensional, with a hand to hold it sticking out from the poster. I started on the easy part: the bread. The studsout design seemed to be the best route, and I’m thrilled with how it turned out. The matrix inside was reminiscent of Cat in the Hat’s green ball, but it stayed hidden in the final build. The hand also came together with surprising ease, using the bread as a veil to hide some of the gaps created when trying to make a human palm from bricks. Some Technic pins hold the hand to the poster, and four stacks of tires act as a counterweight to keep the poster upright. Above all, just remember: Yooks are not Zooks. Keep your butter side UP! I’ve been very pleased with the reception from this series, both at the Atomic Comicon and at BrickCon in Seattle this past October. Ironically, the Sneetches have been the most recognized by event attendees, not the anchor MOCs as I intended. And I’ve learned quite a bit about character building and building to an audience from these designs. This is not a theme I would have attempted on my own, but it has been wonderful stepping outside of my comfort zone.
How the toast was made.
www.brickcoaster.com
Custom Roller Coaster Tracks, Sets and Accessories 45
You Can Build It Model
When I spotted this at BrickCon in 2016, I was blown away by the simplicity of the build. It’s not very often that a character build is made of so few parts, and it’s even rarer when the build captures a creature, real or imagined, this well. I immediately wanted to do an article on the Seuss builds and I wanted to include the instructions to build a Sneetch. Thankfully, Kyle Keller (the builder of all the Seuss MOCs) sent me construction photos of the Sneetch and from there created a digital model (seen at left) and then made instructions. Have fun building!
Parts List (Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)
Qty Color 1 White 2 White 2 2 2 3 5 2 4 2 1 4 1 2 1
Sneetch! Design by Kyle Keller Instructions by Joe Meno 46
2 2 1 1 1 2
Part Description 4740.dat Dish 2 x 2 Inverted 98138p07.dat Tile 1 x 1 Round with Eye Pattern Yellow 3022.dat Plate 2 x 2 Yellow 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 Yellow 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 Yellow 3062b.dat Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud Yellow 3623.dat Plate 1 x 3 Yellow 4085c.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Vertical (Thick U-Clip) Yellow 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round Yellow 11477.dat Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Yellow 15573.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud Yellow 50950.dat Slope Brick Curved 3 x 1 Yellow 54200.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Yellow 59900.dat Cone 1 x 1 with Stop Yellow 60897.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Vertical (Thick C-Clip) Yellow 61252.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Horizontal (Thick C-Clip) Yellow 85984.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 Yellow 99780.dat Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2 Up Yellow 4733.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on Four Sides Light Bluish Gray 4697b.dat Technic Pneumatic TPiece - Type 2 Blue 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1
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Building
Godzilla Strikes! Article by Kelvin Low
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I have always loved Godzilla since watching my first ever Godzilla movie, Godzilla vs Biollante. Since then I have watched almost all the heisei, and millennium series right up to Godzilla Final Wars, so when news came out that Toho will be coming out with a reimagined Godzilla after a few years on hiatus, I was thrilled. Each day was a hunt or glimpse of what the new big G’s form would be and finally it made its debut — lo and behold in all its full glory. Armed with techniques gathered from my recent Hero Factory/Bionicle building, I set out to build my very own Shin Godzilla ! Do note that I built this with only the reference pictures online prior to seeing the show, so there will be some slight inconsistencies—for example, the red lit highlights should be purple instead. The one thing for Godzilla that I had to get right are the large legs. Once the legs are set, they will dictate how the shape of the torso should evolve.
Once the shape of the leg is confirmed, it will just be simple build-ups. Red trans pieces are used to highlight the glowing atomic energy inside Godzilla.
Hero Factory parts were used instead of bricks due to the weight. With Hero Factory I can get the desired shape with not only fewer parts but lighter weight. Since Godzilla will be fairly big, weight is an important factor to take into account during my build. Using the Hero Factory/Technic parts, it allows me to build in all directions to cover Godzilla’s torso.
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And the best way to convey mayhem and destruction is through a city diorama! Retrospectively, I should have included the iconic Tokyo tower (haha). Hope you enjoy this write up and the pictures. Thanks again to Joe Meno for having me in yet another exciting issue of BrickJournal!
Some different views of the vignette and Godzilla.
