BrickJournal #82 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Issue 82 • November/December 2023

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Issue 82 • November/December 2023

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

People Displaying Disney! ............................................3 Martin Schaal: The Old Man and the Brick .........................4 Paul Hetherington: B ricktacular West Coast Modern Show................................................10

Building

Guillaume Roussel’s Disneyland Paris ...........................................19 Tamara Dadswell’s Lenticular Mosaic: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall .........................26 Martin Harris: Disney Building!............................................28 BrickNerd Instructions: Tinker Bell! .......................................................38 Minifigure Customization 101: M.I.C.K.E.Y. M.O.U.S.E. ..................................48 Magical Kingdoms: Learning to Build from the Happiest Places on Earth..............................................52

Community

The Guitar Project (Ukelele)........................62 100 ROOMZ of Disney! .................................64 Bantha Bricks: Frank Averstegge’s Jabba’s Palace........68 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 Next Issue............................................................80

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From the Editor: Way back when, before the turn of the century, I was a Walt Disney World cast member. I transferred from working for four years at the Disney Store to DisneyQuest, a high-tech version of an arcade.

November/December 2023 Issue 82 Publisher John Morrow

Editor in Chief Joe Meno BrickNerd and Assistant Editor Dave Schefcik Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow

Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Ashley Glennon

Bantha Bricks Correspondent Steven Smyth

Contributors: Leslie Araujo, Frank Averstegge, Jared Burks, Blaine Campbell, Tamara Dadwell, Christopher Deck, Miro Dudas, Martin Harris, Paul Hetherington, Ryan McNaught, Guillaume Roussel, John Rudy, Martin Schaal, David Strenzler, and Greg Hyland. 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: Martin Harris’ Sleeping Beauty castle lights up as evening approaches. Photo by Martin Harris. About the Contents: Rapunzel lets her hair down. Photo by Martin Harris.

During that time, I also worked for a very short time at the LEGO Imagination Center. While I was there, I bought the first LEGO Star Wars sets, and I began to build again. Not too long after, I discovered LUGNET and eBay, and began my adventure as an AFOL—and I am still building! I still am a Disney fan, too—and it’s been a lot of fun seeing the Disney-themed builds slowly multiply at events. I have built a few myself. For me, Disney and LEGO are a good mix. So here’s BrickJournal’s love letter to Disney, with builders and building with the theme—thanks to the BrickNerd gang for creating a model you can build of a Disney character, and thanks to everyone else for making a great issue! Now, if I could only get a Dole Whip...! Joe Meno 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!

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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)

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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 82, November/December 2023 (ISSN 1941-2347) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid 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: $73 US, $111 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only, and can be purchased at 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. Star Wars, The Mandalorian TM & © Lucasfilm. All articles, photos, and art © BrickJournal Media, LLC, 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.

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.

Displaying Disney!

The LEGO Group

Article by Joe Meno Photography provided by Ryan McNaught

The LEGO Group and Disney partnered to create this display that was unveiled at Westfield Doncaster in Victoria, Australia on June 23, 2023 and remained until June 28. Eight Disney characters (Mickey, Minnie, Elsa and Anna from Frozen, Moana, Woody from Toy Story, Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, Pinocchio, and Cinderella) are featured on the base. Cinderella Castle forms the centerpiece with a LEGO version of the Partners statue of Walt Disney and Mickey at the castle’s entrance. The display is made of 765,911 elements and took over 3518 hours to make. LEGO Senior Designer Monika Pacikova led the project. This display moved to Westfield Chermside (Brisbane) July 4–9 and Westfield Bondi Junction (Sydney) July 13–16.

Woody, Moana, and Cinderella are seen here. Behind Woody is Elsa, and behind Cinderella is Pinocchio.

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. The Partners statue at the Disney Parks is slightly different, with Walt’s right arm raised. All Walt Disney World and Disneyland theme park icons, attractions, and associated characters shown in this issue are TM & © Walt Disney Studios.

Tiana, Minnie, Mickey, and Anna are seen here, with the Partners statue behind.

People

Martin’s model of the Bietigheim Viaduct.

Martin Schaal:

The Old Man and the Brick Article by Joe Meno Photography by Martin Schaal

Martin Schaal is a builder in Germany who has built train-inspired models and layouts for the past eight years, since his retirement from the railway business. He hasn’t been far from the brick, as he has built since childhood. He’s 67 now, and has the nickname “der alte Mann und der Stein,”which translates from his native German to “The Old Man and the Brick.” Martin’s favorite theme follows his career in trains—he loves to build railways, locomotives, stations, bridges, and town-themed items. He builds mostly in microscale, but doesn’t limit his creations exclusively to that scale. As for building style, he hasn’t changed that much from his childhood builds to present—it’s just that the bricks he used as a child required a bit more imagination. Painting is another one of his interests, and LEGO building is another way to ‘paint’ what he sees. Martin strives to build realistic scale models in his building. During a recent exhibition, a viewer told him, “ That is not LEGO. That is a real model!” That’s the main motivation for building: Martin wants to transform reality into LEGO. If Martin creates a town, he wants his layout to be like a Google Maps picture. If someone tells him that a build “would be impossible in LEGO,” Martin will work to make that statement wrong. He builds mostly realistic scale models, but also can build more creative items, such as his Elvis/Charlie cliff model. Martin’s rendition of the Göltzschtal Bridge, which is also the largest brick bridge in the world.

The bridge at the River Nidd, part of Martin’s layout of Knaresborough.

When he builds a new locomotive, Martin always starts with online research. Afterwards, he gathers all the measurements he found on an Excel spreadsheet. From there, he can define the scales for his builds. Most of the time he starts with a very small model to get a general feel for what he is building, like a rough sketch. Next, he builds in a larger scale to add details. By this second model, he’s pretty familiar with the information he found online. The larger the model becomes, the more accurately he builds. He always uses this process of building from small to big. For him, it’s better to have a good rough build than a build that is detailed wrong. For Martin, building a model is 40% planning, 30% building... and 30% sorting. The time to build can vary from a month to make a locomotive, to more than a year for the Knaresborough layout. Thomas the Tank Engine and friends!

Various versions and scales of the Ludmilla (DR Class 130) diesel locomotive.

Martin’s most well-known build is the city of Knaresborough, which is 1.6 meters by 2.4 meters in size. Another layout of note is his railway station of Bebra (located in Germany), circa the 1920s. The first microbuild he built was of a viaduct near his home, the Bridge Bietigheim. From there, he looked for a smaller bridge embedded in a town and found Knaresborough. His train models range from steam locomotives to Thomas the Tank Engine.

Different views of Knaresborough.

One face of the microscale cliff. Projecting Elvis Presley.

Another face of the microscale cliff.

A build that pushed his creativity is a sculpture of a village in a mountain. At first glance, the model appears to be simply an impressive model, until the viewer sees its shadow. One shadow is a silhouette of Elvis Presley, and if the sculpture is turned 90 degrees, a silhouette of Charlie Chaplin is revealed. What started as s sculpture presents two flat shadows, and what seems impossible in LEGO isn’t.

Projecting Charlie Chaplin.

For those just starting building or otherwise, Martin offers the following advice: “Do not think too much. Join a LEGO community, such as doctor-brick.de. The more you build, the better you will become.”

Martin’s BR 99 at Harzer Schmalspurbahnen, or HSB.

Building a Microlayout Martin’s microscale builds use different methods to deal with building challenges. How is a mountainside built? How is a curved train track made? How do you define the edge of a layout? Let’s take a look at how he builds a micro layout to find some answers. After some research online using Google Maps photos and website information, Martin starts on this project, creating the world famous Landwasser Viaduct in Switzerland.

Martin starts with the base, which is only 22 x 22 studs. The initial layer is black, and some bricks are added on the outside where the mountains are going to be placed.

The next layer sets up the infrastruture for the curved track. Tiles are placed for bridge and track set-up.

Tiles are added at this level so plates can be placed over them. The tiles allow the plates that will be over them to fit with the studs around 8 the curve.

After being covered by plates, terrain is added. The bridge markers are still in place, and a corner cliffside is started.

This layer sets up the curve by using panels that have wedge plates (angled side). When these are joined together by hinge plates (in dark gray), a secure building area is made. The 1x1 rounds are markers for bridge supports.

Turning the layout 90 degrees, more terrain is added. The cliffside is heightend and SNOT bricks are added for detail.

The bridge is added. The track is a duplicate of the the hinge plates in the ground level, so everything joins in a predictable manner.

Here’s the layout rotated to show more of the terrain work.

Here’s a close-up to show detail work.

The train is added by testing placement. Terrain is completed and trees are added.

The locomotive is added.

How was the sky done? Martin photographed the layout outdoors!

People

Paul Hetherington, in the lower center of the photo, talks about his models at the Bricktacular show.

Paul Hetherington:

Bricktacular West Coast Modern Show

Article by Paul Hetherington Photography by Blaine Campbell 10

Hello, I’m Paul Hetherington, a long-time LEGO fan who has been creating with LEGO for over thirty years. Many of my creations are well know within the LEGO community. I grew up in West Vancouver, B.C. and I currently live in North Vancouver. My new exhibit, the Bricktacular West Coast Modern Show, is my first official art show and my first solo art show. The exhibit is hosted by the West Vancouver Art Museum and is in collaboration with the West Vancouver Memorial Library where it is on display. The show ran from May 5–July 31, 2023. The exhibit featured eight recreations of iconic West Coast Modern homes which were designed by well known architects. West Coast Modern is a design style that originated on the West Coast and was popular between 1941 and 1988. Some of the characteristics of West Coast Modern homes include: flat roofs, deep eaves with exposed post-and-beam structure, and emphasis on integrating the architecture into the landscape, with the intent of bringing the outdoors inside. Many of the homes feature large glass windows to transition the indoor living spaces to the outdoor spaces. West Coast Modern homes were conceived as modest family residences. The movement intended to make affordable family housing with an emphasis on blending into the natural landscape of the rugged West Coast.

The genesis for the show began during the pandemic. I had created two fantasy pieces, Atomic Ranch and Googie, during this time. Atomic Ranch celebrates the optimism of the Atomic Age, a time in post-war America where the future was bright and architecture and design mirrored that optimism—where the dream of owning your own post-and-beamstyle rancher and a Detroit automobile where well within reach. Googie is my tribute to architecture that was inspired by car culture, and the space age. Googie architecture originated in Southern California and was popular among motels, gas stations, and restaurants. Features of Googie include upswept roofs, curvilinear geometric shapes, and a bold use of glass, steel and neon.

The models that led to the display.

