Issue 81 • September/October 2023
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Building Ellis City
Grogu, The Mandalorian TM & © Lucasfilm.
Other Cities: New Hashima Sector 08 by Stefan Formentano Fabuland City by Steven Lauglin
Custom Yellow Convertible build, Grogu minifigure, & more! TM
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Issue 81 • September/October 2023
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People Steve Laughlin’s Fabuland!.............................3 John Bucy: Building a Landmark Display..................10 From an Idea to a Set: Creating an A-Frame...................................17
Building
Gareth and Catherine Ellis’ Town Trolley Layout.....................................24 Building New Hashima Sector 08............30 Sky Lofts...............................................................38 BrickNerd Instructions: Yellow Convertible.......................................48 Minifigure Customization 101: Bad Baby!..........................................................54 You Can Build It: Lolthal City MINI Diorama........................60
Community
Bantha Bricks: Joachim Klang - Building Star Wars and more!.........................................................68 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 Classic AFOLs.....................................................80
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From the Editor: Hi! There’s some City stuff in this issue, but not the normal fare:
September/October 2023 Issue 81
• We take a look at a Fabuland city, thanks to Steven Laughlin.
Publisher John Morrow
• We get to see a current town (or maybe a little older) thanks to Gareth and Catherine Ellis.
Editor in Chief Joe Meno 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: Frank Averstegge, Jared Burks, John Bucy, Christopher Deck, Gareth Ellis, Catherine Ellis, Brian Everett, Stefan Formentano, Jon Knoy, Andrea Lattanzio, Steven Laughlin, David Strenzler, Michael Willhoit, Jordan Wolfman, 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: Night falls on the layout built by the Ellis family. Photo by Gareth Ellis About the Contents: An overhead view of New Hashima. Photo by Jordan Wolfman.
• And we take a look at a future city, thanks to Stefan Formentano and Michael Willhoit. There’s also the regular columns from BrickNerd, Jared Burks, and Christopher Deck showing builds and mods—a little of everything, which I like, and I hope you do, too. So sit down in your favorite chair and take a look as what’s inside. And also take a look at all the lit layouts! Enjoy! 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)
Subscriptions
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 81, September/October 2023 (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 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, The Mandalorian 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.
People
Steven Laughlin’s Fabuland layout.
For most LEGO fans the Fabuland theme is something of a hidden theme. Lasting only a few years, Fabuland only produced a few sets, and had figures of a different scale than the much more popular minifigure scale. With the rarity of sets and figures, Fabuland creations are hard to come by. When they do show up, they quickly get attention with their cute and colorful characters. Steven Laughlin built a layout with that theme. Dubbed Fabuland City, this layout is a combination of almost all of the Fabuland sets produced, and a celebration of the theme. He talked with BrickJournal about his building and his award-winning creation.
Steven Laughlin’s
Fabuland! Article and photography by Steven Laughlin
Steven is a life-long builder, having started in the late 1970s when he was an eight-year-old kid. His first set was the Moon Lander (546). He also had a motor set that went back and forth, and had a Technic motor chassis that came shortly thereafter. His dad helped him put most of it together, but Steven did a lot of the early stuff. Back then, he built Classic Space, which became his deep dive in LEGO building. His birthday and Christmas gifts for a number of years were Classic Space—that was pretty much where it was at for Steven. His brother was into castles and got Castle sets, and they had the Classic Space guys invade the castle at some point. Sets would be built, then torn down to create the alternate builds on the set boxes, or make something to invade the castles with. Steven had a break in building in his late teens—not a true Dark Age where he stopped building completely, but a Dim Age. He still got a set or two every so often, but he wasn’t building as much. He got back into building when he started looking for a LEGO convention in Texas. He had seen conventions around the country, so he did a Google search and found Brick Fiesta (now Brick Rodeo), a LEGO fan convention that was held in Austin. This became his first convention in 2015, and it opened his eyes to what someone could build with LEGO—one could do much more than just
A courtyard on the layout.
