The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 39 • May 2016
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LEGO® DINOSAURS!
Building the Beasts with William Pugh
Looking at Dinosaur Bones by Matt Sailors
Visiting Jurassic Park with Diego Maximino Prieto Álvarez Instructions AND MORE!
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We’re In Canada Too! St. John’s, NL
EVANSVILLE, IN Phoenix, AZ
Issue 39 • May 2016
Contents
From the Editor............................................... 2
People The Brick Goes to the Oscars..................... 3 Brick Built Muppets: Can You Picture That?................................ 7 Statue of the People’s Liberty..................12 Sami Mustonen: Prehistoric Builder......16
Building Building Dinosaurs with the Brick... and Clips!......................................................19
Welcome to Jurassic World.......................26 Welcome to Jurassic Park!.........................34 Making Micro Dinosaurs...........................42 BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Triceranerd...................................................45 You Can Build It: MINI T-70 X-Wing Starfighter.................50 Minifigure Customization 101: Captain CAAAV VEEMAN!.......................55
Community Arjan Oude Kotte’s Rainbow Warrior.....60 Building Dippy the Dinosaur and More.......................................................66 LEGO Robotics: Just What the Doctor Ordered!.........................................70 Community Ads............................................78 Last Word.........................................................79 AFOLs by Greg Hyland...............................80
From the Editor: Hi! It’s issue thirty-nine of BrickJournal, which is pretty impressive—I had no idea that the magazine would still be going (or I would still be going for that matter) for this long, but it’s because there’s so much happening, as you will see in this issue.
May 2016 Issue 39
Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray
Proofreaders John Morrow Eric Nolen-Weathington Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
Contributors: Diego Maximino Prieto Álvarez, Markus Aspacher, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Arjan Oude Kotte, Dr. Nicola Maffei, Sami Mustonen, Klaus Neyer, Victor M. Nouvilas, Dan Parker, William Pugh, Matt Sailors, Paul Trach, Andreas Weissenburg, Tommy Williamson, and Greg Hyland. Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
It all started with some dinosaur models that caught my eye, then I did some searching and found some fun stuff. Then the columnists here chimed in with their projects. And then I got some neat leads on builders, which came from many different places... like online, or through e-mail, or through meeting builders. The end result? This magazine you’re looking at right now. Hopefully, the articles will show you something new and maybe inspire you to build something. I’m always interested in new builds! Anyways, have fun! 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
Subscriptions
www.LUGNET.com, www.Brickshelf.com, www.peeron.com, www.brickmodder.net www.rustyclank.com
About the Cover: William Pugh builds a homage to Jurassic World with his raptors. Photo by William Pugh. About the Contents Page: Ever wonder what a pterosaur aviary would look like for a minifigure? Markus Aspacher’s layout from Jurassic World III is a good answer. Photo by Markus Aspacher.
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) SNOT (Studs Not on Top)
POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club) DARK AGES (usually teen years, when you drift away from building) STUDS OUT (building where the studs on bricks face the viewer)
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 $55 Economy US, $66 Expedited US, $73 Premium US, $87 International, $23.70 Digital Only 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 of the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org. Jurassic Park, Jurassic World TM & © Universal Studios/ Amblin 2 Entertainment. Muppets TM & © Disney.
People
The Brick Goes to the Oscars!
Article and Photography by Klaus Neyer
My name is Klaus Neyer and I have been a fan of LEGO for as long as I can remember. I am 15, and, in what should be my Dark Ages, I am having more fun with LEGO than ever! Growing up in Carlsbad near LEGOLAND and down the freeway from Hollywood, my environment has definitely influenced my MOCs. One year ago I decided to combine my love of LEGO and my love of movies by challenging myself to build representations of all eight Best Picture Oscar-nominated films. I found the challenge to be frustrating yet rewarding. The collection was well-received by LEGO and movie fans alike, and I was honored to win trophies for the builds at Bricks-by-the-Bay and BrickCon, which are LEGO fan conventions on the US West Coast. I was hooked. 3
and other details. This combines with a transparent dome that, by some anomaly of physics, manages to stay affixed to the head to create a recognizable astronaut. After two mad weeks of designing, ordering bricks from Bricklink and building, I can now say I am satisfied with my new collection of the Best Picture contenders and am already dreaming of what I will be building at this time next year. Hollywood, bring it on!
A vignette from The Martian. TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corp. A model of The Revenant. TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corp.
Another view of The Martian. TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corp. Another look at The Revenant. TM & © 20th Century Fox Film Corp.