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Camera Dolly
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.
Design and Instructions by Tommy Williamson
About this issue’s model:
There’s a lot of gear on a movie set; some of it is pretty self-explanatory, some of it is so specialized half of the crew doesn’t even know what it’s for. It’s all got funny nicknames too. The dolly has been around for a very long time. This one was inspired by the classic type used making the Universal monster movies—when men wore hats, directors screamed through megaphones, and monsters were guys in suits. Enjoy!
Parts List
(Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)
Qty Part Color Description 1 4032a.dat Reddish Brown Plate 2 x 2 Round with Axlehole Type 1 4 93594.dat Metallic Dk Gray Wheel Rim 6.4 x 11 without Spokes 2 3023.dat Black Plate 1 x 2 1 3069b.dat Black Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 1 3794a.dat Black Plate 1 x 2 without Groove with 1 Centre Stud 2 4032a.dat Black Plate 2 x 2 Round with Axlehole Type 1 2 4070.dat Black Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight 2 4150.dat Black Tile 2 x 2 Round with Cross Underside Stud 1 4349.dat Black Minifig Loudhailer 1 4595.dat Black Brick 1 x 2 x 0.667 with Studs on Sides 1 50746.dat Black Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 3 577b.dat Light Bluish Gray Minifig Lightsaber Hilt with Bottom Ring 6 2555.dat Light Bluish Gray Tile 1 x 1 with Clip 2 3020.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 4 1 3032.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 4 x 6 1 3034.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 8 1 3069bpc3.dat Light Bluish Gray Tile 1 x 2 with Red “82” and Yellow and White Gauges Pattern 2 3176.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 3 x 2 with Hole
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Qty Part Color Description 4 3666.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 6 1 3710.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 4 1 4032a.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 2 Round with Axlehole Type 1 2 4070.dat Light Bluish Gray Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight 1 6141.dat Light Bluish Gray ~Moved to 6141 1 4081b.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Light Type 2 4 4488.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 2 with Wheel Holder 6 4599a.dat Light Bluish Gray Tap 1 x 1 with Hole in Spout 1 4697b.dat Light Bluish Gray Technic Pneumatic T-Piece - Type 2 1 4733.dat Light Bluish Gray Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on Four Sides 3 15068.dat Light Bluish Gray Slope Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 0.667 2 22463.dat Light Bluish Gray Technic Flex-System Hose 19L (380LDU) 1 30039.dat Light Bluish Gray Tile 1 x 1 with Groove 1 30663.dat Light Bluish Gray Car Steering Wheel Large 1 51739.dat Light Bluish Gray Wing 2 x 4 2 87087.dat Light Bluish Gray Brick 1 x 1 with Stud on 1 Side 2 92593.dat Light Bluish Gray Plate 1 x 4 with Two Studs 2 99781.dat Light Bluish Gray Bracket 1 x 2 1 x 2 Down
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Announcing
BrickJournal Building Sets!
Designed by BrickJournal’s Editorin-Chief Joe Meno, these are the beginning of a series of custom sets inspired by the themes and builders featured in the magazine! You can find out about these sets and upcoming sets at:
Microscale Space Shuttle with Stand: 50 pcs. $10
Microscale Starship: 166 pcs. $30
www.brickjournal.com/sets
Minecreep: 75 pcs. $15
Building Sets For those who want to do more than read BrickJournal!
This is not a LEGO® Product. These are reused LEGO elements that have been repackaged or altered from their original form. LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse these products. The LEGO Group is not liable for any loss injury, or damage arising from the use or misuse of these products.
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You Can Build It MINI Model
MINI U-Wing
Design and Instructions by Christopher Deck Hello everybody, I hope you are prepared for our next MINI U-Wing fighter/support craft! About one year after the release of Star Wars: Episode VII we already have the first spin-off movie, Star Wars: Rogue One, with lots of new locations, characters, and vehicles. One of the most exciting of the latter ones mentioned, is the Rebel Alliance U-Wing fighter which serves as both starfighter and troop support vessel. One remarkable detail is the movable S-foils, either in forward or backward position.
Functional mini models are always a challenge, and so was this. For the folding back we use flat hinge plates. The movement is stopped once the stud notches of the wing plates touch the round end of a 3x2 plate with hole. The result works smoothly and gives the perfect shape. It is really fun folding the wings back and forth and I hope you will enjoy this! I am glad to have joined again for this issue of BrickJournal. See you soon!