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People
John Bucy with his model of the Ross County Courthouse.
John Bucy:
Building a Landmark Display Article and Photography by John Bucy
I have always been creative. I played with LEGO as a child and loved to draw, but once I got into the real world, I did not do anything very creative for a long time. In 1999, I saw the LEGO Star Wars sets and I began buying them, then started building LEGO MOCs in 2003. At the same time I joined a LEGO Train Club in Columbus, Ohio. We built large train layouts to display at various venues. I designed and built three skyscrapers modeled after real buildings in Columbus, along with many smaller buildings for our layouts. That lasted for until late 2006 when life got in the way and I couldn’t participate any more. Building the skyscrapers really ignited my interest in architecture. I really loved replicating real buildings within the limitations of the LEGO brick! After that, I spent a lot of time building digital models using MLCAD and eventually moving to Stud.io. I digitally built anything from buildings to trains to mosaics. Anything that I saw that inspired me was fair game. Thanks to the train club, I got into photography so that I could learn to take better photos of my models. LEGO actually took a backseat to photography for a while. I still continued to build off and on (I would put a LEGO train under my Christmas tree every year, and sometimes the layouts would get quite involved!) until in 2019, I finally got a nice dedicated LEGO space in my house, and I was back into LEGO 100%!
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My hometown is Chillicothe, Ohio, which has quite a few old landmark buildings. One of these is the Ross County Courthouse that was built in 1858. Every time I would drive by the Courthouse, all I could think of is how great of a LEGO® model it would make! In January 2020, I began this adventure. About a month-and-a-half was spent designing the model digitally, focusing on the scale and getting the overall building laid out. I left the smaller details for the actual build. I also began stocking up on any tan parts that I could find on the Pick A Brick wall at my local LEGO store. The Courthouse model was designed using photos from Google Earth, photos I took, and photos that I found online. I also found drone footage that proved quite valuable for modeling the roof. There are certain parts of the model that are not 100% accurate (the large rear wall and the tower, for example) due to how difficult it was to figure out exact dimensions from photos, and also because of the limitation of the LEGO bricks. In some cases, I chose to add more detail, as opposed to losing it if I made it in the correct scale.
The Ross County Courthouse.
Some details from John’s build.
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John with some of his mosaics at the display... ...and at the Courthouse, figuratively.
Some Marvel mosaics at the display.
After the exhibit, my focus is still mostly on architecture and mosaics. I’ve digitally designed several other buildings from my hometown and hope to someday build them. I continue to design (and sometimes actually build) mosaics regularly as part of #mosaicsonmonday, a weekly building series that I help co-host on Instagram. I am working on redesigning the first skyscraper that I built back in 2003 (the LeVeque Tower in Columbus, Ohio) which was actually only the second MOC I had ever built. I’ve learned a lot over the years, so I figure that I can do it much better now. I am also currently working on a city and train layout in my basement, something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
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People
Andrea Lattanzio with his initial submission.
From an Idea to a Set:
Creating an A-Frame Article and Photography by Andrea Lattanzio
Andrea Lattanzio has been in BrickJournal a few times already, initially showcasing a Vespa workshop and garage in issue #33, then a hot rod garage a few months later in #38. After that, it took a few years for him to return in issue #61, this time showing a series of diners and a gas station that were built on the same base display. He’s built a lot, and he became one of the privileged fan builders that released an official LEGO set through the LEGO Ideas platform: the A-Frame. Here he talks about making this set, from building his prototype to going on tour to sign sets! The A-Frame wasn’t the first IDEAS proposal that I submitted. My initial set idea was a Volkswagen restoration workshop in 2014, and a few months later, a Volkswagen Surfer pick-up. Both submissions did not receive the 10,000 votes needed for LEGO review and failed. LEGO Ideas changed in the years since, with the total number of users growing to almost three million presently. During that time I submitted a few more projects, but they, too, failed. One project submitted in 2021, the “Into the Wild” diorama, was very popular in North America, but was rejected by LEGO. By March 2021, I found myself at a crossroads: give up or try again.
