The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 44 • March 2017
8.95
$
in the US
Erik Jones displays Cinderella Castle! Guillaume Roussel’s Disneyland Paris Model! Instructions and MORE!
The Theme Park Issue! John Rudy’s Disney Rides! Jennifer Lee’s Friends Park ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-074-8 ISBN-10: 1-60549-074-1 50895
9 781605 490748
GET BRICKJOURNAL BY SUBSCRIPTION, & AT COMIC BOOK STORES & AMAZON.COM! BRICKJOURNAL single issue sales are now available at comic book stores and Amazon.com! So you can find recent and upcoming issues easily. Or save the hassle of searching for each new issue— subscribe now!
M!
MAZON.CO
ALSO AT A
#45 SHIPS IN A
PRIL!
E LAST ISSU NOW THRU MARCH 31, 2017 ONLY! SAVE $10 • GET 6 MORE ISSUES! LAST CHANCE AT THIS PRICE!
THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®
DIEDGITIITOANSL BLE AVAILANLY FOR O95 $3.
BRICKJOURNAL magazine spotlights all aspects of the LEGO® Community! It showcases events, people, and models every issue, with contributions and how-to articles by top builders worldwide, new product intros, and more. Available in FULL-COLOR print and digital editions. Print subscribers get the digital version FREE!
NEW! PRINT COPIES NOW AVAILABLE AT
AMAZON.COM
GET DIGITAL EDITIONS AT www.twomorrows.com AND
TwoMorrows Publishing
10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA • 919-449-0344 E-mail: store@twomorrows.com • Order at twomorrows.com LEGO® and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group of Companies. BrickJournal is not associated with The LEGO Group.
HE TT E BEA7 PRICE! 201CREAS IN
RENEW EARLY & SAVE $10!
❏ $60 Economy US ONLY $50 THRU MARCH 31, 2017! ❏ $70 Expedited US (faster delivery) ❏ $97 International ONLY $87 THRU MARCH 31, 2017! ❏ $23.70 Digital Editions Only Name: Address: City/Province: State:
Zip Code:
Country (if not USA): E-mail address:
(for free digital editions)
MAIL THIS CARD WITH PAYMENT TODAY! TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive • Raleigh, NC 27614 USA
For faster service, order online at:
www.twomorrows.com or by phone: 919-449-0344
Issue 44 • March 2017
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People Natalia Wolkska-Meijerink: Brick Artist......3 The LEGO Dream of Shuying........................8
Building Constructing Cinderella Castle..................16 Building a Tale as Old as Time....................22 Building Disneyland Paris, Brick by Brick.............................................28 Disneyland’s History in Bricks!...................32 Zach Reynolds: Building Disney in Bricks......................35 Alexis Dos Santos: Ride Builder.................38 Welcome to Friends Park.............................40 Minifigure Customization 101: The Unbelievable Gwenpool — No, Seriously, I am Unbelievable!.....45 You Can Build It: MINI Ferris Wheel.....................................50 BrickNerd’s DIY: Mr. Toad’s Car.............................................60 MINDSTORMS 101: MINDSTORMS Voting Machines.......66
Community Event Report: LEGO Fanwelt 2016..........70 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 AFOLs....................................................................80
From the Editor: Hi! This is the Theme Park issue, but mostly about Disney...
March 2017 Issue 44 Publisher John Morrow
To those who have set their eyes on this magazine, welcome! This issue is about something that I am interested in almost as much as the brick!
Photography Editor Geoff Gray
There’s a lot of things that can be looked at with this theme, as LEGO fans have built rides and amusement parks for their minifigures for years. The LEGO Group has also made sets of amusement park rides, thanks to the design work of Jamie Berard.
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan
Now, however, large-scale projects are starting to be done, and a couple of them are here—both castles, they are icons to a place where anything can happen and wishes can come true. There’s also smaller projects like minifgure vehicles, which can also be found in this issue.
Editor in Chief Joe Meno Proofreader John Morrow
West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
Contributors: Jared Burks, Hsin wei Chi, Christopher Deck, Alexis Dos Santos, Jon Grant, Kevin Hall, Erik Jones, Damien Kee, Jennifer Lee, Zach Reynolds, Guillaume Roussel, Jörg Ruckel, John Rudy, Suying, Natalia Wolkska-Meijerink, Tommy Williamson, and Greg Hyland. Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
There’s even art—art you can build, and you can WIN—just read on! Build on! 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: Cinderella Castle. Photo provided by Erik Jones. About the Contents: Beast watches over the enchanted rose. Photo by Jamie Lawrence.
