The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 65 • January 2021
9.95
$
in the US
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! ZIO Chao’s Brick Figures
Koen Zwanenburg’s Creations
INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE!
1
82658 00432
3
Order @ Amazon.com or SUBSCRIBE!
THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®
BRICKJOURNAL magazine spotlights all aspects of the LEGO® Community! It showcases events, people, and models every issue, with contributions and how-to articles by top builders worldwide, new product intros, and more. Available in FULL-COLOR print and digital editions.
NEXT ISSUE: #66 SHOWCASES TOP BUILDERS AND LEGO PHOTOGRAPHY! SUBSCRIBE NOW!
Next issue ships February 2021!
GET THE NEXT SIX PRINT ISSUES PLUS FREE DIGITAL EDITIONS!
0 202 ES RAT
SUBSCRIBE TO BRICKJOURNAL o $67 Economy US Postpaid o $79 Expedited US (faster delivery) o $101 International o $27 Digital Editions Only Name: Address: City/Province: State: Country (if not USA): E-mail address:
Zip Code:
(for free digital editions)
DON’T MISS AN ISSUE • ORDER TODAY! TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
TwoMorrows Publishing
10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Order at twomorrows.com LEGO® and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group of Companies. BrickJournal is not associated with The LEGO Group.
For faster service, order online at:
www.twomorrows.com or by phone: 919-449-0344
Issue 65 • January 2021
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People ZIO Chao: Character Builder!...............................................3 Pieter Dennison: Building the Dunedin Railway Station......6 David Koudys: Moonbase Master!..........................................12
Building Aukbricks: Brick Architect!...............................................21 To the Stars and Beyond: Building Microscale Near-Future Space.......................................26
Ben Pitchford: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!...............30 Wing Yew: Temple, Toy and Room Creator!.............34 You Can Build It: Holiday Build Holiday Train...................................................39 Koen Zwanenburg: From Holidays to History!.........................43 Victor Leparc: Building Towers, Manors and More!.....48 Kang Jun Lee: Bird Builder!.....................................................52 You Can Build It: AT-XMas............................................................56
Minifigure Customization 101: Dadadadadadadadadadadadad adadada — SANTA BAT!............................62
Community Bantha Bricks Files: Mirko Soppelsa’ s K2-SO...............................66 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 AFOLs....................................................................80
From the Editor: Hi! Still stir crazy, but getting used to it. Hope all of you are staying safe and well!
January 2021 Issue 65
In one of the few times the Editor (me) paid attention to printing schedules, we are doing something of a Holiday issue, but not a normal one. There’s some holiday builds and a couple of things you can build that are holiday oriented, but don’t look for a Christmas card article here.
Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh Bantha Bricks Correspondent Steven Smyth Contributors: Aukbricks, Jared Burks, ZIO Chao, Christopher Deck, Pieter Dennison, Kung Jun Lee, Victor Leparc, Chris Malloy, Ben Pitchford, Mirko Soppelsa, Wing Yew, Koen Zwanenburg, and Greg Hyland.
No, there’s some great builders that happen to have some Santa builds and Christmas scenes built. You’ll see Santa built by three different builders, including ZIO over there to the right. You’ll aslo see some great architectural builders in this issue too! And now we have a regular column from Bantha Bricks showcasing the many Star Wars builders out there—welcome Steven Smyth to the staff! I’m looking forward to seeing who he interviews each issue! So sit back and relax. You’re welcome here. Joe Meno P.S. Have ideas or comments? Drop me a line at brickjournal@gmail.com. I’m open to suggestions and comments and will do my best to reply. P.P.S... Yes, BrickJournal has a website — www.brickjournal.com! Twitter? Yep, there too — http://twitter.com/brickjournal. Facebook? Yup — http://www.facebook.com/group. php?gid=58728699914&ref=mf. Or you can scan the bottom codes with a QR reader! P.P.P.S. If you want info on a subscription, you can go to www.twomorrows.com or scan below!
Website
Subscriptions
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: ZIO Chao’s Santa has a list on the cover of this issue. Photography by ZIO Chao. About the Contents: Ben Pitchford’s New York City layout glows at night. Photograph by Ben Pitchford. Star Wars and all related characters and properties TM & © Lucasfilm.
