This weeks builder gives the people what they want, epic scale buildings with meticulous detail and a side order of architectural history. Detroit’s own Jim Garrett has an ego inversely proportional to the size of his skyscrapers and a quiet approach that deserves your worthy attention. I met Jim next to the Spirit of Detroit statue outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit Michigan. We talked about The pitfalls of urban exploration, The Temptations Vs. The Four Tops and Disco Demolition night at Tiger Stadium. We also talked about LEGO.

The Build

KG: Talk about the challenges and epicness that is your Penobscot Building, the one you couldn’t assemble all at once inside your domicile. Is that the limit of manageable size, or do you plan to push it further?

JG: While the Penobscot is my tallest model, it is not the largest. The Penobscot Building model’s main difficulty was figuring out how to pack all of those setbacks on the upper floors and still stick with the near-minifig scale of the model. Detail was not too much of a problem since architect Wirt C. Rowland was expressing a certain modernist simplicity. The model is designed in 12 sections which, when I transport it to a train show, almost entirely fill a Jeep Cherokee including its front passenger seat. It weighs about 165 pounds and provides a small workout to set up especially since it is now usually displayed as part of my model of the entire Penobscot Block. The block has four other buildings ranging from 1 to 6 feet high that bring the total weight to about 400 pounds and requires a full size Ford Econoline van to transport. Since many people outside of Detroit are probably not familiar with the Penobscot Building, I will simply mention that this 47 story structure was the 5th tallest office building in the world in 1928 and its design may have partially influenced the shape of the Empire State Building which was built in 1931. Google it if you have to.

If I was younger, I would probably move on to a 17 foot high model of the Chrysler Building (it would have looked good in Detroit) in the same scale. As it is I will have to be content with the my upcoming model of the Guardian Building (“only” 8 feet high).

KG: Talk about your love of Detroit’s architecture that goes beyond the brick. What brought you out of your dark-age, and did you already have a list of buildings in mind before you started accumulating bricks?

JG: My interest in architecture ironically had little to do with the ending of my LEGO dark-age. What got me back into LEGO was Peter Jackson’s LOTR and in particular Alan Lee’s design of Orthanc. After seeing “The Two Towers”, I dragged out what was left of the LEGO bricks from my childhood and tried to build a LEGO model of Orthanc. While I thought I had a large LEGO collection as a kid, it really wasn’t when you try to build a 4.5 foot high tower completely in black. I found myself purchasing new LEGO for the first time in many years. I recently replaced this, my first AFOL creation, with a more accurate 8 foot high version.

After the original Orthanc model was completed, only then did I turn my thoughts to what to do next. That is when my love for architecture kicked in and I soon decided to build Detroit. I was not able to travel much when I was younger and so the only large city that I was really familiar with was Detroit. There is something about those old Art Deco towers reaching skyward that captured my imagination. New York has all that and to a much greater degree of course but it is not “my” city.

KG: What are the biggest challenges to building on a scale that is usually reserved for theme parks. Do you employ any glue or non-LEGO support elements?

JG: Money and organization. My construction techniques are usually pretty straightforward; I use SNOT and other methods but only when traditional brick construction will not suffice. None of my buildings use glue or non-LEGO parts; paired technic beams with 2×8 or 2×16 plates above and below make pretty strong structural elements. One lesson I learned early was not to employ used LEGO bricks, since they create a “weakest link in the chain”; my first version of the Fisher Building collapsed in ruin when I tried to move it because of a few 30 year old bricks.
 

Read the full interview after the jump!

As a young Train-head, this week’s builder is a rare beast among our tribe. You may know Matt Hamann from his fine assortment of model engines and rolling stock or from his entertaining writing on the Twee Affect, but you’re about to know him much better. I sat down with Matt on a bicycle made for two about halfway through the Wabash Cannonball Trail in northwest Ohio. We talked about Los Campesinos!, Huffy vs. Roadmaster and the persistence of chain-slap.