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The initial IDEAS submission.
I decided to submit the A-Frame Cabin, a MOC that I had built and presented in the Fall of 2020 and had become very popular with the international AFOL community. From my submission in March 2021, it took only 42 days for the project to reach 10,000 votes. I became one of the exclusive members of the much coveted LEGO IDEAS 10K member club!
A look inside the cabin.
Creating the Project I built an A-frame because I was looking for something new and came across a book with many strange houses from all over the world. I discovered the A-frame houses and it was love at first sight! While researching, I discovered that they are highly sought after and fashionable in the US, and there are dozens of Instagram pages about A-frame houses with hundreds of thousands of followers. I thought a house like that had never been produced by LEGO, and its time had come. Turns out I was right!
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Building the submission model started with a paper sketch of what I was going to build. It only took about ten days to complete the project. I had clear ideas about both shapes and colors: a big “A” as a shape and reddish brown for the roof, medium nougat for the faced and light
bluish gray for the base. The result rocked! Using my past experience in building rural houses (including Sheriff Hopper’s shack from the Netflix series Stranger Things) made my building easier and faster to make. For presentation, photography played a very important role in giving a touching atmosphere to the project. For the A-Frame itself, I wanted to do something unique for the drywall of the cabin. While I initially used 1x2 ingots to good effect, I thought this was an easy effect using a pretty common part. I remembered one of my favorite builders Letranger Absurde using hammers to create a castle wall. Since I happened to have a lot of hammers on hand from an event at LEGO House, I tried the same technique, which seemed to work better than the ingots. The most difficult part of building was probably setting the right proportions for the cabin. I tried different sizes of the roof before I found the right size and balance. I also spent a lot of time searching for the right details for the diorama.
Hammer Time!
The initial front face and porch.
The porch wall was made of hammers that were inserted into bricks with open side studs. Plates were used to space the hammers evenly. The clips seen in the rear attach the wall units to the base of the model.
More details.
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Building
John Bucy with his model of the Ross County Courthouse.
New Hashima at BrickFair Virginia 2022.
Building New Hashima Sector 08 Article by Stefan Formentano and Michael Willhoit
Photography by Jordan Wolfman 30
Seen at BrickFair Virginia 2022, New Hashima is a growing community-build that depicts a cyberpunk city complex inspired by Neo-Tokyo from the movie Akira, Los Angeles from the movie Blade Runner, and even Night City from the video game Cyberpunk 2077. However, the beginnings of New Hashima came from a collaborative build from 2013. A group called BroLUG built a Cyberpocalypse display that was shown at Brickworld 2013 in Chicago, Illinois, and later at BrickFair Virginia. This build was the inspiration for Stefan Formentano, who had seen the Cyberpocalypse build online, loved the concept, and wanted to build his own version. Having visited Japan in 2015 and 2016, Stefan knew that he wanted to build new MOCs using Tokyo as inspiration. There was also a lot of hype around the Cyberpunk 2077 video game that brought the genre back to the forefront of people’s minds, which ignited his interest in building the city.
Next page: A look at the skyline.
The Ross County Courthouse.
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New Hashima’s Inspiration: BroLUG’s Cyberpocalypse 2013 In 2013, members of BroLUG created a collaborative layout that had a dystopian cyberpunk-oriented theme. The builders behind this massive project included Carter Baldwin, Chris Edwards, Nate Brill, Kyle Vrieze, Forest King, Ignacio Bernaldez, Sam Wormuth, and Alex Valentino.
Some views of Cyberpocalypse City at Brickfair Virginia 2013.
