BrickJournal #87 by TwoMorrows Publishing

Issue 87 • November 2024

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Jesse Gros’ Airships Take to the Air!

Making a LEGO Minifigure! Jack Carleson’s Airliners! INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE!

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Issue 87 • November 2024

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

Building

People

Jack Carleson: Aircraft Artistry! ............................................32 Miles Bellmore: Plane Crazy! ....................................................42

Jesse Gros: Building Airships! ............................................3 Eric Landreneau’s Luminous Imperator and Shoddy Mariah......................................10 Markus Ronge’s Full Steam 2 ....................................................18 Kendall and Kelsey Swafford: Mural Madness! ............................................26

The LEGO Group

Going Back to Ice Planet, One Figure at a Time! .................................46 BrickNerd Instructions: Airship Island .................................................54 You Can Build It: Le Nuage de Pourpre en miniature ..................................................60

Minifigure Customization 101: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland III ..........................................65

Community

Bantha Bricks: Jared Oswald Life in Pieces ...................................................69 Community Ads ..............................................78 Last Word ............................................................79 AFOLs ...................................................................80

BrickJournal is no longer sold in Barnes & Noble stores. But it’s still available in independent bookstores, comic book shops, and by mail order and subscription!

to Target and came home with the Ninjago Lighthouse Siege set. I couldn’t believe how much LEGO had evolved during my hiatus. The next day, I returned for another Ninjago set, and just like that, my enlightenment period with LEGO began. That week, I stumbled upon the LEGO community on YouTube and went down the rabbit hole for a month. I discovered Brickvault’s “Top 10 MOCs of the Week” and instantly knew I’d be creating my own builds. When someone mentioned that LEGO had its own stores, I was amazed. At the LEGO store I discovered a thing of beauty called the “Pick-a-Brick” wall. After six years of PAB hunting at the five stores in LA County, I pretty much have my own PAB wall at home. Interestingly, I own very few sets; 95% of my adult LEGO purchases have been bulk pieces. My favorite LEGO themes are Elves, Pirates, and Castle, but that’s only because LEGO has yet to come to their senses and launch a steampunk-themed line. (I’ll keep dreaming.) I mostly build in genres I call “Pirate-Punk” and “Fantasy-Punk,” which combine steampunk, pirate, and fantasy elements. I’m also deeply inspired by the aesthetic of the animated series Arcane, a beautiful blend of steampunk and Art Deco. Currently, I’m obsessed with airships. There’s something magical and mysterious about seeing balloons floating in the sky—different from airplanes. Fun fact: I used to own a hot air balloon until my friend and I crash-landed on a private estate and were given 20 minutes by the groundskeeper to vacate the property. I sold my balloon that week, but my love for silent flight continues, in a much safer way—through the brick. The Capital Airship draws inspiration from Gayle Spiller’s MOC “The Winged Ship,” showcased in the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery. Spiller’s creation, based on Vladimir Kush’s painting of the same name, features a vintage ship with butterfly wings for sails. Inspired by this concept, I used Midjourney to develop different iterations of an “airship with butterfly wings.” I kept the front window design from one rendering and ditched the butterfly wings for a more industrial aesthetic, incorporating large engines and dark organic shapes reminiscent of H.R. Giger’s style in the lower front and sides of the MOC.

Jesse Gros’ Capital Airship. The front of the Capital Airship.

A top view of the airship.

The ship has a regal and imposing appearance at the front, built from several PAB cups of 1x1 modified gold bricks—finally put to use after years of hoarding—before transitioning into an industrial rear section, housing a nuclear reactor and exposed structural supports. On the underside, you’ll spot train cattle guard pieces—the very first bulk purchase I made on Bricklink (I bought 50 of them!). Including this piece in all my builds has turned into a sort of personal challenge and a little reminder to myself: “See, I did need that piece!” The Capital Airship is my biggest flying LEGO MOC to date; it took me three weeks to build. I have built many other smaller airships and one very large seafaring hovership called Captain Mayhem’s Party Barge, which you can see on the “Beyond the Brick” YouTube channel. When it comes to building, I prefer not to go it alone. Building can be pretty solitary, so I like to connect with the LEGO community. I find it inspiring and motivating to bounce ideas off fellow builders and get their input, especially when I hit a wall on a big project. I hit a snag halfway through constructing the Capital Airship and couldn’t figure out how to proceed. So, I shot a quick video and posted it on Instagram, asking for suggestions. I ended up incorporating some of those ideas into the final design—it was such an uplifting collaborative experience.