Parts List (Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)
Qty 4 2 2 4 2 1 1
Color White Light-Bluish-Gray Light-Bluish-Gray Light-Bluish-Gray Trans-Black Light-Bluish-Gray Light-Bluish-Gray
Part 4070.dat 2429.dat 2430.dat 3024.dat 3023.dat 3023.dat 3839b.dat
4
Dark-Bluish-Gray
3475a.dat
4 3 1 1 2
Light-Bluish-Gray White Light-Bluish-Gray Light-Bluish-Gray White
2420.dat 3020.dat 3020.dat 3176.dat 54200.dat
2
Trans-Black
54200.dat
6
White
85984.dat
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Description Brick 1 x1 with Headlight Hinge Plate 1 x 4 Base Hinge Plate 1 x 4 Top Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 with Handles Type 2 Plate 1 x 2 with Jet Engine and Smooth Hole Plate 2 x 2 Corner Plate 2 x 4 Plate 2 x 4 Plate 3 x 2 with Hole Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667
Qty Color 1 White 1
White
4
Blue
2
Dark-Bluish-Gray
2 1 2 1
Trans-Black Light-Bluish-Gray Blue White
1
Light-Bluish-Gray
1 1
White White
Part Description 3747a.dat Slope Brick 33 3 x 2 Inverted without Ribs between Studs 15068.dat Slope Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 0.667 2412b.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove 2412b.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove 3069b.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 3069b.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 2431.dat Tile 1 x 4 with Groove 6179.dat Tile 4 x 4 with Studs on Edge 90194.dat Wing 3 x 4 with 1 x 2 Cutout with Stud Notches and Rounded U 47397.dat Wing 3 x 12 Left 47398.dat Wing 3 x 12 Right
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You can view Christopher’s webpage by going to www.deckdesigns.de or scanning this QR code!
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Building Minifig Customization 101
Philanthropic Endeavors Article and Photography by Jared K. Burks
Year 1 Figures
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I, like many, have been consumed with the current events. Regardless of your opinion of the progress of the world order, it has reaffirmed a lesson I learned as a young adult: “To help other people at all times.” This lesson is fairly clear, as it simply states “to help others all the time.” Helping others could include anything from feeding the hungry, helping the poor, helping others around the world, or even helping those in your own community. Through my education I have learned that the best way to help others is through education. By ensuring children are well educated, they will become free thinkers and able to not only continue to educate themselves, but also make informed decisions about their lives and actions—and hopefully through this education become better members of society, and thus society will improve. Therefore, I use my talents to support my daughter Branwen’s public elementary school. I wanted to encourage all readers, regardless of their age, to help others at all times! My daughter’s school has a yearly gala, fancy party, where they have a series of items donated by the community to be sold in auction to raise additional funds to meet the budget shortfalls that her school faces every year. This gala is part of several events that occur throughout the year to raise funds for the school. Ever since Branwen started at her elementary school, just over 4 years ago, I have created several different custom LEGO figures for these auctions. The figures I have created were designed to capture my community and get the attention of the people attending the gala to attempt to raise as many funds for the school as possible. For this article I will cover the figures I have made and give a brief description as to how I created a few of them. In the first year when Branwen started in Kindergarten I created a foundational figure design that I have continued in every auction since, the Kolter Kid. I wanted to create a custom figure that resembled the children attending Kolter elementary. I made individual figures and had them carry the classic items to their teacher, flowers or an apple. I also had two small vignettes in this auction where I had Kolter Kids walking to school or leaving presents for their teachers. These figures were simply created with water slide decals where I recreated school uniform designs that the children wear to school. I also wanted to create a special figure for these auctions based on a local sports team. I choose the mascot for the Texans football team, Toro. Toro the bull is seen on the sidelines of every home Texans game, and while he may seem complex to create as a custom figure, it was easier to assemble given the collectible minifigure series Minotaur. I simply had to remove the portion of the Minotaur head that covered the torso of the figure. I removed this portion with sandpaper. Once the bulk of this area was removed, I polished the remainder with Brasso. Then I primed the head with a primer designed for plastic and painted the head dark blue to match LEGO dark blue, which is what I was using to recreate the figure. I then again used waterslide decal film to recreate the Texans jersey and placed these decals on the white
hockey/football armor. I also added waterslide decals to recreate Toro’s eyes to finish the figure. Things changed a bit in the auctions in second year auctions. I created the foundational figures again, only this time I borrowed heavily from the Simpson’s collectible minifigure series as Bart’s arms and legs were highly useful, as were Lisa’s skirt and Krusty’s torso and arms. This was a result of using the figures at one’s fingertips wisely. In this year’s auction I wanted to create the school mascot, the Kolter Cougar, this again was a timely release of the Chima tan cougar head. To finish this figure, I had to mold and cast the tail in tan to match the figure and create the most complex decal set for a Kolter figure to date, the tiedyed Kolter Kids t-shirt. This had to be wrapped around the torso and arms to appear correctly, and takes a patient application.