Back in early 2021, I showed these two pieces to my friend, international artist Douglas Coupland. He immediately saw their potential and he connected me with the West Vancouver Art Museum to set up a show. Hilary Letwin, the curator of the art museum, loved the idea of Mid-Century Modern designed LEGO models and suggested that models of local West Coast Modern home designs would be a perfect fit for the art museum’s programming. The show and playful medium could help to introduce these endangered homes to a new audience. We agreed to a show schedule opening in the summer of 2023. This would give me two years to create the models. That sounds like a lot of time, but with my busy schedule, it was down to the wire at the end to complete all the models within the allotted time.

With the show a go, Douglas Coupland initially suggested I recreate Arthur Erickson’s Eppich House 2. A fter researching this home, I realized that it was a perfect starting point to dive into West Coast Modern architecture. The model requires element 1X6X3 1/3 arch brick with curved top (30935) in white to recreate the flowing curves that cascade down the slope. Luckily it is a piece that is fairly common in white. Another plus to creating this home is that there has been a book published on the home that includes lots of great photos and even architectural plans for the elevation and dimensions of the house. This book, along with some previous real estate listings, provided all the information I needed to recreate the house. While creating the Eppich 2 model, I had to come up with a design style and scale for the models. Because most of the properties I was considering were built on hilly slopes, I decided early on to use black bricks to build up the side of the base to fill in the grade. This presentation gave all the models a uniform look. I also used a scale on most of the models where the door height was three bricks high. This made most of the homes fit onto a 20 inch by 20 inch footprint. This worked out well as the plexiglass cases that would protect the models during the show measured 24 inches by 24 inches.

After completing the Eppich 2 model, the next logical choice was to recreate Arthur Erickson’s Eppich 1 house. These two homes were created for the Eppich brothers, Hugo and Helmut. They were both owners of a steel manufacturing company and they were instrumental in providing the raw materials for the construction of the homes. Luckily Douglas Coupland knew the owner of Eppich house 1 and he arranged for me to visit the home. This was the best case scenario, as being able to view the home and the site in person really allowed me to understand all the intricacies of the design. I found that wide angle photos and videos were the best way to record how the different areas of the home relate to each other. For the Eppich 1 model, I decided to create the full interior on each of the four levels, and also light each level with LED lights. This created an additional challenge as I had to be sure all of the outside walls corresponded in position with the interior walls. In LEGO scale there is a bit of play with window and door placement. These have to be finessed as the wall width represented by a 1x LEGO brick is often wider that the wall is in the prototype. That is where my artistic eye really came into play in creating these models. One of the biggest challenges was to incorporate the lighting wires into the four floors and still allow for the floors to be removed. I achieved this by careful placement of the battery boxes on different floors of the home. That way, the upper floors could be powered by batteries located in the upper floors, while the lower floor battery packs were still located on the lower levels. For this model I used Blinky Bricks 1X6 LED plates, and used their wiring system to power the lights.

Once these two models were complete, I worked with Hilary Letwin to curate a list of potential models of existing homes from other important architects in the area. Early on we decided to only model homes that were still standing which we could visit. This would allow for the most information to be collected, which would allow for the most faithful recreations possible. Many of the homes in this style have been victims of the high property values in the Vancouver area. As the homes were conceived as modest family homes, they are at high risk of being torn down to make way for larger homes that take advantage of the full density allowed on the properties.

We decided that we would add in one more Arthur Erickson designed home. The Smith House 2 had to be included as it is a famous local design and was the home of Gordon Smith, a famous Canadian artist. Smith House 2 was the first home to have a floating living room that bridges two rocky outcroppings. When I visited the home, it was undergoing an extensive renovation. So in this case I had to make decisions on which time period I wanted to model the home on. In its current form, the home was painted olive green. The exterior wood of the home had originally just been painted with clear stain to protect it. This made it appear close to the LEGO dark tan color. The home had also had several additions over the years. In this case, I decided to model the home as it had originally been built back in 1966. I found that there were very few larger plates available in olive green, so using dark tan, which has a larger part selection, would allow me to build a much more structurally sound model.

Next up was a visit to one of the most significant of the local West Coast Modern homes. The BC Binning house is designated as a National Historic Site and is recognized as the first West Coast Modern home to be designed and built in the Vancouver area. It was designed by BC Binning and was built back in 1941. In this case, I decided to combine both the modern and the vintage iteration of the house. The house had a bathroom addition which I decided to include. I built the updated kitchen and bathrooms, but decided to keep BC Binning’s studio as it had appeared in a 1950s picture. Once the Binning home was complete, I started work on a Bob Lewis post-and-beam home. Bob Lewis was a prolific local builder who was responsible for over 250 post-and-beam homes in the area. The home we chose had been extensively updated and had been renovated to include an on-suite addition. I decided to build this home as it appears today, as I had limited information on how it had appeared before. For his model, I built both the upstairs and downstairs interiors and made it so the roof and the upper level could be removed to reveal the interior details. As this model was a post-and-beam home, I found it very helpful to build to scale, as the beams act as a kind of grid. I could count each room as being between 4-8 beams wide. This allowed me to make sure all the rooms were scaled equally.

For the next residence, I decided to take a left turn and create an apartment building that is not strictly considered West Coast Modern. The Villa Maris, more commonly known as the Pink Palace, is a West Vancouver icon. It has been painted the same shade of pink ever since it was built back in 1966. Technically it is built in Miami Modern International style. But when you think of local Mid-Century Modern architecture, it is the most famous example in the area. This model was built at a smaller scale as the floors were only two bricks high due to the elevenstory height. There were a couple of design challenges, as pink is a LEGO color that has a more limited parts palate than many of the other colors. Another design challenge was recreating the curved arches that make up the front center of the building. Due to the smaller scale of this model, I decided not to build the interior.

With only two homes remaining to build, Hilary and I chose a Fred Hollingsworth design. The home we chose has an interesting history. Built in 1949, it is known as the Sky Bungalow and was Vancouver’s equivalent to the House of Tomorrow show home. It was built on brick pillars on the Hudson’s Bay store parking lot in downtown Vancouver. The Bay would only allow the builders to use three parking stalls to suspend the house. In this way, shoppers were still able to park under the house, as parking was at a premium even back then. This is the only home in the show that is not located in West Vancouver. Once the house was shown to the public, it was moved to it’s permanent location in North Vancouver where it still stands today, although it has been altered through many additions. As this home was slightly smaller in scale than the rest of the homes, I decided to build the model in minifigure scale. I built it as it would have appeared in 1949 on the Hudson’s Bay parking lot. While there are quite a few pictures available of the home in 1949, none of them were in color. In this case, I had to rely on the descriptions of the residence from several period publications.

The last home Hilary and I chose was the Merrick House. This house was designed and built by architect Paul Merrick in the 1970s and has had two significant additions since. The home is made of wood, stone and glass and features 17 levels and only two 90 degree angled walls. It was not by accident that I left this complicated structure to the last. This was the most challenging of the homes to recreate in LEGO bricks. I had to translate all of the angles into a geometry that would work with the existing geometry of LEGO’s wedge plates. It was a complicated process to capture all the unique angles of the decks and bedrooms on the lower levels. After all the challenges of bringing the model together, I was pleased with the final result. The 40-foot stone fireplace is at the center of the model and is framed by the large cathedrallike ceilings in the main living room. For this model, I detailed the interior of the living room, which is the focal point of the home. All of the homes in the exhibit took me an average of three weeks each to create. That includes the time to research and visit the individual sites as well as time to design and build the models. The largest model is the Eppich House 1 which measures 20 inches by 30 inches and incorporates over 12,000 elements. On average, most of the home models incorporate around 9000 elements. One of the biggest advantages to having a show hosted by the West Vancouver Art Museum is having a publication released to coincide with the show. The publication for this exhibit features pictures and historical information on all the homes, as well as many pictures of my LEGO models. It features essays by Douglas Coupland, Nathan Sawaya, Hilary Letwin, Steph Hall, and myself. I really like the way historical photos of the homes are combined with photos of the LEGO models. Stacey Moines did an amazing job at designing the publication with a Mid-Century aesthetic, and Blaine Campbell did a great job photographing the models for the publication in incredible detail. I really enjoyed being involved in the design process and being able to contribute ideas to the overall style of the publication.

Douglas Coupland (left) and Paul Hetherington (right).

The Bricktacular West Coast Modern Show opened on May 5, 2023 at the Memorial Library in West Vancouver. The opening night event was a huge success and had almost 400 attendees. Attendees included many of the featured homes, owners, local artists, West Vancouver art council members, and many Vancouver LEGO Club members. The mayor of West Vancouver kicked off the opening ceremony which included speeches by Steph Hall from the Library, Hilary Letwin from the WVAM, and by me. LEGO-shaped cake was served after the speeches. All in all, it was an amazing evening that flew by way too fast for me. For me, the biggest highlight was being able to host a local show in the community where I grew up, and being able to invite all my friends and family. I feel honored and humbled to be able to present these homes in a new way, to hopefully contribute in some small way to their preservation.

Guillaume Roussel’s

Building

Disneyland Paris Article by Joe Meno Photography by Guillaume Roussel

The rear of the castle.

Guillaume Roussel has been building and making a name for himself for some time. He has been featured in BrickJournal before for his Disney builds, and returns to show some new builds he has made. Since the last time he was featured, he had also designed a LEGO set through the LEGO Ideas platform (The Globe) and also competed in LEGO Masters France. Here we focus on his Disneyrelated builds. BrickJournal: When did you start building Disney models? And what was your inspiration?

Disneyland Paris on display in 2016.

Guillaume Roussel: I started to build LEGO Disney models when I was a teenager. I always loved Disney; Disney classic movies were a part of my childhood just like LEGO, and after visiting Disneyland Paris with my parents in 2011, I fell in love with this park, not only because of the “Disney experience,” but also because I was fascinating by the realism of the rides and the park. Everything in this park is so detailed and has a logic to it. Well, I started to watch and read a lot of articles and documentaries about how the parks were made and what the history was of each ride. I immediately wanted to be in a part somehow of this adventure, and seeing myself as a Disney Imagineer by recreating the parks in LEGO. At the beginning, the goal was to reproduce the exact same attractions, but I finally chose to just take some inspirations and creating my dream version of Disneyland, which is way more fun and creative!

Guillaume’s layout of Walt Disney Studios.

For me it was obvious to link LEGO and Disney together, but unfortunately at that time, the list of Disney sets available was very poor and even non-existent: no Disney castle, no minifigs. So, I began to create my own display with especially my Disneyland diorama, which is still today my biggest creation, but I also wanted to recreate the universes that I loved as a kid such as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Bambi. At the end, it’s more than hundreds of MOCs! When did you start building Disneyland Paris?

Alice’s Curious Labyrinth. The Mad Tea Party.

