BrickJournal #73

Issue 73 • May 2022

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Visiting Monstropolis!

INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE!

Building Big Thunder Mountain!

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Issue 73 • May 2022

Contents From the Editor.............................................2

People One Color, 39 Times: An Interview with Caz Mockett............3 You Can Build It: Minifigure Habitat..................................10 Brandon Jones: Building the Monsters, Inc. Door Warehouse.....................................12

Building Eric Law: Harry Potter Ninjago City and Moving Staircase Scene..............21 Paul Sluiters: Building Hot Rods!.................................26 Antoine Huguerre: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad........28 Inez T. Vasquez: Brick Botanist...........................................36 Lance Alderson: Menetheus.................................................40 You Can Build It: MINI Havoc Marauder...........................46 BrickNerd Instructions: Pirate Ship Ride.......................................51 Minifigure Customization 101: RWBY (WIP II)...........................................57

Community RogueBricks Collaborative Project: Adventure Islands..................................62 Bantha Bricks Files: Corey Schaaf’s Resistance Transport.............................66 Community Ads.........................................78 Last Word......................................................79 AFOLs.............................................................80

From the Editor: Hi! Well, this issue went all over the place...

May 2022 Issue 73

The cover story is about a model of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but not in Disneyland or Walt Disney World, but in Disneyland Paris!

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 BrickNerd Editor Dave Schefcik Bantha Bricks Correspondent Steven Smyth Contributors: Lance Alderson, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Johannes Haimann, Antoine Huguerre, Caz Mockett, Brandon Jones, Gwyneth Kozbial, Eric Law, Paul Sluiters, Steven Smyth, Inez T. Vasquez, and Greg Hyland.

Then we go to the Philippines to see the flowers built by Inez Vasquez.

Then off to Seattle to see a Monsters, Inc.inspired display, Harry Potter displays, and a tall ship.

And then, overseas to Munich, Germany, to visit Adventure Island. And then to the United Kingdom to take a look at some habitats!

And that’s not including the staff columns that come from Germany (Hi, Chris!), New Jersey (Hi, Dave!), Texas (Hi, Jared!), and from a place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (Hi, Steven!) .

Take a look and have fun!

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!

Website

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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: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!

Photography provided by Antoine Huguerre.

About the Contents: One of the larger creations in Adventure Islands, by Markus Rollbühler.

Photo provided by Rogue Bricks.

Big Thunder Mountain; Monsters, Inc. TM & © Disney.

Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm.

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)

BrickJournalTM issue 73, May 2022 (ISSN 1941-2347) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BrickJournal, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614.

Joe Meno, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. BrickJournal Editorial Offices: 6701 Coachman Drive, Springfield, VA 22152, USA. E-mail: admin@brickjournal.com.

Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $68 US, $103 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only, and can be purchased at www.twomorrows.com. 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 © BrickJournal Media, LLC 2021, TwoMorrows Publishing and the respective writers, photographers, and artists. All rights reserved. All trademarked items are the property of their respective owners and licensees. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

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BrickJournal and its staff would like to thank the LDraw community for the software it makes available to the community, which we use for making all of the instructions and renderings in this magazine. We would especially like to thank Kevin Clague for his continued upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.

People

Caz Mockett’s habitats.

Perhaps it’s because so many of us have been locked up in our own little cubes, but LEGO “Minifigure Habitats” have been in the zeitgeist a lot lately. My social media has been full of amazing, creative CMF (Collectible Minifigures) block-mocs this past year.

The first LEGO CMF series was released in 2010, and as early as that year, Eurobricks (a European LEGO fan site and forum) sponsored contests using them in “habitat” vignettes. To the best of our nerd-hivemind research, though, the modern, diagonal, stackable formula for “minifig habitats” came to be in 2016. Pangeran Panda shared his pattern that is based on the design used in the 2016 Olympic Bricks Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia, which garnered over one thousand entries in the category competition!

I can’t say whether I’ve seen thousands, but the icing on my habitat cake has been the wonderful series of MONOfigure habitats by Caz Mockett from the UK. Each of the 39 stackable habitats uses LEGO elements of only one color in the LEGO spectrum, with each individual cube involving a wholly unique character and style. Caz has been dropping these stacked gems three at a time on Instagram and Flickr, and now the spectrum is finally complete! On page 9 is a photo of Caz and her MOCs to give you a sense of scale.

One Color, 39 Times: An Interview with Caz Mockett Article by Gwyneth Kozbial Photography by Caz Mockett This interview first appeared on BrickNerd.com on May 18, 2021. It is presented here with permission.

Caz was gracious enough to answer some of my burning questions about her series. Jump on board this tour of her brick-built habitats!

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Gwyneth Kozbial: Thanks for chatting with BrickNerd!

When did you come up with the idea to create monochrome habitats? Was there a specific instance that caused the “spark”?

Habitats under construction; substitute colors fill in for parts under order, giving these a color patchwork look.

Caz Mockett: About two years ago, I saw a video of a huge collaborative Habitats display at an Australian LEGO convention. It had many different habitats, which provided great inspiration—including some for monofigures. At the time, I had no intention of collecting any myself, but I never really forgot about the habitats I had seen.

When I finally succumbed to the monofigure bug, I had already been building habitats for many other minifigures, so it just seemed like the natural extension to do monocolour builds for myself. I didn’t see it ending up with 39 and counting when I started!

I think we’ve all had projects or collections snowball like that. Did you normally collect monofigures?

I had been resisting for some time, knowing how expensive some of them could be. But being a fan of all things colourful, eventually I cracked!

Does this use your entire collection, or are there alternate figures that might show up in Round Two? Round Two!? Please, no! I have ideas for a small handful of new colours, but at present, the minifigures are not able to be completed yet, as the parts in the right colours don’t exist. I keep my hopes up though because LEGO is releasing new elements all the time—the torso/arms and new hairpiece in Vibrant Coral from the new VIDIYO sets are just some examples.

Are all of these pieces original LEGO? (Or are any Brasso-ed?)

They are all genuine LEGO pieces, but it is impossible to build some monofigures without removing the prints.

Brasso is definitely a great help to do this in the kindest way to the plastic.

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I’m a bit sick of the smell of the stuff though! I have usually removed prints where it was either impossible or prohibitively expensive to source an unprinted version.

Did the individual characters come from the figures themselves, inspired by an accessory, or did they evolve as you built them?

Many monofigure collections you see online are just the basic figure: head (no hair), torso, arms, hands, and legs.

But it was Instagram user lego_coffee who really spurred me into starting my own collection. He showed his series of monofigures who all had a hat or hair and some coordinating accessories, which I really liked. Then I started researching which parts were available for which colours (still not really thinking about building habitats at this point).

Some of the completed habitats.

I began gathering a few parts from my own collection and gradually making BrickLink orders for other elements. I wanted to choose unusual pieces for each figure, which more or less ended up dictating their characters. Sometimes it was a hairpiece or hat, sometimes the accessory. I gave each one a name even before building the habitat.

The Medium Lavender figure is a case in point—I was surprised to find the classic LEGO City thief/villain’s woolly hat was available in such a lovely colour, so I knew immediately that the Medium Lavender guy was going to be a thief. Researching the colour revealed things like the big chest and shell pieces, which I felt fitted in nicely with a museum display, and the habitat naturally evolved from that starting point. The thief is depicted stealing some priceless exhibits during the night.

The Orange Dive Master was another: flippers, airtank, life vest and even a dinghy were all available in orange. Then it was just a question of how I was going to cram that boat into an 8x8 space. The solution: it sticks out through holes in the back wall! The fish and starfish that decorate the harbour walls were an extra added bonus—when I spotted them in the BrickLink catalogue, it was fate.

Are there any elements that came from a wildly different CMF that give you a secret giggle?

I haven’t really thought about that, to be honest. I suppose Bright Pink Batman in his tutu comes closest. I already had the cowl from one of my own minifigures, so it was a must that I chose him for that colour. The tutu really suggested some sort of starlet, and the delightfully kitsch dressing room habitat sprang from there.

Do you normally sort by color? Did you develop a special sorting method for this project?

When I first came out of my Dark Age in 2017, my spare parts were sorted by colour. But I very soon realised that it was much easier to find a 1x1 red tile among other 1x1 tiles than a big bucket of red things—so now I sort by part first, and then colour if I have a lot of one piece in a particular colour.

Usually for my MOCs, this is by far the most efficient way of sorting my collection to find something quickly. However, this project has been the one time when I have regretted not having things sorted by colour!

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Did you have most of the elements, or is there anything unique about how you sourced the pieces?

I built the first few habitats from pieces already in my collection once I had completed the minifigures. These were fairly common colours like Light Bluish Gray, Pearl Gold, Reddish Brown, Red, White and Dark Bluish Gray. I’m normally a “build-it-in-the-brick” MOC’er, but I soon realised that what I wanted to build for some colours would have to be done digitally first because I just didn’t have the parts.

Stud.io has a great feature where you can turn off all the elements that aren’t available in a particular colour, which has been invaluable for figuring out which pieces I was going to use, especially for the more obscure colours. It also lets you upload your model as a wishlist directly to BrickLink.

So I would design the habitat, upload a wishlist, go through my own collection to see what I already had from my “shopping list”—which is where having things sorted by part wasn’t such a bad move anymore—and then try to source the remaining parts from as few UK sellers as I could manage. I also kept a spreadsheet of progress for each figure and habitat (I love a good spreadsheet!), and at one point I think I was juggling about ten different wishlists simultaneously. While I was trying to get the parts for one thing, I would often find some of the other things I needed at the same store, so it did save me quite a bit on postage that way.

We love spreadsheets here! Were any of the pieces expensive? How did you track all the orders?

I researched each piece to find the lowest UK price, where available, and wrote that and the store name in the notes field of the item in the wishlist. Then when I spotted it in a different store (you can choose to display just the parts a store has from your wishlists if you want to), I had a good idea if they were charging a lot more than the lowest price.

Once an order had been placed, I moved all of the pieces into a wishlist called Ordered and wrote “ORDERED” in the notes field, along with the store name. It may sound like a lot of effort, but it stopped me buying things multiple times over, especially when pieces were in the post and had not yet arrived. It also meant I could switch off the Ordered wishlist when viewing what each store had, which made life easier for just seeing what else they had which I was still missing. I would say I probably had to order about 80% of the elements especially for the project, but it was spread over seven months—so the cost didn’t seem quite as terrible. Before you ask, no, I haven’t added it all up!

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Did you wait to build each habitat until you had all the pieces?

For the first few habitats, I waited for all the parts to arrive before building them, but later on I got impatient to see their progress. So I would often build the whole thing with random colours as long as the shapes were correct, gradually replacing them one by one as each BrickLink order arrived.

Did you research the individual colors? Did you learn anything surprising about LEGO and colors?

I love browsing via the Colour Guide on BrickLink, and yes, discovering some wonderful part in a strange colour which I had no idea existed was definitely a fun part of the whole process. As I said before, working in Stud.io also meant I could easily browse the parts in a single colour right from the part-picker palette.

Although just because it exists, doesn’t mean it’s easy (or cheap!) to buy—so I did end up with one or two substitutions along the way. I was surprised by some of the weird things available in some colours, especially from LEGO’s back catalogue where parts are no longer in production, or a colour has fallen out of favour.

I really love the variety of texture in the walls. Each box is so unique. Did the diverse stories tend to come from the figure, or were they sometimes inspired by the environment?

I think most of them came from the figure’s character first, which was usually dictated by the accessories I could find in that colour. I did want to avoid just having a boring flat wall for each, so I tried to add as much texture and variety as I could—sometimes gratuitously so! It proved difficult with some of the rarer colours though, due to the limited selection of parts.

It’s not that easy to add texture to a wall when there are no SNOT bricks or brackets available in that colour. Olive Green is a prime example where there are no bricks available with studs on the sides. But I was saved by being able to use the masonry bricks and the corrugated panels in that habitat, which made things more interesting—and fit in very well with the urban environment I was trying to portray.

Were there any stories you had to give up on because a necessary element was not available in that color?

As the stories were led by the colours, and not the other way around, I think this wasn’t really an issue. I did have to make one order from Denmark for a handful of 1x1 Bright Green bricks with a stud on the side, in order to finish off the Brick Botanist’s habitat. And my lovely AFOL friend Jonas helped me source some of the wonderful “Fence 1 x 4 x 2 Ornamental with 4 Studs (19121)” in Teal from Belgium as there were none available at the time in the UK, but they seemed plentiful and cheap in Europe.

Habitats mated together.

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New Habitats!

Since this article appeared on BrickNerd.com, Caz has continued to build habitats. Here are the newest creations, as of end of 2021, with some comments from Caz.

The Bright Light Yellow Dog Walker I had the habitat ready to go for some time but was waiting for a head in the right colour to be released. While Rabbit from the Ideas Winnie The Pooh set provided torso, arms, hands and legs (some of which needed the Brasso treatment), Rabbit’s head was dual-moulded which meant monochrome was impossible. Then along came a square head in a Minecraft set, late in 2021 to provide the missing piece.

The Sand Red Prisoner Droids I love Sand Red, I think it is my favourite LEGO colour. But the pieces are even rarer and more expensive than some I have already bought for other Habitats. Plus there is only torso, arms and legs available in regular minifigure pieces, so I thought the figure would be impossible to complete seeing as Sand Red is now a discontinued colour. Then two things happened: I won a bulk lot of Sand Red pieces on eBay for a very cheap price (yay!) and I realised that the Geonosis Droid came in a Sand Red variant.