Year 1 Special Figure – Toro the Texans Mascot
For this year’s auction I also wanted to create a bit of rivalry between the native Houstonians and the many people who moved here from Louisiana, to see if it could raise a few more dollars for the school. In order to test this area, I created one Texans player in minifigure form (JJ Watt) and one from the New Orleans Saints (Drew Brees). These figures featured an Oyo football (Oyo is a company that makes sports figures in a LEGO compatible form) and a few custom painted elements. The mask guards, which only come in white, were painted black, and the Saints helmet had to be painted to get a gold color appropriate for the Saints. This was done with primer and spray paint as previously noted in the Toro example. By the way, KC Cougar raised the most funds out of the figures this year, with a close second in the JJ Watt figure, followed closely by Drew Brees. All in, they raised several hundreds of dollars for the school.
Year 2 Figures
Drew Brees vs JJ Watt KC Kolter Cougar.
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In year 3 I again created the Kolter Kids, this time updating the uniform designs to follow trends in the school. I also deviated from my mascot/football theme from previous years and I recreated two custom superhero figures, Marvel’s Commander Steve Rogers and DC’s Supergirl. These figures came with custom created laser engraved display stands. These designs were created in a similar way as the art for waterslide decal films, only the art was given to a laser cutter where the acrylic was engraved. Once cleaned from the laser engraving process, the acrylic was painted on the bottom (back painting) giving them depth—then simply standing the figure on the stand completed the look. These displays could be taken further by adding LED lighting under the displays.
Year 3 figures
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Having learned from the Year Two Saints vs. Texans figures, I decided to expand on this to see if I could get people to support their alma mater. I also wanted to allude to preparing our children for college while they are in elementary school. So I created my foundational Kolter Kids, but I had them escorted by their parents as they are being sent to school. I recreated College sweatshirts for the major colleges in the area: Texas A&M, University of Texas, Baylor, Rice, Texas Tech, University of Houston, and LSU. I also created a custom colored stand to highlight these schools. While these figures are basically fun and easily assembled, they have raised several thousands of dollars total for public education over the last four years. While this takes me a bit of time to research, prepare, and create these figures, it gives the school a very unique set of items for the school auctions. With the information I share here, I encourage you to learn this one thing if you take nothing else away from this article: take your talents, create, and help others.
Year 4 figures.
Come back next issue for more Minifigure Customization!