Glossary AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) AFFOL (Adult Female Fan of LEGO) TFFOL (Teen Female Fan of LEGO) NLSO (Non-LEGO Significant Other) MOC (My Own Creation) TLG (The LEGO Group) BURP (Big Ugly Rock Piece) LURP (Little Ugly Rock Piece) POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces)
SNOT (Studs Not on Top) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club) MECHA (a large armored robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside) MECH (a large piloted combat robot) DARK AGES (usually teen years, when you drift away from building) STUDS OUT (building where the studs on bricks face the viewer)
LEGO®, TECHNIC, MINDSTORMS, Belville, Scala, BIONICLE, ExoForce, Mars Mission, World City, and other LEGO theme lines are trademarks of the LEGO Group of companies. All articles, photos, and art are copyright BrickJournal Media, LLC 2011, TwoMorrows Publishing and the respective writers, photographers, and artists. All rights reserved. All trademarked items are the property of their respective owners and licensees. Subscriptions are $67 Economy US, $79 Expedited US, $101 International, or $27 Digital Only and can be purchased at www.twomorrows.com or payment sent to: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. The editorial/advertising office address for BrickJournal is: BrickJournal Editor, 9001 Barb Anne Court, Springfield, VA 22152, USA or admin@brickjournal.com. First Printing. Printed in China. ISSN 1941-2347.
BrickJournal and its staff would like to thank the LDraw community for the software it makes available to the community, which we use for making all of the instructions and renderings in this magazine. We would especially like to thank Kevin Clague for his continued upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of2the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
People
ZIO Chao:
Character Builder!
Article and Photography by ZIO Chao
Santa in a dog sleigh?!?
It can take an unusual thing to get started in the LEGO hobby. For ZIO Chao, now a LEGO educator, it took a TV show: the Japanese show TV Champion—King of LEGO.
Hi, Santa!
This show has several amazing LEGO adult builders using their skills and creativity to build topics revealed in the competition. What impressed ZIO were the builds: one builder made a large ring-shaped space station with different facilities and various minifigure scenes in each chamber. Another competitor built a mega-animal amusement park with many cute and funny animal sculptures. Before seeing the show, ZIO couldn’t imagine LEGO could be built like that. Since then, he got addicted to this LEGO world. In his childhood, ZIO was always attracted by LEGO commercials, with a special love for Castle and Pirate themes. These times were full of adventures, and like roleplaying games that he could play with all day long. When he became a teenager, he was fascinated by Star Wars and sci-fi movies. When he learned that LEGO also produced Star Wars sets at the same time he got into building, he crazily bought a lot of Star Wars sets.
3
People
Pieter Dennison:
Building the Dunedin Railway Station Article by Joe Meno Photography by Pieter Dennison
6
Pieter Dennison started building when he got his first LEGO set, King Leo’s Castle (6091) at the young age of 4. He discovered that building was his favorite hobby and in only a couple of years he was constantly building new creations. 14 years later, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, Pieter had the time to devote to building during lockdown. As he notes, “It’s not been the greatest time to find a new job currently, though it has given me plenty of time to build, which is positive.” When asked about what got him to start building beyond the LEGO sets, Pieter replied, “I like building something that no one has ever done before and packing in as much detail as I can. Also, I enjoy the problem-solving aspect:
The build and the builder.
trying to make my builds look as realistic as possible, playing with angles, and working with new techniques and ways to create something from nothing.” His latest project, the Dunedin Railway Station, was the result of years of planning and building. Pieter displayed the main building of the Railway Station when he attended his first Brickshow in 2015. From there, he was inspired to complete the model. “Getting to watch people admire your work and meeting others who share your interest is a huge motivator for me. I really enjoy the community aspect of being an AFOL,” he explains.
Part of the garden.
7
People
David Koudys:
Moonbase Master Article by David Koudys Photography by David Koudys and Calum Tsang The current moonbase layout.