After a few more Bricklink orders to buy the remaining pieces I needed (including an expensive order from Germany to source 4x4 plates for the base), the final result was finished! It’s now one of my favourites.

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Do you have a favorite color or habitat?

It’s really hard to choose just one! So I shall mention a few.

The Yellow Pharaoh was an early build and a favourite because that wonderful headpiece dictated the rest of the build, and I knew he had to be seen inside his pyramid.

Pearl Gold was satisfying because I was still able to make an interesting habitat despite a dire lack of useful bricks; my bacon was saved by those lovely fancy fence pieces.

Flat silver presented a similar issue. The only brick available in that colour is an extremely rare 1x1x2 brick with a square hole (The Piece of Resistance, part 15444), where just one example came in 70816 Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! I needed 16 of them, and only one BrickLink store in the UK had them—but they were very costly. They were not so hard to find in eastern Europe, and much cheaper, but the New Year parcels had been quite delayed coming from Europe due to COVID and Brexit. BrickLink’s estimated shipping charges virtually wiped out any savings I would have made, and there often seems to be random customs duty applied to orders coming into the UK. So I agonised for several months about whether to buy them domestically or not. In the end, I caved. But that habitat was probably the longest in production (designed in December 2020 but not finished until April 2021). I think it also ended up being the most expensive habitat to build in total. And I managed to include a couple of Bionicle elements in that one, which surprised a few of my friends!

The Nougat Pig Scratcher This Habitat became possible when nougat bricks were released in Ninjago City Gardens in early 2021. They were very expensive on Bricklink initially, so I had to wait for them to become available via Bricks & Pieces. The theme of the piece was definitely influenced by the Fabuland pig head which is the same colour as the regular Nougat minifigure-scale pig. And there was a sausage available too, so I made it a shrine to all things porcine.

I also love the Dark Tan Desert Soldier—mostly for his camel, which was eye-wateringly expensive (the most expensive single piece in the whole project). Some folks have commented that I haven’t removed the eye print from the camel—given how expensive he was, I didn’t have the heart to ruin his value just for the sake of it; and viewed from a distance, you don’t really notice the print very much.

I see you’ve done a little digital editing for the photo, but I think that’s acceptable for such an expensive part! But because these habitats are such works of monochromatic art, the Art History nerd in me sees in this the principle in which an artist deliberately includes an imperfection to emphasize their own humanity. Thank you, Caz for bringing our attention to all these wonderful details and for sharing your process with us!

Another set of habitats.

You can see more of Caz Mockett’s work on her Instagram (https://www.instagram. com/cazmockett/), Flickr (https://www. flickr.com/photos/rugbymadgirl/) and YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/ BlockHeadUK/videos). You can scan the QR code to see her Flickr gallery!

Caz Mockett with her habitats.

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You Can Build It MINI Build Minifigure Habitat Instructions by Joe Meno

Hi! This is the Pangeran Panda minifigure habitat that the habitats Caz built are based on in the previous article. You can use any color you want and substitute elements as needed—this a guide to build the base habitat vignette.

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Parts List (Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)

Main Body Qty 4 24 1 2 8 2 1

Color White White White White White White White

Part 3004.dat 3010.dat 3023.dat 3024.dat 3622.dat 6636.dat 41539.dat

Description Brick 1 x 2 Brick 1 x 4 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 1 Brick 1 x 3 Tile 1 x 6 Plate 8 x 8

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People

The Door Warehouse.

Brandon Jones:

Building the Monsters, Inc. Door Warehouse!

Article and Photography

by Brandon Jones

One of the most striking scenes in the movie Monsters, Inc. begins when Sully and Mike ride a door to the door warehouse, where thousands of doors are kept for monsters to open for scaring the children on the other side. The setting looks endless, with racks of hung doors as far as the eye can see. For most builders, this would be a subject best left alone, but not Brandon Jones. In 2021, he unveiled his build of the Door Warehouse at BrickCon, a LEGO fan convention in Seattle, Washington!

Brandon has been building since he was a young child in the early ’70s. Originally, he focused on Classic Space, but he adapted as the theme matured and diversified.

By the time he was in his late twenties, Brandon had less and less time for building and his collection found a place in the back of a closet and was rarely played with. This changed when he wanted to take out the LEGO and play, and his wife at the time wanted to have a Halloween party.

They compromised and held a LEGO Halloween party, where all the bins were out and their adult friends came

in costume to play and have fun. This became an annual tradition that Brandon and his son continue today.

Mike Wazowski makes an appearance.

Having a dedicated time of the year to build really kept the creativity and love of the brick alive for him. Once Brandon discovered BrickCon (held on the first weekend of October), everything moved to a whole new level and LEGO is now a year-round activity in the house. Often the dining room table hosts a work-in-progress or piles of LEGO, which makes for great dinner conversation.

LEGO building also guided Brandon’s career direction. He worked as an electrician for high-end custom homes for over 20 years, but shifted careers in 2011 to teach STEM and robotic programs to elementary kids using LEGO. LEGO building has become such a passion for him, he’s finding creative ways to pay the bills while working parttime teaching after-school enrichment, home school, and summer camps, while sharing his love of LEGO and doling out knowledge along the way.

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Building Beyond Sets Building beyond the sets happened from looking at the sets he had back in the ’70s. Having photos of the set model and alternate ideas on the back of the set boxes instilled in Brandon the mindset that he could and should use the LEGO elements to make his own creations.

Some views of the Map Room. Exterior photos by Nicolas Teeuwen.

Inspirations for models, on the other hand, comes from many sources. Brandon’s model of the Map Room from Raiders of the Lost Ark came from lying in bed wondering what he could build that was small, like a micro build.

His model of an NES and scrolling Mario TV came from having a handful of 1 x 1 half-round tiles in his hand at BrickCon. Noticing they looked like the background of the Super Mario Brothers video game, he decided to make a scrolling scene, which grew into a TV and NES console.

When he noticed that a nearby container had a lot of door frame pieces in it, he thought of using them for a MOC. What uses a lot of door frames? That scene from Monsters, Inc.—boom!—inspiration!

Once inspired to build a creation, Brandon mulls things over in his head. Occasionally things just flow right and a MOC can come together quickly, in a few hours or days, but his larger projects like Monsters, Inc. can take six to nine months to design. He works a lot with models with motion, so making a mechanism work just right and fit just a certain way can take a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks. Adding structural support, details, sculpting, and finishing touches is a bit quicker. Brandon’s LEGO collection is not vast and he doesn’t always have the right pieces or colors, so he does a lot hybrid building. He’ll mock up a section or mechanism using real bricks and then rebuild a digital version using Stud.io. He then works with the limitless selection of parts and color in the digital designer to move the design forward a bit more. When needed parts are found or purchased, Brandon re-mocks it up and make adjustments. For him, the process is slow, but he loves building and designing and is less concerned about getting the model done. It’ll be done when he is done building it.

Brandon’s reasons for LEGO building are the same base reasons that his 80+ year old mother gardens and his neighbor works on his Corvette—they all love their hobbies. Brandon loves looking at new sets, opening a LEGO box, seeing pieces spread across the table, and sorting and organizing pieces. He also loves the sound LEGO makes, the feeling when the pieces fit together, building with his son, and teaching kids using LEGO. He loves hosting LEGO Halloween parties, the joy of creating something

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and sharing it with others the community that LEGO provides. He loves LEGO, so he builds.

Brandon’s next MOC is fully designed in Stud.io, and its various mechanisms have been tested, so hopefully will all go together as planned. Look for its premiere at BrickCon 2022. There is also another MOC in the planning stages for 2023 or 2024… possibly 2025. Stay tuned!

For fellow builders, he offers the following: “Beginning builders of all ages can take inspiration from other LEGO creations that they see, and from anything that they see or can imagine. LEGO building is an art form, and everyone builds in their own way, and everyone progresses at their own pace. There is no wrong way to build, so just grab some bricks and explore the possibilities.”

Brandon’s Hardest Build Aside from Monsters, Inc. Brandon’s next most challenging MOC to design and build was Insomnia. He pushed himself, growing his LEGO skills by including eight tightly packed mechanisms on three motors, and explored new building techniques and ideas for the details packed into the scene. He learned much while making Insomnia, which was very valuable when designing Monsters, Inc. Brandon’s Insomnia.

Brandon’s Favorite Build While Brandon is proud of Monsters, Inc., he is even more proud of his NES and Super Mario Bros on Vintage TV MOC from 2019. Using only one motor, the background scrolls and controls a timing mechanism to make Mario jump in sync with the scrolling screen. Making it even more special was when LEGO released their version 18 months later. As some have said, “Great minds think alike.”

Brandon’s NES and Super Mario Bros on Vintage TV. Photos by Nicolas Teeuwen.

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Brandon Talks About Building the Door Warehouse: “To date, Monsters, Inc. is the largest, most elaborate, most complex and most motorized build that I’ve done. With 10 motors (well, 7 motors and 3 Servo motors), and creative mechanisms, it was a real challenge getting everything to work properly. Prior to Monsters, my next most challenging MOC was Insomnia. I pushed myself on that one, and learned a lot about the limitations of LEGO mechanisms.

Just because Technic parts fit together, does not always mean they will move the way you think they should, or last very long.

The digital model.

For my Monsters, Inc. MOC, I’m very happy with how well it represents the warehouse from the movie. It’s not meant to be the actual scene from the movie, just a representation of a scene in the door warehouse with some of my favorite characters. There is lots of movement (although I would have liked to add more), and fine details to reflect the architecture, fun elements and characters to tell the story.

Different versions of Mike.

Working on the side logo. The blue area is where the logo will stand.

One of the biggest design challenges of Monsters, Inc. was the size. I had not built on this scale before, and I learned a lot while designing and building it. The initial design was done as one big build, with everything connected like one set, but during assembly I realized that it needed to be semi-modular, to allow for transport and storage. I spent about a month redesigning the walls, structural supports and mechanisms to divide it into six different sections, and made custom cardboard boxes to hold each section and the various sub-assemblies that would attach.

Most of the time, I spend too much time designing in my head, and not doing enough documenting. A good engineer or designer uses a Design Engineering Process: 1) Identify the purpose of a build, 2) Brainstorm Ideas, 3) Make a Plan, 4) Create it, and 5) Improve it. With LEGO, it’s fun and easy to jump into the creation step, but the previous steps are necessary to define a project’s scope and set it on a good path. For Monsters, Inc. I sketched out a rough idea that I had in my mind and then went to work on mocking up the rollercoaster track, as I know its size would establish the MOC scale and set some limitations about what would be possible. Once the coaster layout was pinned down, the size of the scene was set around that to accommodate the other elements that were planned.

Designing the blue circle for the Monsters, Inc. logo also required planning. I used graph paper (set to LEGO bricks/ studs) and drew a circle with a compass. I then built with brick to fill to the lines drawn, creating a clean brick circle.

This was then documented in Stud.io and I adjusted the bricks to fit what was needed structurally in the wall.

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The door rail.

For gathering the 21,000 pieces for Monsters, Inc., I planned different sections of the build and grouped the pieces needed for each build section, similar to how a LEGO set comes with parts in Bag 1, Bag 2, etc. I ended up dividing the parts into 32 different bags. This process took a lot of time, as I had to organize the parts into 32 different ‘want lists’ on Bricklink and use those lists to keep track of what I had on hand or needed to acquire through a Bricklink vendor, my own inventory, or from a boxed set. When I had a part in hand and placed it in the corresponding bag, I would check it off the want list and continued until all the lists were completed. This made the building process much smoother as the parts were readily available and there was no need to rummage through other parts and pieces.

I designed the side walls to extend off the back wall at 45 degree angles, to open up the entire scene from various angles for viewing. This is a style that I used previously with Insomnia, in a much smaller scale, and I like how it presents a vignette feel, but is more visible and provides extra space to add more details.

I had great fun creating the characters for the scene. I designed most of the characters in Stud.io, where I could list all parts of a specific color (matching a character), and look for elements that could work for specific body parts.

I started with Mike Wazowski, as I needed to make sure I could come up with one that would be able to fit through a doorway. It was always my plan to have Mike appear by opening and stepping though various doors. I ended up with three bedrooms for Mike to appear from, and the movement is controlled by two LEGO Mindstorms EV3s, linked via Bluetooth, and programmed to pick a random door, turn on the red light above the door (and the light inside the bedroom), have Mike push the door open and step into the doorway, then retreat Mike into the room, closing the door, and turn off the lights. The program then picked another random room, and Mike pops out again, but in a different location.

The tentacle mechanism...

...broken to parts...

Side wall with logo in progress.

...then bagged.

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An overhead view of the layout.

Sully towing some canisters.

The other characters include Sulley, Chalooby, the CDA, and Randall. To my surprise, Chalooby came together quickly, and I was so excited to find the vehicle mudguards (#98835) available in Olive Green for his chest. The rest of his body is mostly Technic and plates. I tried over a few weeks to make a good Randall, but the availability of parts in the right color were just not there, so I used his chameleon ability to blend his body into the wall, so you only see his eyes and the fronds on top of his head. The CDA was an easy choice, with the CMF “Hazmat Guy.” I extended one torso with a 1x2 brick, and shortened one with the stubby legs. I tried to add extra arms and heads, but they got too blocky and it wasn’t really necessary, so I kept it clean with the basic minifigures. Sulley was the most challenging and was done last, as there were so few parts available in Medium Azure and no good options for arms. Thankfully, in 2020 LEGO released the figure Sandy (part #mk004) from Monkey Kid, and that solved my problem for Hulk-like medium azure arms and hands.

