BrickJournal #50

The Publication for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages!

Empowering LEGO® Builders Since 2007

50

A Celebration of LEGO®!

Looking Back and Ahead with the LEGO® Group!

Reflecting on Over a Decade of Publishing!

Top Builders, Instructions & more!

Empowering LEGO® Builders Since 2007

50

A Celebration of LEGO®!

Contents Issue #50 Credits Publisher John Morrow

Editor in Chief Joe Meno

Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow

Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon

LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh

Contributors: James Burroughs, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Dave Foreman, Jeff Friesen, Jared Harkema, Calvin Hartley, Bruce B. Heller, Rob Klingberg, Christian Lintan, Mitsuru Nikaido, Fraser Ratzlaff, Megan Rothrock, Tommy Williamson, & 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: We celebrate BrickJournal’s 50th issue!

Photo by Joe Meno.

About the Title Page: A shot of Lorinean.

Photo by Fraser Ratzlaff.

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) BrickJournal 50: A Celebration of LEGO®

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)

Website

Twitter

Introduction..............................................................3

People Megan Rothrock: First LEGO Editor/ European Bureau Editor, now LEGO Adventurer......................5 Lorinean: A LEGO Castle in the Sky!............12 Monochrome Building in White!.................20

Building Cornerstone Brick Designs: Building Kingsman: The Golden Circle.....26 Buildin’ and Dreamin’.........................................34 Building Project: Animation Station............................................46 The Never-Ending GBC....................................53 You Can Build It: MINI Kylo Ren’s TIE Fighter from The Last Jedi............................................70 BrickNerd’s DIY: Disney Wonder..................................................74 City Building on a Micro Scale......................78 Puzzle City : Building a City on Your Desktop...............88 Minifigure Customization 101: A Review............................................................112

Community BrickStuff: Making Small Lights for Big Ideas in Minnesota........................120 Sourcing Your Inspiration: How to Find New Ideas in MOCing......126 Talking with Tormod: Looking Forward and Back .....................134 AFOLs by Greg Hyland..................................144 Facebook

Subscriptions

(BrickJournal #50) © 2018 BrickJournal Media LLC and TwoMorrows Publishing

ISBN 978-1-60549-082-3 UPC 182658001209 First printing, February 2018 All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright holders, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Inquiries should be addressed to TwoMorrows Publishing.

Published by: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 e-mail: store@twomorrows.com web: www.twomorrows.com

LEGO®, TECHNIC, MINDSTORMS, Belville, Scala, BIONICLE, ExoForce, Mars Mission, World City, and other LEGO theme lines are trademarks of the LEGO Group of companies. All articles, photos, and art are copyright BrickJournal Media, LLC 2018, 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 $60 Economy US, $72 Expedited US, $94 International, or $24 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: Joe Meno, Editor, 9001 Barb Anne Court, Springfield, VA 22152 or admin@brickjournal.com.

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, used for making 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.

Introduction Just what is a “brickjournal”? Since 2009 (2007, if you count its original digital incarnation), every two months, editor Joe Meno has produced the de facto publication of the LEGO® fan community—the ultimate resource for “brick” enthusiasts of all ages. Its mission is simple: To spotlight all aspects of the fan building community, showcase LEGOrelated events worldwide, talk to builders young and old who create the amazing models displayed in each issue, and provide a place for contributions and how-to articles by fans and top builders worldwide.

But how did BrickJournal magazine start, and make it to this Golden 50th Anniversary issue? To find out, photo editor Geoff Gray talked to editor Joe Meno about the beginnings of BrickJournal, and how he decided that AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO) needed a publication of their very own.

Geoff Gray: How’d you start BrickJournal in the first place?

Interview by Geoff Gray Photography by Joe Meno

Joe Meno: It was simply me wanting something to document the LEGO fan community. Back in the early 2000s, the hobby in the US was growing in leaps and bounds. Builders found other builders online through LUGNET, which was the first international website dedicated to the hobby. Clubs were forming and events were started. It was a time of growth, and it seemed to me that someone should be taking notes to keep... and that became BrickJournal.

I gathered some people, including you, to start this. And in only six months, the first BrickJournal issue was released as a free online magazine. From there, the magazine took off.

How’d you move from free digital to paid print editions?

The LEGO Group had been taking notice of the magazine and invited us to visit the Billund offices, and from there, they became interested in supporting the launch of the magazine to print. At the same time, I knew a publisher friend of mine who was willing to give the magazine a shot. That guy was John Morrow of TwoMorrows Publishing. With LEGO providing funding (basically my salary) and John publishing, the magazine went to print.

How did you get hooked up with The LEGO Group initially for assistance on producing it?

I had been active in the community as a volunteer or staffer at events, and when they were informed about a fan magazine launching, they kept their eye on me and were surprised at what I and the community was able to accomplish. From that they decided to support the magazine.

What was your first real “build” as an AFOL?

The nine original digital-only issues, produced prior to BrickJournal becoming a print magazine. They’re still available today at www.twomorrows.com.

My first official build was an alternate build of the first LEGO X-Wing (released in 1999)! It’s something that looks like a beginner would build. Needless

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and started work there. That was in 1999, and the new Star Wars sets came on the scene. I bought the X-wing, and the rest is history.

As for other hobbies, I always drew and built scale models. LEGO building has somewhat taken over these hobbies, but I’ve been getting back into drawing as of late.

From Walt Disney World, I went to a brick convention in Washington, DC in 2002, which started my community involvement. I volunteered at events and went up the ranks until I ran conventions. I was the Event Coordinator to BrickFest 2006 in Washington, DC, and also ran a few conventions in North Carolina by the name of BrickMagic.

My first build as an AFOL

to say, I have improved my skills, thanks to practice and the magazine. Reading and looking through the articles can be very inspiring.

Who was the most helpful person and/or website in getting the magazine established in its early digital-only days?

I also got into LEGO Robotics and mentor FIRST® LEGO® League teams. Of all the things I do, this is the most fulfilling, and the most fun.

What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you in the course of producing BrickJournal?

Having a mistake in the magazine pointed out by a teen during a question-and-answer session at the San Diego Comic-Con. And he was right!

What does the future hold for BrickJournal, now that it’s reached 50 issues?

Was LEGO a main toy/hobby for you as a kid, or did you first discover it later in life as an adult?

I really don’t know. With new media constantly turning over, who knows what will be next? There are things I want to see happen with the product and the community—things like MOC scanners, that can scan a model and generate a computer model that can be looked at from all angles, and taken apart. That would lead the way to creating online galleries and events that could happen in multiple cities, but have a common online space.

LEGO was something I played with when I was younger, but I wasn’t building when I was in college. I got back into it when I was working at Walt Disney World sometime after I left college. I had to take another job to try to make ends meet, so I went to the Disney Imagination Center

In another direction, this could also lead to making virtual environments in which you become the minifigure in a LEGO landscape where you can build in 3-D. Think of it as Minecraft, but with augmented reality using LEGO bricks.

How cool would that be?

The most helpful person? I would list the staff of the LEGO Group. Once I got introduced to them as the editor of BrickJournal, I was able to contact many of the people that were behind the making of the sets I loved.

A much more recent build.

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An Active AFOL Online

My first appearance in BrickJournal was when I was interviewed for the AFFOLs (Adult Female Fans of LEGO) section of the magazine by Mel Caddick (the then European Bureau Editor of the magazine). This was BrickJournal #6 (the online version before print, in 2006). After being interviewed, Joe Meno and I began to communicate more, and it turned out that we were both “Journalism Geeks” and enjoyed interviewing and exploring the Adult LEGO Fan Community.

Our LEGO Community was a lot smaller then. I was active sharing and getting to know fellow LEGO Enthusiasts via LUGNet, ClassicSpace.com, ClassicCastle.com, and of course my ‘megs’ account on Brickshelf. We had no Flickr, MOCpages, Brothers Brick, or BrickNerd, just some “Old School” methods of sharing our work.

First Event: Into a Live LEGOWorld

I have to, of course, give credit to Mark Stafford (LEGO nabii on Flickr and later Senior Product Designer for The LEGO Group) for inviting me to build with him, and bringing me to my first LEGOWorld event back in 2003.

For me, LEGO was then just a hobby which I enjoyed very much. I could have never imagined the amazing LEGO Adventure that would unfold over the years.

That first LEGO event for me was a profound experience: We had more than 30,000 visitors. Being expatriates, Mark and I were taken in by De Bouwsteen (the Dutch LEGO Users Group) and treated like family. Paul Wolters and his event team were so warm and welcoming. Discovering I could speak Dutch, they asked if I could volunteer, and I was happy to help—both in the event hall and presenting Mark’s Castle Model to all of the Visitors. I also couldn’t help but notice a huge crowd around a table nearby and a gentleman presenting a brilliant transforming LEGO Model, from Jet to Robot—this was built by Nathanael Kuipers, who would also go on to design for LEGO.

Megan Rothrock: First LEGO Editor/ European Bureau Feature Editor Beginnings Editor, now LEGO Adventurer!

Article and Photos by Megan Rothrock Art provided by No Starch Press.

One of Megan’s early creations, the Podagons.

His name is Vergirak.

Later, Joe asked if I would like to contribute more to BrickJournal starting with the AFFOL feature, as Mel’s plans were changing. Based in Europe, I could cover European LEGO events and help grow content.

Enthusiastic, I dug in and began attending and displaying my LEGO models at more LEGO events all around Europe. Meeting so many talented LEGO builders from all over, learning more about them and featuring them in BrickJournal, was brilliant. Events would have AFOLs from all over. I recall the LEGOWorld where Tim Courtney (USA) attended, promoting his LDraw Book and introducing me to the world of virtual LEGO building (cheers, Tim!). Another time I shared a MOC table with Jason Railton (UK’s “JoeFish”) who had talked Peter Reid and Yvonne into joining with him (LEGO Ideas: Exo-Suit); after that event we were all friends, and still are to this day.

Interviewing so many AFOLs, I began to create quite a library of content for articles and features—my poor hard drive was beginning to melt!

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A LEGO Adventure spread (from Book 2) featuring the work of Mark Stafford.

Billund Bound

It wasn’t too long after my feature that Mark and I moved from Holland to LEGO’s Headquarters in Billund, Denmark. New to town (before I was hired as a LEGO Product Designer), I began to explore. Not speaking any Danish, I tried Dutch and broken German with some English and somehow, I could have a dialogue with the Danes. The Village, as I discovered, was all about LEGO. While out walking my dog Bandit or shopping, I would meet LEGO Retirees and they’d share stories about their time and contribution with TLG. I found all of this to be quite fascinating! I felt it was a shame these stories should stop with me; they should be shared for others to enjoy. I approached Joe about creating an ongoing feature revolving around the history and people who had helped grow the LEGO Group over the years. He thought that was great, and appointed me the European Bureau Editor (as Mel had stepped down to also join LEGO).

A Chance Meeting of a LEGO Legend

Attending the 75th Anniversary Party, I met Mr. Daniel August Krentz, who you may know as the LEGO Designer of the coveted set 375 Yellow Castle (1978). It turns out that while Daniel was actually from the USA, he decided to retire in Billund. I wrote a full article on him for our BrickJournal Castle print issue #8, now sold out.

Working in LEGO History 6

Another Podagon - Phergy!

I began to also be invited by the team at LEGO’s own Private Museum, The LEGO Idea House. Working with Jette Orduna and her team, I was plunged further into the

This spread shows the work of Yvonne Doyle, featured in the LEGO Adventure Book 2.

rich history of the LEGO Group, helping with archives, and designing and building displays like the Star Wars room. At times I was asked to lead special tours through the Idea House, which I enjoyed very much, and met so many fantastic people from the UK, US, Canada, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Brazil, Australia, Asia, and more. Perhaps some of you reading this were there on one of those tours?

Meet Podagon Greeple!

LEGO Editor Appointment

With LEGO content growing, I became the liaison between LEGO and BrickJournal, overseeing LEGO Content—meeting with and seeking approvals from various Department Heads at TLG. Joe then decided to change my title to LEGO Editor. Being LEGO Editor was challenging, rewarding, hair-pulling, and at points all-consuming. As we were working with very sensitive content, it was imperative that things should go through the proper channels. Also, we had gone from Historical Pieces to Exclusive Behind the Scenes Pieces, and there was simply no room for error. Having the respect and trust of The LEGO Group was a very special thing, and I would work long hours developing content, and to ensure things were flowing correctly. From upcoming LEGO Set Announcements, Behind the Scenes Development, LEGO Designers featured, Conferences, Development

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Workshops, Meetings and more, nothing ever leaked. I was a living “Non-disclosure Agreement” and that time was a very busy and fascinating one, and being able to share some of that with our BrickJournal readers was very rewarding.

Author Request?

Fall 2011, as the leaves began to turn, so too did my path.

No Starch Press Publishing reached out, asking if I would be interested in creating a LEGO Idea Book. I kindly explained I was a Toy Designer, not really an Author. It turned out that Joe had shared some of my work from BrickJournal with them and they were inspired. They said, “You can do editorial and inspire others, so we feel that you could write and make a full book.” Asking them what they had in mind, they responded with: “Well, that is entirely up to you, but we would like to have book out for Christmas 2012.”

The LEGO Book Adventure Begins!

Podagon Urple.

Models designed by Daniel August Krentz, seen in Book 2.

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Now, some of you might not realize, that 6-7 months is not a lot of time to author a book, let alone one that would be so visual. Being one not to stray from a challenge, I began the project. Having been inspired from the LEGOLand 6000 Booklet from the 1980s, I wanted to bring that forward for today’s generation. I also did not want the book to be about me; after all, I thought, “I am just one of many LEGO builders out there.” So I came up with

a way to include others. Much to my surprise, when I approached Daniel August Krentz to be in my book, I discovered that he had actually worked on the designs for LEGOLand 6000, a sign I was headed in the right direction!

LEGO Adventuring

Writing only gets you so far, of course. With my LEGO book being a visual journey, I wanted to include lots of building ideas for the reader. It was decided by the Publisher that since I was a LEGO Designer, I should also do the layout for the book. I then reached out to talented LEGO Professionals and Builders, asking them if they would like to join me on this LEGO Book Adventure. To my delight, they all said yes and we were off! The process was quite organic; as I added more Featured Builders, the story would take some interesting twists and turns.

Working together, we would figure out the best way to share their work. Reducing complexity and working out ways to break-down their models so builders of various skill levels could build them, was quite challenging at times. The layout phase of the book is always the longest; I can’t tell you how much thought, time and energy goes into those Building Sequences. Scale comes into play as well, as a model that looks good on a screen doesn’t always translate well to a layout in a book. To get the full story, there is an article about all of this in issue #21 of BrickJournal.

Are J. Heiseidal, as seen in Book 2.

Patric Bosman’s work, as seen in Book 3.

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Patric Railton’s work, as seen in Book 3.

From Journalist to Author

I can honestly say my time with BrickJournal was lifechanging. Today I find myself a successful published author of three LEGO Adventure Books! What a road it has been. The books are also available in more than seven languages—I’m thrilled to be able to share these books with a global audience. Getting out promoting my books at signings and events in both the USA and Europe is a joy.

Being able to meet my readers, learn what their favorite parts are and how much fun they are having building the LEGO models, and learning about the Featured Builders makes all of the hard graft worth it. Thank you to all of the LAB Featured Builders who have contributed to the LEGO Adventure. Being a LEGO Book author is brilliant—with new projects in the works, keep your eyes peeled for more LEGO fun in the future!

BrickJournal Issue #50

I’d like to thank Joe and everyone on the BrickJournal team for all of your hard work over the years. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to BrickJournal and helped it to grow. Issue #50 is truly a milestone and we should all be proud of sharing and highlighting the LEGO Enthusiast Hobby to readers all around the Globe!

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People

Lorinean:

A LEGO Castle in the Sky! Article by Joe Meno

Fraser Ratzlaff works for the nonprofit organization Children of the Nations, leading teams to Africa to work with orphan and destitute children. Empowering kids to become the next generation of leaders in their communities, he also does advocacy work in Seattle—volunteer events, public speaking, meeting with donors, and fundraising. Basically, Fraser helps get people involved, and he loves his job. He also loves to build. BrickJournal talked to him about his latest creation, Lorinean.

Fraser has been building since he was 5 or 6 years old. He had other toys growing up, but nothing captured his imagination like LEGO. When asked about his LEGO hobby, he answers, “It was all I asked for every birthday and Christmas. I did take a break from building in college, but then got back into it as an adult after reading Jonathan Bender’s book LEGO: A Love Story. I had no idea there was a whole community of adult builders before that.”

Fraser’s favorite theme is Castle.

However, one of the suggestions in Jonathan’s book was to, as Fraser notes, “push yourself by building things you normally wouldn’t.” He continues, “I did a big art sculpture piece that I ended up loving. I tried making brick-built streets to go with the modular town buildings. And

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A view of the castle towers.

One side of the caste has a skyship dock.

I made a jungle scene. It definitely helped me grow as a builder.”

He also enjoys making space and town creations, having built a neighborhood post office modular building and a space station a few years ago. Still, he has always been attracted to castles—real ones and LEGO castles. For Fraser, they are just cool.

Another view.

