The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 30 • August 2014
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Building Buildings with Jonathan Lopes! 1964 World’s Fair Villa Amanzi
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Issue 30 • August 2014
Contents
From the Editor...................................................2
People/Building Villa Amanzi: LEGO Modeling a Luxury Thai Villa....3 Urban Building.................................................11 You Can Build It: Truck and Trailer............................................17 Anuradha Pehrson: Childhood Interest,Adult Passion....21 The Chapel of the Immaculate Conception......................................................29 Building a Community Brick by Brick....................................................33 Building Copenhagen................................40 Rebuilding the 1964 World’s Fair........46 You Can Build It: New York Pavilion, 1964 World’s Fair..........................................51 BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Bronson Gate.................................................54 You Can Build It: Endor Shield Generator Bunker.......62 MINDSTORMS 101: Programming Turns for Your Robot................................................68 Minifigure Customization 101: Jared Burks:A History of a Hobby and a Hobbyist..............................................70
Community LEGO Ideas: Getting the Word Out:QR Codes.....74 An Interesting Idea:Food Truck........76 Community Ads.............................................78 Last Word..............................................................79 AFOLs......................................................................80
From the Editor: This issue is the Architecture Issue, which spotlights some of the builders out there that have built incredible structures of all types and scales. It was a lot of fun finding and talking to everyone—two interviews I did were done on Skype, which brought a little more to the article than the usual e-mail interview.
August 2014 Issue 30 Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
Contributors: Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Rafe Donahue, Ulrik Hansen, Christopher Hettinger, Damien Kee, Jonathan Lopes, Anuradha Pehrson, Robert Turner, Cody Wells, Tommy Williamson, Brian Wygand, 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: A town building by Jonathan Lopes. Photo by Jonathan Lopes. About the Contents: The New York State Pavilion observation towers loom over the Tent of Tomorrow. Model by Cody Wells. Photo by Joe Meno.
Some of the stories took time to happen— the story behind the Science Center of Iowa and Blank IMAX® Theater took a year to get to the pages of BrickJournal, and it’s story that really isn’t finished. Anuradha Pehrson’s model of Tiger’s Nest Monastery was seen in Fall of 2013. Some of Jonathan Lopes’ buildings have been built for the past few years. BrickJournal takes time to find and talk to the best builders out there, but there’s always another builder to spotlight—and another builder to show us, and me, how to build a different way. Thanks for reading and exploring the hobby with me! Joe Meno, Editor
P.S. Have ideas or comments? Drop me a line at admin@brickjournal.com. I’m open to suggestions and comments and will do my best to reply. P.P.S... Yes, BrickJournal has a website — www.brickjournal.com! Twitter? Yep, there too — http://twitter.com/brickjournal. Facebook? Yup — http://www.facebook. com/group.php?gid=58728699914&ref=mf. Or you can scan the bottom codes with a QR reader! P.P.P.S. If you want info on a subscription, you can go to: http://twomorrows.com/ index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=78&products_id=616 or scan below! Website
Glossary
AFOL (Adult 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)
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POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces) SNOT (Studs Not on Top) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club)
LEGO®, TECHNIC, MINDSTORMS, Belville, Scala, BIONICLE, ExoForce, Mars Mission, World City, and other LEGO theme lines are trademarks of the LEGO Group of companies. All articles, photos, and art are copyright BrickJournal Media, LLC 2011, TwoMorrows Publishing and the respective writers, photographers, and artists. All rights reserved. All trademarked items are the property of their respective owners and licensees. Subscriptions are $57USD Media Mail, $75 Canada, $86 International Surface, $128 International Airmail and can be purchased at www.twomorrows.com or payment sent to: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614 USA. The editorial/advertising office address for BrickJournal is: BrickJournal Editor, 5610 Briar Oak Lane #510, Raleigh, NC 27612 USA or admin@brickjournal.com. First Printing. Printed in the USA. ISSN 1941-2347. BrickJournal and its staff would like to thank the LDraw community for the software it makes available to the community, which we use for making all of the instructions and renderings in this magazine. We would especially like to thank Kevin Clague for his continued upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of2the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
People
Villa Amanzi:
LEGO Modeling a Luxury Thai Villa Article and Photography by Robert Turner
Before we get into the details of modeling the villa, let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Robert Turner and my Flickr handle is rt_bricks. By day, I am a computer software developer, although more recently I have been managing software teams and overseeing software architecture for mobile and embedded operating systems. Outside of work and LEGO, I have interests in sports, largely soccer/football which I have played, coached and refereed.
