Issue 89 • Spring 2025
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Issue 89 • Spring 2025
Contents From the Editor....................................................2
People Ivo Popov’s LEGOMAN1000!..................................................3 Nicole Honeycomb: Brick Printer!.......................................................6 Jon-Paul Hansen: From Pop Art to LEGO Masters..............12
Building Stefano Bolcato: Brick Painter!...................................................20
Adnan Lotia: Turning Vinyl Into LEGO...............................24 Mark Lorah: Studgineer.......................................................28 Isaac Wilder: Building Art.....................................................36 Reverse Engineering SNOT.........................40 BrickNerd Instructions: Cassette Tape..................................................47 Minifigure Customization 101: Hold Your Breath, Make a Wish, Count to Three!..............................................52
Community Bantha Bricks:
Tom Jacobsen:
ARC Brick Studios.........................................58 Brick Galleria: Displayingand Building Brick Paintings...............................................68 Community Ads...............................................78 Last Word.............................................................79 Next Issue............................................................80
BrickJournal is no longer sold in Barnes & Noble stores. But it’s still available in independent bookstores, comic book shops, and by mail order and subscription!
From the Editor: Hi! This was an issue that went down a different path than I planned.
Spring 2025 Issue 89
Originally, this was supposed focus on art with sculpture, but I noticed a couple of painters that did renditions of LEGO minifigures. From there, it wasn’t hard to add some album covers.
Publisher John Morrow
Editor in Chief Joe Meno
After that, things got real dry for a bit. Then the Capitol Dome showed up on my Instagram feed, and that was quickly added. Turns out the builder did some great work besides the dome.
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 David Strenzler
Contributors: Brick Galleria, Giorgio Benni, Stefano Bolcato, Jared Burks, Oscar Cederwall, Emily Corl, Jon-Paul Hansen, Rylie Howerter, National Trust for Places of Historical Interest or Natural Beauty (UK), Nicole Honeycomb, Tom Jacobsen, Mark Lorah, Adnan Lotia, Ivo Popov, Screentime NZ/Banijay, TVNZ, Isaac Wilder, 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: Stefano Bolcato’s art and Adnan Lotia’s covers take the spotlight. Photo by Giorgio Benni. Album cover art by Adnan Lotia. About the Contents Page: Nicole Honeycomb’s cards are ready to be sent! Photo by Nicole Honeycomb.
And then it was quiet until a printmaker posted on Instagram, who was very clever with her work. While making print plates with LEGO elements isn’t new, the new assortments of DOTS and tiles have made the medium much more accessible and fun! It’s all here. So 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 89, Spring 2025 (ISSN 1941-2347) is published quarterly 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. Four-issue subscriptions: $53 US, $63.80 Elsewhere, $19 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
A few of Ivo’s works.
Ivo Popov’s
LEGOMAN1000!
Article and Photography by Ivo Popov
Ivo Popov is a full-time artist from Bulgaria, which means he’s a one-man show. He does his own social media marketing, hustles across groups to find clients, expands his own fan base, does his own sales, wraps his creations safely as he prepares to ship them abroad, and when he finds time, he does art. What he likes most about his job is the smile he imagines his customers have worldwide when they unpackage their new artwork. Ivo grew up inArticle an artistic family. Both his parents, sister, and grandparents, uncles and cousins are creative and artistic Photography people. He is a third generation artist with a professional by Nicole graphic designHoneycomb diploma that he got from his applied arts high school in Sophia. After that, he studied architecture for a while, tried a bunch of different things, and finally six years ago he decided to dedicate himself to becoming a full-time artist. It has been 16 years since he grabbed the pencil to learn how to draw. Now he uses pencils, markers, and paint.
Growing up, he also really enjoyed playing with building blocks. He remembers that at the age of five, his parents got him a construction crane by an alternative brand because they couldn’t afford real LEGO at the time. Ever since that moment, he fell in love with construction blocks. Nowadays, he plays with LEGO, but rarely, and not as he used to. There was a moment when he decided to donate all his LEGO to a school so that kids could play with it.
Ivo Popov.
