Issue 73 • May 2022
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Visiting Monstropolis!
INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE!
Building Big Thunder Mountain!
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Issue 73 • May 2022
Contents From the Editor.............................................2
People One Color, 39 Times: An Interview with Caz Mockett............3 You Can Build It: Minifigure Habitat..................................10 Brandon Jones: Building the Monsters, Inc. Door Warehouse.....................................12
Building Eric Law: Harry Potter Ninjago City and Moving Staircase Scene..............21 Paul Sluiters: Building Hot Rods!.................................26 Antoine Huguerre: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad........28 Inez T. Vasquez: Brick Botanist...........................................36 Lance Alderson: Menetheus.................................................40 You Can Build It: MINI Havoc Marauder...........................46 BrickNerd Instructions: Pirate Ship Ride.......................................51 Minifigure Customization 101: RWBY (WIP II)...........................................57
Community RogueBricks Collaborative Project: Adventure Islands..................................62 Bantha Bricks Files: Corey Schaaf’s Resistance Transport.............................66 Community Ads.........................................78 Last Word......................................................79 AFOLs.............................................................80
From the Editor: Hi! Well, this issue went all over the place...
May 2022 Issue 73
The cover story is about a model of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but not in Disneyland or Walt Disney World, but in Disneyland Paris!
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 BrickNerd Editor Dave Schefcik Bantha Bricks Correspondent Steven Smyth Contributors: Lance Alderson, Jared Burks, Christopher Deck, Johannes Haimann, Antoine Huguerre, Caz Mockett, Brandon Jones, Gwyneth Kozbial, Eric Law, Paul Sluiters, Steven Smyth, Inez T. Vasquez, and Greg Hyland.
Then we go to the Philippines to see the flowers built by Inez Vasquez. Then off to Seattle to see a Monsters, Inc.inspired display, Harry Potter displays, and a tall ship. And then, overseas to Munich, Germany, to visit Adventure Island. And then to the United Kingdom to take a look at some habitats! And that’s not including the staff columns that come from Germany (Hi, Chris!), New Jersey (Hi, Dave!), Texas (Hi, Jared!), and from a place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (Hi, Steven!) . Take a look and have fun! 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!
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: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! Photography provided by Antoine Huguerre. About the Contents: One of the larger creations in Adventure Islands, by Markus Rollbühler. Photo provided by Rogue Bricks. Big Thunder Mountain; Monsters, Inc. TM & © Disney. Star Wars 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)
BrickJournalTM issue 73, May 2022 (ISSN 1941-2347) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage pending at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BrickJournal, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Joe Meno, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. BrickJournal Editorial Offices: 6701 Coachman Drive, Springfield, VA 22152, USA. E-mail: admin@brickjournal.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $68 US, $103 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only, and can be purchased at www.twomorrows.com. 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 © BrickJournal Media, LLC 2021, TwoMorrows Publishing and the respective writers, photographers, and artists. All rights reserved. All trademarked items are the property of their respective owners and licensees. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.
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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 of the LDraw suite. For more information, please visit http://www.ldraw.org.
People
Caz Mockett’s habitats.
Perhaps it’s because so many of us have been locked up in our own little cubes, but LEGO “Minifigure Habitats” have been in the zeitgeist a lot lately. My social media has been full of amazing, creative CMF (Collectible Minifigures) block-mocs this past year. The first LEGO CMF series was released in 2010, and as early as that year, Eurobricks (a European LEGO fan site and forum) sponsored contests using them in “habitat” vignettes. To the best of our nerd-hivemind research, though, the modern, diagonal, stackable formula for “minifig habitats” came to be in 2016. Pangeran Panda shared his pattern that is based on the design used in the 2016 Olympic Bricks Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia, which garnered over one thousand entries in the category competition! I can’t say whether I’ve seen thousands, but the icing on my habitat cake has been the wonderful series of MONOfigure habitats by Caz Mockett from the UK. Each of the 39 stackable habitats uses LEGO elements of only one color in the LEGO spectrum, with each individual cube involving a wholly unique character and style. Caz has been dropping these stacked gems three at a time on Instagram and Flickr, and now the spectrum is finally complete! On page 9 is a photo of Caz and her MOCs to give you a sense of scale.
