The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 60 • December 2019
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Flynn DeMarco’s Treasure of the Snake Queen Stacy Sterling’s LEGO® Haunted House
Building A Scene from Alien
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Issue 60 • December 2019
Contents
From the Editor....................................................2
People
Scaling a Mountain: Our Adventure Building Treasure of the Snake Queen........................3 Iain Heath: Building an ALIEN Moment.....................12 Stacy Sterling’s Haunted Dollhouse........16
Building Koen Van Der Biest: LEGO Sculptor................................................22 Building the New York City Skyline: One Skyscraper at a Time!........................28 Djordje Dobrosavljevic: Building Beasts!.............................................36 Minifigure Customization 101: Where in the World is..................................40 You Can Build It: MINI Ecto 1......................................................44 Leonid An’s Figure Builds.............................51
Community
Building to Heal: Amy Willis and TherapeuticLUG............54 Crazy Arms: Custom Poseable Arms for LEGO Minifigures..................................57 Jürgen Kropp: Celebrating Kennedy Space Center.....60 Presenting the Ultimate Skylab Set!.......64 Building the Man on the Moon................70 Building a Space Program: An Interview with Corvin Stichert........72 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 Bricks in the Middle........................................80
From the Editor: From Star Wars to, um... spooky places. Yeah, it’s a bit late. Halloween was a couple of months ago. But the magazine has a lead time of two months, and the covers have a lead time of six months! A lot can happen that is unseen... and this issue was the result of me reaching out to social media to figure out a theme.
December 2019 Issue 60 Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
Contributors: Leonid An, Richard Board, Jared Burks, Joseph Chambers, Christopher Deck, Djordje Dobrosavljevic, Flynn DeMarco, Iain Heath, Vaughn Himber, Jürgen Kropp, Chris Malloy, Deepak Shenoy, Stacy Sterling, Corvin Stichert, Holly Webster, Amy Willis, and Kevin Hinkle.
There’s a lot in this issue beyond the spooky. There’s some space stuff, and some architecture. There’s also an article on the healing power of building. It’s an interesting mix, and I hope that you enjoy reading through it! One article, though, did not make it—Holly Webster’s article will be in next issue. Also, due the ongoing trade dispute and tariffs on printing (which we hope will be resolved soon), we were forced to raise the cover price and subscription rates. But I have plenty of fun stuff planned for future issues, so I hope you’ll feel BrickJournal is still worth the small increase in price. Since this is the last issue of 2019, Happy Holidays, and I hope to see you in 2020!! Joe Meno, Editor P.S. Have ideas or comments? Drop me a line at brickjournal@gmail.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 www.twomorrows.com or scan below!
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Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
www.LUGNET.com, www.Brickshelf.com, www.peeron.com, www.brickmodder.net www.rustyclank.com
About the Cover: The Treasure of the Snake Queen is somewhere in this incredible layout. Photo provided by Flynn DeMarco. About the Contents: Two rockets point skyward from Jürgen Kropp’s Kennedy Space Center-inspired layout. Photo provided by Jürgen Kropp.
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 $67 Economy US, $79 Expedited US, $101 International, or $27 Digital Only and can be purchased at www.twomorrows.com or payment sent to: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. The editorial/advertising office address for BrickJournal is: BrickJournal Editor, 9001 Barb Anne Court, Springfield, VA 22152, USA or admin@brickjournal.com. First Printing. Printed in China. ISSN 1941-2347. BrickJournal and its staff would like to thank the LDraw community for the software it makes available to the community, which we use for making all of the instructions and renderings in this magazine. We would especially like to thank Kevin Clague for his continued upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
B
uilding a small MOC from scratch can be a daunting task. Building a MOC meant to be 4 ft. square and 4½ ft. tall is an entirely different level of daunting. Add storytelling, two EV3 brains, eight motors, eight sensors, an arduino microcontroller, lights and sound, and you have a recipe for either success or a mess. Fortunately, our experience was of the former, but there was certainly plenty of the latter along the way!
People
Act 1: Planning & Design Hot on the heels of our Best In Show and Public Choice wins for our first large MOC display, California Dreamin’ (featured in BrickJournal #50), we decided to go in a different direction for our next project. Where California Dreamin’ was wide and sprawling, we went for something tall and relatively narrow. One of the things people seemed to love about CD was the movement and the storytelling. We had small stories happening all through it for people to look at and discover. For this next project however, we thought it would be fun to tell one central story, a narrative that people could follow from beginning to end. We knew people would be walking by in a crowded convention situation and it needed to grab their attention, be short enough to take in quickly, and most importantly, be accessible enough to be understood by anyone watching, regardless of language. Being avid gamers, both video and tabletop, we both have a strong affinity for the fantasy genre. Dungeons & Dragons has been a part of both of our lives, together and separately, for years, so we figured that was a great jumping-off point—a classic adventure story that could be told visually. Once we had settled on that, we looked at the stories we loved and started picking out classic scenes that people would recognize. Like any good D&D adventure, it had to start in a village. The theme for Bricks by the Bay that year was animation and I was immediately struck by the movement meaning, but also the “cartoon” angle. In my head I was watching the cast of ScoobyDoo or the Flintstones running in the center of the screen while the same background scrolled behind them on
Scaling a Mountain: Our Adventure Building Treasure of the Snake Queen Article and Photography by Flynn DeMarco and Richard Board of TrickyBricks Additional Photos by Davin White 3
Inspiration and sketches are seen here, with rough layouts drawn out on paper. At the right is Maleficent’s castle from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, designed by Evyind Earle.
an infinite loop. What if our first scene was a classic D&D party of five (Barbarian, magic user, Dwarven fighter, thief, archer) passing through a village? The concept would be the minifigures moving in place while village buildings, which were built onto 9v train cars, would pass behind them. Once we had established that this was viable, the rest of it all sort of fell together. We would tell our story in six parts, each in a different location. Some of those locations were classic fantasy tropes: Bucolic village, spooky forest, haunted cave, gloomy crypt, and of course, the imposing castle of the titular Snake Queen. But how to move our figures through this epic adventure? When making California Dreamin’, we had experimented with a couple of small mechanics utilizing EV3 motors and sensors, including a moving shark and a bear that popped out of a cave. These were great, but we knew that we would need more than a few simple machines if we really wanted to impress. Even at this early stage, we knew four motors would not be enough to accomplish our many movement goals, so we purchased a second EV3, which gave us another four motors and four sensors to help meet our goals. We also quickly realized that each scene would need its own set of five figures in order for them to be visible in each section.
The interior of the layout, showing the conveyor belts in the center used to move the party of minifigures.
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Once the various scenes were settled on, Richard started working on mechanical prototypes, and we decided that conveyor belts would be our best method of movement for the bulk of the story. After some consideration, we felt that six scenes of conveyor belts would get boring quickly, so we opted to utilize turntables for the final two scenes of the story. During this phase we were also looking at source material for the castle. A simple internet search for “spooky castle” resulted in a lot of cool images, but the one we kept coming back to was Maleficent’s castle from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Designed by exceptional artist Eyvind Earle, it had everything we wanted, and we would return to his designs many times over the building process. We also made several drawings of our own to figure out the eventual layout of the full MOC. The entire initial design and concept phase took about a month, but we would end up changing and adding things in a more organic way throughout the building process.
Once upon a time, a band of adventurers went to find the Treasure of the Snake Queen.
They crossed creepy forests...
...and eerie crypts...
...and encountered a two-headed dragon...
...and spooky caverns...
...but they were not prepared for what they would find at the Snake Queen’s castle. Will the adventurers prevail?
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The Treasure of the Snake Queen tells its story vertically, starting at the bottom and going upwards to the top. Viewers are guided by motion through the story, from the village at the base to the final battle at the castle on the peak. Additional settings and decorations are placed at the sides to increase visual interest.
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Act 2: Building the Mechanics The castle battle at the top right was placed on a set of turntables, sketched out as seen at the top left. Above is the first turntable, which uses 1x1 round tiles in the ’banana’ gears as bearings for the second turntable seen in the center photo. The second turntable has an additional turntable for the adventurers to turn toward the Snake Queen.
The cantilever deck for the castle was initially sketched as seen here. Below is the layout showing the cantilevered level.
With all the researching and prototyping behind us, it was finally time to start building. We began by laying out the baseplates and the layout of the train tracks that would carry our village around. The initial footprint of the entire MOC was dictated entirely by the size of the train tracks. We opted for the smallest circle we could make, which covered an area that was four baseplates square. It came right up to the edges, so we knew we would eventually have to add some extra bits to the sides. Next up was constructing the three conveyor belts: Two on a diagonal and one that went horizontally across. We stacked them using a series of trusses made with Technic beams and lift arms. As with the train tracks, much of the final size of Snake Queen would be dictated by the size required for these various mechanics. For example, in order to pull off the effect of following our adventuring party through the story, each conveyor belt had to be a self-contained loop. This meant that for the times when the cast was not onstage, they would be hanging upside-down, hidden behind rock walls. It also meant that there not only needed to be headspace for the figures to go underneath, but that space had to be available on the ends of the belt as well. This resulted in some creative building in order to accommodate all that extra needed space. Once the belts were in place, we started working on a sturdy platform on the top that would be able to hold up an entire castle and its attendant inner workings. One of my big ideas was to have the final battle with the Snake Queen be in a round room that was only walled on one side. The entire room would then turn to reveal the scene taking place inside. This room would prove to be one of the biggest challenges of the project, and the mechanic we spent the most time perfecting. Not only did the room have to turn, we also needed to animate the final battle. To that end we eventually added a separate, smaller turntable into the center of the larger turntable. It turned independently of its larger brother, and eventually we would add yet a third turntable into the mix. This one had an axle that went through the base of the largest of the three, and was attached to the middle one with a chain. This allowed the large room to turn, stop, and then the middle and smaller ones could move together, but independent of the large one. If this all sounds confusing, imagine trying to make it actually function! It was 7 quite a feat for two people with our minimal engineering skills.
Each side of the layout had different settings to look at. One had a ‘light side’ with satyrs and forest animals. Above this setting, pegasi flew over the forest.
The tree was brilliantly colored to fit with the light side.
Act 3: Decorating With the mechanics all in place, our model looked something akin to a construction site—a tall rectangle containing mechanics and exposed beams. One of the things in the back of our minds the entire time was, “How are we going to make this organic and not end up looking like a three-sided box?” We had a smallish collection and knew that trying to build all the rock faces with slopes and bricks would be impossible, not to mention expensive. So, we started exploring ways to build Studs Out with large plates, decorated with slopes and other rocklike bricks. The solution would eventually come to us in the form of ball joints. These amazing pieces used most often in the Mixels sets would prove to be our saving grace. Angled plates could easily be joined together and moved and bent to enclose any unusual construction. Being a cake decorator, I was taught that the art of decorating a cake is, in part, the art of creatively covering up your mistakes. We really took this to heart during the decorating phase. Any holes left in the ball joint construction could be covered by bricks, or if it was really odd, slap another ball joint on it and angle another plate to cover the hole. This definitely resulted in some less than sturdy, but visually appealing, landscaping. During this whole process, we were constantly thinking about how the audience would be experiencing the model and its story. We knew people would be viewing the model from three sides, but the main story was only going to really be happening in the front. We wanted to give people who were approaching from the sides something to look at as well. We went with the Disney model for their many ride queues: Give the audience something to entertain them while they are waiting. This ended up serving us well in the end. At the conventions, the line to see the presentation could be quite long and people were constantly being entertained by checking out all the additional little stories we incorporated in to the left and right sides of the model. We decided on a “dark side” and “light side” approach to those side stories. The light side was home to two satyrs and their forest friends in a lush, brightly colored landscape filled with flowers, mushrooms, flying horses, and a big pink tree. The other side featured a much darker color palette and was populated by goblins, scorpions, spiders, bat-men and an octopus—all this against the backdrop of a skull that was built into the mountain’s face, vomiting a purple waterfall into the ghastly scene below.
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As with the dark and light sides, color palettes were key to keeping the whole thing from becoming a jumbled mess. We paid very close attention to where and how we placed colors to give the viewer a sense of direction and emotion. In keeping with our Sleeping Beauty inspiration, we built the castle in classic Disney villain colors: Black, green and purple. To keep the mountain itself from being a large mass of gray, we introduced additional color highlights that gave the impression of time. The light side had accents of tan, the middle had sand blue, and the dark side had dark tan and nougat. It was a subtle addition, but one that definitely had an effect on viewers, even if they didn’t realize it.
Act 4: Programming Phase We knew people would have the visual of following the adventurers up the mountain, but with so much vying for the audience’s attention, we really wanted to make sure they could follow the story easily. What better way to do that than to light up the areas while the action was happening so people would know where to look? Fortunately, during the construction phase, Richard had been busy installing a slew of LEDs all throughout the model to help with this. Being a theatrical lighting designer, he instinctively knew how to focus the audience’s attention on the action. Another thing we both felt strongly about was the addition of a soundtrack to the proceedings. For California Dreamin’, I made a playlist of California and beach classics and just played it on a loop while the show was running. This time I wanted something more tailored to the individual scenes. We wanted something that would provoke an emotional response, and also something people would recognize and remember fondly. We eventually landed on some selections from Peter and the Wolf for the main part of the story. Once our characters reached the top, though, the somewhat sweet tones of Prokofiev’s classic didn’t have quite the dramatic weight we were looking for. Night on Bald Mountain provided a great soundtrack for the fight with the dragon, but we needed something really over the top for the battle against the Snake Queen, so I went with the most dramatic piece of music I could think of, The Carmina Burana. We finally had all the pieces of the puzzle together, but now we needed them to all function together. I knew the programming of the EV3 would be pretty straightforward, but working out the timing of all the different sections ended up being quite difficult. Most of the issue sprang from making sure one set of characters was off-stage before the next set of characters came on, preserving the feeling that these were all the same cast. The big sticking point was figuring out how to run the lights and sound properly. Enter the Arduino microcontroller and our friend, Zonker Harris. Zonker is a
The ‘dark side’ of the layout was marked with darker colors and goblins and various creatures. Goblins!
Making a potion.