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There’s a bit of regret now, but he thinks he did it for a good personal reason: he wanted to prove to himself that he was bigger than his attachment to materialism. Also, he wasn’t playing with it anymore, nor wasn’t sure if his future kids would even like LEGO—for Ivo, there’s a thrill of saving money to get a specific set, tearing the box open, building it yourself or with friends, and then using your imagination to create new objects with the same parts from that set. Now, he uses his imagination to create paintings of minifigure heads. Brightly colored, these paintings capture the playfulness and whimsy of LEGO. He was inspired to start what he christened the LEGOMAN1000 series of paintings for a few reasons: • He could change his media from pencils to acrylic art, which would allow him to scale up the size of his creations • He would have an opportunity to improve his acrylic technique • Of course, his sentimentality to LEGO • The LEGO minifigure (and its head) is widely known • Look at them! They are so fun to look at!
Paintings by Ivo.
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He started on October 1, 2024 with a goal of painting 1000 pieces. So far he has completed 26. The public has loved it—seven of those pieces have been sold. Two have been sold in his country of Bulgaria, one in Italy, one in Switzerland, one in Belgium, and four in the USA!
Other paintings.
Ivo thinks that LEGO and art are tightly connected in terms of experience. Creating art feels a lot like building a nice LEGO set; the more fun he has, the nicer the artwork gets. What he’s noticed amongst his customers is that the majority of them grew up the same way as he did: playing with LEGO, toy cars, and military action figures. Later some studied art, architecture, or did something creative. As a result, a big reason why his fans appreciate his craft is because they deeply understand where he is coming from and can relate, even if they don’t know him personally at all.
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People
Jon-Paul Hansen:
From Pop Art to LEGO Masters Article and Photos by Jon- Paul Hansen LEGO Masters Photos Provided by TVNZ, & Screentime NZ/Banijay Jon-Paul starting out as a builder.
Jon-Paul Hansen lives in Auckland, New Zealand and works in website content and digital marketing. He’s married with three adult children in their early 20s. He’s in his early 50s. Three years ago, he was lucky enough to be employed behind-the-scenes for the two LEGO Masters New Zealand seasons, as a “Brick Builder” under the guidance of their Brickmaster, Canadian Certified LEGO Professional Robin Sather. He and the other Brick Builders got to create the LEGO set decoration and prop builds to set the scene for the episodes, and also test out some of the challenges. Some of the builds were Jon-Paul’s and the other Brick Builders’ own MOCs built to Robin’s specifications on size and height; some were from designs Robin created digitally. Jon-Paul was born in the early 1970s. He had Danish grandparents and they would catch up with relatives in Denmark or New Zealand every year or two and bring sets from back home. He still has some childhood sets from that pre-Minifig era: the Fire Station, the Police Station, the London Bus, and some others. He’s picked up a few more vintage sets from that time and recovered a few sets from bulk lots over the years. When his cousins used to visit, they would make “smash up derby” MOCs and race them down the hall and smash them into each other. He cringes now, but it was huge fun at the time. The Star Wars license in 1999 brought him out of his Dark Age. He used to make MOC X-wings and TIE fighters as a kid, so official sets and minifigures were a dream come true. His favorite theme is hard to pin down, but he does have a soft spot for pop culture nostalgia (as you’ll see in his MOCs), so he loves Scooby-Doo, Indiana Jones, The Simpsons, Stranger Things, and others. He has all the retail sets from those themes. As an AFOL, it was probably seeing build contests at the local toy shop that inspired him to build. He was too old to enter, but it got him thinking about what he could do with all the parts he had accumulated. He started to look online at sites like Brickshelf.com and got inspired by what others were doing. Not knowing any other adult fans of LEGO at the time, it was quite liberating seeing the online communities. He had a Brickshelf profile which was very sparse, but his pop culture inspired builds were evident even way back then.
