BrickJournal #68 Preview

Issue 68 • July 2021

Alice Finch and the Women’s Brick Initiative The Women of Philippines LUG

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INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE!

Issue 68 • July 2021

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

People Serge Vanschoenwinkel: Building a Supercar!.......................................3 Women’s Brick Initiative: Clutch Holds More Than Bricks Together......................................8 Alice Finch: Displaying Like a Master!..........................10 Master Builder Gallery: Caz Mockett....................................................14 Kristal Dubois.................................................17 Mel Finelli.........................................................20 Sachiko Akinaga...........................................23 WBI Member Profile: Adelle Trotta....................................................25 Lucie Filteau....................................................26 Megan Rothrock...........................................28 Teresa Elsmore...............................................31 Women of LEGO Masters: Jessica Ewud...................................................32 Jessica Farrell..................................................34 Runa Lindblom..............................................37

Building You Can Build It: Quasar Fire Class Cruiser Carrier............38 Minifigure Customization 101: Ruth Bader Ginsburg..................................44 Women’s Brick Initiative: Making LEGO Into Jewelry.......................49 BrickNerd DIY Fan Art: Puzzle Piece.....................................................50

Community Women’s Brick Initiative: Summer Research Overview..................52 The Duck Collaborative..............................54 Quilt Collaborative.......................................56 Let’s Build!........................................................59 Women of the Phillipines: Team PMS.........................................................60 Diversity and Inclusion: GayFOLs............................................................64 Bantha Bricks Files: David Strenzler’s Force of Bricks.............66 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 AFOLs....................................................................80

People

Serge Vanschoenwinkel

Building a Supercar!

Article and Photography

by Serge Vanschoenwinkel

Above: Serge with his sports car models—with the real Countachs and a new virtual build on his computer of his new Lamborghini Diablo GTR. He would have liked to have it built but was still waiting for some parts on the way. Behind is the Statue of Liberty and one of the most incredible MOCs Serge has ever seen, the Alien Xenomorph from buildbetterbricks!

Serge Vanschoenwinkel is a software solution architect at Eurocontrol, the European agency that regulates air traffic all over Europe. Outside of work, he plays chess, guitar and piano. He also builds LEGO models, with one of his most recent creations being a vehicle that often stops traffic: a Lamborghini Countach.

What’s also impressive is that Serge has only been building as an adult for a year. As a boy, he loved Technic sets, but he only got back into building when he went to an event in Brussels (his hometown) that displayed personal LEGO creations. It was an eye-opening experience, as he remembered LEGO being interesting but not really good-looking.

He realized then that the LEGO world had evolved tremendously since he was a kid.

Because of his recent return, his favorite themes are also evolving. Serge definitely list his favorites as Creator Expert, Cars and modulars. He also keeps an eye on the Technic world and his interest in LEGO Architecture is growing. Another favorite is LEGO Ideas, and for a future theme, he would love to see LEGO create a kind of “creatures” line-up.

Serge’s first models were inspired from Belgian comics (he was a fan of comic artist André Franquin) and it came naturally to him. From there he imagined some funny animals. These were simple builds (around 100 bricks) that were made by playing with the bricks, with his only guidance being his imagination.

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Serge’s Lamborghini models with his favorite set, the 1989 Batmobile.

Themes aren’t the reason why Serge builds. For him it’s going beyond and trying to build his own things. He always had an interest in modeling in general, and he found that the charm of a LEGO MOC comes from their imperfections—maybe not imperfections, but their drift from the real world. This drift freed up his imagination. Building was something he tried to do when he was a kid, but he didn’t succeed very well then. When he saw the displays in the Brussels expo, he discovered that everything was possible.

The Countach is his favorite car, so it was a natural model for him to try to build. The car is somewhere between the classic cars and the more aggressive supercars, like the ones that exist today. For Serge, the Countach is the perfect balance between the two. From the start, he knew he could design one, so he didn’t give up, and with a little bit of luck, he completed it.

Building a car model is a process for Serge. For accuracy, he starts by printing the blueprints and measuring the proportions with a ruler. The most critical moment in building is deciding what scale to build, depending on available LEGO parts to reproduce the car’s elements. This is a step that needs to be carefully considered. From there, he does the design on his computer using stud.io, a LEGO building program from Bricklink. When he completes the digital model, it’s easy to generate instructions. From there, he starts the build with real LEGO parts.

