The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 36 • September 2015
8.95
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in the US
EXCLUSIVE:
We Talk Ten Years with The LEGO Group’s CEO!
Creating a Microscale Hong Kong
Building Small with
Microscale Building A Talk with
Justin MacMillan
Creating Cathedrals
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Instructions and MORE!
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Issue 36 • September 2015
Contents
From the Editor....................................................2
People
Harry Nijenkamp & His Brick City...........4 Builder Brief: Justin MacMillan..............................................6 The View from the Top: 10 Years Later an interview with Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of the LEGO Group.........................12
Building
A Brief History of Microscale...................20 Creating a Microscale Hong Kong.....24 Creating Cathedrals: Notre Dam de Strasbourg and Notre Dame de Paris.................................30 Builder Brief: Jens Ohrndorf................................................33 Building a Bite-Sized Batcave.................40 Building the Micropolis Standard.......45 Microscale 101: Making Your Next Micro MOC Stand Out From the Crowd..................46 Builder Brief: Joe Miserendino...........................................50 It’s a Small,Small World...............................54 You Can Build It: MINI Phoenix Home (Pelta-class Frigate)......................................56 Minifigure Customization 101: Making Book Characters the Minifigure Way...............................................60 MINDSTORMS 101: My Blocks:The Basics.................................65
Community
Jakarta Brick City..............................................68 Community Ads..............................................78 Last Word..............................................................79
News
Harry Nijenkamp and His Article by Joshua Kranenberg Brick City! Article by Joe Meno
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Some views of Nijenkamp’s LEGO city.
Harry Nijenkamp’s first LEGO experience came as a 5-year-old growing up in the Netherlands. Years later, as a free spirited 20-year-old, he traveled the world and settled down in Atlanta, Georgia. Now married and settled, he and his wife Kristy have 2 children: Nikole (21) and Austin (20). Harry’s interest for LEGO kicked back in when his son Austin got his first bricks as a child, and quickly ran out of control. Eventually, they started showing their creations to the public and raised money for charities. Several years ago they decided to build an entire city using over one million bricks. Austin planned the layout and built several buildings, parks and their DRAGON CON parade while Harry dreamed up the bigger structures. The city measures 225 baseplates built on 25 separate panels. Each panel fits in one of 40 custom-built crates. The taller buildings separate in 4 or 5 sections. All this makes it possible to transport the entire set-up in a very large truck and assemble it in about 5 hours. The city was enhanced by adding over 1000 Brickstuff LEDs. This was a 4-week project that created a complete new set of challenges; according to Brickstuff’s owner Rob Klingberg, a lighting project of this size had never been done. The city as well as a lot more LEGO creations will be shown off at Celebricktion, October 10 and 11, 2015 in Atlanta. You can find more information at www.celebricktion.com!
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The View from the Top... 10 Years Later An Interview with Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of The LEGO Group Article by Geoff Gray In the summer of 2005, at George Mason University outside Washington DC, a few hundred AFOLs gathered for BrickFest, the largest AFOL convention in the US at that time. Also present were the owner of the LEGO Group (Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen) and the new CEO (Jørgen Vig Knudstorp). During a packed session, I had the opportunity to bring Joe Meno up to the stage and present to him a printed copy of BrickJournal Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 1. The particular copy was very unique because it had been autographed by Kjeld and Jørgen. But it was even more special because it was the very first copy of the magazine that had ever been printed. When Joe was presented with the copy, he received a standing ovation for the work he had done to make the magazine possible (see the sidebar entitled “View from the Sidelines: How BrickJournal Came to Be.”). Later that day, I spoke with Jørgen and asked if we could do an interview with him for a future issue. He graciously agreed. We released the article “A View from the Top” in Volume 1, Issue 3, December 2005. Since then I have conducted five other interviews with Jørgen for the magazine. For our 10th anniversary, I wanted to revisit some of the old interviews and see how things have changed, as well as what things have not changed. As always, Jørgen was very accommodating with his time. BrickJournal: Welcome back Jørgen. Looking back over the last 10 years, it has been an exciting ride for both companies. In 2005 The LEGO Group was starting to recover from several years of losses and the possibility of being broken up and sold. At the same time, BrickJournal was just starting as a fan-run online magazine with no idea if we could succeed. Ten years later, The LEGO Group is at least seven times larger than it was and BrickJournal has become a print-based magazine that is successful enough for the Editor in Chief/Owner to have this as his only job. What are some of the highlights and lowlights for you in particular during this time? JVK: It’s been an incredible journey, and I have learned so much and had so much “hard fun.” The highlight is clearly how the LEGO Idea based on the LEGO Brick and the system-in-play has been revitalized and shown to have enduring appeal, and also ever broader appeal. We know Opposite: Staff photo of Jørgen Vig Knudstorp.