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Brett’s windmill,
To make New Hashima, Stefan had to reverse-engineer the modular cube building system that was developed for the Cyberpocalypse display. After developing an overview document with his ideas for the New Hashima collaborative project, he presented the idea to his club, Magic City LUG (based in Birmingham, Alabama). Stefan and club member Peter Bradberry built the first version of New Hashima for BrickFair 2020, which had a 40” x 40” area. A planned expansion to New Hashima was delayed when the pandemic hit in 2021. The delay gave Stefan plenty of time to plan, and New Hashima became his quarantine project. Stefan and Peter quadrupled the area of the layout in 2022 to 80” x 80”. By this time, some of the original builders (Carter Baldwin, Simon Liu, and Michael Willhoit) of the original Cyberpocalypse City began planning to make a tenyear reunion display. They saw Stefan’s work and asked about bringing his city to BrickFair Virginia in Summer 2022. Other builders were recruited to build parts of New Hashima, and for the Brickfair Virginia display, eleven builders eventually came to contribute (Stefan Formentano, Simon Liu, Michael Willhoit, Jesse Mims, Tobias Whelan, Mason Ricks, Logan Petrin, Jordan Wolfeman, George Hawes, Brian O’Leary, and Brailey Lee). The project quickly gained traction, and many of the builders had only about a month to build their sections. School and travel also shortened building time, and much of the final construction happened onsite the night before BrickFair’s public display hours. A night time monorail run.
Michael Willhoit’s helicopter lands.
Monorail testing for height.
A look at the roof detail.
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Building
Sky Lofts Article and Photography by Jon Knoy Starting This Project
LEGO was one of my favorite toys as a child, since I was interested in becoming an architect one day. My LEGO building stopped in middle school, but returned as a hobby in 2013 when the LEGO modular building line piqued my interest. My focus has been on city building, and I have always wanted to construct a tall building. I slowly acquired parts over the years to build something at this scale, but without an actual design in mind. I started building a proof of concept for the Sky Lofts in December of 2022 and was able to complete the exterior of the building in about two months. I had attempted different designs in the past, but they didn’t work well at the scale I was trying to achieve.
Selecting Characters
My original plan was going to have minifigures from the LEGO City line as residents of all the condos. However, when I started working on the interiors, I thought it would be fun to create scenes with characters from various movies, TV shows, and LEGO sets I had as a kid. I chose characters based on minifigures I already had, but with the potential to create stories within the scenes I was planning. I also added a different color theme for each floor to reduce the amount of gray. When possible, characters were paired with certain colors that would complement their story.
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The residents of the Sky Lofts live on the second through the seventh floor:
Sky Lofts.
Second Floor: Residents from LEGO City Third Floor: Cat Lady and Scooby-Doo Fourth Floor: Jurassic Park and the Mandalorian Fifth Floor: Scrooge McDuck and Johnny Thunder Sixth Floor: Space and Iron Man Seventh Floor: Iron Man and Batman
The Design Process
While the Sky Lofts isn’t modeled after any specific building, I was inspired by various condo and apartment buildings I had seen or visited. Frank Lloyd Wright was also an influence on the design, specifically the balconies. Getting the correct scale for the building was one of the biggest challenges I faced. I wanted it to be minifigure scale to fit in the LEGO city I have been working on for nearly ten years. I also strived to create a design that was both modern
and had a lot of detail. Using vertical and horizontal lines at various depths helped add visual interest to the building. I also chose dark orange and navy blue, with the two shades of gray as accents to help the building stand out. I started building a proof of concept once I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like. I started building the facades and the second floor. I returned to the design of the first floor once the overall design of the facades was finalized. The facades ended up being built three times, with the first being a proof of concept, and the third to make structural improvements to the design. Stud.io or other LEGO digital design software was not used, but I’d like to explore this more in the future. While my focus on this building was on the exterior design, I factored the interior floorplans early on in the design process. I was also able to create a working elevator using a manual crank on the rooftop. Since I wanted to be able to do the full interiors of the building, I tried to hide all of the connection points the best I could, while still trying to make the building structurally sound. The color-blocking design made it challenging to make the building structurally sound.
