Tag Archives: Interviews

The people behind the fascinating LEGO models we feature here are just as interesting! Read interviews with notable LEGO builders, LEGO book authors, LEGO set designers, and many others right here on The Brothers Brick.

Aged building skills: an interview with Sven Junga

Many LEGO fans were amazed when they saw the Daedalus Landing diorama by Sven Junga, but perhaps more impressive was the young age of the builder who created this masterpiece. In this interview with Sven, who is also one of the friendliest people I’ve corresponded with, I asked the question on many people’s minds: how did he do it?

The Brothers Brick: Tell us about yourself.

Sven Junga: I was born in 1994, which makes me (what some people have questioned) 15 (soon 16) years old. I live in Germany and love to build with Lego. I enjoy many sports, especially mountain biking and track & field; I also play the acoustic guitar. As for my musical tastes, I’m a metal/rock guy and like Metallica, Nickelback etc. I consider myself very ambitious and I like (building) challenges.

TBB: How long have you been building and when did you discover the online community? Which groups and forums are you a part of?

Sven: I’ve been building since I was 3 years old; in 2008 I discovered the online community by making my MOCpages account. My Flickr account was made in 2009 and I’m also a member of the German Lego-site, 1000Steine. There are no LUGs or other offline Lego-communities I’m part of.

TBB: What do you like to build and what are your inspirations?

Sven: As I’m a big fan of nearly all sci-fi series and movies like Star Trek, Stargate, Star Wars and many others, these are my main inspirations. All my builds happen to be very spontaneous. When I see something I want to build, I transform it into Lego in my mind, and sometimes I look for some reference pictures on the internet, but I never make any drawings nor do I spend a long time on preparations. Any creation I plan for a long time probably won’t ever be built.

TBB: Tell us about your recent Daedalus landing diorama. How long did it take and where do you get all the bricks?

Sven: Actually I started off with just the Daedalus in late September. When Shannon Young announced his Vig/orama Contest on MOCpages, I thought it would be cool to build a part of Atlantis as a diorama with the Daedalus landing. Of course I didn’t work on it day and night for two and a half months. I only build when I want to and have enough time, sometimes a MOC stays for a week without any changes and other times I’m caught by some kind of Lego fever which doesn’t let me stop building until a creation is finished.

At the age of 3 I got the old collection of my uncle for Christmas, since then my collection kept growing over the years, so most of the bricks in the diorama I already had. Although I use Bricklink, I don’t just buy everything there – only special parts or those which are really necessary. Furthermore I always take apart older creations for building new ones; that time I wrecked the Juggernaut.

TBB: Many fans dream of building big; how did you do it? Did you build smaller creations at first?

Sven: Of course it’s important to have a big collection, but I think it’s equally important the way someone uses it. If I realize I’m getting short of the desired parts, I try to use other parts which are not being used that often, and many parts that are apparently unfitting look great if used in another way. My builds often scratched the limit of my collection and still do. I also build some small things, but it’s mostly the big MOCs that gather all the attention.

TBB: What advice do you have for aspiring builders?

Sven: I’m not sure if it is possible for me to answer this question. By doing so it would show that I think of myself being better than other FOLs and good enough to give them advice, but in my opinion there is always room for improvement and even the best builder started small. I could say what has already been said many times: keep building, find your style, be creative… and so on. But the only thing I’ll say is: have fun with the bricks!

TBB: What future projects or goals do you have in mind?

Sven: What I have in mind to build changes from day to day so there is no real building goal for me, but on MOCpages and Flickr I’ve read and heard much about the fantastic Lego conventions in the US (BrickCon and Brickworld), and I really hope to go there sometime. Another thing would be finally getting around to organizing my collection; it’s just so much work…

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TBB chats with Carl Greatrix, LEGO model designer for TT Games [Interview]

Anyone following Carl Greatrix on Flickr will have noticed he has recently been posting pictures of his builds for the LEGO Indiana Jones 2 game created by TT Games. These offer a fascinating insight into the special job of building LEGO models for games. We’d like to thank Carl and his employers for talking to us about his job.

The Brothers Brick: Age, location, Name, Job?

41, Staffordshire, UK. Carl Greatrix (Bricktrix) TT Games Lego model designer for the offcial Lego digital games

TBB: How did you get the job and how long have you had it?

After seeing the ad on TBB, I decided to send my CV in for consideration. I had not ever anticipated leaving my own business, but being a Lego model designer has always been a secret dream so the temptation to at least give it a shot was too much to resist.

I was contacted to be told I had made the final list of succesful applicants for consideration and we were then tasked with two building challenges from brief. One mechanical and one organic. I was succesful with both and got offered the position after interview, I have now been there almost a year.

TBB: What advice would you give to others in this regard?

I would say to always try and improve your own models in any way you can and keep uploading images of the work that you are pleased with. Anyone unsure of their own standards should keep going. Focus on something you are passionate about and keep building it, looking at all the aspects you love about the theme you are building and try to recreate those as best you can, the missing parts usually then become obvious and fall into place.

