Kelly Bartlett: Building Brick Art

People

Kelly Bartlett began LEGO building when she was about five years old, starting with many of the classic castle, space, and pirates sets from the Eighties. Back then, she and her brother would make a few MOCs with the loose pieces they had, but there just wasn’t the large variety of parts and colors available like there is now. As kids, they mostly built sets and kept them together so they could set up towns and tell stories with them.

Kelly Bartlett: Building Brick Art!

Article by Joe Meno Photography by Kelly Bartlett

and the little shopping bag turned out. Those were some of her tougher technical challenges. Also, she had never seen the Ninjago ‘tornadoes’ used in a build before, so she loved being able to pioneer their use as light fixtures. When asked why she builds, Kelly’s answer is short and simple: she builds to create art. “LEGO has been the perfect medium for my artistic tendencies—more forgiving than any other medium because I can literally undo mistakes and it’s like they never happened.” This gives her a feeling of freedom to create without worrying about ‘messing up’ or wasting materials. She also builds to see joy on other people’s faces when they look at something she has created. “Sometimes people cannot believe my MOCs are made of LEGO, and it’s fun to see the amazement on their faces when they learn how they’re created,” Kelly says. “So I guess I build for my own joy as well as the enjoyment of others.”

“The Chocolate Shop.”

People Chris Perron: Designing the White Dragon Horse Jet

Article by Joe Meno Photography by Chris Perron and Joe Meno Set Art provided by The LEGO Group

One of the sets that I bought was the White Dragon Horse Set (80020)—not because I am a Monkie Kid fan, but it looked cool on the box. What I didn’t expect was that the hours building the set would be a fun exercise in techniques, including a few really unconventional methods. The set showed me so many new techniques, I wanted to find out about how this set was designed. The set designer announced the set launch on Facebook, so I contacted him to find out about the set and his approach to design. I also took a look at some of his work on Flickr to see if there were any builds he did that could be forerunners to the LEGO set. Bur first, a quick introduction to the LEGO designer.

Chris Perron has spent most of his life LEGO building—he started when he was two years old. Having a desire to build and create things (probably from growing up spending most his time building LEGO creations), he wanted to pursue something in the field of design. With that, working for the LEGO Group was always a dream of his, so while finishing his degree in Industrial Design, he decided to focus on becoming a LEGO Designer. Five years ago, he became one. His favorite building theme is Space. He always loved the LEGO Space themes growing up, with the bright colors and big transparent canopies and panels, which were always huge draw for him. He loves playing with different color schemes and making interesting shapes and silhouettes and then turning those into some kind of sci-fi design, whether it be a spaceship, rover or mech. This approach helped him create the White Dragon Horse set, and I chatted with him through e-mail about the design process behind the set.

Joe Meno: I have seen your work online and you have a unique design sense that uses color in unusual ways. When did you begin building in that manner? You are something of a color sculptor and it shows in the set. Using gradations of green (an uncommon color) makes the craft very distinct.

Chris Perron: I think color was always what would inspire my LEGO creations, especially canopies. For example, I would pick up a transparent-green canopy that I thought was interesting and then start trying colors that I thought looked nice with it. Then if I decided I wanted to use dark red as the primary solid color, I would look at what different shapes came in that color and use that as a starting point for my designs. Since starting at the LEGO Group, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a designer who has quite an extensive knowledge of color theory, and I’ve been trying to learn more about that to bring into my models as well.

Before the set was released...

These models were built by Chris, experimenting with the forms and parts that he would later use in the White Dragon Horse Set.

The Xenon Zapper. The Dark Phantom, which uses some shaping and parts he used in the set.

The Violet Vanquisher.

Building

A small ship interior.

An example of Ben’s interior work.

Ben Thompson: Space Builder!

Article and Photography by Ben Thompson

An artist and graphic designer, Ben Thompson has been building all his life. His brother knew Ben would get into building before Ben was born, as he said, “I’ll have to hide my LEGO.” Building was something Ben did through his childhood until high school. A friend of his had a better collection, so both of them built there.

Lunar habitat laser communication station.

Building

Dave Schefcik’s Rainbow Heart

Article by Joe Meno Photography by Dave Schefcik

I went to my first LEGO fan convention post-COVID in August 2020: BrickFair Virginia. After over a year of staying home and only virtually attending events, this was a nice step back to normalcy. There were protocols that had to be done at the event, but it was also an opportunity to meet friends, make friends, and see what everyone built during the pandemic. One of the creations that got my attention was a mosaic built by BrickNerd chief Dave Schefcik. The idea was simple: a heart radiating a rainbow of color. However, what made it interesting was that it was composed of tiny tiles, so it had the feel of stained glass. The bigger surprise, though, was seeing it during the World of Lights, where the expo hall lighting is dimmed and illuminated MOCs make themselves known. Dave’s mosaic was lit, and with rotating colors of light, it glowed and pulsed as if alive! It wasn’t a hard decision for me to request an interview with Dave, so let’s find out about his mosaic: “Rainbow Heart.”

Joe Meno: The design of the heart is so colorful and eyecatching. What inspired you to create it?

Dave Schefcik: There are a few inspirations behind my “Rainbow Heart” mosaic. First off, there were a few craft stores that had LEGO Dots sets at a really steep discount last summer in the United States. With the help of my LUG, I was able to get quite a few of the bracelets and extra Dots bags which were fun to sort, but that led me to have an excess of small tiles in my collection. I thought a mosaic would be a fun way to utilize some of the pieces, but I wanted to try a new technique—using all the small, printed tiles as a way to increase the overall detail. Unfortunately that got very complicated quickly and I realized that even with the sales, I didn’t have enough printed tiles for an entire mosaic. So I focused on the quarter circle tiles (or pizza tiles as some people call them) which I had in abundance. I had so many different bright colors that I thought something rainbow related would really be fun, and Pride month was on the horizon, which was an added motivator. I also wanted to create a mosaic that was a bit more artistic and intentional than many of the computergenerated ones you see around, though I used my fair share of technology to create it.

Lots of sorted Dots. Lots of Dots.