Issue 77 • January 2023
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LEGO® Photography Returns! Scott Murphy: Toying with Light
Techniques, Storytelling Tips and Lighting Tricks
LEGO Minifigures Meet Nature
INSTRUCTIONS AND MORE! 1
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Issue 77 • January 2023
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
Photography Introduction..........................................................3 How to Get Started in Toy Photography........................................4
People A Photographer’s Story: Arvin Coloma....................................................8 A Photographer’s Story: Sarah Bastien’s Photo Album..................14 A Photographer’s Story: Alicia Costalago Meruelo..........................18 A Photographer’s Story: Richard Henry................................................23
Building Minifigs in Motion...........................................28 Toying with Light.............................................30 Putting a Little Bounce in Your Shots!....36 Ready, Set Action! Minifigure Posing.........................................38 Photo Gallery.....................................................43 Dean Gofnung: Camera Builder..............................................48 BrickNerd Instructions: Polaroid Camera...........................................50 Building Peacock MOCs................................58 Minifigure Customization 101: Happy Birthday!............................................62
Community Bantha Bricks: Lee Goldman’s Jedi Vector Fighter.......68 Last Word.............................................................79 Classic AFOLs.....................................................80
From the Editor: Hi!
January 2023 • Issue 77 Publisher John Morrow Editor in Chief Joe Meno Guest Editor Shelly Corbett Assistant to Shelly Corbett Teddi Deppner BrickNerd and Assistant Editor Dave Schefcik Photography Editor Geoff Gray Proofreader John Morrow Japanese Bureau Editor Nathan Bryan West Coast Editors Ashley Glennon Bantha Bricks Correspondent Steven Smyth Contributors: Sarah Bastien, Jared Burks, Arvin Coloma, Stephanie DeFranco, Dean Gofnung, Lee Goldman, Richard Henry, Chellie Hyre, Janee Landroth, Tomas Lasek, Tomas Macro_lego, Alicia Costalag Meruelo, Scott Murphy, Brick Panda, Seth Peacock, Sabrina Perry, Rennerbricks, Steven Smyth, Michal Szymel, Julia Vasquez, Geoff Vlcek, WeeLegoMan, Weng Hong Ong, and Greg Hyland. 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: Shelly Corbett presents a photo of some mice on a boat ride. About the Contents: Brick Panda presents a beautiful day for exploring with a Tallneck from Horizon.
In what has become an annual tradition, BrickJournal devotes an issue to those who do photos of LEGO minifigures and creations. It might sound like a rather niche niche, but it turns out that minifigure photography is about the most accessible way to start with LEGO. All you need is a minifigure, a camera (which you have in your phone most likely), and an idea. A wonderful story can be shown in photos using a small set or even just a minifigure— the opportunities are only limited by your imagination. There’s also a couple of builds spotlighted and instructions to build a Polaroid camera for yourself—film not included. So take a look and get inspired—have fun! 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!
Website
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)
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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 76, November 2022 (ISSN 1941-2347) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid 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: $73 US, $111 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. Star Wars TM & © Lucasfilm. All articles, photos, and art © BrickJournal Media, LLC, 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.
Welcome to issue #77 of BrickJournal. I’m pleased to be back as guest editor of another issue devoted to Legography. I love photographing LEGO minifigures! And nothing gives me greater pleasure than sharing this love with you. Once again, I invited some of my extremely talented friends to share their stories, pulling back the curtain to reveal how they create their magic.