A closer look at the castle. The center chamber rotated to reveal the adventurers and the Snake Queen.
brilliant programmer and together we were able to come up with a program that allowed us to fade lights up and down in the different sections and play the soundtrack. The result was that the lights and sound were running on their own track while the two EV3s had their own paths. Fortunately for us, everything functioned the way it was supposed to about 98% of the time.
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The lower side of the castle was where the group encountered the dragon.
Here is a rundown of how it all worked. It all started with a button press which would start the train. (We utilized a special cable that allowed us to control the 9v train with the EV3.) A distance sensor attached to the Arduino would sense the train movement and start the lights and sound sequence. From here on, it was all the magic of EV3. Once the train made its loop, a touch sensor was triggered that started the two diagonal conveyor belts. They were connected by a chain and ran simultaneously, taking our characters through the forest and a slimy cave. A color sensor at the top of the second belt triggered the third belt, which carried the cast through the spooky crypt. From here, another color sensor started the second EV3s functions. This set off the motors for the Dragon and the adventurers. A distance sensor then triggered the final scene that encompassed another two motors: One for the aforementioned large room turntable, and one that controlled the battle between the Snake Queen and our heroes. One color sensor was used to tell the large room when to start and stop, and another was used to create the illusion that the Snake Queen turned into a skeleton, and eventually reset her to her original position so the whole sequence could start all over again.
Flynn adds the Snake Queen to the layout, while Richard watches.
Flynn moving in the parts of the layout.
Act 5: Transportation and Display As you can imagine, transporting something of this size brought its own challenges. With careful and constant measuring, we were able to ensure that the piece was modular (it came apart in five sections) and that each piece would be able to fit out the front door, and most importantly, into the back of our car! Once at the conventions in both Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, it was a long set-up ranging from 6-8 hours. All that work paid off with the audience’s reaction. I must admit to being quite taken aback by the response. We had to be on hand to start the show each time and had a great experience talking and interacting with people about it. Once the conventions were in full swing, I became carnival barker while Richard worked behind the scenes to keep things running. It was like working on a Disney ride! A crowd of about 30–50 people would arrive, cameras, phones and iPads at the ready to document the whole thing. We’d run the minute-and-a-half show for them and much to our surprise, they applauded every time. The crowd would leave and then the next 30–50 people would arrive for the show. We ran this way constantly for two days solid at each convention. At our best guess, we ran the show over 1000 times between the two. It was an exciting and fascinating experience. After a full weekend we were exhausted, but the final act was yet to happen. Between Bricks by the Bay and BricksLA, we ended up taking home a total of four trophies: Best in Show, Public Choice (x2), and Best Storytelling.
Curtain Call Once we were back home, we decided to run the whole thing one more time for friends who were not able to see it in action at the conventions. We held a small open house and gave it a good send-off, running it another 10–15 times for our guests. We knew teardown was inevitable, but we put it off as long as we could. I know the fact that we took apart a MOC that we spent six months working on is shocking to some people. Believe me, it was as sad and upsetting as it was joyous and cathartic. Treasure of the Snake Queen as a whole is gone now. We kept a few mementos to remind us of our journey. But for the most part, its elements have been returned to the bins from whence they came.
Gettinge ready to add the upper level.
Building a MOC is a lot like working in the theater, a place where Richard and I both got our starts. You put a show together, rehearsing your part for months, and then you put it in front of an audience to enjoy for a short time. Once the show is over, the costumes go back to the dressing room and the set is taken down and stored. It’s sad, but you take joy in knowing that those sets and costumes will soon return to the stage in a different form.
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People
<OPEN DISPLAY FILE> </file:DSC_987734> ........ <RECOVER DATA> ........ Revived from hypersleep, the crew of the Nostromo investigates a transmission from the moon LV-426. Discovering a derelict alien ship, Executive Officer Kane enters and finds a chamber with hundreds of objects that look like eggs. On closer examination, one of the eggs opens… -----**xxx------<DATA RECOVERY INCOMPLETE> -----------
Kane’s fatal mistake.
Iain Heath: Building An ALIEN Moment 12
Interview by Joe Meno Photos by Iain Heath
Iain Heath has been in the pages of BrickJournal before, featuring Bricks of Character, a LEGO fan theme he created with Tommy Wiliamson. Bricks of Character are models or creations based on characters (human or nonhuman) in movies and pop art. Iain’s character builds paved the way to the beginning of the theme, and this led to Bricks of Character premiering at BrickCon in Seattle, Washington. Iain built a scene from one of the classic sci-fi horror movies, Alien. In this vignette, a member of the ship Nostromo, Executive Officer Kane, becomes the first victim of the xenomorph. Here, Iain talks with BrickJournal about creating and photographing the scene. BrickJournal: What was the inspiration behind the model? Iain Heath: Alien is one of my favorite sci-fi movies. It literally redefined the genre both with its introduction of horror elements, and in its visual design—a wonderful juxtaposition of HR Giger’s organic alien elements against the very believable industrial look of all the technology. I knew the 40th anniversary of the movie’s release was coming in May. Then I discovered that the world premiere had been in my adopted home town of Seattle (at the Seattle International Film Festival). At that point I knew I just had to build something to commemorate this milestone!
Another view of the egg.
Reference photos for Iain’s layout, including spacesuit photos.
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In choosing the subject of the build, I followed my normal schtick and focused on the human characters in the movie, as to-date most LEGO builds inspired by the Alien franchise have focused on the aliens and vehicles.
Totoro (left) and Jabba (above), the sources for Iain’s sphere-derived construction.
I zeroed in very quickly on the iconic facehugger scene, as this represents the turning point of the movie, where it shifts from slow-paced 2001-style sci-fi to suspenseful horror. This is a moment that forever changed screen sci-fi, and has become a very recognizable image. I chose to portray the moment just before the alien hatches, rather than portraying it attached to the character’s face, as I wanted to capture the sense of anticipation that the scene invokes. How did you design and plan the build? Picking the scale was the first step. I usually determine that by deciding how I’m going to build the smallest element—often the eyes—and work up from there. But for this model the visor needed to look authentic, and there were limited parts that would work, so that became the starting point.
The layout in daylight.
Next I tracked down reference material for this scene: Stills from the movie, photos of resin models other people had made, and some great shots of the original spacesuit prop taken from multiple angles. The egg was straightforward, as I decided to adapt the same sphere building technique I used for my Totoro and Jabba builds. Dark tan can be a hard color to source parts for, and this technique only relies on simple plate elements. The character is built with articulated joints so that I could lock down the pose at the end, and sculpt the suit around the joints to cover the gaps. The base was also a vital part of the design, both to provide a place to lay out the egg’s tendrils, as well as providing a way to anchor the character in place (his feet are actually connected securely to it). How long did it take to complete? This was a solid 40-hour build, spread over a two-week period.
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What was the hardest part to build? The shoulder pads. They’re curved in multiple directions and trying to capture that at this scale (and incorporate
a ball joint) was tough. The helmet was also a challenge. Overall I had to make a lot of compromises as far as trying to capture every detail from the reference photos, and just focus on the overall look and feel. The photography for this model was also more challenging than usual. I wanted to capture the lighting of the original movie scene, which is dominated by Kane’s helmet lamp and a reflection from the blue laser light in his visor. My light source was a small flashlight, which I “light painted” around the model during a minutelong exposure. During that exposure I also had to shine a strip of blue LED lights at the model for about five seconds, to add the visor reflection. Who bought it? It was purchased by someone in Hollywood who works in the film industry and collects memorabilia specifically associated with the first Alien movie. He already has a LEGO xenomorph that’s about the same scale. We’ve also been discussing the possibility of me making him a 1:1 scale wearable LEGO facehugger!
Photographing the layout.
Although the model is constructed solidly enough to stand on its own, I did glue the entire thing before shipping it out. I always do this for models that I give to other people, so that they will last forever. The gluing process for this model took seven hours. Preparing the spacesuit for packing.
Securing the spacesuit to the base.
Preparing the model for packing. Building techniques to the egg and arms can be seen here.
Left: Inferno Squad under fire! Above: James Philippart.
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People
Stacy’s Haunted Dollhouse.
Stacy Sterling’s
Haunted Dollhouse Article by Stacy Sterling Photography by Chris Malloy
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In our house, it’s Halloween most of the year—spooky decorations, lots of black, skulls... you get the idea. Growing up, I was the kid who spent her summers eagerly accompanying Nancy Drew on her adventures and solving mysteries; watching episodes of the Addams Family and wishing that I could be Wednesday Addams; staying up late to watch episodes of Tales from the Crypt and scaring myself in the process. When I started building again as an adult, it would come as no surprise that many of my builds would be influenced by these things. One of my first truly ambitious builds as an adult was the Addams Family house. The goal was to recreate every detail on the interior as well as the exterior of the house, and then tuck it into our city layout and see just how many people would recognize it. The hours spent searching for photos of the interior so that I could get all the details just right was the most exciting part of the build for me… that is, until I realized that most people would never see the interior unless I was there to show them. It was disappointing to know that some of the best features of the house, and some of the most unique little creations, were ones that only I would ever see. That didn’t stop me from creating detailed interiors for all of my buildings, because that was something I loved doing, but it did make me think more about different ways to show off the interior of my creations. It wasn’t until I saw Heather “LEGOgirl” Braaten’s incredibly detailed dollhouse at BrickCon that I realized this would be the perfect way to show off the interiors of my buildings without having to take them apart floor-by-floor. Her builds were what inspired me to build my own version of a dollhouse that reflected my interests: Gothic and Second Empire Victorian-inspired architecture, and the macabre.
The build itself started with a table scrap, as many of my builds do. It was a window design that I had created and then set aside on my building table, hoping that someday it would spark an idea and find its way into a MOC. My building table is littered with these table scraps just waiting for the right MOC to be built around them, and most of the table scraps come to be as I’m sorting or parting out sets. I find that when I’m sorting I’m more likely to look at pieces from a different perspective—maybe I use the underside of the brick as a decorative feature on the exterior wall because the stud pattern looks like bas relief panel, or the thin Technic lift arms (3 x 3 L-shape with quarter ellipse) because they look like iron scrollwork on a balcony. I am able to see ways to use parts in a manner other than how they were intended
Window Dressing
The windows and doors of Stacy’s house are decorated with parts to accentuate the creepiness of the setting. A breakdown below shows that only a few parts are needed to haunt a house!
A look inside the house.
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to be used. As I sort, I set pieces aside and have amassed a pile of parts that will someday be incorporated into a table scrap which will then become part of a building. I’ll admit that the pile has become a bit like Smaug’s collection of hoarded treasures (just ask my husband, who is also an avid builder), but from that pile have come some amazing table scraps, including the window that was the starting point for the haunted dollhouse.
Fencing the House
Like the windows, the fences are simple and elegant building solutions. It takes just a few parts to evoke an iron fence built to keep people out... or keep something in.
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A side view, with a bride at the porch.
The details in the fence and plants can be seen below. But who is at the porch?
With the window design as the inspiration for the rest of the build, I started gathering the pieces to suit a creepy old house: A 48 x 48 grey baseplate; all the grey (old and new) I could find; windows and arches of different shapes and sizes; spiders, bats, Bat-a-Rangs from the Batman sets; skeleton legs, and anything else in black that I could use as accents for the exterior. Around the time that I started building, we received a variety of new parts, and in those I found a bag of Technic pin connectors with four clips. Typically, I set anything Technic aside, figuring that I have no use for it in my MOCs, but when I saw these, I knew exactly what I was going to use them for. Set in between two spears, they created a fantastic visual texture, and repeated along the front of the house, they became the perfect wrought iron fence. My other favorite decorative features of the exterior of the house are the window hoods with the Bat-aRangs, and the black skeleton legs as the cresting along the roofline. Both are items that add a nice, spooky touch, but without being too obvious.
A better look at the interior floors. The sides of the house show some disrepair, with vines covering some of the walls.
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The rooms of the house all have something weird in them.
To give the exterior of the house a truly haunted feel, I added the swamp and its inhabitants, trees and plants, and a few final resting places in the front yard. For good measure, a few jack-o-lanterns got added to the front porch around Halloween.
The front of the house.
The first floor of the interior of the house came together quickly with the living room, dining room, kitchen, and small music room. As I was adding the second floor, I realized that in order to see the detail within the rooms, I needed to add some lighting. So off came the second floor and in went the LifeLites to illuminate the space. The second floor was added with three bedrooms: One for the bat boy, one for the little girl and her carnivorous plants, and the last for the parents. The third floor contains a study, complete with a collection of artifacts that would make the Addams family proud. Originally, there were only six inhabitants of the house (one of which was the skeleton playing the organ in the music room); now there are nearly 20. The characters living in the house had to be just as unique as the exterior of the house, so many hours were spent digging through our collection of minifigs to find the ghouls, vampires, monsters, and other creatures that would reside in a haunted house. Being a Haunted Mansion fan, I included my own versions of such occupants as the Hatbox Ghost, Madame Leota, and Constance Hatchaway as residents of the household. There’s always room for one more.
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Originally intended as a Halloween MOC, it now has a prominent place in the reading nook at our home, so that it can be enjoyed year-round.
It’s GROOVY, baby! Follow-up to Mark Voger’s smash hit MONSTER MASH! All characters TM & © their respective owners.
