Issue 84 • March/April 2024
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Welcome to New Hashima!
INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE!
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Issue 84 • March/April 2024
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People Ralph Savelsberg: Japanese Car Models from Kei Cars to Kaido Racers.................................................3
Building
59 Hours, 60 Builders, 1,000,000 LEGO B ricks, 1 New Hashima: Assembling a Massive Collaboration...............................8 New Hashima Sector 08: The Origins of New Hashima and Sector 08.................................................13 New Hashima Sector 02: Inner City.........17 New Hashima Sector 04: Old City............25 New Hashima Sector 06: Chip off the Old Docks...............................29
A Cyber-Slice of Life: Photographing New Hashima...............36 Music and LEGO: Crafting the Sonic Landscape of New Hashima (abridged)....................41 BrickNerd Instructions: New Hashima Spinner Speeder.............47 Minifigure Customization 101: The Return of the Ocelotl, part 2...........51 You Can Build It MINI Diorama: Ezra Bridger’s Tower.....56
Community
IdahoLUG: Building Pandora..........................................62 Bantha Bricks: Simon Jarry’s Hoth Echo Base Diorama.................................................68 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79
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From the Editor: Hi! This issue is something of a departure from the usual issue. BrickJournal had an opportunity to document a layout that was the effort of a small community of builders. New Hashima Sector 08 was in an issue previously, and the coordinator of that build informed us that they would be expanding.
March/April 2024 Issue 84 Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno BrickNerd and Assistant Editor Dave Schefcik
If you were at Brickworld Chicago 2023, you would have seen the expanded New Hashima. In this issue you’ll get a glance at the building and builders behind it, by the builders themselves. It’s a personal history of a community build that continues to grow.
Proofreader John Morrow
I’m happy to show something that BrickJournal doesn’t do too often. Our focus is usually on a build, but this time for New Hashima, we got to know the builders.
West Coast Editors Ashley Glennon
Photography Editor Geoff Gray
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan
Bantha Bricks Correspondent David Strenzler
Contributors: Ted Andes, Carte Baldwin, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Shawn Denowh, Chris Edwards, Greg Fastabend, Blake Foster, Stefan Formentano, Simon Jarry, Jordan Jivkov, Simon Liu, Brendan Mauro, Casey McCoy, Tyler Newman, Ralph Savelsberg, Michael Willhoit, Jason Wolfson, David Zimmerman, and Greg Hyland. Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal: www.LUGNET.com www.Brickshelf.com www.peeron.com www.brickmodder.net www.rustyclank.com
About the Cover: New Hashima Sector 08 is first seen at BrickFair Virginia 2022. Photo by Jason Wolfman. About the Contents: A night view of New Hashima. Photo provided by Stefan Formentano.
Speaking of big builds, we also get to see Pandora, built by IdahoLUG, and Hoth, built by Simon Jarry. In smaller builds, we have cars by Ralph Savelsberg. So sit back and take a look! 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!
Website
Glossary AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) AFFOL (Adult Female Fan of LEGO) TFFOL (Teen Female Fan of LEGO) NLSO (Non-LEGO Significant Other) MOC (My Own Creation) TLG (The LEGO Group) BURP (Big Ugly Rock Piece) LURP (Little Ugly Rock Piece) POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces)
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SNOT (Studs Not on Top) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club) MECHA (a large armored robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside) MECH (a large piloted combat robot) DARK AGES (usually teen years, when you drift away from building) STUDS OUT (building where the studs on bricks face the viewer)
BrickJournalTM issue 84, March /April 2024 (ISSN 1941-2347) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BrickJournal, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Joe Meno, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. BrickJournal Editorial Offices: 6701 Coachman Drive, Springfield, VA 22152, USA. E-mail: admin@brickjournal.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $73 US, $111 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only, and can be purchased at twomorrows.com. LEGO ®, TECHNIC, MINDSTORMS, Belville, Scala, BIONICLE, ExoForce, Mars Mission, World City, and other LEGO theme lines are trademarks of the LEGO Group of companies. Star Wars, The Mandalorian TM & © Lucasfilm. All articles, photos, and art © BrickJournal Media, LLC, TwoMorrows Publishing and the respective writers, photographers, and artists. All rights reserved. All trademarked items are the property of their respective owners and licensees. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.