The Build:

KG: What is the most challenging thing about building trains? Where do you stand on the classic 6 wide vs 8 wide debate, and do you also pine for exotic track geometries and 9 volt engines like so many Train-heads?

MH:  The most challenging thing about building trains is that you have to recreate something out of a building toy. When building other themes, that is not always the issue since you are working from concept art or your imagination, unless, of course, you are building a scale model of a spaceship from a space opera, or an all terrain vehicle from a movie about dinosaurs. Modern locomotives have odd-shaped details everywhere and weird angles that do not translate easily into Lego; steam engines had greebles everywhere and moving bits that the builder has to selectively compress, yet still be able to make the model identifiable, not to mention that most steam engines are matte, whereas most Lego parts are glossy, which adds another challenge. But that is not to say that one is easier than the other; it is still a challenge to simply create something that is not yet another fighter ship or pile of grey bricks with a parapet, gate, and all your minifigs lined up perfectly in the courtyard.

I build 6 wide trains. When I joined my Lego train club in 2006, it is what my club mates were building and what our layout is scaled to. Bigger trains would just look silly among all the small buildings and cars and I am not about to start my own layout, not in this decade, at least. Bigger models can also be more parts intensive, which, depending on the model’s color and what pieces you are using, can be more expensive than building a smaller models. That point is especially important to me because I am (for now) a full-time student with only a part-time job. More and more I would rather spend my money on things other Lego, like camping gear and stuff for my touring bike, so to build smaller, less expensive models lets me keep doing both of my hobbies. I also like to be able to pull about 30 train cars with just two 9v motors, on unmodified wheels and transformers. Power Functions is changing that, but with the current system, you can’t beat light weight 6 wide trains if you are going for pulling the most train cars. I won’t say that building 8 wide is any easier than building 6 wide or visa-versa, if both are done right. Building a smaller model means selectively compressing more but you have the convenience of a lot of train specific parts (windscreens, grilles, etc.) that are mostly designed with 6 wide in mind.

If I had my own layout I would probably pine for a better system of track. Right now I don’t. I know for sure that my layout wouldn’t be 9v. 9v is dead. Power Functions is (supposedly) less expensive than 9v, which helps keep Lego in business, which keeps us AHOLs happy. Power Functions also does not have the connectivity issues that 9v has. Every little break between the tracks means lost current, so on large layouts, you have to have multiple power drops. If I had the resources I would probably build my layout to be in scale with 7 wide trains, since they are the best of both worlds.
 
KG: Many builders claim that Lego is a great stress-reliever. Do you find this to be true, and if it is, why do so many people seem to get stressed about it so easily?
 
MH: I am melancholic when I build. It feels great to be struck with inspiration, to solve problems, to finish a model, and to get good feedback and have discussions with other AHOLs, but, since I am so anal retentive, it can be stressful not to come up with a solution for a gap here or the funky dynamic brake blisters that GP7s and GP9s had. It can also be stressful to source the parts that you need, especially when they only came in a $50 Star Wars set from the mid 2000s and you need 20 when only 2 came in the set, in a color that Lego doesn’t make anymore. That scenario seems to happen a lot. With the financial involvement and the contrasting dogmas. it is really no wonder that people stress out.
 
KG: You’ve tried your hand at Steam Punk, but you failed to embrace many of its popular conventions. Talk about the theme, the good, the horrible and what direction is ripe for exploiting.
 

MH:The popular themes among fans draw inspiration from everywhere. Space builders draw inspiration from all the popular movies and series, train builders from the world’s trains, and castle builders from history, fantasy, and mythology. Lego steampunk seems like a giant circle jerk. Instead of looking outside of their community of practice, they have created an inbred style. That is not to say that there shouldn’t be common themes in the style, but that there should be more variety. Put away the parts from your Prince of Persia sets and your Jawa Sandcrawler and tear open those Power Miners sets that, for whatever reason you still keep sealed, and introduce some lime green to your build! Steal some of the Scala and Belville that you gave your daughters and put some light yellow and aqua your model! Look to World War One and interwar vehicles and aesthetics for inspiration. Most Studio Ghibli productions are a great source of inspiration.