I have always got a great deal of inspiration from looking at other peoples builds since I can remember. The more builds uploaded, the higher the bar gets raised. Our artists and designers certainly look through Flickr and Brickshelf for inspiration, so any work posted up will almost certainly get you noticed one day somewhere. Who knows, it may lead to someone getting their dream job also!

TBB: Any big milestones?

Getting the job and having a life change due to it! If you mean build wise, yes, I have been building models that as an AFOL I would never have attempted or even thought of! The imaginations of some of our game designers will never cease to amaze me or bring a smile to my face!

TBB: What does your day to day job entail?

It can be extremely different from day to day so there is no real answer to
that.

To try and explain it as simply as I can, anything from 1 day to 3 weeks can be spent designing a specific model in the brick. It is then sent of for approval by TLG and associated film licence holders. Once/if that is granted I have to digitally build it and do all the technical applications asscoiated with getting it into game, making sure it works correctly in test scenes, etc. The model will then get passed over to animators, cut scene animators and level designers and artsists for them to use how they see fit within game levels.

TBB: How different is that to your hobby building?

Building as an AFOL can be quite different. The builds for in game have certain requirements that need to be met that usually wont be obvious upon inital viewing of them as a static model. Even the smallest version of a vehicle still needs a minimum of a 2 stud space internally for at least a minifig torso and head to fit, we will always do our best to fit a complete figure inside but sometimes it is just not possible. As our games are 2 player based, any vehicle also often requires space for 2 minifigs.

Vehicles usually require working doors and hatches, often boot lids and bonnets also with interior details such as engines or boot space large enough for certain objects to fit within them. This all makes the builds even more challenging.

If I were to build a vehicle for myself, I would not need to have all these features and concentrate instead on the correct look and feel of it. Most builders will understand that by concentrating on a correct external look often requires valuable interior space to be used up in the construction, especially when using SNOT techniques.

Planes need working undercarriage, cockpit space, wing flaps if possible, etc. Organic builds for creatures, etc if building as an AFOL, some lovely builds can be produced. When it comes to a game version, its a different story again as limbs require articulation for animation, that starts to get really challenging when its down at minifg scale. Most organic builds I get tasked with, I initially think ooo, I can do a great version of this or that, then I hear what requirements are needed and my heart sinks as I know that the articulation will make my first thoughts impossible to produce.

TBB: Are there any really special requirements?

Creativity first and foremost, being artistic is also a huge help. Plus we need an understanding of all the technical applications even if they are not part of our own job position.

TBB: What different parties do you have to collaborate/compromise with in order work toward the final product?

Lego set designers and any associated film licence holders (i.e. Lucasarts for Indy2) have to approve the models and designs we build before they can appear in game.This is handled by the “powers that be” above us, the only time we get involved is if we have to take photographs of certain connections to show how they are being made.

TBB: What is the most frustrating aspect of the whole proccess?

Definitely complete vehicles being dropped from game. Its an unfortunate aspect to the industry, sometimes they may be dropped due to complete levels being changed or deleted, or simply not enough time to include them where intended. Some of my favourite models have been dropped and I cant make them public in case we ever require them for some other game.

TBB: Please talk us through the creation of a game model.

Okay, I work from a design brief, this can be anything from being told we just need a generic type of vehicle as a bit of a fun ride-a-round and have pretty much free reign with it, to a specific vehicle that has to fit certain dimensions in game, has lots of requirements for working features, I’ll get to see the level that it will appear in, the colours of the backgrounds, etc which all helps to give me more vision and a “feel” for what I need to be building.

Next step is researching the real object, for some we have studio model pictures from the film companies which are a big help. Others it may be only a couple of freeze frames from film, whilst others will be photographs found by searching the internet.

All the time I am searching I’m starting to think of ways to build in brick. Once I’m happy with the references I have, then I get to work with the bricks, designing and building in the same way that I would for myself other than I really only need to build half of the model.

You may notice in some of my real brick photographs that only one side is completed, this is just to help me when I then come to build it digitally. Being able to view it from the unbuilt side is a great help for speed and lessens the need for it to be pulled apart to see how I built a certain section. (I forget quite quickly with so many models being built!)

From initial brief to being built digitally is roughly 1/3rd of the time spent to getting it working correctly in game. Whilst it may look like I spend my life building Lego, actually 2/3rds of the time is taken up by the technical aspects of the game industry.

TBB: Does your work source parts for the physical models through BrickLink, or do they have an unlimited supply of bricks from LEGO?

I wish we did have an unlimited supply from Lego! ;) We have duplicate sets, 1 of each is on display around the 4 floors of our office building, the others like any self respecting Lego builder, are broken up for parts. I also ordered most parts available in black and grey, just to improve the range of what we had and to include parts I knew I would be using a lot of. This at least allows a more uniformed brick build when we are against deadlines. Now we have the models built in game, we may start looking into Bricklink orders to obtain rarer part / colour combinations to allow the brick builds to be built in colours closest to the colours they appear in game, for display around the office. I have just finalised a further parts order with TLG for all colours / parts.

TBB: How do you keep the design straight without using the right colours?

