The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 55 • February 2019
8.95
$
in the US
Masks and More: The LEGO Creations of Felix Jaensch Bryan Benson’s Kermorvan Lighthouse
Alex de Jong’s Tinkerbell
1
82658 00366
1
Instructions AND MORE!
Order @ Amazon.com or SUBSCRIBE!
THE MAGAZINE FOR LEGO ENTHUSIASTS OF ALL AGES! ®
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.
BRICKJOURNAL #57 SPOTLIGHTS MICROSCALE LEGO CREATIONS! SUBSCRIBE NOW!
#57 ships May 2019!
GET THE NEXT SIX PRINT ISSUES PLUS FREE DIGITAL EDITIONS!
9 201 ES RAT
SUBSCRIBE TO BRICKJOURNAL o $60 Economy US Postpaid o $72 Expedited US (faster delivery) o $94 International o $24 Digital Editions Only Name: Address: City/Province: State: Country (if not USA): E-mail address:
Zip Code:
(for free digital editions)
#56 ships March 2019!
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.
MAIL THIS FORM 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 55 • February 2019
Contents
From the Editor........................................................2
People
Bryan Benson’s Kermorvan Lighthouse....................................3 Builder Profile: Felix Jaensch............................8 Builder Profile: Amado Canlas Pinlac........15 You Can Build It: Yellow Coreopsis...............................................20 Dave Schefcik’s Winter Village......................22 Builder Profile: Jacob Sadovich...................26 Three Things to Know about Steve Peterson........................................32
Building
Alex de Jong: Building “a Little Faith, Trust, and a Little Pixie Dust”...................................38
BrickNerd’s DIY Fan Art: Fishing Bear.........................................................44 You Can Build It: Nu-Class Attack Shuttle.................................50 Minifigure Customization 101: Does Something Smell like Fish?.............54
Community
Giacinto and the Cathedral............................60 A Great Crane Contraption.............................64 From Carpenter to Toymaker: A LEGO Story......................................................68 Making a Replica of the Classic 1935 Wooden Duck....................................................71 Community Ads...................................................78 Last Word.................................................................79 Bricks in the Middle............................................80
From the Editor: Hi! This issue has a lot of people building a lot of different things.
February 2019 Issue 55
There’s a Star Wars builder with his drivein, a builder with a Winter Village layout, a builder who displayed at the LEGO House, and two builders that went to Italy to display their creations! That’s just some of the stuff you’ll find in here!
Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan
West Coast Editors Todd Y. Kubo & Ashley Glennon LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh Layout & Graphic Design Todd Y. Kubo
Contributors: Bryan Benson, Jared Burks, Giacinto Consiglio, Christopher Deck, Steve Guiness, Kevin Hinkle, Matthew Hocker, Felix Jaensch, Alex de Jung, Steve Peterson, Amado Pinlac, Jacob Sadovich, Dave Schefcik,Tommy Williamson, and Greg Hyland.
We have more instructions from the gang and another set from Amado Pinlac, who is the builder who displayed at the LEGO House. And a look back at the LEGO Group when they were selling wooden toys! There’s a lot to go through, so don’t waste your time here—jump in! Have fun reading! Joe Meno, Editor P.S. Have ideas or comments? Drop me a line at brickjournal@gmail.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 to subscribe, go to http://bit.ly/BrickJournalSub or scan below!
Website
Subscriptions
Many thanks to the websites who have served as mirrors for BrickJournal:
www.LUGNET.com, www.Brickshelf.com, www.peeron.com, www.brickmodder.net www.rustyclank.com
About the Cover: One of Felix Jaensch’s amazing masks.
About the Contents: Ever see a Technic trebuchet? Here’s one on the left that is aimed at the tower...will it hit? Go to YouTube to find out! Photo provided by Nicolas Lespour
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 $60 Economy US, $72 Expedited US, $94 International, or $24 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, 9001 Barb Anne Court, Springfield, VA 22152, 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.
People
Bryan’s layout at BrickSlopes 2018.
