The Magazine for LEGO® The Enthusiasts Magazineof for AllLEGO® Ages! Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 34 • May 2015
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Behind the Scenes of BrickNerd Studios’
Batman vs Superman Brandon Griffith reveals
ComicBricks
Jared Burks builds the
Agents of SHIELD
Batman, Superman TM & © DC Comics.
Instructions AND MORE!
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Issue 34 • May 2015
Contents
From the Editor....................................................2
People Behind the Scenes of Batman vs Superman: Flinging Batarangs One Frame at a Time.................................................................4 Ten-Year-Old LEGO Lover Builds Brick Loot...........................................................10
Building Minifigure Customization 101: Creating the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.....12 Ann Foley’s Costumes of S.H.I.E.L.D....19 Building Lola.......................................................21 LEGO Ideas Spotlight: The S.H.I.E.L.D.Helicarrier........................24 Building the Helicarrier in Microscale....................................................26 Building for Heroes........................................28 You Can Build It: Mini Batmobile..............................................34 Galactus Strikes!...............................................39 You Can Build It: Hulkbuster Armor.......................................40 Blackbird Fly!.......................................................48 Building the Endless.....................................52 Basic Hero Building........................................56 Presenting the Super Friends................59
Community Stick a Brick: Denmark’s LEGO-Themed Stamps.................................................................62 ComicBricks: Creating LEGO Comic Covers................64 Bricking Comics: DC Comics’ LEGO Covers..........................72 Everything is Awesome at the Academy Awards.........................74 Community Ads..............................................78 Last Word..............................................................79 AFOLs......................................................................80
People
One of the camera set-ups for BvS.
Behind the Scenes of Batman vs Superman:
Flinging Batarangs One Frame at a Time
Article and Photography by Tommy Williamson
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One day back in June 2014 while I was working on Expendables 3, the topic turned, as it often does, to geek news. Professionals in the visual effects industry tend to be like me: overgrown kids, and conversations have a tendency to go that way. News about Batman V Superman was percolating, and everyone was wondering how Ben Affleck was going to do in the Batman role. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what that match-up might be like: just how would that go down? It all seems a bit preposterous of course, debating what might happen if imaginary characters engaged in battle, but I kept thinking about it. And the more I thought, the funnier the concept seemed to be. Then I realized, this would be a funny short, and what better way to tell my little story than with a brickfilm? It’s been ages since BrickNerd Studios, the animation division of my company BrickNerd Enterprises, finished the animation for Beyond the Brick: A LEGO Brickumentary, and since it’s still not out, we haven’t been able to share much of it with very many people. So I was keen not only to tell this story, but to also have a bit of a showpiece for BrickNerd Studios. So I blocked out a quick framework, and that night I wrote the script. I showed it to a couple of people and got some good feedback, so I decided I was onto something. It was time to make a little movie.
My years in visual effects and Hollywood filmmaking have given me a really good foundation in the overall production process, and that’s how I approach my projects: as miniature versions of full-fledged movies. I start with a script, in industry standard formatting, then I move to storyboards. On this project I decided to do digital storyboards (as opposed to pen on paper) to make production quicker. It also allows for easy reproduction of similar frames, by reusing elements and adding additional detail. Luckily, on this particular project there are very few camera angles, so storyboarding went pretty quickly. Once I finished the boards, I went to work on an animatic. An animatic is essentially a storyboard version of the film, cut to the length of the expected project. My animatics also have dialog, sound effects and music, since I want to get the pacing of the project down, and to find the right feel for the project. Traditionally the dialog for an animated film is recorded first, and this film was no exception. I found a voice artist I really liked on fiverr.com, Chris Lovingood, and he agreed to be Superman. I decided to do Batman myself (a decision that I still question) and while I waited for his dialogue, I recorded my own. I had a pretty vivid picture in my head of the scenery for this project, so while I was working on the animatic, I hired builder Dane Erland to get the scenery started. We did several Google searches for alleys and such, and once I was able to communicate what I was looking for, he got to building. I also designed the set in three pieces, that would allow for all the angles needed by simply rearranging them. If you look at the short closely, you’ll see it’s just the same three building facades in all the shots, but with careful lighting and composition, it looks like a full environment. Dane worked a full week at the studio, while I wrapped up the animatic and dabbled with