The Fighting Irish Also Stack Bricks

What do you get when you give a Catholic Priest who graduated from the University of Notre Dame 300,000 LEGO bricks and three years?

Picture from nd.edu

In 2019, Fr. Bob Simon, currently from Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, was challenged to build the University of Notre Dame’s main domed building. If you’re like me and have never been to the campus, the main building looks like this…

Photo from nd.edu

The build is not all LEGO System bricks. It uses a large amount of Duplo on the inside as support and substructure which many MOC builders use to keep their designs together. Also, hard core LEGO purists should be warned that he did 3D print a piece and he did some gold leafing for the dome itself so the build is not 100% LEGO, but it’s close enough in my opinion.

Photo from nd.edu

Throughout the build, there are a number of minifigures to tell the campus story. A few have custom Notre Dame attire on and they are placed to bring some life to the campus.

If you want to read more or see more detailed pictures you can check out the main Notre Dame site here. Also, they put together a page with some more detailed pictures here. The build made it online a few other places as well, but I didn’t want to list each location.

The LEGO Fan Media captures a lot of what goes on in the fan world, but I haven’t seen this one spot lighted yet so check it out.

Happy building!

Visiting an Open LEGO® Display in 2020 - Gartenschau - Kaiserslautern, Germany

The Gartenschau in Kaiserslautern was closed in early 2020 as COVID-19 first hit Germany. Thankfully, it re-opened and I finally was able to get there to see the updated LEGO® display. So we donned our masks and went in…

Before moving on, here are the links to the previous visits I’ve had to the Gartenschau:
2018, 2019 (part 1), 2019 (part 2)

Here’s the welcome sign. It says die große LEGO® ausstellung (the large LEGO® display) and it is hosted by Lauter Steine E.V. If you live locally, I believe it closes on 31 October and then re-opens in April.

The start of the display had a few cases with some MOCs. Some of the minifigures had masks added to them.

Next up, a large MOC of a 2x4 red brick. Then there was another case with a few MOCs and some sets.

In that case (shown above) were a few MOCs designed by Daniel Krentz. He was the designer of the #375 LEGO Classic Yellow Castle (shown below). Daniel passed away in 2016. There were a few MOCs from Daniel in the case purchased during a Fairy Bricks fundraiser.

The first picture looks like a Native American totem pole only out of bricks and in various build styles.

Next is a case with some train MOCs and some Formula 1 race car MOCs. The bottom has the VW Bus set with some VW MOC. Further down is a space shuttle.

There was no sign next to this one, but it looks like a recreation of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. It’s a very impressive build!

I apologize for the reflection and lighting. The displays have plexiglass in front of them (smart move) and the lighting is not meant for cameras.

This MOC has been there previously and is a western US scene from the 1800s or so. I like the use of the wallpaper background incorporated with the brick background.

I wasn’t as big of a Castle fan as a kid so I’m not sure if these next pictures are sets or MOCs, but they are in the Castle theme.

I didn’t see a sign next to this one, but perhaps this is a MOC of an actual castle in Germany? The German flag is on top of the main structure so maybe.

This MOC was there last year and it’s a build of the electricity plant of the city of Kaiserslautern in 1894. I like the hot air balloon to mix things up a bit from the industrial look. I’m also a fan of the tall smoke stack they build. I’m curious if it is brick only or if there is a supporting structure inside.

Here’s an impressive build of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. If you look closely, you an see some fun details like Santa Claus.

Here is another Berlin landmark. The Reichstag where the German Parliament meets. I saw this build at a show last year. The new addition this time is the park nearby with the LEGO logo in brick flower form.

Here is a MOC of the Fruchthalle in Kaiserslautern. It’s a music venue for performances. The MOC is built from ~80,000 bricks. It took about a year to build and was built in 2016. I’ll let you read the description in German in the picture below.

I’m not sure if this MOC is new or just hasn’t been displayed in the past few years, but I found it to be the most impressive one there this year. The Frankfurt train station. First picture is the sign on the display letting you know what it is.