Bryan Benson’s Kermorvan Lighthouse Article by Joe Meno Photography by Kirk Benson and Joe Meno
Bryan Benson is a new builder on the block. His layout of the Kermorvan Lighthouse was first displayed at BrickSlopes in Utah, then at BrickCon in Seattle, where it got accolades from builders and public visitors. BrickJournal got to know the builder and took a good look at the layout. Both have a lot more to them than meets the eye. How old are you? I am 33, originally from California, but have spent most of my life in Utah. Utah is a great state, a secret that I hope stays that way from the rest of the world. There are a lot of really creative people here, which gives us some great LEGO talent to draw from. What do you do in real life? I am in banking, nothing to do with money though. I work in risk and fraud management, trying to keep up with, and catch, the bad guys. I also own a small custom furniture business called Benson Family Furniture: Another creative outlet for me. It is fun to make people’s dreams become reality and provide heirloom pieces that will get passed through their family’s generations. And lest I forget, I work part-time for LEGO. When did you start LEGO building? I’ve been building LEGO-produced sets for as long as I can remember. LEGO Castle and LEGO Exploriens were the ones I recall being drawn to the most. I received the Planetary Decoder one year for Christmas and was in seventh heaven. That same year my best friend, Kirk, got the Explorien Starship and I remember thinking that it was the biggest set I had ever seen. Building and playing with that gift is a big part of my childhood memories.
3
o h u t i r w f urry frie d e r r e f n n d o c I T h f ink of t s, I h e Builder Profile People
Felix Jaensch
32-year-old Felix Jaensch is a German LEGO builder whose work you may have viewed online. He is currently studying Law. After passing his first bar exam, he paused his studies for health reasons, and later tried studying Design. When he found that he did not have an interest in Design, he made the decision to return to his Law studies.
His first encounter with LEGO was with a set at the age of three. Since then, he has never stopped building. During his teenage years, he felt it was unnatural to abandon a hobby which he still had passion for, so he never had a ”Dark Age.” He has kept on building to the present day, where he creates animals out of brick. Felix talked to BrickJournal about his building and animals.
w i t h k l t a h w e a d l n imals u o c I If Grunt, squ eak, What led you to build animals?
Well, you build what you like. I guess that’s also the reason why there are so many Star Wars and Lord of the Rings MOCs out there. I am simply fascinated by biodiversity. I like the challenge of creating the semblance of ”life.” And at the end of the day, I have a result—which I enjoy—standing in my rooms.
And they could squeak 8
man t o anima l amazi ng repa rtee
If someone saw your Flickr account:
https://www.flickr.com/people/134907510@N05/
talk w i t squaw h the animals k with t he animals
they would see you’ve built weapons—a sword and a blaster among them. What drove you to build those?
The blaster and all the other weapons are inspired by LEGO weapons which I saw on the Internet. I was in the mood to build something completely different and I saw a lot of naturalistic-looking weapons online. Some even had functions. It was a challenge to build something similar. I wanted something good looking, but also with functions. It’s a totally different way of building.
That is the advantage of LEGO. You can use it for art or build something technical—or both at the same time. I was pleased with the result. The rapier emerged due to the fact that I had a lot of grey hinge plates from the Pick-A-Brick wall in the local LEGO store. I was wondering what they could be used for. So that was the result.
and sq . uawk a . . e m nd speak and talk to Felix’s models are traditionally ”studs up” builds. He believes the iconic nature of LEGO leads to staying true to this form of building—although you can see various creative techniques used in the faces, eyes and heads of a lot of his models, solving the challenges of creating organic forms. Left: Orangutan Top Left: House Mouse Top Right: Octopus Center Above: Alexandrine Parakeet
9
Billund I was elated that LEGO decided to request all of the individual flower arrangements—now there was no doubt in my mind that I had to build them all! I quickly discovered that there were not enough bricks and pieces in my stock inventory to do what I had planned, and I had less than two months to go. After quickly placing orders in a handful of Bricklink stores and waiting for a couple of weeks to get all the orders in, I would finally be able to build the remaining MOCs. During the course of the build (and exercising some artistic license), I decided to vary the colors from the four basic flower species that I had done (yellow, white, red, purple) and add more color combinations for each. Along the way, I added more details like a vase, tray, and small planters to give each arrangement a unique individual
16
presence. Near the completion of building all the MOCs, I decided to build a new frame for the Birds on a Tree with supporting stands at the back to keep it upright when displayed. I completed everything by the end of August. It was now time to pack the models up for the trip to Billund, Denmark. After waiting anxiously for September to come, since the arrival of the first e-mail, my wife and I travelled to the setup/installation of the seven models. We joined an exclusive group of 34 other AFOLs and their creations coming from all over the world. We were all selected to exhibit our work for the very first time in the new Home Above: Mixed Floral Breeds. Below: The creation that got Amado noticed, the Flower Box Creation that was featured on the Brothers-Brick website in June 2017.