the build (like building the fire escape), and when he was done we had two full facades and the beginning of the third. We also had the ground and quite a bit of the details. I should note that while all the previous activity was happening, there was also quite a bit of other things going on. I took a trip to Hawaii with my family, my son started college, I had guests at the studio for a couple LiveBuilds, produced an episode of BrickNerd for my YouTube channel, and generally... life. This was certainly a side project, despite being a bit ambitious. This was the case for the entirety of the production, just squeezing it in between all the other things I needed to get done. Building proceeded for another few weeks, and by the second week of September, the set was finally done. I started doing the scale lighting with the BrickStuff products I had on hand, including the practical light fixtures on the buildings. I was so excited with how it was turning out, I sent some secret behind-the-scenes pictures to Rob Klingburg at BrickStuff. He was delighted with the progress, and shared a secret with me too: his new round lights. Coincidently I was struggling with fitting some lights in the practical fixtures on the brick wall. These new lights would work so much better and Rob hooked me up with some to finish the job. Paired with the controller board to dim them, the new lights worked perfectly. In addition to the lighting, set dressing was also needed, so I carefully arranged all the garbage cans, trash and debris for a nice “back alley” look. Then I glued them down (I’ll pause here to allow you all to calm down... better?). I should clarify, in my MOC building, I’m a purist, no gluing, no modifying. But as a filmmaker, practicality trumps purity, and stuff that’s glued in place (with Elmer’s—I’m not a sadist) doesn’t move while shooting, ruining an otherwise perfect shot. When it’s all done, the Elmer’s glue pops off cleanly like it never happened. Now that the set was fully lit, dressed and tweaked, it was time to shoot.
Storyboards for the film.
Set construction.
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Building
Minifig Customization 101:
Creating the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D! by Jared K. Burks
This is the 40th article in this series. To celebrate this accomplishment, I thought we would take this article back to its foundations in decal design. In order to do this I am going to use Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as inspiration for the article. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a television series created for ABC by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen based on the Marvel Comics organization S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division). This organization is a peacekeeping and spy agency populated with the colorful characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, allowing it to share continuity with the Marvel film franchise. The
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show is in its second season and centered on the character of Phil Coulson, who was introduced in the original Iron Man film from 2008. Coulson is an everyman-style character who is fiercely loyal to his team and organization and is now the Director and the heart of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show chronicles Coulson’s team through many trials and tribulations fighting evil baddies and Hydra. While we have a license from Marvel for various super-heroes and the Avengers, this has not included characters from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. As a huge fan of S.H.I.E.L.D., I was instantly taken by the show and its unique style for the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents. (My craze started with the S.H.I.E.L.D. comics and I can report that I have had the pleasure of meeting Jim Steranko on multiple occasions; he was massively influential in creating Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., but I digress.) In this article, I am going to display the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. characters I have created in minifigure form and discuss how and why I have outfitted them accordingly. I will point out how I have made the designs cohesive between the Goodies and the Baddies. While I would love to claim the credit for the shows amazing style, this belongs to Ann Foley, the Costume Designer for the show. I merely interpreted her awesome costumes. Through the creation of these figures, I have had the pleasure of conversing with Ann Foley via Twitter. Ann has been gracious enough to answer some questions about the show’s style that she has
contributed through the characters’ costume design; look for her comments in the insert. I would also like to thank Arune Singh, Executive Director of TV Communications; Marvel Entertainment for his assistance with Ann’s participation. Please note that Ann’s participation in this article is not an endorsement of my custom S.H.I.E.L.D. Minifigures or any other content in this issue.
Phil Coulson (Clark Clegg)
Coulson is a company man, his style is fairly basic. In Season One he wore lighter colored dark suits, blues more than blacks. I have attempted to capture his style in a black suit with a lighter blue shirt. Black figure parts are a bit more difficult because you have to outline the design in a lighter or darker shade color. On black parts, this isn’t completely possible. So I went with a dark grey outline to the suit. When I created this design I went through about 12 different color combinations to get the right mix to get the outline to go well with the shirt color. I also started to unify my agents with their S.H.I.E.L.D badge.