All Disney-related characters, theme park elements, and their likenesses shown in this issue are TM & © Walt Disney Productions.
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) MECHA (a large armored robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside) MECH (a large piloted combat robot)
GUNDAM (sci-fi media franchise featuring giant robots or “mecha”) 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 2017, 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 $60 Economy US, $70 Expedited US, $97 International, or $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 China. 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.
2
People
Brick Artist Article by Joe Meno Photography by Natalia Wolska-Meijerink
3
4
What happens when you are an artist and a LEGO builder? If you are Natalia Meijerink, you combine art and building. As a child, she preferred to play with LEGO than with dolls, and this continued to adulthood. Some years later, her husband (also a LEGO fan) built a house in the same architectural style of the houses that line the canals of Amsterdam, their home. He made a joke about selling the models and things like that to tourists. Natalia, an artist and illustrator, started to think about how she could make a LEGO model and how to make it possible for people to take it as a souvenir. After some exploring and researching, she found some deep frames and started to build and construct, taking photographs of typical Amsterdam buildings and using them as reference for her constructs. This began her LEGO art career. Amsterdam for her also was the inspiration for her as an architect. She wanted to find a new way to present the city’s beautiful architecture—an original piece of Amsterdam made of LEGO that could be taken all over the world. Her first nice house was made on December 2015. She named her products “Amsterdam LEGO® art.”
Some samples of Natalia’s work.
Since the frames are not that deep, Natalia has to be creative to find the right methods and elements to use. She makes two types of facades: Simple, small ones that are mostly only up to two bricks thick, which are houses based on some characteristic Amsterdam architectural elements; and replicas of real buildings that sometimes are very challenging.
5
People
The LEGO® Dream of Shuying Article by Shuying Photography by Shuying & Geng Lei
8
Among the LEGO fans from Mainland China, Shuying, which is his “LELE Town”ID, is regarded as a master in building. He is adept in MOC with the bricks in LEGO’s Technic system. And his building is always full of beauty, imagination, and creativity. Let’s visit his LEGO world and learn more about him, as well as his latest MOC buildings. I still remember the first LEGO set I got in 1979. It was LEGO 851, a tractor, brought from Germany by my friend’s father who lived next to me. It was so exquisite that its front wheels could be controlled by the steering. I was deeply attracted by this delicate, colorful, and ingenious “German friend.” And, voluntarily, I became my friend’s attendant, sharing snacks with him, helping him with his homework and even writing a letter of self-criticism on behalf of him. All of these is for building the tractor with him after school. Now, when we look back to those old days, LEGO taught us the real mechanism of automobiles by creating the attractive car model. Only through playing with a LEGO product and observing it can we learn the principle, and in this process, combining education and recreation was realized. By 1993, there were LEGO products displayed for sale in some of Beijing’s upscale department stores such as Baisheng, Yansha, and Saite. By that time, I had graduated from university, started my career, and could afford to buy LEGO sets. After figuring out the background of LEGO, a brand from Denmark, I bought more than ten sets of LEGO Technic. Some of the “aged” bricks in my MOC buildings were actually collected during that time. Being addicted to LEGO for two years, I was forced to give it up because of the development of my career. More than ten years later, in 2009, my wife told me that I could buy LEGO from Taobao.com, an online shopping website. Around that time, LEGO released its first product of the modular City buildings, the Cafe Corner, which opened my
mind in playing and creating new buildings. I started to realize that there not only existed multicolored and simple “LEGO candy houses” for children, but also a functional house like the Cafe Corner, reflecting architecture in reality. Soon after that I found the online forum “LELE Town” that was a platform for communication of LEGO fans from mainland China, and it displayed several MOC works of other players. Preparing everything needed, I set out on my first MOC building, The Dream Palace. It was also the starting point of my LEGO dream.
The Dream Palace
There are plenty of personal touches in my first MOC, and countless The front of The Dream Palace. bricks from the LEGO Technic system were added to the decoration of the building. It was a coincidence for me to create something like that, because I was a “switched architect” who originally focused on building automobiles and accumulating sufficient Technic bricks. When deciding to create something, I thought it would save a lot of expense if I could make use of these bricks. For my favorite European classic architectures, ancient people designed them as gorgeous as possible with walls of embellishments and decorative elements. Luckily, Technic bricks have exquisite and relief patterns. If I could utilize them creatively in my European buildings, it would be wonderful to realize my wish in building. With this thought, I finished The Dream Palace. Because of my accumulation of practical experience, creative designs gradually became real, and new ideas happened to me constantly in the later period of my building. It seemed that I opened a door of creative ideas and all of them came running to me one by one. I kept record of the ideas that were not used in this MOC but might be suitable for my next one. I also wanted to open the door for more LEGO fans and tell them that any LEGO bricks can be used to bring our magic imaginations to life. As long as we choose the appropriate bricks, reasonable but surprising art effects could be realized. The interesting gear fountain. The combination details of the decoration wall.