Some of Serge’s earlier creations. The fish is his first model: a piranha inspired from the universe of the Marsupilami in comics’ Spirou & Fantasio (which is a very famous comic series in Belgium from the ’60s). Serge likes its “cartoon” look! Then he designed the car (that looks like a taxi), which is the Fiat 509 of Gaston Lagaffe (another hero, or should we say anti-hero, from the same Belgian author Andre Franquin). Serge loved reading these comics as a kid. The sheep, the flamingo and the cat are his own creations.

Peace and Love (the sheep) is a symbol trying to reconcile black and white people imagined just after George Floyd died. Then Serge imagined a Flamingo which completely lost his mind, as simple as that! And the cat is desperately trying to catch a mouse but hasn’t succeeded yet!

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The Countach has been Serge’s hardest build by far. Having angles and curves all over, he had to imagine new techniques to generate inclines in two different planes for the same parts. There were also numerous half-stud offsets which used many SNOT (Stud Not on Top) techniques.

The black Countach.

People

Women’s Brick Initiative logo and slogan.

Women’s Brick Initiative:

Clutch Holds More Than Bricks Together “... committed to the advancement of all women in the LEGO community.”

Article and Photography by Megan Lum

Megan Lum Instagram: @meganvlum Facebook: megan.v.lum

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Women’s Brick Initiative duck collaboration at Bricks Cascade, 2020.

I first discovered the Women’s Brick Initiative during Brickworld Chicago in 2019. It was my first time attending Brickworld—I’d heard about the scale and size of the con before, so decided I had to experience it for myself. I’d attended many conventions; and while Brickworld was undoubtedly larger than any other con I’d been to, it still had something in common with all the rest—I just didn’t see that many women. While I had friends there, I still felt rather alone.

I’m not the only one who feels that way. According to LEGO, only about 14% of all adult fans of LEGO (AFOLs) are women. I made it a point to talk to several women builders who were exhibiting at Brickworld, and invariably, our conversation turned to “there should be a group for women builders.” I started to think I should consider starting a women’s builders group. Fortunately, during my last half-hour at the con, someone told me that “Alice Finch has just started the Women’s Brick Initiative.”

WBI was created as a result of two women having much the same conversation as I’d had with those women builders at Brickworld. At Skaerbaek Fan Weekend in 2017, Alice Finch (of Hogwarts and Rivendell fame) and noted toy photographer Shelly Corbett met, and upon learning that they shared the view that there should be more women involved in the LEGO hobby, decided to do something about it. As a result, the Women’s Brick Initiative (WBI) was born, with the purpose of inspiring women and girls to pursue their personal creative vision using the LEGO brick.

Both Alice and Shelly live in the Seattle area, but had never met until they both traveled several thousand miles to Skaerbaek. This is one of the reasons WBI exists—to provide an opportunity where women don’t have to travel just to find other women who enjoy LEGO. I ended up joining WBI’s leadership team not long after that conversation at Brickworld.

People

Alice Finch:

Displaying like a Master!

“Small interactions can make the difference between feeling like you’re a part of something, or you’re not.”

Interview by Megan Lum Photography by Alice Finch 10

Alice Finch burst onto the AFOL scene with her impressive 400,000 piece Hogwarts build, and gained more recognition as one of the featured builders in the documentary A LEGO Brickumentary. The co-founder of the Women’s Brick Initiative (WBI) and the Brick Alliance (BA) has continued to build, but also devotes time to social justice issues and making the LEGO community more accessible to everyone. Recently, I sat down with Alice to talk about LEGO, social justice, and just what happened to that enormous Hogwarts build.

Alice Finch Flickr Gallery: bippitybricks Instagram: @bippitybricks

going to look like, because this was from the world he developed. So I took the instruction—I mostly did the landscaping and he did everything else—the buildings, scenery, and placement of the minifigs. We’ve worked together on other collaborations, like the Isle of Berk from 2014. When we’re in the LEGO world, we are colleagues and equals as opposed to mother and son, so there’s a lot of tossing back and forth of ideas.

How have your sons (Thorin and Hadrian) influenced your building?

They’ve always been involved. When I was working on Rivendell, and Hadrian was four, he built a train station right through the middle of the model. Because for him, how else would the elves get to work every day? There was a train with track, a little train station and a water station with tank and mugs set out on the table, so that when the elves got to work, they had their water cooler.

That was a way for him to feel included in the model.