Here’s the full display… or at least most of it. I like how they added in the mirrors so you could see the trains. I didn’t get any close ups of the trains, but they had a mix of sets (the Disney train) and a few MOC trains.

A few more pictures of the station. I think the main building is impressive. The curve they were able to recreate in brick is really impressive.

Added into the scene were many of the modular buildings. I didn’t see the Cafe Corner or Green Grocer, but they have the City Hall and a few of the less recent buildings.

Nearby were a few buildings that are re-creations of actual buildings in the Frankfurt area.

I don’t know if this is of an actual train station or not. If you zoom in on the sign, Reiichelsheim (Odenwald) is an actual place. Not sure if they just wanted the sign on the station or not.

The large recreation of the brick fence behind the train station is cool!

I saw these MOCs of Venetian buildings last fall. You can see a few more pictures of them here.

A Ninjago scene.

The city scene has remained a constant over the past few years, but every year they make some changes and throw in some new things. Like last year, they have a fair, a rural area with farms, a European style city center walking area, and a more downtown/urban area. This year included more lights to include LEDs in the modular buildings, a subway type train route (the trains weren’t running while we were there), and a new train station to name a few.

I’m trying out a new (to me) web feature. You should be able to click an arrow or swipe on your phone/tablet to advance through the city scene pictures. Let me know in the comments if it doesn’t work.

I believe this scene was there in previous years. It’s a European style town/city next to hill/mountain. I’m going to guess Bavaria… maybe? The detailing on this one is very impressive and I like the colors too.

An imperial ship from the Pirate’s theme and then some recreations from JK Brickworks.

Some brick built birds which appear to be pretty close to scale. They are designed by Felix Jaensch. You can see his work here on Flickr.

The Dom…

Here’s the Cologne Cathedral again. It’s been there every year that I have visited and I still find it to be an incredible MOC.

Here’s the room dedicated to the space themes (should be able to click through the pictures). There are Ice Planet, M-Tron, Futuron, a large MOC of a ship, and some MOCs in the various space theme styles. This room is awesome! It makes me want to build some MOCs to add to them. I was a huge M-Tron fan and still have my sets.

Here are some architecture themed sets and MOCs. The Statue of Liberty (#21042-1), a MOC of Christ the Redeemer (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), a version of the Taj Mahal, and a few churches.

Various MOCs on display.

Star Wars™ sets have to make an appearance. Here are a few of the UCS sets on display.

A tall brick skyscraper. The top is lit up with LEDs.

Here is the logo for SteinHelden.de. This is a store located on site and they have an online store (only ships within Germany). It loosely translates to “brick heroes” and the business is set up to employ the disabled. A number of the workers are in wheel chairs or have other disabilities. It’s a cool concept!

Here is a microscale representation of the city of Kaiserslautern. Specifically it is the Rathaus (City Hall) and the Pfaltztheater.

A larger scale version of the Burj Khalifa.

A large scene of ancient Egypt.

The western US circa 1800s.

Last display case with some modified sets to include some Ideas sets, the James Bond Car, and some Harry Potter sets. There are also some fighter jet and biplane MOCs on the bottom row.

Another awesome display this year. So glad I was able to visit despite all of the COVID-19 closures. Thanks to the team who puts this amazing exhibit on! Hope you enjoyed my picture tour.

Happy building!

BrickCon 2020 - My Experience

I posted about some of the swag I received and a bit on BrickCon 2020 here. This post will focus on the content. I attended a Brickworld Virtual back in May 2020 and that was a number of online rooms that yoiu could go into and out of at will. There were a few presentations throughout the day as well. BrickCon was a lot more than that. They had multiple sessions scheduled every hour, a Discord server running full time, Zoom rooms to hang out in, and lots of prizes throughout. All of the MOCs on display were on a private Flickr group page for viewing. While I would have preferred the opportunity to go in person, meet people, ask questions of MOC builders, and not be stuck behind my computer, the experience was definitely worth it in a COVID-19 context. Here’s a run through of some of the events I attended.