2319!

Randall in hiding.

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A late additional character was the squid tentacles that appear through one of the hallway openings in the back wall. The tentacles undulate up and down as they move into view, and then retreat down the hallway. I’m not sure what character it might be, but if I was there, I’d go down a different hallway.

The Door Shredder is an iconic part of the story, and I think my LEGO version came out great.

Tentacles in the hall.

Door shredder.

The layout with door track in the upper center.

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Mechanisms: Each mechanism in the layout stands alone, and they each use different motors. They were designed independently, and each had their challenges in getting the motion from a rotating motor shaft to the desired output motion at a specific speed, with enough power to operate the mechanism under full load. Each mechanism uses various gears, linkages, chain and belts to transfer the energy from the motor to the final moving parts that you see from the front. I spent most of my design time working out the specifics to get each one to perform to my liking, but there is still room for improvement.

• Mike Opening Bedroom Doors (x3) (Linear Motion) EV3 Medium Motor> 24Tooth Crown Gear> 24Tooth Clutch Gear> 20Tooth Double Beveled Gear> Rack Gears> Linear Motion • Chalooby Mopping the Floor (Oscillating Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 8Tooth Gear> 24Tooth Gear> Oscillation Arm • Exhaust Fans (X2) (Rotary Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 40Tooth Gear> 24Tooth Gear> Gear Train> Rotary Motion • Spinning Doors (Rotary Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 16Tooth Gear> 16Tooth Gear> 12tooth Beveled Gears> Rotary Motion • Conveyor Belt (Rotary Motion on a Vertical Belt) PF XL-Motor> Dual 8Tooth gears> Dual 40Tooth Gears> Sm Tread Sprocket Wheel> Tread Links> Rotary Motion The back of the layout, showing the train controllers and EV3 bricks used to run the mechanisms.

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• Squid Tentacles (Reciprocating & Oscillating Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 16Tooth Gear> 40Tooth Gear> Linkage> 40Tooth Gear> 8Toooth Gear> 20Tooth Gear> Gear Train> Rack Gears> Reciprocating Motion PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear>16Tooth Gear>Cams> Oscillating Motion • Roller Coaster (1- Linear lift up incline) PF M-Motor>8Tooth Gear> 40Tooth Gear> 24Tooth Gear> Chain> Tensioner> 24Tooth Gear>Linear Lift • Roller Coaster (2- Linear Movement along track, around a corner) PF M-Motor > 24Tooth Gear> Chain> 40Tooth Gear>>Circular Motion >> 24Tooth Gear> Chain> 16Tooth Gear >Circular Motion • Roller Coaster (3- Linear Movement along the track) PF M-Motor>8Tooth Gear>> >>40Tooth Gear> Belt Wheel> Belt > Linear Motion >>40Tooth Gear> Belt Wheel> Belt > Linear Motion

You can see more of Brandon’s work, including video of the warehouse, at his Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ bajbricks/albums/72157719942294339 or by scanning this QR code!

Building

Eric Law’s Harry Potter themed Ninjago City.

Eric Law’s

A quidditch game area.

Harry Potter Ninjago City and Moving Staircase Scene Article and Photography by Eric Law Building big things is something Eric Law does often. For ten years, he has been building—he was inspired to build when he was disappointed that LEGO only made one modular building a year. With his kid’s bricks, he built his own and kept going. His favorite themes are Marvel, Ninjago, Modulars, and Harry Potter. It’s the last theme mentioned that he has done the most, though.

Eric built two layouts based on Harry Potter that were displayed at BrickCon 2021. The first one was Harry Potter Ninjago City and was inspired by a community build at another LEGO fan event in Canada, BrickCan 2018. There, 30 builders collaborated on making a Ninjago themed layout. Eric originally wanted to make a Harry Potter themed Ninjago City block, but then Covid hit and he found himself suddenly with a strange combo: Time, bricks, and wine.

With those, he kept on building the city bigger and bigger.

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More views of the city layout.

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The other layout was the moving staircase scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Originally, the layout was going to be part of a collaborative build and was going to be a scene from the Battle of Hogwarts from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. However, Eric decided to leave the group and found himself with a cool-looking build that wasn’t completed. After thinking about it for a few minutes, he figured the only way to save the build was to do the moving staircase from the first movie.

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Building with LEGO is a big stress reliever for Eric and allows him to decompress after work. As a Banquet Chef, his job is similar on how he builds—he starts with an idea in his head, looks at what he has on hand, and builds. If it isn’t right, he takes it apart and starts again. At his work, he has to always be ready to “figure it out” if he has to feed hundreds of people at a time, sometimes with other than the ingredients needed.

Because of this, he doesn’t use any type of building program or sketching. He may have a general sketch for positioning of science, but for the majority of the time he just builds one brick after another with no real plan except that he will try to make it as authentic as possible to what he wants to build.

One element that he really enjoys placing in his models is a spiral staircase.

His initial attempt was in one of his first MOCs: the Weasley Twin Joke Shop.

That was a fun build for Eric and he learned there that the spiral staircase really made his builds pop.

Eric’s next build is another large Harry Potter build—even bigger than the Staircase build! And his builds are a good example of his advice: “Make sure your next MOC is better than your last. Don’t worry about other builders, just beat yourself. Find a good set with great techniques and learn from them. Don’t be afraid to experiment—my best builds were happy accidents.”

Some views of the staircase scene.

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Building

Paul Sluiters:

Building Hot Rods!

Article and Photography by Paul Sluiters A few of the many hot rods Paul has made.

What do you do when you can’t get out? A lot of us encountered that question when the pandemic struck. For Paul Suiters, he spent the time building cars and started an Instagram account to show his MOCs. His return to building actually began in 2019 when he got a gift from his wife—a LEGO Technic set.

He started collecting LEGO Technic again but ended up selling his Technic collection to buy Speed Champions, Star Wars and Creator Expert sets. His favorite theme is Speed Champions.

Being a fan of hotrods, rat rods and classic muscle cars, Paul started to build his cars in LEGO, since he lives in the Netherlands and those cars can’t be found there. To him, what’s cool about the hotrods and ramrods is they can’t be crazy enough. There are no rules for building a hotrod: they are all custom made.

Making the cars is an easy task for Paul—with inspiration, it only takes him two or three hours to build one, and four hours to make a large one. Using no plans when building, he puts his LEGO bricks and elements onto a table and thinks about what he’s going to build. Sometimes he has a car in mind and sometimes he looks for inspiration online.

When he goes to sleep after building, he will also think of other ideas, so modifications and details are made when he gets back up.

The models that Paul are most proud of are the ones that don’t get broken down. He posts a lot on Instagram, and people have observed that he had so much LEGO, but Paul just breaks down builds after he photographs them.

The models he passes over breakdown are the ones he likes the most.

His next builds are going to be more crazy cars—he is always trying to take it to the next level. His advice to other builders? “Just start building and use your imagination— you can build anything you want!”

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Building

Antoine Huguerre’s

The Disney theme parks have been inspirations for many LEGO builders. With the LEGO Group releasing Cinderella Castle and the Disney Railroad sets, it’s a logical step to build other attractions. For Antione Huguerre, his inspiration was Disneyland Paris’ Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The rollercoaster shares the name with three other coasters in Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland, but has a different layout that actually goes under a river! Antoine’s build not only matches the layout, but also runs a LEGO rollercoaster on the ride track.

Article and Photography

by Antoine Huguerre The entire layout, which takes up two tables.

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The entrance queue building.

Antoine is a builder that came back from a Dark Age—he got his first LEGO set as a Christmas gift in 1998: the Patriot Jet (#6331). He was only five years old, and he continued to build until he was 15. At that time, he sold his collection and didn’t return to building until 2017 when he bought all the Angry Birds sets and the modular Parisian Restaurant. In 2019, Antoine joined his first LEGO Users Group “Brisy” to begin his AFOL experience.

The ride entrance.

One of the outside turns.

Into the mine tunnel!

For Antoine, building as an adult is different from when he was a young builder. Now, with more free time, a bigger budget, and more space to store his collection, creations and spare parts, he can build larger and more detailed models. LEGO has also released new parts and colors that make it easier to build with advanced techniques and more realism.

Most of his LEGO collection are Harry Potter sets, but he enjoys building his own Disney-inspired models and modifications of sets. Antoine’s motivation to create these models is simply wanting to recreate a real attraction and make it smaller to enjoy at home.

Passing through another turn.

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Because building is a leisure activity for him, Antoine doesn’t plan his builds.

He builds when he wants and he is careful to keep focused, be productive, and have fun building. If the size allows him, he turns to using the app Stud.io from Bricklink. The app is very useful to get an overview of his projects and the parts needed to make online orders, so it’s definitely a timesaver. As he builds on the app, he uses reference photos in order to make his builds more realistic. For his Disneyland Paris builds, he wants everyone, from a casual viewer to a Disney aficionado, to be able to appreciate his work.

The time to build a model can vary depending on the size and techniques used in construction, as well as outside factors, such as waiting for parts or lack of time set aside. For Antoine, this is a leisure activity, so there is no hurry to complete a model. It took Antoine only one month to modify his Disney Railroad station, but it took him about one year to build Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a matter of pride for Antoine, as it is his childhood and favorite ride. He always wanted to recreate it but until recently, the parts and colors LEGO had were too limited. Now, there are new parts, including roller coaster track and new colors like Dark Orange, Dark Tan, and Medium Nougat which are perfect to recreate the rocky mountainsides of the ride.

Another view of the mountain.

Another curve, with a lift hill in the background.

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Additionally, he made the coaster work, which is a notable achievement because, as he learned, making a rollercoaster is hard because the system is not stable. Making the coaster run made the build even more satisfying!

Antoine’s future plans include building more of the park. The build he is currently working on in fact, is Disneyland Paris’s version of the Haunted Mansion: Phantom Manor.

While it is only a virtual model at this time, it follows the advice he has for fellow builders: “Build something, chose a theme that makes you happy to play with, or gives you pleasure to build. You never have to be frustrated playing with LEGO, it still is a leisure activity! If you decide to realize a huge MOC, don’t be in a hurry, it will definitely be a long journey! So enjoy all the moments.

Antoine’s modified train station.

“If you understand this, a world of possibilities lay in your hands to create a really fulfilling build for you.”

And in the planning stages: Phantom Manor.

You can see more of Antoine’s work on Instagram:@disneyrecreation and on Facebook: @disneyrecreation.

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Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a project that required a lot of thought and planning, as it was basically two models—a functioning rollercoaster that wound in and out of a mountain layout. Antoine’s efforts required using some different techniques to complete his model, so let’s take a look!

The coaster track was the first thing to be built. Using reference photos, the track was set up using brick mounts. The track was tested to make sure there were no dead spots and that the train doesn’t get stopped by any track it goes under. There also is more than one lift hill on this model, including two that start below the table!

The boarding and queue building was initially set up in Stud.io. These renders are of the lower level (left) and upper level (below). The towerlike structure on the lower floor rear was moved to the rear corner.

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Adding the cliff to the coaster track involved building some plateaus and also building a frame with Technic parts, seen at the top left photo. Technic bricks were on the axles, so the cliff faces were built on plates and attached to frames like a ‘skin,’ as seen on the photo above left. You can see the Technic frames in the mountain in the construction photo above right.

The photo on the bottom left shows more of how the slopes were put into place and incorporated into the track layout.

The trains were originally designed on Stud.io using LEGO rollercoaster parts.

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Building

Inez’ Raffesia leonardi.

Inez T. Vasquez:

Brick Botanist Article and Photography

by Inez T. Vasquez

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Inez T. Vasquez, a full-time mother and lawyer, started building in 2012, quickly getting into building MOCs a year later. She had always loved LEGO as a child but she never got to build anything of her own because the toys were really expensive in Manila, where she lives. When the Lord of the Rings sets got released, she had a steady job, so she decided to treat herself to a little set (Gandalf Returns - #9469). She loved it so much, she started collecting more LOTR and some Harry Potter sets. From building from instructions, Inez moved on to modifying sets, and eventually went to building her own creations.

Her LUG, the Philippine LEGO Users Group, has always encouraged its members to build MOCs. Inez always loved trees, and was disappointed that LEGO’s trees looked nothing like the real thing. She started building trees and doing landscapes, often for PhLUG’s diorama builds. She began building flowers in 2018, when PhLUG took part in the iMake History Museum. Inez wanted to build something to promote Philippine biodiversity so she built flowers endemic to the Philippines: Rafflesia leonardi and Vanda sandertana (or the Waling Waling). From there she just built more and more flowers.

Inez makes nature-inspired builds to bring nature a little bit closer to her children since they live in the city. She loves nature, particularly flowers and trees. She also likes practicing her building skills, so she often builds in response to online challenges or contests held by her LUG. Lately, she has been trying to build better minifigure habitats through build challenges hosted by @brickfambuilds on Instagram.

When building a MOC, Inez generally studies her model inspiration first. If she is making a flower, she will read up on it and look at pictures online. If she is making a structure, she likes to read LEGO manuals of similar builds to pick up useful techniques. For small builds like flowers, brickheadz, or minifigure habitats, she builds whatever comes to mind. It’s a lot of trial and error (and makes a mess of her work area). For bigger builds, such as buildings, Inez sketches her ideas on paper first, mostly to get a better idea of how many parts she needs to order.