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Building Villa Amanzi was a good challenge, and lived up to my expectations of creating a technically solid, detailed, microscale architectural model that would attract attention for both the modeling and architectural style. I hope that you also appreciate and enjoy the model. And while these isn’t enough space in one article to describe how every detail was made, I hope you find this article useful in understanding how I approached this project and solved some of the problems I encountered. Hopefully you are now inspired — happy building! I look forward to seeing what you create.
Above: Another overhead view of the pool and upper level. Left and below: Night views of Villa Amanzi at Brickworld 2014. Night view photos by Joe Meno.
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People
Urban Building
Article and Photography by Jonathan Lopes Coronado Building.
Background:
Jonathan Lopes, from BKNY Bricks, is a New York City based creative who works within the medium of LEGO Bricks.
As a child, LEGO was the toy that kept my imagination busy at play for hours. And “imagination” had a lot to do with it, too. I had a limited collection of mostly basic bricks, plates and wheels, but that did not stop me from building, imagining and dreaming. I have always been a creative in many areas: drawing, music, writing, and LEGO building, among others. In my teens through my mid-twenties I focused my creative energy on music. This focus brought me from my hometown on the south shore of Massachusetts to New York in 1990. I have lived here since. I first got back into LEGO as an adult in 1997, after I read about The LEGO Company obtaining the Star Wars license. I have always been attracted to city living: the hustle and bustle, being anonymous, the diverse cultures and having everything I need just a short walk away. And, living in New York City is what enabled my creativity to flourish and also what first peaked my interest in architecture and infrastructure. It is difficult not to be influenced in these aspects while being in an urban setting on a daily basis. Further, because of the age of the city, there are all kinds of architectural styles to take in. Many buildings combine the varying styles of different eras, as well. It is amazing what one can see from a short stroll 11 around one block, and even more so around 20 blocks!
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People
Anuradha Pehrson:
Sometimes toys from our childhood awaken interests or passions in us that shape our later lives. This is my story.
Childhood Interest, Adult Passion
I grew up in India where LEGO wasn’t easily available. An aunt visiting Europe bought a Creator set as a gift for my brother who was just one year old than me. I was eight, so I helped myself to it. A gift he couldn’t appreciate turned out to be a windfall for me. I quickly built all three versions and yearned to build more. There were so many ideas running through my head but I didn’t have the option of going out and buying more bricks, so every time I sat down to build, I’d take just this one set and manage to build something new, something different. Scarcity inspired improvisation.
Article and Photography by Anuradha Pehrson
On some unrealized level my brain was being primed for a lifelong passion for architecture and of course, I had fallen in love with LEGO. LEGO building continued until my early teens and then waned, but my love of architecture as a subject persisted. I borrowed books from the library and even thumbed through trade magazines. When it came time to pick a career, architecture was the obvious choice. Unfortunately one of the prerequisites was a drawing examination, which I failed. For some reason they felt I needed to be able to draw flowers in a vase before designing buildings! My life changed in 2001 when I moved from a country that had a warm climate, vibrant colors everywhere, and great food, to Seattle, a place that was cold, rainy and grey, and I found most of the food tasteless. Finding my bearings here was going to be an uphill task! One day walking around downtown, I happened upon an FAO Schwarz toy store with piles of LEGO buckets in the window 21
display. Without hesitating, I went in and bought a few. I had found something to connect me to my former life; something to hold on to, in this grey and rainy place. It was probably the happiest day of the first few months of living in Seattle! Being able to build with LEGO, I delved deeper into my passion for architecture and studied different styles from around the world. Each hobby fed the other. This process continues even today. I built by myself until 2004 when, accidently, I discovered the worldwide LEGO community, BrickCon and various LUGs. It was a relief to learn that not only was I not crazy, but there’s actually a descriptive acronym for me: AFFOL (adult female fan of LEGO)—although, personally I would like to change that to AFBOL (adult female builder of LEGO). A tree creation, and inadvertently, a new treebuilding technique.