Lorinean was built as a return to his favorite theme. After building some other large-scale creations, he wanted to build a castle, but not another typical castle since there are so many of those built already. Fraser wanted to do something new. He also knew that he had to up his game after seeing some incredible castles on the Brothers Brick blog.

What inspired him was a base he built for his large art sculpture piece that turned out really well.

While taking the art piece apart, he thought the base would make a great foundation for a fantasy castle in the clouds. That excited him because he could eliminate building a moat, and the fortress would still have a formidable natural barrier: The sky.

One he got started, he took inspiration from John Bunyan’s The

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Pilgrim’s Progress, Mina Tirith (from J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books), the Bible, Dinotopia, and Disney’s Cinderella Castle.

Planning the model was mostly organic, as Fraser did some initial sketches and just started building.

He figured that he would try to solve any structural problems along the way. The base of the model was very solid, tied together with lots of plates at the top, so he knew he had a good foundation, even though it was an hourglass shape. He just kept the main structure centered over the base, especially the main tower. There is no Technic inside to support the model, just strategic brick stacking, and of course, no Kragle. The model doesn’t get wobbly until the last two feet.

A skyship is loaded with cargo.

A look at the docked skyship.

When asked about what part of Lorinean he is happiest with, Fraser answers: “Oh man, that’s hard. I love a lot of things about this build. The dragon entrance turned out better than I hoped. I had to rip out the sunburst mosaic and re-do it three times before I got it right. I also love the main door. I wanted to do something different with that: No drawbridge portcullis or moat.

The castle’s bay towers.

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I really love how it turned out. I did a stone entryway and big wooden doors inside. There’s also a black ninja tucked inside that’s almost impossible to see. Of course, if you see a ninja, it’s already too late.”

He continues: “The entire build was a lesson for me in perspective. Making the interiors look bigger from the outside than they really are, making heavy things look light, and making the towers proportionate as it gains height. Probably my favorite part is the base that makes the whole castle look like it’s floating. The overall look and feel of the castle with all the towers, the waterfalls, the garden, etc. just felt right and fun. I imagined this would be a city in heaven, only accessible by flying there.”

Lorinean wasn’t an easy build. For Fraser, the most challenging things to build were the angles. One thing he was sure about from the start of the build was that he didn’t want it to be all right-angles on a grid. He wanted lots of angles, arches, and columns. Fraser started by laying out the corners at the angles they should be. It got challenging to bring the walls together, especially as they got taller and needed to be tied in. There are four main angles coming up off the base, and he was doing okay with three of them, but adding the fourth was tough. He used lots of swivels and hinges. The final solution for the fourth angle was to use grey double cheese slopes on their sides running up the wall edge, almost flush with the adjacent wall edge.

The other big challenge was the scale of the castle. Fraser had never built anything this big before, and he wanted to make something that would push the limits of his LEGO collection. As a result, he did have to order several hundred dollars of pieces on Bricklink, and David Schilling and Nyssa Roger generously loaned him some white brick for the base. Surprisingly, by the end he ran out of white and tan jumper plates (1x2 plate with center stud), which made him happy. The height of Lorinean also made things difficult. Fraser started out building sitting crossed-legged on the floor, then sitting on a chair, then standing, then standing on a chair. At 9 feet tall,

The ground level of Lorinean.

The front entrance of the castle.

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it was fully assembled for the first time at BrickCon 2017 in Seattle.

As for what is next, Fraser doesn’t know. Tearing down to make way for something new is a bittersweet thing.

He closes our talk by stating: “It’s so hard for me to take apart whatever my current creation is, because I am so invested in it. But lately, every time I finally take it apart, I end up building something better.”

The spires of Lorinean.

One of the balconies.

A look at the underside of the foundation of Lorinean.

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Lorinean:

Behind the Scenes Fraser Ratzlaff’s castle was the result of months of work and planning.

Here are some construction photos and sketches of Lorinean.

Working on the stained glass on a spire.

It all starts here.

Working on a floor.

A sketch of a tower listing inspirations for building.

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More construction sketches.

And if you’re wondering how tall the model is...

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Building

Monochrome Building in White!

Article by Joe Meno

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Christian Lintan, a Digital Media Coordinator at Burman University in Alberta, Canada is a builder that works in a unique way. Unlike the majority of LEGO builders, Christian creates using only one color: white. Monochromatic building forces the builder to use form to make a recognizable model, which is a challenge in itself—but with LEGO elements, there are also parts that appear only in certain colors. Christian’s creations are extraordinary in this context. He spoke to BrickJournal about his creations.

BrickJournal: How long have you been building?

Christian Lintan: I grew up playing with LEGO almost my entire childhood.

Unfortunately, new interests started picking up for me and I stopped somewhere around 13 or 14 years of age. I didn’t get back into building with LEGO until the beginning of 2016.

Previous page: A sampling of Christian’s work.

Below: A microcity.

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A ghost X-Wing. The s-foils open and close.

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What inspired you to begin building in one color?

I really got excited about the Architecture Studio Set. I thought building in white was so simple and elegant and I wanted to try building my own dream house model. Somewhere in that planning process, the thought “What if I built more than just buildings and houses using just white pieces?” came to mind. I challenged myself with one MOC, and then another, and then another until I finally fell in love with the idea and process of it all. I found it to be difficult, yet somehow easy. It’s a challenging and rewarding experience.

How do you plan a build?

The idea I have for a build is usually set in stone, but the actual details of it are not. For example I know I want to build a Tiger-inspired Mech, but how that will look depends on a few things: What parts are available in white, what parts could I order in a timely manner, what parts do I have in my personal inventory, etc.

Because I chose to limit my colour palette, I have to have good

White Tiger For the Brick Mecha Division on Facebook, Christian built the CTHC Tiger Mech (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Cannon—a play on words of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) for a challenge to build a beast mech. The second photo below reveals the cannon that rises from the body.

The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Cannon.

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A ghost mech.

knowledge of what pieces actually exist, and that involves a lot of searching through Bricklink or Brickset. Good shaping is also key to what I build, and it forces me to think about potential issues like weight distribution or making the right type of connections.

What’s your next build?

I have quite a few ideas that I’m deciding between. What will most likely take place is another Star Wars vehicle, but who knows if I will change my mind?

You can see more of Christian’s work by going to https://www.flickr. com/photos/138164350@N05/ with/33986855945/ or scanning the QR code below!

Christian with the ghost mech.

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Building

Cornerstone Brick Designs:

Building Kingsman: The Golden Circle Article by Bruce B. Heller and Joe Meno Photography by Bruce B. Heller

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Bruce B. Heller came on the LEGO scene last year by recreating art deco buildings in Los Angeles at microscale.

From there, he began to direct his energies toward building as a profession. One of the projects he did late last year was some models to promote the movie Kingsman: The Golden Circle. BrickJournal talked to him about his experience in creating and building Eggsy’s cab and the Kingsman Tailorshop.

Bruce built these models for a friend and started back in early July of 2017, months before the film came out. His goal was to complete them well before the release of the film on September 22nd. He worked on both models concurrently, and finished them both by the first week of September.

So, all told, they took two months. Since the film hadn’t been released yet, Bruce had close to no reference material for the film. All he had was what was shown in the first official trailer. Fortunately, the requested models were both things that existed in real life: Eggsy’s cab design is that of a standard London Cab, and the filming location of the Kingsman Tailorshop is an actual London tailor called “Huntsman.” Scouring the internet for reference for the cab, Bruce also referred to the first film, as the cab appears a few times in it as well. The submersible feature was only introduced in the sequel, so he had to glean what he could from screen grabs from the new trailer. As it happens, it looked pretty close to how it did in the film!

Building the Kingsman Tailorshop

Getting the design of the tailorshop right was trickier.

Usually Bruce uses whatever details he can from Google Images, Google Maps, Google Earth and Apple Maps.

The actual building is tall and on a narrow street, so it was hard to get a view of the whole façade. He also had trouble making out details of the building, such as the stairs leading to the basement level, and what was written on the huge front windows. For that, Bruce sent a person in London on a secret spy mission! A fellow AFOL in the UK has a brother who lives in London, so he sent his brother to the actual building at 11 Savile Row. He sent back over a dozen high resolution pictures of the building, including the windows, the royal crests hanging inside the window, the downstairs area, and even the streetlight in front.

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Bruce worked on the designs first, and had his friend approve them before starting to shop for parts. Little touches such as the custom-printed tiles for the cab—the actual logo for The London Taxi Company and Eggsy’s license plate in the trailer—were things Bruce decided to do on his own, as well as the custom windows and interior lighting on the Tailorshop.

When asked why, Bruce replies: “When I make replicas, my greatest attention is paid to the aspect of the thing that makes it most recognizable. The tailorshop was the first MOC I built in actual minifigure scale. So far, all of my models have had some custom-printed parts, but this was the first time I had a part custom-made. Fortunately, Kristi at CustomBricks did an exceptional job.

“For the Tailorshop, it was the front window. If I did it with clear panels, or with several pieces of LEGO glass, it wouldn’t have looked right. The seams would have been too distracting. Kristi was able to create two large windows (one with raised framing in black, and the other for the downstairs “workroom” window) out of Plexiglas. She also etched the gold writing and printed the royal crests on the front. In the end, the window is the part of the MOC that gets the most attention. Mission accomplished! The interior lighting makes it even better.

“Technically, the two large windows are not attached to anything. They were very precisely cut so that they slide into a frame of door rail plates. They’re held in place on all sides by those door rails. This can be seen in the photos on the right. They are 1/16” in thickness and the black frames are raised (laser cut) and laid on top of the plexi, but around the edges they’re set in by about 1/16” to allow for the plexi to fit in the door rail.

“The lights (by Brickstuff) are switched on by pressing the Kingsman logo in the front of the model. Also, the button in front uses a spring cut from a Technic shock absorber. The wires lead to a battery pack in a concealed compartment in the rear of the model. If you recall, in the first movie, the tailor shop has a hidden room that is revealed by the pull of a lever. The ‘hidden in plain sight’ light switch was an homage to that.

“The fabric was custom-made and hemmed by me. The green awning was just scrap fabric from a local store, and the curtain behind the suits was printed on cotton using my printer. I got the plaid design from Google images.

“The lighting was not requested. Without lighting, you couldn’t see the suits in the window, the deer head trophies on the walls, and the fabric curtain. The 29 movie trailer revealed that (SPOILER ALERT) the

tailorshop would be destroyed in the sequel, so I thought it appropriate that the model too would have a ‘lights out’ aspect to it. The alternative would have been to blow it up after I was done building it, but we scrapped that idea early on.

“There are a few uses of wire in the model. There is wire in the gold flex-tubing used to create the handrails, and there is wire inside the black flex-tubing to hold the back of the awning in place. There’s also a piece of printed Plexiglas that was used behind the ornate fence piece above the door.”

Bruce explains, “Whenever I do models, I like to include the small touches that take it a little further than what you’d expect in a MOC. For instance, this was the first time I used custom-made parts. I also like to include the more mundane details, such as the drain at the bottom of the basement steps, the street lamp, and the AC unit on the roof of the building. The mundane details are what make replicas feel more rooted in the real world.”

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Building Eggsy’s Cab

He continues, “By far, the cab was the hardest thing I’ve ever built. In fact, I had never built a car before, and they were among my least favorite sets to buy! But when someone asks you if you can build something, you don’t say no. I said ‘Oh sure! No problem!’ and then promptly had a month-long anxiety attack. After the designs were done and approved, I started to relax a bit more.”

To do this, Bruce first went out and bought all the LEGO Expert cars that weren’t retired, and built them. From them he started to get a sense of the logic of their construction, and then he dove in and started building the cab. Using reference material to get the proportions right, Bruce started doing springboard models of the parts of the car that make it look like the London Taxi: Things like the front grille, the front fender, headlights and fog-lights, and the car’s profile.

He didn’t design it digitally; he did it all by hand first, in random colors. The images Bruce sent to his friend (to get her approval to keep going) weren’t even of the whole cab.

Through some clever camera angles, he was able to get away with doing just over one-half of the cab to get the approval. Then Bruce created a digital file of the model so he could start to shop for parts.

The biggest challenge of the cab was making the transforming feature work. Bruce went through several prototypes before settling on what worked. He needed to figure out how to make the wheels do two things: Extend from the chassis, and then swivel into place. For the swiveling action, he used a Technic clicking ball joint. To extend the wheel assemblies that had the ball joints on them was another matter. The assembly (which included

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the submersible propellers!) had to be narrow enough to be entirely concealed in the chassis, and the mechanism had to be long enough to push the assemblies—simultaneously— beyond the chassis and fenders so that the wheels could freely swivel.

In the end, he used Technic liftarms/beams, attached to sleds on tiles. The sleds for the front and back had gear plates that met in the middle. A single small gear between them makes both front and back extend simultaneously. On one of the sleds, there is a lever (a 5x5 Technic corner brick) that protrudes out of the bottom of the cab. The wheels extend by pushing the lever forward and back. In the final model, the entire interior mechanism is concealed by the tan slopes of the “upholstery.” The only thing in the cab that is not LEGO is a little bit of Vaseline to make sure the wheel assemblies slid in and out of the chassis without a problem. You can see a demonstration of the mechanism on his YouTube channel (Cornerstone Brick Designs). It’s also on his Instagram feed.

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The pictures make the car appear quite small. In reality, it is almost 17” long, 7” tall and almost a foot wide when the wheels are extended. As for the scale, all he had to go off of was his friend’s request: “About this big” she said, holding her hands shoulder width apart. Again, Bruce said “No problem!” and then started worrying how he was going to make it work.

On one hand, a larger scale is better. You can get more detail and subtlety in the model, but the parts are more limited. Wheel selection is more limited at larger scales, and windshields only come so big. In the end, Bruce did away with all the windows. Even if he custom-made them out of Plexiglas, they’d be prone to scratches and fingerprints— and then there was the question of how to attach them.

After building, Bruce is happy with the end result.

The models can currently be seen in FOX Marketing for the film. Identical copies were made so Bruce could bring them to conventions. Someday Bruce plans to add an interior to his own copy of the tailorshop... someday.

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Building

Buildin’ and Dreamin’

Article by Joe Meno Photography by Joe Meno and Davin White 34

One of the best creations at Bricks by the Bay 2017 was California Dreamin’, a layout that was built and named for the event’s theme. It’s a minifigure-scale amusement park ride depicting the various attractions in the Golden State, and is more than a train layout. Functions are activated when the cars drive by, and other areas are lit and have movement. Every part of the layout is a vignette, from the mountainside that has a door hiding a bear inside, to the backstage area with wardrobe and guardrail at the rear.

The layout is a great example of a multitude of different settings and builds, creating a story for the viewer to see and experience. As a result, the layout requires more than

a casual look—it can easily take an hour or more going through its details.

The layout was built by Flynn DeMarco and Richard Board, two builders who hit the scene online with other smaller builds. While their individual efforts got them on LEGO fan websites, California Dreamin’ won the Best of Show award, as well as three other awards at Bricks by the Bay, which is a good indicator of the talent and skill used in the model.

Both of them talked to BrickJournal about themselves and their build.

Flynn DeMarco and Richard Board are both show folk.

Flynn is an actor and a director who also decorates specialty cakes. Richard is a theatrical lighting designer who has worked with dance, multimedia performances, film, and video. They started building together and are rather new on the scene, with only a couple of years of building experience when they started California Dreamin’.

They started building at the same time Flynn picked up an X-Men set. He was really into the X-Men in high school, and both enjoyed building the set together. So Flynn

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ended up buying a bulk lot of LEGO on Craigslist and as he says, “We were off to the races, as it were!”

Flynn and Richard continued to build models separately and together. In the beginning, they would challenge each other to pick a minifigure and build a vignette around it.

This led to some fun stuff that would eventually find its way into California Dreamin’ and other projects that went viral online.

Richard built a small vignette of the scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey where Dave is removing HAL’s processing chips. The setting is a claustrophobic space surrounded by red and white translucent surfaces, so Richard forced the perspective of the side walls to look like it was being shot with a wide-angle lens, and used transparent pieces so they could be backlit. The vignette was posted and got spotlighted on the Brothers Brick blog.

Flynn wasn’t far behind. When the Disney Collectible Minifigures were released, Flynn was dying to do something related to Alice in Wonderland, as Alice was one of the minifigures included in the Disney collection. Flynn recalls, “I always loved that scene in the movie when she’s falling down the rabbit hole and all the furniture is floating around, so I decided to recreate that in bricks. It was a challenge because we didn’t have the amount of bricks we do now.” This vignette ended up being spotlighted on the Brothers Brick.

Together, they built a spooky animated windmill from the end of Frankenstein. For them, this was a really fun project to do, and it led to them thinking about building something bigger. Their first convention was Bricks by the Bay 2016, and the theme announced for the next year was California Dreamin’. Initially, they weren’t going to do anything on the theme, but they later got inspired by the idea of a theme park ride.

Richard explains how the theme park idea was inspired: “We talked about several different ways to show many state elements together in one piece, but none of them seemed very dynamic. When we finally landed on the theme park ride idea, it seemed colorful and fun and we both really like amusement parks.”

According to Flynn it took about four months of building to complete the layout, mostly done on the weekends. Richard notes, “We spent about a month before that trying different track layouts and designing attractions, color palettes, and assigning scales to different elements.”