She almost never settles for the first model, though; her final product is often very different from what she started with because she is always tweaking things until she is finally happy with what she has made. She is lucky because she has several close friends who are builders as well, who like to bounce ideas off each other and help each other improve their builds. Often she will send them pictures of her first draft model and they discuss if it needs improvement.

Vanda sanderiana alba.

Ninjago inspired foliage.

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The build time for a model for Inez can vary, depending on the complexity of the model and availability of parts. She builds very slowly, so it takes her a while. From designing to procuring the parts, to actually building the model can take her anywhere from a week (her shortest build) to two months (her longest build). Her fastest build was Phalaenopsis, which took her a week. In that case, she was lucky in that she had most of the parts needed and the design came very clearly to mind. The build which took the longest was probably Dendrobium anosmum (Sanggumay). In designing the flower, she decided to sculpt everything from 1x2 plates and studs, which took a lot of trial and error. After figuring out the design, she had to wait for the parts to arrive. The actual building was quicker because she already had a prototype, but then she had to figure out the connections. It was surprisingly easy to build the flower. She had more difficulty building the rest of the plant and figuring out how to display it.

The hardest MOC Inez has built was her Pride Bouquet, mostly because it was six flower species in one build! She had never done more than one or two species at a time, so this was a first for her. Not only did she have to figure out how to make each individual build, she had to make sure they looked good together and could fit in the planter she made for the display. She also decided to make a digital model of the bouquet, so translating her design from physical bricks to digital ones presented a new challenge for her.

Inez is most proud of her endemic Philippine flowers, which she was able to show at LEGO® CON. She was really happy to be able to share Philippine flowers with the rest of the world. She was also happy she was able to use different building styles to make that series. She tries to use different styles not only to make the builds interesting, but to improve her building skills.

Inez’s Pride Bouquet.

Phalaenopsis moth orchid.

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Native Philippine flowers, from left to right: Medinilla magnifica, Lagerstroenia speciosa, Vanda sanderiana alba, Rafflesia leonardi, Dendrobium anosmum, Dillenia philippinensis, Strongylodon macrobotrys, and Ceratocentron fesselii.

Aside from those, she is also very proud of her Pride Bouquet because she was able to use different parts creatively in a relatively small build. She particularly liked making the iris petals out of windscreen parts (part 27262). She also liked being able to use so many of the Flat Leaves 2 x 2 with 4 Petals and Axle Hole (part 15469) to make hydrangeas. She bought so many of those parts from Pick a Brick and didn’t know what to do with them until the rainbow build challenge came along.

Her Philippine native flowers project will probably be a life-long project, as there are so many flowers from her country. She wants to keep adding to the collection every year. She also wants to make a Rafflesia small enough to put on a desk, and make instructions for it.

Inez’ reasons for building are simple. She builds because it makes her happy. She has always loved to create, and has been painting and doing arts and crafts (including origami) for as long as she can remember. It’s just a part of who she is.

She gives this advice to other builders: “Don’t be afraid to try. Starting a build without instructions may seem daunting at first, but as with most things, it gets easier with time and practice. Sometimes all it takes to start is to put two bricks together!”

You can see more of Inez’s work at her Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr. com/people/181951823@N05/ or you can scan this QR code!

Dendrobium anosmum.

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Building

Lance Alderson’s ship of the line Menetheus.

Lance Alderson’s

Menetheus Article and Photography

by Lance Alderson

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My name is Lance Alderson. I was born in 1993 and am 28 years old. I have held many jobs, but I currently work as a machine Technician making Coca-Cola bottles. Any Coke bottles in the Pacific northwest were made in our plant.

In the strictest sense I have been building for at least the last two decades. As a child I was always building or trying to acquire more Lego to keep building, and it was much the same through my teenage years. When I went off to college I fell into a little bit of a Dark Age and my time to build became almost nonexistent. It has only been in the last two to three years that I have really had the opportunity to get back into building, as I finally have had the space to build on a larger scale. It was at that time that I really dove into ship building.

Stern view.

The draw for me as an adult builder is twofold. First is the challenge of creating objects out of such a unique medium. Bricks are inherently square and lend themselves well to structures with right angles. I find a great deal of joy in assembling the correct combination of bricks to render a gentle curve or complex bend.

The second reason is that LEGO is a fantastic way to go about storytelling. I have always enjoyed seeing scenes where you immediately knew what was going on without anyone having to say a word, and LEGO offers endless possibilities to do so.

It may be unsurprising, but the Pirates theme is my favorite.

I was born in ’93 and missed the original Pirates line. However, a family friend had one or two sets and I was always enamored with them. The potential for exploration and adventure that the theme offered has always caught my imagination. From the discovery of far-off distant lands to pitched battles at sea, there are so many fun stories to dive into.

Almost all the official LEGO pirate ships are just a bit too small for my liking and they never carry nearly enough cannons, so I guess I was inspired to build something just a bit bigger. I wanted to be able to set a minifigure on the deck of a ship and have him be as close to scale as possible.

Stern deck view.

A look at the main mast and rigging.

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The bow with figurehead.

A view of the port gun ports.

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Most of my inspiration for building comes straight out of the pages of history. I am fascinated with the age of sail and the ships therein. These were mammoth machines that traversed the globe in an age before computers, crewed by hundreds of men. I enjoy trying to recreate them with as much detail as possible and try to catch a small glimpse of what life might have been like aboard such a vessel. I am also inspired by stories such as the Hornblower series by C.S. Forester and the writing of Cpt Frederick Marryat.

More specifically, my ship of the line was based of the design of the HMS Cumberland, a man of war built in 1774. I used the blueprints of that ship to design mine.

It took about 9-12 months to build the model. Some of that time, around 2-3 months was spent doing research on the ship. I have collected around half a dozen books on the history of sailing ship and of the British navy. The other 8 or so moths were spent building as often as I could—spending a weekend here and a weekend there designing the interior structure, sourcing which bricks I would need on bricklink, and then planning or prototyping the next portion of the build as I waited for the previous orders.

I don’t plan my builds out on paper, as many of them already have design documents ready for them. I do, however, try to gather as much reference information as possible. I personally find sitting down with bricks and working my way from the bottom suits my build style. If I run into a problem, I find working it out in physical bricks easier for me. The process is very iterative.

The major drive for my building as of late has been to replicate real sailing vessels. They are incredibly complex machines and my replication of them just scratches the surface of their working mechanisms. I also enjoy the problem-solving aspect of building.

Just to get the hull to the right width and length took three different attempts. If the first attempt is not good enough, you can always take it apart and try again. I have a growing number of books and copies of blueprints, sourced primarily from model ship builders, that I use to inform my builds. As my ships are based on real sailing vessels, I use this information to get the details correct: Such as how and where are the guns placed, how does the hull actually curve at the waterline, where would certain cabins be, and finally, what are all of the ropes suppose to do?Trying several brick combinations to form the bow and finally finding the final solution is a very rewarding experience.

The main deck with launch.

View of the bow and port side, with anchor.

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Reviewing the ship.

The Menetheus, my ship of the line, has been by far the hardest build I think I have ever undertaken. It is certainly the largest ship I have ever built, and that alone puts it at the top of my list.

Between the less common color choices of dark blue, dark tan, and perl gold, I spent a fair amount of time hunting down bricklink stores just to source enough of the parts. Then on top of that, I dove into learning about naval architecture. I ended up ordering a glossary just so I could figure out a small portion of what rigging was called.

The stern detail.

Activity on the main deck.

The Menetheus is also to date my best work. Some of the features I really want to show off would be the detail work on the stern.

I had so much fun building that and adding various details to it.

I took a whole day starting from the bottom and slowly working to the top, adding in the railing details, working on the window spacing and framing. I wanted to show that ships of that era had an inordinate amount of finery put into them. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

I have a series of upgrades or improvements I want to make for my current ships. I know there is a lot more I could be doing with the rigging and I want to find a way to make transportation easier. The bow is still rather fragile, so I am hoping to improve that. Currently I also have another 4th rate ship of the line in the works. I one day would like to build a few merchant ships and a few smaller pirate vessels. Where exactly will the fleet building end—who knows?

My advice for new builders would be this: have fun with building. There is no right way or wrong way to build. LEGO is full of nearly infinite possibilities. If you enjoy what you have created, then that is what is important.

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Pop Culture Books HOLLY JOLLY

Celebrating Christmas Past In Pop Culture

HOLLY JOLLY is a colorful sleigh ride through the history of Christmas, from its religious origins to its emergence as a multimedia phenomenon. It explores movies (Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life), music (White Christmas, Little St. Nick), TV (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), books (Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol), decor (1950s silver aluminum trees), comics (super-heroes meet Santa), and more! Featuring interviews with CHARLES M. SCHULZ (A Charlie Brown Christmas), ANDY WILLIAMS (TV’s “Mr. Christmas”) and others, the story behind DARLENE LOVE’s perrennial hit song Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), and more holiday memories! By MARK VOGER, the profusely illustrated HOLLY JOLLY takes readers on a time-trip to Christmases past that you will cherish all year long!

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 ISBN: 9781605490977 (Digital Edition) $15.99

MONSTER MASH

GROOVY

Time-trip back to the frightening era of 1957-1972, when monsters infiltrated America in monster magazines, toys, games, trading cards, and comic books.

This profusely illustrated full-color hardcover covers that creepy, kooky craze through features on FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, the #1 hit “Monster Mash,” Aurora’s model kits, TV shows (SHOCK THEATRE, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS, and DARK SHADOWS), “Mars Attacks” trading cards, Eerie Publications, PLANET OF THE APES, and more! It features interviews with monster creators, publishers, and TV stars, with a Foreword by TV horror host Zacherley, the “Cool Ghoul.” Written and designed by MARK VOGER!

From Woodstock, “The Banana Splits,” and “Sgt. Pepper” to “H.R. Pufnstuf,” Altamont, and “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.”

Revisit the era’s rock festivals, movies, art, comics and cartoons in this color-saturated pop-culture history written and designed by MARK VOGER!

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 ISBN: 9781605490649 (Digital Edition) $11.99

(192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 ISBN: 9781605490809 Digital Edition: $13.99

Get all three Mark Voger books above for just $99.95! Normally $124, save $24!

IT CREPT FROM THE TOMB

Since 2000, FROM THE TOMB has terrified readers worldwide. This second “Best of” collection of the UK’s preeminent magazine on the history of horror comics uncovers Atomic Comics lost to the Cold War, rarely seen (and censored) British horror comics, the early art of RICHARD CORBEN, GOOD GIRLS of a bygone age, TOM SUTTON, DON HECK, LOU MORALES, AL EADEH, BRUCE JONES’ Alien Worlds, HP LOVECRAFT in HEAVY METAL, and a myriad of terrors from beyond the stars and the shadows of our own world! It features comics they tried to ban, from ATLAS, CHARLTON, COMIC MEDIA, DC, EC, HARVEY, HOUSE OF HAMMER, KITCHEN SINK, LAST GASP, PACIFIC, SKYWALD, WARREN, and more! Edited by PETER NORMANTON. (192-page Trade Paperback) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605490816 (Digital Edition) $10.99

HERO-A-GO-GO!

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. RETROFAN 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), and more!

(272-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $36.95 ISBN: 9781605490731 (Digital Edition) $13.99

AMERICAN TV COMIC BOOKS (1940s-1980s) From The Small Screen To The Printed Page

A fascinating and detailed year-by-year history of over 300 television shows and their 2000+ comic book adaptations across five decades. Author PETER BOSCH has spent years researching and documenting this amazing area of comics history, tracking down the well-known series (STAR TREK, THE MUNSTERS) and the lesser-known shows (CAPTAIN GALLANT, PINKY LEE) to present the finest look ever taken at this unique genre of comic books. Included are hundreds of full-color covers and images, plus profiles of the artists who drew TV comics: GENE COLAN, ALEX TOTH, DAN SPIEGLE, RUSS MANNING, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH, and many more giants of the comic book world. If you loved watching The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, The Andy Griffith Show, The Monkees, The Mod Squad, Adam-12, Battlestar Galactica, The Bionic Woman, Alf, Fraggle Rock, and “V”—there’s something here for fans of TV and comics alike.

(192-page FULL-COLOR TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 ISBN: 9781605491073 (Digital Edition) $15.99

THE BEST OF FROM THE TOMB This first collection compiles features from its ten years of terror, along with new material meant for the NEVER-PUBLISHED #29 • (192-page Digital Edition) $10.99

LOU SCHEIMER

CREATING THE FILMATION GENERATION

Biography of the co-founder of Filmation Studios, which created the first DC cartoons with Superman, Batman, and Aquaman, ruled the song charts with The Archies, kept Trekkie hope alive with the Emmywinning 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, live-action shows Shazam! and The Secrets of Isis, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Written by LOU SCHEIMER, with RetroFan’s ANDY MANGELS. (288-page Digital Edition) $14.99

TwoMorrows.

The Future of Pop History.

TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

store@twomorrows.com

Order at

www.twomorrows.com

You Can Build It MINI Build MINI Havoc Marauder Design and Instructions

by Christopher Deck

Hello everybody and welcome back to one of our popular Star Wars mini modeling session! I am glad to share another model with you! This time we move along in the Star Wars publishing timeline and look at the recent animated television series called Star Wars: The Bad Batch. It picks out a story arc of the animated Clone Wars television series about a particular Clone unit (Clone Force 99), also known as the “Bad Batch.”