Read the full interview after the jump!

My next guest is from the post-LUGNET generation, a college-age wunderkind with a penchant for the machines of war. Carter Baldwin is an accomplished builder, collaborator and veteran of the American convention circuit who has inspired a legion of younger builders with his innovative designs. I sat down with Carter at Pat’s King of Steaks restaurant in Carter’s home town of Philadelphia at 3am PST. We talked about wine, women and song. We also talked about LEGO.

The Build

KG: I’ve read a few older builders grousing about how all the fancy new parts take all the skill and fun out of building. React to that attitude or to old cranky builders in general.

CB: I actually haven’t seen this attitude too much within the AFOL community, but I see it constantly whenever a build leaks out onto the wider internet. Invariably, there will be the ‘this is cheating, in my day we only had 2×4 bricks in three colors, and we liked it that way! there’s no creativity anymore!’  I hate that attitude. Tim Gould made an excellent graphic of all the one-use specialized parts that were available in 1980, but I can never track it down quickly enough to avoid remembering that arguing with internet strangers is a pyrrhic endeavor at best.

I’d agree that the ’90s saw a proliferation of useless parts that lead to the well documented juniorization of sets, but the past decade has been a bonanza of amazing new parts. In particular we’re seeing a lot more excellent small parts, which really boosts the fine grain detail that’s now possible. We’re seeing a lot less of the pixelation that used to define Lego builds. Fans of Lego who haven’t picked up a brick in a couple decades can’t deal with that, but I haven’t heard any actually active builders complaining.

KG: How important is it when designing a model that you employ a new technique? Does the want to use a specific technique ever drive a model? if so can you give an example.

CB: It’s become less important to me over time. When I first entered the internet community I tried to do that with every build, do something that hadn’t been tried before, or at least do it better than I’d seen it.

I think now I build shapes rather than techniques. I have enough of a library of tricks that I don’t have to worry too much about how to achieve a connection, but forcing all those connections to form the shape I want is the new challenge. My Golem Hardsuit would be a good example; I knew the shapes I wanted to achieve; the techniques I came up with to get there weren’t particularly exciting or novel.

And, in the end, I cribbed a ton of ideas from Chris and Rabadan.

KG: You recently took part in a popular and imitated Flickr Group called called World In Confict:2070. Describe this group to our readers and your experience as a participant of the group?

CB: World in Conflict started about two and a half years ago as a general repository for the various unconnected faction sorts of things that a bunch of us had floating around at the time – my own NATO faction, Craig’s South American Coalition, Forest’s amoral PMCs, Dane’s biomechanical atrocities, and others. We certainly didn’t start the trend of faction building – NickDean is probably the best known originator, but I’m pretty sure people have been building private armies for as long as Lego has had greyscale bricks.

Once we had all these factions under one roof, naturally the next step was to slug it out. We developed a complex ad hoc system that was part model UN, part wargaming, and part tabletop-style roleplaying and carved out a cyberpunk storyline that meshed with our collective vision for our imaginary universe. Since this was a long-term and long-distance group, we couldn’t simply play BrikWars in order to determine tactical prowess; instead, we built scenes to depict our movements on a more strategic scale.

As much fun as we had with slaughtering the other sides cannon fodder and blowing up tanks/bunkers/cities, the really interesting thing that came out of the game was the storytelling. Due to the interest in the stories of the scenes we built, we created a public group for others to follow the WiC narrative, and I think it’s the persistent narrative of the game universe that inspired a number of similar groups.