Usually just by viewing photographs of the real subject that I am working from. Due to time, I will usually just grab whatever parts are closest to hand regardless of colour. If a build does start getting out of hand, I’ll put some wild colours within it as “place holders” to make me aware a colour change should be happening at those points.

Once I then start to build it digitally, I’ll experiment a little further with certain Lego colour palettes as sometimes what I have envisioned in my head colourwise for the build, does not always portray well on screen.

Custom LEGO model kit leads to tactical police response [Interview]

I ran across this story on Thursday and thought it was interesting enough to pass along.

Put yourself in Jeremy Bell’s shoes. You’re a creative director at Teehan+Lax, a Downtown Toronto design firm and a lifelong LEGO fan. You’re having a quiet Tuesday afternoon at the office. Hey, you just got a custom BrickGun model kit of a semi-auto handgun in the mail. Why not build it at your desk? (I for one totally understand, I just did the same thing last week with the Space Police Smash ‘n’ Grab.) After you’re done, you show the model to a co-worker, he breaks it, you put it back in its box, then unwind with some co-workers by playing video games.

Photo above courtesy of National Post and Global TV

The problem is, handguns are illegal in Canada, and gun play at work is generally associated with disgruntled employee rampages, rather than good LEGO design. So that afternoon, a person with a condo overlooking Jeremy’s window office saw him assembling the model, thought it was a real handgun and called the police. (He has since apologize via Twitter, Facebook and a handmade sign put up in his window.)

About an hour after putting away the model gun, the gaming was interrupted by yelling in the hallway. Jeremy peeked into the hall and saw members of the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force with real big guns pointed at him. He cooperated, got ‘cuffed, told them to check out the LEGO gun in his office, and he was uncuffed in about 90 seconds. Done, right?

It became a slightly bigger deal because people in and immediately around the building were detained, had big guns pointed at them, the street was closed off by half a dozen police cars, a couple ambulances waited nearby, and a helicopter hovered overhead. For details on the basic facts of the story, the best details and perspective are in Jeremy’s blog, but also check out some of the local Toronto online news outlets like GlobalToronto and Torontoist, where I first ran across the story.

Jeremy is now obviously being pestered by media all across Canada, and even by US LEGO nerds like me. He was gracious enough to answer a few questions:

The Brothers Brick: How do you feel about all this attention over a bizarre misunderstanding?
Jeremy Bell: I could do without the attention, but I do find the whole situation hilarious. Don’t get me wrong, guns in the workplace aren’t cool, and I’m aware that people have been killed over similar misunderstandings—luckily this event didn’t turnout the same.

TBB: What form has your LEGO fandom taken? Collector, builder, sets, your own creations, just looking?
JB: I’ve been a fan of Lego since I was a little kid, but it’s not something I spend a lot of time playing with now. That said, I’ll usually assemble actual kits and then combine the pieces with the rest of my collection and build my own creations.

TBB: Was the ordering of the custom gun kit a bit of lark? How did you find out about the kit? Was it any good?
JB: I discovered the BrickGun kit on a design blog (if I recall correctly), so ya… it was a bit of a lark. The kit had about 250 pieces in it, plus some elastic bands. Was it any good? Well, I got arrested… that’s gotta count for something I guess.

TBB: According to the other news stories, you’re the Creative Director at a design company? How has this affected your professional relationships, since this went down at work?
JB: Excellent question about the work side of things… no one has asked that yet. At the moment, all of our clients seem to think it’s pretty humours (although we haven’t heard from all of them yet). We’ll see how this shakes out next week.

TBB: How about your family?
JB: My family’s always known I was a Lego fan, so they weren’t surprised to see what I built. That said, my wife wasn’t so thrilled when she found out.

Thanks, Jeremy!

From looking at BrickGun’s website, they’re a little overwhelmed by the media driven orders because of this story, so if this gets you all excited to order something from them, good luck trying to get it in time for the holidays.

Manchester Master Builder Auditions Report [Interview]

James Shields traveled all the way from Ireland to Manchester in order to audition for a master builder spot at the new LEGOLAND Discovery Center there. We announced the auditions last week, and James went to check it out. He’s posted photos for everyone, and graciously agreed to this interview about the process.

TBB: Thanks for telling us about your experiences in Manchester, James. Let’s get started: Was this an all-day affair?

JS: Yes, it ran from about 10am until nearly 5pm.

TBB: Did they give you a building challenge? If so, what was it?

JS: There were two building challenges. For the first round we had 15 minutes to build an animal of our choice. This sounds easy,. but 15 minutes disappears incredibly quickly. I built a polar bear (though it started out intending to be a gorilla). About half of the candidates got through to the second challenge, which was to build a face. Again, it was up to us what face we wanted to build, and what techniques we wanted to use. I went for the fantasy author Terry Pratchett because I’m a fan of his work, and I thought he looked distinctive. Again an hour is very tight for this, so I concentrated on the centre of the face, with a view to expanding it if there was time left over. I built upwards, using sculpting techniques, and was quite pleased with the result, although I only got from the lips to the forehead (it would have been nice to include the beard and Terry’s distinctive hat). There were some excellent builds, and I wouldn’t have liked to be judging, but I was very pleased to get through to the final four and the interview stage.