An aft view of the airship.

I think of myself as a flow-state builder rather than someone who sticks to a preplanned idea. I rarely know what the end product will look like and I love being surprised by the process and adapting as new ideas emerge. Sometimes, just one piece will send me in a new direction, and I’m not afraid to take apart hours of work if needed. I find it quite entertaining how often my designs end up looking nothing like my original concepts. Some of my best builds have come from failed attempts at something else. For example, I once tried to recreate Metal Beard’s Sea Cow without instructions. About three hours in, I realized I didn’t have the right pieces, so I pivoted, and it turned into a flying battle chicken—my first airship!

Building

Eris Landreneau’s

Luminous Imperator and Shoddy Mariah Article by Eric Landreneau Photography by Cody Anderson Eric Landreneau’s airships have been seen online and are a great example of imaginative building. BrickJournal chatted to him and got to show off two of his ships! What do you do for a living, and how long you have been LEGO building? I was an optician for about a decade. A couple of years ago I ditched that for a job as a Manufacturing Tech at Intel. Our machines grind thin wafers down to very, very thin wafers, before they’re cut into individual chips. Sounds kinda high-tech, and it sometimes is, but the machines do all the fancy work. I maintain the machines, which mostly involves wrenches and grease. I’ve also written some short stories which have been published in several now-defunct

magazines, and I have self-published a couple of novels. I haven’t written lately, though—been having too much fun building. I also build, hang out with my wife, cook tasty food, seek and enjoy great music, think about building, spend time outside, play with the cat, play board games, read, study, and did I say build yet? I love sci-fi and fantasy books and movies, but I don’t watch shows much; don’t have that kinda time. Gotta build. I don’t play video games nearly as much as I used to. Reaction time is dwindling and really, with the grim reaper drawing nearer, I can’t spend too long on a video game before I think, “What am I doing? I should be creating!” I have a Wii U, if that indicates how much of a gamer I’m not. Okay, that’s out of the way. Time to talk about LEGOs. That’s what matters, innit? I have been building for as long as I can remember. I remember getting sets when I was five-ish, but LEGO was already in my life. I knew what to do with them. I’m the youngest of four, born in 1983. The classic yellow castle and some classic space and town sets were part of the household before

I was. I would pick a spot on the floor in the living room, dump out my tub of bricks, and I’d be good for hours, putting things together, making up stories. I was probably six when I figured out the clean-up hack (we didn’t call them hacks then); got an old sheet from Mom, dumped the LEGOs on the sheet, then when I was done I just pucked the whole sheet up and bundled it into the bin. Easy-peasy. I didn’t have a proper Dark Age. Just got kinda dim in college. Didn’t have them with me, but I would often return to them when I was home. So I never really lost interest. I did hit a dark spot after college where I thought two things: 1. I shouldn’t be doing this anymore. 2. I need money. So I did something I deeply regret: I rebuilt my sets and sold them on Ebay. The whole Ice Planet line; The whole Exploriens line; The M:Tron Mega Core Magnetizer; Unitron, Aquanauts, Blacktron 1 and 2 and Space Police 1 and 2, UFO, Spyrius, various town and Technic and castle sets... when I was done I had raked in about one paycheck. What a fricken’ bonehead. All those parts I really wish I still had. Wasn’t worth it. But even then I didn’t sell it all off. Still had odds and ends and a few more recent sets. I kept playing with my truncated collection, building mechs and stuff, making up stories. So even as I was selling off my childhood collection, part of me knew “I like this. This is part of me forever.” So I’ve always been building, mainly as a solo activity. Sometime in the ’00s I started taking photos and posting on MocPages, interacting with the online community, which only encouraged and inspired me more. I eventually migrated to Flickr. A couple of years ago my wife cajoled me to start going to our local LUG meetings (PortLug represent!). “These are your people,” she said. So plainly, like, “No duh,” I should have figured out that for myself. So I hooked into the local community, started showing at Bricks Cascade, and that again has amplified my interest, my energy, my drive to create, and now collaborate and challenge myself.

