Rickard Stensby: Building like a LEGO Master

People

What do Davy Jones, Michael Jackson, and Merlin have in common? All of them were built in LEGO form by Rickard Stensby, a builder from Sweden. His specialty is building figures and characters in a larger scale than minifigure, allowing him to sculpt details that are usually restricted by a minifigure’s size. His creations also have a cartoony style about them—a series of hunter’s trophies he built have a Dr. Seuss feel. Another sculpture hilariously brings into mind John Cleese’s posture for the Ministry of Silly Walks (a Monty Python skit). Rickard is happy to describe himself in the same manner. When interviewed online, he described his age as, “Most of me just turned 40, my back is around 57 and my knees just retired.” Asked about how he has been building, his answer was, “I’ve built LEGO as a grown-up since 2014, starting off with my ’80s LEGO from the attic.” His return to building happened by chance. Rickard had his sister’s kids over for some playtime and he brought out his old LEGO boxes from the attic. The kids went home, but the boxes never went back up the attic. The boxes now reside in one of the largest rooms in his house, while his attic is full of crates from the LEGO Masters win… (LEGO Masters Sweden—this will be touched on in a bit). In terms of favorite theme he states: “I’m probably not very interested in any of the official themes or sets. I enjoy building anything with character, really. Caricature portraits with a cartoonish look is probably a decent description of my style and theme.”

Rickard Stensby: Building like a LEGO Master!

Article and Photography by Rickard Stensby

One of the many dancer models Rickard builds.

Merlin from The Sword in the Stone, a Disney film. He never really builds sets, and he personally feels that he wouldn’t get much out of doing so. His everyday inspirations are the different people he sees, or scenes that would be fun for him to build. He’s inspired almost every day to build something he has encountered that day. Since time is limited, he has to choose what projects become reality. He most often chooses the build that he himself would love to have in his home and makes him happy. He tries to keep his builds funny and light and preferably something nostalgic. Most of the models that Rickard builds are from movies or series he grew up with, with many of them connecting to people of the same generation. He also gets lots of requests to build the more poplar themes, like Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Avengers and others, but there are enough good builders doing those and those sagas are simply not “him.” His latest completed build, Merlin from The Sword in the Stone, is from a Disney movie that he has probably watched 100 times as a child, until his VHS tape broke. It’s such an important nostalgia for him, that he was nervous to try and recreate a scene from it. He tried building Merlin a few times before and always started with

Building

Aiden Rexrod: Building Beasts!

Article and Photography by Aiden Rexrod

The adult builders are getting younger and younger. Aiden Rexrod is a great example. At the ripe old age of 18, transitioning from high school into the workforce, he has made himself known online for his builds, which are organic in nature.

When he started LEGO building as a three-year-old, he had a large tub of bricks with one headless minifigure. His collection quickly grew, however, as all he asked for as birthday and Christmas presents was LEGO sets. Throughout his childhood, Aiden would see amazing builds online and wanted to build at the skill level he saw. He wasn’t able to build as well as they could, but he tried his best anyway. He always thought he needed millions of pieces

to really be a good builder and even then, Aiden had no idea where he would even start. Over time he accumulated more sets, which usually didn’t stay together long because he wanted more parts to build with.

Tytherer, a dragon.

One summer, Aiden began sorting the now massive collection he and his brother has amassed. It was a long and tedious task that took longer than one summer, but he eventually had most of it sorted. Even after that, he didn’t think he had enough parts to build with as well as the System builders did. He later figured out this was not true, because it really doesn’t matter how many parts a builder has—they can still build very well with only a small amount of pieces.

Building

Dale Harris: Reinventing Fabuland!

Article and Photography by Dale Harris

As the director and graphic designer at Studio Ink, a design studio in Australia, Dale Harris spends his days designing logos, printed materials, websites and social media campaigns. Out of the office, though, he designs his own LEGO creations. One of his biggest models is actually a Fabuland-themed layout: Edward’s Island. Here, Dale talks about his building and about updating the Fabuland theme to Neo-Fabuland and LEGO building.

BrickJournal: When did you start building and what are you favorite themes?

Dale Harris: I have been building since he early ’80s, however I had a significant Dark Age from around 1995 to 2015. The three original classic themes will always speak to me the strongest: Space, Castle, and Train.

What got you back into building as an adult?

My wife Kara was the spark of inspiration. She joined the local LUG and invited me along to a meeting… the rest is history.

What inspired you to start building beyond sets?

As a kid, my brother Allen, my sister Sarah and I always built our own creations, sprawled out on the lounge room carpet with a pile of LEGO between us, so LEGO has always been about the creative experience for me. Don’t get me wrong—I love seeing all the new sets; I just don’t really buy many of them. Almost all of my LEGO purchasing

A more distant look at the pier. One of the residents fishes at the pier.

Builder Profile

Todd Y. Kubo

A long-time LEGO contributor, builder and fan.

Todd is one of the first original LEGO Ambassadors, a contributor with the LEGO Group’s efforts with the LEGO Factory Project, and a beta software tester for LEGO Digital Designer. He was one of the 24 finalists in the first LEGO Master Model Builder search in 2004. He’s a frequent attendee and contributor to BrickCon in Seattle. Recently, he stepped down as one of the West Coast editors of BrickJournal.

I have been a fan of the Kaiju movies since my childhood. I spent many a lazy late Saturday morning, watching the “creature features” on the local channel growing up in Denver, CO. Perhaps it was a connection to the plastic model building I was really into for a while that caught my interest. Watching the actors in the suitmations tear through the city, or battle all the rockets, bombs, and lasers thrown at them was pure B-grade entertainment. It did make me wonder how many hours were spent on building

LEGO Muji hole punch was key in being able to create exact hole for the studs to connect the paper printed elements with LEGO.

Below: First test of the wing balance with no additional support. Only suspended by fishing mono-filament between wing supports through the top of the forewing.