The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 61 • April 2020
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Making LEGO Figures with Jae Won Lee and Eero Okkonen Patrick Biggs Andrea Lattanzio
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Issue 61 • April 2020
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People
Andrea Lattanzio: Different Places, Same Base!.......................3 Holly Webster: Making a Missing Link................................12 Eero Okkonen: Character Builder..........................................19 Riaan Pretorius: Building The Walk!........................................26
Building
Yvonne Strijbos: Dobby, the House Elf...................................34
Hongjun Youn: Bringing Bricks to Life! ...............................36 Patrick Biggs: Building Bionicle and More!....................40 Vincent Kiew: Building Figures and Animals! ...............46 You Can Build It: Rickshaw...........................................................50 Jae Won Lee’s The Romance of the Three Kingdoms..............................54 BrickNerd DIY Fan Art: Makerspace.....................................................59
You Can Build It: Mini Venator Star Destroyer....................64 Minifigure Customization 101: Making Vanda Darkflame!........................70 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 AFOLs by Greg Hyland..................................80
From the Editor: You ever try to build a person in LEGO? The easiest figures to make outside of the minifigures (which are pretty much pre-made) are the miniland scale figures that can be found at LEGOLand parks and Discovery Centers. Past that scale, it gets pretty complicated, pretty quickly.
April 2020 Issue 61
Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow
Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Ashley Glennon
LEGO Ideas Correspondent Glen Wadleigh Contributors: Patrick Biggs, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Vincent Kiew, Andrea Lattanzio, Jae Won Lee, Eero Okkonen, Riaan Pretorius, Yvonne Strijbos, Holly Webster, Tommy Williamson, Hongjun Youn, and Greg Hyland.
I wanted to know how to do this, and I got a few builders to help me out—they are here and have some great examples of figures to show, and there are a few techniques presented. Figure building is challenging, but with practice, some great builds can be made. It also helps if you are familiar with Bionicle sets, as they are what started the figure building theme that is now called ‘constraction.’ From Bionicle came Hero Factory, and then the buildable figures that were out for a few years. Fan builds are much more complex. So take a look at the figures and also the other builders here—our first one has been here before, but he did something different this issue: He made a series of builds using a common base! Another one built a full shopping center! So what are you going to try to build? 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 info on a subscription, you can go to www.twomorrows.com or scan below!
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About the Cover: Jae Won Lee’s rendition of Huang Zhong has beautiful detail. Photo by Jae Won Lee. About the Contents: Riaan Pretorious’s mall is seen from the east side. Photograph by Santa Bylsma.
Star Wars and all related characters and properties TM & © Lucasfilm.
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 $67 Economy US, $79 Expedited US, $101 International, or $27 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
Different Places, Same Base! Article and Photography by Andrea Lattanzio
I have always been intrigued by the architecture of the middle of the last century, also called Modernism, as I consider it a breaking point with the stylistic elements of the past, in particular those of before the World Wars. So it has come naturally to me over the last few years to use LEGO brick as a medium to create buildings, cars or settings that recall that architectural style. I think that style is very elegant; simple, but refined. Those who follow me know, for example, my ESSO service station, the replica of the service station designed in 1954 by the Dutch architect Dudok. It was the first creation that started my series of mid-century themed buildings that you see in these pages. I looked through many photographic books on the architecture of the second post-war period and found interest-
ing ideas for my LEGO creations. Thus was born the first MOC of the series: The Hot Dog Stand, which had great success in the AFOL community, so much that it was chosen by The Brothers Brick to enter the short list of the ten best creations of 2018. It was a great satisfaction for me. Honestly, at first I didn’t think of using the same platform to build other street food-themed MOCs, but then, with the result of the Hot Dod Stand, in February 2019 I built the Coffee Stand that combined my passion for coffee with Modernism. The third in the series was the Hamburger
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People
Article and Photography by Holly Webster
Holly Webster:
Making a Missing Link 12
Promotional art for the movie, with Susan.
Holly Webster previously talked in BrickJournal #53 about her Coraline-inspired house that was submitted to LEGO Ideas. Since then, she worked on another film from LAIKA, Missing Link. She was inspired to build one of the characters from the movie, and was gracioous enough to talk about it here! As a follow-up to Coraline’s house, which I built to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the film and my own time served as an artist at LAIKA’s stop-motion animation studio, I wanted to do something just as special for this year’s release of Missing Link, which I spent a couple of years working on.