now with a strong basis in neuroscience and our many activities in the LEGO Foundation that play and learning through play are not only powerful ways of developing the whole human being, but perhaps the most effective way to develop. I have come to appreciate that next to love, food and health—play is the most important factor in childhood. The development through childhood irreversibly impacts that rest of our lives as human beings, so we are talking about something very critical here.
“I have come to appreciate that next to love, food and health—play is the most important factor in childhood. “ It has surprised me how well the company is doing and how strongly it is growing, and it a testament to the strength of the LEGO Idea but also to my many colleagues’ playfulness and creativity. Today, I get a lot of credit for the Group’s development. However, most of the fantastic things that have happened were not my idea; some were here before I arrived in 2001, and others were developed by great colleagues who didn’t even ask for my permission to pursue them. This is something that makes me proud to be a LEGO person and a leader of the pack of LEGO people. There are actually very few low lights. I cannot think of anything that I regret or spent energy on wishing it had been different. Obviously, a lot of mistakes have been made and I take that as part of learning and experimentation. There are a lot of things that I wish I could have done earlier or faster. But such is life. When you look ahead it is daunting, yet in hindsight it seems like you should have acted faster because of course now you know what to do.
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Building
Some of the initial LEGO sets, with small-scale figures and cars.
A Brief History of Microscale Article by Ashley Glennon
Microscale building is the art of creating tiny models that contain the detail and realism one might expect from a much larger creation. In its broadest definition, microscale building means any creation smaller than minifigure scale where, frequently, a cylinder brick is assumed to be about the size of a person. For this reason many AFOLs originally called microscale building, “microfig” scale. But like so many other LEGO themes, the popularity and definition of microscale has exploded and folks from around the world are now building models in nano and pico scales. For the sake of this article, though, we will call everything smaller than a minifig, “microscale” I mentioned that microscale has been around since the beginning, so let’s take a brief look at its history. One could argue that microscale building was born back in 1949 when Automatic Binding (LEGO) Bricks were introduced. The structures depicted on the earliest boxes were frequently smaller than minifig scale and were mostly buildings and towers. By the mid-1950s microscale was in full swing! Nearly all the sets during the 1950s depicted creations smaller than minifig scale, and some sets included plastic cars manufactured by the LEGO Company. These plastic cars were approximately HO (1:87) scale and are highly sought by collectors. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, dozens of small scale sets were released. As new parts were introduced, the level of micro detail was improving dramatically. Townscapes, ships, airplanes, buildings… nearly everything was micro-sized! But suddenly everything changed.
A Homemaker set, which was first to introduce figures into the LEGO bricks.
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By the mid 1970s the LEGO Company began producing LEGO people (set 200 is a good example) and armless minifigures were produced as well (set 770 was my favorite from the era). Suddenly there was an implied scale, and it was surprisingly much larger than everything from the previous twenty years.
In 1978 the LEGO Company began producing the articulated minifigures we know today. The arrival of these new figures proved incredibly popular as it opened up new levels of play and inspired the LEGO designers to begin producing themed sets. It just so happens that many of today’s adult fans were introduced to LEGO during this golden era of the minifig, and Castle, Town and Space sets flew off the shelves. For about 10 years it seemed as though microscale building was lost. The LEGO Company kept a few small scale sets alive via a European promotional program (1992 Stena Set 1548 and Viking line ferry (1924) sets are good examples) and produced a variety of polybag sets, but the art of building small was nearly forgotten. As the late 1990s and early 2000s arrived, the Internet was getting to a point where photos could be shared and LEGO fans and LEGO clubs began to emerge. Fans could connect with each other and inspire each other in new ways.