My position wasn’t “Get your hands off my model!”, but instead, “Come and build with me.” At the same time, Thorin built the bridge over the river on the very far left of the model, and both built trees. As they’ve gotten older, they’ve gotten much more sophisticated in terms of what they can do and the kinds of conversations we can have.

Hadrian likes to specialize in the lighting and the very technical parts of models, and Thorin is very good at storytelling with the minifigs.

What happened to your Hogwarts? Is it still intact?

Alice’s HogwartsTM Castle layout.

Megan Lum: Every LEGO fan knows Alice Finch’s Hogwarts. How did you follow up on that?

Alice Finch: After Hogwarts, there was Rivendell, which was a collaboration with David Frank. Then there was another collaboration, Mouse Guard, based on graphic novels by David Peterson, with about a dozen builders from ArchLUG. Next came some small projects, including the Potala Palace (this issue’s cover image), a microscale Notre Dame, and the Burg Eltz castle in Germany. I also did a travel model of Hogwarts, because I needed to have a suitcase-sized version for international conferences.

It’s been a big question for me, what to do with Hogwarts.

Right now, it’s still in storage. For me and a good part of the world, the feeling around Hogwarts has changed based on the recent actions of JK Rowling. So how do I feel comfortable presenting it to the public again? I’ve been thinking that for the 10th anniversary of Hogwarts being built (2022), perhaps I’ll modify it to be a Pride Hogwarts that is massively inclusive in every possible way. It needs to be remodeled to make it more travel worthy, so this is a way to have a goal to make that happen. Nobody really looks forward to taking apart an old model and rebuilding it, so I’m using this idea to motivate myself to get this done.

You’ve done a number of collaborations. What draws you to those?

I really like doing collaborations. I find it rewarding to work with other people and see what comes of joint effort.

The last collaboration I did was with my son Thorin. He has created an entire world, about which he’s writing a novel. He wanted to build a particular location (Dargon Bridge, pictured) within that world, and we took it to Bricks Cascade in 2020. For that collaboration, Thorin did all of the directing in terms of what the model was

Dargon Bridge, a collaboration with Alice and her son, Thorin, based on Thorin’s original novel.

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People

Close-up detail of Caz’s Micropolis model in the LEGO House Master Builder Gallery.

Master Builder Gallery:

Caz Mockett

Article and Photography by Caz Mockett

“My buildings are firmly based in fantasy rather than reality...”

Caz Mockett YouTube: BlockHeadUK Instagram: @cazmockett Twitter: @cazphoto

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Caz Mockett poses with her model at the Master Builder Gallery.

I have been building MOCs since October 2017 when I emerged from my Dark Ages. My main interest is architecture and my first attempts at building Microscale were awful. Very quickly I stumbled upon the Micropolis standard, which immediately captivated my imagination and provided a framework which directed my creativity.

I continued building and improving, while gaining inspiration from many well-known Micropolis builders who had been making models within the standard for almost a decade. My efforts were encouraged by members of my LEGO User Group, the London AFOLs, which I had joined in November 2017.

People

The Artist, one of Kristal’s creations displayed at the LEGO House.

Master Builder Gallery:

Kristal Dubois

Article and Photography

by Kristal Dubois

Kristal Dubois Instagram: @kristaldubois Kristal setting up her bat at the LEGO House.

Like many women my age, I never played with LEGO as a child. My exposure to LEGO didn’t build slowly, the way it does for many people, one set at a time.

Instead, when I met and eventually moved in with my partner, Jason Allemann, I had the privilege of moving into a house with a large, perfectly-sorted collection.

Suddenly, I had an entire studio full of a weird kind of recyclable sculpting material, and it pretty quickly became an awesome creative outlet.

I’ve always been most inspired to build whimsical models, pages from children’s books or scenes from nature. The first kinetic sculpture I built, The Artist, 17 is currently on display in the Masterpiece Gallery in the LEGO house.

People

Picnic in the City: A model of the LaFrance Super-Streamline—Huffman Built.

Master Builder Gallery:

Mel Finelli

Article and Photography by Mel Finelli

“Bicycles is where it really started for me.”

Mel with her display at the LEGO House Master Builder Gallery.