People
Brick Built Muppets:
Can You Picture That? Article by Joe Meno Photography by Andreas Weissenburg Above: The Electric Mayhem Below: Floyd and Janice. Muppets TM & © Disney.
If you’ve heard of the Muppets, you’ve heard the Electric Mayhem. Since The Muppet Show premiered on TV in 1976, the Electric Mayhem has been the house band for the show. With the leader Dr. Teeth; guitarists Floyd and Janice; Zoot, the sax player; and drummer Animal, they performed not only for the TV show but in the Muppet-related movies that were made in the years since, and now in The Muppets, a new show on ABC. The band became the basis for a series of LEGO builds by Andreas Weissenburg (Flickr name: grubaluk). A 49-year old software engineer and developer living in Luebeck, in the northern part of Germany, he built all of the members of the band after building Statler, one of the balcony hecklers in the The Muppet Show. As Andreas recalls, “I tried to create some of my own characters, but in one attempt, the combination of parts reminded me of Statler. I googled for pictures and recognized that my model could work, and then 7 I was hooked.”
People
Statue of the People’s Liberty Article by Dan Parker
For BrickCon 2015, we did not originally plan a MOC specific to the event’s theme, MOCking History. Two separate projects and the notion of a trip to Moscow’s Red Square changed that.
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The idea of the Statue of Liberty in a different situation or context has intrigued me since I saw the original Planet of the Apes motion picture. BrickCon’s theme was a challenge to realize such a fictional scenario. Our previous attempts in creating a themed work had lacked focus and impact. Having recently built a highly-stylized Cold War-era Russian train in the new olive green color, I began to ponder a Liberty-in-Red-Square concept. A chance conversation regarding travel to Moscow completed the idea. With an alternative history theme in mind, we first developed the story: based on long-standing relations between France and Russia, suppose the famous statue had actually headed east instead of west 130 years ago. After the October Revolution, it was moved to a new pedestal and painted dark red. The torch was replaced with a golden hammer. Other components such as the aforementioned train, a setting in Red Square, and a military parade with crowds were quickly identified and included. Our focal point would be a statue in dark red brick. We optimized our modest stock of this premium color by building only a thin veneer and backing this with black brick for support. Nose construction was reworked due to a limited shape-color palette. The only other change was a slightly modified upper hand grip for the hammer. We would later add a shorter dark stone and very somberlooking pedestal in a concrete brutalism style typical of many 20th-century Soviet-state monuments. The military parade.
The Hammer of the Revolution.
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Other projects 1. Jurassic Park (https://ideas.lego. com/projects/47246) Archived. 2. Bricksauria: Stegosaurus (https:// ideas.lego.com/projects/56748) Expired. 3. Jurassic Park Explorer (with minifigs) (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/84144) In review. 4. Indominus Rex (https://ideas.lego. com/projects/106086) In review. 5. Tyrannosaurus Rex (https://ideaslego.com/projects/48453) Failed review.
Jurassic Park— in Miniature!
Here’s a look at Sami’s rendition of Jurassic Park in microscale. In spite of the small size, Sami has managed to keep everything, from the vehicles to the entrance gate, recognizable and iconic. The vehicles have the color schemes of their respective movies and the dinosaurs are made of a minimum of parts.
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6. Jurassic Park (https://ideas.lego. com/projects/83161) Failed review. You can also see video of his models on his YouTube account (www.youtube.com/c/samimustonen) and more examples of his design work at his webpage: www.samimustonen.com.
Building
One of the two Rexes. The other one uses the same design, but is recolored with reds and browns.
Building Dinosaurs with the Brick... and Clips! Article and Photography by William Pugh
In the world of Jurassic Park, and more recently Jurassic World, DNA makes up the building blocks for the dinosaurs that call the famous park home. In the real world, however, it’s not DNA that makes up the dinosaurs I create; rather, the building blocks I use to create dinosaurs are, quite literally, building blocks. Utilizing the various special, unique pieces, and the most vibrant colors LEGO offers, I have created my own Park. These creations are nothing new. I started building at a very young age, and after visiting the first BrickMagic convention, I decided I wanted to be a part of the show. The following year, I had the beginnings of my Park: a pair of tyrannosaurs, pteranodons, a pack of velociraptors, and the gate to the original Jurassic Park. Certainly not impressive, but it was a start. As the months went by afterwards, I kept building. I made a name for myself online, and garnered a small following. Among them were a few AFOLs who acted as mentors in my building. They showed me what worked, and what didn’t, and taught me new building techniques. Those teachings coupled with the online community drove me to be better and improve and build more and more. The only problem was my collection. Being a young builder just starting out, I didn’t have access to many pieces. That’s when I turned to LDD (LEGO Digital Designer). Using this software, I could build whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I could see what worked, and what didn’t, and I could try different color schemes on my dinosaurs. And that’s what allowed me to create the park I have now.