Building

Markus Ronge’s

Full Steam 2 Article and Photography by Markus Ronge

From the moment I picked up my first LEGO brick as an adult, my building interest has been in traditional scale model ships and everything steampunk. Anything with a funnel and some elaborate ornaments will spark my creative drive. The scale modeling part mostly centers around real life classic yachts or tug boats, whereas my steampunk adventures are much more varied. They encompass all types of building sub-genres: vehicles, architecture, landscape, micro-scale, and vignettes — and Airships, of course. Always, Airships. As a nod to the Airship, I created a story in the style of a classic graphic novel called Full Steam. It provides me with fresh new ideas for models yet to be built, as they have to serve certain story arcs or scenes. Sometimes the story inspires a MOC, sometimes it’s the other way around.

The setting of Full Steam 2, Aircatraz.

The “fullsteamchronicles” moniker comes from a fictional newspaper which monitors events happening in the city of Brickston. The pivotal event of the story is the crash of the Skytanic with a skyberg, which leads to a princess going overboard, a manhunt on sky pirates, a murder trial for all kinds of suspected conspirators, and a subsequent ‘mission impossible’ style prison break from Aircatraz. Follow me on instagram to catch up with everything that’s happened so far! One of my main world-building goals is to stay true to classic LEGO themes and color schemes, while giving everything else a personal and modern twist. I approach a theme as if it were a full-blown line of sets available for purchase, meaning there’s usually one big ship, several smaller but different sized support vehicles, and the occasional building or landscape scene. With a monumental story like this, there are also lots of minifigures involved—and even here I try to make room for the occasional cameo of existing LEGO characters like the Ninjago Sky Pirates. The action in Full Steam 1 was centered around the Brickston fire department coming to the rescue of the Skytanic’s passengers (chief among them Queen

Bricktoria). I crafted several airships in the classic fire boat color scheme of red, white and blue. Full Steam 2 focuses on the subsequent manhunt for the culprits of this aviation disaster, which gave me a chance to dive deep into LEGO’s police sub-theme. The challenge here was to make all this black, grey and white not look too repetitive and boring. Fortunately—it being steampunk—I could dig deep into my pearl gold, flat silver and Bionicle collection for unique details and ornaments.

The Hover Boat.

The Copter.

The Dreadnaught in flight with patrolling biplanes. The bridge of the vessel in minifigure scale.

The Dreadnaught Police dreadnaught zeppelins are used to secure the airspace over the Brickston empire’s vast dominion. Built for long range duty, they are not the fastest aircraft out there, but what they lack in speed they make up for in firepower. Out of their bellies, a fleet of high-speed fighter biplanes can be employed to chase down faster aircraft. In Full Steam 2 the fleet is sent out to hunt down Nadakhan’s Sky Pirates en route to their safe haven in the Lepin jungle. While I would have loved to build such a zeppelin in minifig-size, this literally would have been an airSHIP. Therefore I went three different routes: midi, micro, and a minifig-sized MOC only of the bridge. This gave me the flexibility for varied, yet detailed cinematic shots for my storyline. Under construction.

The Copter As helicopters are a fairly new invention, coming up with a believable steampunk version was harder than expected. I ended up fusing used elements of an old carriage, a helicopter and a vertical-takeoff aircraft. The Copter shuttles prisoners from the Brickston station to Aircatraz and is able to make a landing on the cargo platform. In Full Steam 2, the utility is hijacked by an unlikely couple conspiring to break a specific prisoner out of the facility.