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 available now at www.twomorrows.com)
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Community
Art and Design: Sunrise Concepts Painted Over Model of Gotham City
Rob Coleman: Bringing The LEGO Batman Movie to Life! Article by Joe Meno
Rob Coleman served as the Animation Supervisor on The LEGO Batman Movie at Animal Logic. Before that, he worked at Industrial Light and Magic and Lucasfilm Animation for 14 years doing visual effects for Dragonheart and the Star Wars prequels and Men in Black. For The LEGO Batman Movie, he was responsible for the animation staff. You could regard this movie as one big computer art effect, and Rob was the one that kept the art running. BrickJournal talked to him by phone about the movie and LEGO. It’s not too often that an interviewee is as candid and informative as Rob was, so this talk (in the space of 45 minutes) was not only educational, but also fun! Unfortunately, this also meant that the interview is longer than the pages assigned to it in the magazine, so it was split. This is one of the interviews, but both can be read separately. The interview series was by editor Joe Meno, who was interested in not only how The LEGO Batman Movie was made, but also Rob and his staffs’ contributions. Most of his answers can only be described as enthusiastic geeking punctuated by laughter. It turns out that when I was contacted and told who I was going to interview, I wasn’t familiar with Rob Coleman at all. This led to a slightly awkward beginning to my talk when I explained this to him. Rob’s question was, “All right, so what did you find out?” “I found out that you are an Animation Supervisor—” “That’s right!” he confirmed. I continued and went straight to the interview: “—which is pretty cool. You also worked on The LEGO Movie, so my first question would be: Were there any big differences between the movies?” Rob’s answer was the first of many extensive and fascinating responses:
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Yes, there actually were. In The LEGO Movie, the challenges initially were and the concerns from the studio were: would the audience
engage with and believe in little LEGO characters coming to life? Would we feel empathy for them? Would we go on the journey with Emmett? A lot of our concerns and work was in the facial animation. We were pretty sure early on that the frenetic action and the big set pieces, as we call them, from the big action scenes played really well, but we were worried about the emotional throughline of the film. After The LEGO Movie, we realized that the human audiences are very happy to project themselves onto the characters and they do feel empathy… even for little characters that have a couple of black dots for eyes and a little stroke of black for the mouth! They were very happy to go along with Emmett and feel for him when he found out that his crew of creative coworkers didn’t really remember who he was or didn’t think he was a criminal mastermind. So when it came to making The LEGO Batman Movie, we had established the style of animation, what I call ‘emulated stop-motion’ because we’re trying to make it look like we’re animating real LEGO bricks, but we’re all doing it in computer animation. So, I think stylistically, we knew what we were doing, but we knew that Batman came with 75 years of history and had a huge fanbase out there. Rob then continued by focusing on one aspect of Batman’s story: his city, Gotham City. The LEGO Batman Movie started out with the writers, the director, and the production designer trying to capture Gotham City, which is really a character onto itself, in LEGO. We built Bricksburg for The LEGO Movie, which was pretty awesome when we looked at it, and we could fly around it in the computer and look at all the buildings. It was pretty
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Art and Design: Concepts Painted Over Model of Gotham City.
impressive. But Gotham City was on a completely different scale. It was just massive. It was huge, and Grant Freckelton, Production Designer, and the Art Director Vivienne To, did such a beautiful job creating Gotham. I just wanted to drive down those streets and put the cameras on the corners so we could see the big avenues of Gotham and Gotham Circle. Wayne Manor is massive—I just saw the Batman and Bruce Wayne video tour of Wayne Manor called ‘Gotham Cribs’. I’m so glad that’s out there because it showcases areas of Wayne Manor that you only get a fleeting glimpse of in the film. And now in this mini tour, Batman and Bruce Wayne showcase all the amazing work that the modeling and surfacing team and lighting teams did to create that huge building. And that doesn’t even include the Batcave, which is just enormous. That’s the size of an average bedroom—if you’re a minifig standing on your own bed, that’s how it would be if you built it in real LEGO. This led, of course, to me asking about the scale of Gotham City. Rob answered: There was a massive level of detail. They would rough in the buildings and as the script was being written, they were then picking locations that we would go to. For example, there is a big heist that happens at the energy facility, so that was detailed out and we needed to be able to be anywhere in the energy facility during the big epic fight with Batman against all the rogue villains. The Gotham Circle, which I talked about before, was incredibly detailed. In fact, I can’t wait for audiences to see the movie, but some of the shots go by so quickly, they’re not going to be able to pick up all the in-jokes and all the homages to the previous films in the posters. The detail in the posters and the street names and the store names are just amazing. It’s incredible.
