The Magazine for LEGO® Enthusiasts of All Ages! Issue 64 • November 2020
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Fan Tributes to LEGO Themes Piet Niederhausen’s Classic Yellow Castle Dioramas Chris Giddens and Neo-Classic Space
Visiting the LEGO House’s Masterpiece Gallery
AND MORE! 1
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Issue 64 • November 2020
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People Chris Giddens: Pre-Classic Space Master..............................3 Jeffery Viens: Answering the Collector’s Call...................8 Andrea Girotto: Making Music and Motion with Bricks........................................................12 Piotr Pitold Maciejewski: Making Dioramas, Models and Games......................................................18
Building Sarah Beyer: Home Builder.................................................24 Builder Profile: Jaap Bijl.............................................................30
Christy Hempel’s Design with Nature, Design with LEGO........................................34 A Yellow Castle Tribute..................................40 You Can Build It: Classic Space Revisited: Small Space Cruiser.....................................49 Minifigure Customization 101: M:Tron 2020....................................................54
Community Bantha Bricks: Todd Wright’s BAAT (Battlefield Armored Assault Transport)........................................58 The LEGO House: Masterpiece Gallery 2019.........................64 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 Bricks in the Middle........................................80
From the Editor: Hi!
November 2020 Issue 64 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: Sarah Beyer, Jaap Bijl, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Chris Giddens, Andrea Girotto, Christy Hempel, Glen Holland, Matthew Kay, Piotr Pitold Maciejewski, Piet Niedenhausen, Trine Nissen (The LEGO House), Steven Smyth, Jeffery Viens, and Kevin Hinkle.
I’m stir crazy. Over here, I have been on lockdown because of the pandemic. I hope that all of you have been safe. It’s not been normal by any stretch of the imagination for the LEGO fan community. Conventions and events have been cancelled, so the normal meeting times and places were replaced by online gatherings. BrickJournal was held up for a month, as our distribution system was knocked out, and without distribution, all our magazines could do was sit in a warehouse. But we are back—sorry for the delay. This issue has some builders doing their take on some old LEGO themes and sets. The cover article has builder Piet Niederhausen do an entire set of mash-ups based on a classic set. Jared Burks updates some M:Tron minifigures. Piotr Pitold Maciejewski shows a Classic Space-themed ship. And Christopher Deck shows you how to build a Classic Space-themed spaceship! So sit back and have some fun—we’ve been waiting! Joe Meno 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: Piet Niederhausen’s tribute to the Yellow Castle graces the cover. Photography by Piet Niederhausen. About the Contents: A first look at Pitold’s futuristic layout. Photograph by Piotr Pitold Maciejewski 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.
Building
Chris Giddens:
Pre-Classic Space Master!
Article by Joe Meno Photography by Chris Giddens and Joe Meno In the early 2000s, a fan theme was born from revisiting the Classic Space sets of the ’80s. The question was posed: What did spaceships look like before the Classic Space models? This became the foundation of Pre-Classic Space, first created by Chris Giddens. Chris, now a Minister to Children and Families at Kennesaw First Baptist Church in Kennesaw, Georgia, still builds. His building has slowed as his family and work commitments have grown, but in 2003, he launched an astounding array of spacecraft for the then-new Pre-Classic fleet. Chris started LEGO building in the late ’70s when he got the Universal Building set (#400) and the yellow Spirit of St. Louis (#456), followed by his first space set, the Mobile
Space Lab (#801). He continued building, focusing on building a space fleet inspired by Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. While building the fleet, he saw the LEGO space-oriented sets at the time, which included LEGO City Space sets (which included Space Shuttle-related sets), Star Wars, and the NASA Discover theme (which also had a space shuttle set). Chris didn’t like these sets that much, so he started thinking about a different direction: If LEGO’s Classic Space sets were the future, with spacecraft that could hop galaxies with one engine, what would the spaceships before that look like? Chris thought about it and came up with some design ideas to transition from the LEGO City Space themes to Classic Space: • City Space sets in the ’90s were primarily white in color, while Classic Space in the ’80s was blue and gray. PreClassic Space would have white and gray with a little blue to hint at the future. • Classic Space crafts had computer slope pieces. To Chris, this mean that the computers were incredibly sophisticated—if that slope could manage a jump anywhere in the galaxy, it was powerful! The same thought applied to the engine technology. Pre-Classic Space would bridge the technology by having larger computers and engines and also showing piping and construction details on the ships—they weren’t as smooth as the Classic 3 Space craft.