Flynn continues: “We had all the sections laid out ahead of time. It kind of looked like a map of Disneyland. Then we decided what would be in each ‘scene.’ We didn’t have room for everything we wanted, but we tried to hit all the highlights. We definitely made some changes and evolved it along the way.”

An example of an evolution of a section would be the Hollywood movie set. It was built three times! Initially the set was going to be Dracula-themed, as Flynn and Richard love spooky stuff and Flynn wanted to include it in the layout. However, it just didn’t fit and looked like a big black hole in an otherwise colorful piece. The next thing that was tried was a Busby Berkeley-style musical, but they had the same issue again. Finally, they decided on The Wizard of Oz and it just clicked (no pun intended).

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There were other challenges to the layout. For Flynn, building the mountain was tough. He recalls, “Trying to make something look random can be quite difficult and you end up trying to figure ways to fill in gaps. And of course, you start to get cross-eyed looking at all those gray bricks.

We spent at least a week just working on that one part.”

Unpacking and setting up California Dreamin’ at Bricks by the Bay was the toughest challenge. Flynn did not know it would take so long to put the completed model back together. It took them something like eight hours total to get the layout back together and functioning properly.

Richard recalls: “For me, hiding all of the lighting and motor wires for the post-transport rebuild was the hardest.

Many of the wires travelled along plate divisions between our large sections and we had to rebuild transitional terracing over many of the joints, hopefully without breaking anything else. The finished model had four motors, three sensors and 40 lights.” The motors were controlled by a Mindstorms EV3 brick.

Flynn and Richard were overwhelmed by the public reaction. For Flynn, “It was so thrilling! We had worked so long with just the two of us; you start to lose the ability to look at the piece as an audience would. It was astounding to see all the people getting such a thrill in checking out all the little details.”

He continues, “We are all our own worst critics, so near the end of building, all I could see were the mistakes. Of course, the model was so elaborate that any of those ‘mistakes’ just disappeared to the viewer.”

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For Richard, “It was so rewarding that the other builders liked what we had done; I enjoyed watching them look closely at how the shark worked, and talking with them about how things were timed. And the kids discovering an animation or character narrative and figuring things out about how the robotics worked—the whole experience was just so positive.”

What’s next? Flynn answers: “Well, I’m afraid we have maybe set a high bar for ourselves, but I think what we’ve got coming will be really exciting. The theme of this year’s Bricks By The Bay is “Animation” so we are working on something with moving parts. We had incorporated movement into the California Dreamin’ piece with the shark and the bear, but we are definitely going for something more complicated this time.”

“Without going into too much detail (need to leave something for a surprise!), I’ll say we are being inspired by those elaborate German cuckoo clocks, automatons, and Dungeons and Dragons. Where the California piece was an overall homage to the state using discreet parts, this one will tell a story that the viewer will follow from beginning to end.”

You can see more of Flynn’s work on Instagram: in_like_flynn and Flickr: flickr.com/photos/in_like_flynn You can see more of Richard’s work on Flickr: flickr.com/photos/33450192@N04/

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California Mountains

Central Valley

Welcome to California Dreamin’! For your enjoyment we have created this visual guide of the ride for you to peruse before you board. There’s a lot to take in, so please sit down and relax as you wait for your ride.

There are sections of the ride that depict all of the things that make California a place for dreams to come true. From the mountains to Disneyland, California has a rich and diverse history that this ride takes you through, with a little bit of danger!

If you are ready to ride, please stow this with your belongings in the seat pouch in front of you. And please, keep your arms and hands inside the ride vehicle at all times!

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Disneyland

Muscle Beach

Venice Beach

Entrance

Mission

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Opening Gate: San Francisco

After purchasing your ticket, you are greeted by the icons of San Francisco: Chinatown, the Transamerica Pyramid, the San Francisco Ferry Building, Coit Tower, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Strap yourself in your car and get ready!

Mission and the High Sierra The first sights you will see will be a traditional Spanish mission that follows the coast of the state. Behind that is a saloon from the Old West— and you’re just in time to see the sheriff catch the bandit! (Or will he?)

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California Mountains Next, you’ll go through one of the California mountains and see the natural splendor of the state, but look above you and watch out for the bear! Will you make it to the tunnel before it sees you?

Orchards and Show Business!

After leaving the mountain, you’ll see the orchards and farms that California has. You’ll get a bird’s eye view of a Hollywood opening and a movie being filmed: The Wizard of Oz!

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Pixie Dust and Traffic Jams...

From the orchards came Disneyland, and you’ll get a glance of Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle and a parade with Belle and Beast from Beauty and the Beast!

Look over the side as you pass Disneyland, and you’ll see Los Angeles in rush hour! Aren’t you glad you aren’t stuck down there?

Highways and Beaches!

No trip to California would be complete without going to the beaches, so you’ll go by Venice Beach, Muscle Beach and a diner—and you might get some sea spray and see a shark!

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With that, your ride ends. Please take your personal belongings and have a nice day!

Behind the Scenes California Dreamin’ is a ride that requires constant upkeep and maintenance for all of its display areas and animatronics, so there is a backstage area that provides maintenance access to all areas of the ride. One backstage side is devoted to costuming the many animatronics, and the other side is the maintenance shop, with facilities to repair and build animatronics and other items as needed.

www.brickcoaster.com

Custom Roller Coaster Tracks, Sets and Accessories

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Building

Building Project:

Animation Station One of the many interests I have besides LEGO building is Disney animation— well, actually Disney in general. My hobby started when I worked for the Disney Store and later Walt Disney World. From there, I learned about the company and the person who started the entire empire, Walt Disney. I quickly learned and started collecting various items from the company.

Article by Joe Meno

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Disney’s animation is one of the things that I enjoy collecting. For an ongoing project, I have been working on LEGO versions of classic characters and rides. I have displayed some of these at events, but for the most part, the project is for a book I was asked to do about Disney LEGO. The idea of building an animation desk and station didn’t come as an immediate idea. In fact, it’s been one of my latest ideas. I really didn’t consider going beyond the characters and rides until I happened upon a post on Facebook showing an animation desk that was put up for sale on eBay. That one photo led me on a project that took me a couple of months to build. And here, I’m going to show you what I did to research the model.

From a sales photo...

Here is the photo of the animation desk that I saw. I downloaded it and quickly noticed that it was perfect to build in LEGO—it was simple in shape, and would be a nice display.

Initially, I just worked on the desk, but it became apparent to me that I would need a little more of an environment to fit the desk in. As a result, I had to search for animation spaces online.

Fortunately, there were more than enough photos to plan a layout.

to a render...

At this point, the desk was already built, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to add to the layout to make it come to life.

I really wanted the space of the animation station to look like it was being used. Boards were put on the walls with storyboards and sketches haphazardly tacked on, and the desk would have books and notes.

There were other props that I would have to add to give it more realism. The desk needed a chair and a lamp, for starters.

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A closer look...

The animation station is made up of an animation desk, a section of wall behind and beside the desk, bulletin boards, a taboret, chair, and a desk chair. The entire station is raised by a row of bricks on the bottom.

The walls and floor create a vignette of the model. Raising the floor by one brick separates the model from whatever it’s on. This is an important thing to do in display because the farther away you can get your model from a table or display, the better you can create your own setting. An animation desk on a table will not have the effect that an entire vignette can.

Smaller props are also added. A pencil caddy and a color pencil set are on the desk ready to be used, while a clipboard with a timing sheet is on the animation desk. A plant is in the corner to add some color to the vignette. On the taboret, there is a neat stack of paper for notes and a complimentary pass for a Disney park ready to be used.

The boards are covered with Disney art of one type or another, with the side board being an art board, and the board over the desk having some animation frames drawn up from “Steamboat Willie.”

All of the art was downloaded from graphic searches online and reduced to size, then printed on glossy sticker paper. Normal printer paper is matte and soaks ink, so lines get fuzzy. Coated paper makes the ink dry on top of the paper, keeping lines crisp. After that, the drawings are stuck on tiles.

To achieve the art stuck at angles, the tiles are attached to the bulletin board by only one stud, so the tile can be rotated off grid. The topmost tile is a sericel that was sold at Walt Disney World which helped inspire this layout.

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More details...

The animation desk has a working easel that can tilt as desired. The drawing frame in the middle rotates like a real one to allow drawing at all angles. The size of the frame actually dictated the scale of the desk and layout, as the round plate was the most unique part used in building the desk. The rest was a fairly straightforward build of bricks, slopes, tiles and plates—the only nonstandard building was the SNOT building for the easel and its attachment to the desk.

The drawers at the side of the desk also work and can be pulled in and out.

Raised plates prevent the drawers from sliding out. I was hoping to put something inside the drawers, but there is very little room inside them because of the width of the plates.

The pencil caddy on the right side of the desk is a barrel that is attached to the desk. The pencil box on the left side is loose and placed on the desk. The smaller bricks on the right shelf are actually Modulex bricks donated for the desk by Karyn Murphy.

The timing sheet was found online, but isn’t from Walt Disney Studios—it’s from Nickelodeon! I switched out the logos in Photoshop and printed on sticker paper.

When I placed it on the tiles, I intentionally folded the corner to make it look a little worn.

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The flower vase is a pretty simple build that uses 1 x 1 brick studs on all sides and tiles. It’s loose and is placed on a desk shelf.

Minnie’s photo is attached with a brick with a side stud behind it. The photo is one of my other Disney models, and Minnie’s autograph was photoshopped in. This should give you a clue as to who actually works at this desk!

The little yellow and red prop beside the flower vase is Winnie the Pooh... sorta. 2 x 2 tiles are added on the shelves to look like books and paper.

Bars are used to represent pencils and are placed in the caddies and on the easel. Usually, a golden bar is on the easel.

The final layout is hundreds of pieces, so instructions do not exist. However, a digital LDraw file of this model was created. If you want to know the construction of the desk, you can drop a note to me at brickjournal@gmail.com!

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More details...

Here are some pics of the loose props.

The planter is a 2 x 2 round plate with bar, with 1 x 2 door rail plates clipped on. When the door rails are rotated up, the make a nice planter.

The chair is built with a seat for a unique figure I built. You’ll see him this year on display!

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Don’t just read BrickJournal —

BUILD WITH IT!

Designed by BrickJournal’s Editor-in-Chief JOE MENO, these custom sets are inspired by the themes and builders featured in this magazine! Find out about these sets and upcoming designs at: www.brickjournal.com/sets

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These are not LEGO® products. They are reused LEGO elements that have been repackaged or altered from their original form. LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse these products. The LEGO Group is not liable for any loss injury, or damage arising from the use or misuse of these products.

Built to Travel

GBC ...

The Never-Ending

Article and Photography by Geoff Gray

The “Infernal Machine,” a Great Ball Contraption device, has been under construction for almost four years, and has been redesigned and rebuilt several times. It has been displayed in Charlotte, NC and in Manhattan, NY. The current version is the third major layout and will hopefully make a public appearance in 2018 somewhere on the East Coast. Anytime I show this (or any large MOC) to friends, family or the crowd at a convention, the two questions I get asked the most are: “How long did it take to build?”

“How did you transport it?”

In this article, I will strive to answer those questions, and many more. I suspect that the story I am about to share is very similar to many of the stories other AFOLs have to share. I also believe that the journey is just as important as the final destination. But then again, with this particular MOC, I have changed and added to it so many times (and continue to have more ideas), I do not think there ever will be a “final destination.” I think this GBC will truly be “never-ending.”

To learn more about Great Ball Contraptions, you can visit http://greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Main_Page

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...

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Falling Water “The Infernal Machine” is a stand-alone Great Ball Contraption that started as an attempt at creating a LEGO waterfall….

Yep. A waterfall. Not a waterfall made with real water, but a waterfall where the water would be thousands of 1x1 round transparent blue plates. I got the idea back in 2006 when I was at BrickFest. I thought “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a pond made by dumping a bunch of trans-blue or trans-clear 1x1 round plates into a pit area and then adding some motion to it?” I thought about having a little boat driving around in the pond, or sharks jumping out of the water, etc. Then, for some reason I saw a waterfall filling the pond. At that moment I made up my mind to design a working waterfall… I even got the pieces I needed (thanks to TLG for helping me secure 50,000 trans-blue plates).

I started to ponder several ways of moving these pieces uphill more than two feet (the height needed to move them from the pond to a place where they could “slide” down a river and fall over a cliff into the pond). I defined the goal (“Move 1000 1x1 LEGO plates per minute from height X to height X+2 feet in a self sustained device that will be able to run for a minimum of 1 hour without supervision, using only standard LEGO elements”). I only told three people about this crazy idea, then I started brainstorming how to do it. Over the next eight years, I spent many waking moments trying to visualize a contraption that met all of this criteria. I occasionally built prototypes for some of my less zany ideas and I added to the list of problems I would run into with any final design.

In 2014, after several failed designs, I got a totally new idea involving vertical towers that would allow the plates to “fall” uphill. The towers could easily handle the height and I could tweak them after I tried the prototype.

The Towers’ Mechanical Concept The tower idea is fairly simple. You build two or more towers (for my machine I am using six towers), each one having a compartment with a sloped floor, an opening at the bottom of the slope and another opening on a different wall that is higher than the top of the slope. Each tower is a few bricks higher than the previous one. Then you set the towers against each other so that the lower opening of each tower is blocked by the wall of one of the other towers. You make a lifter that allows each tower to rise or fall by the same amount as the height difference. Then you simply move the towers up and down as shown below.

This is the starting position. All towers are at the same height at the bottom [red line]. The soccer ball is in the lowest tower.

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Close-up of a tower’s transfer section.

This one has the input opening on an adjacent wall. It is used for the corner towers. The middle towers have the opening opposite from the output opening.

When the machine starts, the towers alternate going up and down. Here, the first and third tower have been raised by five bricks and the second tower has been lowered by five. This allows the soccer ball to fall into the second tower.

...

Next the towers reverse, causing the soccer ball to fall from tower 2 to tower 3. Meanwhile, any new soccer balls waiting to enter can fall into tower 1.

So I started trying out the design. After a couple of months, I was ready to give it a first pass. It failed miserably. The concept was solid, the mechanics worked, but the friction of the plates trying to slide from one tower to the next was keeping the towers from being reliable.

Just for grins, I grabbed a LEGO soccer ball and tried running it through. It worked like a champ. So I decided to give up on the waterfall for the moment and focus on turning this prototype into a Great Ball Contraption. I had to rebuild it a couple of times to tune the cage that holds the towers in place, and I ended up going from four towers to six towers to allow for greater elevation change.

Here is a picture of one of the very first prototypes for the waterfall.

This was still long before I decided to turn the device into a GBC.

Close-up shot of the input tray from the prototype with a set of 1x1 plates loaded and ready to test.

Below are a couple of examples of the support pieces I tried at various stages. You can see an example of the linear actuator supports in the picture above (the 20 tooth gray gear is the knob that moves the wheeled supports in and out).

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Designs, Designs and More Designs

First Showing

I ended up going from four towers to six towers because I wanted the towers to be double-decker, but the four double-decker towers design has a major flaw. When the soccer ball falls into the first tower’s second level, the second tower’s first level is just high enough that the soccer ball falls all the way through into it, thus creating an endless loop. The soccer ball will never make it out. Six towers eliminated that issue and it gave me more height.

I decided to debut the device at BrickMagic 2015 in Charlotte, NC, which was perfect since the show was only 40 miles from my home. At the time, the contraption worked, but it was very incomplete. I would grab a bunch of soccer balls and hand feed them into the bottom opening of the first tower. Then I would hold a small cup up at the top to catch them as they fell out. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, but the machine was very popular at the show. It even got a spot on the local news station. I knew right then that I had a hit on my hands.

The next area I focused on was trying to keep the towers from separating without putting a lot of pressure on them.

I expanded the idea of using wheels by adding linear actuators to the supports so I could “screw” the supports in or out and set the pressure to exactly what I needed. As it turns out, I was way over-engineering this part. By the time I took the GBC to BrickMagic in 2015, I had switched to the final configuration, using beams (see photo on the previous page).

The Big Crash I had spent a lot of time designing, building, changing, rebuilding, and testing the towers during 2014 and early 2015. Most of the time I worked on it in our family room in the evenings while we watched TV. It was the best way for me to work on this and still spend time with my wife. One evening just before final trials for the first showing of the machine, I got up and went down the hall for something.

I made some sort of noise that woke our dogs. Teddy (our 35-pound long-legged mutt) came running toward me barking loudly and wondering what was going on. At the same time, my wife started yelling a variation of “Oh crap! Oh crap! Oh crap!” and then told me not to come back in the family room. My first though was that she was dying, or the house was on fire or something horrific.

Thankfully it wasn’t that bad, but it was a disturbing sight nonetheless. Our dog, in an attempt to get to the front door, had decided to leap off the couch and plow right through the GBC. My wife said that he never even slowed down. He just plowed right through.

The entry line into PlayFair. The line started in the hallway outside the doors (upper left), wound through a corridor adjoining two of the halls (lower left) and spilled into the atrium of the next hall.

I also got a chance to answer two more very common questions (do you remember the first question? Here’s a hint; it has to do with transporting big MOCs).

Is it glued together?

Has it ever broken?