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At that point, I decided to switch gears and asked him if he was a LEGO fan. Rob replied:
Yes I was, like many kids around the world at Christmas. Waiting for and asking Santa Claus for a big LEGO set for Christmas was kind of the highlight for me. I continued to play with LEGO through my teenage years when Technic sets came out, so I got into more technical things. I remember one Christmas I got an engine with moving pistons and everything and I got this amazing front loader that I loved. So early on, I had LEGO and I had, going back to The LEGO Movie, the spaceship with Benny and the whole bit. I think that came out in the early ’80s and I had that set, the space set, and I just loved it.” I added I am a LEGO fan, and watching these sets come to life in the movies, to a certain extent, has a ‘dream come true’ effect to it. Being able to actually go to that scale and see everything in that perspective is fascinating. I’m glad that computer animation allows us to do that because that is something I would love to do on the layouts I have seen, layouts I’ve done—to actually go in and experience it. After I explained, Rob concurred: We’re channeling exactly the emotion you’re describing there because to me and in talking to the animators, I was always trying to get them to tap into what we ended up referring to as ‘the joy of play.’ For fans of LEGO and people who play with LEGO, it’s just natural that we grab the little minifigs by the hip and have them walk across the tabletop or we pose them in a frozen moment of time. In our imagination, they are all alive. We are just seeing a single frame of their lives. In animation, obviously, we get to make them move, so it was trying to tap into what would a child or adult who loves playing with LEGO— how would they make a character move? Or a vehicle drive? Would it go up on its two wheels? When it stops, does the back end pop up? If it has suspension, what does it look like when the suspension compresses? That was all that we were focusing on in the Animation Department. But then paired with that was the incredible detail that the Surfacing Department put into it. You can look at our digital
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Art and Design Schematic: Part of Gotham City.
LEGO and it’s got scratches and fingerprints and dirt and grime and grunge to make it look like real—and I am going to say— loved LEGO, played-with, loved LEGO.
LEGO® minifigure Batman (voiced by WILL ARNETT) in the 3D computer animated adventure The LEGO® Batman Movie, from Warner Bros. Pictures and Ratpac-Dune Entertainment. A Warner Bros. Pictures release. BATMAN and all related characters and elements ™ & © DC Comics. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
We were never trying to produce pristine bricks just out of the pack. We wanted to say these bricks have been well-loved and played with and been in a box and get taken out and assembled and disassembled and made into different things. And because of the nature of playing with LEGO, they get little nicks and scratches and dirt and fingerprints. We wanted to put that into our computer animation so that when an audience watched it, they would believe that they were looking at their own LEGO on the screen. For me, this was wonderful to hear. As with The LEGO Movie, the wear on the bricks would make a hint that this was some incredible adventure that was conjured up by a child at play. On viewing the previews, though I did notice something neat and something somewhat odd and brought them up to Rob. The neat thing? Animal Logic’s animators did some animation of Batman’s cowl, so his eyebrows move. The odd thing? Batman is in a swimming pool with a dolphin—in real water! There was a laugh from Rob, and I finished by noting that when the Batwing flies over the water of Gotham Harbor, it’s not real water. Rob corrects me. None of it’s real water. You mean brick water. In the discussions about Gotham City was that the nature of the effects—we’re talking about water and fire and dust and steam and things in that type rein—there were all kinds of tests done early on. One of the iconic effects, I guess from the big American cities which were inspirations for Gotham (Chicago and New York), is in the winter time you see steam coming up from the manhole covers that are going down into the subway systems and sewers. I remember the Art Department doing a whole series of tests with the effects department on having brick versions of this steam, brick versions of rain or sleet coming down, and what they came to conclude was they never felt it should be one or the other, but rather to incorporate brick effects with naturalistic effects.
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What people loved in The LEGO Movie, was the ocean made of bricks and Metalbeard’s ship riding on a brick wave. With computer animation and some very smart effects people, we made a roiling ocean with cresting waves as LEGO bricks. For me that was such an amazing thing to do and I think doing the ocean in real water (in quotation marks), even though it’s computer graphics, wouldn’t have been as fun. But for LEGO Batman they wanted to separate Gotham from Bricksburg. They wanted to put more of these natural effects
in because—these are my words, not the production designers—the bricks in some cases became distracting. There’s no brick small enough to really produce believable rain or water effects, and so the decision was made to create computergenerated water, but there’s a place where you’re underwater and you see some penguins go in and they have little brick trails of bubbles coming up behind them, but they’re inside real water—you know, fake real water. They were trying to navigate a line, always trying to keep the audience engaged in the movie and believing the movie, not trying to pull them out. That’s one of the areas where there is a combination: Explosions that are all bricks, but you’ll see smoke that is naturalistic. You’ll see some brick water and you’ll see some real water.
Art and Design Schematic: Part of Gotham City.