The Hover Boat

The Copter picking up a prisoner.

I grew up with images of old police and fire ships with their detachable hulls and swimming weights. The original police boat (314) and subsequent iterations are still dear to my heart and served as the main inspiration here. I liked the idea of a dual use vehicle able to patrol the rough rocky water and foggy airspace around Aircatraz.

The “Paddle-Wagon” The paddle-wagon (a play on “Paddy wagon,” obviously) is heavily inspired by 19th century steam tugs. I needed a cargo lifting support vehicle for my storyline, and since I had never built a paddle boat, this MOC gave me the perfect opportunity. Overall this was a fun build which uses random Technic panels, Bionicle parts or mining accessories (surfboards) for shaping and detail.

The Hover Boat in boat mode.

The Paddle Wagon.

The Hover Boat in flight mode.

Building

Kendall and Kelsey Swafford:

Kendall and Kelsey Swafford.

Article by Kendall Swafford Photography by Kelsey Swofford

Ever have one of those ideas? An idea that was too crazy to even attempt!? An idea too big to fail!? This is the story of just such an idea... I never dreamt of building 9’ tall LEGO murals as a child; I was never a LEGO kid growing up. If I had any LEGO sets as a child, those memories are lost to the ravages of time. A comic book cover built entirely out of LEGO was never one of my life goals. Until it was. Kelsey Swafford.

My co-builder in crime, the Robin to my Batman if you will, is my eldest daughter Kelsey. As a child, she would build the occasional set that I would bring her, and she still has her Scala set (3290) The Big Family House and (3569) Grand Soccer Stadium. The LEGO bug really bit us both with the release of the inaugural Batman sets in 2006, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention fellow LEGO fan Mike Schmidt. Mike was (and is) a customer of ours at Up Up & Away!, a small chain of comic shops in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mike was enthusiastic about LEGO, to say the least, and it’s fair to say Mike contributed greatly to our current LEGO obsession!

Flash forward to 2012, and the release of the DC Universe sets inspired us to build large-scale 2D recreations of classic comic book covers. It never occurred to us that it couldn’t be done, so we began planning our first build that fall, with construction of the first mural commencing on July 4th, 2013! I was determined to make them impressive in scale, so the initial mural rose to an amazing nine feet tall. As these are built in one of our stores so customers can see our progress, we had to stop at the ceiling!

Inspiration.

Choosing the subject of our first mural wasn’t all that hard. We’re both big Batman fans, and I’m a big fan of comic book artist David Mazzucchelli, so we chose the cover to Batman #405, the second chapter in the classic Batman: Year One saga. Full disclosure: we picked this issue for our very first mural because there was no background and the figure was mostly cape. Since we had no idea what we were doing, this seemed like the safest bet! The entire mural took about eight weeks, and was completed in one of our stores so we could work on it daily. Fun fact; the lavender background on this mural was originally LEGO blue. At the time of the initial build, we could not source lavender 1x2 plate in sufficient quantities (and at a reasonable price), and since some copies of this comic appeared more blue than purple, we went with blue. Just two weeks before the mural was to make its debut at Cincinnati ComiCon, I received a call from TLG telling me 1x2 lavender plate was now available to purchase. “I need 20,000 of em, STAT!” So we replaced the entire background at the very last minute. Whew! Completion.

Creation.

Building

Jack Carleson: American Airlines DC-10

Aircraft Artistry

Article and Photography by Jack Carleson The last time we talked to Jack Carleson was in BrickJournal #62, where we saw some of his first aircraft models. Since then, he has made many more models that have been displayed at LEGO fan events and museums. Here’s a look at his more recent builds!

