Building a brighter tomorrow with LEGO® bricks
LEGO Models that I have created
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:
stolen off the roof of my 10185 Green Grocer set. See them clearly here.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
This is my second attempt at modeling a Caltrain diesel locmotive, as seen running commuter trains between San José and San Francisco, CA.
Years ago, I built a model of the Caltrain F40PH locomotive. The trickiest part of this engine to model is the nose, which has a “V” shape and also slopes back. In the earlier version, I mounted tiles at a complex compound angle, but was never entirely happy with that. The relatively new 1×1 “cheese” slope piece offers new opportunities for ways to achieve angles like this. But in order to get a smooth slope, I had to use half-plate offsets. I’m pretty happy with the result.
It is an EMD F40PH, similar to the ones Amtrak used to use for all their long haul trains, used by VIA Rail in Canada, and widely used in commuter lines around the USA and Canada.
This model made its debut at BrickFair, but I couldn’t post about it here since I only finished building it the night before I flew to DC for the convention. I also brought it to this past weekend’s BayLUG meeting in San Leandro.
Other notable features are the windscreens, which are made from 1×2 panels mounted on jumper plates and turned at a slight angle, half-plate inset panels on the sides, and another half-plate offset on the rear door. I’m planning to give a talk on half-plate offsets at BrickCon next month in Seattle. Like the previous version I used 4×4 old style turntables for the roof fans, but in this version there is a Technic gear representing the fan blades. I thought about motorizing them, but haven’t tried it yet.
At a recent BayLUG Space meeting, Justin brought a red aircar that he had built several years before.
At the meeting, several of us were discussing how newer parts could be used to make it better. It started with the windscreen; several of us suggested replacing the one Justin used with the new curved windscreen seen in the Agents and Speed Racer sets. Then I started thinking about the various angled pieces Justin used, and how those could be replaced with curved pieces that are now available from LEGO, and asked Justin if he would mind if I made my own aircar based on his.
After that meeting, I built an exact copy of Justin’s design based on pictures I took there, and then started thinking about how to update it. I included a few features that I thought were essential to his:
I also redesigned the underside and rear, which I felt could use more detail. I built the underside studs-down and studless, similar to how I did the 2059 Cadillac aircar.
Click the thumbnail for more pictures or view a slideshow.
Inspired by the NASCAR fad that’s been going around the Flickr LEGO community, I built this using the layout photo from mikepsiaki. However I thought I’d do one with the Classic Space esthetic….
The car is identical to Mike’s design, with a couple of changes:
Of course, I really wanted a big Classic Space logo on the hood. I have a few of the 3×6 slopes that would have fit but it would’ve ruined the lines of the car, so I elected to stick with the original parts and just put Classic Space printed bricks wherever I could fit them. I used a dark blue windscreen; I don’t think they were ever made in yellow, so this is more like the 6890 Atomic Cruiser set than the 497 Galaxy Explorer esthetic that people tend to associate with Classic Space. But that Atomic Cruiser was probably as big of an influence on me as a kid as the Galaxy Explorer anyway.
Check out the LAML Radio interview with Mike Psiaki to learn more about the NASCAR fad, or just to find out how to pronounce his last name… :)
My version of a spaceman from the Classic Space of the early 80’s. Built to "miniland scale" like the models in Miniland in the Legoland theme parks.
Built for the LEGO Creativity Challenge #6. I just wish LEGO had produced the 1×2 brick with classic space logo in red! I thought about building a white one, but my white classic space bricks are too faded — although I think they were pretty pale when I first got them almost 30 years ago. Plus, I don’t have all the parts in white I’d need…
Still, I’m hoping that even in blue, it’ll still tug the heartstrings enough to help win the contest!
Click the picture for the Flickr gallery, or view a slideshow.
My newest model is made from only 9 parts, but I think it’s a pretty cool thing.
It’s a lounge chair (chaise longue), as you might see at a beach or poolside setting. Perfect for a minifig resort! I’m working on a large model that includes two of these, but thought I’d post just the chairs first.
Last night I was surfing around the Legoverse trying to find some inspiration to build something space-related, and I came across the Building The Future That Never Was Contest on classic-space.com. I got to thinking about the whole retro-future thing, and thought of doing a Jetsons-style aircar, which of course means using the clear dome, and then I thought of capturing the Cadillac fins of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. After much experimentation, this is what I came up with:
I’m especially happy with the studlessness of it… the only studs showing are the headlamps (which don’t count, in my opinion) and a few studs half-visible on the rear part of the hood. The underside is also smooth, using SNOT (Studs Not On Top) construction to mount parts upside-down.
See the rest of the pics in my photoset: 2059 Cadillac El Dorado, or view a slideshow.
In Ted Ward’s pictures from Northwest BrickCon 2006 I came across a picture a while ago of a garden gnome, created by Bill Volbrecht, former LEGO Master Builder.
As far as I know, Ted Ward is no relation to me, and neither is Bill Volbrecht.
As to why this is interesting, I built my own garden gnome in 2006 as well – while I was in Fairfax VA for the Brickfest convention (it wasn’t at the convention; I built it from parts I bought there, in my hotel room afterward). I posted it here shortly after I built it in September 2006. Here’s mine for comparison:
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As for comparing the two, well I think that he did a better job on the mouth and eyes, but then I was limiting myself (as I’ve done for almost all of my sculptures) to only basic bricks, not plates or slopes or round parts. However if I may be so bold, I like my hat better: it is asymmetrical. I also think the details on the belt are better on mine. But the clincher is that his is functional: I believe that the hands are designed to hold business cards. Mine are hidden behind his back because hands are too hard to model :)
From May 31 to July 5, my Blackburn Hotel (Version 2) was on display at the LEGO Store at Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, CA in the BayLUG window.
This is a redesigned, bigger model of the mythical Blackburn Hotel that I originally built for the Bay Area LEGO Train Club layout. I haven’t done a proper photo-shoot of the hotel itself, but you can see pictures of it in a Flickr set I created to collect all the images of it, including the ones from this store display.
For the store display, however, I had to customize it a bit. I left off the rooftop sign, and modified the baseplates. The version that was used in BayLTC train shows used regular road plates for the street, rather than the tiled half-road (16-stud-wide baseplates) seen in the store display. Also, because the left side of the hotel was located on a street corner, the model didn’t include the road there, while on the right side there was an 8-stud half-alley. When we installed the hotel at the store, that caused the sign to be pressed against the background side wall, and the right side to have a strange gap. So, we ripped the baseplates off the bottom of the hotel and moved everything over by eight studs, putting in a partial road on the left side. Thanks to Russell and Bruce for their help reconfiguring the baseplates.
Click the big picture to go to the set page on Flickr, or you can view a slideshow of the photos.
