Bill Ward's Brickpile » Vignette

Jumping the Shark

Bill — Tue, 24 May 2011 22:10:24 +0000

A couple of years ago I created this scene depicting the famous “Jumping the Shark” scene from the TV show “Happy Days.” Here, Richie Cunningham drives the boat pulling the Fonz on water skis as he leaps over a shark to prove his bravery. This is the origin of the phrase often used to describe the point where a TV series becomes lame.

This has been featured in a few of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club displays over the past couple of years, and I have included some of those photos in the photo set on Flickr for this model. To see the pictures, click the image or view a slideshow of the pictures.

Here’s the original video:

Sushi Bar

Bill — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:29:08 +0000

My latest building is a sushi bar. It is part vignette and part town building.

I built the interior first, starting with a bare baseplate. Only when that was completely finished, I built a basic box for walls with windows and a door in front, and a back door in the rear. The box lifts off easily; the perimeter of the baseplate is tiled, with only one stud on each side (a jumper plate) holding the walls in place.

On top of the walls there is a simple roof, with 6×8 slopes for an overhang and homemade signs, made with my trusty P-touch label maker. (The name of the restaurant is Hoshi Sushi; hoshi means “star” which is because I found that my label maker could make stars….)

The restaurant is staffed by two people: a sushi chef and a waitress. Both are rather overworked, as it is a prosperous enterprise. It was inspired by and loosely based on my favorite local sushi place, Masa’s Sushi in Mountain View, CA.

Some things to look for:

Chopsticks made from (Minifig Feathers with Pin) stolen off the roof of my 10185 Green Grocer set. See them clearly here.
The overpreponderance of maguro nigiri (tuna over rice) on people’s plates. This is because the only transparent color I have in 1×1 tiles that looks at all like raw fish is trans-red. I wish I had some trans-orange 1×1′s so I could have sake nigiri (salmon) but alas, no. I have some 1×2′s in trans-orange in the sushi bar waiting to be cut, however. I also have some people eating (non-trans) brown, which I decided is unagi nigiri (eel). None of the other 1×1 tile colors looked at all appetizing, and I couldn’t figure out a way to make maki (rolled) sushi at all at this scale…
Soy sauce bottles – some are full, others are empty. (I ran out of trans-smoke cones)
The slightly-too-big-for-minifig-scale maneki neko (beckoning cat) which sits in the back left corner (the prosperity corner, according to Feng Shui traditions) to attract money. Masa’s has a maneki neko in that spot too, but instead of a gold coin, it’s holding a bottle of Asahi beer. I guess Masa wants to invite more beer into his life :)
See if you can guess what each minifig is thinking….

This model was at BrickFair, but I had a hard time deciding where to put it. I didn’t want to put it on the train layout, since I wanted to show it with the roof and walls removed. There was a “town, non-train” section against the far right wall, but it was full, so I put it on the nearest table to that which was the mosaic table. I also brought it to last Saturday’s BayLUG meeting. But if you missed it, I’m bringing it to BrickCon as well… hope to see you there!

To see all of the pics, click the picture above or click here for a slideshow

Trick or Treat

Bill — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 02:47:33 +0000

In honor of Hallowe’en I present this vignette.

This was actually first mentioned in an earlier blog entry about the October 2006 BayLUG meeting. I entered it into the club building contest which had a theme of “harvest.” Get it? Harvest of souls? I know, it’s macabre and tasteless. Sorry, but my mind just works that way sometimes.

Anyway, it features two kids innocently trick-or-treating. There’s a girl dressed as a doctor and a boy dressed as a policeman. But no medical skills or law enforcement training can stop the Grim Reaper!!

View all the pics by clicking the above image, or click to view the photos on Flickr (slideshow) or on Brickshelf.

Technorati Tags: lego, vignette, halloween, death, grimreaper, trickortreat, house

Poetry Vignettes

Bill — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 06:48:06 +0000

My latest models were unveiled at BrickFest yesterday: vignettes illustrating poetry by Robert Frost and A. E. Housman.

These poetry vignettes are not just my work, however. For the first time I have collaborated with my wife Holly to create LEGO models. While I did almost all of the actual assembly, she had the basic idea, did most of the minifig work, and helped a lot with the design, especially with the “Yonder See the Morning Blink” model. I really enjoyed sharing my hobby with her and hope that we can do more projects like these together.

Click the photo or title to see a bigger picture of each vignette, and a link to the text of each poem:

“The Road Not Taken”
by Robert Frost

“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”
by Robert Frost

“Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now”
by A. E. Housman

“Mending Wall”
by Robert Frost

“Good Creatures, Do You Love Your Lives”
by A. E. Housman

“To an Athlete Dying Young”
by A. E. Housman

“Yonder See the Morning Blink”
by A. E. Housman

Or, view all the photos in my photoset on flickr. New! Also available on Brickshelf.

Technorati Tags: lego, poetry, vignette, vignettes, housman, frost, aehousman, robertfrost