The American Airlines DC-10 is my most recent and Technically ambitious project to date. Construction of this behemoth took about six months, and the model uses an estimated 20,000 LEGO parts. A majority of the chrome pieces on the DC-10 are authentic LEGO silver pieces collected over a number of years to construct the DC-10 in the famous American Airlines chrome livery. This model features a full interior, including a first-class and coach lounge and an innovative below-deck galley. In addition to the details on the inside, the DC10 model features a motorized landing gear that can be programmed with the LEGO Powered Up app to extend and retract. The engines on this model can also spin and the inside of the plane is illuminated with lights. This model is based on the earliest variant of the DC-10, known as the DC-1010, which was first produced in 1970. The DC-10 was the first wide-body trijet to enter service in the early 1970s, and it was designed to compete against the legendary Boeing 747 and later the Lockheed L1011. The DC-10 had a bumpy start, with multiple high-profile crashes taking place soon after it entered commercial service. Even though the airplane had a rough start, it went on to form the backbone of numerous airlines, such as American and United, for many years.

Some views of the DC-10.

DC-10 cockpit.

The landing gear of the DC-10 under development.

The American Airlines DC-10 seen from above. The American Airlines DC-10 interior.

Building

Miles Bellmore’s model of the Ford Tri-Motor from the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Miles Bellmore:

Plane Crazy!

Article and Photography by Miles Bellmore

His name is Miles Bellmore, but you probably know him on Flickr as PickleGambino. As a college student, he has been building since he was three. He took a break in middle school but returned to building when the pandemic started. He started building military models and realized that he could apply his interest in movies as well. World War II and other historically-themed vehicles on Flickr inspired and encouraged him to attempt MOCs when he was eight. His favorite theme is Indiana Jones. Building inspiration came from WWII and other historicalthemed vehicles on Flickr. These caught his interest. Miles finds inspiration for his models in his love for movies and 20th Century military history. These interests often intersected with what he makes and encouraged him to attempt MOCs when he was about eight. Regarding how he builds, Miles was inspired by LEGO’s old Town line, with its smaller vehicles, to use the smaller 1:48 scale that is a little more proportionate to a minifigure’s height than larger scales like 1:35, which is better proportioned for a figure’s width.

A preliminary build sketch of the top of the plane.

Planning starts by researching what he wants to replicate; understanding the historical context surrounding the subject and compiling reference photos are integral steps in his building process. Miles always learn more about the subject as he builds it, so the research process doesn’t end until he places the final piece. After some preliminary research, Miles starts by finding the build’s dimensions. This is usually simple; if he can find a vehicle’s real-life dimensions, he plugs the numbers into one of the many online LEGO unit/scale converters to receive stud dimensions. He also utilizes any schematics that he can find online. These were particularly useful

The front view of the preliminary build.

while modeling the Lao Che Ford Tri-Motor from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was important to get the Tri-Motor’s simple, iconic silhouette right, especially in places like the wings and fuselage. Regardless of the subject, he always prioritizes scale and proportion over details. The fictitious Horten Ho38 flying wing from Raiders of the Lost Ark was the most difficult and ambitious build Miles has tackled. It took effort to shape it faithfully, especially in the middle. He likes that he used 2x2 wedge plates to cover gaps as the middle of the plane slopes down. Miles plans to update the model in the future because he used colors that only exist digitally in the parts he used. He has also improved in making better-scaled brick-built propellers.

The plane picking up Indiana Jones.

Another view of the plane in flight.

The LEGO Group

New and old Ice Planet figures.

Going Back to Ice Planet... One Figure at a Time! Article by Chris Perron and Tore M. Harmark-Alexandersen Art provided by The LEGO Group, Chris Perron, and Tore M. Harmark-Alexandersen

Growing up, Ice Planet was one of Chris Perron’s favorite themes (likely due to the heavy snowfall of Canadian winters) and he has a very distinct memory of opening up the 6983 Ice Station Odyssey for Christmas one year. At university, Chris studied Industrial Design while being a passionate AFOL building his own MOCs and sharing them online and at fan conventions. Now that he has moved to Denmark to work as a model designer at The LEGO Group, he still enjoys building in his free time and sharing his love for the brick! Tore M. Harmark-Alexandersen’s father worked at LEGO before Tore was born and until he was four years old. His father was a model/concept designer, but also did final products. One of the sets Tore’s father remembers designing was 7822 Railway Station. So of course, he had a lot of LEGO bricks in his household, and of course it made Tore a mad LEGO fan from birth. What happens when these two designers team up to make an updated Ice Planet minifigure? BrickJournal let the designers tell the story themselves! But first, an introduction...