People
Jim Demer, Lisa Welchel (host of Collector’s Call), Jeffery Viens, and his girlfriend Julie Blair.
Jeffery Viens:
Answering the Collector’s Call! Article by Jeffery Viens Photography by Jeffery Viens and MeTV
Jeffery Viens is a LEGO fan whose collection was featured recently on the MeTV Network show Collector’s Call. Here, he talks about collecting and having his minutes of fame on the show.
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I started collecting in the late ’90s. I was buying sets for my nieces and nephews, saw what LEGO was doing with the Model Team and Technic themes, and was hooked. My family gave me a few of the construction equipment sets as gifts, including the pneumatic combination backhoe set (#8862). In the early 2000s, I started a new career as a heavy equipment operator and my LEGO fund grew quickly. I began spending between $5000–10,000 a year on LEGO, buying anything that struck my fancy: City, trains, and even bulk sets at flea markets and garage sales. My dining room table became a LEGO train layout and I began to let my creativity flow. My collection grew quickly and started to take over more parts of my house. At the time, the running joke was that I ran Tonka trucks at work and came home to build with LEGO. In 2007, I saw an advertisement in the LEGO store for Brickworld, a fan convention. The manager suggested I look into it, and I began attending. It didn’t take long before my building would be noticed. In 2009, I achieved two world records in LEGO when I built the world’s largest LEGO Trebuchet and a smaller trebuchet that has the title “furthest Distance Thrown by a LEGO siege Weapon,” having thrown four 2x4 bricks 38 ft, 7 in. In 2014, I was one of the many builders credited in The LEGO Brickumentary film. Since that LEGO store visit in 2007, I have displayed at Brickworld every year, but I almost didn’t make it to Brickworld 2013.
The night of April 18, 2013, a rainstorm hit the Chicago area where I live. I was awakened by my neighbor knocking on my door at 4:00 am. He told me to hurry and move my cars before I lose them to the rising water. By that point, the water was ankle-deep around my house. After I moved my vehicles away from the house, water was pouring in through my back door and flowing into the basement, where I kept my LEGO collection. I started moving LEGO bins from the basement up to the main level of the house which was about five feet above ground level. I also set up tables downstairs, and placed the bins holding my layout on them. I tried stacking the bins, thinking the weight of the bricks would hold them down, but as the water rose, the stacks started floating and dumping into the water. By midday my house was surrounded by over three feet of water and my pumps were barely keeping up. I had given up saving LEGO bins when the water reached waist deep in the basement and was getting close to the electrical outlets. As I was figuring out what to do and checking on the other members of my household, I could hear more LEGO bins crashing into the water. It was devastating. We had no choice but to evacuate the home. The next day, after the water receded, I returned to the house to assess the damage. The ejector pump I had set up was still running and there were LEGO pieces scattered all over my yard. I entered the basement stairwell and all I saw was carnage. However, when I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw something unbelievable.
A display with one of Jeff’s trebuchets.
The bins holding my layout were still on the table. They were leaning badly but had remained untouched by the water. The only thing I can attribute it to was that a build I completed earlier that year, a memorial garden that was underneath one of the floor joists, had somehow kept everything in place as the water rose. However, that was the only thing that survived down there. Everything else had been underwater for over a day. As clean-up began, we noticed most of the LEGO that was submerged started growing black mold on it. At the time, I was doing shows at children’s hospitals and I had to make the hard decision to throw out all the affected LEGO. I had to dispose of about a quarter of my collection at that time, which was around $50,000 in total. Since then, I have tried to keep my collection above ground level to avoid any future losses from flooding. Since starting to display at Brickworld, I became fascinated by LEGO history. Over the years, I have collected odd and rare pieces, from eBay auctions or other means. Some of my more unique pieces include a piece of the LEGO factory facade from the Samsonite factory in Loveland, Colorado (where LEGO parts were first made in the US), a glued store display from the LEGO Homemaker series (set #262) and some wooden toys. I started building a reputation for liking unique pieces and was often offered odd items to add to my collection. This culminated one year when I offered up a “I Love Kevin Hinkle” custom engraved brick (Kevin Hinkle formerly worked at the LEGO Group in their Community Engagement staff, but now does the Bricks in the Middle fan comic)—not for sale, but for trade. I would trade for something that in my view was interesting. The bricks were numbered 1-56.
The flood that invaded Jeff’s LEGO collection.... ...and the layout that survived.
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People
Andrea and a few of his music boxes.