World in Conflict is two years old now and starting to show signs of winding down – while the game has always had lulls in activity between spikes of conflict, this latest hiatus has been particularly stubborn and long-lasting. But fans who have been watching the storyline don’t need to worry; there are plans to end at least the current incarnation of WiC with a proper finish.

Read the full interview after the jump!

My next guest destroys the long held belief in the community that a builder must always keep the proper signal to noise ratio. Although Leigh Holcombe has a stable of well built and some might say handsome models, he may be best known for his numerous postings in various LEGO related fora. Armed with a sharp wit and a willingness to use it, this keen observer of the community has made his own mark through the years. I caught up with Leigh, better known as worker201, on a barren stretch of flatland about halfway between Houston and Waco Texas. We talked about the ELF, the WTO and ELO. We also talked about LEGO.

The Build

KG: Your early builds were mostly in the sci-fi or military genres, but then you switched to chairs and a bit of town with J-Flo’s flower shop. Was there a reason behind the switch, and in a perfect world, what direction appeals to you the most? Do you think builders in general, get too locked into one genre?

LH: I think sci-fi is the geek default, because the designers in that field literally get paid to ignite the imaginations of their audience – being inspired by that genre is so easy. It’s a lot harder to get inspired while walking through IKEA, but I swear it does happen.

I think this hobby is a textbook cross-section of different levels of obsession and focus – of course some builders get bogged down in a single genre, and some can’t sit still long enough to even have a genre. I’m somewhere in the middle – eventually, I’d like to build something castle or train, but I’ll probably make more spaceships too.

KG: Many young builders begin by recreating the work of builders who came before them. You, however, came in on the ground floor of the hobby or very near to it, so where did you look when you started building?

LH: When I was a kid, back in the late 70s, there was nobody else – just me, the bricks, and the back of the box. I think that’s how it was for most AFOLs. My dark age ended when the Star Wars sets first came out – I couldn’t believe how awesome that first Snowspeeder set was. Then I got on the internet and found Shaun Sullivan’s AT-ST , which was really inspirational to me. He posted instructions for it, and they helped me to remember all the techniques I had forgotten. Realizing that something so awesome was made with basic bricks attached with normal clicking techniques really flipped a switch for me.

KG: Whether it is a job, school, deployment, health issue or even a stay in prison, like many builders, you have been in a position where you want to build for an extended period of time but have not been able to. As the time goes by does it make you think about LEGO more or less? Does it change your mind-set on building, and when you do get a chance to build, does it change anything?

LH: Oh, it’s tough. Lego is a creative outlet and a stress reliever, and not having it is like trying to quit smoking. Plus, keeping up with Flickr and TBB every day puts inspirational stuff in front of me all the time, and I can’t do anything about it. I have so many hypothetical projects lined up, and I’m afraid I’ll never get around to them. The only time I really get to build is when I visit my nephew – and then, I’m mostly making stuff to impress him, like big guns and weird minifig combinations.

The Community

KG: You created a popular and polarizing fan-forum called Stajinaria when the equally popular and polarizing JLUG went down. Talk about those two forums, what they formed in a reaction to, why they ended and what they offered that was unique. Is AFOL 16+ the latest version of this tradition?

LH: I don’t know exactly what Janey and Ross were thinking when they started JLUG, but it pretty quickly became the home of community criticism. At that time, Lugnet and Classic Space Forums were dealing with censorship and leadership issues, and the people at JLUG seemed to enjoy calling out what they deemed hypocrisy and conservativism in those communities. After JLUG disappeared, a lot of its members decided that the group of people was more important than the site, so I took it upon myself to create a new home for “merry pranksters”. Someone accused JLUG once of being a ‘staging area’ where mischevious activists planned their shenanigans (not one of which was planned), which is where Stajinaria got its name.