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Jon-Paul’s first large MOC of note, outside of minifigs and minifig vignettes, was an America’s Cup racing yacht. He’s a bit of a frustrated artist deep
down; working with LEGO is more forgiving than paint, wood, or other traditional media. LEGO is ripe for scrapping and rebuilding and making improvements over time, especially as new parts get released. Jon-Paul’s builds are mostly inspired by pop culture nostalgia from his childhood; movies, TV, and music from the 1970s and 1980s. Generally you’ll see classic sci-fi robots like Robby the Robot and B-9 from the 1950s sci-fi movies and TV shows. Robots from the Disney movie The Black Hole, Sam the Robot from Sesame Street, and Ripley‘s power loader from Aliens also are items he has built. He’s also built scenes from George Lucas’ first movie THX-1138 and recreations of characters and scenes from Star Wars, such as a life-size Salacious Crumb and Ralph McQuarrie-inspired concept art, including the Millennium Falcon’s docking bay and the Gorax from Endor.
Jon-Paul’s first large MOC: a racing yacht.
Robby the Robot and B-9.
Musicwise, he has built MOCs of classic rock acts like ZZ Top, Pink Floyd, and his favorite, the primitive CGI characters from Dire Straits’ video Money for Nothing. Of course, Jim Henson has been a huge inspiration to him. As Jon-Paul grew up with The Muppet Show in the 1970s, he has built lots of Muppetrelated builds. Building a MOC often takes much longer than Jon-Paul expected. The Dire Straits set of characters, for example, was where he built the main porter Harv a year or so before building the dog. He knew he also needed to build the thinner guy, Sal, before he posted photos online, but couldn’t find inspiration and techniques for his curved head. In the end, after maybe another year, he simplified the face and just had one angle: the chin, and it looked great. With his Muppet bust, Jon-Paul attempted twice to build Kermit the Frog, but could not get the shaping right, so as a way to clear his head, he started working on Gonzo, which was completed within the same afternoon. He still hasn’t returned to Kermit at that scale, although he has made a smaller one for his MahnaMahna scene.
Left to right: VIN.CENT, Maxmillian, and B.O.B.
Building
Stefano Bolcato began his artistic practice as a painter 35 years ago he made his first painting with LEGO characters in 2006. As a painter in terms of study and techniques, he came from an academic background. He has worked for many years on classic painting themes, such as landscape, figure, or still life. Later he thought of moving onto a painting of narrative and social denunciation. To do so it seemed to him that LEGO characters could be an effective way to talk in an original way, even about social topics. Then, always inspired by LEGO characters, in the last eight years he has dedicated himself to the reinterpretation of paintings and authors (more or less famous) in the history of art. As a child, Stefanos’s absolute favorite toy was LEGO. He spent entire days building all kinds of houses and cars. The little LEGO characters arrived later when he already an adult have been painting for many years.
Stefano Bolcato’s rendition of Tamara de Lempicka’s Ragazza con i guanti (Girl with Gloves).
StefanoArticle Bolcato: and
Brick Painter! Photography by Nicole Honeycomb
Article by Stefano Bolcato Photography by Giorgio Benni
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Stefano’s audience is very diverse in terms of age, interest, and social background. This aspect of his activity makes him truly happy, and makes what he creates as an artist meaningful. His works are present in important private collections, but they are also highly appreciated by people interested in art in general, lovers of the LEGO world, and no less importantly by a very young audience. Furthermore, fine art prints are available in limited editions of his paintings allowing people to be able to purchase artwork at an affordable price. For him, most of the public responds very well to his art. Some people may not take his work very seriously, but that’s normal. Obviously his art can be appreciated by many, but not by everyone. Stefano’s first choice in painting a LEGO version has a very strong and profound motivation that refers to the protection of the common international artistic heritage. It’s linked to a sad event that occurred in November 2015 at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona,Italy, which has an important collection of ancient and modern art. 17 paintings of great value were stolen from this
museum, including works by Rubens, Tintoretto, Bellini, Mantegna and other great artists. The news struck Stefano so much that he wanted to share this great sorrow with other artist friends. Together they started a project with the aim of keeping public attention alive on this serious and frightening case. They wrote an appeal that was spread online to social media and subsequently through newspapers. They also invited the artists available to participate in the project by choosing one of the stolen paintings to create, according to their own original style, a work to present in public spaces and in the form of street art to make the widest possible audience aware of what had happened. Many artists joined the initiative in many Italian cities, generating great interest in the case of the theft at the museum. For his artistic contribution to the project, Stefano created a mural painting of one of the stolen works in Rome at an outdoor public space, choosing a painting from 1523 by Giovanni Francesco Caroto. Thanks to the great work of the investigators, the paintings were found after about a year, all fortunately in good condition.