For a larger dinosaur like the Rexes, a pair of sturdy legs is a must. These legs use multiple plates, hinges, and brackets to keep everything sturdy and detailed, while two hinge plates allow for each toe to have independent movement.
The park, which I have recently converted into a Jurassic World theme to coincide with the new movie, is now about three times bigger than my original. Consisting of 17 dinosaurs, a gate three times the size of my first, and a motorized Jurassic World tour vehicle, it’s my largest creation yet.
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Building
Welcome to Jurassic World!
Module 2: The Lost World: Jurassic Park Isla Sorna Built by Paul Trach.
Module 1: Jurassic Park Isla Nublar Built by Markus Aspacher.
Article by Joe Meno Photography by Markus Aspacher and Paul Trach
During the LEGO fan event Bricking Bavaria (a European event), a diorama based on the Jurassic Park series of films was displayed. This massive layout was the effort of two LEGO builders: Paul Trach and Markus Aspacher. Each did separate sections of the layout and built models of some of the trademark vehicles in the movies, including the Jurassic Park Jeeps and Jurassic World monorail. One of the creatures was also built—the mosasaur. BrickJournal talked to them about the layout and its challenges. Paul is a corporate lawyer at an energy corporation. In his free time, he hangs out with friends and enjoys climbing and working out. Both Paul and Markus are prolific builders, so much that, as Markus notes, ”people think they only build in their free time.” But Markus also likes to go out with friends on the weekend, watch and play soccer, and in the summer, hike in the mountains. Paul builds Space, Castle, and Lord of the Rings-themed builds, and has been recognized online for his work. Markus also builds in the same themes, so it was natural that they work together on a layout. According to Paul, they planned the build more than six months before, but only talked about the basics at that point. Building began three months before the exhibiton, and at that stage they discussed their plans and progress constantly. “Actually,” Paul recalls, “it was three really tough months of building nearly every day. We made it just in time, finishing our work two days before the exhibition.
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Markus agreed:”The first module (JP1) was not as difficult as the others and was built in 2 weeks, but the third (JP3) was very difficult to build. The aviary was a
Module 4: Jurassic World Isla Nublar Built by Paul Trach. Module 3: Jurassic Park III Isla Sorna Built by Markus Aspacher.
real challenge, and I needed all the time and finished only a day before the exhibition started. Markus built the first module, depicting Jurassic Park and the third module, a diorama of the pterosaur cage in Jurassic Park 3. Paul built a scene from The Lost World: Jurassic Park for the second module, and the mosasaur pool for module 4. Planning the layout and modules was done with an open plan, with both Paul and Markus building spontaneously from a basic outline of the project. Since both builders had experience in building landscapes and buildings, they already had an idea how the different parts would be done. Only the really difficult parts, such as the mosasaur and the pterosaur cage, needed experimentation to create the detailed builds they wanted. Part of the trial building for those models was done because the
Welcome to Jurassic Park!
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Building
The iconic Visitor’s Center.
Welcome to Jurassic Park! Article by Diego Maximino Prieto Álvarez
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One of my most beloved interests as a kid was dinosaurs, a range of once-living creatures we will never meet. As fascinating as they could be, I spent years devouring every book or movie related to those animals. Like the Star Wars license, The LEGO Adventurers Dino theme came out at the right time to me. Apparently, the LEGO Group has been studying the core children trends over generations, or I have common tastes. I eventually saw the movie Jurassic Park and was completely fascinated by the way Steven Spielberg adapted the “terrible lizards” described in the Michael Crichton novel with the help of Stan Winston’s magical effects. Its cinematography, I must say, has aged well over time. I also watched every sequel, and despite their flaws, I enjoyed them. The more sequels they made, the more realistic dinosaurs I could see. It’s easy to compare it with Star Wars: both films were captivating and inspiring, and both also became construction toys. As can be expected, after the LEGO license agreement with Star Wars in 1999, I hoped for some other favorite films would follow a similar path to be turned into building sets. At some point, those expectations became real if you take in consideration the small number of Jurassic Park III sets released under the “Studios” banner. Strangely, apart from a spinosaurus, none of the sets contained any real characters from the franchise, relying on generic figures instead: filmmaking crew, stuntmen, and a random Johnny Thunder (because everything is better with Johnny Thunder). I wasn’t frustrated; the number of dino-related products in the catalog was big enough to not nitpick about secondary flaws. It wasn’t until 2008 when I started to care about those design details, due to the Indiana Jones merchandise. I wished they would have kept that increased level of design and branding strategies with other Spielberg movies. In terms of LEGO licenses, some movie franchises have been following a specific pattern: a first wave based on
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previous movies, and a late second one to cover a new theatrical release (Check the trends of Toy Story, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Spider-Man…) In some way, I hoped for a “Jurassic Park IV” movie as a excuse to see a classic visitor center toy set. As any child, fan or toy collector, my imagination filled in the missing scenes and characters, and I projected my own idea for a “LEGO Jurassic Park” theme. I can see every scene in the saga as a potential set. If you have read BrickJournal #37, you would notice this was the similar case for the digital Star Wars ships I built: There were too many missed set possibilities. Over the last decade, the first Jurassic Park film has turned into an old classic. The fans are mostly adults, so it makes sense to include any related content in the biggest set (only an older audience can afford the expensive toys), and also in the smallest one (as a beginner starter kit). The remaining medium-sized sets could focus on any creature ambush/“catch the dinos” scene from the sequels, which is a recurring topic on dino-themed toys.