Susan in the movie... ...and the full model.
I initially planned to build a scene because there are some really stunning sets from the film that would be so much fun to recreate, but I couldn’t think of any existing minifigures that could properly represent the highly stylized characters of the film. As an alternative, I considered building a microfig vignette, but I really wanted to capture the personality of Susan (aka Mister Link), so I figured a brickbuilt figure would be a better way to accomplish that. The scale I had in mind was closer to that of the actual puppet from the film (around 16 inches tall); but as I started considering parts, I saw a magenta macaroni tile (part #27925) that reminded me of Susan’s nose, and LEGO had just released newly printed eyes with the perfect iris color (part #49479). The scale was pretty much set by just these couple of parts and I began working on the face. I don’t think I’d intended to go full body at that point, but what’s a Bigfoot without feet?! I soon realized I had to build a full body also, and next thing I knew he was looking to be about three feet tall! The biggest design challenge was getting the overall proportions, shapes, and silhouette right. The character’s proportions are cartoonish; I kept having to make adjustments to compromise between the puppet proportions and what worked with the brick-built aesthetics. LEGO can be a particularly challenging medium when trying to make rounded things. You’re sometimes limited by types of parts in certain colors, and I’ve learned to let some things go that I know don’t look perfect if I’m ever going to finish anything. He ended up not being as robust as he should have been, but trying to make him more rotund was presenting too many challenges for my deadline and budget.
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People
Riaan Pretorius:
Building The Walk!
Article by Riaan Pretorius Photography by Santa Bylsma The Walk shopping center is located within arm’s reach of town, making it an ideal place to meet and relax with friends. For families with kids, The Walk has a LEGO store. There are options for snacks and meals, as well as services such as mail and banking. There is ample parking and a bus station for those who use public transportation. Convenience, services, and fun, it’s all at The Walk… and on a table.
The Walk is actually a model that was created by Riaan Pretorius, inspired by his local shopping malls in his home country of South Africa. He has been building MOCs since 2014, but has been building sets way before then—35 years ago, when he was only 7. Back then, he played with LEGO right through primary and secondary school. When he left school he stopped building because he thought he was grown up and couldn’t do any more—he entered a Dark Age. Still, he always checked out the new LEGO sets in the local toy shops. As Riaan recounts, “Then came the year 2006 and I told myself I’m just going to buy one little set… one set became two and two became three sets, and on it went. I only built the sets and displayed them in a showcase. In 2012, I saw a LEGO exposition and I thought ‘let’s take part.’ I displayed all my now vintage LEGO sets that year and won a prize. Just then and there I decided that I was not going to be shy anymore for being an adult and wanting to build with LEGO. Since then, I switched from building sets and collecting vintage LEGO sets to building my own creations, which I enjoy a lot.” A big reason why Riaan enjoys LEGO building is that he had a dream of becoming an architect or model builder, as he is a huge fan of commercial architecture. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen—he now is a business owner. He always wanted to LEGO build as an adult but thought people would ‘think funny’ of him. When he saw all the adults displaying their models at the first LEGO exhibition he attended, he just started building and couldn’t care less what others thought about it. To his surprise, many more adults love LEGO just as much as he did. LEGO let him live his dream of designing and building amazing looking buildings.
From Riaan’s creation, it’s not to hard to figure out that his favorite theme is LEGO City. He loves the realism and what could be done in LEGO. He’s not a super-hero fan or space fan, as he sees himself as a realist. City is, for him, amazing and he would love to one day have a huge city built in LEGO. Starting such a large project was originally a problem for him. For many years, Riaan did not have the parts to build his own creations. After joining his local LEGO Users Group (LUG), he got help from some of the LUG members and was able to start gathering a collection of parts together. From there, the fun began—he was able to start building his own ideas! He recalls, “As a kid, I always built my own creations but as an adult, I wanted so much more from my model and therefore needed so many more parts to get that model to look as realistic as it could get.” Riaan’s building process begins by starting to visualize his model design in his head. From there, he will make some sketches and take notes of things that he wants to remember to add to the model. Taking notes can happen at any time—on many occasions, he will wake up with an idea for his build and have to make a note before forgetting about it.
Riaan Pretorius and his shopping center model, The Walk.
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Building
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Hongjun Youn:
Bringing Bricks to Life!