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BrickJournal and its staff would like to thank the LDraw community for the software it makes available to the community, which we use for making all of the instructions and renderings in this magazine. We would especially like to thank Kevin Clague for his continued upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
People
Ralph Savelsberg’s
Japanese Car Models from Kei Cars to Kaido Racers! Article and Photography by Ralph Savelsberg For years I have been building LEGO cars. Very few of them were Japanese, because I tended to think of those as somewhat boring and uninteresting. That changed, however, when I visited Tokyo on a work trip in 2017. As expected, I saw plenty of boring vehicles, but also many that were interesting and quirky. So, in 2019, when I decided to visit Japan BrickFest in Kobe, I built a few Japanese cars to display there. And, inspired by the cars I saw on that second trip, I have built more since. My main aim when building a car model is to make it recognisable as a particular make and model. This is made easier by building them at a scale of roughly 1/22, which is much larger than cars suitable for LEGO minifigures. This allows adding more details. To add a little life to the models, instead of minifigures, I use my own brick-built figures to go with them, inspired by figures used in LEGOLand parks. Still, even at this larger scale, building a recognisable car is not always easy, particularly if the car I’m trying to build looks a
bit dull. Building something interesting and quirky is both a lot easier and more fun. So, let’s take a closer look at my Japanese LEGO cars and what makes them different.
Kei cars Kei cars are a specifically Japanese type of vehicle rarely seen outside of the country. The Japanese government originally introduced them as part of a reconstruction program after the second World War. The cars’ width, height and length are restricted, and so is their engine displacement. In return, their owners pay a reduced road tax and, in some parts of Japan, where you must have a parking space when buying a car, Kei cars are exempt. As a result, these little cars are very popular, making up roughly one third of Japanese domestic car sales. Because their size is restricted, most Kei cars are almost comically boxy to maximise space inside. I have built three of them. The Suzuki Every Wagon is a van that almost completely maxes out the available volume. Thanks to its high roof and front seats that sit quite far forward, it can seat four people and still have decent cargo space in the rear. The oddly-named Honda N-Box Slash is a supposedly sportier alternative, with a more car-like appearance due to a much lower roofline. Finally, the Daihatsu Move Canbus has retro styling inspired by the classic VW microbus. It is aimed at an oddly specific group of buyers: single women in their thirties. Fewer Japanese people are getting married and apparently this is a sizeable group. They also often still live with their parents, so the car is intended to be practical, with good access through sliding doors, whilst also looking cute, with a smiling front end and headlights that look a bit like eyes. These cars all are boxy, but as you can see, there is quite a bit of variation, and each one has enough features to make it recognizable.
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My Ninjago City build as seen at BrickFair Virginia 2022. Completing it took all three days of set-up.
59 Hours, 60 Builders, 1,000,000 LEGO Bricks, 1 New Hashima:
Assembling a Massive Collaboration Article by Daniel Zimmerman Photos by Chris Edwards, Jordan Wolfman, Tyler Newman, and Simon Liu
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After seven years of displaying at fifteen LEGO fan conventions, I consider myself someone with a decent amount of experience setting up a MOC at a LEGO fan convention. I have set up with LUGs to create modular city layouts and I have done a large city based on Ninjago on my own. Both were exciting and challenging tasks in their own right, but nowhere close to the monster that was New Hashima at Brickworld Chicago 2023. I was approached to join the collaborative build at BrickFair Virginia in August of 2022 after Stefan Formentano saw my work on my Ninjago City build. It was also here that I was introduced to the idea of New Hashima and the other collaborators of our growing group. It wasn’t long after that we quickly got to planning this massive build we all wanted to see made. Fast forward to June 2023—60 collaborators from seven different countries pooled into the Renaissance Hotel & Convention Center with approximately one million LEGO bricks in tow, with one goal in mind. We were all extremely excited and expressed it to one another, but I think we were all internally dreading and fearing this final task we had in front of us, which was setting up New Hashima. I think it is safe to say we look upon these 59plus hours of setting up as a fond and beloved memory, but in the moment it was daunting. Upon my arrival at the Renaissance Hotel on Tuesday night, I was greeted by the amusing sight of a group of AFOLs and boxes of bricks. These were my fellow New Hashima collaborators, and as soon as I checked in and placed my luggage away in my room, I headed back in to join them in our early prep for set-up. We started by helping each other bring in our towers from our vehicles so that we could set up the following afternoon when the convention hall opened for set-up at
1:00 p.m. Some of us helped by making small assemblies that would be used to tie the city together, such as the many sidewalks with railings. Some of us began reassembling our cubes and towers that were damaged in transport. Others began testing the strength of our builds so we could rest assured that the city would not collapse in on itself. It was a fun start to the long set-up ahead of us—we chatted, ate dinner, drank, laughed, and built LEGO. It doesn’t get better than that. After a good night’s rest, we spent the morning unloading and preparing for the convention hall doors to open at 1:00 p.m. When the time came, Stefan pulled his trailer up to one of the rolling doors in the convention hall and we unloaded the custom wooden tables he had constructed for New Hashima. In total, four tables held up the city, each one consisting of multiple parts so it could be broken down for transportation. Once all four tables were assembled, we got to work putting the builds onto them. We kept all four tables separated at the start so the collaborators could walk around each one and assemble without having to reach over other tables. Thanks to the genius of Stefan, Simon, Michael, and Mason, each sector of the city was broken down into sectioned standard builds of cubes and toppers. This simplified the order of set-up for the builds for us eighty different collaborators. We just had to follow the master plan for each sector that was broken down layer by layer, and spots labeled for each collaborator.