I got to answer these because I broke the GBC when I decided to move the whole thing off the table and onto the floor where kids could see it more easily. While moving it, the cage around the towers slipped and two of the towers (and the cage) went crashing. Luckily it was not nearly as severe as the time Teddy crashed through it. With the help of several enthusiastic kids, we managed to reassemble it and had it running again in less than 30 minutes.

Completed Contraption and Second Showing After BrickMagic, Joe invited me to go to ToyFair in early February 2016 to display the GBC there. We figured it’d be a good opportunity to spread the cheer to a very large crowd of people. The sponsors of ToyFair decided to have a separate event called PlayFair at the same time as ToyFair, and BrickJournal secured a booth. Now I was committed to finishing the GBC and making it self-sustained, as well as easy to transport and setup.

Committing to PlayFair is a big deal. Let me set the stage: ToyFair and PlayFair took place at the Javits Center in Manhattan. There was over 400,000 square feet of exhibit space, 1200 exhibitors, 5200 retail brands represented, and an anticipated 20,000 people per day going through the PlayFair exhibits. The show also came with typical New York City hustle and bustle. I needed to get my loadout done quickly and had to be prepared for a lot of crazy driving, etc. just to even make it to the show. So, I started designing more pieces to help complete the device, while also designing a way of transporting it. I came up with the idea of building a 2’ x 4’ platform that would act as the pedestal for the contraption, but could also be flipped over and used to transport the whole thing (or at least a lot of it). I ended up with a good second iteration and we had a lot of fun showing it to all the visitors.

(Left) “The Infernal Machine” in action at PlayFair.

(Below) Version 2 of the GBC taken shortly before the show started. There are more photos of The Infernal Machine at the BrickJournal website.

...

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Back to the Drawing Board I would love to tell you that the GBC survived the entire show unscathed, but alas, that would be just a little bit inaccurate. The contraption ran for 10-12 minutes at a time, starting every 30 minutes of the event, right up until the last hour of the last day. At that point, the contraption said, “I’ve had enough!” and stopped running. As I disassembled the towers, I noticed a lot of fine powder on the sides and in the gearing below. After looking at it, I finally realized that the towers had been slowly sanding themselves down from rubbing against each other.

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense, but when I was testing the system and running it, I never saw any sign of binding or friction. When I got back home and decided to rework the device, I thought about a few different ways to try to lessen the friction, and to make the entire drivetrain more robust. I finally decided to add a couple of short Technic beams to the sides of the towers so that they would not be touching each other. It would create a 1-stud gap between each tower, but since the soccer balls are just under 2 studs wide, the towers would still work. However, I would have to rework the cage and the drive-train to account for the new spacing of the towers.

That led to a major rebuild of the entire system, which led to more ideas of contraptions to add to the machine. The biggest idea struck me in the summer of 2016. I thought about building a ferris wheel. I figured I could have small cars that the soccer balls would fall into at the bottom and then dump out at the top. I ended up building a wheel as a standalone item (just to see if I could do it) and then decided to see if I could attach it right to the side of the cage around the main towers. I also decided I wanted to play with “roller coaster” track. I had seen this done on a GBC on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sUtS52lqL5w) and wanted to give it a whirl.

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(Upper Left) The sign I had on the GBC at PlayFair showing its untimely demise.

(Upper Right) A close-up showing the wear on one of the towers from constant running. Inset shows the new design with the beams added to the sides of the tower.

(Bottom) Early prototypes of the tight spiral coaster and loop coaster.

(Opposite, Top to Bottom) Close-up views of coaster track built into the tower cage, First Prototype of the Ferris Wheel, Final Roller Coaster Assembly.

During the rebuild, I also wanted to try different drive-train configurations. I went through at least four prototypes, before ending up going back to the original design, but with different gears (I used a 60 tooth turntable for the main gear instead of the 40 tooth gear seen in the photo at the bottom of the page).

Right: This photo is very blurry, but it is the only picture I can find of the carnage from Teddy’s twist to the front door.

Left: One prototype motor cage used four motors to drive the three swing arms. I wanted to use this, but since the inside motors were driving two swing arms each, the entire system became inter-connected. This made the system more likely to suffer crippling outages.

...

The Drive-train’s Mechanical Concept

Above: A diagram showing the swing arm motion. The two pivot points are the only stationary locations.

Left: A view of the original motor cage that powered the GBC through PlayFair. As part of the redesign, I have changed the gears to use Technic Turntables since they have less friction and larger teeth.

Right: A view of the swing arms inside the main base for the towers.

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Version 3, or is it Version 28?

By the beginning of 2017, I had successfully attached the ferris wheel and was busy adding roller coaster track. I went through several iterations of that work until I finally settled on a setup with two tracks: One with a full vertical loop, and the other with lots of back-and-forth after spinning around a series of tight circles. I felt like I was making really good progress.

Now that I had these major components, I needed to figure out how to have them interconnected. I wanted to use flex tubing like I had in the second version, but I wanted it to be inside the cage, so I started playing with how to run flex-tube through 6x6 braces made from LEGO scaffolding pieces. This led to a reworking of the cage, which led to a rebuild of the foundation, which led to a rework of the entire system again (do you see a pattern here?). By this point my wife was starting to worry about the amount of time I was spending on the project.

Every time I seemed close, I would essentially start over and build something that looked almost identical, but had just a slight variation. In my defense, each rebuild had a purpose. The system is much more modular now, and the towers themselves are built in sections such that I can add a third level to the towers without making any change to the system, although then the balls will fall quite a way to get to the bin that catches them when they come out of the towers. Also, the colors are more aesthetic. When I started this beast, I was more concerned with prototyping, so I often had a mish-mash of colors. For this build, I tried to be more consistent with the coloring.

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...

The Ferris Wheel Mechanism and Software

.

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The path of the soccer balls through the contraption. The sections are marked with alternating Blue, Red and Green lines. One section (11) spans both pictures.

Front View 6

1 - [Front] Main Conveyor Belt 2 - [Rear} Slide 3 - [Rear} Main Towers 4 - [Rear} Small Track 5 - [Rear} Scorpion Conveyor Belt

11

6 - [Front] 32L Axle track

6

7 - [Front] Vertical Loop Coaster 8 - [Front] Horizontal Ladder 9 - [Front] Mindstorms Ball Drop

11

10 - [Rear} Ferris Wheel 11 - [Front/Rear] Cage Coaster 12 - [Front] Tight Loop Coaster 13 - (Below) Main Coaster

6

12

13

1 6

9 8 7

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.

...

Rear View 3

5

3

4

11 3

10

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Transporting the GBC By the time I was designing the ferris wheel, I started working through a framework for transport. I had already made the GBC modular (the towers came out, the big conveyor belt was completely independent, the main cage separated into parts, and I had built the roller coaster platform as a stand-alone module), but I had not really gotten the crating finalized. I decided to work out a crate for the ferris wheel which would allow me to store all of their components inside the outer wheel. In order to secure things, I chose to glue a few elements directly to the crate and use them as mount points for the various components.

I used a Liquid Nails adhesive called “Fuze-It.” I started out with the empty crate, then set the outer wheel inside the crate, using a pencil, square, compass, and tape measure to ensure that the wheel was “true” when stored (Wheel Truing is the act of adjusting a bicycle wheel so that it is round and even along the axle so that it rolls perfectly straight). This extra effort is necessary since the ferris wheel does not automatically lay true when the spokes are disconnected. I want to ensure that the wheel lays true while stored so there will be as little torque as possible on any of the elements.

The first major issue I ran into with the design was discovered the first time I re-assembled the wheel after trying out the crate. In order to store the wheel, I have to remove the tension from the spokes by pulling out several Technic pins from the hub, allowing the hub to “collapse” a little, then I disconnect the two endcaps of the hub (see photo to right). I then disconnect the spokes by removing the sixteen axles holding the spokes to the endcaps. To reassemble, I simply reverse the order. That seems simple enough. However, the endcaps, which have to align with each other, have a couple of ways that they can fit on the main hub. When I tried to connect the second endcap to the hub, I found that I had hooked all of the spokes so that the endcaps did not align with each other, preventing the second one from connecting to the hub. To avoid that problem in the future, I got a couple of medium blue cams and replaced two white ones with these. That way I can ensure they are aligned by connecting spokes from the same section on the wheel to the blue cams.

Right: The empty crate showing all of the pieces glued to the bottom for holding the components.

Opposite Page: The loaded crate. The arrows show where some components clip in or lock in. The inset shows a close-up of one of the spoke holders.

The extra orange bricks and tiles on top make the holder the same height as the lid. This way the holders also act as stanchions for the lid when the crate is closed. The column in the very center of the crate serves the same purpose.

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Photo showing the wheel partially disassembled. Notice the Technic pins sticking out from the center hub. This allows the hub to be removed from the endcaps and releases all tension on the spokes. The medium blue cams (in the upper left rectangle) are used to align the two endcaps when re-assembling the wheel.

...

Above Left: the conveyor belt has two double-beam inserts that slide into receivers on the main cage. The yellow Technic bricks on the side act as stoppers to keep the inserts from sliding in too far.

Above Right: the two receiver units are highlighted on the main cage.

Left: The conveyor belt in place and ready to be used.

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.

Transporting the Main Unit Top: First layer packed in the bottom crate.

Left: Second layer packing platform installed to crate.

Bottom: Second layer of components packed.

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Assembling the Main Unit Left: The main parts of the GBC laid out and ready to be assembled.

...

Below: 1) Drive-train assembled, 2) lower cage added, 3) Towers being added, 4) Upper cage in place, 5) roller coaster in place.

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You Can Build It MINI Model

Kylo Ren’s TIE Fighter from The Last Jedi Design and Instructions

by Christopher Deck Hello everybody! I am glad to join you again for this 50th issue of BrickJournal. These are exciting times! There have been so many new Star Wars movies during the last months and years, with so many interesting vehicles and vessels. I am glad to have a chance to continue keeping up with all these. In the last issue we built the Resistance Bomber together, and thus we will build a ship from the opposite here! The TIE Fighters’ legendary build-up in all its variations goes through the entire Star Wars saga like the iconic dagger-shaped warships of the Empire.

An imperial super villain of course needs his own unique TIE fighter, such as Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced prototype. In the new movie, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren flies his own brand new TIE Silencer which we want to build here.

Although there are dozens of different TIE Fighters, they all have several features in common. In most cases it’s some sort of small cockpit globe with solar panels of variable style around it. That doesn’t mean TIE fighters are boring. There are so many different shape

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combinations—you simply have to build them all! In this case the cockpit globe has a wide red glass which is special. The solar panels are kind of a mixture between TIE bomber for the rear and TIE Interceptor for the front section of them. Although it’s just a tiny model, we need a SNOT inversion technique to attach the rear parts of the solar panels. The relatively new 2x4 triple wedge piece (part number 47759) is actually attached on the main body, and not on the solar panel sub model. It works out pretty nicely, as you will see!

I hope you will add this little model to your growing TIE Fighter fleet. Have fun building and see you next time!

Parts List (Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Color 4

Black

Part

Description

4

Black

4070.dat

Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight

1

Trans-Red

3024.dat

1 2 2 1 2

Black Black

4735.dat

4733.dat 3623.dat

Brick 1 x 1 x 2/3 Round with Bar and Clip Vertical Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on Four Sides Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 3

Dark-Bluish-Gray 3794b.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud Dark-Bluish-Gray 3623.dat

Plate 1 x 3

Black

Slope Brick 45 4 x 2 Double Inverted with Open Centre

Black

61409.dat Slope Brick 18 2 x 1 x 2/3 Grille

2

Trans-Red

54200.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667

2

Trans-Red

3070b.dat Tile 1 x 1 with Groove

2

2 4 4 1 1 2 2 2

Black

4871.dat

6541.dat

Technic Brick 1 x 1 with Hole

Dark-Bluish-Gray 12825.dat Tile 1 x 1 with Clip with Rounded Tips Dark-Bluish-Gray 63864.dat Tile 1 x 3 with Groove

Dark-Bluish-Gray 2412b.dat Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove Dark-Bluish-Gray 15535.dat Tile 2 x 2 Round with Hole Black

47759.dat Wedge 2 x 4 Triple

Black

41769.dat Wing 2 x 4 Right

Black

41770.dat Wing 2 x 4 Left

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11

You can go to Christopher’s webpage by going to www.deckdesigns.de or scanning this QR code!

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FROM 12 THE PRODUCERS OF BRICKJOURNAL:

LEGO fans: You Can Build It!

YOU CAN BUILD IT is a new ongoing series of instruction books on the art of LEGO® custom building, from the producers of BRICKJOURNAL magazine! Spinning off from BrickJournal’s popular “You Can Build It” column, these FULL-COLOR books are loaded with nothing but STEP-BYSTEP INSTRUCTIONS by some of the top custom builders in the LEGO fan community.

BOOK ONE offers instructions for custom creations including Miniland figures, a fire engine, a spacefighter (below), a tulip, a street vignette, plus miniscale models from “a galaxy far, far away,” and more!

BOOK TWO has even more custom projects to tackle, including advanced Miniland figures, a miniscale yellow castle, a deep sea scene, a mini USS Constitution, and more!

So if you’re ready to go beyond the standard LEGO sets available in stores and move into custom building with the bricks you already own, this ongoing series will quickly teach you key building techniques of the pros! (Recommended for ages 8 and above)

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GET ALL THE PARTS FOR THE SPACEFIGHTER SET FROM BOOK ONE FOR ONLY $5.95!

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BRICKJOURNAL columnist JARED K. BURKS’ book MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION: POPULATE YOUR WORLD! shows a wide range of techniques you can use to alter the lovable LEGO® Minifigure. And the sequel, MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION2: WHY LIVE IN THE BOX?, offers even more techniques to alter minifigures!

• Virtual customization, and designing decals • Custom part modification and creation • 3-D printing and painting techniques • Lighting with LEDs or EL wire • Ideas on displays and digital photography • Plus a custom gallery with tips & tricks!

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TwoMorrows—A New Day For LEGO Fans!

TwoMorrows Publishing • 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 • FAX: 919-449-0327 73 E-mail: twomorrow@aol.com • Visit us on the Web at www.twomorrows.com

Disney Wonder Design and Instructions

by Tommy Williamson

About this issue’s model:

If you’ve never taken a Disney cruise, you’re missing out.

It’s got all the fun of cruising with the guest experience you’d expect from Disney, plus that extra Disney magic.

There’s also something called a “fish extender.” You see, there’s a little fish emblem outside every stateroom where you can find documents left for you (dinner reservations, notifications, etc.) and people make little decorative pockets they hang on them. Before you cruise, you opt into a group and exchange gifts with other passengers. For the last couple cruises we’ve taken, my wife and I have given away these as little custom-made sets. Now you can build your own; enjoy!

Tommy’s custom set packaged for a cruise!

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Parts List

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

Qty Part 2 2445.dat 1 3022.dat 1 3069b.dat 3 3176.dat 2 3795.dat 2 6141.dat 1 4282.dat 1 22385.dat 6 25269.dat 2 87580.dat

Color White White White White White White White White White White

1 2 2 1 20 4 3 1

3021.dat 3176.dat 3626b.dat 3832.dat 6141.dat 3001.dat 3176.dat 3747a.dat

Red Red Red Red Yellow Black Black Black

2

98138.dat

Black

Description Plate 2 x 12 Plate 2 x 2 Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Plate 3 x 2 with Hole Plate 2 x 6 Plate 1 x 1 Round Plate 2 x 16 Tile 3 x 2 with Angled End Tile 1 x 1 Corner Round Plate 2 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud Plate 2 x 3 Plate 3 x 2 with Hole Minifig Head with Hollow Stud Plate 2 x 10 Plate 1 x 1 Round Brick 2 x 4 Plate 3 x 2 with Hole Slope Brick 33 3 x 2 Inverted without Ribs between Studs Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove

Tommy Williamson is no stranger to BrickJournal, having been featured previously for his Jack Sparrow miniland scale figure. Since then, he has gone farther into building, making some remarkable Star Trek props and other models. He’s now doing a column for BrickJournal: DIY Fan Art. Here, Tommy takes a little time out from his busy schedule at BrickNerd.com to make a model of his choosing for the magazine.

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If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,

PLEASE READ THIS: This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our website or Apps. If you downloaded it from another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal download, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications enough to download them, please pay for them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be downloaded within our Apps and at

www.twomorrows.com

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All characters TM & © their respective owners.

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Building

City Building on a Micro Scale!

Article by Joe Meno Photography by Jeff Friesen

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Jeff Friesen is a professional photographer who has been building for the past six years. His models are seen on Instagram, and in the past two years, he’s started building micro cities. What’s fascinating about them is the wonderful use of parts and color to make urban environments that are only 20 LEGO studs by 20 LEGO studs—smaller than a standard baseplate!

When asked about what inspired him to build microcities, Jeff answered by e-mail: “My daughter was given the LEGO Architecture Big Ben set and I was intrigued by how such an accurate model could be made with so few bricks. I actually prefer the microscale Big Ben set to LEGO’s much bigger version. LEGO is a modernist medium, and it lends itself well to a stripped-down aesthetic. I also enjoy the puzzle-like engineering problems inherent to microscale, though it is frustrating at times. Someone once said ‘children don’t play because it’s easy, they play because it’s hard.’ That’s exactly how I feel about microscale.”

