The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 47 • September 2017
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Going Undersea with Mitsuru Nikaido Boarding Ships by Marcello De Cicco Instructions and MORE!
Creating Dan Church’s Cienasis
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THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®
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Issue 47 • September 2017
Contents
From the Editor............................................... 2
People G_phy: Mocs in China................................... 3 Cindy Su: Big Fig Maker!.............................12 Marcello de Cicco: Telling World War II’s Stories in Bricks..........................................18
Building Creating Cienasis 5.......................................22 James Zhan’s Coral Reef.............................30 Gilcélio Chagas’ Underwater Adventure...........................34 Mitsuru Nikaido’s Animal Kingdom......36 BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Submarine ROV..........................................44 You Can Build It: Gungan Tribubble Bongo Submersible..................................48 Ogel Sub: Miniaturized............................52 Minifigure Customization 101: Intermission.................................................56
Community Hankyu’s Brick Aquarium..........................60 papercube: Making Paper Cubes with MINDSTORMS...................................68 Community Ads............................................78 Last Word.........................................................79 AFOLs................................................................80
From the Editor: It’s the beginning of summer now, and I am traveling to do stuff. I am missing all the events on the East Coast to go to the other side of the country. It’s a change of pace for me—I am missing the two big events this year I usually go to, Brickworld and BrickFair.
September 2017 Issue 47 Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray
I also missed FIRST LEGO League this year. Part of that was because the school I mentor didn’t have any teams go higher than the state level, and the other part was that FLL World Championships is now divided into two sites, so either I had to choose one or the other, and the scheduling didn’t work out. I missed them both, which is a shame.
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan
In the meantime, I have been doing other things—teaching robotics and building! You’ll be seeing more on what I am building pretty soon. And robotics? That’s a thing I have been playing with since I got an NXT. So even when I’m not working, I’m still doing LEGO stuff... and having fun! Build on!
Proofreader John Morrow
West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
Contributors: Jared Burks, Andreas Baumgart, Gilcélio Chagas, Dan Church, Marcello de Cicco, Christopher Deck, G_phy, Jumpei Mitsui, Mitsuru Nikaido, Cindy Su, Tommy Williamson, James Zhan, and Greg Hyland. Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
Joe Meno, Editor P.S. Have ideas or comments? Drop me a line at admin@brickjournal.com. I’m open to suggestions and comments and will do my best to reply. P.P.S... Yes, BrickJournal has a website — www.brickjournal.com! Twitter? Yep, there too — http://twitter.com/brickjournal. Facebook? Yup — http://www.facebook. com/group.php?gid=58728699914&ref=mf. Or you can scan the bottom codes with a QR reader! P.P.P.S. If you want info on a subscription, you can go to: http://twomorrows.com/ index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=78&products_id=616 or scan below! Website
Subscriptions
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About the Cover: Some of the animals built by Mitsuru Nikaido. Photo provided by Mitsuru Nikaido. About the Contents: LEGO bricks make the perfect color for a coral reef. Photo by Jumpei Mitsui.
Glossary AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) AFFOL (Adult Female Fan of LEGO) TFFOL (Teen Female Fan of LEGO) NLSO (Non-LEGO Significant Other) MOC (My Own Creation) TLG (The LEGO Group) BURP (Big Ugly Rock Piece) LURP (Little Ugly Rock Piece) POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces)
SNOT (Studs Not on Top) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club) MECHA (a large armored robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside) MECH (a large piloted combat robot) DARK AGES (usually teen years, when you drift away from building) STUDS OUT (building where the studs on bricks face the viewer)
LEGO®, TECHNIC, MINDSTORMS, Belville, Scala, BIONICLE, ExoForce, Mars Mission, World City, and other LEGO theme lines are trademarks of the LEGO Group of companies. All articles, photos, and art are copyright BrickJournal Media, LLC 2011, TwoMorrows Publishing and the respective writers, photographers, and artists. All rights reserved. All trademarked items are the property of their respective owners and licensees. Subscriptions are $55 Economy US, $70 Expedited US, $97 International, or $23 Digital Only and can be purchased at www.twomorrows.com or payment sent to: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. The editorial/advertising office address for BrickJournal is: BrickJournal Editor, 5610 Briar Oak Lane #510, Raleigh, NC 27612 USA or admin@brickjournal.com. First Printing. Printed in China. ISSN 1941-2347.