The unit’s personal starship is the “Havoc Marauder,” a customized attack shuttle. It is overall a mainly gray design but features similar black wing inlays as you have already seen for TIE fighters, for example. With newer parts like the 2x2 plate with cut corner (part 26601), the short 2x2 wedge plates (parts 24307 and 24229), and the 2x2 triangular tile (part 35787), we manage to create wings that resemble the correct angles but remain relatively flat (two plates high) at the same time. The top fin is covered with the also quite new 2x4 pointed wedge plates (parts 65426 and 65429).

The nose, however, uses a traditional “space wing/nose” (part 4596), a part that dates back to the year 1984! It is still a unique shaped part today and shows how old and new part designs go along together perfectly!

Have fun building, and see you next time!

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Parts List (Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)

Main Body

Qty Color 2 Lt-Bluish-Gray 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray

Part 99781.dat 44302.dat

2 2 2 1 2

Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray

3024.dat 32828.dat 3023.dat 32028.dat 3794b.dat

2 4 2 2 4 2 2 1

Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Trans-Lt-Blue Trans-Lt-Blue Lt-Bluish-Gray

48336.dat 3623.dat 3021.dat 85984.dat 11477.dat 3070b.dat 24246.dat 3069b.dat

Description Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2 Down Hinge Plate 1 x 2 Locking with Dual Finger on End Vertical Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 1 Round with Bar Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 with Door Rail Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud Plate 1 x 2 with Handle Type 2 Plate 1 x 3 Plate 2 x 3 Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Tile 1 x 1 with Rounded End Tile 1 x 2 with Groove

Cockpit

Qty Color 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray

Part 44301.dat

2 1

Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray

3023.dat 4596.dat

2

Lt-Bluish-Gray

3794b.dat

1

Lt-Bluish-Gray

35480.dat

1 1 2

Black Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray

11477.dat 24201.dat 3070b.dat

Top Fin

Qty Color 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray 2 Lt-Bluish-Gray 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray 1 Lt-Bluish-Gray

Part 52107.dat 3024.dat 3023.dat 3710.dat 61409.dat 60477.dat 4287a.dat

Description Hinge Plate 1 x 2 Locking with Single Finger on End Vertical Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 with 3L Extension and Stud Hole Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud Plate 1 x 2 with Round Ends and 2 Open Studs Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Inverted Tile 1 x 1 with Groove

Description Brick 1 x 2 with Studs on Sides Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 4 Slope Brick 18 2 x 1 x 0.667 Grille Slope Brick 18 4 x 1 Slope Brick 33 3 x 1 Inverted with Notch and Thick Front

1 2 1 1

Lt-Bluish-Gray Black Black Black

92946.dat 3069b.dat 65429.dat 65426.dat

Wings (Left and Right) Qty Color 2 Black 4 Lt-Bluish-Gray 2 Lt-Bluish-Gray

Part 3023.dat 3023.dat 60470b.dat

2 1

Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray

26601.dat 29120.dat

1

Lt-Bluish-Gray

29119.dat

4 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

Black Lt-Bluish-Gray Black Black Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray Lt-Bluish-Gray

3070b.dat 3069b.dat 35787.dat 3068b.dat 24299.dat 24307.dat 43723.dat 43722.dat

Slope Plate 45 2 x 1 Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Wing 2 x 4 Left with Truncated Tip Wing 2 x 4 Right with Truncated Tip

Description Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 with 2 Clips Horizontal (Thick C-Clips) Plate 2 x 2 without Corner Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 with Cutout Left Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 with Cutout Right Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Tile 2 x 2 Triangular Tile 2 x 2 with Groove Wing 2 x 2 Left Wing 2 x 2 Right Wing 2 x 3 Left Wing 2 x 3 Right

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Parts List

(Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Part 1 92582.dat

4

Description Hinge Plate 2 x 2 Locking with Single Finger On Top 3024.dat Lt Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 1 3633.dat Lt Bluish Grey Fence Lattice 1 x 4 x 1 4274.dat Lt Bluish Grey Technic Pin 1/2 11477.dat Lt Bluish Grey Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 18646.dat Lt Bluish Grey Plate 3 x 6 Round Half with 1 x 2 Cutout 32123a.dat Lt Bluish Grey Technic Bush 1/2 Smooth with Axle Hole Reduced 33909.dat Lt Bluish Grey Plate 2 x 2 with 2 Studs on One Edge 44861.dat Lt Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 2 with Single Clip on Top (Thick C-Clip) 63868.dat Black Plate 1 x 2 with Clip Horizontal on End (Thick C-Clip) 6541.dat Md Azure Technic Brick 1 x 1 with Hole 24131.dat Md Azure Figure Friends Party Hat 14769pm3.dat Light Aqua Tile 2 x 2 Round with Round Underside Stud with Water Element Pattern 24866.dat Light Aqua Plate 1 x 1 with 5 Petals 3031.dat Bright Green Plate 4 x 4 22888.dat Bright Green Plate 4 x 8 Round Semicircle 3024.dat Pearl Gold Plate 1 x 1 32828.dat Pearl Gold Plate 1 x 1 Round with Bar 2412b.dat Reddish Brown Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove 4871.dat Reddish Brown Slope Brick 45 4 x 2 Double Inverted with Open Centre 27928.dat Reddish Brown Plate 2 x 2 with One Stud with Cut Corners and Raised Tab 41682.dat Reddish Brown Bracket 2 x 2 - 1 x 2 Up Centred 44302a.dat Reddish Brown Hinge Plate 1 x 2 Locking with Dual Finger on End Vertical with Groove on Short Side 99780.dat Reddish Brown Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2 Up 3069b.dat Red Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 20482.dat White Tile 1 x 1 Round with Pin and Pin Hole 23443.dat White Bar Tube with Handle

1 4

30374.dat 32126.dat

White White

4

37762.dat

White

4

78258.dat

White

4 2 2 4 2 1 2 4 1 1 1 1 7 2 2 2 1 3 1 1 1 1

1 2 1

Color Dark Red

Bar 4L Lightsaber Blade Technic Connector Toggle Joint Smooth Cylinder 1 x 1.333 with 0.5L Bar and Bar Hole Bar 2L with Stop Ring

Pirate Ship Ride Design and Instructions by the BrickNerd Team

Going to an amusement park is always one of the most thrilling adventures as a kid. The fantastic sights, the smells of popcorn and cotton candy in the air, the sounds of screaming thrill-seekers.

One of the more memorable and iconic rides from many amusement parks is the pirate ship ride that rocks back and forth like a ship on the waves. The BrickNerd team has designed a small version of this rocking ride, complete with a mini ticket stand, a ship that swings, and a ride logo!

Don’t miss the new 2L bars being used to help hang the ship or the well-placed grille tiles used to make tiny portholes. You can even change the printed tile to theme the pirate ship ride to whatever you want. How fun!

This was a fun little model to design—we hope you’ll enjoy building it just as much as we did designing it!

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Don’t STEAL our Digital Editions!

C’mon citizen, DO THE RIGHT THING! A Mom & Pop publisher like us needs every sale just to survive! DON’T DOWNLOAD OR READ ILLEGAL COPIES ONLINE! Buy affordable, legal downloads only at

www.twomorrows.com or through our Apple and Google Apps!

& DON’T SHARE THEM WITH FRIENDS OR POST THEM ONLINE. Help us keep producing great publications like this one!

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BrickNerd was a LEGO fan website that was started by Tommy Williamson. Relaunched in 2021 by Dave Schefcik and some of the best LEGO builders in the world, the site continues the mission started by Tommy: to show the best of the LEGO fan community online with builds, interviews and articles. BrickJournal is proud to continue its partnership with BrickNerd.

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You can go to the BrickNerd website by typing: https://bricknerd.com/ on your browser or by scanning this QR code!

Building

Ruby with her Crescent Rose (in progress). RWBY TM & © Rooster Teeth.

Minifig Customization 101:

Article by Jared K. Burks Well, when you start a project, it can be easy to underestimate how long such a project is going to take you, and then reality sets in and the plan gets adapted— or as Taylor Swift has stated, “Just because you made a good plan, doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Today I am going to share with you the progress on my Team RWBY figures. Most of the effort has been spent in working on their accessories; weapons, hair, designing cloth, etc.

Just to recap, RWBY, pronounced “Ruby,” is an American anime influenced computer animated web series created

by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. RWBY is set in the fictional world of Remnant, which is composed of four kingdoms plagued by malevolent creatures known as the "Creatures of Grimm." The individuals fighting these

creatures are known as Huntsmen and Huntresses and typically work in teams. The central team of the series is Team RWBY, is composed of Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna (of the half-human, half-animal Faunus race), and Ruby’s half-sister Yang Xiao Long. Please see the prior article in the series for more details, or hit your favorite search engine and look up RWBY. In the previous article I had a first draft of Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee constructed. However, each of these figures featured some aspects I was not satisfied with and continue to work on at the moment. I have also started working on Blake Belladonna and have started to design Yang Xiao Long.

Ruby Rose Previously I had created a Ruby figure by constructing the Figure Art, a modified LEGO hair piece, a custom Scarf/ Hood, custom skirt, custom weapon (Crescent Rose) and repurposed a cape from the Scarlet Witch CMS. I was reasonably happy with this effort, but I have three flawed areas I wanted to continue to address. The biggest issue was her weapon, the Crescent Rose. This is a large and dynamic scythe; the version in the article is one I found on Thangs 3D Models (Thangs.com). The other points I was still working on were the red part colors, basically the painted parts and her red cape (not red at all, it’s dark red). Having a more consistent color of red is critical as every character was named and designed around a central color, and Ruby’s is the color red, so this has to be right.

The Crescent Rose.

Ruby’s hood in progress.

I started by creating my own version of the Crescent Rose in Fusion 360. This has allowed me to control sizes throughout the scythe to allow Ruby to interact with the weapon at several different points around the weapon.

This is critical as she spins, twists, rides, and throws the weapon in several ways and I want the playability to allow for those actions. Given the limitations of the LEGO hand, I also have to place two handholds off the side of the weapon to allow for posing, specifically the icon pose of her standing with the Crescent Rose behind her. The desire to replicate that specific pose is the whole reason for the second grip.

In order to address the hood and skirt painting, I needed a different resin; at the time of the last article I only had grey and black. I needed to use white resin so that the base color wouldn’t affect the hue of red paint. This was merely a reprinting of the hood in white resin, which was then painted with VHT Red Vinyl Dye. This worked effectively and allowed for a very even and brighter red hue. I took a different path for the skirt because I had previously created the skirt as one piece and adding the red required very careful brush skills. If I were to merely print it in white, I would now need to paint both the red and the black, making the masking even more critical. Therefore, I separated the skirt layers into individual parts, which will allow me to print the top in black and the bottom in red.

Once printed this way, I can spray the bottom with red, just as I have the hood giving a great color match to the two parts.

Weiss Schnee Ruby’s skirt as two parts.

For Weiss I had constructed the Figure Art, created a custom hair piece, a custom skirt, and a custom weapon (Myrtenaster). I was reasonably happy with this effort aside from the terrible skirt paint job, but I did have a few other flaws I still wanted to address. The biggest issue was her hair; it was too small and had cracked, on top of being the wrong color. This was easily rectified by getting the white resin and scaling the hair piece design. The skirt solution described above can also be used to help the Weiss’ skirt, but the color of the top skirt will still present a challenge and I have not solved that issue at this time.

The final issue was the color of her weapon Myrternaster, which needed to be printed in grey resin to make it the appropriate color.

3D printed Myrternaster progression.

Weiss Schnee with Myrternaster (in progress).

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Spending so much time looking at the Ruby and Weiss figures, I have also decided to scale up their eyes. Without a major spoiler, her eye color is a critical element and while I am very happy with the art, the ability to make them larger will resonate better with the anime genre, but also capture this element. I actually scaled them by 25%; this detail will be shown in a future photo.

Blake Belladonna Team RWBY features character pairs on the four-person team. It is not the expected White/Black and Red/Yellow, it is Red/White and Black/Yellow. I find this interesting that the show’s creators created it this way, as night is black, which is broken by the dawn’s yellow sunlight, and the snowy winter is broken by the red flowers of spring.

This may just be me, but I think this may be tied to the maidens, another putative spoiler, so I will leave this here.

Just as Ruby and Weiss share similarities, Blake and Yang also share similarities. As I have spent the majority of time on Blake currently, this also means I have been making decisions for Yang. I actually created Blake in a completely different way, assuming I was going to use a cloth coat that included the jacket, and that the coattails would come off of that. After looking at the inspirational Joker figure, I have gone in a different direction where only the tails are cloth, following the LEGO example. Cloth is proving to be a major issue for this series as I have not been able to locate materials I am happy with, but with at least this decision made, I can progress at the moment and figure out cloth later. I have created the art for the character and sent the design to Geeky Ink Studios for printing.

The Myrtenaster.

Weiss with different hair designs.

Blake Belladonna study and (below) inspiration for Blake’s jacket tails—the Joker.

The elephant in the room—and I hope I am not giving anything away—is the fact that Blake is a Faunus, halfhuman and half-animal. Typically, Faunus characters have one animal feature, and Blake’s is cat ears. She hides them for a large portion of the series, as the Faunus receive quite a bit of discrimination by the human populace. This means her hair is of critical importance to her character and I am trying to figure out how to create a hair piece featuring cat ears that can be concealed by the large hair bow that she wears to hide her actual race. This part will be created in the third installment of this series, as it has been beyond my developing skills. I have a proposed hair style, but it is way too short and clearly the wrong color; this will be a 3D printed part and I still need to design it at this time.