Andrea Girotto:
Making Music and Motion with Bricks! Article by Joe Meno Photography by Andrea Girotto 12
Andrea Girotto (known online as JOLLY “3ricks”—3ricks means Bricks as well as Tricks) is a 40-year-old builder and a legal assistant at a transport company in Italy. He started LEGO building in his childhood, building Space and Light and Sound sets. He stopped building at the age of 12, becoming more occupied with video games and then girls. 23 years later, he got out of his Dark Age when he found out there was so much more beyond buying and building a regular set. By then he was building Creator Expert and Architecture sets. His adoration for the Light and Sound sets returned in a very unique way. He was thunderstruck by talented builders like JK Brickworks (Jason Allemann) and Teun de Wijs, who build animated LEGO models. One day, he saw a beautiful Laputa-inspired music box by Bangoo and he decided to build his own music box with LEGO as a gift for some friends. Then he built another for his wife, then another, and another… As seen here, Andrea likes to build kinetic sculptures and automata. He calls himself a beginner since he started out with only a limited amount of mechanical knowledge. Yoshihito Isogawa’s building guides have helped Andrea a lot in the mechanical area. Andrea gets inspiration from classic automata makers and he tries, with LEGO bricks, to make something all his own: Musical, dynamic, and communicative. Creating these musical automata has become a way for Andrea to express himself. Andrea makes his creations by combining a kinetic LEGO MOC with a music box mechanism. He is inspired by different subjects, depending on his mood. Usually, his building begins when he starts thinking about an ideal movement he wants to reproduce, along with a scene and an appropriate melody or song.
From there, he starts sketching and building. He doesn’t use software to virtually build. Instead, his creations grow step by step, often changing many times from its initial design due to lack of pieces or movement not working as hoped. In his first creations, he couldn’t help ‘hurting’ some brick in order to incorporate a music box mechanism into his MOCs, but he later found ways to integrate them without altering parts. The end result is worth the effort, with Andrea’s efforts recognized online and at events. Here’s a collection of Andrea’s creations. While they do not show the motion in his work, they do show the detail and effort he places in each of his MOCs. Two of his models also have their development sketches, so you can see how Andrea progressed from idea to final model. He also gives a little background on these. THE NUTCRACKER One of Andrea’s oldest MOCs. Movement is simple: the two minifigs just spin as they dance. It represents a little theatre and the ballet. The music box plays Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite. This was built as a gift box for his wife, with two tickets for the ballet inside the little hidden drawer.
The Nutcracker music box.
The Nutcracker’s music box opens its hidden drawer.
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People
Pitold working on his layout.
Piotr Pitold Maciejewski:
Making Dioramas, Models, and Games! Article by Joe Meno Photographs by Piotr Pitold Maciejewski
Piotr Pitold Maciejewski (known as Pitold online) is a Polish LEGO fan that has been building for over 35 years. As he recalls, since he was 12 or 13, he started building when he got his first set, the Tractor (6608) with minifigure. He had to play with just this set for the entire year until the next Christmas. Poland was depressed in the ’80s and ’90s and so his LEGO collection was very small. When the Iron Curtain collapsed, his parents were able to buy him a few more sets. His first years LEGO building, he built not only with the bricks and elements he had, but also with anything he found: paper, styrofoam or box cartons. For him, this was a creative learning and shaping experience that led him to his career, and eventually back to building. Pitold stopped building in high school and while he attended the Fine Arts Academy in Poznań, Poland. He graduated specializing in animation and became a graphic designer for advertising agencies. After graduating, he also got married and had two sons, which eventually led him back to LEGO. Careerwise, Pitold had started making advertising videos and art movies, so after leaving agency work, he and a friend started a small film company where he still works as an art director, director of photography, editor, and 2-D animator. One of their advertising campaign movies was honored with a Silver Dolphin at the Cannes Corporate and TV media awards in 2018.
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As his sons grew up, Pitold began buying LEGO sets, starting with Duplo, then progressing to LEGO Star Wars. A lot of used LEGO was bought at flea markets in Poznań and Berlin. It was later that Pitold realized he was an AFOL, as his sons became adults and stopped LEGO building—but he didn’t.
An overall view.
The ground level of his diorama.