Photography
I’m often asked where I get my ideas. It’s important to note that each artist is different in what inspires them. For me personally, it’s always a combination of personal experience combined with external influences. Once you get into a creative flow, the ideas seem to come from everywhere. But what happens if you’re not already creatively active? That’s when it helps to see examples from other creative people. Within this issue you will find amazing photographers who create images captured in the beauty of nature, and others who build elaborate indoor studios to photograph in. These inspiring creatives use anything from professional camera set-ups to iPhones to capture their visions. They show by example that equipment or size of LEGO collection is never the stumbling block to creating phenomenal images. We hope you enjoy these articles as well as the gallery of Legographers who all share where their ideas come from. Maybe you too will be inspired to join us in this fun corner of the LEGO Universe! It’s always a thrill and pleasure to share the art of Legography with the BrickJournal community. Thank you for reading! Shelly Corbett Founder, Toy Photographers Blog and Podcast ToyPhotographers.com ShellyCorbett.com Workshops: https://shellycorbett.com/workshops/
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Photography
How to Get Started in Toy Photography Article and Photography by Sabrina Perry Instagram: @theperryadventures
As you flip through the pages of this Brickjournal issue, you may be in awe of the photography and toy photographers featured. You may ask yourself, “How? How did they do that?” And next you may wonder, “How do I do that?” Believe me, I ask myself those same questions on a daily basis. I’ll be scrolling through Instagram wondering, “How do I compete with that?” Well, I am sorry but I don’t have the answers to these big questions. All I have to share with you is my journey, and what I did to become a toy photographer. Hopefully my path, my trials, and my triumphs will help you on your toy photography journey. I started taking toy photos in 2016 but didn’t consider myself a toy photographer until 2021. I started small, with one simple idea: To recreate moments from my life from the moment I met my husband to our wedding day, as a Christmas gift using two LEGO minifigures and my cell phone. I had read an article on BoredPanda about Andrew Whyte and his 365 LEGOGRAPHY Project and thought to myself, “I can do that. All he does is bring his Minifig around and snaps shots on his cell phone.”
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The minute I snapped a photo of the two minifigures in the hallway at the college where I met my husband, I was hooked. It was addicting. I started carrying the minifigures around with me everywhere. Whenever I saw something cool, I would take the toys out and snap a photo with my phone. They weren’t good photographs. Honestly, some of them are really bad. The angles were all wrong, I didn’t take a lot of time to compose them, and sometimes the wrong thing is in focus. It didn’t matter that I only had two figures, and it didn’t matter what gear I had. What mattered was the experience—and more importantly, my husband loved the gift. After the project was over, I kept going. I recreated a scene from Dirty Dancing. I used a piece of tape to help hold one of the figures in the air. Looking back, the photo isn’t great either, but at the time to me it was one of the best photographs I’d ever taken. I was excited that I figured out a way to make it look like one of the figures was flying.
Over the next three years, I took toy photos sporadically. Some photos are better than others. However, my investment in the hobby had increased. Once you discover toy photography, it seems there is no going back. I wanted to be a better toy photographer, so naturally I googled ‘toy photography.’ I started following toy photographers on Instagram, and reading articles on toyphotographers. com, listening to their podcast and following @brickcentral on Instagram because they both featured the best of the best. I was learning how to be a toy photographer. I was obsessed. I copied their ideas, I copied my favorite scenes in movies, and TV. I copied everything.
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People
A Photographer’s Story:
Sarah Bastien’s Photo Album Article and Photography by Sarah Bastien Instagram: @sarouxbastoux Facebook: Saroux Bastoux Lego
My name is Sarah. I’m a 36-year-old mother, and I live in Clermont-Ferrand in France. As a kid, I loved taking pictures. I took my grandmother’s old camera to photograph objects, landscapes, and also my family. I never really stopped taking pictures throughout my life. It was in 2014 that I started LEGO photography after attending an exhibition near my home. It was my first, and I immediately fell back into childhood. From there, the passion returned, and I started collecting some coins and some figures with my husband because he too had caught the toy virus. This was the subject of my very first photo—a photo of my husband and I that I took for fun. He liked it a lot and so I continued. What I like about LEGO photography is telling a story. Make the toys interact with our daily life. It’s as if our world is a big dollhouse and the minifigures live in it. But I also like to leave with a bag on my back to go and photograph them outside. Photography is a passion that requires a minimum of equipment to create. I have a Nikon DSLR with three lenses. I most often use the Nikkor 35mm because it is the most complete for what I do. I often start from a minifig or an everyday object to find an idea. I ask myself questions: “How to stage such a figure? How would figures interact with this object if it came to life in my world?“ For the most part, ideas come to me as a result of a situation I have already experienced.