I started to build my first LEGO Disneyland park in 2014, which I began to exhibit in a lot of LEGO events in France. At that time, it was more like an interpretation of Disney parks with parts that I had: a very limited choice of colors and parts was available. It was just the beginning of LEGO Friends so I had to wait a couple of years to build something more “Disney recognizable.” Years after years I extended the park and I focused myself on the only Disney Park that I visited: Disneyland Paris. I took inspiration also from Disneyland California and the Magic Kingdom as well, but from my point of view, the Disneyland Paris Park was the most beautiful one, with an impressive level of details, and some of the attractions like Space Mountain were unique to our resort. Ride after ride, land after land, I built a big part of the resort including the second park: Walt Disney Studios. Even if this park was at some point very disappointing due to the size and the number of the rides (seven rides only at the opening), 21 my passion for the cinema pushes me to recreate

Black Panther.

The railroad passes through It’s a Small World.

some of the iconic rides such as Tower of Terror, Ratatouille, and of course, the entrance of the park itself. Nowadays the complete diorama with the two parks exceed 20m², from the entrance of the park to the Sleeping Beauty Castle by passing by Main Street and Discoveryland; thousands of parts were not enough to recreate the Happiest Place on Earth! I still have, of course, a lot of work to do to complete the rest of the resort (Frontierland and Adventureland mainly) and even some of my creations will deserve to be rebuilt with new elements and colors. After all, as Walt Disney said, Disneyland will be never finished as long as there will be humans and imagination.

Previous page: Sleeping Beauty Castle rises above the Disneyland Paris layout. The Disneyland Paris entrance.

What was your first MOC of the park? My first “serious” MOC was the recreation of the Disneyland Paris Sleeping Beauty Castle. This Castle is the masterpiece of the park, so it was logical to begin with it. Compared to Disney’s American castles, the Sleeping Beauty Castle of Disneyland Paris has a unique shape full of fantasy and elegance. Building this Castle in LEGO was truly a challenge due to the complexity of the structure. The first step was to get more information, so I used some blueprints that I found on the Internet, which helped me to respect the proportions and the size of the model. In addition, I also used the 3-D model on Google Earth, which gave me some views that I couldn’t get on the pictures that I had. In total, I spent a couple of months to finish the model; with more than 10,000 bricks for 90cm tall, it was my biggest creation before Space Mountain. Nevertheless, I’m thinking to rebuild it from scratch for a better result, thanks to the evolution of the parts and colors.

Your more recent builds have been of Space Mountain and Ratatouille. Can you talk about those?

Space Mountain’s cannon launcher. Disneyland Paris’ Space Mountain and Orbitron.

Among all the Disney rides, I was always facinated by Space Mountain, and especially the Paris version of the ride. Space Mountain was one of my very first roller coaster that I did when I was a teenager, so to build it in LEGO was a kind of a dream, but also truly a massive challenge. Indeed, the most difficult part of the project was to realize a fully working ride. I spent a couple of months just to imagine the mechanism and how this was going to work. At the end, the ride is powered by two electric generator of 12V each, and not less than eight motors! The biggest issue was actually the big cannon; four XL motors were useful to launch the train inside the cannon on the top of the dome, with the addition of a real effect of a “catapult launch” created by a system of turbines. The aesthetics and the steampunk look of the ride were also one of the key elements of the project. Well, I used a mix of reddish brown, dark tan and teal for the dome, with a few touches of pearl gold. The roller coaster parts in teal were especially very useful to give this a steampunk and industrial design. In addition to Space Mountain, I also just finished a complete new area around the attraction, with the submarine of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which just like Space Mountain is associated with the story of Discoveryland and mainly Jules Verne, the French visionary.

The Ratatouille buildings.

The entrance with built signage. Gusteau’s sign.

Ratatouille combined three things that I really like: Disney of course, movies, and architecture. In amusement parks, like on a movie set, you have plenty of visual effects, and the most famous one is called “forced perspective.” The forced perspective gives you an impression of depth or height on a building or on a landscape. So, by playing on the colors or on the size of a building for example, you can change the aesthetics and give an impression that a building appears taller than it is in reality. This effect is used everywhere in Disney parks, especially for the Castle and for a lot of buildings, including the Ratatouille ride. Based on this concept, I didn’t only reproduce the architecture of the buildings, but also this impression of forced perspective. Each level is indeed smaller compared to the one before. Also, the different sizes of the windows contribute to reinforce this effect. In addition to that, this MOC was the perfect opportunity to play with the “kitchen parts,” such as whisk, that I used for the top of the roof on one of the buildings. At the end, Ratatouille was a nice challenge, and a really fun build to do!

Building Tamara Dadswell’s

Lenticular Mosaic

Snow White...

Article and Photography by Tamara Dadswell I started building MOCs in 2011, after visiting a local LEGO show with my kids. I soon realised there were lots of adult builders around the world, many of whom posted photos of their creations online. I tend to build themes that appealed to me when I was around seven years old, so when I saw Arthur Gugick’s lenticular Batman/Joker mosaic online in 2013, I was instantly inspired to make my own mosaic with Snow White and her stepmother reflected in the Magic Mirror. The lenticular effect is created by using cheese slopes (element 54200) with the long side facing in opposite directions for two images. The best view of each image is achieved when you stand to the left or right of the mosaic, so that the ‘long side’ of the cheese slopes faces you.

To make the mosaic, I stretched two images (Snow White and the evil stepmother) 200% vertically (but retained the original width) using imaging software. I then pixelated the images, with each pixel representing a cheese

...and the Evil Queen.

slope. Cheese slopes don’t come in a broad range of colours, so I developed my own formula using ‘dithering’ techniques to approximate the colours I wanted. For instance, if you place orange and green slopes next to each other, the human eye perceives the colour as brown (you might need to stand back and squint a bit, but it works). Different shades of orange and green create different shades of brown. The images were built in vertical strips placed in alternating columns. For Snow White I had all slopes pointing to the left, and for the evil stepmother I had all slopes pointing to the right. Placing the images in every second column expanded the images horizontally by 200%, so the images were back to their correct scale but double the height and width of the images I had started with. I built the mirror so that it frames both images. That way, it appears that the mirror doesn’t change when you view from left or right, whereas the projected face transforms.

Using 1 x 1 slopes, a mosaic can be made with two views— so this top view can show different images from opposite directions! View 1

Building

Martin’s Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Martin Harris is a builder who has been showing his work at Brickfair Alabama and Brickfair Virginia. He has also started displaying at other events with Sleeping Beauty Castle and his other Disney-inspired builds. I caught up with him to chat about his building and builds.

Martin Harris:

Disney Building!

BrickJournal: What got you into LEGO building? When did you start building?

Article by Joe Meno Photography by Martin Harris

Aurora and her spinning wheel.

Martin Harris: As a child, I had the classic Castle sets, some space, some city. With four brothers, I rarely had a set made to display. Our LEGO was to play with, and the sets would be built by my older brothers, as they were too hard for me. We would then break them up and use all the pieces to build whatever we wanted. My memories of LEGO are not of set building, but free play, imagination, no constraints. My last set was when I was eleven. My first adult build happened in 2014-2015. My son was seven and we visited Brickfair in Alabama, 2014. He was an avid Ninjago fan, and any LEGO bought was for him. My hobby was photography. After attending, he stated that he wanted to “be one of the people behind the table,” which meant to be an exhibitor, to show off his builds. Throughout the year he kept talking about it and I realized that this was something that had to happen. So he started to work on his display, a mash-up of Minecraft sets, and a creative build of capturing the crystals. Though he and I were proud of his builds, I knew that they would be lost on display in a big hall. So I went to the LEGO store and bought some AT AT walkers and decided to build a Battle of Hoth scene to ‘draw people in’. And that I did; it was

seven feet long, crude in design, but I liked it—full of Star Wars vehicle sets, but the base and landscaping was mine (and my son’s). This was my first LEGO ‘MOC’ and actually I didn’t build the vehicles, my son and some Brickfair attendees did that. Two days before leaving for the show, my daughter wanted something also, so I built an Elsa castle from the movie Frozen in one evening. This was my first Disney build. I am in sales for a career and I am all about being relevant. Here I had both, and one of the first Frozen builds made. The show was a hit, we had lines of people looking at Hoth, taking pics of the Frozen castle and subsequently, stopping to look at my son’s builds and ask him questions. Mission accomplished—although there was one other build included. My daughter had a list of fave Disney princesses, the top one being Sleeping Beauty (to her, she was ‘Sleeping Booty’ as she couldn’t pronounce it correctly yet). The Wednesday before heading to Brickfair, I built a small ‘Sleeping Booty’ scene on a 32x32 baseplate, with castle backgrounds, a stream, and Princess Aurora and the spinning wheel. On the Sunday of the show, 3:45pm, right before the public was to leave, a dad approached. He said ‘thank you’ to me. He had been by earlier when I was not there, and brought his daughter to look at the Princess Aurora build. She was with him when he came to say thank you and she was dressed in a Princess Aurora outfit. The dad told me she was crying and upset because there was nothing ‘for her’. But when she saw my creation, her eyes lit up. All of this is to say, LEGO building and LEGO Disney building is how things really started for me. A fun fact: the spinning wheel from that first ever build is currently sitting in my Disneyland Castle creation.

An overhead view of the castle. The rear of the castle.

When did you become a Disney fan? So, despite building Disney builds since 2015, I would not classify myself as a Disney fan until last year, mid-2022. See, my builds have always been based around my children’s interests. Having a son and a daughter has meant I have gone in many directions. I remember as a child growing up, families (not ours) would fly to Florida (I grew up in England) for summer holidays to see Mickey Mouse. We never went and it never interested me. I’m not a fan of roller coasters, so even my trip with my wife’s family in 1999 wasn’t that magical for me. We took the children a few times and my favorite parts were riding the tea cups, and character meet and greets with my daughter whilst my wife rode rides with sons. But I was not a Disney fan then. I was a LEGO guy, building Disney creations.

Martin setting up Rapunzel’s Tower at Brickworld 2022.

But in 2021, my LEGO convention journey shifted. Now instead of it being one for my kids, it became one for me. As children grow, their interests change too. But I was deep into this LEGO hobby and started to make it my own, one my kids would come and hang at if they wanted to. In 2022 after Brickfair Alabama in January, I decided I needed to focus my builds on a specific niche, and find my area. The movie Encanto had just come out, and my wife and I sat and watched it, one of the first Disney movies I had watched. People had been suggesting I build the Encanto house, so this was basically research for me. After building that, I decided that Disney was my thing—the colours, the vibrance, the happiness, the magic. And it was at this time I became more immersed in the Disney life. I signed up for a Marathon at Walt Disney World in January 2023, and after completing it, took part in two more Rundisney events in February and April. This year, I have visited Disney four times, and part of it is about engrossing myself in the magic—seeing what people like, seeing what’s popular, soaking up the culture, and accepting that Disney is for everyone. Passing through the castle!