The collaborators building in the hotel lounge area. Photo by Simon Liu.
My cubes and toppers were located towards the top of Sector 02—The Inner City, meaning there was some time before my contributions would be placed. So I made sure to help Stefan and the other collaborators where I could. It was important that while we assembled each sector, we were feeding wires through each cube so that everyone could turn on their lights. The Inner City was an interesting sector, as unlike the other three square-shaped
The collaborators stashing their builds in their hotel rooms. Photos by Simon Liu.
Simon testing the stability of his tower. Photo by Simon Liu.
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if I could. I got to do all of my favorite things throughout the set-up, which is talking about LEGO, laughing, and making friends. Stefan, Simon, Mason, and Michael did an amazing job herding everyone together and keeping us all on track (for the most part). All the other collaborators gave it their all, and did not cut corners in any way. We had set out to create one of the greatest LEGO builds the community had ever seen. I think it is safe to say we have done just that. The public and community feedback was incredible. Everyone was blown away with what we were able to pull off, and I think inside we were all shocked we managed to pull it off as well. I was in awe—I was finding it hard to believe that I got to be part of what is considered to be one of the greatest builds in the community. The public hours were a blur, and the next thing I knew, we had disassembled New Hashima and we were all headed home. Turns out it is much easier to disassemble New Hashima than it is to assemble it. But as I said before, regardless of how long and tedious it was, I would do it all over again, as it was one of my favorite experiences of my life. YONHO (You Only New Hashima Once)!
During construction of the Docks, Blake Foster builds from within. Photo by Kevin Murney.
Blake Foster works on the growing mass of wires under the table of New Hashima. Photo By Simon Liu.
George placing sections of the Old City. Photo by Jordan Wolfman.
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A common sight: collaborators working together. Photo by Jordan Wolfman.
People
Sector 08, an integral part of the vibrant city of New Hashima, showcases a captivating blend of corporate prowess and residential living. The district’s skyline is adorned with sleek corporate towers symbolizing economic dominance, while the residential buildings offer a humble refuge for the city’s inhabitants. These functional residential towers reflect the tenacity and resourcefulness of the residents in finding solace amidst the challenges of urban life in Sector 08.
Sector 08 Skyline. Photo by Jordan Wolfman.
The Origins of New Hashima and Sector 08 Sector 08 is where New Hashima began: A dream sitting in my mind for years, and my attempt to replicate the vision started by the BroLUG group in their 2013 Cyberpocalypse display. Having seen what was possible when I first saw this picture making the rounds online, I could hardly understand what I was looking at. I wasn’t a huge proponent of the cyberpunk genre and had never built in the style, but I knew someday I would jump in. When I began work on Sector 08 in 2019, I wanted to follow in the BroLug Cyberpocalypse Display. Photo by footsteps of the BroLUG group, Chris Edwards. and knew this was going to become a collaborative effort. I went to work, with help from my LUG mate Peter Bradberry, and began laying the groundwork for the shared vision that would become Sector 08, and eventually the New Hashima Cyberpunk Project. Little did I know that this decision would change my LEGO hobby forever. Peter and I built our first iteration of our cyber city for BrickFair Alabama in 2020, and then a new iteration again for BrickFair Alabama 2022. (Thanks, Covid, for the extra year of building time.) Photos of Peter’s and my display began making the rounds online and were eventually noticed by Simon Liu, who reached out to me to discuss the build and show support for the revival of the BroLUG cyberpunk project. I was so excited to hear that my build had been seen and admired by the original crew who I had taken so much inspiration from. They weren’t just impressed, though; they were planning a ten year reunion build in 2023 and
Article by Stefan Formentano Photos by Chris Edwards, Jordan Wolfman, Ted Andes, Brendan Mauro, and Carter Baldwin
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A Cyber-Slice of Life:
Photographing New Hashima Article and Photos by Michael Willhoit
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The beauty of a display like New Hashima is that there is no one way to correctly look at and appreciate it. Some MOCs are intended to be viewed from only one angle; others can be viewed from many. In the case of New Hashima, how do you approach photographing a display that not only can, but must be viewed from every angle to fully take it in? With a project as massive, yet as ephemeral as New Hashima, there were a lot of things to consider when approaching the photography. Displays like this are what inspire