yed a role My daughter has often pla enjoy a you e hop I ns. in my inspiratio ind beh ries sto the of r descriptive tou . tos these pho my For example, it is thanks to photo. this ed gin ima I t daughter tha ring du , old rs yea 1.5 s wa When she h wit a meal, she started playing —she her p sto ’t ldn cou I s. pea her ght cau I was laughing so much. from self my t tec myself trying to pro I t tha so ch mu so this “attack”— minifig put myself in the place of a Pea the got I So er. cov for running e aus Pod Costume Girl figure bec to nod t fec I thought it was the per ” tle. recreate this “epic bat
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oto of my t copy of a ph ec n rf pe a is e ov that I had take The photo ab o on the right) ot ph e e. th lif in r n in ou daughter (see ays a big role fore. Music pl be ree-apple-tall e th m y ti m e at m th so e se to d ers dancing nd thrille t her little fing And I’m beyo ge to ng yi tr ready cessary that I daughter is al absolutely ne as w It . rd oa keyb was the ideal on the piano ve. Mr. Robot lo I at this th o ot ph to transcribe reproduce this ssible for me po us th as . w ce it s fa partner since pression of hi through the ex n io ot em e m sa
hair was , e wheelc th h it n. Indeed w al situatio fe in n The photo o rs e p li by my int in my inspired at one po lf e person; e iv s y it s m o p a m a I found I s to show in ion. But a I wanted this posit d n a in , p u ive o fatality I never g there is n not t a ld u th o y h a s w mple, a x e my own r fo , is rmchair to push th it life. An a ing. And v li m resent o fr ied to rep tyle tr stop you I , e m e frees e extr erse. The idea to th iv n u ” e n book trem in an “ex is one, and an ope t I have air te tha Wheelch ramp. No Little Prince, t a re g a r e makes fo e book Th very well. ly used th ge ri a s ta s n e lu m o v es this z li o b m y which s
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People
Lavender Fields.
A Photographer’s Story:
Alicia Costalago Meruelo Article and Photography by Alicia Costalago Meruelo Instagram: @taskera_photography
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Allow me to introduce myself. I’m a Spanish engineer currently living and working in Germany. I’ve always been interested in arts and crafts and I have been collecting and building LEGO for years. I love to travel and take photographs of my trips. But with the birth of my son and the beginning of the pandemic happening together, I was kept stuck at home. I started my toy photography journey in 2021. During the lockdown I was searching for an escape when I found toy photography on Instagram. I started building landscapes and scenes on a small table in my house and posted those pictures online. Slowly, I fell in love with the hobby and started learning everything I could about it, from building dioramas and creating MOCs to photography and post-processing. My pictures usually represent outdoor scenes and figures in nature. There are moments of peace and wonder, including both magical and mundane moments. I use fairytales, books, and movies as references. Fantasy is always the best inspiration for my photography, even if what ends up in the picture does not look magical. The Lavender Fields photograph started out as an interpretation of a scene in the movie Big Fish, where the main character gives her beloved a field of daffodils (her favorite flower) in front of her house. I imagined what a special thing it would be when you grow old, to take care of such a wonderful present and be reminded of that love every morning.
Occasionally I also build rooms and buildings out of LEGO bricks, or use some from standard sets, to play with the light from windows and lamps. An example of this is the Florist working on a table next to the window, which was inspired by the video game Life is Strange True Colors. The flower shop owner happily continues preparing bouquets, forgetting that she has prepared enough already. Every photograph starts with a minifigure, the main character of a story. I picture what kind of environment the figure is in and what sort of story is happening. What is the figure doing, and why? Or perhaps, where is it going? At this point, sometimes I sketch the outline of the photograph on paper, but most of the time I create the image in my head, composing the scene and thinking about what it needs. Then, I prepare to build. I choose what colors will be in the composition. Sometimes color choices are just to be harmonic, like in the lavender fields, but sometimes it is to make something stand out, like the red shirt of the sleeping fisherman. I also plan where and what type of light there will be and where it will come from. The Florist.
