The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 48 • November 2017
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Returning to Mecha Secrets and Tricks of LEGO Mecha Building
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Interviews with Benjamin Cheh, Kelvin Low, Lu Sim, Freddy Tan, David Liu and Sam Cheng Instructions and MORE!
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Issue 48 • November 2017
Contents
From the Editor...........................................................2
People Mech Builder Spotlight: Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann..............................4 Mech Builder Spotlight: David Liu...................................................................11 Stand By for Titanfall!.............................................16 Mech Builder Spotlight: Freddy Tan................................................................22 Grimlock.......................................................................28 Mech Builder Spotlight: Lu Sim.........................................................................34 Mech Builder Spotlight: Sam Cheng..............................................................38 Noel Encarnacion’s Gundam Papa Bee......43
Building
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You Can Build It: Strider Mech............................................................48 You Can Build It: MINI Hammerhead Corvette........................52 BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Guardian...................................................................56 Minifigure Customization 101: Large Figure Conversion, Part 2...................58 A Ball, a Socket, and Some Friction: Beginning the Bionicle Chronicle...............64
Community BrickFlimer’s Spotlight: Paul Hollingsworth & Digital Wizards......70 Community Ads......................................................78 Last Word.....................................................................79 AFOLs.............................................................................80
From the Editor: This issue is all about the giant robots! Mecha building has been one of the more interesting areas of LEGO building because of the challenges with building and mechanizing the organic shapes that are seen in the mecha from TV and movies. Building a static creation is one thing, but building an articulated robot that uses hundreds to thousands of parts is not easy by any stretch of the imagination.
November 2017 Issue 48 Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray
Proofreader Eric Nolen-Weathington Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Todd Kubo Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh
Contributors: Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Dave Foreman, Noel Encarnacion, Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann, Seth Higgins, David Liu, Kelvin Low, Lu Sim, Sam Cheng, Kim Smith, Freddy Tan, Tommy Williamson, and Greg Hyland. Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
The builders here are among the best mecha builders in the world, who are constantly pushing their craft to new levels. A few have been in BrickJournal before, and they have returned because they have built more, or improved their builds. They build in a different direction from many of us, and they can inspire us to build. I hope they are as inspirational to you as they are to me. 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://bit.ly/2fRrze2 or scan the code below! Website
Subscriptions
www.LUGNET.com, www.Brickshelf.com, www.peeron.com, www.brickmodder.net www.rustyclank.com
About the Cover: A triple threat of mechas by Kelvin Low, Lu Sim and Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann. Photos provided by the builders. About the Contents: Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann’s mecha tenses for battle. Photo by Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann.
Glossary AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) AFFOL (Adult Female Fan of LEGO) TFFOL (Teen Female 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) POOP (Pieces—that can be or should be made—Of Other Pieces)
SNOT (Studs Not on Top) LUG (LEGO Users Group) LTC (LEGO Train Club) MECHA (a large armored robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside) MECH (a large piloted combat robot) 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, $70 Expedited US, $97 International, or $23 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 of2the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
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People
I redesigned the head to add a LEGO light brick since it was a 2x3 brick size and took the detail to another level.
Article by Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann Last Mecha issue, Benjamin Cheh Ming Hann showed his initial hangar bay and mecha builds. Since then, he has uprated and built new models. Here he talks about his builds!
AMS JE06 JEBAT “Pahlawan”
Here is my latest MOC mecha, a one-of-a-kind design: the AMS JE06 JEBAT “Pahlawan.” Standing almost 60 cm tall, from head to foot, this huge mecha has brick lights installed within its head to light its mono eye as well as its interior cockpit area. The process for building this mecha began from the foot initially and working up. It took me about 4-5 months between breaks to finish this beast in time for Japan Brickfest 2017.
Previous page:
After six months, my AMS JE 06 Jabat finally landed in the Hangar No. 5 diorama. This was only a test shot, not the final version—I wanted to share my excitement with everyone when I initially placed it here. I’m glad it turned out okay for the height. The mono eye light really makes me feel satisfied about the build.