One of the first sets with minifigures. At this time the arms and legs were not articulated.
In 1999 I invited a few Utah-based LEGO fans to my office near Salt Lake City. This was the beginning of the Wasatch Area Fans of LEGO group (WAFOL; which has evolved to present day UTAHlug). A gentleman named Jeremy Sproat and his wife Barbara showed me a tiny, blocky church diorama that was about 10x10 studs wide and I was floored. Cylinder bricks represented people, green 1x2 plates created a tree and 1x1 white tiles squeezed in between studs on the baseplate represented tombstones. I had never seen anything quite as small, cute or challenging, and right then and there I became a microscale fan. It seemed as though from 1999 through early 2001, Jeremy and I were about the only ones I could find that were really pushing hard on microscale. I was so enthusiastic that I put together a presentation on the topic and started presenting it at some of the earliest LEGO fan conventions. Meanwhile, Jeremy went on to produce a variety of excellent microscale CAD renderings. Then, at nearly the same time, our jobs moved each of us out of Utah. I believe Jeremy and his family moved to Texas and I moved to Washington State, where I remain today. By February 2002, microscale had gained so much attention that I had a full audience to hear my presentation at the BricksWest LEGO fan convention near LEGOLand, California. Dan Parker kindly produced a short section of the Death Star trench for me (out of LEGO of course) and each audience member was given the parts to create a microscale X-Wing, modeled after an online version I had seen by Steve Batch. Together we created a diorama that proved to be a lot of fun. This effort foreshadowed some interesting developments that would appear in late 2002 and 2003. LUGNET was the place to find like-minded LEGO fans during the early 2000s and, before long, a variety of us were posting and sharing microscale creations in the “announce” forum. I lobbied for a microscale building group and became the moderator in 2003. By this time I had seen or been introduced to dozens of other microscale builders and this new, yet old, building style started growing in popularity once again. Sean Kenney launched MOC pages and a microscale area quickly developed.
Some small-scale sets released in Europe.
Ashley Glennon’s microscale church, inspired by Barbara and Jeremy Sproat.
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Building
Creating a Microscale Hong Kong Article by Jared Chan
Jared Chan’s landscape of Hong Kong, which includes: • Bank of China Building • Former Central Government Offices • HSBC Main Building • Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong • Prince’s Building • Standard Chartered Bank Building • Statue Square Also displayed are the following Declared Monuments of Hong Kong: • Former French Mission Building* • Old Supreme Court Building* • St. John’s Cathedral* • The Cenotaph*
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I love admiring real-life buildings and recreating them in LEGO, and Hong Kong is one of the best places in the world to do both of them. As a former British colony and a financial centre, Hong Kong houses the best colonial buildings and modern architecture. One of my biggest AFOL wishes came true when Legend Bricks Hong Kong LEGO Creators Club (my LUG) had the opportunity to assist LEGO Hong Kong Ltd. in renovating their sales area at a local Toys’R’Us flagship in 2014.
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Building
The Batcave Playset.
Building a Bite-Sized Batcave! Article by Matthew Hocker
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Riddle me this, riddle me that… how shall I build a small but fun bat? This is the question I asked myself while building my latest MOC, a microscale Batcave playset. When I was a child, a collection of Batman action figures was among my favorite toys. I loved them because they had a diverse range of hidden surprises and play features. This nostalgia inspired me to create a Batcave that would be both detailed and fun for children to play with. Just like any superhero, this MOC has a unique origin story. Back in April I was visiting my brother, and he invited me to build together with his collection. I was dealing with a case of “builder’s block” until he mentioned wanting to build a minifig scale Batmobile. Right then and there, I decided to make a microscale Batmobile!
It’s the Car...
Having grown up with Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), I wanted the finished model to resemble the Batmobile from those films. The original vehicle is famous for its swooping curves and fins, a design element that proved to be the most challenging to replicate at such a small scale. Could it be done?