Blake figure in progress.

Initial hairpiece for Blake.

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Digital designs of Gambol Shroud.

3D prints.

Just as with Ruby and Weiss, I have been creating Blake’s weapon, Gambol Shroud. Blake’s weapon is actually a pistol merged with a wakizashi (https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Wakizashi), the shorter sword in the Samurai’s daisho, with the larger being the katana. While this sounds straightforward, it gets a bit more complicated as the weapon, like Ruby’s Crescent Rose, transforms and features a scabbard. The scabbard is also commonly used in her combat scenes, so the custom figure must be able to hold the scabbard, and the sword portion has to fit inside. The other complicating issue is I kept trying to make this of comparable size to the LEGO katana, which was ultimately just too big, and it was then I concluded it should be of the wakizashi size. This is a very complicated part to construct, especially at scale, and has plagued me for the bulk of the time, but I believe I finally have it created.

Yang Xiao Long Yang presents multiple issues: first, there is no character study of her final Series 4 costume that I have been able to find. This is because she starts Series 4 at home recovering from losing her arm. So the character study below is from this time.

Studies of Yang Xiao Long.

This means I had to go a bit more traditional in finding art to create her character from, and this means I have to be very careful to not over-design her art, considering it is much more detailed than the typical character study art.

This also means I have to watch and re-watch sections of the show to figure out the details of her back (covered by her hair most of the time) and other typically concealed areas.

I have started working on Yang’s art, which is coming along nicely, but as parts of the design will fall onto the tails of her coat, I have to decide if I can print that coat with matching details and what that alignment may look like. I think I will just go with a two-tone cloth (Dark Tan/ Orange), just as I am planning for Blake (White/Sand Purple). I have also been struggling with the idea of Yang’s bandana on her leg—should this be a 3D printed part or part of the art design printed onto the figure? Yang’s hair is another part I have yet to solve. It is extreme, and while the Wonder Woman hair may work, I know it will need some modifications as it needs to be blonde, but perhaps longer too.

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While I have been thinking of Yang, I have only just begun to create her Ember Celica weapon(s) and I am still on the fence as to how to represent her mechanical prosthetic arm, which is also a weapon. At the beginning of the show, before Yang loses an arm, the Ember Celica are dual-ranged Shot Gauntlets she wears on her wrists and forearms. This is a challenging location for a LEGO figure due to the proximity of the arm to the torso, but I am working on a solution.

Clearly I still have quite a bit of work to do on these figures. The cloth parts are the most concerning to me at this time, beyond all of the 3D modeling and printing.

The 3D work is merely time consuming, but the holidays are approaching and I am hoping for some time to work on these details, specifically Blake’s ears and how they attach to the bow. I hope this sneak peek into my process is helpful. This is where the fun happens as all the creative solutions flow. I believe that Oprah Winfrey has described why I enjoy sharing what I do and why I enjoy writing this article series. Oprah stated, “I don’t believe in failure.

It’s not failure if you enjoyed the process.” The key with any custom figure or anything else you may build, is that you may create the next Mona Lisa; however, it is more likely it will be the next piece of art for the front of the refrigerator (I mean Instagram); this is really unimportant.

What is important is embedded in the two quotes I have shared in this article: adapt and enjoy the ride. These experiences are just that, and we all grow from our experiences. I look forward to sharing the final results of the RWBY figure series soon; at the moment I am adapting and enjoying my time learning.

Initial digital designs for the Ember Celica.

You can view Jared’s webpage by going to www.fineclonier.com/ or scanning this QR code!

Next Time: Completing the RWBY Figures!

Don’t miss Jared’s two books Minifigure Customization: Populate Your World! and its sequel Minifigure Customization: Why Live In The Box? (available at twomorrows.com).

On sale:

5 each!

$

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Community

RogueBricks Collaborative Project:

Adventure Islands

Article by Johannes Haimann/Vaionaut Administrator & vice ambassador of RogueBricks www.flickr.com/vaionaut One of the largest exhibitions in the German-speaking countries is the annual Bricking Bavaria, which is organized by the LUG of the same name from Munich. Since our LUG RogueBricks does not organize its own exhibition, we have joined the Bricking Bavaria exhibition for years, exhibiting our models there and using the event as a meeting place for our otherwise mainly online active community.

This year the exhibition was held together with the “Faszination Modellbau” (fascination of model building), an exhibition of model builders and dealers in railroading, RC aircraft and boats, in Friedrichshafen at Lake Constance in Germany.

Markus Rollbühler’s island.

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For several years, RogueBricks has regularly built a collab layout for the Bricking Bavaria exhibition, and we had again planned a large project for 2020. After this was initially postponed to this year due to the pandemic, we realized that we had to change our plans a bit so that we would be able to react to last-minute cancellations due to illness.

So we set the module standard and the theme for our collaboration in May this year, and since then each participant has been working on their contribution.

Martin Gebert’s small shrine (above) and Duck Island (below).

Therefore, we decided on an island landscape, with areas of water between each participant’s modules, so we could arrange them flexibly.

Kevin Walter’s biplane.

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The islands were inspired by the classic Adventurers series, with the iconic LEGO hero Johnny Thunder.

Besides that, in the resulting model you can also find influences from movies like Indiana Jones or games like Tomb Raider or Monkey Island and much more.

Johannes Haimann’s island, with dbodsky’s biplane in the background.

Jonas Kramm’s island with monastery.

Nadine Wölfle’s shrine.

In total, eleven members of our community finally participated and created a fascinating landscape on an area of 120 baseplates, in which there is much to discover. The water surfaces consist of an incredible amount of approximately 36,000 trans-light blue 1x2 tiles.

While at the exhibition, we have already made plans for next year and the next project may be even more ambitious. So look forward to our next collab, which we will present in November 2022!

Here is an overview all participants with their contributions to the collab: • Andrea Rollbühler (not on flickr/ instagram): Island in the middle with rope bridge and sandy beach • Daniel Bodky (www.flickr.com/ dbodkylego): Dark gray/tan water biplane • Jonas Kramm (www.flickr.com/ legols): Tomb Raider inspired island with Spanish monastery

Gino Lohse’s plane.

Andrea Rollbühler’s island.

• Marcel Veit (www.flickr.com/ marcu44): Small island in the corner of the layout • Martin Gebert (www.flickr.com/ herrkraemert): Duck Island, inspired by the game Monkey Island, and small native shrine • Ben Tritschler (www.flickr.com/ modestolus): Large jungle island with two mountains in the back and small rocky islands around it • Nadine Wölfle (www.flickr.com/ noggy85): Island with golden brick shrine • Markus Rollbühler (www.flickr. com/moriartus): Large palm island with Mayan pyramid and native hut • Kevin J.Walter (www.flickr.com/ skywalter): Small brown biplane • Johannes Haimann (www.flickr. com/vaionaut): Island with teal adventurer outpost, small Dornier Libelle flying boat and dark red/ gray Ford Trimotor aircraft in the middle of the layout

A closeup of Ben Tritschler’s island.

Johannes Haimann’s Ford Trimotor.

• Gino Lohse (www.flickr.com/ ygreklego): Gray/bright red flying twin engine airplane The large display area was of course a visitor magnet at the exhibition and it was very well received, which made us very happy.

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Corey Schaaf’s

corey schaaf

Resistance Transport

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Article by Steven Smyth, Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars Photography by Corey Schaaf Galactic greetings! I’m Steven Smyth from Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars.

Since the community’s founding in 2016, on an almost daily basis, I have witnessed amazing and creative Star Wars builds in the best Star Wars themed building brick group on Facebook. Corey Schaaf is one such builder with a unique minifigure scale Resistance Troop Transport from the Star Wars sequel films and other media.

I thought it would be fun to spend a little time checking out this build and getting to know the person behind this awesome ship construction!

SS: How’s it going Corey? I know you have quite a following with the members of the Bantha Bricks group, you have shared some amazing MOCs (My Own Creations), but for the uninitiated, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do.

CS: Hey Steve! Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my MOC with the Bantha Bricks and the BrickJournal community. I am 44 years old and I work as a User Experience/Web Designer. I am happily married with a wonderful wife who supports my passion for LEGO. I am also the proud father of two amazing children who love to create and play with LEGO just like their dad. In fact, it is because of my son’s Christmas present that I re-engaged with LEGO and rekindled an old passion.

Would you say Star Wars is your favorite theme? Or do you have a shocker for us?

Star Wars is definitely a favorite of mine. I was born in 1977, just a few months after the first Star Wars film was released. While too young to fully appreciate the cinematography of the time, some of my earliest memories included dueling lightsaber battles between a young Luke Skywalker and Lord Vader.

As a child I also remember dumping large tubs of LEGO all over the floor. My brother and I would build whatever our little imaginations could think of. Star Wars was a huge influence on many of our builds—here comes the shocker, we often built LEGO bases for our GI Joe, Cobra and Star Wars action figures. There were some pretty epic battles between Cobra and the Empire. As I grew older my love for creating things evolved, but my love for Star Wars never faded.

Data File: Resistance Transport The Resistance Transport was first seen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the transport of General Leia Organa. Basically a patchwork ship, it has a weapons pod, a transport module, and a cockpit pod that was repurposed and modified from a B-Wing Mark II. The transport can carry 20 troops and, while armed with a laser cannon, is usually escorted by fighters.

During college, I still purchased sets from time to time, always from the Star Wars franchise, but I would not have considered myself an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) until December of 2019. My son was given almost 40 pounds of LEGO from his grandmother as a Christmas present. My wife and I took on the monumental task of sorting all the parts so we could more easily put sets together. While searching for a place to buy parts for some of the sets, I stumbled upon Papaglop’s Razorcrest and Mirko Soppelsa’s TS-Project. I had never put someone else’s MOC together and the fact that both of them created instructions for their builds was mind blowing to me. I wanted to learn how to do that myself! Building those first two MOCs were the sparks that led me down the path to creating MOC-BW2001: The Resistance Troop Transport Ship.

The Resistance Transport.

Why do you choose the LEGO brick as your medium to express yourself?

I was always creative growing up. I loved to draw, paint and build models from kits. It is why I chose the field of design as a profession. I love my job; however, most of the things I work on only exist in the digital realm. I think there is something to be said about working with a digital medium because it can be shared all over the world in a matter of seconds. But I think it is important to differentiate what is to be consumed online versus in person.

The rear of the transport.

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One of my favorite paintings is the Interior of St. Peters, Rome by an Italian painter, Giovanni Paolo Panini.

It hangs in the St. Louis Art Museum. The depth and scale of the painting is something I would never be able to appreciate on a computer screen or a small portable device. I think the same can be true of LEGO.

A forward view of the cockpit pod.

A look at the pod interior.

I love working with LEGO bricks because of the problem solving opportunities it provides. You have to consider scale, weight and structure. But what I find most satisfying about the medium is when people recognize the physical manifestation of an idea in its final form. You can literally build anything with incredible accuracy.

A glance at the interior of the cargo section.

Personally I find the Star Wars sequel films an exciting addition to the Star Wars franchise. Not everyone shares those sentiments, but considering your focus for this particular build, I have to ask. Are you a fan of the new films, or what inspired you to tackle this ship?

I think you have to look at the films through several different lenses to truly appreciate them. People have strong opinions and reactions, both positive and negative, to the new films because of what the series means for people across so many different generations. The Empire Strike Back is what anchored me into the Star Wars universe. Naturally I love the earlier films as well as the more recent Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as it ties into the nostalgia I have for the first films.

When I started my MOC, I did lots of research on what others had built and I was very interested in tackling a build from the original films. However, with so many talented MOC creators, it was hard to find something that had not been done from the earlier films. I knew I wanted to put my signature on whatever I chose. It was not until I flipped through Star Wars: The Force Awakens—Incredible Cross Sections that I found the ship I wanted to build.

The ship was responsible for transporting General Leia to Maz’s castle moments after the Battle of Takodana. It is also when Han Solo is reunited with Leia and we get a glimpse of what drove them apart. I loved the idea of building a ship from such a key moment in the film between two characters I grew up with. As a result, the Resistance Troop Transport ship was chosen.

Weapons store.

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Can you tell us a bit about the construction; any special techniques you used?

I really liked how the creator Papaglop had broken his Razorcrest MOC into modules. I took that same approach for my build. Since the main hull was not a complex shape, it allowed me to create an incredibly detailed interior. I used Star Wars Wiki sites and relied heavily on the cross section book. Once I had a basic plan, I started work on the ship’s main hull.

I used mostly Technic for the base structure. Everyone I have talked to that has built the base says it feels quite substantial. In my earlier test builds, I noticed the ship was sagging as I was progressing through the steps. This was compounded by the landing gear being added too soon in the building instructions. Since the model was no longer laying on a flat solid surface, every time you applied pressure to the hull you ended up with more sagging.

As a result, I completely reworked the Technic base and modified the landing gear so it could be added much later in the build process.

Different views of the cargo pod.

One of the things that I got really excited about as I was finishing up the hull was the exterior tile work. I am a huge fan of the SNOT (Studs Not On Top) look.

What are your most favorite design elements you created for the build?