Ford Explorer
One of my first attempts was a digital LEGO Digital Designer vehicle inspired by the fictional tour car. I have already seen several great MOCs by other builders in the Internet, so I make my own interpretation instead, which was a simple build closer to the modern LEGO City vehicle designs. Originally intended to be part of a bigger set featuring most of the recognizable elements for the first film, it was scrapped when other projects related to the same subject matter started to surface on the LEGO Ideas site. This is not the first time I have discarded an early concept because someone else has made a better project. The truth is that I experienced similar scenarios with Portal and Doctor Who ideas (Yes, more licensed stuff. You might guess that I am not very original…). That is my advice: If you have a great idea, and it is so great, more people will also have the same idea eventually. So finish it off right now.
Visitor Center
As I have already stated, this was a build long in my mind. But, honestly, LEGO Ideas was the reason I actually considered finishing it, giving it the final look of a playset or a dollhouse.
A rendering of the Ford Explorer.
When the Back to the Future (another Spielberg movie produced by Universal Pictures) DeLorean set was announced some years back, I accelerated the visitor center WIP to 88 miles per hour! JP could easily share the same license agreement. The most frustrating part of the building process was, by far, the number of times I cancelled the project, and then restarted it, over and over again. Licenses from other companies, having the theme retired for ideas.lego.com for a while, and the 2015 LEGO Jurassic World line announcement were some of the several moments when I was about to give up and drop the project files into the trash bin. I was assuming we would see products from the old movies next to the Jurassic World ones. When the 2015 sets were finally revealed at toy fairs, I noticed none were based on the previous trilogy, so I pushed forward the project immediately.
The bunker.
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Community
Model Spotlight:
Arjan Oude Kotte’s Rainbow Warrior
Article by Joe Meno Photography by Arjan Oude Kotte and Anton Raves
Arjan Oude Kotte is a bicycle mechanic in a little town north of Amsterdam, but he’s also a bit more: he started his own business in building and selling his LEGO ships to shipowners and shipyards. This came from building since he was four. The first set he can remember building was a fire truck (Set #6690) and he kept on building until he was 13 years old, when he went through a Dark Age.
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Building a Hobby
He rediscovered LEGO building in 2000 when he was at his brother’s house sorting sets to take home. After spending a day sorting out parts for three sets, Arjan decided that his brother could have the rest of the parts. Arjan started buying mostly LEGO Technic sets. Building ships was the result of a progression of effort, beginning when Arjan started building large Technic models for his sons to play with. He initially thought he was one of a few adults that were LEGO builders, but his eyes were opened when he had a problem building the blade of the Power Functions Bulldozer (8275). After discovering the online LEGO community, he spent days looking at creations built by others that he thought were better than LEGO’s own sets! Excited, he started building the JCB excavator, built by Jennifer Clark. Some months later, he discovered a very cool mining front shovel built in minifigure scale. From there, he knew that this was the scale that he would be building in. From building a Liebherr front shovel, he built more mining related machines.
Some examples of Arjan’s heavy machinery work: a Leibherr 996 (above) and a Bucyrus 495HF Syncrude (below)
After meeting Ralph Savelsberg at a LEGO fan event, he took Ralph home and was invited to visit Ralph’s hometown, which was a 45-minute drive from Arjan’s home. It was on the road to Ralph’s house where Arjan drove past a Dutch beam trawler. He wondered if it was worth trying to build a minifigure scale ship in LEGO.
A look along the side of the Rainbow Warrior.
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