In one of my first MOCs, I tried to capture the look and feel of a typical small southern Indian house, including a couple of trees in a homey backyard. I brought this MOC to my first SeaLUG meeting and was told this tree technique had never been done before to anyone’s knowledge. Since then my ambition has been to employ a new technique with every MOC. It’s a goal not always achieved, but I strive to use parts and elements in unique ways, and my childhood habit of building with available parts has stayed. Of course I’ve purchased specific parts for many MOCs, but generally challenge myself to work with what I have. Building within constraints pushes the boundaries of my creativity and sometimes inspires unique solutions to problems. Inspiration can be drawn from almost anything—strolling in a garden, on city streets or completing a puzzle. For example, while absorbed over a jigsaw puzzle depicting Venice’s iconic Rialto Bridge, I got the idea to build the entire diorama.
The Rialto Bridge.
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The first priority was to create something as close as possible to the original. Photos of my own and Internet images were plentiful, but almost all of them were taken from the same angle. To build, I needed plans, technical information and lots and lots of pictures from all angles. After accessing these, a careful study revealed some remarkable architectural details. For example, on top of the round arches there is a small lip of marble, and just above that, tile-like pieces of stone jutting out. The four sides of the stairs are not symmetrical and no two of the shop doors flanking the arch are alike. When building a MOC from the real world these details make the difference between a good replica and a mere toy model. The next step was to figure out which parts would serve to replicate these intricate details. Then I began building. The process always goes something like: stare at the photo, stare at available parts, check Bricklink to see if there are other parts that would work better, and then build something. This first version never works, so I repeat the process, and then finally after many iterations, it’s “I Got it!”
The Bridge itself was difficult to do because I was trying to make it an authentic copy. Replicating some of the details with LEGO elements was challenging. Also, I used a lot of modified brick 1x1 with stud on one side for the external details. These gave me the look I needed, but because they are single bricks, the stability of the structure was weak. Reinforcing the structure for transportation without losing any of the façade was tough. The surrounding buildings have intriguing architectural details as well, but I didn’t stay very true to those. I experimented with available parts to create similar designs, or even took it a step further in some cases by making them better than what they are! That was the enjoyable part of this build. The bridge took me about two months to finish, but the remainder of the diorama took less than a month. The tourists eating pizza and drinking wine, and the man buying flowers for his girlfriend, added a touch of whimsy and life.
Bridge building.
A fun detail.
The finished bridge.
Another view of the bridge diorama.
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Community
Rebuilding the 1964 World’s Fair
In 1964, the New York World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadows as a celebration of the theme “Peace through Understanding.” Occupying nearly a square mile of land, this was the largest World’s Fair held in the United States. After the event, much of the site was torn down. What remained included the Unisphere, the New York Pavilion and the New York City Pavilion, which is now the Queens Museum of Art. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the World’s Fair, a group of LEGO builders led by Cody Wells of C3Brix were commissioned to build some of the structures seen at the event. Reflecting the international nature of the World’s Fair, all of the LEGO models were of parts purchased online from around the world. Here’s a look at some of the models that are on display. If you are in the New York City area, this display will be open until November 2.
Article and Photography by Joe Meno
An overall view of the pavilion. The large round open structure is the Tent of Tomorrow.
A glimpse of one of the towers.
New York State Pavilion
by Cody Wells over 1900 parts used from six different countries. Designed for the 1964 New York World’s Fair by architects Philip Johnson and Lev Zetlin, the facility was built between 1962 and 1964. Afterwards, the site was abandoned and went into disrepair. Moviegoers may recognize the New York Pavilion from the movie Men in Black, as the site where a flying saucer was kept... in plain sight! Others may recognize it from Iron Man 2, where Flushing Meadows was the site for Stark Expo. In June of 2014, it was announced that restoration of the electrical system and the staircases in the towers would take place over the next year.
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A high view of the pavilion.
A look at the interior of the stadium.
Some interior shots of the stadium.
If you’re viewing a Digital Edition of this publication,
PLEASE READ THIS: A look at the back of the stadium.