From WOODSTOCK to THE BANANA SPLITS, from SGT. PEPPER to H.R. PUFNSTUF, from ALTAMONT to THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, GROOVY is a far-out trip to the era of lava lamps and love beads. This profusely illustrated HARDCOVER BOOK, in PSYCHEDELIC COLOR, features interviews with icons of grooviness such as PETER MAX, BRIAN WILSON, PETER FONDA, MELANIE, DAVID CASSIDY, members of the JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, CREAM, THE DOORS, THE COWSILLS and VANILLA FUDGE; and cast members of groovy TV shows like THE MONKEES, LAUGH-IN and THE BRADY BUNCH. GROOVY revisits the era’s ROCK FESTIVALS, MOVIES, ART—even COMICS and CARTOONS, from the 1968 ‘mod’ WONDER WOMAN to R. CRUMB. A color-saturated pop-culture history written and designed by MARK VOGER (author of the acclaimed book MONSTER MASH), GROOVY is one trip that doesn’t require dangerous chemicals! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 • Digital Edition: $13.95 • ISBN: 9781605490809 Diamond Comic Distributors Order Code: JUL172227
LOU SCHEIMER
CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION Hailed as one of the fathers of Saturday morning television, LOU SCHEIMER was the co-founder of FILMATION STUDIOS, which for over 25 years provided animated excitement for TV and film. Always at the forefront, Scheimer’s company created the first DC cartoons with SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and AQUAMAN, ruled the song charts with THE ARCHIES, kept Trekkie hope alive with the Emmy-winning STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES, taught morals with FAT ALBERT AND THE COSBY KIDS, and swung into high adventure with TARZAN, THE LONE RANGER, ZORRO, HE-MAN, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, live-action shows SHAZAM!, THE SECRETS OF ISIS, JASON OF STAR COMMAND and others. Now, LOU SCHEIMER tells the entire story to bestselling author (and RETROFAN columnist) ANDY MANGELS, including how his father decked ADOLF HITLER, memories of the comics of the Golden Age, schooling with ANDY WARHOL, and what it meant to lead the last all-American animation company through nearly thirty years of innovation and fun! Profusely illustrated with PHOTOS, MODEL SHEETS, STORYBOARDS, PRESENTATION ART, looks at RARE AND UNPRODUCED SERIES, and more—plus stories from TOP ANIMATION INSIDERS about Scheimer and the story behind Filmation’s stories!
By RetroFan’s ANDY MANGELS!
(288-page trade paperback with COLOR) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $14.95 • ISBN: 9781605490441 Diamond Comic Distributors Order Code: JUL121245
HERO-A-GO-GO! All characters TM & © their respective owners.
Welcome to the CAMP AGE, when spies liked their wars cold and their women warm, good guys beat bad guys with a pun and a punch, and Batman shook a mean cape. HERO-A-GO-GO celebrates the camp craze of the Swinging Sixties, when just about everyone—the teens of Riverdale, an ant and a squirrel, even the President of the United States—was a super-hero or a secret agent. BACK ISSUE magazine and former DC Comics editor MICHAEL EURY takes you through that coolest cultural phenomenon with this all-new collection of nostalgic essays, histories, and theme song lyrics of classic 1960s characters like CAPTAIN ACTION, HERBIE THE FAT FURY, CAPTAIN NICE, ATOM ANT, SCOOTER, ACG’s NEMESIS, DELL’S SUPER-FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, the “Split!” CAPTAIN MARVEL, and others! Featuring interviews with BILL MUMY (Lost in Space), BOB HOLIDAY (It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman), RALPH BAKSHI (The Mighty Heroes, Spider-Man), DEAN TORRENCE (Jan and Dean Meet Batman), RAMONA FRADON (Metamorpho), DICK DeBARTOLO (Captain Klutz), TONY TALLARICO (The Great Society Comic Book), VINCE GARGIULO (Palisades Park historian), JOE SINNOTT (The Beatles comic book), JOSE DELBO (The Monkees comic book), & more! (272-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $36.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.95 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-073-1 Diamond Comic Distributors Order Code: JAN172100
TwoMorrows. The Future of Pop History.
TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
By M EURY ICHAEL , edito r of
Phone: 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com Web: www.twomorrows.com
Building
Koen Van Der Biest: LEGO Sculptor! Article and Photography by Koen Van Der Biest
European comic character Asterix.
Koen Van Der Biest is a builder that lives in the town of Mol, Belgium. He works as a supervisor in a company that produces pharmaceutical products, and in his off time builds large-scale LEGO figures. BrickJournal talked to him about his sculptures. BrickJournal: How long have you been building? Koen Van Der Biest: From the moment I got my first LEGO set somewhere around 1983—set 3654, a small Fabuland ‘country cottage.’ Interesting fact: I still use that first Fabuland figure—Lisa Lamb—as my avatar. I don’t remember it that well, but it must have been love at first sight because after that, all I wanted was more Fabuland, and when I got older I wanted more LEGO. What I love about the boxes in that period, and miss about the current boxes, are the alternate builds depicted on the back and on the sides of the boxes, for which there were no instructions. It was a challenge trying to build them, and I truly believe that’s where my insight of how to build with LEGO came from. It forces you to convert something you see into LEGO, not just follow some step-by-step instructions. When growing up, my focus shifted more towards Technic. That was the result of a memorable moment when I got a Technic tractor (set 8849) for my birthday! My favorite vehicle and favorite toy combined—wow! Needless to say I made a lot of farm equipment as a kid. Take note that I did not make any sculptures in my youth. Those came much later. I vaguely remember trying to build a cow and a lion, but without success. Did you have a Dark Age? If so, what got you out of it? Yes, as many AFOLs do, I too went to the infamous Dark Age. My interest in LEGO faded away during the college years, and disappeared during my high school days. I’m sure that sounds familiar to many AFOLs. It was only when I started working and got the cash I didn’t have as a kid, that I got back into LEGO. What got me out of it were two things: Number one was set 8455—a Technic backhoe. I hesitated before buying it because it was studless and I was more a Technic bricks guy (I still am today), but hey, it was a tractor! And it had ten pneumatic cylinders! Number two was the discovery of Bricklink. I am 100% sure that without Bricklink, I wouldn’t be here today talking to you. Suddenly a whole new world opened up, with only money as a limitation. The first thing I did on Bricklink was orderer parts I lacked during my childhood. I believe my first order was for Technic caterpillar tracks... finally, after all these years, I could make an excavator! And just like that, the little boy in me was back. What is your favorite theme? Of all-time, I choose Fabuland for nostalgic reasons. That’s where it all started for me. I like the bright colors of it, I like the Fabuland figures. I like them so much I am currently designing upscaled versions of those figures in a 6:1 scale. And I have even bigger plans with that project but it’s still a work in progress, so I will leave that as a surprise.
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When we are talking about the current themes, I prefer the creator series because that’s what LEGO is all about, in my opinion. It promotes building alternate things, it has useful parts, it’s not as expensive as licensed products, and the focus is not on the minifigures. (I’m probably the only
AFOL that does not care about minifigures at all (although I do make upscaled versions of them... am I weird?). Anyhow, Creator is not for building a model that sits on a shelf for years and years. It’s designed to put in a big pile and start building away! What inspired you to build large sculptures? When I got out of my Dark Ages, I kind of continued where I left off, building cranes, tractors, trucks in a mixed Technic/model-team style—the difference being that I had more parts now, and more access to pictures and blueprints. The interest in sculptures sparked when I stumbled upon the site of Eric Harshbarger. (http://www.ericharshbarger.org/LEGO/) Wow! How did he do that? I was so impressed with his work. It was so different than anything I saw before. So I started to try it myself. First I made an Easter bunny, then a nativity scene. They were nowhere near as good as Eric’s models, but I was hooked. What I also found interesting was that building large sculptures out of basic bricks was something that not a lot of people were doing. When I entered our local LUG (BeLUG) in 2007, I was a bit of an outsider. I didn’t do trains, I didn’t do minifigures, I did sculptures... say what? But I got similar reactions from the public like I had when seeing Eric’s work at first... “Wow! How do you do this?”
Dopey, one of Walt Disney’s Seven Dwarves. Garfield.
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The box unopened.
Fabuland maxifigures. Lisa Lamb.
That flattered me, made me realize my sculptures were somewhat special, and made me go almost into full sculpture mode. Where in the beginning I made all sorts of sculptures— statues, abstract, busts—now my focus is mainly on popular figures from gaming/Disney/TV/etc. That has everything to do with showing my work to the public. For instance: Instead of people just taking pictures of my sculptures, they often take selfies with them, or let kids pose beside their favorite character. That’s something that does not really happen with a train display, and I liked that. So now I design figures that I know will be popular with the spectators. How do you design a model? When I made my first sculptures, I was building by ‘feel’ and just went from bottom to top, with some pictures or drawing as guidelines. While that gave some results, it wasn’t at all what I wanted. I quickly realized it would be better to take a more professional approach. So I started fooling around with LEGO CAD software, more specifically LDraw and MLCad. What I did was search for pictures of something I wanted to make, or make pictures from a figurine myself—ideally a picture of the front, back, left, and right. Then I put a LEGO grid over said pictures, draw the outline into MLCad, and start extrapolating the corners. The advantage of building in MLCad is that you have the correct dimensions and you can correct mistakes instantly without rebuilding everything. That gave better results, but still I felt it could be better.
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So I ventured into the 3-D modelling world and I can tell you... once you start doing it this way, you ain’t going back
to doing it manually. It might take away a bit of the ‘magic’ because the computer does a lot of the hard work, but the results speak for themselves. Basically what you do is you make a computer 3-D mesh, slice it into layers, and every layer becomes a layer of bricks/plates. That’s the easy explanation; the reality is much more complicated. There is no magic program that does everything for you; there’s still a lot of manual work and planning involved. Where can we see these? If you want to see them in person, your best chance is visiting one of BeLUG’s “Brickmania” expositions in Belgium. If you can’t make it to Belgium, you can find pictures on my flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/61911005@N03/albums You can still find some of my older work on my Brickshelf folder: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=Fragty Which model are you most proud of? I actually gave this a lot of thought; I honestly can’t pinpoint one particular sculpture. But the ones I’m most proud of are the sculptures I made before I used 3-D modelling. I’m thinking about my Garfield sculpture, my Asterix sculpture, and of course, my avatar: The Fabuland Lisa Lamb maxifigure. All of those were made with the grid-onpictures method.
More Fabuland maxifigures.
Inspector Dogge.
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That might sound weird, because the computer generated models are much better looking, but that feeling of “I made this” is just special to me. Which was the hardest to build? When we talk about sculptures: Bowser. From the beginning I knew how I wanted to approach this model—I wanted the spiked bracelets four bricks wide, made of hinge bricks. I wanted to incorporate them into the sculpture on an angle, while the rest of the sculpture remained studs-up. Well, it was a lot harder than I anticipated. It uses a Technic structure on the inside to support those bracelets, and to get everything right was mind-boggling at times. Then I also wanted the teeth to be angled, and the hands to be rotated... yeah, I sure didn’t make it easy on myself.
Rainbow Dash, from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Secondly the scale: Because of the four-wide bracelets, I scaled the rest so it would fit those. It soon got clear that it would be much bigger than I predicted. A bit too big actually; I’d never built such a bulky sculpture before. But something inside me said, “Let’s just do it, let’s go crazy!” Now I am glad I did; it looks wonderful. It isn’t the easiest sculpture to transport, but it does get some of the most ‘wooahs’ from the public. But I have to mention another build here: The Atomium, the famous Belgian landmark, which I made before I went into sculptures. It looks easy on the outside, but I had such a hard time with the angles of all the beams and balls, and especially the Technic structure that supports it on the inside. It was mentally certainly the most
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frustrating to build, to the point of almost giving up. But I didn’t, and to pull it off makes it very satisfying. Do you have any advice for beginning builders? Actually, you wouldn’t believe how many times I get asked, “How do you even begin on such a sculpture?” and the answer I always give is: Just begin! Just try it! A good exercise for understanding LEGO sculpting is trying to build a sphere with basic bricks. Sure, the first attempt will be some kind of pyramidal cube, but after a while you’ll get the hang of it. Proportions are important, that’s why having a figurine at your disposal is an advantage. If not, use as many pictures as possible. Try the LEGO grid method which I talked about before; it gives great results. Of course, if you want to take it seriously, my advice is to take a similar approach like the professionals: Go 3-D. It’s how the LEGO modellers do it, it’s how the certified professionals do it, it’s how I do it. The program LSculpt is a great way to start. It’s free to use and converts 3-D models into LEGO bricks. Use it in combination with the various LEGO software you find on the internet: LDraw, LDD, LDView, Stud.io.... choose the ones that best fit you. It will take some learning, but you will be amazed with the results! But in the end, my advice will always be: Build whatever you want! Bowser, from the Mario series of videogames. The Atomium.
Building
Deepak’s skyline: The Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Hearst Tower, 70 Pine Street, and 40 Wall Street.
Building the New York City Skyline:
One Skyscraper at a Time! Article and Photography by Deepak Shenoy
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Skyscrapers have held a great fascination for me ever since I was a child growing up in India. Back then I had never seen any skyscrapers in real life, but I couldn’t help being awestruck by the few pictures I had come across of skyscrapers in cities like New York and Chicago. It just blew my mind to think of buildings that could rise a hundred stories or more into the sky. Little did I know then, that it was only a matter of time before I would find myself living in the US, not too far from New York—the one city that is most synonymous with skyscrapers. Over the 25 years that I have now lived in the US, I have visited New York numerous times, but my fascination with skyscrapers has not waned one bit. In fact, to this day when I visit New York, I still marvel at the skyscrapers there with wide-eyed wonder—as if I am seeing them for the first time. Going from being just a skyscraper enthusiast to actually building models of them using thousands of LEGO pieces was still quite a leap to make—especially for someone who never played with LEGO as a child. While I had been vaguely familiar with LEGO as an adult living in the US, I never had a chance to get my hands on any actual bricks until my daughter received a LEGO Creative Bucket as a birthday gift. As I helped her put together simple models using the instructions that came with the set, I became quite impressed by the quality of this so-called children’s toy. The plastic bricks were built to remarkably tight tolerances and fit together with just the right amount of friction. The beauty of this toy was that it was endlessly reconfigurable, and the only thing limiting you was your imagination. It wasn’t long before my daughter grew tired of building the same animals and vehicles over and over again and was ready to move on to something bigger and more original. She suggested that we try creating a “really tall building” with LEGO. That was just the “a-ha” moment I needed to realize that I could use LEGO as a medium to create my own versions of the skyscrapers that I had long admired. The first skyscraper that came to mind was the Empire State Building and I started wondering what it would take to create a version of it using LEGO.
Showing off the skyline at Brickfair Virginia 2019.