BrickJournal and its staff would like to thank the LDraw community for the software it makes available to the community, which we use for making all of the instructions and renderings in this magazine. We would especially like to thank Kevin Clague for his continued upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of2the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
People
G_phy:
MOCs in China! Article and Photography by G_phy
When I was a kid, I was fascinated with brick toys. I still remember that I once owned a green toy truck, made of LEGO bricks with a few types of plate, shapes and wheels. However, I used them to build an airplane that could transform, and a so-called tank that required imagination to recognize the shape. They were my early works which accompanied and satisfied me in the years before I enrolled in my elementary school. Gradually, with more friends and classmates during my campus life, I gave up toys and buried the memory of LEGO. After growing up, I couldn’t stop roaming around the LEGO shop. It was as if I was still a kid and would get my parents to get me a toy set. But paying for a set by myself? The price was too high, and just a glance could satisfy me. Admittedly, I indeed dreamt about buying a set to recall the happiness of my childhood. I failed to convince myself to do so, however, because of the lack of suitable opportunities.
A look at G_phy’s Black Leopard (above) and Ford Edge (below).
To tell the truth, I’m interested in all kinds of DIY toys, from models to transformable ones, because all of them require the owner to build something as opposed to purchasing a finished one for display. Still, I always lost my interest in them shortly after I bought them, since they couldn’t meet my requirements to create and build without constraining the products themselves... ...until late June 2013, when taobao.com gave me the opportunity to return to brick toys. I vaguely knew about LEGO Technic, which combined modeling and other functions. That changed my image of LEGO. As a result, I 6 started to look for my first genuine LEGO set. I purchased 9396 (the helicopter). I still remembered the moment when I opened the set. I could not wait to start my building
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People
Cindy Su:
Big Fig Maker! 12
Cindy with her creations.
Last issue we met Helen Sham, and this issue we meet a friend of hers, Cindy Su. Like Helen, Cindy is a minifigure builder. BrickJournal was able to talk to her about her building and her What do models. you do outside the hobby?
What do you do outside the hobby? I live and work in Taipei City, Taiwan. I am an Executive Personal Assistant for a company vice president in a large Taiwanese manufacturing company. I am responsible for our corporate events around the world. In my job, I need to be good at planning with a strong attention to detail, so all this helps with LEGO!
When did you start building? When I was a child between 5 and 15 years old, I often played LEGO with my older brother, building LEGO castles and space rockets. My brother always took control of the building process, ‘delegating’ to me the task of finding the bricks for him. It made me so sad, because I was never able to do any of the assembly work. In those days (1980s), LEGO was more of a boys’ toy.
Cindy’s builds of Donald and Daisy Duck.
After I turned 15 years old, I entered my ‘dark age’ until the age of 40. I spent the majority of my time doing many other things such as cooking, travelling, and listening to music. My husband was always an avid LEGO collector, playing with big sets such as Grand Carousel and Sydney Opera House. He owns his own company and is under a lot of time pressure, so was always unable to complete them. One day, I started to work on his unfinished sets. That got me hooked back on LEGO! That was two years ago now and since then, I haven’t stopped! Marge and Bart Simpson.
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People
The USS Yorktown.
Marcello de Cicco:
Telling World War II’s Stories with Bricks Article and Photography by Marcello de Cicco
I always like to tell a historical story when I build with LEGO. When I was a little buckaroo, I was always fascinated with LEGO and World War II warships. As I became older, I began studying to become an architect, designing and building luxurious homes in high school and college. One day I realized if I could design a home with blueprints, then I could design a World War II warship out of LEGO. The internet has a plethora of information with pictures, diagrams, blueprints and books to use for LEGO building. I built the LEGO battleship Yamato... because it was the biggest and most powerful battleship ever built. Then I started wondering, “This battleship should have been put into a museum. What happened to it?” That’s how it all started. My first story: Operation Ten-Go. Japanese Battleship Yamato was sent on a one-way mission to Okinawa in April 7, 1945. Japanese Destroyer Yukikaze was one of the destroyers with the Yamato. 400+ U.S. Navy aircraft from eight U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, including the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10), helped sink the mighty Japanese battleship. I built all of the models needed for this story, from the ships to the planes on the deck of the Yorktown.
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Marcello with his ships, from front to rear: The destroyer Yukikaze, the super battleship Yamato, and aircraft carrier Yorktown.
Some details on the Yorktown.
All the LEGO ships and planes are built to the same scale (1:108) from actual blueprints and diagrams. Here are some measurements and details: Essex Class Aircraft carrier USS Yorktown CV-10. Over 26,000 bricks used. 8’6” long, 21” wide and 18” tall. Weight : 76 pounds, has flashing lights and rotating radar antenna. Separates in four sections. Japanese Super Battleship Yamato Over 25,000 bricks used. 8’ long, 14” wide and 19” tall. Weight: 50 lbs and separates into three sections. Japanese Destroyer Yukikaze (the lucky ship) Over 3,000+ LEGO bricks used. 44” long, 4 ½” wide and 10” tall. Weight: 15 lbs separates into two sections. The Yamato.