Ice Warrior.
Shark!
Serenade.
Jane Goodall.
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With each picture I try something new or try to do something better. The online photography challenges from communities like Stuck in Plastic, BrickCentral or Toy Photographers are great for this, as they usually take me out of my comfort zone. This is the place where I learn the most. It is a very slow process, a lot of work, and often frustrating. Sometimes a new idea works and sometimes it does not, but it is not magic, and with enough effort, anyone can do it. To me, the important thing is to continue producing pictures that make me happy and carry me to other worlds.
People
A Photographer’s Story:
Richard Henry Article and Photography by Richard Henry Instagram: @tongwars
The Empire is on the march.
Hello there! I’m Richard Henry, aka @tongwars on Instagram. Born in England, my family emigrated to Australia when I was ten years old. I live on the New South Wales Central Coast which is about an hour north of Sydney. I’m 44 years old, married, and dad to four beautiful girls. I’m a Registered Nurse working in a busy hospital and toy photography has been my hobby for the past four-anda-half years. I was introduced to toy photography in late 2017 by a workmate after we watched The Last Jedi trailer. He told me of his friend Jay Heywood (please checkout @budfutu on Instagram) who is a fellow massive Star Wars fan who builds and photographs his own scenes. Jay’s work is toy photography perfection, in my view. I was instantly inspired to see whether I could create similar style shots, but using Star Wars LEGO. At the time I only owned a small amount of Star Wars LEGO, but as you can imagine my collection has grown quite a bit over the past four years. I was instantly hooked!
Attracted to Toy Photography by Star Wars I started toy photography in late 2017. I’ve always had a creative side, but never really had an outlet to focus on. As a child of the ’80s, I grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy and was drawn back to Star Wars in the early ’90s with Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy. I’ve remained a massive fan since, especially of Star Wars fan art paintings.
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Building
Coming soon to a theatre near you: Kermit the Frog in No Time for Flies.
Toying with Light! Article and Photography by Scott Murphy Instagram and Twitter: @toyingwithlight www.toyingwithlight.com 30
We’re living in a golden age of photography. It’s never been easier to take a picture and share it with the world. With over six billion smartphone users worldwide, most of us carry imaging technology in our pockets that we didn’t dream of even ten years ago. Along with the latest cameras, lenses, and software available to us, it’s truly an exciting time for photographers. On Instagram alone, over a thousand pictures are uploaded each and every second of the day. And yet, some pictures still stand out from others. How? Why? With LEGO photography, where we can often control almost every aspect of the scene, I believe that investing time and energy in the creative process can help make that difference.
Let me share my approach, which I’ve adopted from photographer Ming Thein. He teaches that there are four things to consider in making an image that ‘works’: • The Idea • Light • Subject Isolation • Composition
The Idea It all begins with the idea. Before I pick up the camera, I aim to have my concept or story clear in my mind, along with a pretty good sense of what the final result will look like. But where do ideas come from? Some of the best advice I’ve read was Stephen King’s memoir On Writing. This may sound unlikely, until you remember that the word photography come from Greek and literally means “writing with light.” And what advice did I find applicable to me as a photographer? King said that when creating a story, the situation comes first, and the characters come next. Once these are clear in mind, the story itself can begin to unfold. And the most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a what-if question. For example, what if Quentin Tarantino directed a Muppets movie? Or, what if machines were alive?
A mother’s love is like nothing else in the galaxy.
Creative work is at its best when the imagination is having fun. Shoot the things you enjoy, bringing them to life in LEGO form with your own personality and experience. As for me, I enjoy books, music, movies, and Gen X pop culture, and you will see this reflected in much of my work.
Henson 25:17 The path of the righteous Muppet is beset on all sides by hilarity and the laughter of humankind.
“Now, I wanna dance, I wanna win. I want that trophy, so dance good.”