Some interior detail in the castle.

What got you to blend both interests? This is kind of mentioned above, but the real drive to focus on one niche was because I wanted to have more of an identity in the LEGO community. Disney felt like an under-represented niche and I started making a list of creations that I could build that would add to the community. In early 2022, I was focusing on my social media presence, and a quick glance of my Instagram account showed I could build LEGO, but had little direction. Over the course of 2022 I focused on Disney content, engaged with other Disney accounts that were not specifically LEGO, and grew my online community to be a balance between LEGO fans, Disney fans, and Disney LEGO fans. Without the desire to grow my online community, I would not have focused on Disney, that is for sure. What is the inspiration behind your builds? Do you want to make a moment from a Disney movie? So the question of inspiration—here are a few things: I need it to be something that resonates with me. Rapunzel’s Tower was because my daughter loved Tangled, it played non-stop. The current version is the third version of it. The Alice in Wonderland builds are because I have strong memories of the book as a child, and I am fascinated by dreams and curiosity. The Disneyland Castle is because it was home to Sleeping Beauty. Nearly every build has an emotional connection to me that stirs up memories and happiness. I am able to capture that forever in the builds and share with others. But really, I am looking for something that will connect with an audience—but importantly, something that hasn’t been built or represented in the way that I want to build it. You will often find me looking at paper craft social media accounts, Disney toy collecting and fandom accounts to see what is popular and relevant.

A peaceful scene.

Working on the castle.

A souvenir cart.

The entire gang!

Encanto, at the time I built my house, was huge, and building the house in the way I did was timely and important. It was the definition of pop culture. How long does it take to make a MOC? This varies, as always. The Encanto house was built in seven weeks. I often build during the colder months as there is not as much to do outside then. The Disneyland castle was in two months, built in a similar time of year. But the Alice in Wonderland collection has taken almost two years. There is more creativity involved, which works a different part of my brain. If I am able to study a building, I can replicate it quickly. But if it’s more of build that requires my interpretation of things—like Alice and Peter Pan, where there are so many different types of imagery to be based off of—these take longer. For these more creative free builds, I often have them in the background whilst I create more of a replica build. Which MOC was the hardest to build? Rapunzel’s Tower, because of the height. It is five feet tall, and I knew it would be displayed on a table at a convention. So in building this, structural integrity was crucial. Add the fact that the tower had to be

tapered and the roof was purple, which was an uncommon colour when I finished it in 2020. The conical roof is where I started. I had to get that part correct, as it was the main focal point. Then the build had to be scaled from that. I free build all my builds; no sketching, no computer, normal trial and error, so after building the roof, which took three months, I built top-down. The tower was originally built in grey bricks 100% as a first draft and then finalized. But with the shape of the tower and the weight of the top secants, I had to build it to disperse the weight as it dissipated down the tower, so that in the event the table gets knocked, it wouldn’t fall over. One of the challenges was how to get the hair correct. It’s crucial to the build, and one day before displaying it, I didn’t have hair, until I found a solution, which was to run string through little yellow flowers. This became my favorite part of the build. But what made this hard, in the same way as the Encanto house, was that there was not a lot of reference material to scale from. Disney tends to show the best sides; rarely do you get 360 degree views, so it’s often a guessing game. (For Encanto, there was zero material and zero other creations outside LEGO to try to get ideas from. I went frame by frame in the movie and pieced together the house.) So what helped me with Rapunzel’s tower was that I found a guy on Pinterest who had made a papier-mâché model. I used his model as my scale to base it off of.

Some views of the palace.

Tell me about some of the models you built. Tiana’s Palace: No one had ever built a Tiana’s Palace, and I was showing in New Orleans with Brick Universe in 2021, and thought it would be the perfect build. Tiana is an under-represented princess, but one of the hardest working. She is the only one who has a proper job. [laughs] The storyline is great, and this build was part of my way to help represent someone that was under-represented. The build has been disassembled, but it will return. Tiana hosting her palace.

Alice in Wonderland: This has been my passion project, and at the time of this magazine may not have been shared in completion yet at a convention. Though the Red Queen’s castle and the tea party have been shared, the collective build which is designed to follow the storyline of the book is a collection of seven parts of the story: The rabbit hole, the talking flowers, the Hare’s house, the talking catapillar, tea party, Tulgey Woods, and the castle. Each build can be displayed individually or separately.

Meeting the White Rabbit.

Meeting the talking flowers. The Red Queen’s castle.

Falling down the rabbit hole. Meeting the caterpillar.

Encanto: The roof has over 11,000 of the half-round pieces, and I had to order them all from Bricklink. The doors all light up with the swirling rotation from the movie, and the build is actually a good map of it. Many of the rooms, and especially the back, were not shown in the movie, but by careful research, I was able to come up with the design. The highest compliment for me came from the main animator of Encanto, when he shared it on his Instagram page.

Various views of the house.

Mickey and Minnie passing through the castle.

The castle is lit for dark display.

Disneyland Castle (seen on previous pages): I played with the idea of three castles: Florida, Paris and Disneyland. The tie-in to Sleeping Beauty was important, but I also was envisioning how it would display with my other builds that are already created. Additionally, it is such an understated castle, so I wanted to bring it to life. It had not been built in this scale to my knowledge before, so it was something that would add to the community. But the key consideration is I completed it in 2023, the same year as 100 years of Disney. It was the castle Walt dreamt of and saw completed. The front of Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Rapunzel tower: Ahh, the build that grew as my daughter grew. It’s the one I have the greatest attachment to, and have no plans to ever have it rebuilt. What other Disney models are you thinking about? The great thing about Disney is there is so much content out there: Disney parks, rides, movies, live action, books. I am spoiled for choices. However, a Peter Pan build will be coming, and I have plans for some more Disney Park creations. I want to find a way to create a Moana build in the way that makes me happy. Moana is my now teenager’s fave princess, and so, that’s going to drive my direction. Any advice for builders? I am approaching almost ten years of building now. I couldn’t imagine I would have built what I have built ten years ago. I say that because this hobby is one of patience. It’s one to enjoy at every stage. My first builds I loved and was very proud of, and rightfully so. I’ve discovered though with this hobby, that every building experience has its challenge. Often they are never completed until you have gotten over that ‘builder’s block’ or found the solution you were looking for. Know that is part of it. Embrace that challenge; good things always come if you push through it. Additionally, share with others. Help others—most of my ideas and building techniques have come from looking at other builders. Very few are really mine, even if I think so. Collectively sharing enhances the LEGO community and raises the standards for everyone. Build what you want, whatever it is. Build it. Use other people’s builds as inspiration, use sets in creations, modify sets, just build sets—whatever it is you want to do, do it. To really be inspired, build differently if that’s what you want to do. Then in this case, look outside the LEGO community for inspiration. As a photographer, the best advice I got was not to buy photography magazines to read—or I would have a photographic style like everyone else’s. I was told to buy fashion magazines, look at advertisments, movies. Use those things as real inspiration, as they showed what people wanted. This ties to my Disney building. Disney creates what I build—they know the colours, the stories that work. I just build their work in LEGO. To me, that’s working smart. [laughs]

Parts List

Tinker Bell

Design by Miro Dudas from BrickNerd To celebrate the magical theme of this issue, we decided to create a life-size Tinker Bell. The core design repurposes my previous Surfing Girls creation from a few years ago. The arms and legs were already positioned perfectly, so adjusting them for Tink was a breeze. All I had to do was make her fly. I gave her a pedestal and a clear support to anchor her in mid-air. (Building tip: use an older clear support rod since they are more rigid. The newer ones are made with a newer plastic that has a bit more bend and can’t quite support the fairy.) The model wobbles slightly when moved, so it almost looks like she is hovering all on her own. The wings were a challenge, but I stuck to a simple and sturdy design to let the colors shine and sparkle. And finally, you can easily swap all the tan pieces for reddish brown to make any version of Tinker Bell you wish. So grab some pixie dust and start building on your way to Never Never Land!

(Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Part Color Description 1 15712.dat Blue Tile 1 x 1 with Clip (Thick C-Clip) 1 2456.dat Black Brick 2 x 6 2 3003.dat Black Brick 2 x 2 1 3942c.dat Black Cone 2 x 2 x 2 with Hollow Stud Open 2 4733.dat Black Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on Four Sides 4 6003.dat Black Plate 6 x 6 with Round Corner 1 6177.dat Black Plate 8 x 8 Round with 2 x 2 Centre Studs 4 95188.dat Black Brick 6 x 6 Corner Round with Slope 33 Chamfer 2 3023.dat Med. Azure Plate 1 x 2 10 3024.dat Med. Azure Plate 1 x 1 6 3623.dat Med. Azure Plate 1 x 3 2 3665a.dat Med. Azure Slope Brick 45 2 x 1 Inverted without Inner Stopper Ring 7 3710.dat Med. Azure Plate 1 x 4 2 6091.dat Med. Azure Brick 2 x 1 x 1.333 with Curved Top 2 87079.dat Med. Azure Tile 2 x 4 with Groove 22 3023.dat Trans Lt Blue Plate 1 x 2 2 3024.dat Trans Lt Blue Plate 1 x 1 2 24201.dat Dark Green Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Inverted 1 3021.dat Green Plate 2 x 3 4 3022.dat Green Plate 2 x 2 3 3023.dat Green Plate 1 x 2 5 3024.dat Green Plate 1 x 1 3 3070b.dat Green Tile 1 x 1 with Groove 2 3623.dat Green Plate 1 x 3 1 3710.dat Green Plate 1 x 4 2 15208.dat Green Plate 1 x 2 with 3 Teeth In-line 7 15573.dat Green Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud 4 25269.dat Green Tile 1 x 1 Corner Round 2 26047.dat Green Plate 1 x 1 Round with Horizontal Handle on Side 2 48183.dat Green Wing 3 x 4 with 1 x 2 Cutout with Stud Notches 6 61678.dat Green Slope Brick Curved 4 x 1 3 85984.dat Green Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 2 99780.dat Green Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2 Up 1 2654a.dat Yellow Dish 2 x 2 with Rim 1 3022.dat Yellow Plate 2 x 2 3 3023.dat Yellow Plate 1 x 2 2 3176.dat Yellow Plate 3 x 2 with Hole 1 3660a.dat Yellow Slope Brick 45 2 x 2 Inverted without Inner Stopper Ring 2 6091.dat Yellow Brick 2 x 1 x 1.333 with Curved Top 2 11477.dat Yellow Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 1 15068.dat Yellow Slope Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 0.667 2 15573.dat Yellow Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud 2 29119.dat Yellow Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 with Cutout Right 2 29120.dat Yellow Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 with Cutout Left 1 30367c.dat Yellow Cylinder 2 x 2 with Dome Top with Axle Hole and Hollow Stud