The Yorktown.
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Building
Creating Cienasis 5 Article and Photography by Dan Church
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Dan Church is a 23-year-old college graduate with a degree in civil engineering. He works currently as a structural engineer and lives in Wisconsin. Dan started building at a young age and never really stopped building, although he did build a lot less throughout college while away at school. He discovered the online LEGO community in 2007 when he was 14 and started posting on mocpages.com and flickr. His original building was more into the castle side of things, but he transitioned into more of a sci-fi builder in recent years.
About Cienasis 5 Dan loves building with LEGO as a creative outlet. Building with LEGO growing up really put him on the path to engineering in the first place: One starts with a picture of what they’d like to see in their head, and then they have to figure out how to make that happen using a very finite set of parts and shapes. This really helped him to develop a strong set of problemsolving skills which he uses every day in his career.
A predominantly ocean-covered world, the people of the planet Rhilaf developed the HFG (Hydrophobic Field Generator), which allows vessels to be suspended above the water. This also reduced the resistance caused by the water, allowing the vessel to travel at much faster speeds. As a result the people saw no need to develop air travel at the same time as we did on Earth. Their connection to the seas keeps them attached to the oceans in every way possible. Seafaring is a time-honored tradition that is also this world’s most efficient means of transportation. With the emergence of the HFG into the seafaring industry, a network of mid-ocean oases, called Cienasis, sprang out of the ocean to provide places for rest, refueling and trade. These mid-ocean points of trade are centers of culture and communication, with many languages being shared between the different factions and peoples of the watery world.
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Building
James Zhan’s Coral Reef Article and Photography by James Zhan
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James Zhan is from Taipei, Taiwan and is a 39 year old Graphic Designer and AFOL. While he does building in a lot of themes, this diorama is different, as it has many different creatures in a colorful environment that takes advantage of the LEGO color palette. BrickJournal asked him to talk about this model and his building, and this is his reply: I did not have LEGO sets when I was young, so I bought a lot of sets in 2007, such as Vikings and Castle series. I bought almost all of them (I needed all kinds of parts), and I started building my own creations. I have always been building since 2007 to the present. My favorite themes are Pirates and ocean adventurebased, because pirates and marine explorers are free to sail and explore.
Some views of the reef, showing the fish, the blue ribbon eels, and a crab.
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Building
Mitsuru Nikaido’s Animal Kingdom! Article by Joe Meno Photography by Mitsuru Nikaido
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Mitsuru Nikaido is a print designer who designs books and product packages during the day, but in his off time is a LEGO builder. His current focus is a blend of organic and mechanical textures and forms that are mostly in the form of sea animals. His creations are visually complex, with tubes and spikes coming from shells and exoskeletons. The result is a wonderful weaving of organic and technical, and of creatures that would breathe and also whir with noise for gears and hinges. It’s a different look that is futuristic and also naturalistic. Nikaido’s interest in LEGO building began in elementary school, but like many, after graduating he stopped building and entered a Dark Age. His interest with building was rekindled when he started buying sets for his child. That was three years ago, and in the time since, his models have gotten the attention of many online for his distinct style.
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As mentioned before, his style is a blend of nature and technology. For most builders, the LEGO brick and its limitations as a block shape have led builders to make block-shaped creatures. Nikaido uses curved elements to define organic shapes and uses tubing to simulate veins or other organic forms.
Nikaido builds to reflect his love of animals and creatures of the earth. He sees the beauty in the evolution that creatures have taken to survive competition. He sees beauty in all creatures, even insects. They may have an ugly appearance, but what they evolved to is meaningful for survival. He also sees beauty in industrial machines built by humans, so for him, it’s fun to imagine a ‘machine organism” that combines them.
Hermit Crab
An example of a “machine organism” can be found in Nikaido’s rendition of a hermit crab. While much of the model is made up of spikes made from flick-fire missiles, the legs are a combination of the organiclooking red rounded slopes and the mechanical dark grey elements. A closer look reveals the parts to be skis or binoculars, which reinforce the mechanical feel of the crab.
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Community
Hankyu’s Brick Aquarium Article by Joe Meno Photography by Jumpei Mitsui
In April 2017, the Hankyu Brick Museum opened at the Hankyu Umeda Station, which is connected with Osaka Station in Japan. Located in an alleyway, the museum has five showcases for displaying the work of LEGO Certified Professional Jumpei Mitsui. There is no admission fee to see his work. In front of the museum is the largest LEGO brand store in Japan. As a result, there are many visitors that come to see Jumpei’s work.
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The display showcased in this issue is an aquarium, which was built by Jumpei in respect to the aquarium that previously was kept in the same place. This year Hankyu decided to renovate the alley, so the aquarium was removed.
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