Tag Archives: keiichi kamei

Keiichi Kamei dreams of electronic bricks – 10 years of Blade Runner Builds [Interview]

Some adult fans of LEGO finish a creation, move on to the next, and never look back. Others return to a favorite build again and again over many years, updating parts or expanding scope. Keiichi Kamei falls into the second group. For this former LEGO Master Japan and Sakura LUG member, a love of LEGO is matched, or even surpassed, by a deep appreciation for the classic sci-fi film Blade Runner. Those entwined passions have kept “KABA” expanding and upgrading his vision of 2019 Los Angeles for a decade. His creations were previously featured in Brick Journal and on this site, but when KABA shared new pieces of his Blade Runner tribute, we thought this would be the perfect time to catch up and get to know the builder better.

The Brothers Brick: When did you first start recreating vehicles and scenes from Blade Runner in LEGO? Were you building things like this since you were a child, or did you start as an adult? Did you experience a “dark age” when you stopped building?

Keeichi Kamei (KABA): When I was a child, of course, I played with LEGO, but it was just one of several games for me at that time. LEGO became “my hobby” in 2012, when I was 49 years old.
Originally, my oldest son was a LEGO enthusiast, and as a parent, we built sets together. When he started college and stopped playing with Legos, he told me that “I give all the parts to you Dad,” and I decided to build the Police Spinner from my favorite sci-fi movie Blade Runner. A few years after I started building the LEGO Police Spinner, I finally completed the MOC with a satisfactory result. I wanted a backdrop for my MOC photos, so I started working on buildings and other vehicles that appeared in “Blade Runner. It kept expanding, and a few years later it became what it is today, a diorama that recreates the city that appears in Blade Runner using LEGO. By that time, I was totally hooked on LEGO.

Keiichi’s Voight-Kampff test… er, interview continues after the fold

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The cheese stands alone

We’ll soon return you to your regularly scheduled Baby Yoda or Star Wars spaceship or whatever you folks are demanding more of but first I wanted to show you this cute near life-sized rat built by Keiichi Kamei. The rats that occasionally invade my backyard are a bit bigger than this but his stance, his little ears, his bare tail and even his hands are all pretty spot on. I’d be more agreeable to sharing some cheese with them if they weren’t so invasive in real life.

This is not quite instructions but you can sort of reverse engineer your own with the help of this photo. Neat, right? We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Spinner from Blade Runner takes off in a blast of steam

The gritty vision of a major metropolitan city after a mass-migration off-world is just one of the stunning visual elements in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. What is left behind is a world filled with the poor and downtrodden remnants of humanity struggling to eke out a living among crumbling infrastructures, lawlessness and an everyone-for-themselves dystopia. But at least they have flying cars, as depicted in this wonderfully detailed LEGO scene built by Keiichi Kamei. Keiichi’s scene features the classic flying car more commonly referred to as the Spinner, which is how the few police that are still around get a bird’s eye view of the city. It’s also perfect for dropping in and out of potentially dangerous situations.

The builder uses custom stickers to give the police vehicle it’s signature details, and I love the brick-and-slope-built steam clouds that really give the scene a dynamic aesthetic.

A beautiful brick-built boar that will leave you singing, “Hakuna matata!”

Builder keiichi kamei is no stranger when it comes to building phenomenal LEGO sculptures. Earlier this year, you might recall us sharing his New Year lion dance mask. With 2019 being the year of the pig, keiichi is back with a majestic-looking LEGO wild boar. His boar looks like the real deal, thanks to intricate sculpting of the animal’s body. A combination of curved and angled slopes form the overall shape of the body, which is nearly void of studs. Meanwhile, the positioning of the legs is reminiscent of how boars trot around while they forage for food. Better watch out for those tusks, though!