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Maintenance Hangar #5 Hangar No. 5 is where my AMS JE06 Jebat stands for maintenance checks by its crew. With dimensions of 60 cm by 60 cm, this diorama took me over two years on and off of building, with various designs being implemented such as adding multiple colored light displays, an opening LEGO Technic door, a scissor lift boom, and many more details, which can be seen on my Flickr page. I learned a lot of lessons that I will cherish while I built the Hangar. It made its public debut at Japan Brickfest 2017 in Rokko Island, Kobe, Japan. The response to my MOC along with AMS JE06 Jebat was humbling. I was glad to see the satisfaction and surprised looks of the visitors— Hopefully I inspired them in a way. This angle shows more details on the inner wall design, including a walkway that can lock in place to the surrounding platform when not in use. With a little imagination, you could place a minifigure inside to make the diorama more like a real-life scenario. The base can easily house approximately 20 minifigures in it. The diorama includes:
ABL Articulating Boom Lift
• 10-20 crewmen • 4 mechanical arms: 2 attached to wall panels and 2 on a beam • LTV Formica Light Transport Vehicle • 2 GP Containers - General Purpose • ABL Heavy Duty Articulating Boom Lifts • 4 Platform Walkway • 4 LED lights • Rack of Missiles • Walkway platform with 2 hidden robotic arms for robotic arms This is currently on public display in Parkson Mahkota, Malacca. Many thanks to Kelvin Low, Lu Sim, and Kenny Lim for ideas and contributions.
ABL Heavy Duty Articulating Boom Lift
A great additional element here for my diorama hangar scene is an articulated boom lift which provides a way to reach the pilot cockpit within the mecha. There is a hidden extended floor design at the platform.
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People
Stand by for Titanfall!
Article by Kelvin Low
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One of the more popular videogame series that has been released recently is Titanfall games by Electronic Arts. This first-person game lets the player command a towering mecha called an Atlas through the game and became the inspiration of a LEGO build. For Kelvin Low and his friends and fellow builders Lu Sim and Benjamin Cheh, it became their first group build for their Facebook group Brick Mecha Division. Kelvin describes the building of the model here for BrickJournal. For this particular build, I based it off of the threezero version (threezero is a Hong Kong based toy company) which I find is the definitive version in terms of both detailing and proportions.
It also helps to have a work flow for your build. My build order is as such Torso -> Head -> Arms - > Legs
Given the source material, I knew I had to include a pilot with dual hatches: One from the front and the other from the top hatch. These necessitated a large torso. To counteract that, I decided to go for a full Technic-based frame which would allow me to scale up without issues in weight. Also, with the Technic frame I was able to incorporate more pistons and mechanical details into the build. It also helps to have a workflow for your build. My build order is as such: Torso -> Head -> Arms - > Legs.
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People
Article by Freddy Tan
Freddy Tan is an automation engineer by profession: He designs and builds machines that assemble products. He’s also one of the members of the Brick Mecha Division and a member of the Titans Creations LUG (LEGO Users Group). BrickJournal talked to him about his building and mechs. BrickJournal: How long have you been building? Freddy Tan: My very first contact with LEGO was when I was about ten years old. I loved to take apart my brother’s LEGO and build my own stuff, such as helicopters, boats, and cars. I even tried building robots, but sadly there were only limited parts. Then came my Dark Ages where I stayed away from LEGO. That lasted for more than twenty years.
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I started to dabble with LEGO again during Christmas 2013, when I received a Star Wars battle pack during a gift exchange. I was fascinated by how far LEGO build techniques had evolved after building the simple speeder bike included in the set. I was instantly hooked, especially when I realized that there were a lot of new parts that they didn’t have back then, parts that I could finally use to build stuff I always wanted to do so since I was a kid: Mechs.
What inspires you to build? Sure enough, my very first MOC was a mech that was modelled after Battletech’s (a mech-based game) Mad Cat, and I have to admit it didn’t even look remotely similar. However, that spurred me on to do further major modifications twice on my mech, and also motivated me to try new building techniques. I would have to say the main inspiration to build is the simple reason that I can translate any idea and concept of mech from my mind into a physical form. With LEGO as the medium, I am able to build any form of mech, in whichever combination of details and weaponry, no longer constrained by whatever is available in the market. There are many ways to express and physically manifest the ideas in our head: Some people sketch, some people do 3-D modelling, some people do clay modelling. I simply build them out with LEGO. My favorite part about building mech is definitely weaponizing. Determining how the mech is armed and what sort of role they play in actual combat actually helps shape the mech. It’s always good to have a vague idea of a mech’s purpose before building it. This will determine the proportions of the mech: Lean and agile chassis for a scout role, or a stout and bulky chassis for heavy support role. I also find that building is a journey; you can never build the best MOC, but you must always strive to build a better MOC than your last MOC. Hence I always try to explore new techniques and build styles. When I start on a new mech, I always ask myself what are the different things that I can try on this mech, be it a new joint type, adding more articulation, improving SNOT technique, making a more compact cockpit, or simply improving the structural integrity of the build. No matter how minute these improvements are, you will have learned something, and also have a sense of accomplishment.
Warhammer Battlecruiser
Being an avid Warhammer 40k fan, I always wanted to build something out of its universe. Hence this 60 cm long model of a battlecruiser based on the game. Built over a week, this was one of my fastest builds, considering the size. It’s also one of the few non-mech things I’ve built so far.