12
Hi! My name is Dave. I am the primary builder of the Ontario Brick Builder’s Classic Space Layout, or OBBCSL for short. I may be the primary builder now, but the OBBCSL started as a collaboration between Jeff van Winden and myself. A brief history of me before getting into the evolution of the OBBCSL: I’ve been a fan of the LEGO brick (just like many of you reading this) my entire life, and my appreciation of our LEGO hobby doesn’t appear to be stopping any time soon. My earliest childhood memories are of me sitting in the middle of big piles of LEGO bricks— it’s the good bit of being the youngest brother and one of the youngest cousins in my family; the collections were already started before I showed up. :-) Around age 14, while my friends were putting away their LEGO
collection, I started making ‘frame by frame’ animated movies with a Betamax camcorder using my already extensive LEGO Classic Space collection. I also started acquiring ‘second-hand’ LEGO collections from those friends who would rather have spending money than LEGO. When I bought my first home computer (the Commodore 64), I built an interface card to control the LEGO 4.5 volt motors that were coming out in the early Technic sets. This was a great time for me because I got to program and diagnose software/hardware issues at the same time! My Classic Space movie making and the Technic ‘Robot building’ using my computer had me ‘playing with LEGO bricks’ through high school and into college. In my early adulthood, a few friends and I rented a house and my (ever-growing) LEGO collection moved in with me. There’s nothing quite like 15-20 of my friends on a Sunday after church—dressed in our ‘Sunday best’—all sitting on the living room floor and building with my LEGO collection. I determined that if you made it into your twenties without giving up your LEGO collection, chances are you’re weren’t going to give it up in the future, either. I was around 30 when the RCX was released on the market. I saw it for the first time in a store when I was browsing the LEGO aisle and I bought it immediately. I didn’t know a thing about the RCX besides what was on the box, but I knew it was made for me. The RCX was possibly the single best product that the LEGO Company ever released (as far as I was concerned). Not only because of what it could do, but that single purchase led me straight into the LEGO ‘worldwide’ online community. (I know this article is supposed to be about the OBBCSL, but there is a direct line from the RCX to that—I’m getting there!) I needed to get more information regarding the RCX so I went online. This is when I ‘discovered’ LUGNET. LUGNET is (or at least was ‘back in the day’) the best ‘fan-based’ resource that I ever came across for our LEGO hobby. Seriously, every part of the LEGO hobby. If you wanted to know about any piece, any historical fact, any ‘build technique’, LUGNET was the place to go. Nothing has ever come close to the volume of ideas, of discussions, even of people, that I experienced on LUGNET.
David Koudys.
13
Building
To the Stars and Beyond: Building Microscale Near-Future Space
The I.E.A. Vanguard.
By Chris Malloy
A version of this article was originally published on The Brothers Brick (www.brothers-brick.com).
The forward end of the Vanguard, with the micro-asteroid shield.
26
As a longtime LEGO space builder, I found I was ready for a bit of a change. After years of building Star Wars and video-game inspired spaceships, I wanted to try my hand at building a spaceship that is, paradoxically, a little more down to earth. Rather than ships bristling with big guns or outfitted with wings, I decided to take my visual cues from movies like Interstellar, The Martian, and of course, NASA’s own designs. Several years ago I built a small vignette of a space shuttle launch system in this theme, and since then I’ve been working on a couple of spacecraft. The first ship I built was the Vanguard, part of my own fictional Interplanetary Expedition Alliance, mankind’s first attempt at visiting nearby planets and their orbiting bodies. I built it as a series of discrete modules, and then strung the modules together to create the larger spacecraft. I’m fond of this technique because it lets me play with small structures of a few dozen elements at a time, which also results in a look similar to the real International Space Station’s modular design, cobbled together by numerous agencies over a period of decades. This also allows me to try out a lot of unusual elements, such as the Ninjago spinner for the micro-asteroid shield on the ship’s front. If you’re familiar with the Ninjago spinners, you may be wondering how I got it to stay in place, since they’re filled with a cast-iron weight. But the earliest Ninjago spinners have screws holding the two plastic clamshells together, so I was able to disassemble the spinner and remove the weight without damaging the pieces (sadly, later spinners are riveted).