Here’s a look at his cities, with notes from Jeff as posted on Instagram, and construction comments by Joe Meno.

Upper Brick Side

O

pulent but tiny residential buildings surround the microscale city park.

The parts for much of the opulence are actually minifigure accessories, such as the telescopes that make up the streetposts, the minidragon on the skyscraper roof, and the Ninjago minifigure sai for a tower spire.

On the left is a breakdown of how the sides were done on the dark orange corner building. The long windows are actually 1x2 plates with one stud (jumper plates), built studs pointing inside. You’re actually seeing the bottom patterns of the plates.

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I

first saw the new LEGO curved tiles being used in a font-making contest online. The fonts were fantastic, but I immediately imagined the tiles as elevated highways in a microscale city. This city was built around such a highway, with a traffic plan based more on aesthetics than logic. Maybe that happens in real life as well. The futuristic Art Deco architectural style developed organically to compliment the infrastructure. (I don’t plan these builds in advance.)

Jeff’s use of rounded parts makes this city different from most modern skylines. He also uses some pieces in ways you wouldn’t expect, such as the wheels on the skyscraper roof and on the large fountain at the water’s edge.

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T

his new city is inspired by Zaha Hadid, who designed breathtaking buildings with graceful organic curves and a restrained, often white, color palette. As many of you know, organic curves are not always a great match for geometrically perfect LEGO bricks. I gathered every curved white brick I had in a pile and put them together in somewhat random configurations. Over time the haphazard constructions evolved into what you see here. It was like chicken scratches slowly taking the form of a balanced drawing.

A limited palette of colors turn this cityscape into a futuristic environment.

Curves also emphasize the advanced nature of this city.

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B

elieve it or not, this scene began as an homage to Miami’s Art Deco waterfront. Then, after experimenting with a limited collection of light azure bricks, the building on the right came into form. Its near-future design changed the entire build’s direction. The key problem of a nearfuture theme is resisting the temptation to include a monorail, as there was one in my last MOC. My view of monorails is very much in line with The Simpsons monorail episode (season 4 episode 12). These days, however, monorails are overshadowed by the impending Hyperloop. The LEGO Hyperloop you see here is made with ten minifig life preservers and held up with R2-D2’s legs.

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T

hink of the world’s great cities and you’ll soon have bridges spanning your mind. This LEGO city, which rose from a 20 x 20 LEGO stud base, was designed around the suspension bridge. The bridge is made with uncommon “dark orange” colored bricks. In fact, most of this build’s colors would be unfamiliar to my childhood self. One day I will build a bridge to my LEGO past, which will end in a city made of 2 x 4 bricks in Mondrian primary colors.

The exploded view of the bridge shows how some small parts can come together to model much larger objects.

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T

he city on the left is a remake of an earlier build, now with three times your recommended daily intake of pearl gold bricks. Pearl gold comes in so many useful shapes for microscale building, it’s hard to resist the Midas touch.

The central skyscraper of the minicity is seen in the two photos on this page. You can see how the pearl gold elements add a touch of glitz to the building. The top round cones are Ninjago hats attached by their central stud. The microfigure in the middle of the building is an Oscar trophy from the Collector Minifigure series. You can also find gears being used in other buildings.

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L

imitations encourage creative thinking, which is why these microscale cities have the self-imposed constraint of a 20 x 20 base. This build, however, made me realize I am fooling myself as far as limitations are concerned. A mathematician recently calculated that six 2 x 4 LEGO bricks can be put together in almost 1 billion different combinations. This Habitat 67-inspired city is made of 27 cubes, which presumably have billions of different ways to fit together. It turns out the main limitation here is the human life span.

You can see how the modules are set up and interface in the illustrations above.

Look closely and you’ll notice the main building is held up on a mere five posts.

It’s all linked together and surprisingly sturdy, but when it falls the whole thing goes down. Next time the landscaping will be in place before the buildings are.

You can see these and many more LEGO inspired photography at https://www.instagram.com/jeff_works/ or you can use the QR code here!

You can also go to smallworldsworkshop.com to see more of his work.

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www.brickstuff.com Brickstuff™, QuicKit™, BrickPixels™, Pico LED, and the Lighting Gear logo are trademarks of Enthusiast Enterprises, LLC. Small Lights for Big Ideas is a Registered Trademark. LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse any Brickstuff product or service.

Building

Puzzle City

Building a City for Your Desktop!

Article by Joe Meno Photography by Mitsuru Nikaido

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Microcities are not easy to build. As seen in the microcities

by Jeff Friesen, they can be beautiful, but they take time to figure out colors and shaping. What if there was a way to quickly build a microcity that would be at home at an office? Or be able to make different city configurations quickly and easily? Or be able to make an easy-to-follow standard for city building?

Mitsuru Nikaido created a Puzzle City that solves many of those problems by making a base for different parts to fit in. The parts are buildings and other parts of a city, such as

bridges and rivers and factories. These modules are set to a 4 x 4 footprint and a 2 x 4 footprint, and they all fit into the base to make a layout. The parts can be rearranged and even redesigned to make new designs.

Here are all the instructions and parts lists to make this set.

From these modules and the base, you can customize you own Puzzle City! Have fun building!

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City Base Here are the parts to make the base for the city. You can expand the city by making it wider or longer. It’s best to expand in 2-stud increments.

The base has raised edges to keep the city modules in place. This can also let you label your city on the side or top edge.

Finally, you can use other colors for the base. Look through the instructions first and you’ll be able to see what you can switch out.

Parts List

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

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Qty Part 4 4162.dat 16 87079.dat 4 2431.dat 2 3008.dat 2 3009.dat 4 3010.dat 1 3031.dat 3 3032.dat 2 3069b.dat 8 3958.dat 4 6636.dat 8 24246.dat

Color Dark Bluish Grey Dark Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey

4

Light Bluish Grey

87620.dat

Description Tile 1 x 8 Tile 2 x 4 with Groove Tile 1 x 4 with Groove Brick 1 x 8 Brick 1 x 6 Brick 1 x 4 Plate 4 x 4 Plate 4 x 6 Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Plate 6 x 6 Tile 1 x 6 Tile 1 x 1 with Rounded End Brick 2 x 2 Facet

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River Bridge Here’s a module that adds a bridge and water for a river or pond. It uses the larger module footprint and can be rotated.

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Parts List

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

Qty Part 2 3633.dat 4 3069b.dat 1 3031.dat

Color Description Dark Bluish Grey Fence Lattice 1 x 4 x 1 Trans Medium Blue Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Blue Plate 4 x 4

Tower All cities have a tall landmark, so this one has a tower.

Using the 4 x 4 base, you can make a tower that can easily be placed and rotated.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 1 3023.dat 1 4095.dat 2 4740.dat 1 6141.dat 1 30374.dat 2 6141.dat 2 3023.dat 1 3031.dat 1 3942c.dat

Color Trans Clear White White White White Red Dark Bluish Grey Dark Bluish Grey Dark Bluish Grey

1 2

43898.dat Dark Bluish Grey 54200.dat Sand Green

4

2780.dat

Black

Description Plate 1 x 2 Bar 6.6L with Stop Dish 2 x 2 Inverted Plate 1 x 1 Round Bar 4L Light Sabre Blade Plate 1 x 1 Round Plate 1 x 2 Plate 4 x 4 Cone 2 x 2 x 2 with Hollow Stud Open Dish 3 x 3 Inverted Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Technic Pin with Friction and Slots

Qty Part Color 1 2431.dat Light Bluish Grey 1 3022.dat Light Bluish Grey 1 3023.dat Light Bluish Grey 3 3069b.dat Light Bluish Grey 1 4274.dat Light Bluish Grey 2 4740.dat Light Bluish Grey 1 32123b.dat Light Bluish Grey 1 5

59900.dat 62462.dat

1

85861.dat

2

43898.dat

Description Tile 1 x 4 with Groove Plate 2 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Technic Pin 1/2 Dish 2 x 2 Inverted Technic Bush 1/2 Smooth with Axle Hole Semi-Reduced Light Bluish Grey Cone 1 x 1 with Stop Light Bluish Grey Technic Pin Joiner Round with Slot Light Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 1 Round with Open Stud Metallic Silver Dish 3 x 3 Inverted

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Treespace Here’s a small module that is made up of a treeline and a road. This can be easily slipped into place on a layout.

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Parts List

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

Qty Part 4 6141.dat 2 3070b.dat 1 3020.dat 2 59900.dat 1 2431.dat

Color Reddish Brown Tan Dark Bluish Grey Green Light Bluish Grey

Description Plate 1 x 1 Round Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Plate 2 x 4 Cone 1 x 1 with Stop Tile 1 x 4 with Groove

Skyscraper 1 Every city has a skyscraper or two, and this city is no different. This building uses the larger plate.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 1 3004.dat 22 3023.dat 2 6141.dat 2 2877.dat 1 3021.dat 11 3022.dat 2 6091.dat 4

Color Trans Clear Trans Clear Trans Clear White White White White

24246.dat White

Description Brick 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 1 Round Brick 1 x 2 with Grille Plate 2 x 3 Plate 2 x 2 Brick 2 x 1 x 1 & 1/3 with Curved Top Tile 1 x 1 with Rounded End

Qty Part Color 2 85080.dat White 1 1 1 1 1 1

59900.dat 3070b.dat 3031.dat 3069b.dat 63864.dat 3062b.dat

2 2

6141.dat 92946.dat

Description Brick 2 x 2 Corner Round w Notch and Reinforced Underside Reddish Brown Cone 1 x 1 with Stop Tan Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Dark Bluish Grey Plate 4 x 4 Dark Bluish Grey Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Dark Bluish Grey Tile 1 x 3 with Groove Green Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud Trans Medium Blue Plate 1 x 1 Round Sand Blue Slope Plate 45 2 x 1

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Wedge Skyscraper This skyscraper is a wedge and is also thin, taking up only a small footprint.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 1 3004.dat 17 3023.dat 1 54200.dat

Color Trans Clear Trans Clear Trans Clear

2 1 1

Reddish Brown Tan Dark Bluish Grey

6141.dat 3070b.dat 3020.dat

Description Brick 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Plate 1 x 1 Round Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Plate 2 x 4

Qty Part 1 61409.dat

Color Dark Bluish Grey

1 1

59900.dat 32028.dat

Green Light Bluish Grey

9 1

43722.dat 87620.dat

Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey

Description Slope Brick 18 2 x 1 x 0.667 Grille Cone 1 x 1 with Stop Plate 1 x 2 with Door Rail Wing 2 x 3 Right Brick 2 x 2 Facet

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Skyscraper 2 This skyscraper is on a large footprint.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 1 3004.dat 18 3023.dat 2 2877.dat 1 3004.dat 5 3020.dat 2 3022.dat 3 3023.dat 2 15573.dat

Color Trans Clear Trans Clear White White White White White White

2

White

15672.dat

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Description Brick 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Brick 1 x 2 with Grille Brick 1 x 2 Plate 2 x 4 Plate 2 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud Slope Plate 45 2 x 1

Qty Part 1 24246.dat 1

24246.dat

2

3062b.dat

1 1 1 2 1

3069b.dat 3031.dat 3068b.dat 59900.dat 2412b.dat

Color White

Description Tile 1 x 1 with Rounded End Trans Red Tile 1 x 1 with Rounded End Reddish Brown Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud Dark Orange Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Dark Bluish Grey Plate 4 x 4 Dark Bluish Grey Tile 2 x 2 with Groove Green Cone 1 x 1 with Stop Light Bluish Grey Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove

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House on a Hill This is a good example of building terrain on a module.

See if you can build a park.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 1 3069b.dat 2 4070.dat

Color White White

2

54200.dat

Red

1 1 3

6141.dat 3070b.dat 6141.dat

Reddish Brown Tan Lime

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Description Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Plate 1 x 1 Round Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Plate 1 x 1 Round

Qty Part 2 3031.dat 2 3005.dat 2 3020.dat 2 3022.dat 2 3023.dat 6 3040b.dat 6 54200.dat

Color Dark Bluish Grey Green Green Green Green Green Green

Description Plate 4 x 4 Brick 1 x 1 Plate 2 x 4 Plate 2 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Slope Brick 45 2 x 1 Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667

Beach Cities can have coastlines or beaches. Here’s a way to build a shoreline on a large module.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 1 3069b.dat 1 3070b.dat 1 6141.dat 1 3023.dat 1 3024.dat

Color Trans Clear Trans Clear Reddish Brown Tan Tan

Description Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Plate 1 x 1 Round Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 1

Qty Part 1 3070b.dat 3 54200.dat 1 2 1

4589.dat 2431.dat 3031.dat

Color Tan Tan

Description Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Green Cone 1 x 1 Trans Medium Blue Tile 1 x 4 with Groove Blue Plate 4 x 4

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House Here’s a house that fits on a small module.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 1 3022.dat 2 4070.dat

Color White White

2

6231.dat

White

1

54200.dat

Red

1

85984.dat

Red

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Description Plate 2 x 2 Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight Panel 1 x 1 x 1 Corner with Rounded Corners Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667

Qty Part 2 3062b.dat

Color Reddish Brown

1 1

3020.dat 3062b.dat

Dark Bluish Grey Dark Bluish Grey

1 2

3020.dat 59900.dat

Green Green

Description Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud Plate 2 x 4 Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud Plate 2 x 4 Cone 1 x 1 with Stop

Small Shop A small module can be made into a shop space, like a convenience shop.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 6 3023.dat 3 3023.dat 1 3069b.dat 2 15712.dat

Color Trans Clear White White White

2

54200.dat

White

2

98283.dat

Dark Nougat

1

3020.dat

Plate 2 x 4

Description Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Tile 1 x 1 with Clip (Thick C-Clip) Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Brick 1 x 2 with Embossed Bricks Dark Bluish Grey

Qty Part 1 3020.dat 1 4697b.dat

Color Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey

1

85861.dat

Light Bluish Grey

2

2412b.dat

Dark Red

1 2

3022.dat 3023.dat

Dark Red Dark Red

Description Plate 2 x 4 Technic Pneumatic TPiece - Type 2 Plate 1 x 1 Round with Open Stud Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove Plate 2 x 2 Plate 1 x 2

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City Hall Every city needs a City Hall, and this one uses the nanofigure from the New York Architecture set perfectly!

Parts List

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

Qty Part 2 3010.dat 2 3020.dat 3 3024.dat 4 3070b.dat 13 6141.dat 1 15332.dat

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Color Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan Tan

Description Brick 1 x 4 Plate 2 x 4 Plate 1 x 1 Tile 1 x 1 with Groove Plate 1 x 1 Round Fence Spindled 1 x 4 x 2 with 4 Studs

Qty Part 1 87580.dat

Color Tan

1 8

3031.dat 54200.dat

Dark Bluish Grey Dark Bluish Grey

1

90398.dat

Sand Green

Description Plate 2 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud Plate 4 x 4 Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Minifig Statuette

Factory Cities have industrial zones, so factories can be built into Puzzle City. This one fits a large module.

Parts List

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

Qty Part 4 6254.dat

Color White

4 1 2 2

3023.dat 3031.dat 3069b.dat 4070.dat

Trans Black Dark Bluish Grey Dark Bluish Grey Dark Bluish Grey

2

54200.dat

Dark Bluish Grey

2

85984.dat

Dark Bluish Grey

2 1

92946.dat 2877.dat

Dark Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey

Description Minifig Food Ice Cream Scoops Plate 1 x 2 Plate 4 x 4 Tile 1 x 2 with Groove Brick 1 x 1 with Headlight Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 Slope Plate 45 2 x 1 Brick 1 x 2 with Grille

Qty Part 1 3004.dat 2 4274.dat 2 61184.dat

Color Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey Light Bluish Grey

2

62462.dat

Light Bluish Grey

2

98283.dat

Light Bluish Grey

1 4

3020.dat 3062b.dat

Dark Red Dark Red

2

98138.dat

Dark Red

Description Brick 1 x 2 Technic Pin 1/2 Technic Pin 1/2 with Bar 2L Technic Pin Joiner Round with Slot Brick 1 x 2 with Embossed Bricks Plate 2 x 4 Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove

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City Planning These modules all fit into the base as shown. You can arrange them in whatever way you want to make your own city. This is only the beginning, though.

You can make the city larger or build new modules. What about making new skyscrapers? Or a stadium? Or a heliport? There are no limits to your city, so start planning!

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SHOW YOU ARE

A TRUE CRAFTSMAN when you create the new LEGO® Ideas 21313 “Ship in a Bottle”

Launching February 1st 2018! ideas.lego.com ©2018 The LEGO Group.The image include LEGO elements that are not part of the official #21313 set

Toy Photographers/Luigi Priori

Building

Minifigure Customization 101

A Review Article and Photography

by Jared K. Burks

BrickJournal is 50 (print) issues old (the initial digital issues make it even older)! I cannot begin to express how amazed, thankful, and privileged I have been to be included on the journey BrickJournal has taken, and to have been involved since the fourth digital issue, and in every print issue. The groundbreaking AFOL magazine has had highs, lows, and struggles, but I have enjoyed every moment, every article, and every experience to share the hobby I love with the readers. Honestly, when this started, I assumed I could write three or four articles.