I agreed with him because, for example, I would not have seen real fire as an appropriate choice because, for lack of a better term, it becomes a dangerous thing, as opposed to the LEGO flames. Rob exclaimed: Exactly! Exactly! And I don’t think LEGO themselves really wanted to see the bricks on fire, so we never went there with the real fire. We did put in some real smoke because brick smoke was actually obscuring part of what the director wanted the audience to see at that time, so you’ll see a brick explosion, and you’ll see behind that, or blended in with that, you’ll see naturalistic smoke. I remarked that making the call between naturalistic and LEGO effect must have made for an interesting discussion. He replied: It was an evolution, it was developed over a series of months really (a superhero movie done in bricks). I think the initial goal was to do absolutely everything in bricks, but then it didn’t have the grittiness of a Batman movie. That’s why they started looking at mists and steam and fog and smoke as naturalistic. Once they did that and you saw Gotham all beautifully made of bricks, then you would have naturalistic effects. You could build a tent around it and put in smoke and then take photographs of it to give it scale, which you couldn’t do in a real LEGO environment. You could also spritz, and this is what they did for reference—you would get a spritzer of water and you would spritz the bricks so you get little droplets of water, and they took photographs of that to look at scale because water has a certain little bead at a certain size. That size helps with scale because we are in that minifig level looking at the streets. Minifig scale and looking on the streets brings up another question about the color palette. The LEGO Movie had vivid colors to match the LEGO bricks, while The LEGO Batman Movie is a bit darker. I asked Rob about how they worked the color, and his response was: Well, once again the nature and the vocabulary of a Batman movie is quite dark. The concern from the studio was that they didn’t want to be too dark and therefore scare off the younger audience. The Art Director and Production Designer were sensitive to that, so we knew we wanted
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Color and lighting used to highlight Batman and his Batmobile.
Gotham to look dark and gritty, but we also have the opportunity, as you pointed out, with the color palette of LEGO bricks to have neon for signs, cars and vehicles, so the buildings and environments may be dark, but then you can accent it with color. You’ll see when you see the movie that the colors are quite saturated. You’ll see a darkness in it, but on all animated films they will do what is called a color script. They do a color swatch for every scene, so some scenes are lighter, some are darker, some are more blue, some are more purple, some are more green. If you took frames of the movie and put them to the size of a postage stamp, you don’t see the detail, but you do see the color, and if you took every scene or every shot in the movie and put it out, you’d see the color changes over the course of the movie.
LEGO® minifigures Robin (voiced by MICHAEL CERA) and Batman (voiced by WILL ARNETT) show their colors.
Obviously Joker comes with a huge green and purple palette with him. They knew they were going to have bright colors. All the villains are very, very bright and Batman is black and yellow. Robin is just super color—green and red and gold. So yeah, we are embracing the reality of creating the movie out of brick, and we do it because we love the bricks and we want to showcase them and use the full range. That was the artistic approach on that. Even with the film’s release just around the corner (this interview was done the week before the movie’s release), Animal Logic wasn’t finished with LEGO Batman. There have been some featurettes that have been released, such as the Batman Cribs short, where Batman and Bruce Wayne give a tour of Wayne Manor, and a look Behind the Bricks. These were done by Animal Logic, as Rob confirms: Marketing is a huge component of these films so we did marketing work throughout the production. There’s a big push as animation wrapped up on the film and the teams rolled right on to doing (and they’re still animating for) things that are going to come out in support of the film being released shortly. So there’s even more material that’s being worked on in the building. Batman has not left the house. But he has entered the theater. You can read the second part of this interview on BrickJournal.com. Many thanks to Warner Bros. and Animal Logic for arranging the interview, and Rob Coleman for taking time out to speak with me.
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FROM THE PRODUCERS OF BRICKJOURNAL:
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-BYSTEP INSTRUCTIONS by some of the top custom builders in the LEGO fan community. BOOK ONE offers instructions for custom creations including Miniland figures, a fire engine, a spacefighter (below), a tulip, a street vignette, plus miniscale models from “a galaxy far, far away,” and more! BOOK TWO has even more custom 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 teach you key building techniques of the pros! (Recommended for ages 8 and above)
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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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LEGO GAMING! IMAGINE RIGNEY’s Bioshock builds, NICK JENSEN’s characters and props from HALO and other video games, and GamerLUG member SIMON LIU builds LEGO versions of video game characters, spaceships and more! Plus: “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, MINDSTORMS robotics and more!