Mel Finelli Flickr Gallery: melan-e Instagram: @mellegobuilder

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At 20 years old I was having a bit of a life crisis. Finishing my Psychology degree, I had failed in learning how to bridge everything I love into what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be a therapist, but I loved learning about people. I didn’t want to go to school for art, but loved creating and loved how art made me feel. At that time I felt lost. I felt lost for many years. I still feel lost today at times, ten years later. Looking back to this past decade, I am asked what influenced my life the most; what were some of my greatest experiences; what opened the most doors for me—and the answer to all of that starts with LEGO.

People

Sachiko’s latest work: 2020, Jump comics, Hanano-Keiji collaboration.

“...there were few products targeting girls and women.”

Sachiko Akinaga Website: http://www.lets-brick.com/index2.html Instagram: @sachiko_akinaga

Master Builder Gallery:

Sachiko Akinaga Article and Photography by Sachiko Akinaga

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People

WBI Member Profile:

Megan Rothrock Article and Photography

by Megan Rothrock

“I found it frustrating that so many areas were ‘Boys Clubs.’”

Bionicle Dragon Fly complete with disco ball eyes!

One thing Leads to Another: Never say Never!

If I were to jump back in time, and tell myself, “Hey Megs! Pay close attention for, in the next decade, you are going to…”

Megan Rothrock Instagram: @cavclicks Instagram: @legoadventurebook

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• Travel the globe making friends and meeting wonderful creative spirits.

• Share your art work globally.

• Become an Editor for the published magazine Brick Journal.

• Foster and promote the LEGO Hobby to a global audience.

• Have your LEGO Models displayed in LEGO’s own Museum.

• Become a LEGO Product Designer and work with stellar talent in the Toy Industry.

Phergy the Podagon, built from one of Megan’s original sketches.

People

Jessica’s model of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

Women of LEGO Masters:

Jessica Farrell

Article and Photography by Jessica Farrell

“The experience became far more precious than the competition itself…”

Jessica Farrell Flickr Gallery: Janet VanD

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As a person who believes everyone’s voice should count, I often volunteer to participate in national surveys on topical matters. These surveys always guarantee anonymity, but usually ask general questions such as gender and profession. Recently, the astonishing realization came to me that, if I stated my gender and profession, I couldn’t remain anonymous as I am the only female professional LEGO® Brick Artist in my country! As my insurance broker pointed out, I’m not exactly in the drop-down menu.

Although there are many highly talented AFOLs in the world, very few take the scary plunge and turn their hobby into a job; even fewer of these are women. I think this is a knock-on effect from the early days when LEGO bricks were originally viewed as primarily a boy’s toy and few girls were given LEGO sets as gifts. This was not the company’s intention, but a reflection of society’s views as a whole. In 1978 I wrote a long letter to LEGO, telling them how much I loved my new yellow castle set, but I wished they made more sets for girls because I was very tired of people telling me that LEGO was for boys. I was delighted to get an equally long letter back telling me that LEGO already made lots of stuff for girls because every single LEGO brick and set (including my beloved castle) was made for boys and girls alike. I never forgot that message and rejoice to see that each year more and more girls embrace the brick.

My path from child fan to Dark Age to AFOL to Brick Artist was long and winding, with some very unexpected thrills and spills.

Back in 2017 I was approached by a British TV production team and asked if I would participate, along with my son, Faolán, in a new pilot show which would later be known as LEGO Masters. Being part of that very first series, upon which all other LEGO Masters series were based, was an exciting, challenging, exhilarating, frustrating, maddening and, above all, fun experience that we will remember all our lives. We loved being part of that guinea-pig group of participants, with all the laughs, annoyances and craziness that a pilot show will have. The experience became far more precious than the competition itself, particularly since none of us were even told if there was going to be a prize! There were also serious moments and, even though I wasn’t the only female contestant, I was very aware of representing an underrepresented group and worried that I’d let people down. (We were also the only team representing Ireland in a UK show, so no pressure, right?)

Although I’d done some commissioned work before, it was after LEGO Masters that I transitioned from hobbyist to professional. That only happened because of two things: a change in mindset (convincing myself I could do it) and invaluable support from my family and friends, notably Breda and David Fennell (Irish LUG Brick.ie), Markus Rollbühler (LEGO designer) and Nate Dias (AFOL and LM winner).

Jessica’s model of Santiago di Compostela Cathedral.

Jessica’s Liberty of London MOC.

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Peop

Women of LEGO Masters:

Runa Lindblom

Article and Photography

by Runa Lindblom

Runa Lindblom showing her work.