Stefano’s rendition of Caravaggio’s Medusa.
For Stefano, it was a very engaging and important experience, and he discovered a pleasant way to re-interpret the history of art through LEGO minifigs. Since he started, he has studied and worked on different periods and authors, following his instincts, passion, and admiration for artists of the past from Raphael to Frida Kahlo to Caravaggio to Tamara de Lempicka, and from the Renaissance to Pop Art to Metaphysics. Lately he has also made portraits of favorite people from the world of sports fashion, politics, and entertainment, often working on commission. Stefano’s rendition of Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Hummingbird.
Keith Haring’s Devil.
Keith Haring’s Love.
Keith Haring’s Angel.
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Building
Mark Lorah’s display at BrickUniverse.
Mark Lorah:
Mark Lorah is a structural engineer by profession and has developed a specialty in historic restoration and repurposing buildings. This goes hand-in-hand with his love for historic LEGO buildings, and has helped with the design and structure/strength of his new builds.
Article and Photos by Mark Lorah
One of his favorite activities, however, is mentoring and inspiring others professionally. He teaches engineering seminars, and mentors engineering college seniors. However, to inspire the next generation of engineers, designers and planners, he was convinced that he needed to reach young people. This is where LEGO started to play an important role in his life as a mechanism to provide that inspiration. Being an engineer working with LEGO brick studs also inspired his social media handle: Studgineer.
The Studgineer
As a child, Mark enjoyed building the now iconic 1980s LEGO space sets with his brothers. Those early sets just had bricks that came in those big cylindrical cans, if anybody remembers those (yes, that dates him!).
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As an adult, Mark picked it up again in the early 2010s. Before then he had been renovating several historic homes and ended up losing a bunch of money in the 2008 market crash. He jokes with people that while LEGO is expensive, it doesn’t compare to the cost of renovating real buildings. Seriously though, he was intrigued by the LEGO modular series buildings which were targeted to adults. Not satisfied to simply build the sets, however, he decided he
needed to find a way to display them—and what more appropriate way than to build a village? The issue with a village, though, and most village builders would agree, is that they take a lot of space, particularly if you have a train—and of course you need a train. This is where his engineering came in handy. He asked the question, “What would a real city do?” Well, they have hills, retaining walls, subways, trestles, and tunnels. He could and did build all those from LEGO. He started displaying his village at a local fair and then as a local artist in a LEGO convention which came to town. It was so popular at the convention that they invited him to display at additional events.
A look at the Virtruvian Man’s hands.
Between his village and his profession, Mark tends to lean toward the LEGO modular series with its more traditional buildings that fit well within a Classic City theme. However, with his MOCs, it is much tougher because he can’t tell you what inspires him. He can only tell you when it does. He wants to build things that are beautiful and fill the world with beauty. After seeing his work, and with connections made through his LEGO club, Mark was invited to re-create several local historic landmark buildings for the history museum in Mark Lorah’s Vitruvian Man in progress.
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Building
Isaac Wilder:
Building Art Article and Photography by Isaac Wilder
Isaac Wilder’s rendition of a still life.
Isaac Wilder has been building for as long as he can remember. Now 28, bricks of various sizes have been a part of his life since he was old enough for DUPLO! His love of bricks has only grown with him. The release of Speed Champions got him to start building MOCs after having a two-year Dark Age. He jumped right back into building in 2016 with a model of a 1940 Ford Coupe.
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Isaac’s current favorite theme is the LEGO Ideas theme. He enjoys building vehicles, but also gets enjoyment out of building different things and learning new techniques that these sets have to offer.