I never thought I would write 50+ articles on this hobby I have so enjoyed, or that anyone would spend the time to read them. Thank you for reading; I hope you all have enjoyed the articles as much as I have creating them.

Very shortly thereafter, people were labeled as “purist” or “customizers.” Purist would only utilize products created

by LEGO and use only them in their builds. As the hobby evolved and the secondary manufacturing market started creating accessories and custom figures, it became harder for the “purist” to stay pure. The funny thing is the line got so blurred that people would cut up LEGO packaging and use it in their builds to stay “true” to LEGO to make the claim that they were still “purist.” Ultimately, the custom world has fully perfused the AFOL world, and rarely can you attend a LEGO event without spotting many custom elements, figures, etc.

My world view is LEGO exhibits a style, I wanted to stay true to the style, but I wanted to create items LEGO had not.

The more figures I created, the more redundant questions I received. This led to creating websites like MCN (minifigure customization network) and ultimately these articles. My first article started by explaining how to create and apply a custom water slide decal. At the time, I had to explain the difference between raster and vector imaging and software, how to “Brasso” a figure to remove printing, and ultimately how to protect your custom figures.

Today’s article is going to cover just how far we have come and what I believe the future holds for the hobby of Minifigure Customization.

The hobby and these articles started before the “Maker” movement, well before it had hit mainstream society. So the concept of making something of your own was new.

People needed to know how to create a template; what line weights to use in designs; there was a ton of curiosity, but little experimentation. People needed permission to alter the LEGO figure and LEGO elements; to know that it was acceptable to cut up LEGO, paint LEGO, sculpt, mold, and cast accessory pieces to LEGO. Given the initial “purist” concept, it took a while for these permissions to come out; luckily it didn’t stop us from creating.

In the beginning of this hobby, it was difficult to get AFOLs to consider custom figures as part of the world of LEGO, let alone to consider adding them to their 112 builds. Custom figures were viewed as inferior.

Articles have evolved and strayed into new areas as new technologies present themselves. This includes digital macro photography, LED lighting, pressure casting, 3-D printing, wax sculpting, and many more. We know

Joe, I appreciate your efforts more than I have and can express, thank you! John, thanks for believing in Joe’s vision and giving him a platform to create it. Thank you for both the opportunities in BrickJournal and the separate Minifigure Customization books that were born out of BrickJournal. Congrats to the two of you on hitting 50 today!

about vinyl dye, and resin parts, PLA, EL wire, and lasers. It has been an amazing time for the hobby workshop as these various technologies have developed with the Maker Movement, making them more affordable and approachable to individuals. Technologies that would have been prohibitively expensive are now entering our lives, and we are creating amazing things with them.

I am happy to say that the initial need for permission has changed. People are creating some amazing pieces; some have turned that into businesses, completely changing their career trajectories, all for the love of LEGO. We now have companies like BrickArms, BrickForge, Brick Warriors, etc. that are producing accessories for LEGO. You can find their products online and in brick and mortar stores, generally on the aisle adjacent to the LEGO aisle. These mass-produced items have bolstered the community with new material such that people even customize these secondary market items. We also have more than a dozen groups at this point that create pad printed custom figures in the same manner as LEGO. This has led to an interesting turn of events as several Chinese factories have started creating LEGO figure knock-offs that have started to flood the market. These figures have been growing in quality and dropping in price. I am sure they have been a massive frustration for LEGO as they are not paying the license fees, and in some cases directly copying LEGO minifigures. However, the market is demanding greater and more varied custom figures; this demand will always lead to someone addressing that need.

I have created many items I have been proud of over the years—some featured in BrickJournal and some not.

To name a few, the EL wire-containing TRON lightcycle (stolen at an event, broke the wire and all), the Captain America WWII motorcycle with saddlebags (stolen at an event), Ant-Man riding on a LEGO Ant (smallest thing I have ever decaled), the Advertising Characters, and then there are the many figures I have made for charity. After all, it is a group of charity figures that got me started writing BrickJournal articles. These figures were for Katrina relief. The one figure that stands out in my mind was for the Marine cancer patient. That kid—he was 18 years old, but still seemed so young. He came to life when my local LUG had an event for him and I gave him the Marine in dress uniform I had made. These moments stick with me over the years and demonstrate the power of my hobby, to bring joy to others.

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One of the articles I am most thankful for having written was the one on Clay sculpting. This helped me hone my sculpting skills as I created a headpiece for Queen Amidala. The Queen’s headpiece was perfect to demonstrate how to create a custom-sculpted part by layering on detail and curing the clay as you go. Clearly LEGO liked the design as a few years down the road LEGO made the same part.

Dying LEGO parts has become critical to creating some of the custom characters over the years. This has included using vinyl and fabric dyes. Vinyl is definitely easier, but opaque; fabric can still result in transparent parts, such as the purple lightsaber used for Mace Windu in the Katrina Charity Auction. Without this option we would have to rely on LEGO to make every part we need, and in the case of Clutch Powers, didn’t come till well after that film was released—and they re-used his hair design for Anakin (and even then not for years later). An easy-to-find can of Vinyl dye fixed that, and Clutch existed as a figure!

Some of my favorite projects include the Clown Commandos. I met the creators of this odd little iPhone comic at a convention and was immediately drawn to their characters, as I knew they would translate to LEGO. For one article I created eight custom figures and two vehicles.

This started with custom clown noses and shoes.

Then I had to convinced Will at BrickArms to send me a special cast of transparent weapons for the evil Mime Syndicate. This was merely the tip of

the iceberg; to create these figures I need decal design, hair sculpting, modification of parts for helmets, water guns, seltzer cigars, BrickArms grenades (Happy Bombs), BrickForge pocket parts, Crazy Bricks top hat, and finally a unicycle! All in all, I had sculpted two hairpieces, one hat, and shoes that I rubber-molded and pressure-cast.

These are some of my most favorite figures I have created.

The authors thought so too, as they kindly explained their comic and sent me tons of reference materials.

A similar herculean project has been the Agents of SHIELD. My interest in the show and the creation of the figures caught the attention of the head costume designer for the show, who started following me on Twitter. This allowed me a unique opportunity to “interview” her for my BrickJournal article where I explained how I created the figures for the show based on her designs. These figures fall back on a good translation of the characters outfits in LEGO form—what sets them apart and makes them unique. Special items aren’t needed, but humor was injected throughout the designs especially as some “Goodies” turned out to be “Baddies” and I minored their designs to make them look like flip-sides of the coins. The “Baddies” are always more fun to create, and sometimes they turn out to be “Goodies” in the end.

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On occasion projects fall into your lap that consume your brain. My Ready Player One project was just one of those projects. The whole project was to create the characters from the book, soon to be a movie, Ready Player One, for an event in Austin where the author of the book lives, to encourage him to attend. The figures were primarily created with all official LEGO parts, no custom sculpts. It required a depth of knowledge of the book to get all the tiny details correct. Of course the arcade cabinets were required, which were designed by Glen Wadleigh with some tips/suggestions from me, including lighting up their screens with an LED. I can’t wait to see this film!

Dum Dum Dugan is one of my favorite figures and it is simply because of how he translated into LEGO. The bowler hat and mustache makes this figure. When I saw the mustache part, I knew I wanted to create this figure.

I simply needed to paint it orange. Then it came time to create the design and I was happily surprised by being able to use the LEGO Mime arm stripe for his sweater.

It was perfect and allowed this figure to fit into the LEGO-verse more uniformly. I had to give the character a BrickArms rifle as he was a WWII character from the days of Peggy Carter and Captain America.

The next character is just one of those larks. I had created a custom Deadpool for my Brother-in-Law for Christmas and because of this, I had already made Deadpool’s stocking cap addition. Knowing this and seeing Gwenpool, I needed to create this character. Gwen is an alternative universe character where Gwen Stacy is Deadpool. So I was off to create a custom motorcycle as shown on the cover of her comic. From there I had to add LEGO versions of all the items in the background to complete the effect. I missed a couple of them, but you have to look very closely to find them all.

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Finally and most personally are the figures I have made for my children. I have made several, but the two that stand out are the first one and the most recent one. I made Tinker Bell some years ago for my oldest daughter. She features custom wings, hairpiece, puffs on the toes and a unique paint job. She is also the only LEGO Friends figure that I have modified to date. I have recently received a new piece of technology and want to revisit her wings to see what else I can do to make her even better, so be on the lookout for a future article here. The other figure I will share here is the more recent conversion of the Clock Figure to Captain America for my son. As this is a very recent figure I will not go into many details, but the creation of the shield for this project has been of specific interest for me.

While I have been busy creating thousands of custom figures, I find it a bit comical to reflect back on the start of this series with hurricane relief figures, and I now find myself a victim of hurricane devastation. My family and I are still reassembling post-hurricane, but all is well. I find that this article, a reflection on the series, has helped jar my memory and I find myself reinvigorated. I hope I have also inspired you the reader, as I believe we are in a stagnant stage of minifigure customization, as many are again waiting for someone else to create the figure that they want. Everyone is seeking perfection, especially with the Chinese companies producing so much so inexpensively; I think many are happy to wait. The point of a custom figure is not the final product; it is the journey of creation. Holding up the final product and saying “I made this,” it is the sense of accomplishment! I have used the skill set I have developed to help with the cancer research I perform during the day, to fix things around the house, to create unique gifts for friends and countless other projects. It is that drive to jump off into the unknown and solve the problem of “how do I do this.” You can be afraid and make mistakes, but know that there are ways to recover; the key is to learn, educate yourself on how things work. I spend a ton of my time simply reading or tracking down items that have little to no business in minifigure customization, and then figuring out how to make them

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work in minifigure customization. I still want to use the EL paint to create a TRON Legacy figure that has the appropriate area with actual on-figure lighting, but the paint and training to apply it is simply prohibitively expensive. This is what I typically find limits my imagination, and on occasion I still do some projects that are just crazy, like having some 3-D printed parts created that cost $70+ for a hairpiece, shield and sword, seen at the right.

It was not because that was the best figure I have ever made; it was because I wanted to learn the process and see what the results looked like.

My desire to create items LEGO had not, forced me out of the box and into a customized world. I capitalized on my training as a scientist to identify and refine my craft of customizing figures. Many others have followed; customizing is an insanely popular path and continues to evolve. Don’t wait on others, and even if your initial creation isn’t pretty or perfect, it is a journey. No one is perfect on his or her first pass. My first sculpted minifigure head looked very rough.

I thought I had to perfect it in an hour, a day; I didn’t give myself permission to create the same thing four or five times until I chatted with someone who had been sculpting a while. Each time I created it, I found it got better, as did my skill. I encourage you to create; creative outlets allow my mind to process. I commonly find solutions to many problems when I am sanding, painting, sculpting, etc. My hands are working, but my mind has the all-too-rare quiet it needs to breathe. Just know as you quiet your mind and improve your skills, “It’s a Trap!”

Come back next issue for more Minifigure Customization!

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

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

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Making Small Lights for Big Ideas in Minnesota!

Article and Photos

by Rob Klingberg

Rob Klingberg at his office.

Lighting up Big Ben!

“Wait, is this really a thing?”

It’s a question I always get asked when people come to interview for a job with my company. Our office is full of LEGO models in various stages of assembly (or disassembly!), and tiny lights and wires cover every flat surface. It probably does look a bit like a mad scientist’s lab, so I can see why people would ask if lighting LEGO models is really “a thing.”

As most people reading this publication know, lighting LEGO models (both off-the-shelf kits and MOCs) is very much a thing. When I began attending LEGO conventions almost a decade ago, it was rare to find lighting installed inside models. When you did find it, lighting was often limited to using strings of Christmas lights or little flickering LED (light-emitting diodes) tea light candles. Since that time, each convention seems to have more illuminated models, and it has also been amazing to see the increase in sophistication of the lighting itself. Today, convention attendees are less likely to see Christmas lights or tea light candles, and more likely to see DIY solutions or professional lighting manufactured by companies like mine.

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Since 2011, Brickstuff has been making micro lighting products designed from the ground up for LEGO fans to use without needing to know anything about

Lighting a Falcon With the arrival of the Ultimate Collector’s Series Millennium Falcon, Rob and his team created a light set that replicates the light and sound effects of the iconic movie spaceship.

Interior and exterior lighting is duplicated using LEDs. Effects, such as the hyperlight drive and laser cannons firing, can also be activated with a remote control.

Also, the main hatchway lights when the gangway is opened. There are three variants of the electronic sets: the core light and sound set ($219.99), the interior light set ($182.99), and the combined Premium All-in-One set ($375.99 - $410.99).

Exterior lighting.

The hyperdrive system, with rotating lights.

The lit gangway.

Some of the lighting that can be seen on the Millennium Falcon.

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A panorama of the Celebricktion layout.

Celebricktion Skyline Harry and Austin Nijenkamp took over a year to produce this cityscape, and Brickstuff provided the lighting for the entire layout. Lighting included streetlights, building interiors and a LED strip on one of the skyscrapers that changed colors and ran light up and down the building.

Over 1000 lights were installed, making it the largest illuminated LEGO display in the world. electronics. While there have always been alternate solutions (strings of tiny lights from Home Depot or Target are just two examples), we’ve worked to develop solutions that expand lighting functionality beyond products that are available off the shelf. We have always tried to innovate with lighting effects, and in late 2017, we introduced our first kit with sound. In 2018, we will move into adding motion and universal control. We see truly limitless possibilities to create products fans can use to bring their creations to life.

I started Brickstuff in the tiny basement of my house in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2010, my kids began building the LEGO Modular Buildings, and I thought there should be light inside all those transparent elements built to look like real-world lights. Unsatisfied with the commercial options that were then available, I decided to try making

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One of the skyscrapers at Celebricktion.

my own. I am an English major by training, not an engineer, but I have always been a tinkerer and taught myself to program computers when I was 11, so how hard could this be? Turns out it is really hard, but I was lucky to make connections with smart people around the world who helped me set up a global network of engineering and manufacturing resources that enabled us to start selling an amazing and unique product.

Most importantly, I was also blessed with a wife who continued supporting her husband as money continued flying out the front door, and strange boxes full of electronic parts began appearing on our front porch.

Since 2011, I have left my job in the software industry to be the Chief Enthusiast at Brickstuff full-time. Brickstuff HQ has also moved into a real office, and we now have four people on staff to assemble the products fans in over 50 countries use in their LEGO creations. Every day when I come into the office, I am proud to be creating jobs in the U.S. and also proud that our products are assembled in the USA by people I know and love working with.

There is a saying in the manufacturing industry that you know you’re onto something when people start copying you, so by that standard, we must really be on to

Cinderella Castle The Disney LEGO set glows with a Brickstuff lighting set, like its namesake in Florida.

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Ghostbusters HQ and Trucks Lighting adds another level of realism to the interior of this set and the trucks below, which are designed

by Ingmar Spijkhoven, who sells the kits on his website (https://www.ingmarspijkhoven.com).

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something big. The number of people selling cheap knockoff lighting kits for LEGO models online has skyrocketed in recent years, so we have shifted to focus more on showing fans how our lights stand out from these low-cost solutions. One of our former international resellers even made unauthorized copies of our designs and continues to sell them. You definitely get what you pay for, and we often hear from customers who started with a knockoff product they thought was of the same

quality as ours, but which broke days after installing. If you know someone who has purchased a cheap knockoff lighting kit, ask them to show you the back of their installation, and you’re likely to see huge wires, multiple hubs with a spaghetti mix of USB cables, LEDs that are much too bright to look realistic, and other less-thandesirable compromises. It is common to find knockoff products that look great in online photos but do not accurately represent the actual experience of using the product. Unlike the knockoff vendors, we want the actual experience of using our products to be better than it looked online or at a convention when you bought them.

Without a doubt, the best part of my job is seeing the incredible things our customers do with our products.

It never fails to amaze me when I see a photo or video from a customer showing the new and innovative way they have used our lights. As AFOLs continue to push the notions of what is possible to create using LEGO bricks, we want to be right there with them offering products that take their builds to new heights.

Everyone wants to have their MOC be the stand-out favorite at a convention or on Instagram, right? I am so proud that Brickstuff products have been used by more award-winning builders and LEGO Certified Professionals than any other brand.

I always want Brickstuff to be associated with innovation. If we are not pushing the envelope with innovations like wireless power, automatic train signals, or connectors that allow sections of Modular Buildings to be removed and re-connected without wires, then we’re not doing our job. We have come a long way since 2011, but we are truly just getting started.

Candelabras wired for the Disney Cinderella Castle set.

A new innovation is linking the wires between floors on modular buildings in a simple, easy-to-use form. Using conductive tape on the top edge of a floor and contacts on the floor above it, power is transmitted above to LEDs. A lighting set can bring a creation to life!

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Community

Sourcing Your Inspiration:

How to Find New Ideas in MOCing!

Article by Dave Foreman Photos by Dave Foreman and Anthony Wilson Parts photos from Bricklink.com “MOC Block.” Oooh, what a nasty phrase.

It’s almost as bad as “I stepped on a LEGO” and “unsorted brick.” No one likes having the desire to build and create using this amazing medium we work in, then coming up short on ideas or inspiration. In this article I’m going to explore a few different ways to extract the inspiration to build MOCs from possibly an unlikely source.