The gym.
Sky Lofts Tour: First Floor
The floor plan of the Sky Lofts is centered by an elevator shaft. The front entrance (seen at the bottom) leads directly to the elevator and to the lobby. The concierge’s desk is to the left of the elevator and leads to the mailboxes. A door on the right leads to the gym room and the pool in the rear of the floor.
The elevator lobby.
The indoor pool.
Another look at the pool.
The concierge’s desk and mailboxes.
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Parts List
Yellow Convertible
Design by Brian Everett from BrickNerd Recently I completed the design of a narrow modular building with a working garage door, and something important was missing—a car for the garage! I suppose I knew all along I would need a car, but waited until the end because, being honest, I had never designed a car MOC before. To get started, I did what I figured anyone else might do, and look at sets to give me a good base model. In this case, I chose Tony Stark’s convertible from set 76216 Iron Man Armory. It had the general look I was going for, and included the specific mudguards I was hoping to use. The base gave me some inspiration as I created my own convertible in a completely different style. I settled on a more rounded look, and I wanted to utilize some fun SNOT techniques for the bumpers and windshield. I also love the use of minifigure roller skates as door handles! Overall, the design of this convertible is one that can easily be color-swapped to make it complement whatever you are building, or stand out on its own, which I’m quite happy with. Enjoy!
You can go to the BrickNerd website by typing: https://bricknerd.com/ on your browser or by scanning this QR code!
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(Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Part Color Description 1 2412b.dat Flat Silver Tile 1 x 2 Grille with Groove 4 11208.dat Flat Silver Wheel Rim 10 x 14 with Fake Bolts and 6 Spokes 2 11253.dat Flat Silver Minifig Roller Skate 2 2436a.dat Black Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 4 3 3710.dat Black Plate 1 x 4 1 3829c01.dat Black Car Steering Stand and Wheel 4 4488.dat Black Plate 2 x 2 with 1 Wheel Pin 4 11209.dat Black Tyre 10/ 32 x 14 1 30029.dat Black Car Base 10 x 4 x 2/3 with 4 x 2 Centre Well 1 3020.dat Green Plate 2 x 4 1 3022.dat Green Plate 2 x 2 1 3021.dat Yellow Plate 2 x 3 3 3023.dat Yellow Plate 1 x 2 1 3068b.dat Yellow Tile 2 x 2 with Groove 2 3069b.dat Yellow Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 4 3070b.dat Yellow Tile 1 x 1 with Groove 2 3623.dat Yellow Plate 1 x 3 5 3710.dat Yellow Plate 1 x 4 2 6541.dat Yellow Technic Brick 1 x 1 with Hole 2 6636.dat Yellow Tile 1 x 6 4 25269.dat Yellow Tile 1 x 1 Corner Round 2 27925.dat Yellow Tile 2 x 2 Corner Round 4 35480.dat Yellow Plate 1 x 2 with Round Ends and 2 Open Studs 4 35789.dat Yellow Car Mudguard 4 x 2.5 x 2 with Rounded Ends 4 85984.dat Yellow Slope Brick 31 1 x 2 x 0.667 2 93273.dat Yellow Slope Brick Curved 4 x 1 Double 2 93604.dat Yellow Slope Brick Curved 3 x 4 x 0.667 Rounded 1 57783.dat Trans Black Windscreen 3 x 4 x 1.333 2 2431.dat Dark Tan Tile 1 x 4 with Groove 1 3004.dat Dark Tan Brick 1 x 2 1 3020.dat Dark Tan Plate 2 x 4 5 3023.dat Dark Tan Plate 1 x 2 1 3069b.dat Dark Tan Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 1 15068.dat Dark Tan Slope Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 0.667 2 54200.dat Dark Tan Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 0.667 1 99780.dat Dark Tan Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2 Up 2 98138.dat Trans Red Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove 1 3003.dat Red Brick 2 x 2 1 11211.dat Red Brick 1 x 2 with 2 Studs on 1 Side 2 98138.dat Trans Clear Tile 1 x 1 Round with Groove 1 3023.dat White Plate 1 x 2 2 86996.dat White Plate 1 x 1 x 0.667 1 85984pc2.dat Lt Bluish Grey Slope 1 x 2 x 2/3 with Dashboard, Speedometers Print 2 2420.dat Dk Bluish Grey Plate 2 x 2 Corner 2 3023.dat Dk Bluish Grey Plate 1 x 2 1 3069b.dat Dk Bluish Grey Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 2 11477.dat Dk Bluish Grey Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 1 29119.dat Dk Bluish Grey Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 with Cutout Right 1 29120.dat Dk Bluish Grey Slope Brick Curved 2 x 1 with Cutout Left 2 99780.dat Dk Bluish Grey Bracket 1 x 2 - 1 x 2 Up
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 49
Building Minifigure Customization 101:
Bad Baby!