Shea Stadium
by Cody Wells over 1500 parts used from three different countries. Shea Stadium opened five days before the World’s Fair opened, to 50,312 New York Mets fans. The blue and orange panels on the walls were both the colors of the Mets and the Fair, and remained until 1980. The stadium was also the home of the New York Jets until 1983. The stadium closed in 2008 and was demolished to make way for a parking area for the adjacent Citi Field.
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www.twomorrows.com
Building Minifigure Customization 101:
Jared K. Burks A History of a Hobby and a Hobbyist! by Andrew Vu and Jared K. Burks
It has been brought to my attention that I have not written any articles or details about who I am or what I do for a living. So I thought I would give a brief background about my professional career and tie that to a short history of the development of my hobby. I am highlighting interactions I have had with others in the development of Minifigure Customization. As many of these photos are from the early days of digital photography, many photos are not great; please forgive these low resolution photographs. As many of you know, my name is Jared; I attended college in Florida at a small school called Florida Institute of Technology. While in college I was on the Rowing team and pursued Marine Biology, Pre-professional Biology (premed), and Molecular Biology. I graduated in 1995 with two Bachelor of Science degrees: one in Molecular Biology and one in Pre-professional Biology. It was during my last two years of college that I left my first Dark Age to delve into the world of Pirates and Islanders. I was captivated by the Skull’s Eye Schooner, and being a broke college student, it took quite a while to save up the money for this extravagance. Once this was built, things sort of spiraled and I ended up with most of the Pirates and Islander sets which decorated my apartments for years. After leaving college I had a mini-Dark Age till the Star Wars LEGO sets emerged. During this time I had started working as a research assistant in a Molecular Virology research laboratory at Texas A&M University, studying how proteins move around inside a cell. This research was performed by engineering small alterations in specific proteins in an insect virus. These engineered viruses were then used to infect insect cells and study how these alterations affected the protein trafficking. During this time I had resumed my earlier woodworking and wood carving hobbies. In 1998 I started working on my PhD in Biology in this same laboratory, studying a protein called BV/ODV E26. E26 trafficked to the plasma membrane (cell surface) early during infection and to the nucleus later during infection. It was during graduate school that I started building the Star Wars LEGO sets and quickly discovered that LEGO did not detail items to my liking. My first customizations were mini-ships. My first decaled item was the Mini-tie. I wanted the clear radar dish to have the octagonal decoration. During this time I started researching how to create decals and struggled to find a printer that could print with white ink.
First Design: Mini-Tie Fighter Cover.
Shortly after designing the cover for the Mini-Tie Fighter, the bug had caught me and I had found the printer capable of printing in white ink, which at that time had already been taken out of production. I instantly started drawing and created 68 designs to make custom Star Wars figures because I got tired of the small selection of characters made by LEGO. At the time, there were very few people making custom figures, so I had to teach myself how to make custom figures. The prevailing technique to do so was to print out a design on paper, trim it out, and then attach it to the figure in clear packing tape. The tape would wrap the entire torso and have the seams on the edge of the torso to hide the tape. I met Chris “Uubergeek” Campbell during this time as he was taping figures. I was unhappy with this method and uncovered the waterslide decal technique.
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Taped and or painted Figures by Chris Campbell using designs by Robert Martin or Jared Burks
Creating custom figures was not widely accepted during this time; people viewed them as inferior and “not” LEGO. It didn’t matter that in many cases it simply wasn’t possible to create these figures any other way. It was a slow process that was helped when I met Chris “Bertramtalespinner” Howard, a cartoonist. I convinced him to draw several faces for various custom figures. In reality there was only one custom item at that time that was used, and that was the guns that Jeff “Blasterman” Byrd created through The Little Armory. Around this time I created Kaminoan’s Fine Clonier, a site where I offered custom waterslide decals. During this time I started creating so many custom Star Wars characters that I drew the attention of Robert “Tothiro” Martin, an incredibly gifted sculptor who was making custom heads for Star Wars Aliens. He and I started creating content for the same figures to help each other complete custom Star Wars Aliens.
Jeff “Blasterman” Byrd’s logo for his custom weapons site.
Chris Howard’s Faces, Torso Designs by Jared Burks.
Robert Martin Custom Heads, Torso Designs by Jared Burks.
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