TBB: Were there a lot of other AFOLs there trying for the job? What about non-AFOLs?

JS: Most of the participants were AFOLs to some degree, and there were clearly some very talented builders. However, one of the finalists hadn’t touched a brick in ten years – he said that Lego had inspired him to become a professional modelmaker using other materials.

TBB: What did the non-AFOLs think of the hobby, assuming they were aware of it?

JS: The one I spoke to said he was seriously thinking of unpacking his old Lego collection.

TBB: Do you think that being an active LEGO hobbiest helped you out in this process, or was that not a factor in what they were looking for?

JS: Definitely. I think the biggest factor was the skills I’ve developed over the last few years. In the interview stage I also stressed AFOL activities I’ve been involved in and how they are (hopefully) relevant to the position.

TBB: The big question for me, was it fun?

JS: Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day, especially the building challenges.

TBB: Is there anything else you’d like to add about the process?

JS: A major part of the event was to win publicity for the LDC, so everything was under the scrutiny of cameras, and we were all interviewed to camera several times during the day. It was made clear that PR was part of the modelmaker’s role, and as a result they wanted someone who can handle it.

David Pagano interviews Sean Kenney on New York Geekcast

David Pagano has interviewed LEGO Certified Professional and MOCpages founder Sean Kenney.

Photo of Sean from Sean’s website

Head on over to the New York Geekcast to download the podcast.

Inside the Mind of a Builder: Bryan (aka Gumby) [Interview]

Although he actually completed it last year, Bryan recently announced the completion of a project that he had been working on for quite some time, namely his Classic Crusader Giant Fig and Horse. I thought this would be a good opportunity to pick his brain and share with our readers some of the “behind-the-scenes” information on this creation.

TBB: How long have you been working on your knight and horse?

Bryan: I probably started on the knight and horse back in June of 2006, completing the knight a month later in July. I really dragged out the construction of the horse and finished it in March of 2008 just before the birth of my son. If you add up all the time I actually worked on them, it probably comes out to 3 weeks worth of evenings, for roughly 40 hours?

TBB: People always ask how many bricks are in a MOC like this. Do you have any idea and do you care?

Bryan: I have no idea. Maybe 5000 bricks for the horse and 3500 for the knight? It doesn’t concern me much since there aren’t very many extremely rare pieces in this MOC apart from all that old dark grey.

TBB: Why did you choose to build a Crusader?

Bryan: Although my first castle set was the yellow castle, my favorite castle set was 6080. I went into my dark ages right before the Crusaders sets came out, and after I rediscovered LEGO back in 1997, I realized that the armor piece was so cool. So I’d say Lion Knights and the Crusaders are now my all-time favorite faction.

TBB: I’ve seen other figs in the this scale but I can’t remember ever seeing the armor before. Are you the first to do that?

Bryan: Yes, I think I’m the first person to have such a large rendition of the breastplate armor with leg protection in ABS plastic.

TBB: What was the most difficult aspect of this MOC?

Bryan: The most difficult part of this MOC was the grill on his helmet. The helmet itself is based heavily on the green hat from the official 3723 LEGO mini-figure set, but I had to design the grill by trial and error. What made it especially challenging is the fact that the helmet is 16 studs wide, but the grill is 17, so I had to use a combination of 1×1 tiles and 1×2 plates with 1 stud to make it work. I remember first building flimsy mockups of the grill, and after I had a design I was satisfied with, I had to make a copy of it with structurally sound building techniques (i.e. “overlap technique”). Finally, I built the helmet around the grill.

TBB: Who or what inspired you as you worked on this?

Bryan: Bruce N H from Classic-Castle first brought my attention to a giant Black Falcon minifig on a horse back in January of 2006. Seeing a giant castle-themed fig was cool, but seeing one on horseback really put it over the top: I had to have one of my own.

TBB: I saw that you have acknowledged or thanked several people in your post. Can you elaborate on how they helped you out?

Bryan: Of course there’s Tobias Reichling, who inspired me to build this. He took numerous pictures of his horse for me and they were extremely useful when building the head section. I also got a lot of help from Peer Kreuger, who came up with a method of creating blueprints for mosaics in Photoshop. He provided me with the building plans for the shield, and I would have never been able to pull off the “rampant lion” if it weren’t for Peer. Finally, I also need to thank Jojo for getting me in touch with Tobias.

TBB: If you were to start over, what would you do differently?

Bryan: Now that I think about it, I should have built a helmet with pointed visor instead. I just realized that there exists no minifig with this color helmet and armor combo…

TBB: What do people say when they see this in your house?

Bryan: Not many people have actually seen this – those that have are generally impressed with it, especially the shield. My parents commented “You still have time for LEGO?” and I had to remind them that this was before I became a dad.

TBB: Are you going to keep it together?

Bryan: I’m a huge fan of LEGO sculptures, so I’m definitely going to keep this together.

TBB: What’s next on the horizon for you, Lego-wise?