Of The Brick – The LEGO House. At the LEGO House, in the Masterpiece gallery, the Yellow and Green Zones were the areas where our creations would be on display for a year until the next batch came along. Afterwards, we attended the AFOL Grand Opening on September 22, 2017, where over 700 AFOLs attended (including many who came from the Skærbæk Fan Weekend nearby)! The entire week was a blur—there was a whole program of events for each of the days that we were there! On top of that, I was meeting and exchanging ideas with the other AFOLs who were displaying their creations, and those in attendance for the Grand Opening. For me, a fitting end to all the activities of the AFOL Grand Opening day was to be able to write a message to all fans who visit the Home Of The Brick. My message, along
Left: Amado staging his MOCs during the installation in the Yellow Zone display case at The LEGO House. Above: Leaving a message on the Six Bricks wall. Bottom: White Flowers MOC installed in the Yellow Zone Display case.
17
People
The village on display at BricksLA 2018, where it won “Best In Show”, as voted on by fellow builders.
Dave Schefcik’s Winter Village Article by Joe Meno Photography by Joe Meno and Dave Schefcik
22
Dave Schefcik apparently likes Winter. His layout, the Winter Village, is an effort that took three years and close to 200,000 bricks to complete. Over 500 minifigures are on the layout, which is six feet deep and 20 feet long. There’s also a powered train, a lit town, and even a Rebel stronghold under attack by mini AT-AT walkers. This is interesting, as Dave runs his own business as a public relations consultant, helping technology companies prepare for and work through security and privacy issues. His favorite toy while growing up was LEGO, but he went through a “Dark Age” like many fans. Dave got back into building when one of his cousins lent him his original Harry Potter collection and some Ultimate Collectors Series Star Wars sets to display at his office. This hooked him, as he found that LEGO building was a good way to relax from dealing with the stress of crisis communications. When asked about his favorite theme, his answer is obviously the Winter Village. “This whole layout is built as an homage to the line, with each holiday set represented in some way, “ he said. “For example, the church is made from two Santa’s Workshops. But the Architecture line is a close second.”
Before he built the Winter Village, Dave was mostly a set collector, but he always liked modifying or expanding sets to be bigger and better. He found doing this to be a good way to bridge the gap from just enjoying sets, to then building unique creations. Inspiration came from a place close to the heart. Dave explains, “My grandmother had a beautiful Winter Village under her Christmas tree when I was growing up, and the LEGO sets really made me think back to that time I spent with family. Like that, I think the Winter Village is a bit of a community build. It wouldn’t be here without Wayne Hussey (retired coordinator of BrickCon), who built the ski mountain, and Terri Landers, who built Elsa’s ice castle and the North Pole tower, and were a creative driving force, and I like incorporating good ideas from all over including Jason Allemann (who designed a sleigh with moving reindeer that Dave built and incorporated into the layout), Miro Dudas (who inspired the trolley and train station), and many more amazing builders. LEGO even sent their new spruce tree elements, so the whole creation could be the biggest creation with the most sustainable plant elements produced from plant-based plastic ever.”
A conductor directs the trolley to a stop.
Elsa and Anna build a castle in an unconventional way with their snowgies.