Since then, he has been combining his filmmaking skill with his building to make not only models, but landscapes and settings that look cinematic in scope. His scenes are inspired by his favorite sci-fi universes: the gothic futurism of Alien and the future noir of Blade Runner. His favorite LEGO theme is the one closest to his sci-fi interests: Star Wars. His focus began with the Millennium Falcon set (4504) which he bought in 2005, and since has modified several times (with the result being double the parts of the original). He also has an affection for the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s LEGOLand City and Space sets, and is now collecting those in mint condition from auctions. His layout took about a year to build, done over the free time he had, which was mostly weekends and when he was in the mood to relax. LEGO building is Pitold’s ‘zen activity’—it quiets his mind and takes him to safe and uncomplicated childhood feelings. For him, the is the common reason why so many other AFOLs do the same. Plans for the layout weren’t sketched out on paper—Pitold had a few general concepts in mind when he started, but he made plans as he went along in building. When he is unsatisfied with his efforts, he rebuilds, sometimes many times. This is a completely different process from his filmmaking, as he always does a lot of planning and storyboarding before he touches the camera and starts filming. Except for documentaries, he doesn’t improvise very much. Perhaps, he thinks, that’s why he improvises in
Another look at ground level.
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Building
Jaap’s Fallen Temple.
Builder Profile:
Jaap Bijl Article by Joe Meno
Jaap Bijl is a 24-year-old builder that has been LEGO building all his life. Beginning with LEGO Primo (if you remember that), then going to Duplo, then in to the regular sets, LEGO was always in Jaap’s life. A hint of his hobby showed when he got LEGO sets for his birthday. He always built the sets, but never really played with them—he immediately started transforming and expanding them. Building in one way or another has always been something that Jaap has been doing. As a kid, he never played with his toy, he was just building with them, even if it was not made for building. As he says, “Maybe I’m just a bit stubborn.” While he never really stopped building from his childhood, Jaap thought that he had outgrown the bricks at the age of 14. He barely built then, until he stumbled upon some of the medieval builds by Derfel Cadarn. When he saw what was possible with the bricks, Jaap thought, “I want to be able to do that as well!” That became the point that his bricks transformed from a toy to an artistic medium.
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When he returned to building, Jaap made medieval models and focused on being a castle builder. This began to change as he expanded his building efforts and started taking more unconventional paths, so much that the Castle
Home Sweet Home, an entry for another online building contest, Summer Joust 2019.
Agent CP-230, a creation built for an online vignette contest.
theme no longer applied to his work anymore. He just builds things he likes—if he had to place his building under a theme, fantasy would make the most sense. Being very creative, Jaap can be inspired by anything around him. For example, he has a castle build that was inspired by the shape of a fallen leaf he found in the forest. Outside of that, he follows many builders on Flickr—so many that he has a hard time picking his favorites. If he had to choose, though, Jaap credits the works of Derfel Cadarn and Legonardo Davidy for having really pulled him into creating his own stuff from the bricks. For Jaap, a build starts with an idea or starting point in his head, and proceeds to him starting to put together some bricks. From there on, he continually looks at what direction
he wants to take it and if there are parts he doesn’t like or would look better in a different way. It’s a constant process of building up, breaking down and rebuilding until he is fully happy with the result. For some of his bigger builds, he makes quick sketches, as the main build is harder to change halfway through than it is with his smaller builds. Building time for a model depends a lot on the size and complexity of the build. Some builds he creates in one try, and some have been rebuilt many times before he’s happy. The build shown on the next page falls in the last category, with over fifty hours on it. As long as he enjoys the creative process, he doesn’t really care about how much time it takes. When Jaap finally completes a build and he is totally happy with it, it’s worth the effort for him. Even uncompleted builds are not wasted time for him, as these ‘failed’ 31 creations improve his creative process and technique.
Inspiration can happen anywhere. For Piet Niederhausen, his inspiration was a classic LEGO set—the Yellow Castle (#375). From that set, he created nine different models, each mashing up a different theme with the set, which opened up to show the interior.
Building
Piet talked about building and his creations with BrickJournal.
Making paint.
A Yellow Castle Tribute
Article by Piet Niederhausen
The Yellow Castle set.
Yellow Castle Construction
Duke August has commissioned a new castle, and his people are hard at work on it. For no apparent reason the Duke wants it to be bright yellow, so they are painting over the natural tan rock. And a stonemason is being kept very busy carving odd-looking knobs into the crenellations... Under construction and opened up.
There was a wonderful interview with Daniel August Krentz in Bricks magazine in 2015. Daniel was an early AFOL who became the first non-Dane to work at LEGO as a designer. The article had photos of Daniel at home with his “yellow castle” set 375, one of many timeless LEGO castle sets he designed. It stuck in my mind that I’d like to rebuild one of those. The first castle started from a tiny part, the 1x1 Minecraft Eye of Ender plate. Its colors reminded me of tiles I’d seen in palaces and mosques in Istanbul. I decided the first castle would be Middle Eastern themed as a counterpoint to the European style of set 375.