As I tinkered around with a mixed pile of black bricks, the solution revealed itself in the form of the “large barb,” a part often used as claws or teeth in ferocious animals. When tilted inward toward the body of the vehicle, these little spikes looked just like the Batmobile’s famous fenders. When tilted outward they also made for great fins. After finishing the little Batmobile, I didn’t have any plans to take the concept further. It sat on a shelf for three months before I touched it again. I picked up the model with a fresh set of eyes, and the idea suddenly hit me; it would be really cool to have a little Batcave playset.
Making a Playset!
The first step was creating a rough sketch of the idea and making a list of play features to incorporate. My original drawing consisted of the Batcave and Wayne Manor, with Wayne Manor being placed on top as a removable module. While the Batcave would house Batman’s vehicles, Wayne Manor would serve as the grounds for the ultimate battle between the Dark Knight and the Joker. Moreover, everything would need to fit within an area of 16x32 studs. Before working on the Batcave and Wayne Manor, I built the microfigures and vehicles first. The reasoning behind this was that the playset needed to serve the needs of these elements. After all, the characters and vehicles are the biggest stars in the Batman universe!
The Batmobile.
The playset’s microfigures: Batman, Robin, Alfred, Harley Quinn and Joker.
Four microfigures were built for this project, including: Batman, Robin, Alfred (carrying a tray), the Joker and Harley Quinn. The “large barbs” used in the Batmobile found their way into Batman and Robin, this time as capes! Harley Quinn’s iconic jester cap was achieved by placing two “small barbs” in a 1x1 modified tile with clip. A 1x1 modified plate with clip allowed her to carry around a pistol. After finishing the figures, I set out to design more vehicles. For Batman, I concentrated efforts on building the Batboat and Batwing and, once again, drew inspiration from their counterparts in the Burton films. The Batwing in particular is both swooshable and functional, with firing bat missiles. This feature was incorporated by placing the new 1x2 plate with mini blaster (found in some 2015 Ultra Agents sets) within the body of the model.
The Batboat.
The Batwing.
The Batwing at its landing pad.
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Building
Microscale 101:
Making Your Next Micro MOC Stand Out From the Crowd Article by John Stephens
Building in microscale can be a daunting task for first-timers. The thought process about parts selection is quite the departure from building in minifigure scale and above. What was once a telescope is now a tree trunk. A droid head is the bridge of a starship. A wagon wheel now represents a water wheel for a riverside mill. The possibilities are often elusive to newcomers, because building at this scale also means you are limited in terms of part selection, so using uncommon or unorthodox techniques and connections is often your best bet to retain detail and functionality at a small scale. Here’s a selection of my favorite parts, techniques, and connections to help you get the most out of your next microbuild.
Connection: Tile in Clip
Once considered an “illegal” connection, it has recently been implemented by The LEGO Group in the UCS SHIELD Helicarrier set. It’s a bit finicky, but is a great choice for adding extra detail and can be used in multiple themes. When replicating a model from existing source material, it’s important at this scale to ensure that details which would make the model instantly recognizable are included. For my Star Wars T-47 airspeeder, one such feature is the airbrakes so prominently displayed during flight scenes in the movie. Using a 1x1 tile inserted into a 1x1 Modified Tile w/Clip easily achieves this look, and adds an extra layer of accuracy to the model.
But this technique isn’t just used for details on spaceships. Here, I’ve used the same connection for a Micropolis build to generate a detailed fence around this apartment’s swimming pool. Instead of the 1x1 tile, here I’ve seated 1x2 grille tiles. This allows me to include much more detail than if I had opted for standard 1x2 or 1x4 panel elements. Not only do you get the detail from the grill tile itself, but the repetition of the modified tile’s clip also adds a great pattern.
Part: The Minifigure Hand
Grab your favorite minifigure, and yank its hands off! You now have an extremely versatile part that can be used to convey a lot of detail. It’s one of my all-time favorite pieces to use, and it comes in nearly 40 colors. They can be used for all sorts of things: antennae, weapon sights, tree branches, even laser cannons. Here I’ve used them as multi-colored flags in front of this condominium complex.