I didn’t grow up with LEGO. Well, my uncle had a small box of old classic pieces for when we kids visited, but that was the extent of it. There was still an attitude that girls and boys had separate toys. As a gender-rebellious kid in the ’90s, much of the “Girls’ LEGO” was too pink for me, so no one bought me any.

Like many adults who rediscover LEGO, the world was opened to me by a child. I attended my first brick convention (Brickvention 2016) as a treat for my five-year old brother. I walked in with zero expectations and walked out astounded by the creativity!

“LEGO provides an endless creative freedom…”

Runa Lindblom Flickr and Instagram: @LEGOValkyrja

One year later I displayed my first ever proper MOC: a large brick-built model of Spyro the Dragon. In January 2018, Crash Bandicoot followed along with a feeling that the LEGO community was home. Later that year I would find myself recovering from brain surgery as I built my most challenging build: a crystal fox from Star Wars.

In 2019, Annie O’Reilly approached me about applying for LEGO Masters Australia. I had hesitated on applying previously, but when she asked me I instantly said yes! Together we embarked on the most incredible journey. The competition was definitely not easy and the challenges taught us a lot. From the moment we stepped into that studio, our skills were pushed to new limits.

Looking back, I wish I’d had a few more years of building skills to prepare me, yet at the same time my skills doubled in just a few intense weeks!

LEGO Masters proved to me once again the power of the LEGO community. It is hard to think of any other competition where all the contestants forge such an open and collegial friendship.

At the moment I have limited access to real LEGO, so I have been exploring Digital Designer software. Sometimes it can be a real challenge to get the digital pieces to do what you want, so I have started out with some 2-D mosaics. The current Art Series product range doesn’t include many women, so I was inspired to start with some kickass super-heroes to show what we are missing out on!

LEGO provides an endless creative freedom for so many people, and I absolutely love looking at what people come up with!

Runa’s crystal fox.

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You Can Build It MINI Build

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

Main Body

Qty Color 4 Dark-Bluish-Gray 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 2 1 2 9

Light-Bluish-Gray Light-Bluish-Gray Trans-Light-Blue Dark-Bluish-Gray Light-Bluish-Gray

8 4 1 2

Light-Bluish-Gray Trans-Light-Blue Light-Bluish-Gray Light-Bluish-Gray

1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Dark-Bluish-Gray

Quasar Fire Class Cruiser Carrier Design and Instructions

by Christopher Deck

Hello everybody, and welcome to our next building session! The starship we are going to build today is a very special one to me. Most of you will know this carrier from the recent Star Wars: Rebels animated series where it has an appearance as “Phoenix Home.” However, the ship was introduced more than 25 years ago in the novel The Truce at Bakura and also appeared in late 1990s computer game Rebellion. These sources belonged to the former “Expanded Universe” now titled as “Legends.”

The size of the cruiser carrier is slightly longer than the famous Nebulon-B Frigate, making it one of the Rebel Alliance’s bigger ships in the fleet. The size also makes it attractive for a Rebel support fleet you might want to build to scale with the big UCS Star Destroyer (set number 10030), the smaller playset version (set number 75055), or the midi-scaled version (set number 8099).

The model comes detailed with hangar base, underside command pod with turbolasers (using wrench tool pieces), and engine section. I hope you will build this vessel, and maybe you want to build different versions for your variously scaled rebel fleets. The relatively straightforward shape gives you plenty of wedge-shaped pieces to realize every possible scale!

Happy building, and see you next time!

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1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 4 Light-Bluish-Gray 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 6 Light-Bluish-Gray 10 Light-Bluish-Gray 4 Light-Bluish-Gray 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Trans-Black 4 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Dark-Bluish-Gray 4 Light-Bluish-Gray 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 1 Light-Bluish-Gray