Desert Castle
In the deep desert, water is the most precious resource! This castle keeps the peace at a spring, and its interior is a place of rest and beauty in the harsh wilderness. This was the first castle in this series and was originally inspired by those 1x1 printed Minecraft tiles, which reminded me of the tilework you can see in Middle Eastern architecture, such as the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. I used as many plates instead of bricks as I could in order to get a dried-out, cracked texture.
Opened up.
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The updated M:Tron team.
Building
The Sergeant
Lieutenant
Mag Tracks
The Captain
The Rookie
Minifig Customization 101:
2020 Article and Photography by Chris Campbell, Michael Marzilli, and Jared Burks
Jared Burks:
We all get our inspirations from various places. When speaking with Joe (Meno, editor of BrickJournal) he informed me that this issue of BrickJournal covered renewed/revisited themes—revisiting themes with a Fan twist, like Pre-Classic Space. Having this assignment, I reached out to fellow customizers Chris Campbell and Michael Marzilli. Chris immediately popped off with, “You should make Magnatron,” to which Michael replied, “Ooooo… I always did have a soft spot for Magnatron.” To this statement, I said, “Magnatron?” I was quickly schooled in Magnatron or M:Tron. You see, M:Tron fell in my Dark Ages; however, it was prime childhood for both Chris and Michael. Since I was going to make something from their childhoods, I decided they get to help me write this issue’s feature and design and create these figures.
Promotional art for M:Tron sets.
Michael Marzilli:
M:Tron was released in 1990, as I was graduating high school, which explains the prime Dark Age timeframe. The M:Tron theme ran for three years and was another faction introduced right behind the Blacktron and Space Police themes in the LEGO space line. In every other country, the M:Tron moniker was described in LEGO catalogs as a rescue and recovery team and thought of as a space fire brigade to accompany the Space Police, however in United States they weren’t described as such. M:Tron was simply a minifigure faction and even had the names of the sets changed in the U.S. market. The most popular sets included the Stellar Recon Voyager (or Rescue Star Cruiser outside the United States) and Mega Core Magnetizer (or Mobile Recovery Centre outside the United States). The Mega Core Magnetizer was the M:Tron’s mobile base, that served as a home, repair station, and launching/landing center.
Promotional poster, showing the Mega Core Magnetizer at the bottom left corner.
While some people may be disappointed with the lack of backstory, as a kid, I remember being elated no one was telling me who these guys were. Space Police were obvious and Blacktron was “the bad guy,” but M:Tron? They were just people in space—maybe not even humans! At this point space aliens weren’t a theme yet, so no aliens were found in the LEGO universe. That was one of my favorite parts about M:Tron—the mystery, the open-ended goal or purpose of them. They had cool vehicles and specialized tools, specifically magnets! These guys have superior technology and no real confining parameters, and that was the perfect catalyst to let a kid’s imagination run wild! Which leads the adults to a burning question: “Blacktron and Classic Space have been revisited, why not M:Tron?” There were minifigure sets that had all three minifig factions: Space Police, Blacktron, and M:Tron in them, yet twenty-some years later, the M:Tron figs are nowhere to be found. Where are they now? That’s what brought us to the idea of re-envisioning an updated M:Tron theme with a modern upgrade: M:Tron 2020. In order to propel our protagonist pioneers into the possible present, the space suit was designed based on a NASA space suit prototype (Jared’s nod to the theme), and to keep us soundly secured in a section of science-fiction, the officers’ garb was based on the Star Trek Monster Maroon uniform (Chris’ nod to the theme). Notable design features in the uniforms include updating the color scheme from regular red and white to dark red and dark blueish grey. “M” logos are added to both the officer and space suit for continuity, and as a special added treat, the design on the legs. When two members are standing next to each other, the leg designs also form an “M.” Jared created the designs in Corel Draw while Chris was able to utilize a UV printer to put Jared’s design directly on the LEGO minifigs. Another characteristic of the original M:Tron color scheme remains true to the faction, and that is the trans-neon green visors on their helmets and canopies (more on that later). Now that we took care of the updated uniforms, we looked at updating the figure themselves.
Color choices for the new minifigures.
Minifigure decorations were drawn digitally, with the final design on the left.
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