One Color, 39 Times: An Interview with Caz Mockett Article by Gwyneth Kozbial Photography by Caz Mockett This interview first appeared on BrickNerd.com on May 18, 2021. It is presented here with permission.
Caz was gracious enough to answer some of my burning questions about her series. Jump on board this tour of her brick-built habitats!
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People
The Door Warehouse.
Brandon Jones:
Building the Monsters, Inc. Door Warehouse! Article and Photography by Brandon Jones
One of the most striking scenes in the movie Monsters, Inc. begins when Sully and Mike ride a door to the door warehouse, where thousands of doors are kept for monsters to open for scaring the children on the other side. The setting looks endless, with racks of hung doors as far as the eye can see. For most builders, this would be a subject best left alone, but not Brandon Jones. In 2021, he unveiled his build of the Door Warehouse at BrickCon, a LEGO fan convention in Seattle, Washington! Brandon has been building since he was a young child in the early ’70s. Originally, he focused on Classic Space, but he adapted as the theme matured and diversified. By the time he was in his late twenties, Brandon had less and less time for building and his collection found a place in the back of a closet and was rarely played with. This changed when he wanted to take out the LEGO and play, and his wife at the time wanted to have a Halloween party. They compromised and held a LEGO Halloween party, where all the bins were out and their adult friends came
in costume to play and have fun. This became an annual tradition that Brandon and his son continue today.
Mike Wazowski makes an appearance.
Having a dedicated time of the year to build really kept the creativity and love of the brick alive for him. Once Brandon discovered BrickCon (held on the first weekend of October), everything moved to a whole new level and LEGO is now a year-round activity in the house. Often the dining room table hosts a work-in-progress or piles of LEGO, which makes for great dinner conversation. LEGO building also guided Brandon’s career direction. He worked as an electrician for high-end custom homes for over 20 years, but shifted careers in 2011 to teach STEM and robotic programs to elementary kids using LEGO. LEGO building has become such a passion for him, he’s finding creative ways to pay the bills while working parttime teaching after-school enrichment, home school, and summer camps, while sharing his love of LEGO and doling out knowledge along the way.
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Mechanisms: Each mechanism in the layout stands alone, and they each use different motors. They were designed independently, and each had their challenges in getting the motion from a rotating motor shaft to the desired output motion at a specific speed, with enough power to operate the mechanism under full load. Each mechanism uses various gears, linkages, chain and belts to transfer the energy from the motor to the final moving parts that you see from the front. I spent most of my design time working out the specifics to get each one to perform to my liking, but there is still room for improvement. • Mike Opening Bedroom Doors (x3) (Linear Motion) EV3 Medium Motor> 24Tooth Crown Gear> 24Tooth Clutch Gear> 20Tooth Double Beveled Gear> Rack Gears> Linear Motion • Chalooby Mopping the Floor (Oscillating Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 8Tooth Gear> 24Tooth Gear> Oscillation Arm • Exhaust Fans (X2) (Rotary Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 40Tooth Gear> 24Tooth Gear> Gear Train> Rotary Motion • Spinning Doors (Rotary Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 16Tooth Gear> 16Tooth Gear> 12tooth Beveled Gears> Rotary Motion • Conveyor Belt (Rotary Motion on a Vertical Belt) PF XL-Motor> Dual 8Tooth gears> Dual 40Tooth Gears> Sm Tread Sprocket Wheel> Tread Links> Rotary Motion The back of the layout, showing the train controllers and EV3 bricks used to run the mechanisms.
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• Squid Tentacles (Reciprocating & Oscillating Motion) PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear> 16Tooth Gear> 40Tooth Gear> Linkage> 40Tooth Gear> 8Toooth Gear> 20Tooth Gear> Gear Train> Rack Gears> Reciprocating Motion PF M-Motor> Worm Gear> 24Tooth Gear>16Tooth Gear>Cams> Oscillating Motion • Roller Coaster (1- Linear lift up incline) PF M-Motor>8Tooth Gear> 40Tooth Gear> 24Tooth Gear> Chain> Tensioner> 24Tooth Gear>Linear Lift • Roller Coaster (2- Linear Movement along track, around a corner) PF M-Motor > 24Tooth Gear> Chain> 40Tooth Gear>>Circular Motion >> 24Tooth Gear> Chain> 16Tooth Gear >Circular Motion • Roller Coaster (3- Linear Movement along the track) PF M-Motor>8Tooth Gear>> >>40Tooth Gear> Belt Wheel> Belt > Linear Motion >>40Tooth Gear> Belt Wheel> Belt > Linear Motion
You can see more of Brandon’s work, including video of the warehouse, at his Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ bajbricks/albums/72157719942294339 or by scanning this QR code!