Many of the core group are still internet friends today, but the mass migration of the community to Flickr made the forum extraneous, so I shut it down earlier this year. Both sites were based on the sandbox rule – if you don’t like the rules in someone else’s sandbox, make your own sandbox. AFOL 16+ was a sandbox that didn’t allow young kids, who were becoming an increasing annoyance in the Flickr Lego group. I think it started out with a bunch of venom and righteousness, but now I think of it as just another group of people who are familiar enough with each other to kid around and be sarcastic. (I also run Lego 35+, a place where grownups can interact, but nobody ever goes there.)

Read the full interview after the jump!

After a brief hiatus the Boilerplate & Beyond interview series returns with another baker’s dozen of builders from around the planet. This time around we’re starting in Brazil with Gilcélio Chagas who brings a much needed breath of fresh air to the hobby with his diverse mix of building skill, sense of adventure, Latin good looks and as this interview will illustrate, a way with the ladies. I recently sat down with Gilcélio, rocketing across the Third Bridge towards his home town of Vila Velhas. We talked about the Treaty of Tordesillas, Pele Vs. Messi and how Vila Velhas earned its nickname “the land of green shins”. We also talked about LEGO.

The Build

KG: A perusal of your photo-stream on Flickr makes it clear that you love building large-scale cars. How do you approach building vehicles and which vehicle has been the most challenging to build?

GC: I don’t have a rule to make my builds, I always start with the difficult part of the car, that way I expend less time if I can’t make it. Of course it’s more common for me to start from the front, that in most cases has more details and requires more attention.

The most challenging vehicle for me comes from a movie called Gran Torino, directed by Clint Eastwood, the car gives the movie its name, and every time that I see the film I get crazy to make it in LEGO, the curves gives a difficult special touch in this adventure.

KG: When working on a difficult model, how much advice from other builders to you typically ask for, or do you prefer to go it alone? When you give building advice, do you consider the builder’s feelings or try to be as honest as possible?

GC: Sometimes it is important to ask for a second opinion, who is riding puts a bit of feeling in the assembly and it ends up getting in the end result, the second opinion can be used exactly for this, take away the sentimentalism part and assess impartially.

I think I asked for advice twice, the first was the Dodge Charger that I asked the opinion of Lino who gave important tips for the project and the second time was my most important project in the island desalination that I counted on help from Nannan who was a very important aid.

Thanks Lino and Nannan.

Giving this kind of advice is very complicated without knowing the inventory of the builder. Imagine that you request to modify some point of the project without knowing if they have the required piece or not. When I’m gonna give a tip I try to be honest, of course every project must have the characteristics of the builder.

KG: You have drawn inspiration from the ultimate video game system, the Atari 2600. Is it just nostalgia that drives you to build in 8-bit style or is there something more? Also, what games would you like to tackle in the future?

GC: When I started with Atari 2600 project, I had in my mind the idea to immortalize in Lego pieces the Atari games that a lot of people have never heard before, and I couldn’t let this important part of my childhood die in this way.

What made the Atari so good was the fact that if you wanted to play with someone you had to go into the house of a friend. There was nothing online, it was all in someone’s home and that made the game even cooler this interaction and simplicity of the games. “If you die it’s my turn.”

And that’s the reason that I’ve made my projects so simple, without many resources because Atari was like that, simple and captivating.

The Community

KG: Describe LUG Brasil. How did you come into contact with the LUG and what happens at a typical meeting? Both the United States and Brazil are among the most racially diverse countries on the planet, but unfortunately most American LUGs do not reflect this diversity. Can the same be said for Brazil?

GC: The LUG Brasil is an excellent place for Lego lovers like us, we have great builds there, challenges, meets, tips, and things related with this hobby that we have in common. My contact is basically by the internet and face to face meeting when it’s possible.

We have a good diversity of the Brazilian population, here you can find all kind of races, sex, religions etc. But the LEGO in Brasil is very expensive, sometimes the price is so high as to be 4 times greater in other countries, which makes LEGO access more difficult to the people with less purchasing power.

Read the full interview after the jump!