See Jared’s Agents of SHIELD minifigs and many others at the
SPOILER ALERT: Please note this article will contain spoilers if you are not currently watching Season Two of the show and are at least up to the Winter break (halfway through) of Season Two. Agents of SHIELD TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen)
Agent May wears a specially designed suit called a Tactical Suit, that appears to be very flexible for hand-to-hand combat. It features a vest-style jacket that looks to be quilted. She also appears to feature prominent patches on her shoulders; however, after my chat with Ann Foley, I know that not to be the case. Again this is a Season One look with her slight scowl, as she was on the team, yet a bit outside during that time. Notice her badge helps tie her to S.H.I.E.L.D.
Drive your Power Functions with a smartphone. LEGO Festival ®
May 7-10, 2015 (Mother’s Day Weekend) Charlotte, North Carolina
Details at www.brickmagic.org
Find out more at brickpowerllc.com.
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The SBrick is not endorsed by the LEGO Group.
Building
Batman’s Tumbler and armory.
Jared Chan:
Building for Heroes Article by Joe Meno Photography by Jared Chan
Jared Chan is a 29-year-old certified professional accountant. Currently on a career break and looking for a new direction, he has been building as an AFOL for LEGO Hong Kong Limited in recent years, but as he says, “that’s for fun so far.” (His work includes buildings of a LEGO Winter Village at Times Square, Hong Kong in 2012, and HK landmark buildings at the LEGO sales area at a Toys’R’us flagship, HK in 2014. These will be showcased in an upcoming issue of BrickJournal). Jared got his first LEGO set even before he was born and LEGO had always been part of his life (although he did have a semi-dark age). He started doing MOCs ‘seriously’ in 2007 when the Cafe Corner was released. Jared builds to achieve goals, challenge himself, and fulfill desires not achievable in the real world. LEGO bricks give him a way to release tension and express himself. Jared talked about his super-hero-related creations with BrickJournal. Here are his comments.
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Batman’s armory.
Batman’s Tumbler, Armory and Batpod “Does it come in black?”
Some views of Jared’s Batpod.
—Bruce Wayne referring to the Tumbler. Batman Begins (2005)
The Batpod was built in 2012 and isthe earliest among these four MOCs. I wasn’t a super-heroes fan at the time, but who doesn’t love Batman? It was actually my second attempt at making a Batpod and it was for a good friend of mine, so two copies of this Batpod were built, which is highly unusual for me. The Batpod took approximately five hours to build excluding research time, which was going through trailers, set photos, and watching the source movies over and over again! The Tumbler (also a second attempt) and the Armory were built in late 2013/early 2014. They took approximately 16 hours to construct, excluding research. I wanted to build the Bat as well but we have another talented builder in Hong Kong, Vincent Lai, a.k.a niteangel, who has already done it beautifully, so I just moved on to something else.
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You Can Build It MINI Model
MINI Batmobile
Design and Instructions by Christopher Deck
You can see Christopher’s webpage by going to www.deckdesigns.de or scanning this QR code!
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Hello everybody, and welcome back to our mini model building series! I am glad to join again for this heroic issue of BrickJournal! Heroic because it’s all about famous comic heroes like Superman, Spider-Man, Batman and many more! The Batman theme is particularly interesting for a mini builder because there are many cool vehicles and vessels appearing in that series. For this reason, I would like to build the classic Batmobile from the 1989 movie with you. The 1989 Batmobile is a very flat and streamlined racer, requiring many curved pieces which exist in high diversity these days fortunately. There is a narrowing in the middle section of the vehicle which can be best realized by using 4x2 sloped wedges. These are among the most peculiar pieces in my eyes, resembling a mixture between brick, slope, and wedge. Their potential for obtaining a certain shape in mini building is incredible because they contribute a unique curve in one piece. With that, our Batmobile is ready to start engines and race away! If you would like to have the flying Batwing for a companion, have a look at BrickJournal #20, which is about super-heroes and features complete Batwing instructions! Happy building and see you soon!