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I consider myself a jack of all trades when it comes to the world of Constraction MOCing. I’ve built big MOCs, small MOCs, your typical Bionicle figures, vehicles, Rahi (the canon term for creatures or animals in Bionicle’s lore), dabbled in still-life and even architecture to small degrees for personal amusement. But the one thing I would say I seem to have in leaps and bounds over my counterparts is the ability to constantly be inspired to build new and different things. One of the most consistent praises I’ve heard from some of my most respected peers is that I have a wide variety of MOCs in my Flickr feed, and it’s often hard to predict what my next MOC will be because they can be so wildly different. I consider that a plus. While the motivation to build isn’t always there and the vibes of putting the parts together don’t always jive just the way I want them to, I’ve always got an idea of something I can build. In fact, I have so many ideas, it’s morphed into a slight negative of having a mental laundry list of MOCs to make. That in turn makes it feel like there’s something that has to get done. The upside is that, if I find myself in a creative rut, I just pull an idea off my mental list and have at it. My most recent example of this is Panopticon, a large six-legged “Noodle-limb Mech” driven by a nasty little goblin. This is a MOC that I had simmering in my brain as a concept for years before I actually sat down and built it.

More on this MOC later.

Ideas can come from a lot of different places. To explore this further, I sat down with Australian builder Anthony Wilson (The Secret Walrus, which is also his Flickr name) to find out where he gets his ideas.

Dave Foreman: For starters, why don’t you introduce yourselves to our readers.

Anthony Wilson: I’m predominantly a Bionicle MOCist although I build quite a lot of System as well. I’ve built from a pretty young age but I only started putting my MOCs online around 2013, where I mostly did some (usually pretty bad) castle and fantasy builds. I started making more Bionicle MOCs around late 2014 when Bionicle was coming back, and that’s mostly what I’ve been doing ever since.

What about Bionicle made you switch from being a System MOCer to working with both?

I was a pretty big Bionicle fan when I was growing up. I got Levhak Kal when I was really young. I didn’t think it was LEGO at first, but quickly grew to love it and bought the majority of Bionicle sets up until its cancellation, then a good amount of Hero Factory after that. Eventually I had a pretty big parts pool to use for Bionicle builds when I heard it was coming back.

That makes sense. I got into Bionicle pretty much from Day One with my first Bionicle set being Toa Kopaka.

I had a bunch of sets from Bionicle’s predecessors so I was already used to the idea of the style of parts that came with Bionicle, and vaguely familiar with how they integrated into the LEGO I already had as a kid.

What inspires you to create, or where do you get your ideas to make MOCs?

Anthony Wilson’s Harbinger.

My inspiration for MOCing usually comes from whatever catches my eye visually, whether it’s from some video game or a bit of artwork I see. I really like to exploit specific imagery in my MOCs, so often I’ll just steal some sort of shape from something I see and turn it into something else. If anyone’s played the game Hyper Light Drifter, they might recognize some familiar imagery in my MOC The Harbinger.

At the end of the day it comes down to me liking the look of stuff and imitating it, and processing it through my own creative blender.

As a fan of Anthony’s work I can definitely attest to this. His MOCs are usually very visually striking in their kind of starkness, but also leave a lot to explore.

MOCs like The Harbinger, The Herald and The Elder Light all seem to tell this unexplained story. It gives room for the audience member to fill in the blanks, invent a story of their own, and therefore by saying little to nothing at all, engages the viewer.

The inspiration for two of these MOCs seemingly stem from the “square for a head” motif. A simple image or shape has inspired Anthony to create not just one MOC, but two. To be able to turn something as simple as a visual queue from some form of medium into the source of a MOC is pretty powerful. Kudos to Anthony for that.

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The Elder Light.

What’s your MOCing process like—do you just sit down and start building; does the idea have to be there first; do you sketch/draw/map-out the idea first?

Usually I’ll have an idea of what I want to make before starting. That doesn’t necessarily mean that what I end up with is what I originally started out with in mind, but I don’t really just start building in hopes of something coming out the other end. If I’m making a larger MOC I’ll often do a sketch of what I have in mind so I can plan it better. Smaller MOCs, I just get in and build them.

That often is the case with a lot of MOCers. I’ve seen MOCers do full diagrams of their MOC before touching the brick. One of the reasons I picked you was because of your fluidity between systems; I think it’ll serve as a good example to AFOLs who think Bionicle is this foreign alien thing.

Yeah, I guess. To be honest, I personally think the best way to look at it is to not really differentiate them that much in your mind anyway. It kinda locks you off from thinking outside the box a bit, in my own experience.

The Herald.

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Yeah, I completely agree. I differentiate between System and Bionicle only to the point of “Do I wanna use that on this MOC?” But that’s always for stylistic reasons, not to separate the two from each other. To me, they’re all just LEGO pieces and all fit together in some way. Oftentimes, I even find that the easiest MOCs to build are the ones where “all options are on the table”... sometimes literally.

Tea Dragon.

By far my most favorite MOC of Anthony’s, as well as possibly my favorite MOC of 2017, is his Tea Dragon. To me this exemplifies what a MOC infused with elements from Bionicle, CCBS, System and Technic can become.

I think it is a true masterpiece and could very well be housed in a museum or an art gallery. It is truly a beautiful piece of art!

Can you tell me about your Tea Dragon specifically? That is by far my favorite MOC I’ve seen of 2017 and it’s made a lot of waves in the community. I would love to know more about it.

The Tea Dragon never actually started out as having a Tea Set. I planned it initially as being a long sky serpent/ Chinese-style dragon that was made out of foliage, landscaping, and wildlife. More or less it was a development of an older MOC I made called Toa Silvanus, which was the same sort of idea but in a humanoid form. I built the head first, and it pretty much hasn’t changed from the first build of it. After that I tried making the rest of it, but it just wasn’t working, so I kept the head, what I had of the body, and shelved it for a couple of months. Later on I had a go of building it again, and the design of casually laying back 129 came out. This is where the idea for the tea set came in.

I

think I just happened to be drinking a lot of tea while building, plus I had the Sensei Wu dragon set on display, which had a little teapot on for Sensei Wu, so I think it just clicked. It also helps that the expression on the dragon’s face looks a bit like he’s constantly mildly annoyed, which is sort of what I imagine a stereotypical British person to be like, so the tea set stuck (sorry to any British people who might read this).

Think of it as a counterpart to the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland; that’s how I imagine this guy.

I can totally see that kind of imagery of him floating around, being very adamant about how his tea is made. One of my favorite details on this MOC is the bee and the beehive on his back. That detail really sealed the deal for me on loving this MOC. Originally I wanted a small flying insect like a bee or a dragonfly to hold up the little tea platter, but the tail was roughly where I wanted it to be, so it just seemed natural to put it there.

More views of the Tea Dragon.

Makes sense. I actually like that the dragon himself is holding his teapot. Posing a MOC can really add a lot to its character in our style of building, and this is a great example of that.

Seeing as you work heavily with both Bionicle and System parts, if you had any advice for System MOCers who might be interested in Bionicle parts, what would it be?

It’s a bit hard to give general advice on this, but my best advice for any AFOLs looking into using Bionicle pieces would be to look for ones that might be useful in whatever your preferred MOCing theme or style is. If you’re into making spaceships, maybe the more greebly-looking, slightly mechanical-looking blade pieces might work really well for you. Nick V (Brickthing on Flickr) made a Vic Viper build using some of these blade pieces in really nice way. If you want something more organic, maybe look into the 2007 Barraki subtheme for Bionicle and see what parts you can find there. Outside of making characters and creatures, Bionicle parts can work really well to get some more interesting textures into a MOC. If you have no Bionicle parts yourself and you want to start using some, it’s probably best to buy some second-hand bulk lots off eBay or at a yard sale, or maybe going through the Bionicle section on a Bricklink store to try and reach that minimum order cost.

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A big thanks to Anthony Wilson for taking the time to answer my questions. I definitely agree on how to get some Bionicle into your MOCs, and also how to source the actual parts. Bionicle can often be had for very cheap on Bricklink and I recommend the store Lion’s Den if you’re really wanting to find parts, as he specializes in Bionicle elements. Parts can often be found in bulk lots on eBay as well for fairly cheap.

But I do caution you there, as non-LEGO often gets confused for being Bionicle in these kinds of lots.

So as we explored, Anthony uses visual imagery to source his inspiration. His MOCs are all about the visual aspect and his style represents one that is perhaps most common these days among the Constraction builders who were kids or teenagers and have grown up with Bionicle—the “old guard” if you will. They favor aesthetics and presentation above all else, even to the point that they often make statuesque MOCs that don’t pose or move much. While there is certainly nothing wrong with that approach, it’s not the only way MOCers can find inspiration. A lot of builders often sight video games and media as the source of their inspiration. I think that’s fairly common among all MOCers, regardless of genre or style. But another approach is to let the parts themselves inspire you!

Coming back to my MOC Panopticon: The original source of inspiration with that MOC was to use the 10x10 quarter Dome (element ID 2409) on a MOC somehow. I thought it’d be cool to build a MOC where it was housed under glass in some way, or maybe would pilot a ship or a mech that could see in all directions.

Then the opportunity presented itself one day when I found four of the dome element in Trans-Neon Orange.

I snagged them up and started planning. I initially wanted to make it Nexo-knight-themed as I had recently gotten a few of those sets and instantly loved them.

However, my inventory of dark blue wasn’t substantial enough, so I had to rethink things. I eventually settled on all black and orange as black provided solutions I had. The idea for the limbs came from the fact that those aero tubes (design ID 23221) also come in transorange and I thought that the look went well together.

Toa Silvanus, the precursor to the Tea Dragon.

For me, the parts themselves were inspiring and informed the MOC. I find this is my most abundant source of inspiration, and that my most well-received MOCs tend to be the outcome of this process. My MOC from the first article I wrote, Matteo, was a result of this. I held up the Beaked Dragon head (element ID 53456) to a Bionicle head, thought it looked like a Plague Doctor’s mask, and off I went! Now eight years later, he’s my signature character and probably my most well-known MOC, all thanks to one LEGO piece being held up to another, and me thinking about what it could be.

Perhaps my favorite example of this concept of letting the parts inspire you is Dr. Arachnefar. The inspiration for him came from me trying to use a very unusable part, the canister to a supplemental Bionicle set—a part we Bionicle MOCers simply refer to as a “Kraata Jar.” When you peel off the label of a lot of Bionicle canisters, you’re left with a pretty nice container that is transparent. Some canisters from Bionicle’s earlier days also have official connection points on them. In the case of the Kraata Jar, there’s a single pinhole in the center with five recesses on the rim that can hold a single stud. After failing to use the part in several different applications and feeling frustrated with the project, I sat and stared at my parts for a good while, thinking of how I could possibly use this darned jar. After going through drawers of parts, I came to my small plates

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drawer which had quite a lot of 1x1 round plates (element id 4073) in bright pink that I got off the Pick-A-Brick wall at my nearest LEGO Brand Store. I thought to myself, “If I shove a bunch of these in this jar, it might look like a brain in a jar.” Sure enough, it did, and now I had a MOC on my hands. I was making an alien (à la Mars Attacks or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Krang) or an evil scientist (à la DC’s Brainiac or Powerpuff Girls’ Mojo Jojo). Like Anthony, I too took some inspiration from a video game. In this case it was Ratchet And Clank’s Dr. Nefarious, who has a sort of mechanical brain in a jar. This helped to influence a lot of the rest of the build. With a solid idea in hand, I was off to the races. I think the results speak for themselves in this case.

It’s not just AFOL MOCers who’ve employed Bionicle as the source of “that cool-looking thing happening in a build.”

LEGO has in its past blended the systems together to various effect. Vikings included a fair amount of Bionicle elements masquerading as shields or wings or parts of the serpent. ExoForce made great use of weapons that would work as a small sword on a Bionicle, up to being quite a large weapon on a Minifigure Mech. In more recent years we see CCBS making its way into SuperHeroes, Ninjago, and even Elves in the form of a Dragon.

As of today CCBS/Constraction sets exists only in the form of the Star Wars buildable figures, which aren’t shy about sprinkling in a healthy dose of System to fill out the figure’s proportions (see Baze Malbus or Speeder Bike).

These are often my favorite figures to purchase and build.

While I feel LEGO has never truly capitalized on the potential for Constraction, Technic and System all coalesce into one amazing build that utilizes each system well. I do think they’ve come close over the years, and the brilliance of using Bionicle/CCBS in a build can be found in such sets as Viking Fortress against the Fafnir Dragon (7019), The Golden Dragon (70503), and Scout Trooper & Speeder Bike (75532).

Every branch of LEGO has its strengths and weaknesses.

Duplo is even good for some things, like filling in lots of space hidden behind a facade of richly detailed scenery.

Technic is amazing for functional elements and structure.

System is best at detail, and is often why we Bionicle builders employ it. Original Bionicle is great at offering up interesting shapes and textures, while modern CCBS offers color diversity in a lot of its armoring shells, and the bone system is phenomenal at providing sturdy structural elements while still allowing motion. CCBS armor shell elements also blend very well with System because it’s often smooth and fairly blocky like System. Every branch in LEGO’s tree offers up some utility, something that the others do not. When combined together, you have the mighty roots of a great tall oak tree that provides a foundation for creativity, whose limbs extend far into the reaches of possibility.

Anthony’s Tea Dragon, Nick V’s Vic Viper, my Panopticon— all these MOCs have a fluid dynamic between systems that some builders adamantly swear up and down aren’t compatible. Some people even go as far as to say Bionicle isn’t LEGO, and shouldn’t be included in Bricklink’s inventory. To these people I would say, “Look again, see how far Bionicle has come in its almost 20 years of existence.” Bionicle’s strength, I feel, is its ability to be something it wasn’t intended to be. LEGO may have intended for that piece to be someone’s head, a shoulder, or a foot, but flip it sideways and now it can become your exhaust port on that mech you’re building, the jaw of a dinosaur, the mask of a mysterious plague doctor, the nose of a dragon who serves you tea, the fins of a spaceship.

Maybe you could even use this Hero Factory Shoulder Armor (element ID 98592) in silver as an Air Conditioner unit on your multi-story skyscraper. When you open yourself up to the possibilities that LEGO provides, maybe that weird-looking Bionicle part you’d swear is useless, could be the very source of your inspiration!

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Community

If you have been involved with the LEGO Fan Community, you would have heard of Tormod Askildsen. As Senior Director for AFOL Engagement at The LEGO Group, he has been responsible for establishing many of the programs the company uses to engage adult LEGO fans. For me and BrickJournal, Tormod is something of a creator figure—he and Paal SmithMeyer (another LEGO executive) provided the funding to get BrickJournal launched as a print magazine with LEGO’s New Business Group, a branch of the company that seeded community-based projects in 2007.

Since then, what was a small community of collectors and builders has exploded to groups around the world, including Asia. Tormod has been one of the leaders in LEGO’s efforts to engage its fan community. BrickJournal was able to chat with him over what has happened in the past decade or so. Here are his thoughts.

Beginnings

I didn’t really get into working in LEGO Play before I started working with the LEGO Community. The community started to inform that for me. I had LEGO sets and stuff when I was a kid, but it wasn’t something that appealed tremendously to me. I think it was very much FIRST® LEGO® League and getting involved with that and seeing all those things that kids could do and trying myself, that got me building LEGO sets, because I don’t go beyond that. I build the sets and I enjoy those and I build them with my family and my daughter; we build them together. That’s extremely rewarding. It’s so fun to do that, building together. I haven’t gotten there—I’m impressed with the people who build creations out of their minds, but I myself haven’t gotten to that point.

Tormod Askildsen at FIRST® LEGO® League World Festival, 2008.

Talking with Tormod:

Looking Forward and Back Article by Joe Meno, based on an interview with Tormod Askildsen Photos by Joe Meno 134

Starting in 1983 at the Marketing Program at Aarhus University, right after attending the University of Southern Denmark, I got a job at The LEGO Group as a Marketing Trainee, and then I quickly got into LEGO Education. I spent ten years at LEGO Education and at the end, I was a little tired of the education business because it was not, in my mind, focusing on how kids learn best. We developed learning materials for curriculum writers and teachers, so the kids were really not first in mind at LEGO Education back then. That was a shame, because I was very, very passionate about how kids learn. Some teachers were awesome in the way they applied the materials. Other teachers couldn’t do that. Actually, most teachers couldn’t really do that.

I have learned that there is one primary driver in learning and that is motivation. You need to want to do it, you need to have a goal or a challenge to make the learning process meaningful and rewarding. The only variable is that it needs to be fun, because no one is going to spend their life doing boring stuff. So if you can find a way to motivate the kids so they want to, then I think you’ve done 90% of the job in facilitating them. And that is why I got tired of the education system and stuff like that. I was head of marketing at LEGO Education at that time and I didn’t know if I could continue doing that. I really wanted to see if it was possible to develop a learning concept outside of the school infrastructure. I mean really for kids, homeschoolers too. Could we try to develop a concept for fun and engaging learning that they find interesting—

that they would want it for Christmas? It could become a learning-rich concept geared toward giving the kids some tools they can use to learn. That became LEGO Mindstorms, and its focus was on kids, and on parents that are focused on learning and the importance of learning. Initially it was in the US only.

Celebrating a Milestone!