Building
Eric Law’s Harry Potter themed Ninjago City.
Eric Law’s
A quidditch game area.
Harry Potter Ninjago City and Moving Staircase Scene Article and Photography by Eric Law Building big things is something Eric Law does often. For ten years, he has been building—he was inspired to build when he was disappointed that LEGO only made one modular building a year. With his kid’s bricks, he built his own and kept going. His favorite themes are Marvel, Ninjago, Modulars, and Harry Potter. It’s the last theme mentioned that he has done the most, though. Eric built two layouts based on Harry Potter that were displayed at BrickCon 2021. The first one was Harry Potter Ninjago City and was inspired by a community build at another LEGO fan event in Canada, BrickCan 2018. There, 30 builders collaborated on making a Ninjago themed layout. Eric originally wanted to make a Harry Potter themed Ninjago City block, but then Covid hit and he found himself suddenly with a strange combo: Time, bricks, and wine. With those, he kept on building the city bigger and bigger.
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Building
Antoine Huguerre’s
The Disney theme parks have been inspirations for many LEGO builders. With the LEGO Group releasing Cinderella Castle and the Disney Railroad sets, it’s a logical step to build other attractions. For Antione Huguerre, his inspiration was Disneyland Paris’ Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The rollercoaster shares the name with three other coasters in Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland, but has a different layout that actually goes under a river! Antoine’s build not only matches the layout, but also runs a LEGO rollercoaster on the ride track.
Article and Photography by Antoine Huguerre The entire layout, which takes up two tables.
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The entrance queue building.
Antoine is a builder that came back from a Dark Age—he got his first LEGO set as a Christmas gift in 1998: the Patriot Jet (#6331). He was only five years old, and he continued to build until he was 15. At that time, he sold his collection and didn’t return to building until 2017 when he bought all the Angry Birds sets and the modular Parisian Restaurant. In 2019, Antoine joined his first LEGO Users Group “Brisy” to begin his AFOL experience.
Building
Lance Alderson’s ship of the line Menetheus.
Lance Alderson’s
Menetheus Article and Photography by Lance Alderson
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My name is Lance Alderson. I was born in 1993 and am 28 years old. I have held many jobs, but I currently work as a machine Technician making Coca-Cola bottles. Any Coke bottles in the Pacific northwest were made in our plant.
In the strictest sense I have been building for at least the last two decades. As a child I was always building or trying to acquire more Lego to keep building, and it was much the same through my teenage years. When I went off to college I fell into a little bit of a Dark Age and my time to build became almost nonexistent. It has only been in the last two to three years that I have really had the opportunity to get back into building, as I finally have had the space to build on a larger scale. It was at that time that I really dove into ship building.
Stern view.
The draw for me as an adult builder is twofold. First is the challenge of creating objects out of such a unique medium. Bricks are inherently square and lend themselves well to structures with right angles. I find a great deal of joy in assembling the correct combination of bricks to render a gentle curve or complex bend. The second reason is that LEGO is a fantastic way to go about storytelling. I have always enjoyed seeing scenes where you immediately knew what was going on without anyone having to say a word, and LEGO offers endless possibilities to do so.
It may be unsurprising, but the Pirates theme is my favorite. I was born in ’93 and missed the original Pirates line. However, a family friend had one or two sets and I was always enamored with them. The potential for exploration and adventure that the theme offered has always caught my imagination. From the discovery of far-off distant lands to pitched battles at sea, there are so many fun stories to dive into.
Almost all the official LEGO pirate ships are just a bit too small for my liking and they never carry nearly enough cannons, so I guess I was inspired to build something just a bit bigger. I wanted to be able to set a minifigure on the deck of a ship and have him be as close to scale as possible.
Stern deck view.
A look at the main mast and rigging.
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