Parts List
(Parts can be ordered from Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color)
Qty Color Part 1 Black 99781.dat 4 Black 87087.dat 2 Black 3788.dat 1 Black 85975.dat 8 Black 3024.dat 2 Trans-Red 3024.dat 2 Trans-White 3024.dat 2 Trans-Orange 3024.dat 9 Black 3023.dat 1 Black 3794a.dat 1 Black 3022.dat 6 Black 2420.dat 2 Black 4600.dat 1 Black 3034.dat 2 Black 61409.dat 4 Black 54200.dat 4 Black 85984.dat 1 Black 47458.dat 4 Black 11477.dat
Description Bracket 1x2 1x2 Down Brick 1 x 1 with Stud on 1 Side Car Mudguard 2 x 4 Minifig Hat Fez Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 1 Plate 1 x 2 Plate 1 x 2 without Groove with 1 Centre Stud Plate 2 x 2 Plate 2 x 2 Corner Plate 2 x 2 with Wheel Holders Plate 2 x 8 Slope Brick 18 2 x 1 x 2/3 Grille Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 Slope Brick Curved 1 x 2 x 2/3 with Fin without Studs Slope Brick Curved 2x1
2 Black 61678.dat Slope Brick Curved 4x1 2 Black 13547.dat Slope Brick Curved 4 x 1 Inverted 1 Trans-Black 30602.dat Slope Brick Curved Top 2x2x1 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 48169.dat Technic Brick 2 x 2 with Hole and Rotation Joint Socket 1 Blue 4274.dat Technic Pin 1/2 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 32187.dat Technic Transmission Driving Ring Extension 4 Black 3070b.dat Tile 1 x 1 with Groove 4 Black 30028.dat Tyre 8/ 40 x 8 Slick Smooth 1 Black 43721.dat Wedge 4 x 2 Sloped Left 1 Black 43720.dat Wedge 4 x 2 Sloped Right 1 Light-Bluish-Gray 30027b.dat Wheel Rim 8 x 8 Notched Hole for Wheel Holding Pin 3 Light-Bluish-Gray 30027a.dat Wheel Rim 8 x 8 Round Hole for Wheel Holding Pin 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 3062b.dat Brick 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 87087.dat Brick 1 x 1 with Stud on 1 Side 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 4073.dat Plate 1 x 1 Round 1 Black 3023.dat Plate 1 x 2 1 Black 61072.dat Plate 1 x 2 with Exhaust Ports 2 Light-Bluish-Gray 98138.dat Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove
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Building
Blackbird Fly! Article and Photography by Justin Stebbins
While the Avengers and Batman have their own specialized vehicles to travel around the world in, Marvel’s X-Men also have a vehicle: the Blackbird. Also called the X-Jet, this plane has been seen in different ways by different artists through the years, including the designers in the X-Men movies. It was only a matter of time before a version of the Blackbird was built by a LEGO fan. Justin R. Stebbins, known on the web as “Saber-Scorpion” (his website is www.saber-scorpion.com) has been building with LEGO since he was 5 and posting his creations online for about 16 years (he’s 28 now). Mostly known for making custom minifigs and MOCs inspired by video games, he also like to draw and write. Stebbins has self-published one novel and is currently working on a comic book.
“This One’s for You, Morph!”
Justin describes his model: “Kids today are growing up with The Avengers, but I was a ‘90s kid, so I grew up with the Uncanny X-Men! After watching the newest X-Men film, I felt inspired to build a Blackbird and some minifigs. The ‘figs here are all customized with my own custom-designed stickers as usual, plus paint and a few third party accessories from BrickForge and BrickWarriors. Their outfits are mostly inspired by the ’90s animated series, which introduced me to the characters in the first place. You may recognize Professor X, Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Storm, Beast, Iceman, Rogue, Gambit,
The X-Men’s Blackbird, with X-Men awaiting boarding.
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Angel, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Psylocke, and Emma Frost, as well as Phoenix. The Blackbird (or X-Jet) itself is mostly inspired by its appearance in the movies, which I also enjoy (well, most of them anyway). It can seat two pilots and seven passengers, although it’s hard to attach the top if anyone has an especially tall hat or hair. The whole thing measures about 20 inches long and nearly as wide. It’s even sturdy enough to be swooshable... sort of... if you hold it right!”
Building the Bird
“All of the pieces I used are from the sizeable collection I’ve amassed just by buying LEGO sets over the years. I only ordered four of the parts on Bricklink: four large wing sections. I never plan very far ahead when I build—I just break out my LEGO bins and see what happens. So I always run into plenty of problems I have to work around,
Front and rear views of the Blackbird.
sometimes rebuilding whole sections a few times until they’re scaled right and sturdy. It takes a while. I’m not sure how many hours the jet took to build, but it came together over the course of a week or so.”