A little bit of digging on the internet opened my eyes to a lot of things that I had been completely oblivious to: The large worldwide community of adult fans of LEGO (aka AFOLs), the wide and impressive array of LEGO creations (aka MOCs) out there that I could take inspiration from, and of course Bricklink—a site I could use to order all the LEGO pieces I needed. It also became apparent that I was far from the first person to think about building a LEGO version of the Empire State Building. In fact, I was a little surprised by the sheer number of different versions already out there—everything from small and simplistic (like the LEGO official set 21002) to a massive 25-foot tall model that was once displayed in the Toys ’R’ Us store in Times Square, New York. Out of all these versions, the one that caught my eye was the model built by Sean Kenney (which had been displayed in the gift shop at the top of the actual Empire State Building). It seemed to hit the sweet spot in terms of scale—it was big enough to be able to capture most of the relevant details from the real building, and yet it was not so big that it would be too unwieldy or costly to build. If I was going to build my own version of the Empire State Building, I didn’t want it to be simply a copy of Sean Kenney’s model. I wanted to start with the dimensions of the actual building and figure out for myself how these dimensions would map to LEGO. I was excited by the prospect of being able to design and build something that would be my own unique creation. And while the roles had sort of reversed (now it would be my daughter helping me with my builds, instead of the other way around), this hobby would still give me the opportunity to spend a lot of quality time with her, and that was like the icing on the cake. Needless to say, after diving headlong into this hobby with my first MOC (the Empire State Building) a little over two years ago, I have continued to build models of some of the other skyscrapers that make up New York’s skyline (the five models I have completed so far have used a total of over 85,000 LEGO pieces!).
Deepak Shenoy.
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Empire State Building
Deepak’s tower is accented by the fins that line the sides. The fins were built separately, then placed on studs on the base.
The Empire State Building was an obvious choice for my first skyscraper model. I couldn’t think of any other building that is more famous or iconic. This building had won the much publicized “race into the sky” during the skyscraper boom of the early 1930s and remained the tallest building in the world for nearly 40 years. Its place in history and popular culture is unmatched by any other skyscraper. Now, the Empire State Building doesn’t just rise vertically upwards— it does so with a series of setbacks (the higher it rises, the narrower it becomes). In fact, this distinctive tapered shape became one of the distinguishing features of the Art Deco skyscrapers built during the early 1930s (it was designed to comply with the zoning regulations that were in effect back then). The LEGO model would have to be designed in sections based on where the setbacks were located. I decided to use an old-fashioned design approach by creating sketches on graph paper using a pencil. I converted the dimensions of the real building (measured using Google Earth) to the correct number of LEGO studs based on the scale I had chosen (with each grid unit on the graph paper representing one stud). When I had a sketch showing a view from the top of all the different sections overlaid on each other, that was just the blueprint I needed to start building my first LEGO model. I ended up making all the walls two studs deep and the entire structure was hollow for the most part—except in the lower sections where I needed to build inner walls to provide support for the sections that were immediately above them. I also used tiles to create seams between the sections so that they could be taken apart easily for transportation.
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When the model was finally completed, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. Over a short period of a few months I had gone from being a complete LEGO novice to having a MOC under my belt that was built using several thousand LEGO pieces!
The Empire State Building was just one of several iconic skyscrapers built during New York’s Art Deco era (in the early 1930s). I was really drawn to the skyscrapers built during this period and wanted to continue building models of some of the other skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building, 40 Wall Street, 70 Pine Street, etc. Although all these skyscrapers nominally belonged to the same architectural style, they could not be any more different from each other, and I was convinced that building a LEGO model of each one would come with its own unique set of challenges.
Chrysler Building The Chrysler Building had briefly been the tallest building in the world until it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. It had then remained the second tallest building in the world until the late 1960s. This building is known for its highly ornate exterior. Black or gray bricks alternate with white bricks to create stripes and other patterns that adorn the middle and upper sections of the building. Metal ornaments also protrude from the building’s corners at various levels, recalling the hood ornaments that were used on Chrysler cars. However, the most recognizable feature of the Chrysler Building is its famous stainless-steel crown made up of terraced arches that taper upwards and culminate in a spire. As I started working on a LEGO model of this building, I realized that it didn’t matter how well the rest of the model turned out if the crown wasn’t convincing. I ended up making freehand sketches of the crown (to roughly the right scale) on LEGO graph paper (which has a grid showing the correct proportions of LEGO bricks and plates from a side view). These sketches helped me figure out what curved slope pieces could be used to approximate the curvature of each of the arches and how all these different pieces could be joined together (using elements like brackets and bricks with studs on their sides) without leaving any gaps. Once I had the design of the crown figured out, it didn’t take long for the rest of the model to come together. As challenging as the crown of the Chrysler turned out to be, it helped me grow as a LEGO builder and pick up some SNOT (studs-not-on-top) skills along the way. The midsection of the Chrysler Building.
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The roof of the Chrysler Building is made with a set of overlapping panels that were placed over an inner stack of bricks.
The panels have a core of bricks and plates that are attached to side panels built sideways. This was done to achieve the rounded edges.
40 Wall Street 40 Wall Street also had a brief stint as the tallest building in the world back in 1930 before the Chrysler had snatched the title away with the last-minute addition of its crown. Just like the crown of the Chrysler Building, the neo-Gothic inspired green pyramidal crown of 40 Wall Street is one of the most instantly recognizable elements of the New York skyline. The success of the whole model would depend on how well I could reproduce this crown using LEGO. None of the designs I could think of (with bricks or plates stacked the normal way) was particularly convincing. As I scoured the internet looking for ideas for doing pyramidal roofs using LEGO, I noticed that the official LEGO Louvre set (21024) had used plates turned on their side and mounted on hinges to build the famous glass pyramid outside the Louvre. Building the crown of 40 Wall Street using a similar technique would also allow me to represent all the narrow windows in it accurately. Once again, it took quite a bit of experimentation and some tricky SNOT work to finally get the crown of 40 Wall Street to look close enough to the real thing. The rest of the build wasn’t particularly challenging except for the fact that the footprint of 40 Wall Street as well as its overall shape is very asymmetrical. This is not surprising given that the building was constructed on an odd-shaped lot that was cobbled together from several smaller lots. I ended up having to use Google Earth extensively to study the building from all angles to ensure that my model would represent the actual building as accurately as possible.
The panels are built in two halves that are attached in the middle with studs facing to the left and right. This is the right side broken down.
The roof is made of four panels that are attached by hinges to the building sides. These ‘petals’ rest on the top of a inner brick core.
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70 Pine Street One skyscraper I was intrigued by (especially when I imagined it in LEGO form) was 70 Pine Street. This had been the third tallest building in the world (as well as the tallest building in Lower Manhattan) until the late 1960s. With its complex scheme of setbacks and a white-accented crown intended to recreate the look of a snow-capped mountain, this building almost felt like a puzzle that was waiting to be solved. In fact, it ended up being the most challenging build that I have done so far. I had to go through several iterations of sketches before I could find the right scale that would allow me to accurately represent the floor and window count and to do justice to the intricate shape of this building. With all the different setbacks this building has at different levels, I ended up with over 20 sections in the final model (compared to the 6-7 sections that make up each of my other models). The “snow-capped” peak of 70 Pine Street was especially tricky to design since it involved mixing tan and white pieces usually within the same layer, in a part of the model that had to taper through a series of setbacks. While I was quite pleased with how the model turned out, I was a little disappointed that I had to use tan pieces for the exterior of the building (dark tan was another option but it was cost-prohibitive) instead of something closer to the dark brown color of the real building (the LEGO color palette is very limited as far as shades of brown are concerned—hopefully this will be addressed in the near future).
The tower of 70 Pine Street.
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Hearst Tower The Hearst Tower is one of the most unique skyscrapers in New York. It represents quite literally the transition of skyscraper architecture from the Art Deco buildings of the past with highly ornamented facades built of brick and stone, to the sleek towers of today with extensive glass facades. This building has a six-story cast stone base that was built back in 1928, topped by a modern glass tower that was added almost 80 years later. The facade of the glass tower is made up of triangular panels that are arranged in a diagonal grid pattern that is indented at the corners, giving the building its unique undulating profile. While the Art Deco base of the building was familiar territory for me, I had never built models of any glass skyscrapers before. Exploring the different LEGO piece options I had available for doing the glass facade, I quickly ruled out using trans-blue bricks. I didn’t find the look that these created to be particularly convincing. Instead, I borrowed Sean Kenney’s technique from his Chicago International Tower to create walls with a layer of solid-colored bricks behind a layer of trans-clear bricks. Also, instead of using just blue for the inner wall, I added dark blue stripes at the floor boundaries to give the facade some visual texture. The building process did get a bit tedious given that the glass tower is made up of 216 triangular panels. I found it easier to build these separately on baseplates and then snap them into place (the 108 panels that taper downwards had to be built upside-down on the undersides of large plates). Just as with all my other models, the completed model of the Hearst Tower is as accurate a representation of the real building as the scale (and of course, the LEGO medium) would allow.
A closer look at the windows of Hearst Tower.
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Building
Djordje Dobrosavljevic is a builder who builds with mostly Bionicle parts, which means that he spends a lot of time creating organic builds that can look perfectly creepy. His latest model made the rounds online on Flickr (his Flickr name is djokson) and is featured here! He also took time out to talk about building and a few of his creations. BrickJournal: What do you do outside of building? Djordje Dobrosavljevic: I’m a translator by trade. My interests outside of LEGO also include animation and music and the three usually end up mixing with each other in some way or another! How long have you been building? LEGO’s been in my life in some form or another since I was a very small kid, so I’ve been building practically my whole life! I only really started posting online around 2013 though. What got you into figure building? I’ve always been a fan of LEGO’s action figure lines like Bionicle, so that had a great deal to do with it. I also really enjoy making expressive things that show emotion, and figure builds are the perfect medium for it. Describe your building process—do you sketch a model, or just build it? It depends on the build, really. Sometimes I’ll start with a solid concept in mind, maybe even make a sketch or two of it before I begin. What happens a lot more often, though, is that I’ll pick up a part and start messing with it, trying to see how I could use it in an interesting way. The rest of the build then follows from that. How long does it take to build a model? Again, it depends on the build, but I usually work pretty fast. I try to ride on the back of short bursts of inspiration and not linger on a particular build for too long. Of course, there are exceptions and sometimes I’ll have an unfinished thing sitting in a box for months, waiting for that spark of inspiration to come again. All three of the builds here are essentially my experimenting with metallic parts. I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with them because the parts that come in these colors are usually strange, hard-to-use shapes.
Halgvozd the Purifier in progress.
Djordje Dobrosavljevic:
Building Beasts! Article and Photography by Djorde Dobrosavljevik
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Gorilla Scorpio
Gorilla Scorpio was built for the Marchikoma event on Flickr, where builders come together every March and post creations inspired by the Tachikoma, also known as think tanks, from the Ghost in the Shell series. The designs of the Tachikoma are already pretty organic looking as far as robots go, but I wanted to take it a step further with this build. Taking cues from its namesake animals and various pieces of military equipment, the Gorilla Scorpio was supposed to evoke the look of a jungle fighter robot, both agile and tough. It also takes a good amount of inspiration from Metal Gear Solid 4’s biomechanical designs, namely the Gekko walkers and their synthetic musculature. The part I’m most pleased with is how the eye turned out—it gives the whole thing a creepy, inhuman look. Work in progress. Some views of the completed model.
Mecha Destrodon
The Mecha Destrodon is my love letter to Japanese Kaiju movies and Tokusatsu shows (think Godzilla or Power Rangers). The whole thing started with the mouth; it’s a design I had wanted to try out for a while by that time. From there the build progressed pretty quickly. I really wanted to achieve a sleek and muscular look with this one and all the big, weird constraction parts helped me a lot in giving it the organic shapes I was looking for. The character’s legs are what gave me the most trouble this time around. I tried out several variants of the design before settling for these. They may seem a bit undersized but I feel that they give the whole thing very dynamic proportions. The back of the model.
The model almost complete.
Working on the head.
Shooting a beam!
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Halgvozd the Purifier
Halgvozd the Purifier is actually my latest at the time of this writing. A couple of years ago I received a generous package from LEGO themselves for my participation in the Masterpiece Gallery fan model program they have going at the LEGO House. Among these was the gunmetal/titanium metallic macaroni shaped connectors used throughout the build. The ribbed texture was inspired by the works of H.R. Giger, conveying a look that is simultaneously both organic and industrial. The overall build and character owes a lot to Doom 2016 and its sequel with their hulking demonic biomechanical enemy designs. Initially I had a lot of problems standing the figure up, but after going back and redesigning some of the internal structure, I can safely say that it is both balanced and very solid. The flaming censer flail weapon he’s holding was a last-minute touch, but I feel that it really completes the figure. Overall I’m very pleased with how this one turned out; people seem to like it a lot!
Working on the body and back.
An alternate head crest. The completed model.
Adding an arm.
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Building Minifig Customization 101:
Where in the World is...
Article and Photography by Jared K. Burks
Article and Photography by Jared Burks As I have noted before, my inspiration for figures comes from my interests or my kids’ interests, but it is always best when our interests intersect. This article will focus on an element for a figure I am building from one of those occasions. For this article, I will not complete the figure, but hope to show the finished figure in a later article. Here, I will explain the processes where I created this figure’s signature element. With that said, cut to the theme song: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Carmen Sandiego before her current Netflix show.
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For those with Netflix and kids, you are likely aware of the show Carmen Sandiego. This is a rebooted/re-envisioned show from the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? game show. The game show was broadcast on PBS in the 1990s and won many awards. The ’90s show was a geographybased game show based on the computer game series that started in the ’80s. The game show also featured the acapella group, Rockapella, who sang the show’s theme song. That song is now likely stuck in your head if you are old enough to remember it; if you are not, check YouTube and it will be stuck in your head shortly thereafter: https://youtu.be/ozYg8vDTmkc
If you look at old school, nostalgic Carmen or new Netflix Carmen, she wears a similar outfit with some slight variants: A large brimmed hat and a trench coat. This article will focus on the construction of the hat. Her hat is the one item of her costume with the largest variance from the old show to the new show. The old show appears to be a simple Fedora (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/ catalogitem.page?P=61506#T=C), while the new style appears to be a larger brimmed style hat more similar to the one Cad Bane wears (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/ catalog/catalogitem.page?P=61507#T=C&C=120). This is one of the reasons I will not complete the figure at this time as I am still tweaking which hat and how I want it to look on the final figure, which translates to Classic Carmen or Netflix Carmen. This is where my interests and my kids’ interests digress, but this is strolling away from the point. On either Classic Carmen or Netflix Carmen, the next largest feature is her flowing curly hair below the hat. On Classic Carmen it’s black, and on Netflix Carmen it is dark red; either version is similar in style for a LEGO figure. The best option I can find is https://www.bricklink.com/v2/ catalog/catalogitem.page?P=20595#T=C. For this article we will merge these two elements, as it is no longer acceptable to merely place a hat on a figure’s head and be done; there should be hair below. LEGO has recognized this; merely look at the number of newer hats with attached hair. So how do we create a hairpiece that fits seamlessly under a hat? Remember the bottom of the hat is not a flat surface; it has a complex curve in multiple directions. To work on this, we need a few new tricks to come into play, and a little luck.