Bryan: I’ve built “large” castles as a kid/teenager, but now as an adult, with a much larger collection, I’d like to build a large, detailed castle of course. However, with a 15-month old son running around, that’s not going to happen any time soon, so I’ll settle for something much simpler. I’ll try and find some time to put together my copy of 10193 Medieval Market Village, and hopefully learn some new building techniques in the process.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with us, Bryan!

Lugging pt. 4: Starting a LUG

What if you’re interested in joining a LEGO User Group (LUG) because of Part 1, but the tips in Part 2 let you down and you couldn’t find a LUG? Or what if the experiences described in Part 3 weren’t quite up to snuff? Then you have the option to start your own LUG. Since I have absolutely no experience doing that, I’ve gathered a sort of panel of experts to help describe how they’ve gone about organizing their LUGs.

Chris Piccirillo, Jeremy Scott, and Dave Shaddix are members of CactusBrick, a LUG in the Phoenix, Arizona area. They’ve recently begun formally organizing (they explain why) as a sub-group of AZLUG, which covers all of Arizona. Gary McIntire is currently a Master Model Builder at LEGOLAND California, but started off as a member of SEALUG in Seattle, then moved to Utah, where he helped revive ULUG, then moved to San Diego and helped revive SandLUG as well. Gary is generally acknowledged to be awesome.

I’ll let them speak for themselves first, but at the end I’ll add a couple editorial comments about what I noticed from the interchange and what I’ve gathered from my exhaustive and authoritative research (cough – BS! – cough).

The Brothers Brick: How did you go about organizing or reviving your LUG?
Chris Piccirillo: You need people and a place to meet. If you make it too complicated, everyone will run away screaming. Plan some fun things to do, research how other LUGs have fun, and hold that meeting. I gave a lot of my personal time to get that first meeting held. After that, it was easy. It was like watering a plant.
Jeremy Scott: Yeah, save the details for later. We didn’t want leaders, we wanted to have fun. Now that most of us are deeply into it one year later, do we find ourselves with the need for the details.
Dave Shaddix: We have a few things that we try to accomplish for every meeting, a speed build and parts draft, but its pretty chaotic and just down right entertaining most of the time. Fun is still our foremost concern, but we are realizing that we’ll need some structure if we are to become an active, viable member of the community.
Gary McIntire: Personal contact is key! When I restarted ULUG I first started scouring the internet for other LEGO fans out there. I sent out numerous emails and finally made contact with two guys who were doing the LEGO thing. Reviving SandLUG was much easier, since I was coming in contact with so many local LEGO fans at LEGOLAND. The main thing is to be outgoing and make friends with local people who are into LEGO and just start hanging out and talking LEGO.

TBB: Where did you find other members so it wasn’t just you talking to yourself in a mirror?
GM: The internet is awesome! Check out Facebook, Flickr, and of course LUGNET. Even a Google search can deliver surprising results sometimes.
JS: Some LEGO fans in Arizona had tried to organize a few times in the years before. A few of us were part of those failed attempts. We never got further because there weren’t enough people. I saved some names and email addresses of these people I found on LUGNET, etc, and hoped to try again one day.
CP: When I decided it was time for our LUG to finally form, Jeremy and other’s efforts had been long before my time. I told him about my plan, and he shared his mostly out-of-date contact list with me and said ‘good luck’. On my side was our upcoming LEGO brand store opening soon; local fans were in a buzz. I threw a few announcements out onto Craigslist and asked everyone who contacted me to pass around the news and soon we had a list of 20 or so people. From that list, six people showed up. From those six, 5 haven’t missed out since.
DS: Chris’s mom actually told me about group…

TBB: What was the key to the group starting to coalesce?
CP: For us, it was the opening of the LEGO store (photo, right). Not only did the upcoming opening have people excited, but LEGO needed its adult fans to help with it. Steve Witt [LEGO community relations representative] was very enthusiastic, calling me an answer to his prayers, and got me in contact with an ambassador to help me turn our spark into a fire. Having the group of us staff the master build and grand opening was awesome fun for us, and helped us new co-club members become instant friends.
GM: Pick a day that the club will always meet and stick to it! Try to find a day that works for the few people that are involved initially, say the first Saturday of every month, or every third Thursday night. Make it the same day every month and always meet on that day, roughly around the same time. That way everyone knows that every month on that day, rain or shine, there will be a meeting. sometimes not everyone will be able to make it, but have it anyway, even if it’s just two guys having a good time!

TBB: How is your LUG organized, if at all? Why is that?
GM (photo, left): I think that too much organization creates unnecessary politics. Every meeting the only points of business that are necessary to be addressed are where the next meeting is going to be and what, if anything, are we going to plan on doing there. Every LUG I have been part of has rotated meetings around to different peoples’ houses every month and most of the meetings feature a set draft or a dirty brickster of some kind, and sometimes have additional activities like games/competitions or parts trading.
CP: At first we all unanimously decided that we wanted nothing in the way of organization. No leader, no officers, no money, no rules, no nothing.
JS: However, we learned the hard way: we need it. Right now, we are writing the by-laws and such that will officially organize us. We have decided to pursue organizing as a US-charity (or 501(c)3) so we can be tax-exempt and also use our club as a community youth-outreach platform as well as a social hang-out for us dirty-mouthed adults.
DS: Yeah, we are pushing for some loose leadership right now, without some structure we will ultimately regress to trading our Garbage Pail Kids cards and random LEGO-centric conversations. There are a bunch of great guys (and even some females!) in the group, with a little direction we will be able to get some really cool stuff going in the future. And there is a real part of me that would like to somehow be involved in the direction of a bunch of dirty-mouthed adults …oh and LEGO stuff!