Chris Perron (left) and Tore M. Harmark-Alexandersen.

About the Designers Chris Perron is a Senior Designer at the LEGO Group. He has been a model designer since 2016, working on many sets across lines such as Super Heroes and Monkie Kid, while bouncing around various teams to work on specific products such as: 76832 XL-15 Spaceship, 10316 Rivendell, and getting to work with his wife, Laura Perron, also a LEGO Designer on 21336 The Office.

Chris Perron’s Ice Planet-themed creations.

Tore M. Harmark-Alexandersen is a character/graphical designer at the LEGO Group and has worked there since 2009. Over the years he has worked on many different play themes, like Pharaoh’s Quest, Castle 2013, Galaxy Squad, Chima, Nexo Knights, Duplo, CITY, and many more. In 2019 Tore moved to Minifigure Collectibles, where he works in collaboration with the Design lead Esa Petteri Nousiainen. He has been creating the yellow skinned minifig series ever since.

Some illustrations by Tore M. Harmark-Alexandersen.

Parts List

(Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Part Color Description 1 2 4 1 1 1 1 8 2 1 3 3 5 1 3 3 4 8 2 1 2

Airship Island Design by the BrickNerd Team

When it comes to flying vehicles, nothing captures the imagination quite like airships soaring in the sky. They instantly transport you to a realm of wonder and possibility where craggy mountains peek above the clouds and waterfalls careen to the world below. For our airship island, we wanted to create something that felt airy with lots of negative space—an island that looks like it is balancing delicately in the sky. To achieve this, we used a strong base made from mudguards that are locked into place with SNOT bricks. To make the build more playful, we used bright colors to be fun and eye catching. Lime green 4x4 domes are used for mounds of grass, medium azure for the water, and Minecraft Axolotl faces for some cute houses! Lastly, we wanted to show two different kinds of flying transportation in microscale—hence a traditional airship (using minifigure shoulder pads) and a hot air balloon (using a minifigure neck ruffle and a few Ninjago masks to create the spherical shape), all held up by the new clear curved bars for a little extra magic.

So weigh anchor and start building your own airship island to take to the skies!