Carmen’s old (left) and new (right) outfit.
Hat and Hair.
I have previously covered in several articles how one can use LeoCAD (https://www.leocad.org/) to export LEGO parts as “Obj” files using the Export to Wavefront option. These exported Obj files once loaded into Autodesk’s Meshmixer (http://www.meshmixer.com/), will ultimately be used as “Stl” files for 3-D printer’s slicer program for printing. This would be great if you merely wanted to recreate a replica of an official LEGO part—not what I am interested in here at all. What I am after is the unionizing of two parts in pieces. This sounds odd, yes, but bear with me and I believe you will get the goal. This is one of the reasons I am not finished creating this figure. Sometimes challenges turn out harder than one envisioned, but the process is what is important, as that is where the learning occurs. Anyway, back to the plan, I now have 3-D models of the LEGO Fedora and Hair Female Long Tousled with Center Part (BL# 20595); what to do with them?
Exports.
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Boolean Operators.
Well, in my professional life, I use Boolean Logic operations all the time, and I bet most of you are familiar with the operations, if not the name for them. Boolean Logic is a form of algebra, which is centered on three simple words known as Boolean Operators: “Or,” “And,” and “Not.” At the heart of Boolean Logic is the idea that all values are either true or false. I now have two LEGO elements that fit on or around a LEGO head and I need the part of the Hair that is “Not” the part of the hair covered by the hat. Therefore, I need to apply Boolean logic to a merged element of the hair and the hat. This will result in only the lower portion of the hair (or any hair that may protrude higher than the top of the hat—a clean-up function can be done on any above). Once the hat has been cleaved from the hair, the resulting file will not print, as it is missing one of its sides, thus it has a hole in the model. From here you can use the make solid command. I always advise to use the Inspector command to verify there are no stray mesh issues, which will flat fill them in. Now that you have an obj model file of the under hair, you can scale this to size and print it out on your 3-D printer. I’m not going to cover this bit in the article, but I will tell you that the LeoCad models are not to scale from what I have found. It did take me multiple prints and measurements on those prints to cross correlate the printed size to the actual LEGO part. From my experience here, there was no way on such an irregular hairpiece to measure it beforehand and get a perfect print on the first try. Read this to mean trial and error is required, as it is with so many things in life.
Meshmixer figures.
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A 3-D print showing the scale divergence it has with the minifigure head. This is also printed in ABS.
I chose to print this in ABS; LEGO elements after all are also made of ABS, but also because I wanted to test out acetone vapor smoothing. This is where one surface melts the 3-D printed part to smooth out the print lines and make the part shinier. Acetone vapor smoothing does involve volatile acetone vapors and should be performed with care and consideration to these details. I found an old tomato soup jar with a solid air tight lid. I added a small folded paper towel in the bottom of the jar and just enough acetone to wet this paper towel. I then took a fish hook tied to a piece of monofilament and stuck the hook into a hidden region of the 3-D printed hair. I then placed the monofilament fishing line across the opening of the jar and closed it inside the jar, suspending it above the paper towels. As the vapors release from the paper towel, the jar fills with acetone, which in turn surface-smoothes the ABS printed part. Watch the part carefully and time the process. My part only needed about 25 minutes of smoothing as the part continues to smooth even after being removed from the jar. Please be careful with the smooth part as it is quite soft until all of the vapor escapes the surface of the 3-D printed element, which can take hours. During this period I left the part and the vapor jar open in a well ventilated area to allow the acetone to completely dissipate into the air. I only needed less than 1 ounce or ~ 20 mls of acetone because this was such a small part.
The finished diorama.
Fit – I raised the hat slightly to show the hair following the brim.
Here is the fun part; I only had light blue ABS filament, which is neither black nor dark red. This means a color change is in order. I plan on molding and casting this part using silicon rubber molds to create the final version of the part, which is beyond this effort. This use of a Boolean operator worked perfectly to create an exact union between hair and hat and could be reproduced with most any combination. So get creative—when it goes beyond a simple cut, there can be a creative way to join the two elements.
Vapor Smoothing.
Comparison.
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? (available now at www.twomorrows.com)
Come back next issue for more Minifigure Customization!
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You Can Build It MINI Build MINI Ecto-1
Design and Instructions by Christopher Deck If there’s something strange in your neighborhood… These are the beginning words of the famous Ghostbusters theme by Ray Parker Jr., the title song for the first Ghostbusters movie of the year 1984, and the beginning of the Ghostbusters era! Ghostbusters are still popular today, and even a couple of Ghostbusters LEGO sets were released during the last years: The original Ecto-1 (set 21108 from 2014), a newer version of it from the recent movie (set 75828 from 2016) and the Firehouse Headquarters (set 75827 from 2016), as well as several smaller sets of the Dimensions and BrickHeadz series. Our focus, however, lies on the original Ecto-1 emergency vehicle as introduced in the first movie 35 years ago. In this spooky issue of BrickJournal, we will construct a mini-model of the Ecto-1 containing more than 100 pieces, and featuring some creepy cool techniques. So let’s begin! The Ecto-1 is a long and sleek vehicle with elegant curves and shapes. Remarkable details are semiconcealed rear wheels, the large tailfins, and of course all the gadgets on the roof. One old piece, which appeared on the LEGO parts horizon one year after the release of the Ghostbusters movie, plays a key role in making this model a success: The 1x2 panel from 1985 (part 4865). It first allows us to shape the tailfins for the vehicle’s rear. In between the fins we place the rear window, and fortunately the 1x2 slope is now 44 finally available in trans-clear this year!
As there is no mudguard piece with closed sides in the parts catalogue—because it would be too narrow to fit wheels and tires underneath—we use panels of the same kind, but upside-down this time! Then we can use the standard axle for the wheels, but instead of the normal wheels which are still too wide, we use narrow Technic bushes with tires on them. Inside we need a nice SNOT converting structure to invert and revert again the studs’ orientation. This is done by two submodels which are big fun to build and slide together. Now back to your bricks and try it out! I wish you happy building, and I’ll see you next time!
Parts List (Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)
Qty Color
Part
Description
1 Blue 1 White
6190.dat 2436a.dat
2 6 6 2
3005.dat 4070.dat 3004.dat 6091.dat
Bar 1 x 3 Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 4 with Square Corners Brick 1 x 1 Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight Brick 1 x 2 Brick 2 x 1 x 1 & 1/3 with Curved Top Car Mudguard 2 x 4 Cone 1 x 1 with Stop
White White Trans-White White
1 White 3788.dat 1 Dark-Bluish-Gray 59900.dat
Qty Color 1 Trans-Red
Part 58176.dat
Description Cylinder Domed 1 x 1 x 1.667 with Bar 1 Dark-Bluish-Gray 4740.dat Dish 2 x 2 Inverted 2 White 3822.dat Door 1 x 3 x 1 Left 2 White 3821.dat Door 1 x 3 x 1 Right 1 Red 30162.dat Minifig Binoculars with Round Eyepiece 2 Red 4865a.dat Panel 1 x 2 x 1 with Square Corners 2 White 4865a.dat Panel 1 x 2 x 1 with Square Corners 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 3 White 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 2 Trans-Orange 3024.dat Plate 1 x 1 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round 8 Yellow 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round 2 Trans-Red 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round 3 Trans-White 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 6019.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Horizontal (Open U-Clip) 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 4081b.dat Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Light Type 2 1 Red 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 5 White 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 35480.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Round Ends and 2 Open Studs 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 3794a.dat Plate 1 x 2 without Groove with 1 Centre Stud 3 White 3794a.dat Plate 1 x 2 without Groove with 1 Centre Stud 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 48336.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Handle Type 2 1 Black 4175.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Ladder 2 White 3623.dat Plate 1 x 3 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 3710.dat Plate 1 x 4
Qty Color Part 2 Red 3666.dat 4 White 3022.dat 5 White 2420.dat 2 Black 4600.dat 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 3021.dat 1 White 3021.dat 1 Red 3020.dat 1 White 3020.dat 2 White 3795.dat 1 Black 2445.dat 1 White 3176.dat 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 54200.dat 4 Trans-Blue 54200.dat 3 White 85984.dat 2 Trans-White 3040b.dat 1 Trans-White 3040a.dat 2 1 1 2 4 1 1 3 4 1 4 1 6 2
Description Plate 1 x 6 Plate 2 x 2 Plate 2 x 2 Corner Plate 2 x 2 with Wheel Holders Plate 2 x 3 Plate 2 x 3 Plate 2 x 4 Plate 2 x 4 Plate 2 x 6 Plate 2 x 12 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 Slope Brick 45 2 x 1 Slope Brick 45 2 x 1 without Centre Stud Trans-White 3039.dat Slope Brick 45 2 x 2 White 15068.dat Slope Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 0.667 Light-Bluish-Gray 4599b.dat Tap 1 x 1 without Hole in Spout Light-Bluish-Gray 32123a.dat Technic Bush 1/2 Smooth with Axle Hole Reduced Yellow 98138.dat Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove Light-Bluish-Gray 3070b.dat Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Light-Bluish-Gray 2412b.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove White 2412b.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove White 3069b.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Groove White 2431.dat Tile 1 x 4 with Groove White 33909.dat Tile 2 x 2 with Studs on Edge Light-Bluish-Gray 87079.dat Tile 2 x 4 with Groove Black 59895.dat Tyre 4/ 80 x 8 Single Smooth Type 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 4624.dat Wheel Rim 6.4 x 8
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Leonid An (flickr name: ...TheChosenOne...) is a builder that has been online since 2007. In that time, he has gotten notice for his figure building. BrickJournal talked to him about his building and techniques. BrickJournal: What do you do outside of building? Leonid An: This summer I graduated university majoring in Mathematics and recently got myself a job as an intern in a decently big Russian systems integrator. Aside from LEGO, my hobbies include data science, mathematics and videogames (mainly shooters). How long have you been building? It’s a bit of a tough question. I got LEGO as a gift for the first time I was about three. From that moment and for the whole of my childhood, it became my primary toy. In April 2007 I signed in to a local Bionicle forum and since then I became actively involved in the life of the community, posting MOCs being a part of that. What got you into figure building? It’s pretty simple—Bionicle were my favorite LEGO series since I was a kid (some of the reasons being a rich and engaging lore and a large selection of unique and unusual pieces), so the majority of my MOCs in one way or another fall into the action figure category, although I still like experimenting with styles and themes new to me. Describe your building process—do you sketch a model, or just build it? I build right away from scratch, keeping an estimated desired end result in mind. Sketching requires a minimal drawing skill, which I, unfortunately, do not possess.
Building
Leonid An’s Figure Builds Article and Photography by Leonid An
Mr. Jack O’Lantern.
Usually I start with the head (it’s convenient, because then you can just adjust the scale of the rest in relation to the head) or with some particularly interesting piece combination. If it’s a humanoid action figure, then the approximate order is as follows: Head, feet, legs, body (moving upwards), hands, and arms. Usually I build with medium amount of detail work, and after all of the parts are built and assembled, I replace placeholders and add/change up the rest of the fine details. Weapons, pedestal/backdrop—all the extras—are last on the list. How long does it take to build a model? Depends on the model, obviously. I’m very impatient and a big procrastinator, so I build relatively fast. The fastest MOCs to be finished took only a couple of hours of actual building. On the average my timeframe is around a week or two. Slow burners also happen; these take about a month to finish. I should, however, point out that thinking over the concept is a pretty big part of my process that often happens kind of in the background. Let’s say if I’m building for a contest and the deadline is two weeks, one week of the two I’m walking around thinking, gathering sources, ideas, and inspirations, and the remaining week is spent actually building, buying missing pieces if I have the opportunity, shooting and editing pictures, working on the text description and such.
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Mr. Jack O’Lantern (on previous page)
Possibly one of my best MOCs was built on Halloween’s eve, and the topic matches. I started, again, with the head, using upside-down orange Kanohi Ruru as the face (I’m not a pioneer in that regard). The building process was pretty fast, fueled with inspiration, so the whole thing took about a week. The build’s highlights would be the head itself complete with a top hat, the face expression, a shirt collar made using Wing 1 x 4 with Pin Hole, the belt buckle, and the support stand, which I think fits pretty nicely with the MOC’s Halloween spirit. On the latter I arrayed a small pumpkin, a grave cross with a raven, and a tombstone with my name and birth date engraved on it, because black humor is the best kind of humor there is.
Set and Horus
This MOC is also a contest build, the goal being to build something à la Pharaoh’s Quest LEGO series. I decided to build Seth and Horus action figures. I don’t think of these models as the best in terms of construction; the only things worth noting are Seth’s abs, which were created using Bionicle sockets with balljoints joined together, and Horus’ bendable knees made using minifig legs.
Horus and Set. Horus.
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Set.
Es rappelt im Karton This MOC was built for a contest on one of my local LEGO forums, the theme being “Toys”, and my choice of a toy was Jack-In-The-Box. I began with the head and the hat and then built the body, the hands and the box itself. If we’re talking nontrivial part usage, the Bioncle Krana Za served as the jaw and Zamor balls were used for the headpiece pompoms (which, in turn, are attached to the hat by Cattle Horn—Long pieces). The title translates as “there’s rustling in the box”, which is a reference to a song of the same name by Pixie Paris.
The box unopened.
The box opened! A jack-in-the-box!