TBB: What were some of the challenges of starting the LUG?
CP: Getting people to come to the meeting. LEGO collecting is an easy-to-hide geek hobby. We aren’t known for our social geekiness, like the [Dungeons and Dragons] geeks and Pokemon collectors. So, getting the adults who aren’t afraid to admit their habits to come out of the closet is hard. What they learn when they join a LUG is that LEGO is more fun in public. Our hobby doesn’t have a Comic-Con yet, but we’re getting there.
GM: Finding the first few people and getting a day for the first meeting nailed down.
JS: Honestly, I feel the hardest part of getting the club together was finding people. With the large realignment of the online LEGO community away from the LUGNET-centralized community we had a few years ago, you have to go to every corner of the net to find people. It would be nice to have a general announcement board again. (*ahem*, LEGOfan.org)

TBB: What would happen to the LUG if you were suddenly raptured?
JS: They would breathe a sigh of relief.
CP: They would lose their best man.
JS: Seriously though, we have enough excited people in the LUG that it couldn’t possibly go away. We are more in danger of death by disagreement than by death through the loss of one of our members.
GM: Well, I kind of was, from ULUG. I was raptured away to LEGOLAND, and now the LUG is more than twice the size it was when I left. A fact of which I am very proud. If a club is centered around one or two pivotal members it can easily fall apart. That’s why I am happy to take credit for helping to organize a club and get it off the ground, but I don’t want to be the “leader”.

TBB: How does the group make decisions? How do you deal with drama/conflict if it arises?
JS: The drama so far has been minimal. What we have encountered so far led to our desire to formally organize. We determined that the things that bugged us couldn’t be addressed because no such rules were in place. So first we are going to write the rules. As for decision making, we haven’t had many to make. A yes-no vote on the next month’s draft has been the most heated debate yet. When we organize we plan to use online voting for all minor decisions, and in-person elections once a year.
GM: You’d be surprised how easily a group of like-minded people can make decisions. Majority rule and general consensus have always worked for me.

TBB: What’s your vision for where you want the LUG to be in a few years?
CP: We want to be one of those LUGs that people name by name when they discuss the “great” LUGs. We have the organizational manpower to do it, and we have a push to see it done.
JS: We want achieve this with a secondary focus, beyond our primary focus of club socialization, on outreach, both within our greater LEGO fan community, and within our local community. We chose to become a charity so we can benefit our local community in educational and youth support programs. Though not all of our members want to participate in that aspect, those who do will have wonderful personal reward from it. We also plan to begin the process of hosting a southwestern states convention for LEGO fans and the public, and intend to forge partnerships with other southwestern LUGs to have this convention travel around the southwest annually, with each lug taking a turn hosting every few years.
CP: Obviously some of this is in our longer-term agenda.
GM: I would love to see SandLUG big enough to host a LEGO convention in the next few years. I think it’s well on its way.

TBB: Thanks guys!

I sure learned a lot doing research for this series, and I hope it helped some of you out there. A few themes in the interview deserve bullet points and others didn’t show up in their comments, but could be pretty helpful so I’ll pass them along:

Find people. It’s hard, but kind of the whole point.
Wait to decide on the structure/organization until you have people. Come to some sort of consensus that gets buy-in from the core members. There are no formal requirements for the rules or structure. It’s up to the members.
If a dead LUG already used the name you want, you may be able to find the original members of that LUG and just ask nicely if you can resurrect it. You may even get additional members that way.
Keep a routine.
Don’t over-complicate things. Having a website or other infrastructure can be great, but sometimes free tools like Google groups or Yahoo Groups can be easier to use and meet all the communication needs of the LUG, especially early on.
If your LUG gets too big, covers too large an area or otherwise just isn’t doing it for everybody, don’t be afraid to reorganize or support and encourage members to start a new nearby LUG.
Be welcoming, try to avoid drama, and most importantly: PLAY WELL!

A lot of people have helped me in this project, especially members of SandLUG (Above: Comic-Con Barbecue at Monsterbrick’s house) as well as luggers from around the world who participated in my lugging discussion and group on flickr. They have have passed on a wealth of information to me that I’ve tried incorporated in the series, but can’t possibly do full justice. Thank you all!

Lead Designer of LEGO Board Games Interviewed

Brett Gilbert has landed an interview with Cephas Howard, the lead designer for LEGO’s new line of board games.

“First you build your game,” says Cephas. “This creates a bond and a greater sense of ownership, immersion and understanding of the game for the kids. It also gives them the confidence to change it later on.”

“Next you play. The games all have good, solid game experiences that can be played over and over, and allow kids to have fun with their friends and family while doing so.” Cephas points out that truly social play is something that LEGO has not always offered, but that these games allow parents to be genuinely involved in LEGO play with their children.