Qty 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 4 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 8 4 2 4 2 2 4 8 1 1 1

Part 48336.dat 2429.dat 2430.dat 2431.dat 3022.dat 3023.dat 3069b.dat 3070b.dat 3623.dat 3710.dat 4032a.dat 4740.dat 11477.dat 15573.dat

Color Yellow Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan

Description Plate 1 x 2 with Handle Type 2 Hinge Plate 1 x 4 Base Hinge Plate 1 x 4 Top Tile 1 x 4 with Groove Plate 2 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Plate 1 x 3 Plate 1 x 4 Plate 2 x 2 Round with Axlehole Dish 2 x 2 Inverted Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud 25269.dat Tan Tile 1 x 1 Corner Round 26604.dat Tan Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on Two Adjacent Sides 32828.dat Tan Plate 1 x 1 Round with Bar 35480.dat Tan Plate 1 x 2 with Round Ends and 2 Open Studs 49668.dat Tan Plate 1 x 1 with Tooth In-line 60478.dat Tan Plate 1 x 2 with Handle on End 60897.dat Tan Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Vertical (Thick C-Clip) 61252.dat Tan Plate 1 x 1 with Clip Horizontal (Thick C-Clip) 61678.dat Tan Slope Brick Curved 4 x 1 63864.dat Tan Tile 1 x 3 87580.dat Tan Plate 2 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud 99207.dat Tan Bracket 1 x 2 - 2 x 2 Up 99784.dat Trans Clear Bar 12L with Plate 1 x 2 with Hollow Studs and Hollow Stud 3710.dat White Plate 1 x 4 3937.dat White Hinge 1 x 2 Base 3938.dat White Hinge 1 x 2 Top 6005.dat White Arch 1 x 3 x 2 with Curved Top 6091.dat White Brick 2 x 1 x 1.333 with Curved Top 24201.dat White Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Inverted 32474.dat White Technic Ball Joint White with Axlehole Blind 54200.dat White Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 60478.dat White Plate 1 x 2 with Handle on End 63868.dat White Plate 1 x 2 with Clip Horizontal on End (Thick C-Clip) 85970.dat White Slope Brick Curved 1 x 8 with Plate 1 x 2 99781.dat White Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2 Down 54657.dat Lt Bluish Grey Hinge Plate 1 x 2 Locking with Dual Finger on End Vertical, 7 Teeth 99206.dat Lt Bluish Grey Plate 2 x 2 x 0.667 with Two Studs On Side and Two Raised 44567b.dat Dk Bluish Grey Hinge Plate 1 x 2 Locking without Groove with Single Finger On Side Vertical

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Building

Minifigure Customization 101:

M.I.C.K.E.Y. M.O.U.S.E. Article and Photography by Jared Burks

The Mickey Mouse Club was an American Television Show that has aired on and off from 1955 through 1996, and it also briefly returned on social media from 2017 to 2018. This show was created by Walt Disney and produced by Walt Disney Productions. The first run had four seasons from 1955 to 1959 on ABC-TV and has set most of the information about the show. This original run featured regular, but ever-evolving casts of mostly teenage performers. This show was immediately rerun weekday afternoons, and due to popularity, was revived three times after its initial run. This caused a bit of a name change to The New Mickey Mouse Club from 1977 to 1979 and then as The All-New Mickey Mouse Club from 1989 to 1996. This later show was only aired on the Disney Channel. Finally in 2017, Club Mickey Mouse aired exclusively on social media. Mickey Mouse appeared on every episode, not only in vintage cartoons originally produced for theatrical release, but in the opening, intermediate and closing segments specifically made for the show. In the original show Mickey was voiced by his creator, Walt Disney. The Mickey Mouse ears began their long history as a Disney favorite in the 1950s when the Mickey Mouse Club aired on television. The Mouseketeers would wear them throughout each show and the hats became something young children and adults dreamed of wearing. The original felt hat featured two large plastic ears, so you could look just like Mickey Mouse. This hat was created by Roy Williams, an adult Mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. He was inspired by a 1929 short, The Karnival Kid, featuring a scene where Mickey tipped his ears to Minnie.

In honor of the celebration of all things Disney, I have made a simple, yet quite critical element of the Mouse House legacy. I present Mouseketeer ears! I went a touch modern as I have left the red and white circle off the front, but perhaps one day I will add it back.

To create these ears, I started in Fusion 360 where I began with a simple sketch with only a few elements. I needed a curve which is easily revolved to create the dome of the hat. I also created disks which would be extruded for the ears. This gets a touch tricky as I needed a way to make them cupped on the inside and on the back. This required another smaller dome that was revolved and then subtracted from the front and added to the back to complete the ears. So three sketch elements is all that are needed to create this icon custom element! I added a small ring at the base of the hat to give it an edge, which makes it look more complete, but also will make things easier to paint—but more on that in a moment.

Setting up the elements for the ears.

More work on the hat elements.

Placing the hat on the head.

Positioning the ears.

Completing the hat.

Now we have a hat, but the LEGO head looks a touch odd with only this hat, as there should be quite a bit of hair escaping out from under the hat. Remember, it was originally worn by teenagers, and not old bald men. So now we return to a trick I have mentioned before, the use of LEOcad. LEOcad can pull the LEGO models that have a basic 3-D file and can export them into a Wavefront OBJ file that can be opened in Meshmixer. Yes, I’m still using that older program. In Meshmixer you can repair the mesh, make it solid, and then use Boolean logic parameters to add the Mouseketeer ears to LEGO hair pieces! The ears can be added on top, or the hair can be cut flat, but most often I added them to the surface of the LEGO hair piece. This does require testing scale, and in some cases that can take several iterations. I did try a few cuts where I added pony tails out the back, but honestly, it just doesn’t look great. When I size the Mouseketeer ears a bit and add them to the top of the LEGO hair, I believe the best results were created. We don’t have to stop there; as the world has started customizing these, so can we. I also brought in a LEGO bow—by adding the LEGO bow, I have created Minnie Mouseketeer ears.

Finished!

Adding hair to the hat piece.

Now that I have the ears created, it is time to 3-D print them. For this, I used my resin 3-D printer from Epax, a 4k X1. I also used an Epax black resin as I really like the sharp detail achieved when using that resin. I likely should have printed the ears in white, but priming is critical and if the ears get scratched, they will be black underneath and not show damage as well, so perhaps black was a better choice—time will tell.

3-D print preview.

Priming resin printed parts is critical, so I used a Tamiya Fine Surface Primer L in white. This is a very light powdery paint that goes on smoothly and dries quickly. I am a big fan of this primer—I just wish it came in a larger can. I simply added a Technic connector to a stick and then a LEGO head on top of the Technic connector to hold the part while priming and painting.

Primer and...

...painted up!

Once the parts where primed, I started hand-painting the parts. I used a wet palette to keep the paint moist while painting the 3-D printed parts. I like to paint the lighter colors first, but did that a bit differently on this one as I painted the ears in some of the parts first. This is seen in several of the work in progress photographs. I ultimately reverted to painting lighter first as that worked a bit better. That allowed me to paint the black ears over the lighter colored hair. This makes it easier to clean up any mistakes with the darker color. Wet palette.

Primed up!

Ear tests.

I painted a few different versions and I hope you like them. Clearly my hand-painting needs a bit more practice, as it has been a hot moment since I have painted much by hand, but this was a fun one. I tried to capture a few different angles to show what was successful and what was just a miss. All in, it is a fun group, and I couldn’t help but hide an Easter Egg in the mix (the best father on the planet, ha-ha). Where else did Anakin Skywalker go after attacking the Jedi temple than Disney World? Just kidding! Originally, it was supposed to be a father/son pair, but I couldn’t find my Luke figure to go with Anakin; one little accessory and we get a whole party. If this doesn’t have you singing either the Mickey Mouse Club House song or “Hey Mickey, Your So Fine You Blow My Mind,” I don’t know what will. With three little sketch elements, we can have a whole lot of fun.

A Disney family!

Painting a cap. I’m going to Disney World!

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

Come back next issue for more Minifigure Customization!

And 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!

Building

John’s models of the Disney icons for (from left to right) Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Disneyland, Walt Disney World, California Adventure, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Magical Kingdoms:

Learning to Build From the Happiest Places on Earth Article by John Rudy

Standing in the inky blackness of an early Florida morning a few months ago, I marveled at the second floor of the hotel lobby. “That building is impossible,” I thought to myself. And it was. We were staying at Port Orleans: French Quarter at the Walt Disney World Resort outside of Orlando. From outward appearances, the buildings look like they’ve been ripped from Bourbon Street. Balconies hang over lazy sidewalks, fans swirl above tables, wrought iron is everywhere. And beyond those balconies is the second floor of the hotel’s lobby building where jazz musicians could be practicing or partiers cavorting. Your brain sees that second floor and fills it with any number of details. Except the building only has one story. Since Disneyland opened its gates in 1955, Walt Disney’s Imagineers have been crafting spaces and objects that intentionally trick the mind. These artists have been making impossible things for decades. And the techniques they use just might be useful to adult LEGO fans as we transform toys into something more. Every Disney Park on the planet is doing exactly what we do when we build a MOC; Disney’s theme parks are scale models. The scale just so happens to be 1:1—or at least it appears like it is. Imagineers create vibrant landscapes which intentionally distort reality, lead your eye to details, and tell vibrant stories all by manipulating the built environment. When building with LEGO, these same tricks aren’t just useful. They might be necessary.

“It’s a world of hopes…” Minifigures don’t make sense from a perspective of scale. They are either too wide or too short, depending on how you measure it. If an average minifigure was six feet tall—a typical height assumption for scale modeling—then their hips would be about two feet wide. (Go ahead, grab a ruler and hold it up to your belly button. I’ll wait.) Likewise, if a minifigure’s hips were a more realistic 16 inches, then a minifigure would be about 3 ¾ feet tall. In spite of that short stature, their sunglasses would still be a staggering foot wide. And if the minifig is just under four feet tall, then the average height of a single story of a building would need to be 17 bricks and two plates high. (For comparison, the height of the first floor of the classic Cafe Corner is nine bricks high.) Any way you slice it, the minifigure is poorly scaled. We can approach the problem of the minifigure from any number of perspectives, but let’s think like an Imagineer. Imagineers adapt the landscapes they create to their versions of the minifigure: guests in their theme parks.

Scale comparisons of minifigure to Partners, first with height.

Examples of this abound, from the earliest days of Imagineering to today. When Disneyland opened initially in 1955, Walt made a famous mandate that trash cans be placed every 30 feet because it was as far as a visitor would walk to toss an empty popcorn box before littering. In late 2019, the queue of the new E-ticket attraction Flight of Passage was modified significantly—a space was carved out for a mid-queue restroom to help relieve the strain of the long waits for the headlining experience. Imagineers adapt the things they build to suit their human inhabitants. If we think like Imagineers and we realize the minifigure doesn’t make sense, how should we solve the visual problem? The answer is quite simple: use the oldest tricks in the book and trick the eye to forget what’s really there.