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Building
Article and Photography by Seth Peacock. Instagram: @obsessionist_seth You can see Seth’s Instagram gallery by scanning this QR code!
One of the outstanding MOCs that was shown at BrickFair Virginia and online was a rendition of a peacock. Titled the Automaton Peacock, the builder is Seth Peacock. He spoke with BrickJournal about building peacocks and other builds!
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Building Peacock MOCs
BrickJournal: Hi Seth! What do you do? Seth Peacock: I work in Research & Development for a paper packaging company. Most of my time is either in the laboratory or wrangling spreadsheets and databases. How long have you been building? Since my first birthday, when I got a Duplo set. What got you into building as an adult? I never had a Dark Age. I discovered the online LEGO community in middle school, and once I realized I could just keep building forever, I knew I couldn’t stop. I checked MOCpages and BZPower daily, along with a whole list of LEGO blogs. (Editor’s Note: MOCpages was a creation-sharing site and BZPower is an online forum for Bionicle fans.) It was a pretty smooth transition from a TFOL nervously sending my creations to internet “strangers” through the BZPower convention circuit, to an AFOL who could afford to attend some of those conventions in person.
What’s your favorite theme? Bionicle, for sure. The narrative and distinctive aesthetic gave me a lot to obsess over as a kid. Nowadays, the MOCing community has evolved beyond the actual Bionicle mythos and pieces to become a nexus of great character builds with a focus on creative parts use. Honorable mention to LEGO Lord of the Rings for being the first licensed IP I was really invested in to get the LEGO treatment. What inspired you to start building MOCs? I’ve never been able to not build MOCs! Even as a kid, I asked for sets based on what cool MOCing parts I saw, instead of how cool the actual set was. My parents tell the story of when I received the set 8549 Tarakava for Christmas. I was young, so my dad and granddaddy helped build it. They were so proud when it was finished, and went to get a camera to take pictures—but by the time they returned, I had already taken it apart and started trying to make something new.
Some of Seth’s peacocks.
What are the inspirations behind your build? I’ve built a few other peacocks before. Part of it is just because it’s my family name, but mostly because they’re a fascinating challenge to build with LEGO. I’m more of an engineer than an artist, and it’s nice to have a subject where most of the challenge is “How can I replicate X feature in bricks?” rather than “How can I make X feature appealing?” Of course every build requires both structural and aesthetic choices, but I’m more confident in the former. Peacock feathers fan out in a way that’s hard to mimic in bricks, with a lot of small angles. In real life they can overlap near the center and spread out at the edge, but in LEGO if they’re thin enough to fold over one another, they’re probably too thin to support themselves. Even if you can find a stable structure, does it look good? The detail needs to be compact near the center of the tail but still transition smoothly to the outer edges of the tail; all while incorporating the iconic “eye” patterns. It’s a balancing act, and each peacock pose calls for entirely different methods. All that to say—I’ve wanted to build a larger-scale peacock with tail feathers featuring repeated Bionicle elements for years. Last summer I got a bulk bag of “11302 - Hero Factory Weapon Accessory - Flame/Lightning Bolt with Axle Hole” as an impulse buy with a BrickLink order. I found out that the thin tips of that element could fit into a variety of otherwise useless slots on Technic pieces, including the slots on the axle holes of 11302 itself. That inspired me to build the Wirebird as a Bio-Cup 2021 entry, but I kept thinking that I could make something more fully realized with the technique. In 2022, I grabbed as many golden elements as I could on random BrickLink orders and LUGbulk. Once I had a tablescrap feather built, using the side of 11302 wedged into the slots of a 3L pin to get the V-shape needed for the feathers, I started building in earnest. The golden Technic chain links convinced me to go with a more automaton look, which would let the feathers and wings be a little less dense while still looking believable. I also transitioned from making it standing, with tail fanned, to the mid-flight pose. This pose is a more interesting 3-D composition (something on my mind since I wanted to bring it to BrickFair Virginia), but also sets it apart from my previous standing or sitting peacocks, and gave me a chance to experiment with outstretched wings.
The Wirebird.
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