But they could also be used for something more sinister and destructive. Here they represent the feet on a spidery micro-mecha, ready to stomp on buildings and destroy cities!
Part: The Pneumatic T-Bar
Originally a pneumatic Technic element from the ’80s, this part has since proliferated into many non-Technic sets due to its excellent versatility. In the microscale world, creating odd angles and connections can often be quite difficult, but these little guys make it possible. They fit in standard clips, hold tight in headlight bricks, and even slot nicely into Technic axle holders. My favorite use for them is on micro mecha. This model contains eight of them, which not only allows me to achieve the look I want by making unusual connections, but it has also made the model fully articulated and poseable.
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Building Minifigure Customization 101
Ernest Cline and his minifigure.
I know that this issue is dedicated to scale and learning how to create in microscale, while this series is about minifigures, so it is hard to tackle. I am going to share my latest project pointing out how scale is important, and maybe showing a couple of microscale figure customizations. I hope everyone reading this article will have read the book by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One. If not, go read it; it is a great book. If you don’t have time to read, go listen to Wil Wheaton read it to you on the audiobook.
Making Book Characters the Minifigure Way! Article by Jared K. Burks
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I was approached by Glen Wadleigh about creating the High Five from the book for Brick Fiesta and got consumed by the Oasis and the hunt. I will show you what I have translated from the pages of Ernie’s book to minifigure form. Please know that there are no official reference images for these characters, no illustrations, nothing. I had only the text on the page to work from, so this is a work in translating what the author wrote and described into a physical creation. This can get tricky, but I found that my life experience (living through the era covered in the book, the 1980s) helped quite a bit. As it turns out I am only about one month older than Ernie, and he seemed to be writing about his childhood. So the figures I created are an interpretation of the ones in the book from my perspective. In order to explain how I created these figures, I have to give a bit of backstory on the book.
About Ready Player One from publisher Random House: In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines— puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past, and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade’s going to survive, he’ll have to win—and confront the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape. Each of these characters becomes Halliday scholars, people who are experts on anything James Halliday liked, and James liked the 1980s. As a result, everything they immersed themselves in was a late ’70s to ’80s reference. This influences the whole book and (I thought) the character designs themselves. I also wanted to tie colors to the characters, as each is so unique I wanted to tie them closer to LEGO colors as well. So pay close attention to the color choices I made throughout the series. Let’s roll through a character list for the book and the descriptions used by Ernie.
Wade3
Wade Watts is attending high school online. He is poor, as is most of the world, and has no funds to travel or purchase anything in the OASIS beyond what his school or the OASIS have issued him. Wade3, because he is the third person with the first name Wade at his school, is described as being the default avatar settings, black t-shirt and blue jeans. I gave him a faded pair of high-top tennis shoes to complete the look and his eyes are actually more square than round to highlight that this is an avatar (online) style character.
Ernest Cline and his book characters in minifigure form.
Wade3.
Parzival
Parzival is Wade3’s Gunter alter ego. Gunters are Egg Hunters that are searching for the easter egg hidden in the OASIS by James Halliday the creator. Parzival and his friends are all solo Gunters, not part of a group or clan, which makes each of their outfits unique. When translating to LEGO, I wanted to highlight this, yet tie them to the brick. So I decided that the color Yellow would be Parzival’s main color. Wade chose the name Parzival due to the name’s heritage. Parzival is the grail knight that finds the Holy Grail in Arthurian legends. As such I had to give a historical nod to this influence and tried to do so with all the leather straps, but as this is a virtual place, I also made his basic “armor” an updated version of plate in style. From here I added the “27 pieces of flair” to make the character look traveled and lived in. As Parzival starts out with nothing, he keeps nearly everything and wants to mark where he has been, thus all of the badges on his basic armor. I also updated his face to look more natural (LEGO natural) and made his hair style different to denote stepping away from the default skin. I picked up influences from Tron with a light touch from Star Wars. Where I really had fun was all the accessories.
Parzival.
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