Another part that sat in my unused bin for way too long before finding a home aboard this craft is the Buzz Lightyear wing. I combined a pair with just two other elements and some custom stickers (trimmed from the leftovers of official LEGO sticker sheets) to create an auxiliary shuttle. As I built each core module, I tried to make sure it could support a Technic axle through its center, and the majority of the modules allow this. Once I had all the modules created, I used some very long Technic axles to string them together, and then mounted the ship on a display stand. Although it sounds pretty straightforward, it’s a lot of trial and error, because not all of the modules work well next to each other, both from aesthetic and engineering standpoints. I ended up with a handful of leftover modules that just didn’t fit the look I wanted on this ship. The finished model is about 89 studs long, putting me just shy of the 100-stud length that LEGO space builders venerate. 100-plus stud LEGO spaceships are known by the acronym SHIP, which stands for Seriously Huge Investment in Parts, an apropos term to be sure. I’d never built a SHIP, so I knew I had to go for it and those leftover modules were the perfect starting point.
Chris’ take on a shuttle of the near future, the Indefatigable.
A look at the auxiliary shuttle.
Building
Ben Pitchford:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Article and Photography by Ben Pitchford
30
Ben Pitchford has been featured before in BrickJournal (issue #43, Building the Samurai Code) with a large layout, and since then he built another, this time themed to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Instead of a natural layout dominated by a mountain, this new layout is a manmade landscape of New York City and is dominated above by buildings and below by the sewers and waterways of the city. BrickJournal talked to Ben about his creation and got a tour of the layout. It took Ben a little over six months to build the layout, and was motivated by his three kids—they thought it would be a fun build. Since they already had the minifigures
1
2
3
4
Building Legend Here’s a directory of rooms in each building.
1 (from bottom floor to top) Pizza shop and grocery store, gun shop.
2 Joe’s Plumbing shop and bar, ice cream shop, April O’Neil’s studio apartment.
3
TCRI Building: Office and Labs, Krang’s Laboratory.
4
Car repair garage, MMA gym, office, Newsstand 5 studio.
from the original wave of LEGO sets, it wasn’t much of a jump to build something for the figures. Ben set off to get thirty or so Foot Soldiers and customize Casey Jones, Bebop and Rocksteady through numerous online orders. His goal was to show the underground lair connecting to the aboveground city via sewers. This also gave him an opportunity to redo the classic scene from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where Michaelangelo orders a pizza and exchanges the money for it through the sewer grate: “Wise man say, forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.” From starting in August 2018 to January 2019, Ben and his family worked on the layout. The layout was started from the bottom with the Turtle’s sewer lair, but Ben knew that he wanted a subway section with a train loop above it, so he laid out the track to make sure it would fit inside the footprint he planned above the lair. A lot of planning was needed for the location of the stairway to the subway so it matched up with the city sidewalk, and not where his buildings or roads would be located.
“Wise man say...”
Ben really enjoyed customizing the city modular buildings both inside and out, but the sewer was his favorite part of the build because it was his interpretation of what the sewer lair could be on a grand scale. I added lots of LED lights, Power Functions motors for training equipment, and even his Samsung S7 phone for the television which just played the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon theme song or old TV episodes 24/7. The biggest challenge was figuring a way to build a floor for the subway and city that would span the entire width of the sewer. The floor also had to support the heavy modular buildings at the top. After some trial and error, Ben ended up turning mostly 2x4 bricks sideways and covering both floors that way. It turned out surprisingly sturdy, covering a width of 122 studs.
31
Building
Wing Yew:
Temple, Toy and Room Creator!! Article and Photography by Wing Yew 34
Wing Yew is a mechanical engineer that has been a LEGO builder for seven years. His beginning in the LEGO hobby was seeing the Collectible Minifigure Series 8 released at the end of 2012. The unique minifigures in that series got his attention and he fell in love with the series and the bricks. His favorite themes became the Creator Expert and City themed sets, and he eventually collected all the Collectible Minifigure series, Creator/Modular and Creator winter sets. Other sets and polybags were bought occasionally, but Creator Expert and City were always first. It took some time, but Wing realized that LEGO sets couldn’t fulfill his temptation of building, so he started to try and build something new from his dismantled sets. He did a lot of online research and at other resources that were related to creating and building cool LEGO creations, which led to his MOC building journey in the brick world. A couple of views of Kee Lok Si.