“Then you change. Now if gets interesting!” Cephas explains that each game provides new ideas for gameplay, including not just advanced rules but also the challenge to children to get creative, albeit with the wise suggestion to try out one idea at a time so that they can see what works and hopefully learn why.

“The dice we designed sums all of this up in itself,” says Cephas. “You build it, play with it, and can change it. And it creates the element of chance in all our games which means that any player has a chance of winning a strategic game.”

Check out the full text of the interview here. Brett also has done a roundup of all the Lego Board Games. The games are currently available in the UK, but may be coming to North America in the near future.

Interview with an Admin: Classic Castle

We continue our series of Admin interviews by talking to Ben Ellermann of Classic Castle.

TBB: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? What are you known for other than an Admin at CC?

Ben: My name is Ben Ellermann and I am a huge LEGO Castle fan! On Classic-Castle.com I work on contests, interviews, various articles, and the sets archives. Offline I am involved with my local lug in the Saint Louis area, GatewayLug. I also have been a theme coordinator and/or presented at North American Lego fan festivals (BrickFest, BrickWorld, and BrickFair). From 2006 to 2008, I served as a Lego Ambassador giving fan feedback to TLG. Other than designing castle mocs, I also enjoy building in the Western, Pirate, and sculpture themes. Occasionally I dabble in Town and Space as well. This year I also teamed up with several fans to found a new Pirate fan site: www.forbiddencove.com

TBB: How long has Classic Castle been in existence? Can you give a brief history?

Ben: Classic-Castle.com has been a part of the online fan community since September 2003. A small group of like-minded Castle fans felt that www.lugnet.com was not meeting all of the castle communities needs. The active early administrators were Troy Cefaratti, Anthony Sava, Lenny Hoffman, Kevin Blocksidge, and myself.

TBB: What is purpose of CC?

Ben: Our mission is to meet the needs of LEGO Castle fans. We try to do this by providing castle articles, set reviews, building tips, preview pictures of new sets, contests, highlighted mocs, designer interviews, a chatroom, and a friendly organized forum.

TBB The site is called Classic Castle. What does that mean? Do you exclude things that aren’t “classic”?

Ben: When Classic-Castle was founded in 2003, the retail Lego Castle theme was not in production. Castle fans were looking for a well-designed Classic-Castle line of products similar to lines of the 1980’s and 1990’s.

We accept all castle fans, including those who love Knights Kingdom 2. Many fans have a favorite castle sub-theme from when they were children. We have a General Lego forum for discussion of other Lego themes in which are fans are interested, such as Space, Pirates, and Steampunk just to name a few.

TBB What is your vision for the future of CC?

Ben: My vision is that Classic-Castle will remain relevant by continuing to meet the needs of our community. Fan sites must be able to adapt and grow over time in order to survive. To do this we must always listen to the fans and incorporate their suggestions into the site.

TBB What issues are you dealing with as CC grows?

Ben: Real life is an issue that most Lego fan sites have to deal with. Members, moderators, and administrators often move on from our community due to real life circumstances. Fortunately we are always gaining new members, excellent moderators, and talented admins. Classic-Castle has always been a team effort. This prevents our site from ceasing to exist if one person tires of running it.

TBB Why should someone join CC?

Ben: If you are a Lego fan who loves castle, please check out our site and forum. We are the source for all your Lego Castle needs.

Classic-Castle also recently completed a forum upgrade and it’s looking good. Go join now to immerse yourself in all things medieval!

StarWars.com interviews 7754 Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser designer Jens Kronvold Frederiksen [News]

We first saw prototypes of LEGO Home One at Toy Fair 2009 a couple months ago, but StarWars.com has an interview with Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, who designed the upcoming LEGO Star Wars set 7754 Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser.

The article also includes our first look at high-resolution shots of the box art and minifigs.

In fact, Jens tells StarWars.com that “all the mini-figures except the A-wing pilot are brand new!”

Read the full interview on StarWars.com. For those of you wondering what a “Toys R Us Exclusive” means, it just means that TRU is the only store other than the LEGO Shop online and local LEGO Stores that will carry the set.

April Fools: Master Donut hails from the blue [Interview]

Every once in a while, a master builder joins the online LEGO community from out of the blue and brings along a slew of eye-opening creations. In my recent perusal of Flickr, I came across a new member who prefers to be addressed humbly as Donut. On the other hand, his creations are nothing of the modest kind – they are the works of a master. In my curiosity to press for the truth, I initiated a conversation with the builder that ultimately bore the fruit of this insightful and inspirational interview.

TBB: Tell us about yourself, how long have you been building?

Donut: I believe I was a kid when I got my first LEGO set, it had those cool minifigs in red, blue, and yellow that wore round hats and flew around in planes of all kinds of shapes. I feel like it’s been thirty years. I’ve been building since then until the LEGO sets themselves told me that I was too old. I was no longer 6-12 years old and that meant I can’t have no more bricks anymore. I was so overwhelmed with sadness when I gave away all my LEGO to my thirty-year old neighbor who said he had a son who loves LEGO, though I’ve never seen him. I felt so alone in the world without my bricks.