Previous page and this page: A selection of views of Hongjun’s Skeskis, a creature from the Dark Crystal movie and TV series.
The figures of Hongjun Youn are not the usual LEGO builds. Instead of bricks and plates, his creations are made with balls and joints, the parts that are from the old Bionicle and newer constraction line of LEGO sets. He has been building for at least a decade, when the Bionicle theme was still in production. Currently, he works at a hospital as a social service agent. After his completes his time in social services, he will return to his university where he was previously studying Mechanical Systems Engineering. When he started building, he was only in grade school, and he started by building LEGO sets then taking them apart to build his own creations. He was inspired from seeing many creations on the Korean Bionicle website. This may have encouraged him to build his own models, as the site usually ran LEGO MOC competitions twice a year, and his first post on the Internet was a model he uploaded for that competition. Since then, he has built many different figures. From the figures and creatures that he has built, it’s easy to see what his favorite builds are—monsters! His favorite theme is a subtheme of Bionicle, the Barraki (released in 2007). These were evil creatures in the Bionicle universe, and Hongjun is building six creatures of his own to match the six creatures in the theme. He’s been building them for the past year and has four creatures completed. He hopes to complete the last two by the middle of 2020. The time it takes for Hongjun to build a model depends on how much thought and preparation he places in it. Size also is a factor in building. Usually it takes a month to create a MOC. If he has a specific vision of a MOC he wants to
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Building
The characters of the Chinese animated series Journey to the West. This display will be touring in major shopping malls in Malaysia in conjunction with the LEGO Chinese New Year 2020 series.
Vincent Kiew:
Building Figures and Animals! Article by Joe Meno with Vincent Kiew Photography by Vincent Kiew
Once upon a time, when Vincent Kiew was six or seven years old, his father bought him two LEGO sets to cheer him up when he was sick with a high fever. The sets were Classic Space sets 926 Space Command Center and 920 Alpha-1 Rocket Base. Vincent was over the moon after receiving these sets and his high fever became a LEGO fever. He was immediately hooked, as he never played with building toys before. LEGO was a childhood toy to Vincent until he saw the Ninjago 7419-1 Dragon Fortress in 2004. The set opened his eyes to seeing that LEGO bricks could be used to build Oriental architecture. As a result, this was the first LEGO set he bought for himself as a 30-year-old kid. It took four more years before he began to build his own creations. After watching The Dark Knight, Vincent really wanted a LEGO Bat-Pod. However, the LEGO Group didn’t produce one, so he built his own. He didn’t build much after he completed his first creation. At the time, he didn’t know that there was a LEGO building community. He just thought everyone was more into collecting and building LEGO sets. It took another event to build more.
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Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.
Sha Wujing (Sandy), a hermit.
Tang Sanzang (Tripitaka), a monk.
Zhu Bajie (Pigsy).
Asia’s first LEGOLand theme park opened in Malaysia, Vincent’s home country, in 2012. During his first visit there, he discovered the park’s Pick-a-Brick, where people could pick and buy their own LEGO bricks and elements. He felt like a kid in a candy store, and started to pick up his love for LEGO again. Since then, he has enjoyed bringing his imagination to life through his creations.
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Building
Jae Won Lee’s
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms Article and photography by Jae Won Lee 54
Jae Won Lee is a Korean builder based in Korea that became a LEGO Certified Professional (LCP). It took him 35 years of building to get to this point—he started at the young age of four. Before he became a Certified Professional, he was an architect. His first LEGO Castle set was the spark for what was to follow. Inspired by his father, also a LEGO fan, he began to build and was sketching and building his own ships by the age of five. His creations back then were with his favorite themes: LEGO Castle, Space, then later Star Wars. For the Certified Professional Program, Jae Won designs art figures. This is different from other LCPs, who build LEGO sculptures and models for the LEGO Group for company-related displays and events, such as building
sculptures for a Marvel, DC or Star Wars movie opening (since LEGO produces sets for these companies). Even with building models for the company, he finds time to build creations of his own on his own time. Building a model takes him a few months. It’s a process for him, as Jae Won sketches, then builds mock-ups and continues refining until he finds the right elements for the model. Some of his most impressive efforts are in the series of models depicting characters from the Chinese historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written in the 14th century by Luo Guanzhong. Here’s a collection of photos of the models—take a look at Jae Won Lee’s work!
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