Greek-style mountain-shaped wall.
9
Building
Constructing Cinderella’s Castle! Article and Photography by Erik Jones
It’s not very often that a castle simply appears. Such was the case, though, in 2015, when a castle appeared on Reddit. To make things more interesting, it wasn’t just any castle— it was Cinderella Castle from Walt Disney World. Made of LEGO bricks and elements, it stood at 6.5 feet tall and was 4.5 feet wide, making it a massive structure. As a result, the Reddit thread got a lot of attention and the castle photos went viral. The builder was Erik Jones, a professor of Choral Music at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. He wasn’t the only builder on the castle—he was helped by his son, Colin. Both were inspired by a visit to the National Building Museum in Washington, DC and seeing an exhibition of LEGO buildings. For both of them, this marked the beginning of their LEGO obsession when they started with building the Expert Creator and Architecture sets, and decided to make the castle their first MOC. As Erik said and the old saying goes, “Go big or go home, right?”
16
A bird’s eye view of Cinderella Castle.
Digital turnaround of the castle, done in LEGO Digital Designer (LDD).
Going big meant planning the build. The size of the model would be minifigure scale, so a set of blueprints would make it easy to build to scale. Fortunately there were official blueprint sketches found online, and Erik started building… in LEGO Digital Designer. One of the hardest things that Erik had to deal with designing the castle was finding photos from above, but he was able to find some after searching online. Design began in January, and it took five months to complete. The model was so big, Erik had to split the Digital Designer file to allow his computer to be able to run without memory issues. During construction, he had to determine how the castle would be set up and supported, and so he made the castle hollow and built it in twelve sections to fit like a puzzle. The middle of the castle rested on a piece of wood with black cloth covering it. While this wasn’t exactly LEGO, it made Cinderella Castle easy to assemble and disassemble for moving.
With the entire model in LEGO Digital Designer, details could be tightened, as seen above and below.
A render of the stained glass windows in the rear of the castle.
17
Building
Building a Tale as Old as Time... Interview by Joe Meno Photos by Jamie Lawrence www.facebook.com/ jamielawrencephotography)
Kevin Hall has been in BrickJournal before, both as a builder and a writer. He worked at LEGOLand Windsor, but has gone on and now builds on his own at his firm, Brick Galleria. His latest build got a lot of attention at the UK BRICK 2016 event. BrickJournal got a chance to talk with him about it. BrickJournal: What inspired you to build Beast’s castle? Having a love for history and castles, along with my lifetime love for Disney, I have always wanted to build a Disney castle. Now that I have the means and parts, I decided to finally build something that has been with me since I was a child. Living in the UK and before that, in Germany, I have been inspired the last few years from all of the amazing castles I have visited. So it was only natural that I combined all of these passions to create the Beauty and the Beast castle. I take it Beauty and the Beast is a favorite film—am I right? It’s a favorite of mine, FYI. I love all of the Disney movies, but the ones released in the late ’80s and ’90s are my favorites, such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, Tarzan, etc. But I think Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorites. The story is typical Disney—don’t judge a book by its cover—but having it set in such an amazing enchanted castle did it for me.
22
The Beast’s Castle.
How did you plan building the castle? Starting off, I watched the movie over and over again, pausing certain scenes to see how the castle was laid out and to see the features. I then planned out the layout and size to get the correct dimensions and where all the parts of the castle were located within the model. I also printed out various images of the castle from the movie and from different models of the castle in different Disney theme parks. Combining all of the reference, I tried to design the castle based on the actual movie to make it authentic. Once I had the layout worked out and knew the size of the footprint, I built the base and mapped out where all the walls were and where the towers were, as well as how the ballroom mechanics worked under the floor. I then started building... UP!
Building the castle starts at the foundation...