Wing, for the most part, builds just to create, and he enjoys the process of designing and creating something new with the bricks. Using his own style, he describes, crafts and builds something by his own definition. He will first imagine and visualize how a model would be if he transforms what he sees, whether it be an object or an environment, and into LEGO bricks. He will then build it up by using different scales (Minifig, micro, 1:1 scale) to find the best building option. He also tends to build things which are not commonly seen in the LEGO MOC world, so it gives other AFOLs another perspective and inspiration to build something unique.Wing also participates in competitions as well as local LEGO fan events and displays. Out of all the builds Wing has done, the one he is most proud of is a replica of Kee Lok Si, a temple which is situated in the island of Penang, Malaysia and is one of the largest and finest temple complexes in Southeast Asia. For him, the temple has been his most challenging and toughest model he has ever built, but it has also been the most satisfying build he has ever done. It took him 3.5 months to build this replica from the idea phase to planning, detail scaling, bricks and color selection, and actual building. The most challenging part of building the temple was determining the scale of the model. He spent almost 2-3 weeks just thinking about how he should scale the model. Due to the unique design and location of the temple, he had to make sure the scaling was right not only on the temple building, but also on the landscaping where the temple is located. It wasn’t affordable to build the model in minifigure scale as it was too large and Wing didn’t have enough bricks to complete it, so he considered building in microscale. However, if he built the temple in microscale, the end product might end up being too small and not something he was looking for. After some thought,
35
Building
Victor Leparc:
Building Towers, Manors and More! Article and Renders by Victor Leparc Views of the Hollywood Tower, the ride building for Disney’s Tower of Terror attraction.
Sometimes building a model can become a daunting challenge. Making a place or building in minifigure scale can be nearly impossible to do because of size or expense. Reducing the scale may decrease price and part count, but presents new problems. Digital building has been around for a decade or so, and with it has come a new group of LEGO builders. One of those builders is Victor Leparc, who has done a variety of large-scale LEGO landscapes. Victor is a builder that has been building for almost 22 years, which is pretty much all of his life—he’s only 25. He’s also a law student preparing for his Law School entry examination. While he has been building since childhood, he lost interest in playable sets. He wanted his passion for LEGO to become more challenging. He didn’t want just to build what someone else designed before anymore; he wanted to be the designer. He also liked to create things that could be displayed with a lot of detail. Victor builds what comes to his mind, so he really doesn’t have a favorite theme—unless one calls micro-dioramas a theme. If he suddenly has an idea that he thinks can be turned into a LEGO creation, he just jumps into building. Inspiration comes from all the things Victor likes and that have influenced his life. He is a man of many passions, having lived his life through them: music, history, video games, trips, the United States, Disney parks. All are good themes to pick ideas from.
48
An overhead view of the Tower.
The front courtyard.
Inspiration shouldn’t be mistaken for imagination, though. Victor always builds from pre-existing things. Once he gets seriously interested in an idea and it becomes something he can’t get out of his mind, he starts to work on turning it into a LEGO model. Looking at his Disney park attraction models as examples, he likes to upgrade them and give them the feeling that they could be real authentic buildings. This completes the micro-dioramas and brings them to life. One upgrade can be seen in the parking lot Victor added to his Tower of Terror diorama. Another enhancement can be seen in his rendition of Disneyland Paris’ Phantom Manor, where he replaced the cover terrace of the original attraction with a carriage house. When he builds historic buildings, he tries to rebuild them in their original appearance. For Victor, that means doing a lot of historical research while building. These are his personal touches to the models. Victor’s timeframe for a model is actually short—around two weeks. Some models might take longer: this was the case for his Phantom Manor and his Elvis mosaic, which each took around three weeks. In terms of hours, though, it’s much harder for him to count. He can only say he spends a few hours a day building. His time is spent on the computer—he doesn’t draw any plans beforehand or use real bricks. For Victor, working on software is very
The parking lot, which is an addition by Victor.
Miss Tilly for Typhoon Lagoon at Walt Disney World.