Scale comparisons of minifigure to Partners, now with waist matched.

Main Street, built digitally by John. Scale compression can be seen on the second and third floor.

“The place was made with a magical plan…” As you walk down Main Street U.S.A. in either Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, your eye is constantly being deceived. The streetscape is modeled after small-town middle America at the turn of the 19th century, an idealized place with gingerbread architecture and strings of Edison bulbs galore. And it’s obviously all fake—the domestic Main Streets were built in 1954–1955 and 1970–1971 respectively.

Main Street scale shown with a minifigure.

But it’s even more fake than that. Main Street U.S.A.’s buildings are scaled intentionally wrong. The first floor of each building is roughly 1:1 scale. Then the second story of each building is roughly 5/8ths scale. The third floors are ½ scale. Each Main Street crams what look like three stories of building into roughly the space you could fit two in the real world.

This has a number of impacts for visitors. Main Street feels paradoxically large and intimate. The buildings don’t need to waste as much material to represent a larger space. But all the details of that seeming larger space are closer to you, creating a denser visual landscape.

What if we shrink the scale further and selectively? Just as on Main Street, imagine each floor above the first is smaller than the main storefront. If each floor is five bricks tall, you can now pack that six-story apartment building into 14 inches.

The problem of the minifigure can be solved by Main Street’s creative use of forced perspective. It just requires you to think in different scales.

“All those days watching from the windows…”

Imagine you want to build a six-story highrise apartment building. If we built that in the “realistic” scale of the four foot tall minifigure, the building would be over 40 inches tall. Even at the widely used Cafe Corner standard scale of nine bricks per floor, your model would rise to about 22 inches if we add in detailing and cornice work. In either of these scales—though at Cafe Corner less-so— the minifigure feels dwarfed by the size of the building visually.

Of course, shifting scales introduces its own problems. LEGO’s prefabricated window elements, most prevalent in 4-studs wide. With floors five bricks tall, those wide windows will look massive. Disney’s Imagineers don’t just shrink the heights of the upper floors of Main Street, though. They change every dimension. Narrowing the windows to two studs wide evens up the scale (and allows you to pack more windows into a wall’s length as well).

I used this technique for a series of MOCs capturing the essence of a 1930s streetscape. Although their design is inspired by Disney’s Hollywood Studios and its brilliant Hollywood Boulevard-esque main street, the construction draws directly from Main Street U.S.A., with upper stories having a compressed scale. This draws the viewer into the minifigure’s perspective. If minifigures are squatter than real people, their buildings need to be as well. And I’m not alone. Another theme park uses this exact technique in the same medium we use. In LEGOLand’s Minilands around the globe, scale is massively compressed. Miniland scale figures are roughly 1:20 scale. To give you a sense of how compressed elements of miniland can become, at true scale the Empire State Building in Miniland’s New York City should be 72 feet tall, the same height as a 6 ½ story building. The Capitol Building in Miniland’s Washington, D.C. should be 14 feet tall. Miniland buildings originally didn’t even use LEGO elements to create their windows. Small pieces of frosted plastic panel were glued behind gaps in the bricks as windows. For my take on the technique of shrinking windows, I’ve tried to remain a purist, using stacked 1x2 trans clear plates to fill custom gaps every time I need windows. Just like Miniland and Main Street, the windows I use are narrower and taller than in real life. This creates denser numbers of vertical lines in a building, drawing the eye upward and tricking you into imagining it taller than it really is. I used all the tricks of Imagineers to replicate Main Street itself, as well. One of John’s streetscape buildings with scale compression.

When John’s building is directly compared to a LEGO modular building, the compression is apparent.

“Visions are seldom all they seem…” The various Main Streets aren’t the only iconic element of the happiest places on earth that trick the eye. At the end of Main Street is a massive incongruity: the storybook castle. In Disneyland, it is Sleeping Beauty Castle. Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom has Cinderella Castle. In Paris, Disneyland has its own Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant.

More of John’s buildings. John’s model of the Walt Disney World Fire Station.

Each of those structures is a masterwork in design— carefully planned to trick the eye and confuse your sense of scale. In Walt Disney World, Cinderella Castle’s maximum height was set not by Imagineers’ dreams, but Federal Aviation Administration regulations. A blinking red light atop the spire would destroy the illusion they wished to create. As a result, the castle is just shy of the height where the FAA requires a blinking warning beacon. Just as on Main Street, the upper floors of the castles get progressively smaller, a forced perspective trick that draws on your life experience. Things appear smaller the further they are away. Make something smaller and it will appear further away if it has no other context clues. Remove the red beacons and anything else that your eye can use to compare and it will believe the lie it sees. The upper tower of Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World is barely larger than a coffin. Two people can stand in the miniscule space long enough to launch Tinker Bell down her zipline each night and not much longer. But from the ground it looks like it could be ringed with a handful of archers to defend King Stefan. Where Main Street at least adheres to something close to human scale, the castles largely throw all scale out the window. And that was the inspiration I seized from them. Scale doesn’t matter. Disney’s icons helped me abandon the minifig entirely.

“Beyond it is another dimension…” I built a minifig scale Hollywood Tower Hotel—the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror from Disney’s California Adventure (prior to its 2017 change to Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout!). It was a labor of love and insanity. Even at my compressed scale, the 13 story building is about four feet tall and three feet wide. The model is unwieldy. I’ve displayed it once at Brickfair Virginia in 2012. I don’t have any good photos of the model because of its sheer scale and footprint. I love the icons of Disney Parks. But I also realize that a collection will be both prohibitively expensive and gather dust in my basement. To build a true minifig scale Cinderella Castle, the model would need to be about the same height—twice the height of the official 71040 The Disney Castle (or its more recent clone 43222 The Disney Castle). The Chinese Theatre from Disney’s Hollywood Studios would need to be five baseplates wide if built to minifig scale. A scale rendition of EPCOT Center’s Spaceship Earth would be 163 studs in diameter. Owning models of the parks’ iconic architectural elements—no matter the wonders of selective compression—is just not feasible, both because of space and cost. So I took a note from Imagineer’s tactics in the upper floors of the castles; I threw away minifigure scale entirely and moved to microscale. Microscale allows you to render what is there without worrying about hips being too wide or heights being too short.

More streetscape models by John.

Breaking away from the restriction of the minifigure has allowed me to create a series of Disney Parks icons that I can display on my shelf, which make me smile, and which I can bring to a convention in a shoebox instead of a U-Haul.

And even these models are wrong. I’m still using the tricks of the Imagineer’s trade as I selectively compress elements and intentionally render them out of scale. I’ve learned not to build my replicas from measured drawings, but from ground level photographs.

John plays with scale on his build of Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion. Below, the model looks compact, but when looked at from the lower perspective that visitors actually see, it looks bigger.

When Walt’s Imagineers were designing some of the iconic dark rides for Disneyland, they left a head-width channel between their scale models. They were building true-toscale models of the show scenes for attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean and they realized something crucial: models built precisely to scale look awful from overhead. If they tried to sell the boss on the ride’s story from above, he’d never buy it. But if they allowed Walt to walk through the ride scenes, his eyes passing through as if he were really there, then he’d see the idea and sign-off. Scale models that are too faithful to scale almost always look terrible from unnatural angles. Our world—both the real one we inhabit and the imaginary one of Disney Parks—is not meant to be seen from a gods’ eye view. We see our world from the human level. From the air, Disneyland is a vast expanse of flat roofs and air conditioning units. Disney World is loading docks and fire escapes. The illusions all evaporate. So whichever scale you choose, build to maintain the illusion. Don’t feel like you must accurately render whatever you’re building 100%. Instead, inject a bit of Imagineering magic into your models. And remember that the intentionally unreal can often look more real than the real.

More streetscape buildings. Lined up, all of these buildings will make a convincing part of a city street.

“Hey partner, don’t be shy…” I went out onto those quiet verandas in the early hours every morning before we headed into the parks while we were in Walt Disney World. They are impossible spaces. I knew the tricks of the trade. A building that’s a storyand-a-half inside becomes two outside, because of some architectural trickery. Lamp posts are ¾ scale which makes everything seem bigger around them. The resort’s avenues barely accommodate a golf cart and yet they feel as wide as Bourbon Street. The whole place is fake. But there’s magic in that scale model of New Orleans that was our resort hotel. And there’s magic in the intentionally off-scale main street of a non-existent past we call Main Street U.S.A. There’s magic in a castle that fools your eye with every parapet and window. And there’s magic in the design of every land of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy at each Disney Park around the globe. As creative minds, we can steal some of that magic and use it to create amazing LEGO models, too.

TwoMorrows 2023 www.twomorrows.com • store@twomorrows.com

THE

PACIFIC COMICS COMPANION

by STEPHAN FRIEDT & JON B. COOKE

Author STEPHAN FRIEDT shares the story of the meteoric rise of the Schanes brothers’ California-based imprint PACIFIC COMICS, which published such legends as JACK KIRBY, SERGIO ARAGONÉS, STEVE DITKO, NEAL ADAMS, MIKE GRELL, BERNIE WRIGHTSON, and DAVE STEVENS. From its groundbreaking 1981 arrival in the fledgling direct sales market, to a catastrophic, precipitous fall after only four years, THE PACIFIC COMICS COMPANION reveals the inside saga, as told to Friedt by BILL AND STEVE SCHANES, DAVID SCROGGY, and many of the creators themselves. It also focuses on the titles and the amazing array of characters they introduced to an unsuspecting world, including THE ROCKETEER, CAPTAIN VICTORY, MS. MYSTIC, GROO THE WANDERER, STARSLAYER, and many more. Written with the editorial assist of Eisner Award-winning historian JON B. COOKE, this retrospective is the most comprehensive study of an essential publisher in the development of the creator’s rights movement. Main cover illustration by DAVE STEVENS. NOW SHIPPING!

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WORKING WITH DITKO takes a unique and nostalgic journey through comics’ Bronze Age, as editor and writer JACK C. HARRIS recalls his numerous collaborations with legendary comics master STEVE DITKO! It features never-before-seen preliminary sketches and pencil art from Harris’ tenure working with Ditko on THE CREEPER, SHADE THE CHANGING MAN, THE ODD MAN, THE DEMON, WONDER WOMAN, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, THE FLY, and even Ditko’s unused redesign for BATMAN! Plus, it documents their work on numerous independent properties, and offers glimpses of original characters from Ditko’s drawing board that have never been viewed by even his most avid fans! This illustrated volume is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience the creative comic book process by one of the industry’s most revered creators, as seen through the eyes of one of his most frequent collaborators! NOW SHIPPING!