His dad was one of the factors behind Isaac’s building. He had various sets and parts from the ’90s in his collection growing up and was a MOC builder himself. As for the collection, it only grew larger as they grew older. Isaac’s inspirations for building mostly come from things that already exist that he would like to replicate, like vehicles. If it’s not a vehicle he is recreating in bricks, sometimes it’s a LEGO element that sparks him to create something. MOCs can take thirty minutes to three years for Isaac to complete, as it really depends on what goals he sets for himself. The longest project that he has taken on was his Volkswagen T1 Kastenwagen panel van that started as a “patina collaboration” of sorts with fellow builder Simon Liu in 2020. He finally finished it in January of 2024. Mostly, though, he spends a lot less than three years (on and off in this case) working on a build. Isaac’s building style differs from project to project. Sometimes he plans things out to see if he needs to order parts or acquire them in a set, as he doesn’t usually use standard wheel and tire combinations for his vehicles. Other times planning is less involved—he just builds until he’s satisfied.
Isaac’s first MOC.
Isaac’s Volkswagen T1 Kastenwagen van, a collaboration with Simon Liu.
Another Volkswagen, this time a T1 Westfalia, in a fall-inspired diorama.
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Building
Reverse Engineering SNOT Article by Oscar Cederwall Photos by Rylie Howerter Previously posted on Bricknerd.com
I have written numerous articles covering many aspects of SNOT that I think are necessary for an advanced LEGO builder to know about. In this article, however, I will focus on how I learned many of the tricks I know and how to think when applying SNOT to your MOCs. It’s time to talk about reverse engineering, or more specifically, the Reverse Engineering Contest (REC). I participated in my first REC competition in 2014. It is actually one of my most precious moments so far in my AFOLhood. It was basically a LEGO SNOT puzzle that you were challenged to recreate. A new puzzle was released every week, and if you didn’t solve it, you didn’t get any points. That basically meant you wouldn’t win, so it was an equal mix of stress and delight. I made it to the final challenge, which I failed. But it was such a great experience, and I learned invaluable lessons about SNOT that I still have great use for. What I didn’t realize until later was that REC actually gave me the tools I needed to reverse-engineer my own ideas! What I mean by that is that I can have an image in my head of what I want to achieve, and then I can mostly solve it—if I treat it as a REC challenge. It’s super useful for me as a LEGO builder. In this article, we will look at how you can attack SNOT puzzles with a few examples. And I’m excited to reveal that helping me with this article is the one responsible for this whole REC business, Rylie Howerter! I have been following Rylie on Flickr since my early AFOLhood, around 2013. I think the first image I saw was the Modulex/system compatibility analysis. Rylie’s feed has since then been a reference for clever NPU, connection techniques and color charts.
Rylie Howerter.
Chat With A Master Reverse Engineer Oscar Cederwall: Before we focus on REC, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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One of Rylie’s impressive MOCs.
Rylie Howerter: I’m Rylie, a graphic designer from Fort Collins, USA. The part I play in the LEGO community is a mix of historian, collector, color fanatic, and sometimes-builder—I’m trying to bring back more of the
latter lately as I start working on MOC projects again! What is your relationship to LEGO? Have you been hooked since childhood? Basically, yes. I think my first set was a Duplo bucket in 1994, then asking for LEGO for every holiday through to the 2000s. The way I engaged with LEGO has varied; there was a time when I kept all my sets built and used them as playsets to make stories about with my brother, and another when I was deeply into making Bionicle MOCs — but LEGO has always been there for me in some way. I see that you have been active on Flickr since 2009. Was that your first interaction with the AFOL community? I discovered the online AFOL community around 2006 and spent all my free time poring over MOCs on BrickShelf and Flickr. The next couple of years were probably the most prolific building I’ve ever done; these days, I’m lucky to get a MOC or two in each year. But I’ve just recently unpacked my collection from the last move, so hopefully I can get something new out. As for the community, it was mostly Flickr for a long time, but I’ve also been to many Brickworlds, one BrickCon, and this year I actually managed to visit Billund, Denmark. Hopefully I can go back soon! Can you tell us about your LEGO Color Project? How did you get so interested in the LEGO color palette? That started as a graphic design class project, actually. I wanted to make a timeline infographic showing when the colors were used, but the more I dug into it, the more incomplete, outdated, and even contradictory the existing resources seemed. So I created my own spreadsheet, which after years of talking colors with other AFOLs, grew into my color database.
