Issue 70 • November 2021
Visiting Dale Harris’ Edwards Island
Building like a LEGO Master!
INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE!
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Issue 70 • November 2021
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People Rickard Stensby: Building like a LEGO Master.......................3 Being a LEGO Master..................................10 Aiden Rexrod: Building Beasts!.............................................12
Building Dale Harris: Reinventing Fabuland!...............................18 Mothra... ..............................................................28
Anders Horvath: Pod Building!..................................................32 Rui Miguel: Building Micro to Star Wars......................36 BrickNerd Instructions: Mini Michael Mouse’s New Car..............43 You Can Build It: Mini Profundity...............................................48 Minifigure Customization 101: Thinking Like Leonard Snart...................55
Community Pegasus Racing Team Takes Building Teamwork to a New Level!..........................60 Bantha Bricks Files: Steve Marsh’s Corvus......................................68 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 Classic AFOLs.....................................................80
From the Editor: Hi! Well, this issue is full of unique builders. From the Neo-Fabuland builds of Dale Harris to the character builds by Rickard Stensby, there is a lot of different building, and it really wasn’t planned.
November 2021 Issue 70 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 Bantha Bricks Correspondent Steven Smyth BrickNerd Correspondent Dave Schefcik Contributors: Ted Andes, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Dale Harris, Are M. Heiseldal, Anders Horvath, Todd Y. Kubo, Rui Miguel, Aiden Rexrod, Steven Smyth, Rickard Stensby, and Greg Hyland.
The Neo-Fabuland was the only thing I knew was going to be in the magazine. The Shuttle article promised here got moved to the next issue because—well, it got a little complicated, and the final part of the issue didn’t happen yet. At presstime, restrictions were still in place for public places, but that is changing rapidly. How rapidly? Well, events are slowly coming back now. By the time this magazine has been shipped, I hope to have attended two events personally. And I cannot tell you how excited I am about it! Meeting new people and seeing new builds personally is something I have really missed! Hopefully I will have seen you—if not, here’s to next year! 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!
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About the Cover: Dale Harris’ Edwards Island takes a bow. Photo by Dale Harris. About the Contents: A closer look at part of Edwards Island. Photo by Dale Harris. 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 $68 Economy US, $80 Expedited US, $103 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, 6701 Courtman Drive, 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 2 upgrades of the LPub tool that is a part of the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
People
What do Davy Jones, Michael Jackson, and Merlin have in common? All of them were built in LEGO form by Rickard Stensby, a builder from Sweden. His specialty is building figures and characters in a larger scale than minifigure, allowing him to sculpt details that are usually restricted by a minifigure’s size. His creations also have a cartoony style about them—a series of hunter’s trophies he built have a Dr. Seuss feel. Another sculpture hilariously brings into mind John Cleese’s posture for the Ministry of Silly Walks (a Monty Python skit).
Rickard Stensby:
Rickard is happy to describe himself in the same manner. When interviewed online, he described his age as, “Most of me just turned 40, my back is around 57 and my knees just retired.” Asked about how he has been building, his answer was, “I’ve built LEGO as a grown-up since 2014, starting off with my ’80s LEGO from the attic.”
One of the many dancer models Rickard builds.
Building like a LEGO Master!
Article and Photography by Rickard Stensby
His return to building happened by chance. Rickard had his sister’s kids over for some playtime and he brought out his old LEGO boxes from the attic. The kids went home, but the boxes never went back up the attic. The boxes now reside in one of the largest rooms in his house, while his attic is full of crates from the LEGO Masters win… (LEGO Masters Sweden—this will be touched on in a bit). In terms of favorite theme he states: “I’m probably not very interested in any of the official themes or sets. I enjoy building anything with character, really. Caricature portraits with a cartoonish look is probably a decent description of my style and theme.”
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Building
Aiden Rexrod:
Building Beasts!
Article and Photography by Aiden Rexrod
The adult builders are getting younger and younger. Aiden Rexrod is a great example. At the ripe old age of 18, transitioning from high school into the workforce, he has made himself known online for his builds, which are organic in nature. When he started LEGO building as a three-year-old, he had a large tub of bricks with one headless minifigure. His collection quickly grew, however, as all he asked for as birthday and Christmas presents was LEGO sets.
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Throughout his childhood, Aiden would see amazing builds online and wanted to build at the skill level he saw. He wasn’t able to build as well as they could, but he tried his best anyway. He always thought he needed millions of pieces
to really be a good builder and even then, Aiden had no idea where he would even start. Over time he accumulated more sets, which usually didn’t stay together long because he wanted more parts to build with. One summer, Aiden began sorting the now massive collection he and his brother has amassed. It was a long and tedious task that took longer than one summer, but he eventually had most of it sorted. Even after that, he didn’t think he had enough parts to build with as well as the System builders did. He later figured out this was not true, because it really doesn’t matter how many parts a builder has—they can still build very well with only a small amount of pieces.