I am very proud of the minifigure scale. I confess that was something I struggled with early on because the ship needed to support 20 passenger seats—in the left (6), right (6), and rear compartment (8). I also considered some of the practical things passengers might need so I included places to store weapons and gear. Some of the wow factors for me were the engines and thrusters in both the pod and laser cannon. While I wanted to capture the thrusters on the outside of the ship, I also wanted to convey what they might look like on the inside. This led me down the path of creating removable panels to showcase all the ship’s inner details. I designed the interior to be as realistic as possible—meaning, one door or entry way leads to another compartment. Nothing is walled off that is not supposed to be. For example, if this were a real ship, you could enter through the hull, walk through the rear corridor and then either travel left to access the engine room in laser canon, or go right and access the engine room in the pod or ultimately the cockpit.

Did you freestyle build this or did you use a computer design program to lay it out first?

At first, I was naive enough to think I could freestyle the entire build. After a month of teardowns, rebuilds and not having the parts I needed to do I test, I decided to start working inside Stud.io. However, spending that first

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month working with physical LEGO parts was invaluable.

Had I not gone through that trial and error process, I would not have had the build I have today.

Were there any moments in this build where you felt like, “Aww man, I’m stuck!” If so, how did you overcome that obstacle?

For that reason, I use a hybrid approach. Sometimes lightning strikes and I would complete an entire module in one sitting, only to come back and rethink the connections and layout. It was a tedious process, but Stud.io saved me from having to do complete teardowns of a physical build.

Any creative professional has gone through what you are describing. Having a creative block is part of any design process. There were times when it did feel like I was working on the same thing for hours. Instead of being frustrated, I focused on how to solve the problem.

Sometimes the process is short and other times it is longer.

If I felt like I had spent too long on something, I went back and reassessed what I was trying to accomplish and took a different approach.

If I truly hit a roadblock, I would step away for a day or two. What worked best for me is talking to other builders.

It is why I joined the Stud.io LEGO Designers Facebook group early on in this endeavor. If you surround yourself with people who are smarter and have more experience, you will always find opportunities to learn.

What would be your advice to anyone looking to build a custom Star Wars ship or vehicle on their own?

Some views of the gun pod on the transport.

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The short answer to your question is build. Build anything and everything you can get your hands on. The parts you choose and types of connections you use are influenced by your previous building experience. This will have a profound impact on your approach to your own builds.

The more you build, the better builder you will become.

I continue to gain experience by building official LEGO

sets and MOCs from other creators. When I build a set, I like to flip through the instructions before starting. Doing this allows me to see how early parts of the build affect steps later. I used to be a robot that would power through a build. Now I ask myself, “What was the creator thinking here? Why are parts being used in this way?” Flipping ahead and asking questions allows me to understand and see the bigger picture.

figures of characters from the Bad Batch series. They are based on LEGO’s version of the Harry Potter and Hermione Granger buildable figures set. The response I have received has been pretty awesome. I have decided to release these smaller builds as downloadable PDFs in the coming weeks. Tech will be released first, followed up by Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, and Echo.

When you are ready to build something, do research.

Larger builds require more planning. I probably spent at least two to three weeks picking out ships and creating a dossier of them. After that, I took a week to decide.

You might like one thing one day and change your mind the next. Take time and think about it and while you are taking time, keep building.

If you are not part of the Bantha Bricks Facebook group, check it out! It is one of the most family friendly LEGO groups you will find on Facebook. It is run by an amazing group of people who give back more to the community than they take. This past year it raised over $4,000 for the Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center through donations and prizes from its members and sponsors.

Any final things you would like to add?

Do you have intentions to release instructions on this build? If so, can you tell us more about those plans?

Instructions are currently available on my website BrickWars.net. I decided to release a limited UCS Collector’s Edition in print only. I produced 600 copies and once they are sold, they will never be available for purchase again. Every purchase includes a unique serialized tile as well as a UCS display sticker. The unique serialized tile can be used to register your build on my website.

Can you tell us a bit about BrickWars.net?

BrickWars.net is where I exclusively sell all my print manuals. It is also where you will find digital downloads for some of my upcoming smaller projects. For those that purchase my limited edition print instructions, it is where they can register their unique 1x6 tile and how they are added to Builder’s Club.

The Builder’s Club area will contain a profile with their image or sigfig as well as links to their social media accounts. They can also share creations from their other favorite MOC makers. The idea was to highlight others beside myself and bring awareness to creators you might not know about. I hope to add more capabilities to this part of my site in the future.

The instruction book and decals for the transport.

What can we expect to see from you in the future designwise?

The LEGO community loves minifigures and so do I! Right now, I am having a lot of fun working on some smaller projects. Currently I am working on buildable

To see more amazing builds, cool contests and giveaways and family-friendly discussion about everything Star Wars brick, check out the Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars Facebook group at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/starwarsLEGOgroup or banthabricks.com or scan the QR code here!

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LEGO® COLOR! A mosaic by Bricknerd’s DAVE SCHEFCIK, CAZ MOCKETT and her monocolor habitats, flowers and other creations by INEZ VAQUEZ, STEVEN SMYTH’s intricate Star Wars builds, “AFOLs” by GREG HYLAND, step-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions

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LEGO® brick-built Edwards Island by DALE HARRIS of HarrisBricks! The hot rods of PAUL SLUITERS! Rocket to outer space with SCOTT BOWMAN and JOE CHAMBERS’ Space Shuttle Discovery set! Plus, Star Wars builds with STEVEN SMYTH of Bantha Bricks, BrickNerd, step-by-step building instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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Starship builders NICK TROTTA and ATTILA GALLIK, TIM GODDARD’s space builds which have been featured online and showcased in the book LEGO Space: Building the Future, STEVEN SMYTH’s intricate Star Wars builds, “AFOLs” by Greg Hyland, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, and more!

ALICE FINCH’s art/architectural models, the WOMEN’S BRICK INITIATIVE and the BRICK ALLIANCE (bringing more builders to the community), the WOMEN OF PHILIPPINES LUG (LEGO Users Group) and their creations, STEVEN SMYTH’s intricate Star Wars builds, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!

Get an introduction to TOM GERARDIN’s LEGO best friends Billy and Charlie, tour Disneyland Paris’ Sleeping Beauty Castle in bricks with DARIO DEL FRATES, and visit more theme parks LEGO-style with BILL VOLLBRECHT! Plus: “AFOLs” by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, and more!!

YUANSHENG HE’s breathtaking LEGO® brick art photography, the many models of TOM FROST, and the intricate Star Wars builds of Bantha Brick’s STEVEN SMYTH! Plus: “Bricks in the Middle” by KEVIN HINKLE and MATTHEW KAY, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!

BrickJournal celebrates the holidays with acclaimed brick sculptor ZIO CHAO, takes a offbeat look at Christmas with our minifigure customizer/columnist JARED K. BURKS, and decks the halls with the holiday creations of KOEN ZWANENBURG! Plus: “AFOLs” by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and more!

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Classic LEGO themes re-imagined! PIET NIEDERHAUSEN’s creations based on the Classic Yellow Castle, CHRIS GIDDENS (originator of Neo-Classic Space theme), and tour the Masterpiece Gallery at Denmark’s LEGO House! Plus: “Bricks in the Middle” by HINKLE and KAY, “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

UNDERSEA LEGO BUILDING! RYAN VAN DUZOR’s Coral Reef, the many creations of COLIN HEMMEN’s Brickiverse, plus a look at JOHN KLAPHEKE’s scenes from the Indiana Jones movies! Also: “AFOLs”

by GREG HYLAND, “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art with TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!

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!

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!

MYSTERIOUS, SPOOKY LEGO BUILDING! FLYNN DeMARCO’s motorized Treasure of the Snake Queen, Laika’s MISSING LINK

by HOLLY WEBSTER, STACY STERLING’s HAUNTED MANSION, “AFOLs” by GREG HYLAND, “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art with TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!

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STAR WARSTM THEMED BUILDERS! Travel to a galaxy far, far away with JACOB NEIL CARPENTER’S DEATH STAR, the galactic work of MIRI DUDAS, and the LEGO® Star Wars-inspired 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!

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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!

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!

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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!

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!

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!

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!

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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!

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DOUBLE-SIZE BOOK! JOE MENO discusses the beginnings of BrickJournal, LEGO Group’s TORMOD ASKILDSEN interviewed, fan community growth over 10 years, and the best builders of the past 50 issues! Plus: Minifigure customizing with JARED K. BURKS, instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!

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40th ANNIVERSARY OF LEGO TECHNIC! 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!

THE WORLD OF LEGO MECHA! Learn the 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!

LEGO GOES UNDERSEA! Builder MITSURU NIKAIDO shows us his undersea creatures and organic builds! Then jump aboard MARCELLO DeCICCO’s minifigure-scale warships! And see amazing architectural creations by PEDRO NASCIMENTO! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!

LEGO TRAINS! Spotlight on train builder CALE LEIPHART, a look at the train layouts and models from the PENNSYLVANIA LEGO Users Group (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’, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!

FEMALE LEGO BUILDERS! US Architectural builder ANURADHA PEHRSON, British Microscale builder FERNANDA RIMINI, US Bionicle builder BREANN SLEDGE, and Norwegian Town builder BIRGITTE JONSGARD discuss their work and inspirations! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!

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BRICKJOURNAL #44

BRICKJOURNAL #43

BRICKJOURNAL #42

BRICKJOURNAL #41

BRICKJOURNAL #40

THEME PARK ISSUE! ERIK JONES’ custom LEGO version of Cinderella Castle, STÉPHANE DELY’s Disneyland Paris Sleeping Beauty Castle, and JOHN RUDY’s brick-built versions of your favorite theme park rides! Plus: Step-by step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons and more!

LEGO GAMING! IMAGINE RIGNEY’s Bioshock builds, NICK JENSEN’s characters and props from HALO and other video games, and GamerLUG member SIMON LIU builds LEGO versions of video game characters, spaceships and more! Plus: “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, MINDSTORMS robotics and more!

LEGO EDUCATION! See how schools and AFOLs build with the new WeDo, FIRST LEGO LEAGUE’s 2016 season explored (with national competitions at LEGOLand California), and robotics builders the Seshan Brothers take LEGO MINDSTORMS to the next level! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!

OUT OF THIS WORLD LEGO! Spacethemed LEGO creations of LIA CHAN, 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Orion space plane

by NICK DEAN, and Pre-Classic Space builder CHRIS GIDDENS! Plus: Orbit the LEGO community with JARED K. BURKS’ minifigure customizing, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

LEGO MECHA! 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, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art by BrickNerd TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons, and more!

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BRICKJOURNAL #39

BRICKJOURNAL #38

BRICKJOURNAL #37

BRICKJOURNAL #36

BRICKJOURNAL #35

LEGO DINOSAURS! Builder WILLIAM PUGH discusses building prehistoric creatures, a LEGO Jurassic World by DIEGO MAXIMINO PRIETO ALVAREZ, and dino bones by MATT SAILORS! Plus: Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art

by BrickNerd TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons, and more!

LEGO COOL CARS AND HOT RODS! LEGO car builders STEPHAN SANDER, JORDANIAN FIRAS ABU-JABER, and ANDREA LATTANZIO! Plus: Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, AFOLs by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd Pop Art

by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

STAR WARS! Amazing custom ships by ERIC DRUON, incredible galactic layouts by builder AC PIN, a look at the many droid creations built by LEGO fans—truly, the LEGO Force has awakened! Plus JARED K. BURKS on minifigure customizing, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

MICROSCALE BUILDING! JUSTIN McMILLAN’s micro house, a look at the MICROSCALE Standard by TwinLUG, and featuring some of the best microscopic LEGO work from around the world, plus JARED K. BURKS’ minifigure customizing, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

HISTORY IN LEGO BRICKS! LEGO pro RYAN McNAUGHT on his LEGO Pompeii and other projects, military builder DAN SISKIND on his BrickMania creations, and LASSE VESTERGARD about his historical building, JARED K. BURKS on minifigure customizing, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

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BRICKJOURNAL #34

BRICKJOURNAL #33

BRICKJOURNAL #32

BRICKJOURNAL #31

BRICKJOURNAL #30

TOMMY WILLIAMSON on the making of his YouTube sensation BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, BRANDON GRIFFITH’S COMICBRICKS PROJECT recreates iconic comic book covers out of LEGO, JARED BURKS and his custom Agents of SHIELD minifigs, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons by DAMIEN KEE, and more!

LEGO ROBOTS! A talk with MINDSTORMS EV3 builders MARC-ANDRE BAZERGUI and ANDY MILLUZZI, designer LEE MAGPILI, CHRIS GIDDENS with his amazing robot sculptures, plus Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, other looks at MINDSTORMS building, and more!

LEGO ARTISTRY with builder/photographer CHRIS McVEIGH; mosaic builders BRIAN KORTE, DAVE WARE and DAVE SHADDIX; and sculptors SEAN KENNEY (about his nature models) and ED DIMENT (about a full-size bus stop built with LEGO bricks)!

Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, MINDSTORMS building, and more!

Building LEGO bricks WITH character, with IAIN HEATH and TOMMY WILLIAMSON, Manga-inspired creations of MIKE DUNG, sculptures by Taiwanese Brick Artist YO YO CHEN, Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS building, and more!

LEGO ARCHITECTURE with JONATHAN LOPES, a microscale model of Copenhagen

by ULRIK HANSEN, and a look at the LEGO MUSEUM being constructed in Denmark! Plus Minifigure Customization

by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS building with DAMIEN KEE, and more!