TBB: How did you get back into building?

Donut: I couldn’t bear to live a life without LEGO, so I rummaged the house and scavenged a handful of leftover bricks in all nooks and crannies. I secretly built in the closet in the basement every moment I can spare. I thought that if I’d been caught, it’d be worse than having cheated on my girlfriend. Eventually, I engineered a secret compartment in my house to store my bricks.

TBB: When did you decide to publicaly reveal your hobby and what inspired you to do so?

Donut: Well, not to sound gay or anything, but I came out of the closet just recently. I have to admit that the story was pretty embarrasing now that I think about it. I had been at work one day and was experiencing the most boring day of my life. Since the economy went bad, we were getting less and less customers to invest in our Margaritaville-brand magarita mixer. I was sitting in front of my computer thinking nothing but LEGO. All the while I wanted to search for LEGO on the internet. I thought that if I’d been caught, it’d be worse than having downloaded pr0n. In the end I caved in temptation, so I googled for LEGO. Lo and behold, there were all sorts of websites with adults and LEGO, it was like everyone was doing it back in the Sixties!

TBB: How did you feel afterwards?

Donut: Man, that was the best day of my life! When I came home I took out all my bricks and built for more than 48 hours non-stop. I wanted to share my creations with the world and see what everyone else is building. It was a shame I never took photos of my creations. I can say with certainty that there had been thousands of MOCs in my years of behind the scenes building. Although I’ve only built less than a dozen new creations this week, they’re all uploaded onto my new Flickr account.

TBB: In our last question to wrap up the interview, what have you concluded from your unusual experience with LEGO?

Donut: If Yu-Gi-Oh was a minifig, he’d be saying “never stop believing in the heart of the bricks!” Phrases like that catch on when you have kids who watch cartoons. But in addition to that, I also want to say to never believe the age markings on the LEGO boxes, because you can never be too old to build. That’s what I love about these bricks, man: I get older, they stay the same shape. I love the smell of bricks in the morning. It smells like victory. Recently someone saw my LEGO room and told me that this is madness, but I screamed to his face “this is LEGOland!” and kicked him into the nearest uncovered manhole on the streets. From above I told him my momma always said “life is like a tub of LEGO bricks. You never know what you’re gonna get”. So until then, hasta la vista, baby.

Interview with an Admin: Classic Space

Next up in our series of Admin interviews is a conversation we had with Dan Rubin, one of the Admins at Classic Space Forums.

TBB: How long has Classic Space been in existence?

Dan: The forums on classic-space.com (CSF) were publicly announced on December 19, 2004, so we’re just a couple of months from our Fourth anniversary. The site was founded by Chris Giddens, with help from some other members of the space community. A year or so ago, family and work pressures convinced Chris that he needed to step down, and he handed over CSF to me.

TBB: What is purpose of CSF?

Dan: Simply put, the purpose is the discussion of space and LEGO. It’s a place to hang out, and to discuss MOCs, and get criticism (constructive I hope) from other builders who build in these themes.

TBB: What does classic space include? More specifically, does it exclude Star Wars?

Dan: Classic-space really includes any sort of science fiction. This is not limited to purely space born creations, we also embrace steampunk, mecha, apocalego, and pretty much any other sci-fi genres you can think of. That means that we definitely don’t exclude Star Wars. However, Star Wars can be a bit of a sticky subject, as while it is welcome, it’s not our specialization. Many of the members of CSF have gotten tired of seeing new X-wing mocs, and can be a bit snippy about that, if they don’t see anything special or new about the latest post.

TBB: What is your vision for the future of CS?

Dan: My vision is for CSF to continue to grow and evolve as a place for discussion of scif-fi and sci-fi MOCs. I’m a huge believer in free speech, and I like to think that encourages frank and open exchange of ideas on the forum. Sometimes it also means that people can get carried away, but I like to think that we’re all enriched. The style of MOC critique on CSF is sometimes harsh, and while some people don’t like it when the kid gloves are off, others appreciate hearing a response other than “OMG! That’s awesome!”

TBB: How would you describe your members?

Dan: Our membership is constantly changing. Many of our members have been a part of the online LEGO community for five years or more, but we’re constantly growing. I think that, generally, our members are LEGO fans (be they AHOL or THOL) who are into sci-fi.

TBB: What issues are you dealing with as CS grows?

Dan: We’ve had various growing pains. We’ve had our fair share of flame wars and maturity issues among some of the members. I think this is common for pretty much any online forum, though. We’ve also had bandwidth issues. Steve Runnels hosts the forums and website on his own server, and foots the bill to keep the site online himself. Recently, I moved our concept art gallery – which is used to inspire sci-fi creations, even by LEGO designers – over to flickr.com in order to save some bandwidth.

TBB: What is the biggest reason that people should join CS?

Dan: If you want to see and discuss some great sci-fi MOCs, CSF is the place for you. We also have a lot of user-generated articles to help teach techniques for building sci-fi. It’s a great place to help hone your own space skills.

Thank you, Dan!

(see our interview with Eurobricks admin, Mark Larson, as well)