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RBC 161 by Jack Porter
RBC 162 by Jack Porter
RBC 163 by Jack Porter
RBC 164 by Jack Porter
RBC 165 by Jack Porter
RBC 166 by Rylie Howerter
Thank you so much for this deep dive into the world of LEGO reverse engineering! Can you solve these ten(!) never-before-seen puzzles? Use your SNOT skills! (Solutions will be made available through Rylie’s Linktree at: https://linktr.ee/rhowerter or by scanning the QR code at the left.) If you want to learn more about REC and practice your own skills, I highly recommend trying to solve the challenges in the REC group on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/groups/1353510@N20/ or by scanning the QR code at the left. RBC 167 by Rylie Howerter
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Here are the solutions from the challenges at the middle of this article.
Parts List
(Parts can be ordered through Bricklink.com by searching by part number and color) Qty Part Color Description 2 2431.dat Black Tile 1 x 4 with Groove 1 3004.dat Trans Clear Brick 1 x 2 10 3005.dat Black Brick 1 x 1 3 3023b.dat Reddish Brown Plate 1 x 2 2 3024.dat Red Plate 1x1 2 3024.dat Orange Plate 1 x 1 2 3024.dat Yellow Plate 1 x 1 2 3024.dat Green Plate 1 x 1 2 3024.dat Black Plate 1 x 1 2 3024.dat Blue Plate 1 x 1 1 3069b.dat Black Tile 1 x 2 with Groove 2 3070b.dat Black Tile 1 x 1 with Groove 4 3460.dat Black Plate 1 x 8 6 4477.dat White Plate 1 x 10 4 6091.dat Black Brick 2 x 1 x 1.333 with Curved Top 2 6541.dat Lt Bluish Grey Technic Brick 1 x 1 with Hole 6 51739.dat Black Wing 2 x 4 4 52107.dat Black Brick 1 x 2 with Studs on Sides 4 86996.dat Black Plate 1 x 1 x 0.667 2 87994.dat Lt Bluish Grey Bar 3L
Cassette Tape Design by the BrickNerd Team
The cassette tape was a game-changer back in the day, making music portable and personal. To celebrate this retro classic, our design stays true to the real thing. It has curved corners, tape reels, a label, and even the little clear window that shows the tape inside. Building this set is like hitting play on nostalgia. It’ll take you back to the days of making mixtapes for your buddies and recording your favorite song from the radio. And it ever implements a sweet little stud inversion on the sides to keep things interesting. So get your pencils out because it is time to be kind and rewind!
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Tom Jacobsen ARC Brick Studios
Tom Jacobsen:
ARC Brick Studios
Article by David Strenzler, Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars Photography by Tom Jacobsen Galactic greetings! We are Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars. As administrators of one of the best LEGO Star Wars themed groups on Facebook, David Strenzler, Frank Averstegge and Eloi Parizeau witness amazingly creative builds by Star Wars fans worldwide on a nearly daily basis.
This time, we would like to introduce you to outstanding MOC builder and Bantha Bricks community member Tom Jacobsen (Arc Brick Studio). David Strenzler: Hello, Tom. Welcome to the Bantha Bricks Files! The LEGO Star Wars community has been familiar with your creative and skilled Star Wars-inspired designs for some time. Could you please introduce yourself and what you do? Tom Jacobsen: Thanks David, I certainly appreciate this amazing opportunity for my work to be featured in BrickJournal! Since my retirement from the pharmaceutical industry over three years ago, LEGO projects have become my new “career”, consuming much of my time. In early 2023, I was invited by Greyson Riley to build an exhibit of 9-10 MOCs and be a featured artist at twelve of his Brick Convention tour’s shows. For the 2024 tour, I agreed to participate in thirteen shows, and worked pretty much 24/7 from November 2023 through mid-March 2024 to build a whole new exhibit for it.
Would you say that Star Wars is your favorite theme, or are there others that we might not expect?
Owen Lars’ house.