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People
RX-78-2 Gundam and Zeta Gundam
The RX-78-2 Gundam (right) is shown with shield and weaponry. The Zeta Gundam (below) strikes an iconic pose.
Article by Sam Cheng Sam Cheng is based in Hong Kong and Singapore. His family is in the jewelry industry. He has been an AFOL since late 2014, specializing in mecha building. He spoke to BrickJournal briefly about his building.
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BrickJournal: How long have you been building? Sam Cheng: My first LEGO set being an AFOL was Metalbeard’s Duel (70807) which I got after The LEGO Movie’s screening in 2014. I had actually bought two sets in an attempt to customize my own version of Metalbeard. The empowerment of the brick that LEGO gives us builders allows me to recreate my favorite mechas from my childhood, such as Transformers and Gundam, according to my aesthetic vision and philosophy.
What inspires you to build? My design philosophy is based on these three principles: 1. Balancing Aesthetics, Structural Integrity and Play, 2. Combining Form and Function, 3. Inspiring and introducing new ideas to the LEGO Community by creating original and creative building techniques. The genre and characters that I build are popular subjects done by many. Orion Pax, Moko of Japan, Chris Roach of Canada, Alex Yap of Malaysia, and Alex Wong of Hong Kong are all inspiring masters of their craft when it comes to transforming MOCs. Each of them provides a unique facet to the gem that is the LEGO community, that enriches and inspires the community. I focus a lot on balancing the tripartite of Aesthetics, Structural Integrity and Play. Since I play with my MOCs a lot, they have to look stylish, be sturdy enough to play, have interesting gimmicks, and be as posable as possible. I tend to go for simple, clean lines to better define the silhouette, and I go for the semi-super deformed look with a disproportionately large head (chibi style) to better capture the spirit and essence of the character. To create something that is familiar yet new and unique is always a challenge. To me, creating the character alone is not enough. I have very high standards for my creations. I always explore features and ideas that are unique and new to make my MOC stand out—be it the light-up eyes of Chibi-Prime and Megatron, the fiery glow of Grimlock’s fire breath, and the extendable Z joints on my RX-78 to enhance its gunpla-like qualities. Combining form and function is a cornerstone of my MOCs too. As far as possible, I will incorporate features that enhance the aesthetics in a meaningful way. For instance, in my RX-78 Gundam, I introduced a joint I dubbed as CGS (centre of gravity shift) that shifts the entire centre of gravity of the upper body forward or backward horizontally without affecting the aesthetics, and adding locks to joints that not only add mechanical detail, but serve a practical purpose to support the Gundam in different poses.
Zeta Gundam
Sam updated his build to incorporate more articulation and detail.
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Building Minifig Customization 101
Large Figure Conversion - Part 2 Article and Photography by Jared K. Burks
Don’t miss Jared K. Burks’ two books Minifigure Customization: Populate Your World! and its sequel Minifigure Customization: Why Live In The Box? (both available now at www.twomorrows.com)
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Yo-yo-yo-yo Yoda yo-yo-yo-yo Yoda. . . … . . That tune is still stuck in my head from the intermission article in the last issue. Anyway, before life got in the way of fun, I was showing how to convert a LEGO Minifigure Clock to a new custom figure without a clock. As I mentioned, I am making this figure for my new son, who is now just almost six months old. In the first article I demonstrated how to dismantle the LEGO clock figure, remove the clock, and repair the figure to cover all of the holes, leaving you with a blank slate. With the figure repaired, this issue is going to focus on creating a new custom Captain America figure. I have a few surprises in store and some of the plans have changed from the original concept for this project, but that occurs with any good project.
In this article, I will demonstrate how to: • Fix errors in judgement: How to not cut your finger in the process (ouch) • Mold, cast, and alter Batgirl’s helmet • Recreate most any LEGO part to any scale you desire and 3-D print the elements • Prime, paint, and decal the final figure I have learned many things along the path of creating this figure. Some were a surprise, and some I simply knew better, but I relearned an old lesson. In the list above, the first item is “Fix errors in judgement: How to not cut your finger.” I would like to stop and make a quick statement about this point. In the process of making this figure, I had messed up a casting step and the release agent used did not allow the cast part to come off the head. Because I couldn’t remove the cast part from the head, I started cutting it away to salvage the head. It was late and I was in a hurry and the rotary saw got the best of me. I have stated many times to use protective Kevlar gloves, which I have and didn’t use (mistake #1). You should also use a hand saw over a knife or rotary tool, and optimally to sand a part down whenever possible (while wearing a dust mask). I made a mistake and misjudged and ended up in the Emergency Room to repair a lacerated finger from the rotary saw (mistake #2). Please know all is well, but learn from my mistake instead of making one of your own. Please exercise caution and good judgement and take your time, even when errors occur. There are always other alternatives.
Blank slate figure, the starting point.