Part Description 3062b.dat Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud 87087.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Stud on 1 Side 3004.dat Brick 1 x 2 11211.dat Brick 1 x 2 with Two Studs on One Side 3003.dat Brick 2 x 2 3007.dat Brick 2 x 8 4740.dat Dish 2 x 2 Inverted 55300.dat Minifig Tool Box Wrench 6231.dat Panel 1 x 1 x 1 Corner with Rounded Corners 4865a.dat Panel 1 x 2 x 1 with Square Corners 6141.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round 32028.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Door Rail 15573.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud 3022.dat Plate 2 x 2 18674.dat Plate 2 x 2 Round with 1 Centre Stud 3035.dat Plate 4 x 8 3030.dat Plate 4 x 10 85984.dat Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 4286.dat Slope Brick 33 3 x 1 3039.dat Slope Brick 45 2 x 2 3660.dat Slope Brick 45 2 x 2 Inverted 24201.dat Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 Inverted 6541.dat Technic Brick 1 x 1 with Hole 3700.dat Technic Brick 1 x 2 with Hole 3069b.dat Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 11203.dat Tile 2 x 2 Inverted with Groove 15535.dat Tile 2 x 2 Round with Hole 33909.dat Tile 2 x 2 with Studs on Edge 6179.dat Tile 4 x 4 with Studs on Edge 54384.dat Wing 3 x 6 Left 54383.dat Wing 3 x 6 Right 50305.dat Wing 3 x 8 Left 50304.dat Wing 3 x 8 Right 47397.dat Wing 3 x 12 Left 47398.dat Wing 3 x 12 Right

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Building Minifigure Customization 101:

I have on multiple occasions written about projects for my children and with my friends; I have not written about creating a figure with my wife, and that changes today. Rarely do I create a figure that replicates a historical individual; however, we are also going down that road today. This historical individual, though short in stature, looms large in history. I reference no other than the Notorious RBG.

Brief Bio of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (March 15, 1933-September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist serving on the Supreme Court of the United States and previously on the U.S. Court of Appeals. She was nominated to the Supreme Court by then President Bill Clinton; replacing retiring justice Byron White. At the time, RBG was viewed as a moderate consensus-building jurist; however, she eventually became part of the liberal wing of the Court.

RBG was the first Jewish woman on the Court and only the second woman to serve on the Court after Sandra Day O’Connor.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Article by Jared Burks Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a minifigure.

RBG spent most of her legal career advocating for gender equality and women’s rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court before she was elevated to serve as a Jurist. She advocated as a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, served as a member of its board of directors, and participated as one of its general counsel in the 1970s until her appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Jimmy Carter. She served on the Court of Appeals until her Supreme Court appointment in 1993. Between O’Connor’s retirement in 2006 and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, RBG was the only female justice on the Supreme Court.

This period is when RBG became more forceful in her dissents with several notable cases.

RBG gained attention in American Pop Culture for her passionate and stylish dissents, which were widely seen as reflecting paradigm shifts in the law. It was during this time that she was dubbed “The Notorious R.B.G.”, a moniker she later embraced. RBG embraced style while adhering to the subdued dress code of a Jurist by incorporating elaborate collars for her robes. Her dissent collar is particularly memorable and how she commonly appeared in photographs; however, she wore many varied collars. Ultimately, despite surviving several bouts of cancer during which she continued to serve without missing a day of the Court schedule, she succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2020 at the age of 87.

Basic Parts:

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To create this custom figure, the efforts went well beyond creating the figure as it also meant creating a custom display, which would also serve as a box to hold the figure. However, this is putting the cart before the horse; let us discuss the figure creation first. This creation started with parts selection. The parts selected for RBG were easy to determine; she wears black robes and luckily the newish dress element perfectly replicates her flowing robes (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem. page?P=36036#T=C). Couple this with a black torso, head,

and the bun hairstyle (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/ catalogitem.page?P=99240#T=C). However no Jurist/Judge is complete without a gavel. The issue is LEGO has only ever created this part for the Judge figure appearing in the CMS series 9 set. This makes the part rather rare and very limited on the secondary market. This left me using a common brick based solution using the following parts.

Gavel and Collar:

Hair and robe parts.

Bar 1L with Top Stud and two Side Studs (Connector) + 1 round 1x1 plate on either side. I attempted several versions, but this one seemed the best scale and detail.

I did attempt to 3-D create and print a part, but was not happy with the results at the time. I was still learning quite a bit about printing and did not have my resin printer yet, and the results were less than optimal. In addition, I was going to have to worry about painting or dying the parts; and that was beyond my goals for the project.

This left me considering how to create RBG’s signature collar, something that I am still playing with now. Should I use the Ruff introduced with the Thespian actor in CMS 8 (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem. page?P=99251#T=C), should I create a custom 3-D printed element, or should I merely include it in the design? The original thought was to have one collar on the figure as part of the design, but also to have a 3-D printed version that would allow someone to change her collar to other versions, as she was known for so many different versions.