Star Guider TM & © Jack C. Harris.

Shade TM & © DC Comics.

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THE CHILLINGLY WEIRD ART OF

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by ROGER HILL

MATT FOX (1906–1988) first gained notoriety for his jarring cover paintings on the pulp magazine WEIRD TALES from 1943 to 1951. His almost primitive artistry encompassed ghouls, demons, and grotesqueries of all types, evoking a disquieting horror vibe that no one since has ever matched. Fox suffered with chronic pain throughout his life, and that anguish permeated his classic 1950s cover illustrations and his lone story for CHILLING TALES, putting them at the top of all pre-code horror comic enthusiasts’ want lists. He brought his evocative storytelling skills (and an almost BASIL WOLVERTON-esque ink line over other artists) to ATLAS/MARVEL horror comics of the 1950s and ’60s, but since Fox never gave an interview, this unique creator remained largely unheralded—until now! Comic art historian ROGER HILL finally tells Fox’s life story, through an informative biographical essay, augmented with an insightful introduction by FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON. This FULLCOLOR HARDCOVER also showcases all of the artist’s WEIRD TALES covers and interior illustrations, and a special Atlas Comics gallery with examples of his inking over GIL KANE, LARRY LIEBER, and others. Plus, there’s a wealth of other delightfully disturbing images by this grand master of horror—many previously unpublished and reproduced from his original paintings and art—sure to make an indelible imprint on a new legion of fans. NOW SHIPPING! (128-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-120-2

Community

The Guitar Project (Ukelele)

Article by Leslie Araujo Photography by Tim Angeles There is no better way of preserving culture than by sharing it with others. The Philippines is a country rich in history, culture, and tradition. From the colorful regional festivals to the mouth-watering cuisine, there are so many ways that we preserve and celebrate various aspects of our culture. One way is by creating DIY projects that incorporate Filipino designs and motifs into our musical instruments. As an AFOL, we are proud to showcase our “Guitar Project” with various Filipino elements and accents—a project that is fun, and an easy way to imbue accessories with Filipino culture. Aside from having a unique piece of art using LEGO® DOTS, we are keeping Filipino culture alive and thriving. Traditional Filipino music speaks of how we perceive time. In creatively building LEGO DOTS, there were no seconds that made up a minute, no minutes that made up an hour, and no hours that made up a day. We don’t think of time as something that should be divided into small components, but assume it as something whole and fluid. Our musical heritage is rich, colorful, and vibrant, just like LEGO DOTS and the people who create it.

The guitar was customized by Mr. Leslie L. Araujo, PinoyLUG Ambassador; it comes with a range of colorful tiles that are uniquely composed on the guitar’s surface. The“Philippine Flag” symbolizes liberty, equality, fraternity, peace, truth, justice, patriotism, and valor. The three “stars” represent the three major islands Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao—while the “sun” with eight rays represents the eight provinces that courageously revolted against their foreign invaders. “Mabuhay” is a traditional greeting of Filipinos which carries various meanings including “cheers”, “long live” and “welcome”. The “Guitar Project” also symbolizes “Welcome to the home of the country’s finest guitars.”

Some views of the ukelele.

Lastly, the word “PLAY” is reminiscent of play or design with LEGO® DOTS or play fun and beautiful music. Because play is something every child/adult everywhere in the world can do. This project is a fun way to encourage creativity and self-expression. The ukulele/guitar was also featured along with other LEGO® DOTS projects (@ben.cossy @playwellportugal @ australien_bricks and @pijarncharoensri) on a post/reels at the official LEGO Instagram account last April 13 for – “Redesigning your living room? LEGO DOTS might be the answer!”

Badges.

Bracelets.

Shades.

Community

Pinoy LUG’s

1OO ROOMZ of Disney! Article and Photography by Leslie Araujo

Vignettes are small LEGO MOC scenes that usually depict a single, frozen moment in time. It is considered a good exercise for creative building and storytelling. Every LEGO User Group had encountered and built something similar that varies in shape and size. It’s been called by many names, but in PinoyLUG, we call ours ROOMZ! We pioneered ours in 2017; we have made over 100 ROOMZ for our annual celebration display, and then a fun contest online during the pandemic. This year, it’s back and is super special—because we are aiming for another 100, the Disney 100 Years of Wonder anniversary via PinoyLUG ROOMZ! For 100 years, Disney’s passion has been storytelling. From one generation to the next, the greatest stories live forever. And celebrating that passion is a dream come true for everyone—building those memorable scenes from unforgettable stories that made a huge impact on our lives. PinoyLUG is proud to share a few, and all of us are thrilled to be part of the celebration in our own little way. Coco reminds us to never stop following our dreams, but we should never betray the people we love or our ideals to get us there. The journey is more valuable than the destination. - Dhorie Macatangay MOC by Dhorie Macatangay

From Mickey Mouse to Winnie the Pooh and the journeys of Peter Pan, Disney kept my childhood as magical as it can get. And from its flattering set of stories to its out-of-this-world scenes, Disney has always kept my imagination flowing. LEGO has helped me, recreating this moment where my inner child would feel nostalgic and gratified. As I built my own Peter Pan recreation, my imagination drifted to Neverland where Peter Pan battles Captain Hook—and at the same time, how Tick-tock Crocodile chases Captain Hook. Disney truthfully has a spot in my heart, as it has made my childhood what it is and has been continuously satisfying my inner child. - Jonathan Lee MOC by Jonathan Lee

Apart from the childhood nostalgia that Disney endeared in our hearts, nothing beats the magic that fills our homes every time we watch a Disney film. From the enchanting musical scores to the stories that tell a lesson or two in life, Disney always lifts my spirit. I found myself bursting into a song. As a Disney lover, I am reminded to switch my views about life—to see the world with hope and wonder. Disney is truly a magical experience! - Belen Choi MOCs by Belen Choi Moana - the power of persistence and bravery.

Encanto - we are not defined by our abilities, but more importantly to stay true to who we are.

Disney Princesses - each one has their unique beauty and personality that continues to inspire us.

Sleeping Beauty - love is the most powerful force in the world.

Disney brings nostalgia, happiness, and comfort. For me, Disney movies and TV shows bring entertainment and evoke positive emotions and memories! To celebrate 100 years of Disney, I tried to build LEGO ROOMZ, which is nostalgic and fun. - Oliver Ignacio MOCs by Oliver Ignacio

Belle, Lumiére, Cogsworth and the gang!

Wall-E meets EVE

Doctor Strange and Wong’s Sling Portal Galore

The Final Duel

Beauty and the Beast Dance

Aladdin The scene is our introduction to the character Aladdin. He survives as a thief, but he has a good heart. The build reflects the street market of Agrabah but feels as if it is in motion with Aladdin running away from the palace guards.

Aviator Mickey Flying in the skies above the houses in the town below, Aviator Mickey soars on his airplane among the clouds enjoying the peacefulness and the freedom. This represents the heights of children’s imagination.

The Little Mermaid Part of Your World MOC by Michael John Ng Cha

Alice Down the Rabbit Hole One of the iconic scenes of the movie Alice in Wonderland is when Alice goes down the rabbit hole and starts her adventure. As she goes down the well-like hole, she sees everyday things around the house.

MOCs by Alejandro Ryan Chua

Ariel meets Ursula Determined to be human, Ariel strikes a bargain with the devious sea witch Ursula and trades her fins and beautiful voice for legs.

Hercules - The Hydra Battle Hercules lifts the rock, rescues the boys, unaware that they are Pain and Panic in disguise, and unwittingly releases the Hydra.

Pride Rock Home of the Lion King. Mufasa and Sarabi’s newborn cub Simba presented by Rafiki stands at the formation’s peak.

Lilo & Stitch Surfing is the best cure for a sour face! Let’s do the Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride!

“No, no, I’m a new superhero! I’m SYNDROME! MOC by Jonjon Principe

Mickey and Minnie “Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.” - Walt Disney MOC by Isabella Elise Principe

MOCs by Genesis Badajos

Syndrome, Mr. Incredible and Frozone

The Avengers MOC by Keane Gabriel Ponce

Stitch in Paradise Stitch relaxing when the night is with all the tropical colors and the bright moon. My room was inspired by artwork by Joey Chou. MOC by Justine Raine Chua (12 years old)

Sid wins Buzz and Woody The Claw, referred to by the Aliens, is part of a rocket ship crane game inside Pizza Planet. MOC by Cyrus Serrano

Frank Averstegge’s

Jabba’s Palace Article by Steven Smyth, Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars®

jabba's palace

Photography by David Strenzler

The palace, with a couple of visitors at the front door.

Data File: Jabba’s Palace Hutt Castle, often simply called Jabba the Hutt’s Palace after its owner, was a large sandrock and durasteel complex located at the fringes of the Northern Dune Sea on the planet of Tatooine. Originally erected as a monastery of the B’omarr Order, the buildings eventually fell into the hands of two major crimelords: first an outcast and gang leader called Alkhara and later Jabba the Hutt, a notorious crime lord from Nal Hutta. Composed of a central rotunda and a taller spire adjacent to it, the ridge-side retreat also boasted an underground hangar and maintenance bay. Deep in the monastery’s subterranean chambers, Jabba the Hutt made a throne room which sat on top of a pit that housed a pet rancor. The Hutt used the beast for a dual purpose: protection and entertainment. At the flick of a switch, a concealed door in the floor of the chamber could deposit a threatening guest into an inescapable pit while onlookers could watch as the rancor made short work of its meal. Source: Star Wars Wookieepedia

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. Frank Averstegge, who is also one of our chief Admin Team members, built an amazing modular Jabba’s Palace. I thought it would be great to learn more about this fantastic friend of the Bantha Bricks community, extremely talented builder, and his custom LEGO modular palace build. Steven Smyth: How’s it going, Frank? I know you have quite a following with the members of the Bantha Bricks group and I know people in the community and beyond in other online discussions have been awestruck by your Jabba’s Palace. You have truly built some amazing MOCs and dioramas, but for the uninitiated, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do. Frank Averstegge: Thank you very much, Steven! Well, where to start? I am 43, based in Germany. I came back into building LEGO about five years ago as a kind of meditation, building sets to free my mind, as it was not the best time in my life, you know? It was quite awesome to find like-minded people, and I am very thankful so many people liked my Jabba’s Palace—an amazing feeling! It is a MOC I started two or maybe three years ago and I always had new ideas, so it was never done. It also was part of my huge Tatooine scene which was about six by one meters big. I showed it at a few conventions here in Germany with great success, and people loved it. Would you say Star Wars is your favorite theme? Or do you have a shocker for us? I do not think it is a shocker, but after building Tatooine, with so much tan, I had to build something with colors. So, I started a few modular sets and MOCs and my city Brick Beer, which you can find on Facebook. Also, I like Ninjago even knowing nothing about the story, but there are awesome builds and building skills in this theme.