Yes indeed, David, Star Wars is my favorite theme! I have embraced the franchise ever since its release in 1977. Most of my MOCs in the last seven years have been centered around the Star Wars theme, and particularly the original trilogy that I grew up with and am a big fan of. But lately, I have created MOCs based on other movies and the Clone Wars. I am also a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings and really enjoy building MOCs of the latter. As an avid architecture buff, I have recently taken a real interest in building castles. The ARC of my studio name ARC Brick Studio is short for architecture. Why have you chosen the LEGO brick as your medium of self-expression? What makes LEGO so special to you? Well David, I think the correct answer to that question might be that perhaps the LEGO brick chose me. When I was a child in the 1960s and early 1970s, my parents were of modest means and I did not own any LEGO. When my son was born in the early 1980s, we purchased a few sets for him and I used to build them with him. Later, when my granddaughter was old enough, we pulled out my son’s old tub of LEGO bricks, and she loved building LEGO with me. Then, around 2017, while visiting our local LEGO store’s Pick-a-Brick wall with my granddaughter, the store manager introduced me to the wonderful BrickLink website. Right around that same time, my wife and I were visiting Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin. While there, I purchased Tom Alphin‘s book titled The LEGO Architect, and I was instantly mesmerized by it.
Owen Lars’ house with lighting on.
The works and builds of several AFOLs and CLPs (Certified LEGO Professionals) were featured in the book, along with a few of their biographies. Adam Reed Tucker was one of those CLPs featured, and I Iearned that he, too, was from the Chicago area. It just so happened, at that very same time, that all of Adam’s models of large buildings were on display at my local library. So, after a visit to the library to see Adam’s exhibit, I was immediately hooked. And I have been an AFOL since then, really for only the last 7-8 years. What makes LEGO so special to me is that it was my granddaughter that was indirectly responsible for setting me on the path to becoming an AFOL. I have always loved building with my hands, and I love the versatility of the LEGO elements—you can basically create almost anything from them, and what you can build is 59 only limited by your imagination.
Community
Emily Corl with her completed Bath Assembly Room LEGO Brick Painting.
Brick Galleria:
From Saturday, July 27 until Sunday, September 1, 2024, a brand new free exhibition of LEGO brick paintings was on display in the magnificent Tea Room of the Bath Assembly Rooms. This was a six-week partnership with Brick Galleria and the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty (located in the United Kingdom) to bring LEGO brick paintings to visitors and families in Bath over the Summer of 2024.
Article and Photography by Nicole Honeycomb
Pieces featured included “A Georgian Day Out,” based on the nearby National Trust property Dyrham Park. This painting, along with 15 others, have never been displayed before, so this was the first time anyone had seen Emily Corl’s new collection.
Exhibiting and Building LEGO Brick Paintings Article by Brick Galleria Photography provided by Brick Galleria, Andreea S photography and Paul Kelly
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“As an artist, I love to push the boundaries with my art and I am so excited to be working with Bath Assembly Rooms to bring my painting to the public,” said Emily Corl, LEGO Brick Artist. “ I am inspired by the amazing countryside and architecture in the British Isles, and showing my exhibition will hopefully encourage others to be creative and get inspired as well.” The exhibition provided inspiration to the rest of the summer activities. Kevin Hall, Brick Galleria’s professional LEGO Brick Artist, ran free LEGO Brick Painting Workshops every Wednesday and Saturday. Families, visitors and LEGO loving adults came and had a go at creating LEGO Brick Paintings using thousands of different LEGO parts.
The creations were displayed for a limited time in the Tea Room, while in the Great Octagon, workshops were open to everyone aged 4 and older. For younger visitors, there was a DUPLO pit in the card room alongside other Trust-run crafts that kept everyone entertained. “We’re so excited to be partnering with Brick Galleria this year,” said Alana Wright, Bath Assembly Rooms Visitor and Programming Manager. “This summer program was something for everyone, whether a LEGO fan or not. We had a brilliant new exhibition and lots of activities with the workshops, plus the school holiday crafts that people have started to associate with Bath Assembly Rooms.” Vital conservation funds were also raised during the exhibition as Emily Corl created a custom LEGO Brick Painting of Bath Assembly Rooms. People were invited to sponsor Emily for a donation of £2 per LEGO part. She then placed the part on the painting when she was onsite on Wednesday and Saturdays during the
“A Day in the Snow” was one of the works on display.
Emily with a couple of her LEGO Brick Paintings.
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