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Community
Amy’s haunted house and grounds.
Building to Heal:
Amy Willis and TherapeuticLUG Article by Joe Meno Photography by Amy Willis
Building with LEGO is different things to different people. For some, it’s a hobby where a person can replicate an environment or object as close to reality as possible. For others, it’s a way to express creativity by building imaginative sculptures or mosaics. For still others, it’s a medium of play, and for a few, it’s a medium of mindfulness. Amy Willis has been building since childhood and now uses it as a mindfulness exercise to express herself when she can’t find the words. One of her recent models of a haunted mansion was part of a therapeutic process to help her communicate her emotions and thoughts related to grief and loss. This began when Amy was in third grade. Her father suffered a heart attack while working building a high school. He was in cardiac arrest and taken to a hospital where he was revived. However, his brain didn’t receive enough oxygen in time, and as a result, while Amy’s father was alive, he was in a reduced mental state. It took five years before he passed away. The trauma from this has affected Amy ever since, with grief and anxieties.
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Her grief was something that cycled in her as she was growing up. Since most other children had not experienced what she had, Amy was in a place that proved to be isolating. She couldn’t communicate her experience and feelings with her classmates, so she felt unheard and
The interior of the haunted house.
misunderstood by them. She felt alone, except for the friends she made with the minifigures she had. Years later, after losing her job, she began building her haunted mansion. With the characters that touch upon death in one manner or another (Frankenstein, zombies, and ghosts), Amy projected her feelings into them from visiting her father at the nursing home. To her, the minifigures were much like her dad—a spirit trapped inside a static body. But as she began to build the mansion, her best friend passed away from cancer. Amy’s loss of her job and her friend triggered her to re-explore her father’s passing, her grief and her suffering. Building the haunted mansion began the process that helped give Amy the time to really accept and embrace all her feelings and emotions relating to death. She began to heal and accept death as part of a process of life. Building gave her the ability to create a world where she could belong, feel loved, and most significantly, feel important and valued for being herself. Building also gave her a means to become more open and connect with others. She enjoyed LEGO building because it gave her an opportunity to safely explore her feelings and thoughts while exerting
The vampire is on the hunt.
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So many ghosts!
some control over her fantasy-built worlds. For her, it was and still is relaxing to be able to calm her anxiety by placing LEGO elements and minifigures in a controlled fashion together to build her therapeutic and artistic desires. Inspired by how LEGO building was such a positive thing to her, Amy founded and became the LEGO Ambassador to TherapeuticLUG (LEGO Users Group), based in Michigan. This has become her happy place, where she can build and enjoy fellowship with other builders. This group also gives her an opportunity to share her experiences in a constructive way. For her, it was a way to truly heal by leaving her comfort zone of a world of plastic minifigures and go out and meet and trust others. The group displays and meets in local and regional events and is open for new members. You can go to TherapeuticLUG online by going to their website: https://therapeuticlug.site123.me/ or by scanning the QR code below:
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The laboratory. Skeletons rising.
Community
Custom Posable Arms for LEGO Minifigures An astronaut models the straight arms by Crazy Bricks. Photo by Shelly Corbett Photography (https://shellycorbett.com).
Article by Vaughn Himber
Have you ever wished your LEGO minifigures could properly shoot a bow and arrow? Or reach out and expertly aim a space blaster? Or even… dance the cha-cha? Well, now you can turn your dreams into reality with Crazy Arms! These special accessories are a dynamic and innovative solution that provide greater posing options and expressions for your favorite mini characters. Crazy Arms click in effortlessly with the existing LEGO hands and can be readily swapped and changed in and out of torsos, creating a fun and functional enhancement for LEGO minifigs.
What are Crazy Arms? Produced by CrazyBricks (www.crazybricks.com), Crazy Arms bring a new level of character to minifigures by giving them an exciting range of realistic posing options. Initially created as a successful Kickstarter campaign, Crazy Arms have grown into a worldwide phenomenon. There are 3 types of Crazy Arms: Straight Arms (arms held straight out to the sides), Inward-Bent Arms (elbows bent-inward at a 90 degree angle), and Javelin Arms (arms bent-forward and spread out wider/includes both right and left sides)
Crazy Arms are great for villians like the Riddler. Photo by njgiants73 on Flickr.
AFOLs, TFOLs and stop-motion animators everywhere have found many clever uses for these fantastic Arms. Straight Arms can be used to pose firearms and weapons, such as pistols, rifles, swords, and space blasters, for soldiers, Star Wars Stormtroopers, knights, spacemen, and superheroes. Inward-Bent Arms have uses ranging from ninjas fighting with katanas to soldiers holding flags and battle standards. When combined, Straight Arms and Bent Elbow Arms are perfect for creating a realistic bow-andarrow pose for archers and rangers. Distinctive examples of Javelin Arms include spear-throwing warriors and dual-wielding gunslingers.
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The patented engineering of Crazy Arms is designed to preserve the structural integrity of your precious minifigure’s torso, which might otherwise be damaged by the frequent switching in-and-out of normal minifig arms (nobody likes to see those cracks in the sides of a minifig…). With Crazy Arms, you can freely rotate arms on both sides of the torso for a greater variety of poses while easily being able to swap, mix, and match between the three different styles of Crazy Arms and normal minifig arms. How Crazy Arms are incorporated into a minifigure.
Crazy Arms are made from injection-molded ABS plastic, the same type of plastic as your favorite bricks. The arms are available in nine different colors (tan, green, dark tan, dark gray, black, white, reddish brown, flesh, and yellow—with more on the way), allowing them to seamlessly blend into all sorts of minifigure creations.
How do Crazy Arms work?
Observe how the Javelin arms on the right solve the clearance problem of the standard minifigure’s arms on the left.
Crazy Bricks can be added to any minifig with ease by following these simple steps: • First, separate the legs from the torso of the minifig. • Then, remove one or more of the arms. • Insert one or more of the Crazy Arms brackets into the semi-cylindrical tubes on the top of the minifig’s hips, then reassemble the torso back onto the legs. • Now push the Crazy Arms into the new Crazy Arm sockets at the minifigure’s shoulders and swap the hands as needed. Now your favorite figure is ready for action! But Crazy Arms go beyond dramatic action poses: They can be used to recreate more subtle scenes from daily life, ranging from the serious to the whimsical. The different angles of the arms may represent various possible movements, like bowing, dancing, running, cooking, stirring, instrument-playing, and weight-lifting. A white bent elbow Crazy Arm has even been creatively used as an arm cast for injured and recovering minifigures. By enabling a greater range of authentic movements, Crazy Arms can bring additional functionality to figures in Citythemed creations as well as vignettes portraying the heroic simplicity of the everyday.
Different Crazy Arms create different arm positions. Photo by Kevin Wise on Flickr. The characters of the Walking Dead, made by Hammerstein NWC on Flickr.
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Adding character and nuance to minifigs with Crazy Arms opens up a whole new world for LEGO builders to explore. Whether used for enhancing playability or showcasing the personality of your favorite minifigs, Crazy Arms can breathe new life into creations while expanding the realm of what’s possible with LEGO minifigures. Crazy Arms are available online at CrazyBricks.com, or you can scan this QR code!
A member of the Mouse Guard uses the arms. Photo by Shelly Corbett Photography (https://shellycorbett.com).
A ninja practices her throwing. Photo by Leila Chieko.
A hula dancer shows a castle citizen some moves. Photo by Leila Chieko.
Crazy Arms can also be used in other displays, such as this one: “Mind if we Dance?” by Charis Stella on Flickr. Varys the Spider, a minfigure made by Billy Riner.
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Community
Jürgen Kropp:
Celebrating Kennedy Space Center 60
Article by Joe Meno Photography by Jürgen Kropp
A sign greets those who visit.
The layout is huge. Sprawled out over a table are some buildings and a landscape of various items that, upon a closer look, are spacecraft. Dominating the layout is a Saturn V rocket on its gantry, and making up the skyline of this display are rockets. The buildings shelter another Saturn V and the Space Shuttle Atlantis. The display is inspired by Kennedy Space Center, and its builder is Jürgen Kropp. Jürgen is a builder in Germany that has built other large-scale projects, but this one is an ongoing project that is only starting to be realized. Inspiration for the layout began over 20 years ago, when Jürgen went with his wife Elke on a road trip through Florida, starting at Miami to Key West, then back along the Gulf Coast to St. Petersburg to end at Cape Canaveral. At the Cape, they took the Kennedy Space Center tour and saw the building where the Saturn V rocket was displayed. Years later, when the LEGO Group released the Saturn V set, Jürgen remembered the road trip and their experiences at the Space Center. He looked for some pictures they took and searched online for more information and photos about the Saturn V Hall. From there, he began to build what became the first module of the layout, using no plans, just his memories. The Saturn V Hall began to take shape in November 2017.
Jürgen’s layout.
After he completed the Saturn V Hall, Jürgen’s next step was to construct the Space Shuttle Hall, which houses Atlantis. Since the hall has been there for only a decade, he had not visited—but that wasn’t an obstacle to building. Going online, he found many photos to start his planning. He took a chance on buying two used LEGO Space Shuttle sets with the intention of using one in the hall and the other for an outside display. He figured the scale of the Saturn V as 1:110 and decided that all the models would match this scale, and was based on a real spacecraft. When Jürgen finished the Shuttle Hall, he went back to the Saturn V and decided to build the rocket with the Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT) and the crawler. The crawler itself is independent and is parked a little ahead of the LUT. This became part of a setup that would be a museum for the Apollo Project and Space Shuttle era, with all sorts of spacecraft, such as Skylab and a Russian Soyuz spaceship and rocket. Another Saturn V set was modified to the Saturn rocket that sent Skylab into orbit.
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The inside of the Saturn V Hall.
Other elements of Kennedy Space Center were added, including the Rocket Garden and the Space Mirror Memorial. The Apollo Project display was built, showing different phases of the mission, from launch to landing and the return to earth. The second Space Shuttle was built into the Rocket Garden, which is where the replica Space Shuttle Explorer was before Atlantis and the Shuttle Hall replaced it. To show NASA’s space program in action, Jürgen made a place for a digital tablet that acted as a large screen to show movies from the Apollo and Space Shuttle program. Kids watch the shows as their parents teach them the history and future of the space program. As a result, Jürgen’s layout is a reference not only of the rockets and spacecraft, but of the missions they took to reach the moon and beyond.
A side view of the hall.
The tablet theater screen.
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The Space Mirror Memorial.
With the Saturn V Hall and the Shuttle Hall, Jürgen’s layout is up-to-date. However, he’s looking and building toward the future. Already he is building an updated version to the LUT in gray for the new NASA “Moon to Mars” project that is currently being worked on. He is also researching the SLS (Space Launch System) rockets that NASA is currently designing, as well as public companies such as SpaceX. All of these separate programs have given Jürgen a lot of possibilities to build with. He’s currently planning this addition (which may be the final addition), expecting to complete it in mid-2020. By that time, there will be a new launchpad on Jürgen’s layout. A new rocket or two will be on the pad, ready to begin a new age in space exploration. And it will be huge.
The Rocket Garden, with Shuttle Explorer in the front.
The Russian Soyuz spacecraft and rocket.
Space Shuttle Atlantis on display in the Shuttle Hall.
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Community
Presenting The Ultimate Skylab Set! Article and Photography by Joseph Chambers I am somewhat ashamed to admit that LEGO’s Apollo Saturn V was the first LEGO set that I had assembled in probably twenty years. I was back in school working on an Electrical Engineering degree and a particularly hard semester made me realize that I needed something to help me decompress from the endless hours of math that I was then experiencing. What better than a scale model of one of my favorite pieces of space history built out of the preferred building toy of my childhood to do that for me? While it delivered the needed catharsis, the experience was over far too quickly, and I almost immediately needed something else to work on. I still had another year of school and you can only do so many differential equations without wanting to Kragle your eyes shut. So, after a little searching I found the very well-made Skylab modification created by Grant Passmore. This small project brought me into the MOC and AFOL world and taught me how to source parts, find communities of like-minded builders, and how to create my own LEGO rocketry designs. And of course, during this time, I also found the amazing Saturn V Launch Umbilical Tower design by Valerie Roche. Joe’s rocket seems poised for launch.
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Let me digress for a moment to talk about Skylab, because of all of the many launch vehicles in history, the Saturn V that launched Skylab is by far my favorite. Skylab occupies this much overlooked corner of NASA history, hidden between the two giants of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. It was the only major outcome of the Apollo Applications Program, and in itself is a story worth looking into. Skylab was literally built out of a spare Saturn V S-IVB stage. In essence, they simply took an S-IVB, removed the J-2 engine, built a working lab and living quarters inside what was once the liquid hydrogen tank, made the oxygen tank into a septic tank/trash bin, and added an airlock, solar panels, and a solar telescope. The crews would ride to the station in modified Apollo Command and Service modules atop Saturn-1B boosters. America’s first space station was literally built out of the leftovers of the Apollo program. The launch vehicle that put Skylab into orbit, SA-513, was the last Saturn V launched and by far the most unique. Three crews of three men each visited Skylab throughout 1973 and into 1974, with Skylab 4 staying for a record-breaking 84 days. Skylab eventually succumbed to orbital decay and burned up over Western Australia on July 11, 1979. Skylab was a unique experience in the history of space exploration—a resounding success, despite all of the many challenges that were encountered.
Skylab
Some different views of Skylab.
Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT) Pedestal
Digression over; now back to our program. I did not so much decide to build a LUT, it was more that I suddenly found myself collecting parts and those parts just happened to start being joined together in the shape of an LUT. The decision happened in the math-oppressed recesses of my unconscious creative brain. And in a similar fashion, I knew that I would be modifying Valerie’s design to reflect the changes made to the real life LUT #2 for Skylab, I just did not realize that giving myself permission to make modifications to the design would lead to where it did. In the end—seven months and 9,000 pieces
Views of the LUT.