1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 3 1 2 2 4 1 1 1 1 2

50955.dat

Dark Bluish Grey Wedge 10 x 3 x 1 Double Rounded Left 41747.dat Dark Bluish Grey Wedge 2 x 6 Double Right 54200.dat Dark Bluish Grey Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 11211.dat Dark Bluish Grey Brick 1 x 2 with Two Studs on One Side 60477.dat Dark Bluish Grey Slope Brick 18 4 x 1 78443.dat Dark Bluish Grey Wing 2 x 6 Left 93273.dat Dark Bluish Grey Slope Brick Curved 4 x 1 Double 3024.dat Dark Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 1 62361.dat Dark Bluish Grey Car Mudguard 6 x 1.5 x 1 with Arch 26604.dat Dark Bluish Grey Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on Two Adjacent Sides 3666.dat Dark Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 6 43710.dat Dark Bluish Grey Wedge 4 x 2 Double Left 86996.dat Dark Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 1 x 0.667 73230.dat Dark Bluish Grey Technic Brick 1 x 1 with Axlehole 35480.dat Dark Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 2 with Round Ends and 2 Open Studs 79491.dat Dark Bluish Grey Plate 2 x 2 Corner Round 6231.dat Dark Bluish Grey Panel 1 x 1 x 1 Corner with Rounded Corners 4733.dat Dark Bluish Grey Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on Four Sides 43711.dat Dark Bluish Grey Wedge 4 x 2 Double Right 99251.dat White Minifig Neck Ruff 85861.dat White Plate 1 x 1 Round with Open Stud 35787.dat White Tile 2 x 2 Triangular 87994.dat White Bar 3L 85861.dat Trans Clear Plate 1 x 1 Round with Open Stud 4042.dat Trans Clear Bar Curved with Axle End and 2 Opposite Studs 30374.dat Trans Clear Bar 4L Lightsaber Blade 22388.dat Red Slope Brick 50 1 x 1 x 0.667 Quadruple 85861.dat Reddish Brown Plate 1 x 1 Round with Open Stud 92690.dat Reddish Brown Bar 1L with Top Stud and Two Side Studs 88295.dat Reddish Brown Minifig Armour Shoulder Pads with Top Spikes 3024px0.dat Bright Lt Orange Plate 1 x 1 with 2 Black Squares and Dark Orange Rectangle Pattern 15573.dat Lime Plate 1 x 2 with Groove with 1 Centre Stud, without Understud 65138.dat Lime Brick 4 x 4 x 0.667 with Rounded Top and Four Top Studs 26601.dat Lime Plate 2 x 2 without Corner 59900.dat Green Cone 1 x 1 with Stop 4162.dat Medium Azure Tile 1 x 8 3460.dat Medium Azure Plate 1 x 8 6091.dat Medium Azure Brick 2 x 1 x 1.333 with Curved Top 3070b.dat Medium Azure Tile 1 x 1 with Groove 24504.dat Blue Minifig Face Scarf with Notch in Back

Alice: Huh! Seems to me they could learn a few things about manners!

The final bit to this creation was arranging the flowers in the garden form based on the inspirational photo. This primarily was using various LEGO foliage parts to stagger the height of the flowers to various levels to showcase them visibly. I believe the LEGO Alice figure works well with the garden, and while I continue to play with these designs, I do like this novel dive into alternative figures in the LEGOverse, and hope you do as well. *Cheshire Cat designed by iBrickHeadz and color and part modified by Jared K. Burks You can view Jared’s webpage by going to http://www.fine clonier.com/ or scanning this QR code!

Come back next issue for more Minifigure Customization! A close-up of the painted flowers. The finished garden.

Jared Oswald:

Life in Pieces

Article by David Strenzler, Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars Photography by Jared Oswald Duel on Jabiim.

Galactic greetings! We are Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars. As administrators of one of the best LEGO Star Wars themed groups on Facebook, David Strenzler, Frank Averstegge and Eloi Parizeau witness amazingly creative builds by Star Wars fans worldwide on a nearly daily basis. This time, we would like to introduce you to another very talented MOC builder and Bantha Bricks community member: Jared Oswald (Life in Pieces). David Strenzler: Hello Jared. Welcome to the Bantha Bricks Files! The LEGO Star Wars community has been familiar with your skilled Star Wars-inspired designs for some time. Could you please introduce yourself and what you do? Jared Oswald: Thanks for the kind words, David. I’m Jared Oswald, owner of Life In Pieces Brick Shop and Design Studio. Through Life In Pieces, I work as a professional LEGO artist, designing custom models for corporations and other organizations. I also run our Bricklink/Brick Owl store, which has roughly one million parts in stock. I’ve been designing and running the business full-time since 2021.

Would you say that Star Wars is your favorite theme, or are there others that we might not expect? I would say Star Wars is my favorite active theme. I loved Mars Mission and Space Police when they were out. Each had a unique space aesthetic that set them apart. I was also a huge fan of Bionicle before it retired. Why have you chosen the LEGO brick as your medium of self-expression? What makes LEGO so special to you? I’ve worked with LEGO since I was a kid. It just makes sense to me. Working in traditional mediums (paint, drawing, clay sculpting, etc.) you can create the exact detail that you want for any given project. I think the largest appeal to working with LEGO is the challenge of working in a medium that has limited options. Not every part is available in every color or in unlimited quantities. It forces you to adapt and find creative solutions.