LEGO EDUCATION! See how schools and AFOLs can build with the new WeDo, FIRST LEGO LEAGUE’s 2016 season explored (with national competitions at LEGOLand California), and robotics builders the Seshan Brothers take LEGO MINDSTORMS to the next level! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!
OUT OF THIS WORLD LEGO! Spacethemed LEGO creations of LIA CHAN, 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Orion space plane by NICK DEAN, and Pre-Classic Space builder CHRIS GIDDENS! Plus: Orbit the LEGO community with JARED K. BURKS’ minifigure customizing, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics by DAMIEN KEE, and more!
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LEGO MECHA! How to build giant robots and mechs with builders BENJAMIN CHEH MING HANN and KELVIN LOW, and SETH HIGGINS shows us his amazing transforming LEGO robots! And even cyborgs love Minifig Customization by JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step "You Can Build It" instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art by BrickNerd TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons, and more!
LEGO DINOSAURS! Builder WILLIAM PUGH discusses building prehistoric creatures, a LEGO Jurassic World by DIEGO MAXIMINO PRIETO ALVAREZ, and dino bones by MATT SAILORS! Plus: Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, stepby-step "You Can Build It" instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art by BrickNerd TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons, and more!
LEGO COOL CARS AND HOT RODS! LEGO car builders STEPHAN SANDER, JORDANIAN FIRAS ABU-JABER, and ANDREA LATTANZIO! Plus: Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, AFOLs by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-by-step "You Can Build It" instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd Pop Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, 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!
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!
(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 #35
BRICKJOURNAL #34
BRICKJOURNAL #33
BRICKJOURNAL #32
BRICKJOURNAL #31
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
(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 #25
BRICKJOURNAL #24
BRICKJOURNAL #23
BRICKJOURNAL #22
BRICKJOURNAL #21
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!
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!
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 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!
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!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
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BRICKJOURNAL #15
BRICKJOURNAL #13
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!
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!
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
BRICKJOURNAL #12
BRICKJOURNAL #11
BRICKJOURNAL #10
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, MINIFIG CUSTOMIZATION by JARED K. BURKS, how a POWER MINERS model became one for ATLANTIS, building standards, and much more!
“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, MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION by JARED K. BURKS, MICRO BUILDING, builder spotlights, LEGO HISTORY, 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
BRICKJOURNAL #30
BRICKJOURNAL #29
BRICKJOURNAL #28
BRICKJOURNAL #27
BRICKJOURNAL #26
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
(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 #20
BRICKJOURNAL #19
BRICKJOURNAL #18
BRICKJOURNAL #17
BRICKJOURNAL #16
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!
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!
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 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!
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!
(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
TwoMorrows. BRICKJOURNAL #9
BRICKJOURNAL #7
BRICKJOURNAL #6
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!
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!
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!
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BRICKJOURNAL #5
Event report on the MINDSTORMS 10th ANNIVERSARY at LEGO HEADQUARTERS, Pixar’s ANGUS MACLANE on LEGO in film-making, a glimpse at the LEGO Group’s past with the DIRECTOR OF LEGO’S IDEA HOUSE, event reports, a look at how SEAN KENNEY’s LEGO creations ended up on NBC’S 30 ROCK television show, instructions and spotlights on builders, and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95
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Last Word And it’s the end of another issue of BrickJournal—many thanks to Anuradha Pehrson for working on the interviews with all the builders! I hope to see more at events and in this magazine. Also thanks to the people at the LEGO Group, Animal Logic, and Warner Brothers for their help with the article on Rob Coleman! By the time this magazine gets out, it will be very close to FIRST® LEGO League’s World Festival in Houston! I plan to be there to see the teams from around the world compete and also get to know each other. If you are in the Houston area, the event is free for the public, so drop by with your family and see some great robots and their builders, or find me—I should be wandering looking for stories, or by the LEGO MINDSTORMS booth. So, til next issue—where we are going back to see some trains and their builders!
A big comb for a little hair.
80
All characters TM & © their respective owners.
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