The layout was initially built all connected, but Dave realized that it couldn’t be moved easily, so he rebuilt it, learning from his mistake. The Winter Village is in three parts: The central village, the ski mountain, and the outside areas. The main village and mountain are each based on a 48x48 base grid. He wanted to avoid exposed baseplates and having builds look like they were on a square base, so in the village he tried to hide as many seams as possible by placing landscaping or buildings over the top of them. The layout can be modular, so it is easy to display only some or all of the village. Dave’s style of building touches on two things: Detail and storytelling. He likes to design things that tell a story, and are built in 360 degrees and can be viewed from any angle. He also likes to create new techniques like using white Nexo Knight blades as icicles, shoving white animal horns into trees to make them look snow-covered.
Clearing the track for the Holiday Train!
There’s a lot of activity by the ice pond.
23
People
Just another Summer night at the Sarlacc Cinema.
Three Things to Know about Steve Peterson Article by Joe Meno Photography by Steve Peterson and Joe Meno
32
Steve Peterson is in many ways a typical person you would meet at a LEGO fan event. Outside of events, he owns an insurance agency, which is something as far away from LEGO building as one can think. But once a person talks to him and takes a look at his work, one finds out how much he puts into his hobby and the community. So, for you the reader, here are…
Three Things to Know about Steve Peterson 1. He’s a Star Wars builder. At a LEGO fan event, such as BrickSlopes and BrickCon this year, Steve isn’t that far from his creations. His favorite building theme is Star Wars, and it’s pretty obvious from his displays how much he loves building—his creations are large, but his layout is huge. All of his creations have something to do with Star Wars, which got him out of his Dark Age. When asked about how he started back into building, he replies, “I had a Dark Age from about 1999 to 2015. I was walking through Target looking for Christmas gifts for my nephew, and Poe’s X-Wing (75102) caught my eye. The orange and black color scheme on what was traditionally a white/grey/red X-wing was amazing to me.” After his Dark Age ended, he began to collect more and more sets. He discovered two things: The task of collecting retired sets in particular could be daunting and costly, and more importantly, that the designs released by the LEGO Group were largely cyclical. As he noted, “Once you have one version of the X-Wing, TIE Fighter, AT-AT sets, etc., you realize they are all mostly the same.”
Steve’s holocrons.
A closer look at one of the panels of the Sith holocron.
Steve, as he puts it, “craved something more unique and with higher quality than all the off-the-shelf sets provide.” He began building on his own with modifying existing sets by adding new colors and swapping out parts, but that didn’t last long. After about two months of off-and-on building on LEGO Digital Designer and more than four re-designs, Steve built his first true MOC, the bounty hunter Dengar’s ship, The Punishing One. He’s also built Sith and Jedi holocrons. From there, his creations progressed in skill and size and culminated to the layout he displayed at BrickSlopes, and expanded at BrickCon, Sarlacc Cinemas.
Dengar’s ship, The Punishing One.
Sarlacc Cinemas answers the question: What if the Star Wars Universe had a speeder drive-in theater to watch the movies? Who would show up? And who works there? Steve’s answer is an expansive diorama, with the traditional drive-in now filled with landspeeders owned by the bounty hunters from Star Wars. Steve was inspired by Boba Fett’s silver Speeder, seen in the Star Wars Christmas Special. When he finished that speeder, he decided to design a speeder for Bossk, then one for every bounty hunter. Using in-universe vehicle designs as much as possible, he used each hunter’s unique style, personality, colors, and other attributes to influence the land speeders’ design—each speeder would be as recognizable as possible. The cinema in digital form. The projector and concession stand.
The box office.
33
Building
Alex de Jong: Building “ a Little Faith,
Article and art by Alex de Jong
38
Tinkerbell TM & ©Disney
Trust, and a Little Pixie Dust! ”
Alex de Jong is a 42-year-old computer programmer who has been building a long time—since he was four. As a teenager, he went into other hobbies like model building, Meccano, and making chain mail. He still kept his eye on the LEGO on the toy shelves, and 12 years ago, he found the Creator Wild Things (4884-1). Both he and his wife liked the set, so they bought it. After that, he got his old LEGO sets from the attic and rekindled his LEGO fascination.
It all started with a figure...
