Every so often, a builder shows up, seemingly out of nowhere, with a creative style so distinctive, complex, and cool that you feel shook – like walking barefoot on a pile of bricks, but in a good way. C, who posts as @hodgepodgebuilds, only started posting LEGO models three months ago, is such a builder. Of course, talent doesn’t come from nowhere. Today we sit down with C to learn more about his LEGO journey and unique style.

TBB: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us today. Maybe you could talk about your LEGO journey. What was the first set or theme that really excited you?

C: The first theme that really excited me was definitely the 2009 Pirates line, which came out when I was about 5 (and insanely obsessed with pirates). I still think that line is remarkably well-designed. My interest in nautical aesthetics and ships has morphed since then, but is still rooted in my love of it back then. A recent build that speaks to that would be the research vessel ketch sailboat that I built this past winter. It was a full circle moment for me, finally being able to build a ship I was completely satisfied with from a technical and visual standpoint.

TBB: Have you stuck with LEGO continuously or did you go through a dark age before coming back to the hobby? What inspired you to start sharing your models?

C: I’ve never had a true dark age when it comes to LEGO, but it’s always ebbed and flowed for me. It’s always functioned as a sort of calming process in times of stress, especially during the last year as a college English major. It helps me relax and express my creative ideas in a visual sense. Honestly, what inspired me to share my models was the community, I had made the account a few months earlier to follow builders I liked and got very excited by the work I was seeing. I had been building consistently for about 8 months by the time I first posted, so I was also very excited to finally get my work out there (and thank you to my dear friends who encouraged me to post!)

TBB: Your “hodgepodge” handle is very apt for your distinctive building style. Your models use only LEGO elements but are, at times, defiantly un-LEGO-like in their construction. How did you arrive at your hodgepodge style?

C: Thank you! It’s strange, my style has always been all over the place, specifically MOCs from when I was much younger. There are similar sensibilities to today (i.e. clutter, frequently less vibrancy with colors), but I feel like it’s only in the past year that I’ve arrived at a much more stable style. I’ve found a strange amount of inspiration from the kit-bashing/scratch-building communities on YouTube (of which I am just a viewer), and even the work of the early modelmakers at ILM for the original Star Wars trilogy.

My methods for creature building and vehicle building retain similarities but are different in process. I try to be generally cohesive in my visual language, though my ships may tend to be more system/brick-based than my creature models.

No matter what I’m building, I tend to look for larger, perhaps stranger bricks (i.e. a Scala saddle or Galidor arms), and then piece them together with other parts until I have a general shape that I want to explore, and then from there I tend to sketch out a plan and let the building process happen. With my creature models, I usually figure out the shape and general concept for the figure, and then build up a Technic skeleton as if I was sculpting a maquette (i.e. Phil Tippett), and then layer on the details and features atop that.

TBB: In your models, I see parts from Galidor, Jack Stone, Bellville, and other vintage oddities. A lot of your bricks look sun-faded and well played with. How did you go about building your collection of parts? Do you work from a collection you’ve carried from childhood?

C: Most of my collection is from my childhood, along with having been very lucky to inherit my neighbors collection of late 90s-early 2000s parts. My set-purchasing has slowed down a lot in recent years, I’ll usually only buy something these days if the design really speaks to me. However, in my childhood, I was too young for themes such as Galidor, Scala, and Belville, and was generally not hugely interested in Bionicle.

TBB: When adding to your collection, do you prefer sticking to the past or are there current sets or themes you’re drawn to as well?

 C: Going back to the kit-bashing method I was talking about, I found those big parts hugely necessary, but I didn’t have a great deal, so Bricklink has been huge for me. I tend to use it to collect strange and large parts, specifically from the themes above, of which I usually don’t have any specific idea of what I’d do with as I purchased them. I have a box set aside with a lot of these types of parts, from which I can ideate if I need inspiration.

TBB: I appreciate that in addition to sharing your models, you also share some sketches and inspirations for your work. It seems like LEGO is just one of many mediums that you work with. What are some of the things that inform your aesthetic? Are there any LEGO builders who have inspired you?

C: I have great interest in Jim Henson/Creature shop style puppet design, i.e. Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, and have, among exploring creature design and puppetry outside of LEGO, been hugely inspired by the processes and design language that those creatures are created with. Along with that, the Star Wars original trilogy has been instrumental in informing my aesthetic, specifically the concept work done at ILM. He’s been mentioned in many of my posts, but Phil Tippett is one of my inspirations. For a few years I was doing stop-motion puppet fabrication and animation, and he informed me greatly there, and he’s continued to inform my design language as I focus on LEGO as a primary creative visual outlet. I also constantly look across Pinterest for illustrations, both new and old, scifi and fantasy. Those serve as huge aesthetic interests to me.

With my cross-sections/interiors, they are of course hugely inspired by the cross sections in the wonderful Star Wars Incredible Vehicles book, but also are inspired by my love of stagecraft and set design. I have been hugely inspired by LEGO builders as well however, with some of those creators being Nick Trotta @galacticplasticslego, Hazel @impactdeficiency, @pannoda1, Tino Poutianen @tino_poutiainen, and Mitch @mitchbuildsofficial. I could name a hundred more, but these accounts and so many others are doing such wonderful and inspiring work, it’s really wonderful to see.

TBB: There’s a tension with LEGO between models that are designed to be reproducable – whether in official sets or the growing proliferation of fan builds shared in tutorials and rebrickable instructions – and the infinite permutations of how parts can be arranged. Your works – whether colorful creatures or grey spacecraft – feel very bespoke and personal, even as you reveal behind-the-scenes shots. What would you say are the strengths and challenges of LEGO as a medium for personal art?

C: That’s so kind of you, thank you, I really appreciate that. What I love about LEGO is that it can be really anything, and can be used in so many ways. I find the constraints weirdly comforting, the fact that if you are a building purist, you’re limited to this specific catalogue of parts, but what you can do with those is so open, and so infinite. That’s so exciting for me. It creates such strange innovation. In the past 2 years, I feel like the part usage I’ve been seeing is getting more and more weird, and that’s so cool to me. I love trying to figure out a builder’s techniques, just to understand how they were able to make connections happen, or examine color pallets and aesthetic value within builds. It’s been so cool to grow up watching this community, and to now be a small part of it is really meaningful to me.

TBB: I really love the work you’ve shared so far and am excited to see where your building takes you next. Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers before we let you go?

C: I just wanted to thank everyone who has supported me in the past few months as I’ve started posting, it’s been a really wonderful experience, and this community has been so kind and supportive of what I’ve been doing, and it’s meant a lot so I wanted to thank them all! I’m excited to keep building weird stuff and i hope people enjoy it and are inspired by it just like I’ve been inspired by so many insanely rad builds!