Tytherer, a dragon.
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Building
Dale Harris:
Reinventing Fabuland!
Article and Photography by Dale Harris 18
As the director and graphic designer at Studio Ink, a design studio in Australia, Dale Harris spends his days designing logos, printed materials, websites and social media campaigns. Out of the office, though, he designs his own LEGO creations. One of his biggest models is actually a Fabuland-themed layout: Edward’s Island. Here, Dale talks about his building and about updating the Fabuland theme to Neo-Fabuland and LEGO building.
BrickJournal: When did you start building and what are you favorite themes? Dale Harris: I have been building since he early ’80s, however I had a significant Dark Age from around 1995 to 2015. The three original classic themes will always speak to me the strongest: Space, Castle, and Train. What got you back into building as an adult? My wife Kara was the spark of inspiration. She joined the local LUG and invited me along to a meeting… the rest is history. What inspired you to start building beyond sets? As a kid, my brother Allen, my sister Sarah and I always built our own creations, sprawled out on the lounge room carpet with a pile of LEGO between us, so LEGO has always been about the creative experience for me. Don’t get me wrong—I love seeing all the new sets; I just don’t really buy many of them. Almost all of my LEGO purchasing A more distant look at the pier.
One of the residents fishes at the pier.
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Building
Detail of the artwork brick pattern used for Mothra’s wings. The work is printed to size, matching LEGO plates snot-built. The color is matching the current color palette.
MOTHRA
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Mothra can balance on the pedestal (sans wings) at a location with a four stud connection. Shown here with the fore wings removed. The wing connections are Technic pin and 1 x2 plate with ball socket.
LEGO Muji hole punch was key in being able to create exact hole for the studs to connect the paper printed elements with LEGO.
Builder Profile
Todd Y. Kubo
Below: First test of the wing balance with no additional support. Only suspended by fishing mono-filament between wing supports through the top of the forewing.
A long-time LEGO contributor, builder and fan.
Todd is one of the first original LEGO Ambassadors, a contributor with the LEGO Group’s efforts with the LEGO Factory Project, and a beta software tester for LEGO Digital Designer. He was one of the 24 finalists in the first LEGO Master Model Builder search in 2004. He’s a frequent attendee and contributor to BrickCon in Seattle. Recently, he stepped down as one of the West Coast editors of BrickJournal. I have been a fan of the Kaiju movies since my childhood. I spent many a lazy late Saturday morning, watching the “creature features” on the local channel growing up in Denver, CO. Perhaps it was a connection to the plastic model building I was really into for a while that caught my interest. Watching the actors in the suitmations tear through the city, or battle all the rockets, bombs, and lasers thrown at them was pure B-grade entertainment. It did make me wonder how many hours were spent on building
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Building
Rui Miguel’s Chamber of Secrets, as seen in the Harry Potter film.
Rui Miguel:
Building Micro to Star Wars! Article and Photography by Rui Miguel
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Rui Miguel, a Portuguese builder, has been on the scene making creations for a few years and has been featured online recently with some outstanding builds. At the age of 27, he has completed a Master’s degree in Design and Multimedia from the University of Coimbra and is preparing to enter the job market. While he is developing his resume and design portfolio, his LEGO portfolio has already gotten him recognition online. Rui has been building since childhood, having strong memories of building classic pirates and castle sets at the age of four. His mother recalls him building even earlier, with him creating towers and strange houses at only eight months old. He never stopped building since, as for him, “No other product that would emerge could offer me what LEGO does then and now. Imagination has no limits and LEGO has always allowed me to physically bring anything from the realm of my imagination into existence.” Growing up with all the recent LEGO themes, Rui doesn’t have a single favorite theme. Instead he has a group of themes he likes: Adventurers with Johnny Thunder, Star Wars, Classic Pirates, Castle, and Space. His inspiration to build beyond sets came from the activity of building itself: he wanted to expand the experience of creating his own stories and universes. Inspiration behind a specific build can come from a variety of factors for Rui. If it’s a creation with creative freedom such as no piece count, inspiration could be from a music track, an action scene in a movie, a simple phrase from a book, or a fellow LEGO fan. Sometimes he can look randomly at a LEGO piece and be
Building small... Rui’s building skills run across all scales, from miniland scale for figures to, as seen here, microscale. This microscale street model is a group of modular builds lined up to make a city block.
The train station.
Buildings include a Chinese restaurant, a train station, a police station, an apartment building, a luxury hotel, and a LEGO store. There’s also a train that is displayed behind the train station.
The police station.
The Chinese restaurant.
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