Grogu, who was originally referred to as “Baby Yoda” or “The Child,” is a character from the Star Wars Disney+ television series The Mandalorian. He is a toddler of the same species as Yoda and Yaddle, the only other two known members of this species in the Star Wars Universe. This species ages very slowly, which was known from Yoda’s long life; however, the implications of this long life were never really explored with the senior Yoda and Yaddle and are on full display in The Mandalorian as we watch Grogu grow up. Recently, it was even revealed as to how Grogu escaped the Jedi temple during Order 66, showing just how slow Grogu ages, but also and more importantly, how slowly he matures. This later bit, I believe, is the most critical, especially given his early childhood trauma.
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Article and Photography by Jared Burks
The show has never declared that Din Djarin is The Mandalorian for which the show is named, and many Mandalorians appear in and throughout the show, even though he is the central Mandalorian. Of note, Grogu’s actual parents are never named, and it is not hinted that Yoda and/or Yaddle are his parents. This means there are others of this species out there somewhere. Din Djarin becomes Grogu’s surrogate Father, and I suspect that Grogu will develop into “The Mandalorian” through the course of the show. Grogu has taken the first steps in becoming a Mandalorian, as he was designated a “Foundling” and left Master Luke Skywalker’s Jedi training. There are even many articles thinking along this line as well (www.starwarsnewsnet. com/2021/02/editorial-grogu-will-become-the-mandalorian.html).
Grogu with a wrist training gauntlet.
In previous issues of BrickJournal, I have created Grogu’s head and I have recreated the LEGO baby body, but modified it to be fully articulated at the arm and hands. This is critical for what we are going to create in this issue. In a different previous issue, I have also created Grogu’s surrogate Nanny, the IG-11 droid originally sent to kill him. So I have many elements of Grogu’s life with Din Djarin created, and as this current season is continuing, I have jumped a bit and created Grogu’s chest plate, a beskar spear, a miniature Darksaber, and a Mandalorian helmet. I have also created several Anzellan, a series of aliens particularly good at building robotics in the Star Wars Universe. Babu Frik is an Anzellan who appeared in The Rise of Skywalker. I have made these Anzellans to explain how Grogu’s mini-Darksaber was created, as I think it would have taken both the Mandalorian Armorer and the Anzellans to shrink the Darksaber. So let’s get started going through how and what I have created for today’s article.
Grogu’s chestpiece, made by the Armorer.
With Luke Skywalker.