Justin’s X-Men: Front row, left to right: Rogue, Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Professor X. Second row: Psylocke, Beast, Storm, Gambit, Emma Frost. Third row: Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Ice-Man, Nightcrawler. Rear: Angel. Characters TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Building
Building the Endless
Article and Photography by Tyler Halliwell I was introduced to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series in early 2014 and was instantly hooked. After reading the original 10 trade paperbacks as well as some of the spin-offs, I decided that, given my history of portraying other comic book characters (notably Hellboy) in LEGO, I would take it upon myself to make a bust of the title character, Dream, the Sandman. For such a renowned and well-known comic series, Sandman is surprisingly under-represented in the LEGO hobby world. Since the making of Dream, I have been slowly but surely trying to remedy that fact. It is my hope that this collection of mine will inspire other fans to build in the theme, or for those who do not know the subject material to give it a read. Most builders who know me well understand that, for the most part, my best work is done when I am under time constraints. This is mainly due to the presence of my collection at home, and not at school, thus forcing a frantic rush of building whenever I am home with my bricks. Even when I do not have the time constraint of a weekend or break hanging over my head, this seems to have translated into a habit of speed-building. It was one such case when
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I built Dream before Brickworld Chicago last year. I built Dream for a few reasons. First, I wanted to build something from Sandman, and the main character was the obvious choice. Second, it seemed to me that my Brickworld MOC spread was looking a little thin, and one more bust would round the display out nicely. And finally, as my sister had introduced me to the series, I figured that Dream would be a fun bust with which to surprise her, as she was out of town at the time but would be attending the convention. So, with source material in hand and plenty of motivation, I got to work. Dream is not the simplest of characters to portray. As the comic series is drawn by many different artists, and the appearance of Dream is meant to be ever-shifting depending upon the viewer, I had to choose an interpretation that I liked and from which I wanted to work. Whenever I build a bust, I choose a feature of the head that I think will be the most difficult and, when I figure out how to go about that section, use that piece to determine the scale of the figure. For Dream, this part was the lower face, consisting of the mouth and cheekbones that give the character much of his aloofness and lack of emotion. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make the figure’s eyes light up, as Dream’s dark and penetrating eyes are another important physical feature. This was at first achieved with the LEGO light bricks that came in sets, but have since been replaced with LifeLites (www.lifelites.com), which are far more reliable and allow for convenient battery replacement. This lighting factor made it necessary for the head to be hollow and hinged to allow access to these lights. This forced awareness when placing the hair, as I had to allow for sections to be removed in order to access the inside of the head.
Of the features present on Dream, the hair is what took the longest to get right, and what garnered the most attention when the figure was completed. I knew from the start of the bust that Dream’s hair would be a challenge, as it wildly sticks out every which way. In order to keep the hair from looking like a giant mess, I decided to sweep it to one side, which also allowed me to conserve parts, given that the hair required many of the “dinosaur tail” pieces. Using these pieces as well as a mixture of black slopes, droid arms, and all types of black clips, allowed me to create a hair texture that I was very happy with. The only downside of this hair, besides the fragility during transportation, was that it became a standard feature of the busts. This meant for the others I had to order many more “dinosaur tails” in varying colors, so as to keep the hairstyle similar across the three characters. Because of this, I probably own far more “dinosaur tail” pieces than the average builder, but the part is so cool and useful that I don’t mind that fact too much. For Dream, I did not want to detract too much from the simple colors of the face and hair, so I decided to keep his robe dark blue, with some flat silver highlights. While the character wears many colors throughout the comic series, and many styles of clothing, a dark robe seemed best suited to the style of Dream that I made. Dream of the Endless: ah, there’s a conundrum. In this aspect (and we perceive but aspects of the Endless, as we see the light glinting from one tiny facet of some huge and flawlessly cut precious stone), he is rake-thin with skin the color of falling snow . . . Dream casts a human shadow, when it occurs for him to so. —Sandman #25: “Season of Mists Prelude”
At the time, Dream was my most successful build, gaining me a large following through LEGO fan community websites such as MOCpages and Flickr, but also getting the attention of Neil Gaiman, writer of the Sandman series, on Twitter, which was awesome. While I personally thought that the build was very cool, I did not expect anything near the reception that it gained. And, as a good number of the people who commented on the build were very happy to see a Sandman oriented creation, this was a large factor as to why I decided to build more characters from the series.
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