One of the side views with a couple of Tusken Raiders on watch.

The model with its levels opened up. The upper level is on the right with the throne room and tower, while the lower level houses the Rancor.

Why do you choose the LEGO brick as your medium to express yourself? I loved it in my childhood and never lost my interest in it. You can do what you want, build sets, modify those sets or build your own MOCs. I love LEGO scenes because of my job, I do interior design and decoration where I build scenes, too. That could be a reason.

We know the Star Wars fandom is itching for a new Jabba’s Palace, but with current trends, most of us think we will never see it made again. Is this what inspired you to craft this epic modular set? Like you, I do not think we will get a new one in the future, but that was not my inspiration. I really love the LEGO set and the Rancor’s pit, these are quite amazing

sets, and were even the start for this MOC. It is always awesome to see Jabba’s Palace in the movies and I was quite surprised to see it in The Mandalorian, just amazing! This big modular version is like the LEGO set, fully playable, and you can create many scenes from the movies here, in UCS size. Can you tell us a bit about the construction—any special techniques you used?

There is no special new technique in this build, but it is a very massive build, made out of a few thousand bricks. Sadly, I never counted the bricks, but it is quite heavy, especially the rock module—it is massive. We have three modules: the palace, the pit, and the rock and sand structure. You can easily disassemble it to have a fantastic view inside.

The palace with levels in place.

What are your favorite design elements you created for the build? The rock and sand structure first. I love the path which leads to the palace, the view from different angles is amazing. Also, the interior is awesome; I know the sand blue bricks inside are not movie accurate, but I liked the color mix very much. Like I said before, I wanted it fully playable, that was my main goal. Did you freestyle build this or did you use a computer design program to lay it out first?

The lower level.

I only build freestyle. I have a room next to my LEGO room, just with bricks. Do not ask me how many—a million, maybe more, I really cannot say. I need the bricks in my hand to build and to get new ideas, but if I am missing any particular bricks, I need to order them straight away.

Were there any moments in this build where you felt like, “Aww, man, I am stuck!” If so, how did you overcome that obstacle? Sure, that is also one reason I always build different MOCs at the same time. If I get stuck in a Star Wars MOC, I keep on building a City modular MOC, or if I have really no ideas, I build a set. What would be your advice to anyone looking to build a custom Star Wars modular building or even a diorama on their own? Well, I think my way was not that bad. My first modification was a combination of two Hoth sets. I used a few extra bricks and many white tiles; this lead me more and more into MOC building. Take your time and learn every day. Bantha Bricks is also an amazing group to learn from other MOC builders. You can see awesome figbash figures in contests organized by Lannie Duong and Carl Johan Kellgren, as well as modified sets, MOCs, and scenes there. If you have any questions, feel free to ask there. Also, we have a scene contest at Bantha Bricks where you can win Bantha Bricks tiles or torsos, printed by BIGKIDBRIX.com. Such an amazing, friendly group, the place to be for LEGO Star Wars fans.

Max Rebo and his band perform.

Do you have intentions to release instructions on this build? If so, can you tell us more about those plans? Yes, by getting so many likes after I started turning the palace into a modular, and many requests for instructions, we started working on these. Last weekend we announced this in public and the reactions were quite amazing. The pictures show my MOC, which will not be the final instruction version, but we are working it over again with even more details and bricks. We will keep you updated in our Bantha Bricks community and in others. It will be awesome, I tell you!

Jabba and his throne court.

Knowing you are a key player in the Bantha Bricks community, tell us what it means to you and what sort of activities outside of building Star Wars LEGO this group has inspired you to do. The Bantha Bricks community became a little family to me. I met wonderful people there and found good friends. The spirit there is amazing, so friendly and kind. Also a great inspiration for everyone is our Bantha Bricks Children’s Cancer Charity, which you, Steven, started in the USA, and I followed you here in Germany. It is quite amazing to do this for the kids, to give them a little smile. Any final things you would like to add? Have fun! Swoosh your X-Wing around with a lot of pewpew-pew! Forget all troubles around you for a while and just enjoy building LEGO. Thank you very much, Steven, it was a great pleasure speaking with you about my LEGO build!

Malakili and the Rancor.

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!

THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES!

2023

BRICKJOURNAL magazine (edited by Joe Meno) spotlights all aspects of the LEGO® Fan Community, showcasing events, BRICKJOURNAL #81 people, and models every issue, with to the city: Ellis City by GARETH and contributions and how-to articles by top Head CATHY ELLIS, New Hasima by STEFAN builders worldwide, new product intros, FORMENTATO, and Fabuland City by LAUGHLIN! Plus a wealth of and more. Available in both FULL-COLOR STEVEN other MOCs (”My Own Creations”) are print and digital editions. Print subscribers showcased, along with: Nerding Out with BRICKNERD, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, get the digital version FREE!

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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.

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Board ANTOINE HUGUERRE’s Big Thunder Mountain! Go to Monstropolis to help Sully find Mike Wazowski in BRANDON JAMES’ Monsters, Inc factory! Plus, more intricate STAR WARS creations by builder LEE GOLDMAN, nerding Out with BrickNerd, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, and Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS!

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ORIGINAL MINIFIGURE COMIC BOOK COVER REPRODUCTIONS by GREG HYLAND

Commission LEGO™ illustrator, Greg Hyland, to draw a full-size, production-quality recreation of any Marvel or DC comic book cover using LEGO™ Minifigures!

STAR WARS #7

Artwork will be a black & white ink drawing on 11”x17” comic book illustration board. Art will include paste-up cover copy, logos, and trade dress. Email greg@lethargiclad.com for |NCREDIBLE HULK #181 information on pricing and timeframe.

Last Word Holy cow, I forgot! There was going to be a story about the Tinker Bell sculpture in this issue, but I forgot to list it. So I’ll add a part of the story here. This is a poster that was seen at what was Downtown Disney for the arts festival Festival of the Masters in 2006. What made this poster interesting was that the photo of Tinker Bell was a render from a computer, and at that time, the light blue brick for the wings did not exist. So who did this? No one really knows. The poster was taken down right before the event, so all that was left were a few photos. And from there, a few years later, Tink was built. I’ll tell the whole story next issue in #83... Til then, build on! Joe Meno Hmmmmm.....

NEXT ISSUE...

...we go to space.

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RETROFAN #24

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.

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.

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New from TwoMorrows!

ALTER EGO #184

ALTER EGO #185

ALTER EGO #186

KIRBY COLLECTOR #88

KIRBY COLLECTOR #89

Presenting MARK CARLSON-GHOST’s stupendous study of the 1940s NOVELTY COMICS GROUP—with heroes like Blue Bolt, Target and the Targeteers, White Streak, Spacehawk, etc., produced by such Golden Age super-stars as JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY, CARL BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, BASIL WOLVERTON, et al. Plus MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!

Spotlights ANGELO TORRES, the youngest and last of the fabled EC Comics artists—who went on to a fabulous career as a horror, science-fiction, and humor artist for Timely/Marvel, Warren Publishing, and MAD magazine! It’s a lushly illustrated retrospective of his still-ongoing career— plus FCA (Fawcett Collectors of America), MICHAEL T. GILBERT in Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, and more

THE COLLECTORS! Fans’ quest for and purchase of Jack’s original art and comics, MARV WOLFMAN shares his (and LEN WEIN’s) interactions with Jack as fans and pros, unseen Kirby memorabilia, an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, MARK EVANIER moderating the 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel from Comic-Con International, plus a deluxe wrap-around Kirby cover with foldout back cover flap, inked by MIKE ROYER!

KIRBY CONSPIRACIES! Darkseid’s Foourth World palace intrigue, the too-many attempted overthrows of Odin, why Stan Lee hated Diablo, Kang contradictions, Simon & Kirby swipes, a never-reprinted S&K story, MARK EVANIER’s WonderCon 2023 Kirby Tribute Panel (with MARV WOLFMAN, PAUL S. LEVINE, and JOHN MORROW), an extensive Kirby pencil art gallery, and more!

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Known as one of the finest inkers in comics history, the late TOM PALMER was also an accomplished penciler and painter, as you’ll see in an-depth interview with Palmer by ALEX GRAND and JIM THOMPSON. Learn his approach to, and thoughts on, working with NEAL ADAMS, GENE COLAN, JOHN BUSCEMA, and others who helped define the Marvel Universe. Plus Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt, FCA, and more!

BACK ISSUE #148

BACK ISSUE #149

COMIC BOOK CREATOR #32 COMIC BOOK CREATOR #33

DC SUPER-STARS OF SPACE! Adam Strange in the Bronze Age (with RICHARD BRUNING & ANDY KUBERT), From Beyond the Unknown, the Fabulous World of Krypton, Vartox, a Mongul history, the Omega Men, and more! Featuring CARY BATES, DAVE GIBBONS, DAN JURGENS, CURT SWAN, PETER J. TOMASI, MARV WOLFMAN, and more! Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO & MURPHY ANDERSON!

’80s INDIE HEROES: The American, Aztec Ace, Dynamo Joe, Evangeline, Journey, Megaton Man, Trekker, Whisper, and Zot! Featuring CHUCK DIXON, PHIL FOGLIO, STEVEN GRANT, RICH LARSON, SCOTT McCLOUD, WILLIAM MESSNER-LOEBS, DOUG MOENCH, RON RANDALL, DON SIMPSON, MARK VERHEIDEN, CHRIS WARNER & more superstar creators. Cover by NORM BREYFOGLE!

WILLIAM STOUT is interviewed about his illustration and comics work, as well as his association with DINOSAURS publisher BYRON PREISS, the visionary packager/ publisher who is also celebrated in this double-header issue. Included is the only comprehensive interview ever conducted with PREISS, plus a huge biographical essay. Also MIKE DEODATO on his early years and FRANK BORTH on Treasure Chest!

STEVE GERBER biographical essay and collaborator insights, MARY SKRENES on co-creating Omega the Unknown, helping develop Howard the Duck, VAL MAYERIK cover and interview, ROY THOMAS reveals STAN LEE’s unseen EXCELSIOR! COMICS line, LINDA SUNSHINE (editor of early hardcover super-hero collections), more with MIKE DEODATO, and the concluding segment on FRANK BORTH!

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BACK ISSUE #147

Great Hera, it’s the 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF BACK ISSUE, featuring a tribute to the late, great GEORGE PÉREZ! Wonder Woman: The George Pérez Years, Pérez’s 20 Greatest Hits of the Bronze Age, Pérez’s fanzine days, a Pérez remembrance by MARV WOLFMAN, a Wonder Woman interview with MINDY NEWELL, and more! With a stunning Wonder Woman cover by Pérez!