So let’s dive into what I did with the blank slate, as I am excited to share. I decided to make my son a Captain America Superhero Giant figure. This means that Cap will need a shield and I am wanting to make a hybrid design from the old comic books and his current helmet. I want to make the helmet because ultimately I will be altering Superman’s hair piece to give him some hair and I may 3-D print the LEGO folded-down hood to give him various looks, but for today, we need to create a helmet and a shield. Let’s start with the helmet. For the helmet I could start with clay and sculpt one from scratch, or attempt to design one in a 3-D program, as I will be using 3-D printing in this article, but I didn’t want to go that route and I wanted it to look as “LEGO” as possible. As we all know LEGO has created several DC character clocks including a Batgirl clock, which features an altered cowl from the Batman clocks. Her cowl, minus the bat ears and with a bit of a re-sculpt of the eye openings and brows, would be nearly perfect for Captain America’s helmet. So my sister, Megan, kindly donated a Batgirl clock to this project. Now I could have cut down the seams, removed the cowl, cut off the ears, patched, repaired, primed, and painted, but I decided to go a different route. I decided to mold Batgirl’s head. By placing the whole head, including cowl, in a mold, I could place the blank LEGO head in the mold and cast and create a new completely solid and sandable helmet.
Error in judgement results in a dermal glue closure of laceration.
Batgirl!
Making the Mold
I didn’t want to cut off Batgirl’s head (I would quickly become the ultimate Bat-verse villain), which would have been the easiest way to mold and cast her cowl. I decided I did not need a perfect result and I did not need a mold that would make very many copies, as this was needed for a one-off figure. Therefore, I started by selecting a less expensive mold rubber from the art store, Oomoo 25, from Smooth-On. Oomoo 25 is a two-part tin cure silicon rubber where the two parts are mixed by equal volume. So I set to building a large LEGO box that I could put Batgirl’s head into to create the mold and then I figured out how to support the whole Batgirl figure since I wasn’t removing her head and making the whole process smaller and easier. This is where I made another mistake (mistake #3), which was the easiest mistake to repair in this whole process. I mixed the two-part silicone together and poured it into the mold box and positioned the head into the box. I did not place this mold box into a pressure pot to create the mold under pressure because the box was simply too large for my pressure pot (I forgot why this was so critical if I was
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Community
A Ball, a Socket and Some Friction: Beginning the Bionicle Chronicle! Article and Photography by Dave Foreman
Dave Foreman’s Bionicle creation, Matteo.
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Y
ou may have noticed us, floating around out there in the community, spread thin between all the System MOCs; occasionally we pop up on the “who’s who” blogs, or perhaps you’ve walked by our table at a convention. Maybe you even stopped for a second to see what was going on. You promptly decide that you have no clue what’s happening and move on, not giving us another thought for the rest of the convention. You probably have a bag of our parts that you tell yourself, I’ll never use these. These are useless. To a lot of System Builders this is often what happens. You see us, you don’t understand us or what we do, so you disregard us and move on. Who are we? We are the Bionicle builders of the world and we are often relegated to the back table, ignored by the larger community, sometimes even snubbed by some as “not really LEGO.” We are LEGO’s stepchild in a way: We’re part of the family, but not really. I am here to tell you that we are not so different after all. My name is Dave Foreman. I’m 28 and I’ve been building with LEGO bricks since I was two years old. I work in retail as an overnight stocker and I have no formal training in design or art. I’m simply an AFOL who enjoys building with those peculiar pieces LEGO insists on mak-
ing called Bionicle. I’m weird—even to most AFOL’s I’m probably considered weird. I think that’s just a trait of being “the Bionicle guy” talking to all the System MOCers. Mana-Ramp-Matoran, Alieraah, Pate-Keetongu, Djokson, our user names on Flickr are weird, often unpronounceable. You don’t see too many “Bricks” or “minifigs” in our names, and every website is usually given the prefix “Bio”: Biogram, Biotube, Biopages as shorthand for “Bionicle builders on that particular platform.” We are spread out across the Internet and we are a legion of fans. Bionicle has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the LEGO Group. Bionicle first emerged onto the scene in 2001 after a few precursor themes known as Throwbots(US)/ Slizers(EU UK), and Roboriders in the late ’90s. Bionicle exploded in popularity by 2003 with LEGO cranking out tons of merchandise as well as four straight-to-DVD movies before ending Bionicle in 2010. It was replaced with Hero Factory later that year. With Hero Factory came the refining of the ball and socket system into what LEGO now calls CCBS (Character and Creature Building System) or “Constraction,” the amalgam of “Construction” and “Action.” CCBS has been used in other themes like Super-Heroes, Legends of Chima, and perhaps most successfully in the
Matteo with his “Blood Letters” drawn.
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