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later, my LUT shares maybe two dozen individual pieces in common with the original design. I still must unequivocally thank Val for her inspiration. You may think that my build process was well thought-out and methodical, but I’ll be honest in admitting that my methodology could best be described as brute-force flailing. I was new to this whole MOC concept, and there were untold numbers of techniques and LEGO parts that I had no idea existed. As I learned more, and as I studied more about the actual Launch Umbilical Towers and the Saturn V launch vehicle, my design kept evolving and changing. As I learned that I could be more detailed, as I discovered those techniques and parts, I integrated them into the build. Learning how to effectively use LDD and later Stud.io certainly helped the process immensely. A couple of months into the project I had fully committed to redoing the entire design from the ground up, with a focus on detail and accuracy. I made the decision that this was going to lean more towards a model, and not a play set. By this time my LUT reached around ten levels tall and with a combination of sadness and excitement, I disassembled much of it to start from scratch.
Launch Umbilical Tower
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The main issue I had was that the design I was working off of had the height of each level being six bricks exactly. In order for the LUT tower to be to scale with the Saturn V, I had to make each level five bricks and one plate in height. With every level needing supports for the many different pipes and risers along each side, and the different equipment on each floor, and the uniqueness of each of the service arms, every single one of the 18 levels needed to be uniquely designed and carefully measured. This could not be a build-as-I-go sort of thing. It really had to be deliberate and well-planned. I also struggled with the base of the tower and it went through several iterations. Specifically, the A-Frame of the base structure is not vertical in any dimension (or for you math nerds, its vector is not normal to any existing surface). They angle inward toward the tower in both the x and y axis.
The A-frames are the part I am kind of most proud of, though. Their base is hidden deep inside the launch platform and terminate at a wellsecured ball and socket joint at all four corners. This allows several different degrees of freedom. From there the frames rise through the Launch Platform deck to the first crossmember. At this point, the two legs of the A-Frame are 16 studs apart, then 15 studs apart at level 2, and then 14 studs apart when they finally attach to the vertical tower structure at level 3. I had to come up with some tricks to get it to do that, but the result is that the A-Frame looks incredible, in my opinion. The whole setup is deeply non-standard, and requires that parts be bent, bowed, or rotated slightly, but it is gradual enough that you can’t tell unless you’re looking for it. The hinge joints where the A-Frame meets the tower are the only four points where any glue was used in the whole build, and only as an assurance of structural integrity. The entire tower is covered in many pipes and risers, all with specific purposes, and all very carefully placed for accuracy. These proved to be somewhat of a challenge as not all sizes of Technic axles or bar pieces come in every color. I used a lot of lightsaber hilts to connect hose and bar pieces, and plenty of T-Bar pieces (92690) for 90 degree turns. White pipes proved to be difficult as there are very few ways to make a 90 degree angle in that color. The vast majority of modified parts—and yes, I will admit to cutting parts—are bars and pipes cut to fit. Some of the parts of the build that gave me the hardest time were the attachment point of the Workshop Service arm/White Room, the gantry crane at the top of the tower, and most especially the service arms themselves. I spent perhaps too long trying to make the service arms look accurate to the original units, but I am pleased with how they came out in the end. To the LUT, I added the crawler transport and a Saturn-1B, both modified slightly from the designs of the aforementioned Grant Passmore, as well as a “deployed” version of Skylab. The whole setup represents the Skylab program in its entirety and
A family portrait of the Skylab family, including the Saturn-IB (left) used to launch the Skylab astronauts, the Launch Umbilical Tower, modified Saturn rocket with Skylab onboard (center) and crawler, and Skylab itself (front).
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stands about 4 ½ feet tall and consists of a total of around 9000 pieces. It took me about seven months to complete and I have no idea how much I spent on it. I have been working very hard over the past few months getting a proper model drawn up in Stud.io and a good instruction set to go with it. I also completely redesigned the mobile launch platform so that it looks much more like the real thing and I am very happy with the results. The entire instruction set is sort of still in beta testing, but it is available for the adventurous right now in both the Apollo and Skylab versions. Inquiries can be sent to LEGOJoe109@ gmail.com for further information. A look at the crawler.
Joseph Chambers with his models.
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The Saturn-IB that sent men to Skylab.
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Community
The astronaut at Washington, DC. Photo by Joe Meno.
July 19-21, 2019 Washington, DC The LEGO Group displayed a lifesize model of Buzz Aldrin based on a famous photograph from the Apollo 11 mission at a weekend celebration event in Washington, DC. It took a team of ten designers and LEGO Master Builders nearly 30 hours to design and build the model. It took 30,000 bricks and 20 different colors to complete the model. Photo of Buzz Aldrin. Photo courtesy of NASA.
The man on the moon. Photo provided by the LEGO Group.
Building the Man on the Moon 70
Florida’s spaceman. Photos on this page courtesy of LEGOLand Florida.
July 19, 2019 Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Florida LEGOLand Florida also built an astronaut to celebrate the anniversary. Planting a US flag, this model took almost 66,000 bricks to make and took its place at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. There, it will be on display for a year before it will be permanently moved to LEGOLand Florida Resort. Behind it, a mosaic of the Lunar Lander and moonscape was built of over 44,000 LEGO bricks. It took one designer 143 hours to design the astronaut model, and a group of five model builders a combined 450 hours building it. For the mosaic, it took one designer 58 hours designing it, and a group of six model builders 480 hours to construct.
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Corvin Stichert is a LEGO City designer that worked on the largest space-themed set released this year: Rocket Assembly and Transport (60229). He also was a contributor to BrickJournal #58 where he presented his futuristic planes. Here, we talk briefly with him and his work on the LEGO set.
Community
You were inspired to design a set like the Space Shuttle Launch Set (1682). Did you have that set? The inspiration came from the next iteration of the Space Shuttle Launch Pad released in 1995: 6339. I never had it myself, but my best friend did and we played a lot with it. It was great fun being able to assemble the entire shuttle launch system on the pad. The design of that set was simply fantastic and it stuck with me. I wanted to design something that would be as much fun to play with as I had with that one when I was a kid.
Building a Space Program: An Interview with Corvin Stichert Interview by Joe Meno Photos and Art provided by the LEGO Group
Inspiration.
The rocket and its transport.
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Your set is a bit more complex and has more components. Was that something that was wanted from the start of the design work, or was the design expanded at some point to include the rover room? Yes, we knew this would be a rather large set, so we wanted to include a lot to play with. In the beginning of our process, the LEGO City team built a number of concept models to define the theme and figure out the story, elements and functions we wanted to include. Among those sketch models was a rover garage.
That became the basis for the laboratory included in the set. In our research, one thing that stood out to us was the engineers mounting the satellite and rover payloads in clean rooms, and we wanted to show that part of the mission preparation as well. The Rover Laboratory was included in the set early on because of that. Why was the rocket set up to be moved horizontally? Was there a launch pad designed? There were a few reasons for that: We explored a lot of options for the space port in the beginning, including a traditional launch pad with a tower and moving the rocket while upright. One of the iconic parts of the launches is transporting the vehicles from their assembly buildings, which is done on the back of a vehicle or on a rail system. I really wanted to have that in the set and went with the big crawler vehicle, which is reminiscent of the ones that were used for the Apollo and Space Shuttle missions. Control room.
But we also wanted to be able to assemble the rocket and load the rover onto it with the crane. Therefor there had to be a point at which the rocket was horizontal. The best way to do that was on the back of the crawler, which then led to the decision to make it a mobile launch vehicle. What real-world rockets did you base the rocket on? There was no one specific rocket that the model was based on, but there were several influences for the different parts of it. The idea to mount a shuttle upper stage came from various old concepts for actual rockets that were similar, such as some early ideas for the Space Shuttle and others. The booster stage was more of a result of differentiation from our other big rocket in 60228, which had the two solid rocket boosters attached on either side. So for this one, we decided on the design with four boosters. How long did it take to complete the design of the set? This is a bit of a hard question to answer, since our design process starts long before the products hit the shelf and goes through several conceptual stages. The line-up of models changes several times during that. But the final briefed design and quality assurance process took roughly four months. Transport truck.
The rover clean room.
Minifigures and robot.
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BRICKJOURNAL #62
LEGO TRAINS! CALE LEIPHART’s Blue Comet, GLENN HOLLAND introduces us to the L-Gauge Modular Building Standard, a look at PennLUG’s Train Roundhouse, and many other train-related surprises! Plus a “Bricks in the Middle” comic by KEVIN HINKLE, “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more! $ 9.95 • SHIPS MARCH 2020!
BRICKJOURNAL #61
LEGO FIGURE BUILDING! JAE WON LEE’s historical and legendary characters, EERO OKKONEN’s stunning mythic figures, ANDREA (“Norton74”) LATTANZIO’s new ultra-realistic builds (including classic food stands and gas stations), “AFOLs” by GREG HYLAND, “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more! $ 9.95 • SHIPS JANUARY 2020!
BRICKJOURNAL #58
LEGO WARBIRDS, PAST AND PRESENT! JEFF CHERRY’S WWII and modern fighters (P-51 Mustang and F-14 Tomcat), RALPH SAVELSBURG’S BrickJournal exclusive X-plane, MICHAEL BROWN’S F-14 Tomcat “Vandy One”, step-by-step LEGO instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art with TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more! NOW SHIPPING!
OUTER SPACE
BRICKJOURNAL #57
MICROSCALE LEGO BUILDING! Tour WAYNE TYLER’S National Mall (Washington, DC) layout, skyscrapers from ROCCO BUTTLIERE, BLAKE FOSTER’s Ugly Duckling spaceship, step-by-step “You Can Build It” LEGO instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art with TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more! NOW SHIPPING!
BRICKJOURNAL #56
LIFE-SIZE LEGO and what it takes to build them (besides a ton of LEGO brick)! HELEN SHAM’s sculptures of giant everyday items, MAGNUS LAUGHLO’s GI Joe®-inspired models, military builds by ERIC ONG, plus “Bricks In The Middle” comic by KEVIN HINKLE, “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifig Customization by JARED K. BURKS, & more! NOW SHIPPING!
STAR WARS™
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NEW
BRICKJOURNAL #17
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 ALIEN CONQUEST SETS, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #41
Space-themed LEGO creations of LIA CHAN, 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Orion space plane by NICK DEAN, and Pre-Classic Space builder CHRIS GIDDENS! Plus: JARED K. BURKS’ minifigure customizing, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics by DAMIEN KEE, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #59
STAR WARSTM THEMED BUILDERS! Travel to a galaxy far, far away with JACOB NEIL CARPENTER’S DEATH STAR, the work of MIRI DUDAS, and the LEGO® photography of JAMES PHILIPPART! Plus “You Can Build It” instructions, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art with TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!
TRAINS
BRICKJOURNAL #24
Builder CALE LEIPHART shows how to get started building trains and train layouts, instructions on building microscale trains by editor JOE MENO, building layouts with the members of the Pennsylvania LEGO Users Group, fan-built LEGO monorails minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, microscale building by CHRISTOPHER DECK, “You Can Build It”, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #46
More with train builder CALE LEIPHART, updated train layouts and models from the PENNLug, BRICK MODEL RAILROADER (a new LEGO Train fan website that launched this year), and more locomotive action! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!
BRICKJOURNAL #23
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 minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #37
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-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, & more!
MECHA
BRICKJOURNAL #15
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!
BRICKJOURNAL #40
Build giant robots and mechs with 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, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #48
Secrets and tricks of building mechs with some of the best mecca builders in the world! Interviews with BENJAMIN CHEH, KELVIN LOW, LU SIM, FREDDY TAM, DAVID LIU, and SAM CHEUNG! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!
CARS
BRICKJOURNAL #11
“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!
STEAMPUNK
BRICKJOURNAL #51
STEAMPUNK, with builder GUY HIMBER! PAUL HETHERINGTON talks about his cover model “Unchain My Heart,” ROD GILLIES’ latest Steampunk work, and a look at the creations of other top Steampunk builders! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!
TECHNIC
BRICKJOURNAL #21
LINO MARTINS & NATHAN PROUDLOVE of LUGNuts share secrets behind their LEGO car creations, and present TECHNIC SUPER-CAR MODELS by PAUL BORATKO III and other top builders! Plus custom instructions by TIM GOULD & CHRISTOPHER DECK, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” section, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #38
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-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd Pop Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, & more!
DISNEY®
BRICKJOURNAL #9
LEGO® DISNEY SETS, with features on the Disney LEGO sets of the past (MICKEY and MINNIE) and present (TOY STORY and PRINCE OF PERSIA)! We also present Disney models built by LEGO fans, and a look at the newest Master Build model at WALT DISNEY WORLD, plus articles and instructions on building and customization, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #44
THEME PARK ISSUE! ERIK JONES’ custom LEGO version of Cinderella Castle, STÉPHANE DELY’s Disneyland Paris Sleeping Beauty Castle, and JOHN RUDY’s brick versions of your favorite theme park rides! Plus “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #29
PAUL BORATKO and editor JOE MENO diagram instructions on adding functions to your models, shop-talk with LEGO Technic designers, and more creations moving at top speed! Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #49
GEOFF GRAY explores Technic history, JOE MENO interviews former LEGO Set Designer SØREN HOLM about the classic Technic Space Shuttle, MICHAEL BROWN shows off his Technic-scale AH-64, and more! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!
CASTLES
BRICKJOURNAL #25
MEDIEVAL CASTLES! Top LEGO® Castle builders present their creations, including BOB CARNEY’s detailed Neuschwanstein Castle, plus articles on building and detailing castles of your own! Also: JARED BURKS on minifigure customization, AFOLs by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #45
FEMALE LEGO BUILDERS! US Architectural builder ANURADHA PEHRSON, British Microscale builder FERNANDA RIMINI, US Bionicle builder BREANN SLEDGE, and Norwegian Town builder BIRGITTE JONSGARD! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!
SCULPTURE
BRICKJOURNAL #18
Two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of 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!
BRICKJOURNAL #31
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, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #52
Russian builder TIMOFEY TKACHEV, plus what it takes to become a LEGO Certified Professional (an elite group of builders officially recognized by LEGO), with New York’s SEAN KENNEY and Australian RYAN McNAUGHT! Also: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!
BRICKJOURNAL #54
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY: HSINWEI CHI and his revolutionary LEGO animals and giant robots! We also declassify other top LEGO builders’ creations, including MICHAEL BROWN’s Technic-scale F-18 Hornet! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!