So let’s start with where we begin, which is with the Grogu that I previously created. That figure is important as I used this figure to determine the sizes of everything that I created for Mandalorian Grogu’s weapons, armor, and helmet. Now that we have Grogu and understand where we are starting from, we have to take some measurements of the new custom articulated “baby” hand that I previously created. This diameter will be the size needed to create anything that Grogu needs to hold. Given the importance of the Beskar spear in the show and the number of fights where Din Djarin used the spear to fight against Moff Gideon, I thought this would be a great weapon for someone of such small stature. Spears dramatically extend reach, so a spear for Grogu makes sense. This was fairly straightforward to draw in Fusion360. I created a circle that I extruded. I then created a slightly smaller and larger diameter circle that I extruded with an offset. This allowed the subtraction of this ring from the central spear shaft as a detail. I then made two triangular shapes, one that
Grogu with a helmet.
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Joachim Klang 6868
Joachim Klang’s motorized Death Star trench.
Joachim Klang:
Building Star Wars and more! Article by David Strenzler and Frank Averstegge, Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars Photography by Joachim Klang Galactic greetings! I am David Strenzler from Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars. As administrators of the best LEGO Star Wars themed group on Facebook, Frank Averstegge, Eloi Parizeau and I witness amazingly creative builds by Star Wars fans worldwide on a nearly daily basis. Joachim Klang, a.k.a. “Der Joe” is an active member and popular MOC designer in our community. I thought it would be great to learn more about this skilled master builder and some of his amazing creations.
David Strenzler: How is it going Joachim? The LEGO Star Wars community has known you for some time through the Bantha Bricks Facebook group, where you have impressed everyone with your diverse and masterly Star Wars builds. Could you please introduce yourself and what you do? Joachim Klang: Hello David, thank you for inviting me to participate in this interview. I am pleased to make a few other fans happy through my humble contributions to my favorite subject: Star Wars! I was born in 1967 and went to the movie theatre as soon as the first Star Wars movie premiered. Since then, this series has hugely affected my life. As a child, my favorite toys besides Kenner Star Wars action figures were the Danish interlocking toy bricks of the LEGO brand. So, it was quite logical that I started mixing both themes. Long before LEGO came up with a license, I built my first huge AT-AT and a Sandcrawler. Since 2012, I have authored fifteen books that have been published by Heel Verlag, and some of these have been translated into 12 languages. Would you say that Star Wars is your favorite theme? Or do you have a surprise theme for us? As I mentioned before, Star Wars is one of my favorite themes, but I equally enjoy building vehicles and settings in which to stage minifigures that I assemble to resemble
actors, bands, and other celebrities. I frequently include small caricatures of my friends in my books as well. Building everyday objects and surprising visitors of LEGO shows in this way is great fun. Why do you choose the LEGO brick as your medium of self-expression? What makes LEGO so special to you? I don’t think my answer will surprise anyone—it is simply the possibility to unfold one’s creativity in a way that leaves no wish unfulfilled. I always say that you can build everything, it is just a matter of scale and available parts. I also wrote a book on how to design classic everyday objects, such as a Sony Walkman, an Atari gaming console, Haribo candy, pencils, and so on. By the way, this book is my personal favorite. Your latest build of a mini-diorama of the Trench Run scene as seen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is definitely a masterpiece. What inspired you to build that classic Star Wars scene? During a building phase of LEGO Star Wars micro-models, I was reminded of how I had desired to build some parts of it in motion for a long time, but hadn’t due to being inexperienced with motors and electronic building blocks until then. Besides, the LEGO Technic theme is not necessarily part of my collection area. However, since one of my co-authors, Eugen Sellin, is more experienced with LEGO Technic, we realized the Trench Run’s design together. To set the X-Wing Starfighter smoothly into focus, I connected a big tire as flywheel with a worm.
The microscale X-Wing with pilot and support.
Can you tell us a bit about the construction of your build—did you use any special techniques? In the end, it was quite easy; however, we used classic Technic elements from the ’80s and drove them with modern motors. The old Technic chain links have two studs on their side and can be perfectly equipped with 1x12 plates.
Front view.
Filming the trench.
A TIE fighter in pursuit! The X-Wing flying down the trench.
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