What got Alex started on building was the creative aspect of LEGO: Seeing something take form by one’s own hands. His favorite theme feeds on that interest; he loves LEGO sculpture sets, such as the Yoda Ultimate Collector Series LEGO set (7194-1), Ollie the Dragon (3724-1), and the original Statue of Liberty set (3450-1). Tinkerbell was the result of two of Alex’s other interests: Disney and collecting plastic figurines. Inspiration hit when Alex came across a figure of Tinkerbell that had ‘something special’ that made it stand out from the rest. For Alex, a question came up: Should he buy the figurine (it was really expensive), and after some thought, another question: How would this look in LEGO? The short answers: Yes, and he was going to find out!
Top center: A Tinkerbell figure was the starting point for this model. After taking some photos and setting up a LEGO-scaled grid to the size Alex wanted, he built a digital model on his computer, seen here.
The next step in building Tinkerbell was deciding the scale. Since Alex wanted this sculpture to be the centerpiece of his collection and a showstopper, he decided that Tinkerbell would be one meter high. Along with that, he needed to get reference photographs. This was easy to do, as he had the figurine and a camera. There were two photos needed: A front view and a side view. A matching LEGO scale grid was drawn on both photos to give a building pattern to start construction. Using the gridded photos, Alex began piecing together a digital framework with a brick building program, MLCAD.
Spooling the Thread...
The spool ends are plates that are arranged to attach at a slight angle. With a lot of plates, a smooth curve could be made.
The base is made of two sections: The spool, and the thread. The thread is four parts that were fitted around the spool supports.
The loose thread is a chain of 1x2 plates that are flexed to the shape needed.
39
People
Giacinto Consiglio’s model of Florence Cathedral.
Giacinto and the Cathedral
Article by Giacinto Consiglio Photography by Claudio Giovannini
60
I’m Giacinto Consiglio, a 18-year-old student and LEGO builder. My love for LEGO is also sided by a strong passion for architecture, and every trip I go on is a unique opportunity to appreciate new building solutions and to feel the power of iconic landmarks standing in front of me. One of these is undoubtedly the Florence Cathedral, that I visited for the first time in 2014. Its multicolored marble decorations, the imposing bell tower, and the glorious dome, totally captivated me, so I decided I’d take the challenge to build it out of LEGO bricks. My first attempt failed due to a number of factors, such as the excessive size I chose and the marble colored stripes I didn’t know how to reproduce. It wasn’t until 2016, with my second visit to the birthplace of the Renaissance, that I managed to successfully begin a LEGO replica of the church. The walls begin to take shape.
As I mentioned before, one of the trickiest parts were the marble decorations, but another was on a chromatic level. The original facade uses red, green, and white marble, but they’re not as bright as LEGO colors, and red marble is much more brownish than you could expect. The best option for green marble seemed dark green/earth green, but it still looked too intense if compared to the real one, which is somehow “faded”. Consequently, I chose my beloved sand green for green marble, dark orange for red marble, and dark red for the terracotta roof and for the dome. The scale I chose turned out to be compatible to many essential bricks you just can’t replace with brickbuilt solutions, such as statuettes, arches, roof slopes, etc. To make the marble stripes as narrow as in the actual building, I used several SNOT techniques, but the most difficult parts were the three apses and the dome. Luckily they’re polygonal and not round, and this made the translation into LEGO bricks significantly easier. I started with the facade, then work went on along the sides. Finally I made the domes. The three twin apses feature a halved dome, and their reduced dimensions made the design process even more complex than the main dome, built by one of the greatest Italian architects of all times, Filippo Brunelleschi. My version of the dome had to respect the “pointed” appearance of the cupola, which is different from other similar structures, generally built in a semispherical shape: To do this, I used dark red plates connected by hinges, and several ties linked the external covering to an inner pillar. Its fragility, though, made the actual building nearly nerve-wracking: After all, I could never imagine I would build it for real some months later!
The completed walls.
A look at the LEGO Digital Designer file and the apses (half-domed roofs) or the cathedral.
For the preliminary design I used LEGO Digital Designer and it took me around one month to build the cathedral alone, then I added Giotto’s bell tower and the baptistery in the following days. I posted the digital renderings of my creation on an Italian LEGO-related forum, and unexpectedly a few days later I was contacted by Tuscan LEGO
Adding the attachments points for the central dome.
61