BRICKJOURNAL #55
LEGO HEADS & TAILS: FELIX JAENSCH’s remarkable LEGO sculptures, from realistic animals to the human skull and amazing face masks! BRYAN BENSON’s detailed Kermorvan Lighthouse and how he built it from LEGO bricks. A spectacular Winter layout by DAVE SCHEFCIK! Plus: Minifigure customizing, step-by-step instructions, BrickNerd, & more!
LEGO®, the Minifigure, and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group of Companies. BrickJournal is not affiliated with The LEGO Group. All characters shown are TM & © their respective owners.
SUPER-HEROES
BRICKJOURNAL #20
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!
BRICKJOURNAL #32
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, and more!
GAMING
BRICKJOURNAL #34
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, and more!
MINDSTORMS & ROBOTICS
BRICKJOURNAL #5
MINDSTORMS 10th ANNIVERSARY at LEGO HEADQUARTERS, Pixar’s ANGUS MACLANE on LEGO in filmmaking, the LEGO Group’s past with the DIRECTOR OF LEGO’S IDEA HOUSE, event reports, how SEAN KENNEY’s LEGO creations ended up on NBC’S 30 ROCK television show, instructions and spotlights on builders, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #33
MINDSTORMS EV3 builders MARCANDRE BAZERGUI and ANDY MILLUZZI, designer LEE MAGPILI, CHRIS GIDDENS with his amazing robot sculptures, Minifig Customization by JARED BURKS, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, other looks at MINDSTORMS building, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #42
How schools and AFOLs 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 MINDSTORMS to the next level! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!
ARCHITECTURE & MICROSCALE
BRICKJOURNAL #43
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, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #53
TYLER CLITES and SEAN MAYO show you LEGO hacks to twink and juice your creations! Also, see big bad game-inspired models by BARON VON BRUNK, and Pokemon-inspired models by LI LI! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!
UNDERSEA
BRICKJOURNAL #10
Looks at the creation of LEGO’S 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, stepby-step building instructions, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, LEGO history, and more!
DINOSAURS
BRICKJOURNAL #47
Builder MITSURU NIKAIDO shows us undersea creatures and organic builds! Then jump aboard MARCELLO DeCICCO’s minifigure-scale warships! See PEDRO NASCIMENTO’s amazing architectural creations! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!
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TwoMorrows. BRICKJOURNAL #30
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, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #35
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, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #36
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-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, and more!
BRICKJOURNAL #39
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, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art by BrickNerd TOMMY WILLIAMSON, and more!
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STAR WARS #7
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Artwork will be a black & white ink drawing on 11”x17” comic book illustration board. Art will include paste-up cover copy, logos, and trade dress. Email greg@lethargiclad.com for |NCREDIBLE HULK #181 information on pricing and timeframe.
Last Word Wow, this is the last column out for me in 2019. There has been a lot of good stuff happening for LEGO builders. The sets that have been coming from the company have gotten my notice—the really nice sets have gotten bigger, like the Disney Train and the Expert Mustang. I got the Mustang, but have yet to get the train—and for me to want a train is a little unusual, as I am a space builder... of which I want a couple of those sets too! But more importantly, I want to build some new things, which is the plan for 2020. I have ideas to build some figures and maybe a robot. There’s also a spaceship that is waiting to be designed and built in my sketches, and some other places and things. I hope that this magazine has got you interested in building beyond the sets. And I hope I get to see your builds at an event. While the magazine works to inspire you, I am inspired by what I discover and who I meet at events. So I hope to see you next year! Til then, build on! That Joe Meno Guy
The editor is a professional representative for the magazine.
79
by Kevin A. Hinkle
80
ER EISN RD AWA ER!! N WIN ER EISN RD AWAINEE! NOM
BACK ISSUE #117
BACK ISSUE #118
BACK ISSUE #119
SUPERHERO STAND-INS! John Stewart as Green Lantern, James Rhodes as Iron Man, Beta Ray Bill as Thor, Captain America substitute U.S. Agent, new Batman Azrael, and Superman’s Hollywood proxy Gregory Reed! Featuring NEAL ADAMS, CARY BATES, DAVE GIBBONS, RON MARZ, DAVID MICHELINIE, DENNIS O’NEIL, WALTER SIMONSON, ROY THOMAS, and more, under a cover by SIMONSON.
GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD! ALEX ROSS’ unrealized Fantastic Four reboot, DC: The Lost 1970s, FRANK THORNE’s unpublished Red Sonja, Fury Force, VON EEDEN’s Batman, GRELL’s Batman/Jon Sable, CLAREMONT and SIM’s X-Men/Cerebus, SWAN and HANNIGAN’s Skull and Bones, AUGUSTYN and PAROBECK’s Target, PAUL KUPPERBERG’s Impact reboot, abandoned Swamp Thing storylines, & more! ROSS cover.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY ISSUE! A galaxy of comics stars discuss Marvel’s whitehot space team in the Guardians Interviews, including TOM DeFALCO, KEITH GIFFEN, ROB LIEFELD, AL MILGROM, MARY SKRENES, ROGER STERN, JIM VALENTINO, and more. Plus: Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon before the Guardians, with CHRIS CLAREMONT and MIKE MIGNOLA. Cover by JIM VALENTINO with inks by CHRIS IVY.
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ALTER EGO #162
ALTER EGO #163
MIKE GRELL
LIFE IS DRAWING WITHOUT AN ERASER
Career-spanning tribute covering Legion of Super-Heroes, Warlord, & Green Arrow at DC Comics, and Grell’s own properties Jon Sable, Starslayer, and Shaman’s Tears. Told in Grell’s own words, with PAUL LEVITZ, DAN JURGENS, DENNY O’NEIL, MARK RYAN, & MIKE GOLD. Heavily illustrated! (160-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $27.95 (176-page LTD. ED. HARDCOVER) $37.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95 • Now shipping!
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COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION
AN ORAL HISTORY OF DC COMICS CIRCA 1978! Marking the 40th anniversary of the “DC Implosion”, one of the most notorious events in comics (which left stacks of completed comic book stories unpublished and spawned Cancelled Comics Cavalcade). Featuring JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, and others, plus detailed analysis of how it changed the landscape of comics! (136-page paperback w/ COLOR) $21.95 (Digital Edition) $10.95 • Now shipping!
KIRBY & LEE: STUF’ SAID WORLD OF TWOMORROWS AMERICAN COMIC BOOK Celebrate our 25th anniversary with this CHRONICLES: The 1980s retrospective by publisher JOHN MORROW
WILL MURRAY presents an amazing array of possible prototypes of Batman (by artist FRANK FOSTER—in 1932!)—Wonder Woman (by Star-Spangled Kid artist HAL SHERMAN)—Tarantula (by Air Wave artist LEE HARRIS), and others! Plus a rare Hal Sherman interview—MICHAEL T. GILBERT with more on artist PETE MORISI—FCA— BILL SCHELLY—JOHN BROOME—and more! Cover homage by SHANE FOLEY!
The early days of DAVE COCKRUM— Legion of Super-Heroes artist and co-developer of the revived mid-1970s X-Men—as revealed in art-filled letters to PAUL ALLEN and rare, previously unseen illustrations provided by wife PATY COCKRUM (including 1960s-70s drawings of Edgar Rice Burroughs heroes)! Plus FCA—MICHAEL T. GILBERT on PETE MORISI—JOHN BROOME—BILL SCHELLY, and more!
EXPANDED SECOND EDITION—16 EXTRA PAGES! Looks back at the creators of the Marvel Universe’s own words, in chronological order, from fanzine, magazine, radio, and television interviews, to paint a picture of JACK KIRBY and STAN LEE’s complicated relationship! Includes recollections from STEVE DITKO, ROY THOMAS, WALLACE WOOD, JOHN ROMITA SR., and other Marvel Bullpenners!
and Comic Book Creator magazine’s JON B. COOKE! Go behind-the-scenes with MICHAEL EURY, ROY THOMAS, GEORGE KHOURY, and a host of other TwoMorrows contributors! Introduction by MARK EVANIER, Foreword by ALEX ROSS, Afterword by PAUL LEVITZ, and a new cover by TOM McWEENEY!
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NEW PRINTING with corrections, better binding, & enhanced cover durability! KEITH DALLAS documents comics’ 1980s Reagan years: Rise and fall of JIM SHOOTER, FRANK MILLER as comic book superstar, DC’s CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, MOORE and GAIMAN’s British invasion, ECLIPSE, PACIFIC, FIRST, COMICO, DARK HORSE and more!
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TwoMorrows. The Future of Comics History.
DRAW #36
COMIC BOOK CREATOR #22
KIRBY COLLECTOR #77
MIKE HAWTHORNE (Deadpool, Infinity Countdown) interview, YANICK PAQUETTE (Wonder Woman: Earth One, Batman Inc., Swamp Thing) how-to demo, JERRY ORDWAY’s “Ord-Way” of creating comics, JAMAR NICHOLAS reviews the latest art supplies, plus Comic Art Bootcamp by BRET BLEVINS and MIKE MANLEY! May contain nudity for figure-drawing instruction; for Mature Readers Only.
P. CRAIG RUSSELL career-spanning interview (complete with photos and art gallery), an almost completely unknown work by FRANK QUITELY (artist on All-Star Superman and The Authority), DERF BACKDERF’s forthcoming graphic novel commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, CAROL TYLER shares her prolific career, JOE SINNOTT discusses his Treasure Chest work, CRAIG YOE, and more!
MONSTERS & BUGS! Jack’s monster-movie influences in The Demon, Forever People, Black Magic, Fantastic Four, Jimmy Olsen, and Atlas monster stories; Kirby’s work with “B” horror film producer CHARLES BAND; interview with “The Goon” creator ERIC POWELL; Kirby’s use of insect characters (especially as villains); MARK EVANIER and our other regular columnists, Golden Age Kirby story, and a Kirby pencil art gallery!
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KIRBY COLLECTOR #78
SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! How Kirby kickstarted the Silver Age and revamped Golden Age characters for the 1960s, the Silver Surfer’s influence, pivotal decisions (good and bad) Jack made throughout his comics career, Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, a classic 1950s story, KIRBY/STEVE RUDE cover (and deluxe silver sleeve) and more! (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (DELUXE EDITION w/ silver sleeve) $12.95 (Digital Edition) $5.95 • Ships Winter 2020
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Relive The Pop Culture You Grew Up With In RetroFan! If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, editor MICHAEL EURY’s latest magazine is just for you!
RETROFAN #7
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RETROFAN #6
NOW BI-MONTHLY! Interviews with the ’60s grooviest family band THE COWSILLS, and TV’s coolest mom JUNE LOCKHART! Mars Attacks!, MAD Magazine in the ’70s, Flintstones turn 60, Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, Honey West, Max Headroom, Popeye Picnic, the Smiley Face fad, & more! With MICHAEL EURY, ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, and SCOTT SHAW!
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RETROFAN #1
RETROFAN #2
RETROFAN #3
RETROFAN #8
Interviews with MeTV’s crazy creepster SVENGOOLIE and Eddie Munster himself, BUTCH PATRICK! Call on the original Saturday Morning GHOST BUSTERS, with BOB BURNS! Uncover the nutty NAUGAS! Plus: “My Life in the Twilight Zone,” “I Was a Teenage James Bond,” “My Letters to Famous People,” the ARCHIE-DOBIE GILLIS connection, Pinball Hall of Fame, Alien action figures, Rubik’s Cube & more!
RETROFAN #4
RETROFAN #5
THE CRAZY, COOL CULTURE WE GREW UP WITH! LOU FERRIGNO interview, The Phantom in Hollywood, Filmation’s Star Trek cartoon, “How I Met Lon Chaney, Jr.”, goofy comic Zody the Mod Rob, Mego’s rare Elastic Hulk toy, RetroTravel to Mount Airy, NC (the real-life Mayberry), interview with BETTY LYNN (“Thelma Lou” of The Andy Griffith Show), TOM STEWART’s eclectic House of Collectibles, and Mr. Microphone!
HALLOWEEN! Horror-hosts ZACHERLEY, VAMPIRA, SEYMOUR, MARVIN, and an interview with our cover-featured ELVIRA! THE GROOVIE GOOLIES, BEWITCHED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, and THE MUNSTERS! The long-buried Dinosaur Land amusement park! History of BEN COOPER HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, character lunchboxes, superhero VIEW-MASTERS, SINDY (the British Barbie), and more!
40th Anniversary interview with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE director RICHARD DONNER, IRWIN ALLEN’s sci-fi universe, Saturday morning’s undersea adventures of Aquaman, horror and sci-fi zines of the Sixties and Seventies, Spider-Man and Hulk toilet paper, RetroTravel to METROPOLIS, IL (home of the Superman Celebration), SEA-MONKEYS®, FUNNY FACE beverages, Superman and Batman memorabilia, & more!
Interviews with the SHAZAM! TV show’s JOHN (Captain Marvel) DAVEY and MICHAEL (Billy Batson) Gray, the GREEN HORNET in Hollywood, remembering monster maker RAY HARRYHAUSEN, the way-out Santa Monica Pacific Ocean Amusement Park, a Star Trek Set Tour, SAM J. JONES on the Spirit movie pilot, British sci-fi TV classic THUNDERBIRDS, Casper & Richie Rich museum, the KING TUT fad, and more!
Interviews with MARK HAMILL & Greatest American Hero’s WILLIAM KATT! Blast off with JASON OF STAR COMMAND! Stop by the MUSEUM OF POPULAR CULTURE! Plus: “The First Time I Met Tarzan,” MAJOR MATT MASON, MOON LANDING MANIA, SNUFFY SMITH AT 100 with cartoonist JOHN ROSE, TV Dinners, Celebrity Crushes, and more fun, fab features!
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Featuring a JACLYN SMITH interview, as we reopen the Charlie’s Angels Casebook, and visit the Guinness World Records’ largest Charlie’s Angels collection. Plus: an exclusive interview with funnyman LARRY STORCH, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Captain Action—the original super-hero action figure, a vintage interview with Jonny Quest creator DOUG WILDEY, a visit to the Land of Oz, the ultrarare Marvel World superhero playset, & more!