Where did you get the parts? As I already have an extensive collection from over 36 years collecting, most of the parts came from there. I of course had to order more parts to complete the castle. I had to order a fair amount of parts from LEGO online, with the roofs alone having over 40,000 1x2 tiles in four different colors. How long did it take to plan and build the castle? All up, the castle took around six months on and off, with roughly four months of solid building and ordering parts. It took around a month of planning and working out the details of how I was going to build the model. This included working out how the castle would be built modular, so it could be taken apart for transport. Once the base was built, the mapping out of the castle took a week or so. The mechanics under the ballroom floor took a few days to work out and fit to the size I needed. The main part that probably took the most concentration and time would be the roofs. I spent around two weeks creating the roofs, as each tile was individually placed on a clip, then clipped onto the main frame of the roof. The last month was designing and building all the details and finishing touches like the gargoyles and the trees, etc. These were all added right at the end and designed so they could be detached easily for packing and shipping.
...then continues upward...
...until the structure takes shape.
Each time I move the model, the main two sections are around 1.2 metres long and only 600 millimetres wide, so they can fit through a standard doorway if needed. They are bubble-wrapped and then crated up, and everything else comes apart and fits into boxes. It takes around six hours to put together at each new location.
Ballroom Dancing Building the ballroom spinning mechanism.
Another tower under construction. Belle and Beast dance.
Building the floor and walls.
23
Building
Jennifer Lee is an investor (bonds, equities, shares) that started LEGO building in December 2015. Theme parks and fun fairs were her childhood favorite places, and she wanted to rebuild these memories of the games and rides that she enjoyed most, with LEGO elements available. With the release of the Friends amusement park sets in mid2016, she had an opportunity to make the park she always wanted. BrickJournal was given a tour of the park and spoke with Jennifer about it. BrickJournal: How long did it take for you to build the layout? Jennifer Lee: Even though these elements and sets were easily available, it took four weeks to plan and build the layout.
Welcome to Friends Park! Interview by Joe Meno Photography by Hsinwei Chi
40
How was the layout planned? I worked on one ride at a time before joining it all together. I started off with Flying Hot Dog, Sky Drop, Bumper Car and then I thought the dragons would
blend well in the park, so I built them on a spinning base. Next I added a train station, amusement games, seafood cafeteria and smaller facilities like photobooth, toilets, ticketing and toy booths. Some of the rides of the park are Friends sets, but there are some custom builds. Where are they? I liked the vibrant and lovely colors from Friends sets that made the theme park looked lively and fun. My dragons collection from Elves was rebuilt to a smaller scale and modified into rides. The duck fishing game was my childhood favorite at the fun fair, so I custom built it with parts from Technic and Creator. The ducks can spin in two circular motions. What was the hardest part of building the park? The challenges I faced were joining the layout together, as this was my first time working on a bigger scale with a different type of building experience. However, it got easier when I imagined myself in the park and how I got around, the rides and the games and what I wanted to see in the theme park as well.
41
Community
Heartlake City? No, just a Friends layout!
Event Report:
LEGO Fanwelt 2016 Article by Jörg Ruckel
70
Taking a bolloon trip with some Friends.
The German LEGO fan’s calendar was tightly packed during the autumn and winter of 2016 with one exhibition after another: 1000steineInsel in Legeoos, Brick City Days in Völklingen, Bricking Bavaria in Schierling, Steinwahn in Berlin, Stein Hanse 2016 in Kaltenkirchen, Lego Fanwelt in Cologne, Zusammengebaut in Borken and the Weihnachtaustellung der LEGO® Steine in Glauchau. One of the oldest fan meet-ups, LEGO Fanwelt (Fan World) is held in Cologne and has a long history. Since 2003, German LEGO fans and neighboring countries have been meeting in Cologne/Frechen for a weekend between Christmas and New Year’s Day. What started off as a small and cozy meeting has grown much larger throughout the years. With more and more exhibitors and visitors, the exhibition has become what it is today. It has taken place every other year since 2008 in conjunction with a model train exhibition of the Köln Messe.
A crowd watches a train layout.
A medieval layout.
On almost 10,000 square meters visitors were present with a big, diverse and amazing LEGO model exhibition organized by the MBFR (Modellbaufans Rheinland e. V.) RLUG and the LEGO KidsFest organized by LEGO Central Europe. The event, with 160 AFOL attendees, managed to attract about 58,000 visitors within the three days it ran, from November 18 to the 21st, 2016.
Creation Nation, where kids build inside an outline of Germany. Monorail layout from the monorail group MoRaSt.
The Ghostbusters have a visitor. A Gotham city layout with Batman.
71