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BRICKJOURNAL #29

BRICKJOURNAL #28

BRICKJOURNAL #27

BRICKJOURNAL #26

BRICKJOURNAL #25

Technic hot rod builder PAUL BORATKO and editor JOE MENO diagram instructions on adding functions to your models, shop-talk with LEGO Technic designers, and more surprises to keep your creations moving at top speed! Plus Minifigure Customization by JARED BURKS, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd DIY Fan Art by TOMMY WILLIAMSON, and more!

Learn what went into the making of The LEGO Movie and other brickfilms with moviemaker DAVID PAGANO, chat with brickfilmers The Brotherhood Workshop, sit in on a talk with the makers of LEGO: A Brickumentary, a look at MINDSTORMS building, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, & more!

GUY HIMBER takes you to the IRON BUILDER CONTEST, which showcases the top LEGO® builders in the world! Cover by LEGO magazine and comic artist PAUL LEE, amazing custom models by LINO MARTINS, TYLER CLITES, BRUCE LOWELL, COLE BLAQ and others, minifigure customization

by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, & more!

CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL with builders SEAN and STEPHANIE MAYO (known online as Siercon and Coral), other custom animal models from BrickJournal editor JOE MENO, LEGO DINOSAURS with WILL PUGH, plus more minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, AFOLs by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-bystep “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and more!

MEDIEVAL CASTLE BUILDING! Top LEGO® Castle builders present their creations, including BOB CARNEY’s amazingly detailed model of Neuschwanstein Castle, plus others, along with articles on building and detailing castles of your own! Also: JARED BURKS on minifigure customization, AFOLs by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and more!

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TwoMorrows TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, NC 27614 USA 919-449-0344 E-mail:

BRICKJOURNAL #24

BRICKJOURNAL #23

BRICKJOURNAL #22

BRICKJOURNAL #21

LEGO TRAINS! Builder CALE LEIPHART shows how to get started building trains and train layouts, with instructions on building microscale trains by editor JOE MENO, building layouts with the members of the Pennsylvania LEGO Users Group (PennLUG), fan-built LEGO monorails minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, microscale building by CHRISTOPHER DECK, “You Can Build It”, and more!

STAR WARS issue, with custom creations from a long time ago and far, far away!

JACOB CARPENTER’s Imperial Star Destroyer, MARK KELSO’s Invisible Hand, interview with SIMON MACDONALD about building Star Wars costume props with LEGO elements, history of the LEGO X-Wing, plus our regular features on minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!

LEGO PLANE BUILDING! Top builder RALPH SAVELSBERG takes off with his custom LEGO fighter models, there’s a squadron of articles on Sky-Fi planes by FRADEL GONZALES and COLE MARTIN, find instructions to build a Sky-Fi plane, plus our regular feature on minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, other step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!

LEGO CAR BUILDING! Guest editors LINO MARTINS and NATHAN PROUDLOVE of LUGNuts share secrets behind their LEGO car creations, and present TECHNIC SUPERCAR MODELS by PAUL BORATKO III and other top builders! Plus custom instructions

by TIM GOULD and CHRISTOPHER DECK, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” section, and more!

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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.

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It’s done!

Last Word

Those two words mean a bit more in this issue because I am finishing in December (actually a couple of days before Christmas)—both this issue and the year are done! And I couldn’t be happier.

Beep Beep!

So many things have changed in the past two years with the LEGO Group (#1 toy maker in the world!) and the community (going somewhat back to real events), that it’s been an effort to keep track. This year, I was able to go to two events in the US: Brickfair Virginia, and BrickCon in Seattle.

Because of the pandemic, the events were different—smaller and with medical protocols in place. That meant masks and crowd limits.

With the reduction in size, though, the events became a little like the conventions of old, where one could meet every attendee and get to know them over the weekend (that’s very hard to do when the attending AFOLs pass a couple of hundred). It becomes more personal.

Hopefully more events open up by the time this issue is out!

I’m looking forward to meeting and making more friends— so til then... ...build on!

Not too far away from Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor at Walt Disney World is the Monsters, Inc. Dining Experience. True story. Here’s Brandon Jones and son at opening.

That Joe Meno Guy

Classics

80

RetroFan: The Pop Culture You Grew Up With!

Remember when Saturday morning television was our domain, and ours alone? When tattoos came from bubble gum packs, Slurpees came in superhero cups, and TV heroes taught us to be nice to each other? If you love Pop Culture of the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, TwoMorrows’ new magazine is just for you! Editor MICHAEL EURY (author of numerous books on pop culture, former editor for DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics, and editor of TwoMorrows’ Eisner Award-winning BACK ISSUE magazine for comic book fans) has assembled an unbeatable roster of regular and rotating Celebrity Columnists to cover the pop culture you grew up with: • ANDY MANGELS (best-selling sci-fi author and award-winning pop culture historian) • ERNEST FARINO (Emmy Award-winning visual effects designer, animator, and director) • SCOTT SHAW! (acclaimed cartoonist, animator, Emmy Award-winning storyboard artist, and historian) • WILL MURRAY (pulp adventure novelist and pop culture historian) • SCOTT SAAVEDRA (graphic designer, cartoonist, and COMIC BOOK HEAVEN creator) • MARK VOGER (renowned pop culture newspaper columnist and book author), and others!

RETROFAN #21

RETROFAN #22

RETROFAN #23

RETROFAN #24

RETROFAN #25

Meet JULIE NEWMAR, the purr-fect Catwoman! Plus: ASTRO BOY, TARZAN Saturday morning cartoons, the true history of PEBBLES CEREAL, TV’s THE UNTOUCHABLES and SEARCH, the MONKEEMOBILE, SOVIET EXPO ’77, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns

by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Surf’s up as SIXTIES BEACH MOVIES make a RetroFan splash! Plus: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, ZORRO’s Saturday morning cartoon, TV’s THE WILD, WILD WEST, CARtoons and other drag-mags, VALSPEAK, and more fun, fab features!

Like, totally! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet the stars behind the Black Lagoon: RICOU BROWNING, BEN CHAPMAN, JULIE ADAMS, and LORI NELSON! Plus SHADOW CHASERS, featuring show creator KENNETH JOHNSON. Also: THE BEATLES’ YELLOW SUBMARINE, FLASH GORDON cartoons, TV’s cult classic THE PRISONER and kid’s show ZOOM, COLORFORMS, M&Ms, and more fun, fab features! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Interviews with Lost in Space’s ANGELA CARTWRIGHT and BILL MUMY, and Land of the Lost’s WESLEY EURE! Revisit Leave It to Beaver with JERRY MATHERS, TONY DOW, and KEN OSMOND! Plus: UNDERDOG, Rankin-Bass’ stop-motion classic THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY, Christmas gifts you didn’t want, the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS fad, and more!

Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

Meet Mission: Impossible’s LYNDA DAY GEORGE in an exclusive interview!

Celebrate Rambo’s 50th birthday with his creator, novelist DAVID MORRELL! Plus: TV faves WKRP IN CINCINNATI and SPACE: 1999, Fleisher’s and Filmation’s SUPERMAN cartoons, commercial jingles, JERRY LEWIS and BOB HOPE comic books, and more fun, fab features! Edited

by MICHAEL EURY.

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TwoMorrows.

The Future of Pop History.

RETROFAN #17

RETROFAN #18

RETROFAN #19

RETROFAN #20

Dark Shadows’ Angelique, LARA PARKER, sinks her fangs into an exclusive interview.

Plus: Rankin-Bass’ Mad Monster Party, Aurora Monster model kits, a chat with Aurora painter JAMES BAMA, George of the Jungle, The Haunting, Jawsmania, Drak Pack, TV dads’ jobs, and more fun, fab features! Featuring columns by FARINO, MANGELS, MURRAY, SAAVEDRA, SHAW, and MICHAEL EURY.

Our BARBARA EDEN interview will keep you forever dreaming of Jeannie! Plus: The Invaders, the BILLIE JEAN KING/BOBBY RIGGS tennis battle of the sexes, HANNABARBERA’s Saturday morning super-heroes of the Sixties, THE MONSTER TIMES fanzine, and more fun, fab features! Featuring ERNEST FARINO, ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW!, and MICHAEL EURY.

Interview with Bond Girl and Hammer Films actress CAROLINE MUNRO! Plus: WACKY PACKAGES, COURAGEOUS CAT AND MINUTE MOUSE, FILMATION’S GHOSTBUSTERS vs. the REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, Bandai’s rare PRO WRESTLER ERASERS, behind the scenes of Sixties movies, WATERGATE at Fifty, Go-Go Dancing, a visit to the Red Skelton Museum, and more fun, fab features!

MAD’s maddest artist, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, is profiled! Plus: TV’s Route 66 and an interview with star GEORGE MAHARIS, MOE HOWARD’s final years, singer B. J. THOMAS in one of his final interviews, LONE RANGER cartoons, G.I. JOE, and more! Featuring columns by ANDY MANGELS, WILL MURRAY, SCOTT SAAVEDRA, SCOTT SHAW, and MARK VOGER! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #176

BACK ISSUE #134

BACK ISSUE #135

BACK ISSUE #136

The Golden Age comics of major pulp magazine publisher STREET & SMITH (THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, RED DRAGON, SUPERSNIPE) examined in loving detail by MARK CARLSON-GHOST! Art by BOB POWELL, HOWARD NOSTRAND, and others, ANTHONY TOLLIN on “The Shadow/Batman Connection”, FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, JOHN BROOME, PETER NORMANTON, and more!

BRONZE AGE RARITIES & ODDITIES, spotlighting rare ‘80s European Superman comics! Plus: CURT SWAN’s Batman, JIM APARO’s Superman, DAVID ANTHONY KRAFT’s Marvel custom comics, MICHAEL USLAN’s unseen Earth-Two stories, Leaf’s DC Secret Origins, Marvel’s Evel Knievel, cover variants, and more! With EDUARDO BARRETO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ALEX SAVIUK, and more. Cover by JOE KUBERT.

SILVER ISSUE, starring the Silver Surfer in the Bronze Age! Plus: JACK KIRBY’s Silver Star, SCOTT HAMPTON’s Silverheels, Silver Sable, Silver Banshee, and more!

Featuring KURT BUSIEK, STEVEN BUTLER, TOM DeFALCO, STEVE ENGLEHART, RON FRENZ, STERLING GATES, RON MARZ, FABIAN NICIEZA, ALEX ROSS, MARSHALL ROGERS, JOE RUBINSTEIN, ROGER STERN, and cover by FRENZ and SINNOTT.

BRONZE AGE COMICS STRIPS! SpiderMan, Friday Foster, DC’s World’s Greatest Superheroes starring Superman, Howard the Duck, Richie Rich, Star Hawks, Star Trek, MIKE GRELL’s Tarzan, and more!

Plus Charlton’s comic strip tie-ins and the MENOMONEE FALLS GAZETTE. With COLAN, GOODWIN, GIL KANE, KREMER, STAN LEE, ROMITA, THOMAS, TUSKA, and more.

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KIRBY COLLECTOR #83

BRICKJOURNAL #74

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #28 OUR ARTISTS AT WAR

THE LIFE & ART OF

DAVE COCKRUM

FAMOUS FIRSTS! How JACK KIRBY was a pioneer in all areas of comics: Romance Comics genre, Kid Gangs, double-page spreads, Black heroes, new formats, super-hero satire, and others! With MARK EVANIER and our regular columnists, plus a gallery of Jack’s pencil art from CAPTAIN AMERICA, JIMMY OLSEN, CAPTAIN VICTORY, DESTROYER DUCK, BLACK PANTHER, and more!

Amazing LEGO® STAR WARS builds, including Lando Calrissian’s Treadable

by JÜRGEN WITTNER, Starkiller Base by JHAELON EDWARDS, and more from STEVEN SMYTH and Bantha Bricks! Plus: Minifigure Customization by JARED K. BURKS, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK (including a LEGO BB-8), and more! Edited by JOE MENO.

STEVE BISSETTE career-spanning interview, from his Joe Kubert School days, Swamp Thing stint, publisher of Taboo and Tyrant, creator rights crusader, and more. Also, Part One of our MIKE GOLD interview on his Chicago youth, start in underground comix, and arrival at DC Comics, right in time for the implosion! Plus BUD PLANT on his publishing days, comic shop owner, and start in mail order—and all the usual fun stuff!

Examines US War comics: EC COMICS (Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat), DC COMICS (Enemy Ace, All American Men of War, G.I. Combat, Our Fighting Forces, Our Army at War, Star-Spangled War Stories), WARREN PUBLISHING (Blazing Combat), CHARLTON (Willy Schultz and the Iron Corporal) and more! Featuring KURTZMAN, SEVERIN, DAVIS, WOOD, KUBERT, GLANZMAN, KIRBY, and others!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 • Ships Spring 2022

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Follows his career from fandom to redesigning the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES and his introduction of X-MEN characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird (plus his design of Wolverine’s alter ego, Logan). Includes later work on THE FUTURIANS, unused character designs, and other rare material! Written by GLEN CADIGAN with introduction by ALEX ROSS.

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TwoMorrows.

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ALTER EGO #175

Spotlighting the artists of ROY THOMAS’ 1980s DC series ALL-STAR SQUADRON! Interviews with artists ARVELL JONES, RICHARD HOWELL, and JERRY ORDWAY, conducted by RICHARD ARNDT! Plus, the Squadron’s FINAL SECRETS, including previously unpublished art, & covers for issues that never existed! With FCA, MICHAEL T. GILBERT, and a wraparound cover by ARVELL JONES!