Again, I wasn’t able to satisfactorily print the 3-D version at the time, so I let it go for now. No custom figure is ever quite finished and I am always ambitious as to how I want to create them. For now the collar will be part of the printed design.

Jig: To capture the RBG’s jurist swagger, I had to create a robe design with collar, and I wanted a swivel head design to allow her two different expressions. The robes were an easy design to draw and I will not go into too much detail here, as I have covered the creation of vector graphics multiple times in the past. My decal printer computer has been broken for a while; as such, I wanted to get these printed. However, the person printing did not have a jig to accommodate the dress/robe part I wanted to use. This allowed me to create something I had not before, and it created complications as the alignment of the art to the jig was critical. The design needed to align to the center top of the torso, as the torso and dress elements would be printed together at the same time. I was fortunate to have a Glowforge laser printer (Referral link: https://glowforge. us/f/XxUXj7) that allowed me to cut out a four-layered jig. The four layers were needed to hold the dress piece up, due to the 16+ mm depth the part has because of the back flowing detail. This is the major reason an existing jig would not function. I had to create four different layers to support the element as it slopes to the back. The basic outline of the figure was reasonably easy to draw up from measurements of the figure. From there a test cut was performed to make sure the figure fit inside the jig without scratching or damaging the figure. The top layer was

A built gavel...

...and gavel parts.

Collar references.

Collar ideas, including a 3-D printed part.

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Community

Yule Quilt from Brickworld Virtual Con Holiday.

Women’s Brick Initiative:

Quilt Collaborative Article and Photography by Daneen McDermott

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Daneen McDermott Instagram: @Brickwyrm

“Quilts have long been a collaborative effort among creative women.”

Community

Medieval village at Abrickadabra 2017 (a Phillipine LEGOfan event).

Women of The Phillipines:

Team PMS

Article by Chestnut Amatong, Louise Mariano, and Inez Vasquez

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Who is Team PMS? TeamPMS is a group of AFOLs, women and allies, who are members of the Philippine Lego Users Group (PhLUG) How did PMS come together as a group?

TeamPMS was put together because there were ladies in PhLUG who wanted to build MOCs in themes that did not particularly interest a majority of the PhLUG members.

Examples of these themes are Fairy Tales, Friends, and Disney, which are more colorful than the predominantly gray and dark colors of Star Wars, Mecha, and Sci-fi popular at that time. We also wanted to encourage more female members and ally friends to build with us in our favorite themes, while also providing support for regular build events at PhLUG. Since we got together in 2014, we have been known to bring color to the PhLUG collaborative builds/dioramas, as well as to the PhLUG Facebook Wall. We are happy to have the support of the members of PhLUG, who have welcomed us and encouraged us to build together and collaborate.

David Strenzler’s

Bantha Bricks Files

Force of Bricks

Bantha Bricks Files: Article by Steven Smyth, Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars Photography by David Strenzler

David’s minimodels as sets.

Galactic greetings! I’m Steven Smyth from Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars. Since the community’s founding in 2016, on an almost daily basis, I have witnessed amazing and creative Star Wars builds in the best Star Wars-themed building brick group on Facebook. David Strenzler (aka Force of Bricks) is a very popular MOC builder and designer in the community as well as a volunteer moderator. I thought it would be great to learn more about this skilled builder and his Mandalorian show-inspired designs.

Steven Smyth: How’s it going David?

I’ve known you for some time now through the Facebook group and everyone in Bantha Bricks has been wowed by your many awesome Star Wars builds, but for the uninitiated, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do.

David Strenzler: Hi Steven, I’m doing great. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about two of my greatest passions: LEGO and Star Wars. My main profession is being a social education worker/ systemic consultant, and supporting people with special needs. I really love my job, but there’s this creative part of my personality that also needs to be nourished. So, I would also describe myself as a LEGO enthusiast and since 2018, as a designer of models made of LEGO bricks.

This passion initially arose during my childhood. At the time, my favorite themes within the LEGO universe were especially those from the LEGO Classic Space and LEGO Technic series, which I loved to combine in order to create my own spaceships, stations and cars. But as I grew older, gaming consoles and home computers entered my playroom and my passion began to fade. From this time onwards, my so-called “LEGO Dark A close-up of the front of the TIE Fighter.

The Outland TIE Fighter.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!

BRICKJOURNAL #68

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

by CHRISTOPHER DECK, Minifigure Customization with JARED K. BURKS, and more!

(84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $9.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99 https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_78_166&products_id=1616

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