the community and move the hobby forward, so properly documenting them to share with others in the community—particularly when there is no certainty that they may ever be displayed in the same capacity again—is important. Heck, Stefan even cites being inspired by BroLUG’s Cyberpocalypse collaborations at BrickFairs 2013 and 2014 as one of the reasons he chose to start New Hashima in the first place. What we share with the community has a profound impact on the LEGO landscape, and photography is a core part of that process. When I took photos for the BrickFair 2022 iteration of New Hashima, I spent almost eight hours straight trying to take as many pictures as I could, knowing that this was a uniquely special display that the world needed to see. I captured just about every detail I could point a lens at, and was left with thousands of photos. However, at Brickworld 2023, with a display at least three times the size, I knew that we would need a different approach. Fortunately, there were many others in the group that brought their cameras this time, and in the end we had plenty of photos (and videos, thanks TJ!) between all of us. Because we had so many more people dedicating their time to taking photos at Brickworld, I got to dedicate more of my own to capturing a lot of unique and
artistic angles to really emphasize the details of the display; the kind of photography I like the most. Don’t get me wrong, clear overview shots of whole displays are important and necessary, but what’s really exciting to me is framing shots that completely immerse you in the environment that’s been created, free of people walking by in the background, the convention hall, and anything not built out of LEGO. I loved finding the cinematic scenes in the larger city, and with New Hashima, shots like this were absolutely everywhere. With dozens of individuals who all packed their own incredible details into their sections of the display, there was no shortage of inspiration to be had; everywhere I looked, there were amazing little cyber-slices of life to capture, and I had a blast doing it. In a more general sense, one of the biggest challenges to taking photos of any MOC in a convention hall is lighting. The ceilings are typically high at large 37 LEGO conventions
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Building
Music and LEGO: New Hashima at night. Photo by Tyler Newman.
Prologue: The Mistakes of my Youth
I was a budding, young TFOL embarking on an ambitious collaboration with my best friend for Brickworld 2013—Hershel’s Farmhouse from The Walking Dead Season 2. Somewhere along our many build sessions set to Ed Sheeran’s LEGO House, the idea was hatched to play The Walking Dead’s title theme alongside our homestead, projecting from the inside out. Seemed logical enough: set the tone for our build and grabbed the attention of our audience. Only one problem in hindsight: we looped a 1 minute and 40 second song.
Crafting the Sonic Landscape of New Hashima (abridged) Article by Casey McCoy Originally published on BrickNerd.com on 7/21/23 Photos by Casey McCoy and Tyler Newman
Herschel’s Farmhouse, from the second season of The Walking Dead. Photo by Casey McCoy.
We left that title song on repeat for nearly four days straight. Our kind, GBCtroubleshooting, neighboring AFOLs never said anything throughout the duration of the show, but in hindsight, I can’t imagine they ever wanted to hear that tune or look at a zombie ever again. Despite being a decade ago, the cringe never goes away. Time does not heal all wounds. Lesson Learned: If you have a sonic component looping for your build that’s not purely ambiance (clapping, cheering, sound effects, etc.), have a musical loop of at least over ten minutes. This is for the sanity of yourself, your fellow builders, and the public attendees. Turn it off when you leave the hall for the night. Too much of a good thing and you’ll be sick of it eventually. That begs the question: why add music to your build at all? How do you do it right?
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Community
IdahoLUG:
Building Pandora! IdahoLUG’s Pandora layout.
Article and Photography by Greg Fastabend and Shawn Denowh
In July 2022, the LEGO Group made a call to the LEGO Fan community to submit ideas for an Avatar-themed display. The call was posted on the LEGO Ambassadors Network to all member organizations, and IdahoLUG’s Ambassador, Greg Fastabend, contacted his club to brainstorm ideas. A group was gathered who were interested in the project, which decided that their submission would be a fivesquare-foot diorama of Pandora, the moon that Avatar is set on. A proposal explaining what the club wanted to accomplish with their build and where they would display it was also drafted.
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Some details of the layout.
A month later, after some revisions based on requests from the LEGO Group, IdahoLUG was selected from other applications to create an Avatar build! Design ideas and parts lists were to be submitted in one month, which required the club to quickly organize and plan the diorama. A message was sent to all of the ILUG members, asking them to design plants and animals that would be at home on Pandora. From there, a team was made to supervise and lead the design and build processes. As designs came in, they were evaluated for part availability and build stability in Stud.io (a LEGO building app).
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