In 2008, Tormod celebrated his 25th anniversary with The LEGO Group with a party at the LEGO Idea House.

BrickJournal was there to take part in the festivities, and is now finally presenting photos ten years after this milestone!

MINDSTORMS

So LEGO Mindstorms launched in 1998, and for me two things came out of that: One thing was the way it became a tool that had the potential to help kids learn about very sophisticated concepts. The other thing that came out of LEGO Mindstorms was that we discovered that the Mindstorms technology had a broad appeal, and had a lot of applications that we had never ever thought of. And that was when adults started to hack and buy the product, and there were some legal issues and some company issues that came up as a result. I pursued the learning thing for some years in FIRST® LEGO® League, with Mindstorms Learning Centers and creating the Mindstorms community. I worked on that for six to eight years, actually. I was very passionate about that. But then LEGO Education, which I left a few years earlier, approached me and said they really wanted to manage FIRST® LEGO® League and integrate FIRST® LEGO® League in our curriculum and learning offerings in LEGO Education. It made a lot of sense.

I had been fighting for years to keep the schools out of it because we didn’t want FLL to be turned into a Science Fair. But then the schools got way more interested, and LEGO Education kept it closer to what it was, as with the basic principles around kids as drivers and challenges and having the adult as a coach—not the one who is supposed to teach the kids how to do things, but coaching the team and letting the kids figure it out themselves. A lot of

Former Community Director Conny Kalcher presents Tormod with a gift: A model of his restored Volvo, naturally built in LEGO.

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schools have adopted this. A lot of schools are adopting this and finding it a very effective way of driving pretty sophisticated learning. So I handed it back to LEGO Education around 2004.

Community

LEGO Ambassador Stephan Sander presents Tormod a LEGO wall with greetings from many clubs around the world.

Then I started looking for what to do next. At that time I was already working a little with the LEGO fan community with Jake McKee (the first LEGO Community Liaison) and Brad Justus, who was heading up LEGO Direct in New York and wanted to look at opportunities here, because there’s a lot of really smart people in the community. Not just building awesome MOCs, but a lot of these people tend to combine their professions with LEGO passion and the LEGO hobby, so out of that you get a lot of innovative thinking. I decided then that I wanted to pursue that passion with the hobbyists and the lifelong play, and today for me it’s actually two things.

It’s about the lifelong experience and it’s about openness and innovation, meaning what is co-created between a company and its consumers. That is essentially what we are focusing on in the AFOL Engagement team, because the one thing that kids don’t have is professional capabilities.

Kids have all kinds of ideas for cool stuff and models and things like that, but getting adult LEGO users involved really substantiates ideas to a level that can be really valuable for the company. We’ve been pushing the bar on this for years, and my team’s working on the relationship building and connecting the user groups and AFOLs and artists that use LEGO bricks globally. We have a lot of relationships, and especially with one program, LEGO Ambassador Network, where we work with 300 representatives from recognized communities globally.

Among these are around 50-60 groups that we call Fan Media, such as BrickJournal. Fan Media is starting to become really interesting to us because it’s grown so much. It’s so many sites that are really promoting the LEGO hobby. There’s a lot of traffic on the sites, like the Brothers Brick and Brickset. There’s also several YouTube channels and a few magazines; we used to have Bricks and Bricks Culture that ceased publication last year. That was a shame. And then there’s Hispabrick magazine that still is around, and there is a magazine called Creator out of South Korea, and there’s Blocks Magazine, so it’s all this and that in fan media, that is media channels and local event sites, of course. Once a year, we invite Fan Media to Fan Media Days, which has turned out to be a great success.

In the LEGO Ambassador Network (LAN.LEGO.com) that we moved to a new platform last year, we now have a super-nice locator for Recognized Communities and Events that is maintained by the Ambassadors. We’re also building an academy, a place where people can work on different subjects and teach and learn. Maybe we have something that we want to actually get Ambassadors invested in, or some people form their own group that is working on cool stuff they want others involved in.

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So obviously what I want to do is to create a platform and experience where you can invite anyone and everyone in the AFOL community to participate! There’s almost half a million people in the AFOL Community, and then you

A closer look at Tormod’s gifts.

could go beyond that because there are millions of adults and teens that use LEGO products that are not members of a user group, or maybe not aware of the community, and get to them as well and engage them, and let people connect and share, and show them all the fantastic media or resources created by members of the AFOL community.

We don’t want to take it over and get them to come to the LEGO site. Its not like this should be what LEGO can do but it should all be connected into everything else that is in this awesome ecosystem of user generated resources, content and networks. That’s one part of it.

The other part is that these adult builders and these teens are absolutely amazing. They are so creative; they have such great capabilities that we want to leverage their ideas to promote the endless creative potential of the LEGO building system. All of this needs to happen in a win-win scenario, so when they share ideas or content with us on LEGO Ideas or LEGO Rebrick, they get something in return. That way sharing and collaboration becomes

Tormod and Stephan take a look at the Volvo model.

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sustainable in the long run. We need to show our support and feed the community by giving something back all of the time. You could say we are seeding that ecosystem, then harvesting from time to time. It is absolutely essential to do that.

You can see today we have the LEGO Ideas experience and we get hundreds and hundreds of ideas on the website.

We have a pretty large crowd that are pretty opinionated about what this is and what is stupid. We cannot go through thousands of ideas every year, so we depend on the crowd to filter all these ideas. Some get enough supporters to get to the 10,000 level, but those are just a small fraction of all ideas put in there. It makes it more manageable for us to mull over those ideas and review, and then we select some that we turn into LEGO products.

I think this past year was awesome with the Saturn V Rocket, Women of NASA and Old Fishing Store. I think all of them performed incredibly well.

Now it’s like LEGO designers are almost fighting to work on the LEGO Ideas sets, because they are such interesting ideas and so different, and it’s so much fun to work with the fan designers. And then of course there are the stories that come out of every single LEGO Ideas project. I don’t know if you know, but for the Women of NASA set, the fan designer Maia Weinstock and a few of the iconic women, including Margaret Hamilton, got involved in the unveiling. It was a very engaging story that came out.

Tormod speaks at his party!

This is a way to harvest the capabilities that the people in the community have, and translate this into both consumer and business value.

Another big area for us is content—all the content that people create and use, like photos of awesome stuff they have created, or their videos they post on Rebrick competitions. We get super-cool content and then it’s used on LEGO Life or on the LEGO Facebook page. It works extremely well for us; it seems that people enjoy the competitions, and the kids on LEGO Life love the content.

Looking Forward

I’ve been working with the same thing for many years. It’s essentially two things that I’m very passionate about. One thing is that LEGO Play should be a lifelong experience.

It should not be limited to kids—there’s so much more to LEGO Play, and also because it takes many years to even get close to mastering the LEGO building system.

There’s more to LEGO Play than buying a LEGO set and sitting at home and putting the set together, and playing with the model and buying another set. That is one percent of the potential of the LEGO hobby, and it’s such a shame that some people think that “that’s it.”

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That is why the teen/adult community is so important.

The teen/adult community has been doing a great job in the past twenty years in showing the world that the LEGO brick is a creative medium and a source of endless inspiration for people of all ages. I think it’s also our job as a company to say that this is something that is for everyone—something that’s just as interesting and cool if you’re 5 or 15 or 35.

Tormod’s car also was done as a DesignbyMe model that made a total run of one set!

LEGO Play should not be limited by age in any way. It’s got layers upon layers that unfold as you start to dive deeper and deeper into the hobby. You start to discover the beauty, you start to discover that you can actually make things like a replica of your dad’s car, or take a famous landmark and turn that into a LEGO MOC. It’s so much, you know. And this is where the community has been so amazing in evangelizing and showing people that’s there’s no limit to all this fun that is in LEGO Play, especially when you start looking for inspiration in what other people make.

maybe if we could make a series of 500 or 1000 or 10,000... wouldn’t it be cool to do that? There’s so many different technologies that have matured over the past decade, like 3-D printing and also 3-D software with virtual reality application, augmented reality, and so on. These are exciting times, with lots of opportunities to further develop LEGO Play for all!

It’s not so much about myself and how I potentially enjoy LEGO Play, but it’s making sure everyone in the world of all ages enjoys LEGO Play. That is really my mission.

I hope we will continue to extend our product portfolio to appeal to all ages. If we do that, I think some products would be quite different from those we make today.

Many of these products would probably not sell 100,000 each of them; it would be more of a niche opportunity, so

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LEGO fans: You Can Build It!

YOU CAN BUILD IT is a new ongoing series of instruction books on the art of LEGO® custom building, from the producers of BRICKJOURNAL magazine! Spinning off from BrickJournal’s popular “You Can Build It” column, these FULL-COLOR books are loaded with nothing but STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS by some of the top custom builders in the LEGO fan community. BOOK ONE is for beginning-to-intermediate builders, with instructions for custom creations including Miniland figures, a fire engine, a tulip, a spacefighter (below), a street vignette, plus miniscale models from “a galaxy far, far away,” and more!

BOOK TWO has even more detailed projects to tackle, including advanced Miniland figures, a miniscale yellow castle, a deep sea scene, a mini USS Constitution, and more! So if you’re ready to go beyond the standard LEGO sets available in stores and move into custom building with the bricks you already own, this ongoing series will quickly take you from novice to expert builder, teaching you key building techniques along the way!

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BRICKJOURNAL #49

40th ANNIVERSARY OF LEGO TECHNIC! GEOFF GRAY explores Technic history, JOE MENO interviews former LEGO Set Designer SØREN HOLM about the classic Technic Space Shuttle, MICHAEL BROWN shows off his Technic-scale AH-64, and more! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!

BRICKJOURNAL #47

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BRICKJOURNAL #48

NE 2 RA 01 W TE 8 S!

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BRICKJOURNAL #44

THE WORLD OF LEGO MECHA! Learn the secrets and tricks of building mechs with some of the best mecca builders in the world! Interviews with BENJAMIN CHEH, KELVIN LOW, LU SIM, FREDDY TAM, DAVID LIU, and SAM CHEUNG! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, & more!

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

LEGO TRAINS! Spotlight on train builder CALE LEIPHART, a look at the train layouts and models from the PENNSYLVANIA LEGO Users Group (PENNLug), BRICK MODEL RAILROADER (a new LEGO Train fan website that launched this year), and more locomotive action! Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!

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

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #43

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #42

LEGO EDUCATION! See how schools and AFOLs can build with the new WeDo, FIRST LEGO LEAGUE’s 2016 season explored (with national competitions at LEGOLand California), and robotics builders the Seshan Brothers take LEGO MINDSTORMS to the next level!

Plus: Minifigure customizing from JARED K. BURKS’, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, & more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #41

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BRICKJOURNAL #39

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

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

LEGO MECHA! How to build giant robots and mechs with builders BENJAMIN CHEH MING HANN and KELVIN LOW, and SETH HIGGINS shows us his amazing transforming LEGO robots! And even cyborgs love Minifig Customization by JARED K. BURKS, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art by BrickNerd TOMMY WILLIAMSON, MINDSTORMS robotics lessons, and more!

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

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, DIY Fan Art

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

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BRICKJOURNAL #38

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BRICKJOURNAL #34

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

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

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

MICROSCALE BUILDING! With JUSTIN McMILLAN’s micro house and other buildings, a look at the MICROSCALE Standard

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

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

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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BRICKJOURNAL #33

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BRICKJOURNAL #29

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

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

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

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

LEGO ARCHITECTURE with JONATHAN LOPES, a microscale model of Copenhagen

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

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

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

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(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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BRICKJOURNAL #28

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #27

GUY HIMBER takes you to the IRON BUILDER CONTEST, which showcases the top LEGO® builders in the world!

Cover by LEGO magazine and comic artist PAUL LEE, amazing custom models by LINO MARTINS, TYLER CLITES, BRUCE LOWELL, COLE BLAQ and others, minifigure customization by JARED BURKS, stepby-step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, AFOLs by GREG HYLAND, & more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #26

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BRICKJOURNAL #24

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

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

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

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #23

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BRICKJOURNAL #19

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

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

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

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

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

LEGO SUPERHEROES! Behind-the-scenes of the DC and Marvel Comics sets, plus a feature on GREG HYLAND, the artist of the superhero comic books in each box! Also, other superhero work by ALEX SCHRANZ and our cover artist OLIVIER CURTO. Plus, JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customization, building tips, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, and more!

LEGO EVENTS ISSUE covering our own BRICKMAGIC FESTIVAL, BRICKWORLD, BRICKFAIR, BRICKCON, plus other events outside the US. There’s full event details, plus interviews with the winners of the BRICKMAGIC CHALLENGE competition, complete with instructions to build award winning models. Also JARED K. BURKS’ regular column on minifigure customizing, building tips, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #18

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BRICKJOURNAL #15

Go to Japan with articles on two JAPANESE LEGO FAN EVENTS, plus take a look at JAPAN’S SACRED LEGO LAND, Nasu Highland Park—the site of the BrickFan events and a pilgrimage site for many Japanese LEGO fans. Also, a feature on JAPAN’S TV CHAMPIONSHIP OF LEGO, a look at the CLICKBRICK LEGO SHOPS in Japan, plus how to get into TECHNIC BUILDING, LEGO EDUCATION, and more!

LEGO SPACE WAR issue! A STARFIGHTER BUILDING LESSON by Peter Reid, WHY SPACE MARINES ARE SO POPULAR by Mark Stafford, a trip behind the scenes of LEGO’S NEW ALIEN CONQUEST SETS that hit store shelves earlier this year, plus JARED K. BURKS’ column on MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION, building tips, event reports, our step-by-step “YOU CAN BUILD IT” INSTRUCTIONS, and more!

Looks at the LEGO MECHA genre of building, especially in Japan! Feature editor NATHAN BRYAN spotlights mecha builders such as SAITO YOSHIKAZU, TAKAYUKI TORII, SUKYU and others! Also, a talk with BRIAN COOPER and MARK NEUMANN about their mecha creations, mecha building instructions by SAITO YOSHIKAZU, our regular columns on minifigure customization, building, event reports, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #13

BRICKJOURNAL #12

EVENT ISSUE with reports from the BRICKMAGIC fan festival (organized by BrickJournal), BRICKWORLD (one of the oldest US LEGO fan events), and others! Plus: spotlight on BIONICLE Builder NORBERT LAGUBUEN, our regular column on minifigure customization, step-by-step “You Can Build It” instructions, spotlights on builders and their work, and more!

A look at back-to-school sculptures

by NATHAN SAWAYA, LEGO builder MARCOS BESSA’s creations, ANGUS MACLANE’s CubeDudes, a Nepali Diorama

by JORDAN SCHWARTZ, instructions to build a school bus, MINIFIG CUSTOMIZATION by JARED K. BURKS, how a POWER MINERS model became one for ATLANTIS, building standards, and much more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

TwoMorrows.

BRICKJOURNAL #11

“Racers” theme issue, with building tips on race cars by the ARVO BROTHERS, interview with LEGO RACERS designer ANDREW WOODMAN, LEGO FORMULA ONE RACING, TECHNIC SPORTS CAR building, event reports, MINIFIGURE CUSTOMIZATION by JARED K. BURKS, MICRO BUILDING, builder spotlights, LEGO HISTORY, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

BRICKJOURNAL #10

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BRICKJOURNAL #7

BrickJournal goes undersea with looks at the creation of LEGO’s new ATLANTIS SETS, plus a spotlight on a fan-created underwater theme, THE SEA MONKEYS, with builder FELIX GRECO! Also, a report on the LEGO WORLD convention in the Netherlands, BUILDER SPOTLIGHTS, INSTRUCTIONS and ways to CUSTOMIZE MINIFIGURES, LEGO HISTORY, and more!

BrickJournal looks at LEGO® DISNEY SETS, with features on the Disney LEGO sets of the past (MICKEY and MINNIE) and present (TOY STORY and PRINCE OF PERSIA)! We also present Disney models built by LEGO fans, and a look at the newest Master Build model at WALT DISNEY WORLD, plus articles and instructions on building and customization, and more!

Focuses on the new LEGO ARCHITECTURE line, with a look at the new sets designed

by ADAM REED TUCKER, plus interviews with other architectural builders, including SPENCER REZKALLA. Also, behind the scenes on the creation of POWER MINERS and the GRAND CAROUSEL, a LEGO BATTLESHIP over 20 feet long, reports from LEGO events worldwide, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $8.95 (Digital Edition) $3.95

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

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TwoMorrows Publishing Raleigh, North Carolina

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For its fiftieth issue, BrickJournal pulls out all the stops with a special double-size book! The magazine for LEGO enthusiasts celebrates its Golden Anniversary as photo editor GEOFF GRAY talks to editor JOE MENO about the beginnings of BrickJournal, starting way back in 2007! Then Joe reflects with TORMOD ASKILDSEN of the LEGO GROUP on how the LEGO fan community has grown along with the iconic toy company. Also, BrickJournal tracks down some of the best builders of the past 50 issues—where are they now, and what are they building? Plus, there’s AFOLs (“Adult Fans of LEGO”) by cartoonist GREG HYLAND, step-by step “You Can Build It” instructions by CHRISTOPHER DECK, BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art, Minifigure Customization tips with JARED K. BURKS, and much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-082-3 ISBN-10: 1-60549-082-2 51795

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82658 00120

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