Tiago Catarino is a former LEGO Designer turned YouTuber from Portugal. You can visit his YouTube channel here. Now he posts small builds that you can do yourself with minimal pieces. He also has a few videos on what it was like to work at LEGO and why he quit (spoiler alert… it was not because he hated LEGO). Tiago had two sessions. The first was a Q&A for registered AFOLs only where he gave a short presentation and then people could ask him questions. The second was a build with Tiago session open to the public. I attended the registered AFOL session. Tiago shared some great info about working at LEGO, being a YouTuber, and some of his other experiences. Here’s a screen shot of him below.

The next one I attended was a public session where Stuart Harris presented to the public. If you don’t know him, he’s the lead designer for the LEGO House®. Stuart gave a presentation about how the LEGO House® was developed and built. Then he gave a description of each of the zones and what you can do there. Below are a few pictures from the presentation that I grabbed. The first is one of Stuart’s creations/Stuart working at the LEGO House®. The second is a brick built model of the Minifig Cafe.

Another one I attended was with registered AFOLs only and was a presentation by Gaute Munch (Lego Product Technology Director) and Flemming Jepsen (from the Powered Up team) on Powered UP. I am not an expert in this area by any means so a lot of the conversation was a bit over my cranium, but it was interesting to here. My experience has been motorizing the Crocodile Locomotive, but there is a lot that LEGO has in the works. Just after BrickCon, LEGO released a new version of the app which allows customization. They are working on a rechargeable battery box, new software, and a bunch more. Gaute and Flemming took some tough questions from the audience and handled them very well. I’m glad I participated in this one. The screen shot below is one of the slides with Gaute presenting.

Another event was a keynote where Andrew Becraft (The Brothers Brick Founder and Editor-in-Chief) interviewed Skip Kodak (Executive Vice President, Americas Market Group - LEGO). This was an interesting conversation covering a range of topics from sustainability to COVID-19 impacts for the company, to the adult focused products and lines. I’m glad I attended this one and thought it was great that LEGO offered up someone from upper management to participate.

Throughout the event, a number of AFOLs got on to share their MOCs. One of them was with Ben Smith who lives in the UK. He builds in the space theme and has some pretty impressive MOCs. You can see what he builds on his Flickr page. The screen shot below shows a classic space set, but he had a modern take on it and some other larger space crafts to show off. The benefits of having a virtual event is to get folks to participate in other countries to include people like Ben (and me!).

LEGO Designer Chris McVeigh gave a presentation and Q&A. If you aren’t familiar with Chris and his work, he designed the Brick Sketches™ and the latest Winter Village set the #10275-1: Elf Clubhouse. Chris shared his AFOL experience, how he was hired by LEGO, and then some details on designing the Winter Village set.

I sadly did not get to see this full presentation, but Graham Hancock gave a presentation on LEGO’s foray into catering to adult fans. If you’re not familiar with Graham, he run Brick Fanatics and is the deputy editor for Blocks Magazine. The part of the presentation I saw had details on the history of sets focused for adults. Some I remember and some I hadn’t heard of. And of course some that I wish I had.

I also attended a presentation and Q&A with Henrik Andersen. Henrik is a LEGO Designer who might be best known for his recent work on #75252-1: Imperial Star Destroyer. He’s been with the company for a while and showed some of the other sets he worked on an parts he developed. He went through the details of how they develop parts and showed what works and what doesn’t work. Most notably (for me anyway) I learned he was the developer of the cheese slope.

One last presentation I attended was with George Patelis. George lives in Greece and goes by PatGeo313 on his YouTube channel and Flickr gallery. He made a short video on some of his latest MOCs on YouTube here. Definitely check his work out as he has some impressive stuff.

That was a quick glimpse into my BrickCon 2020 experience. I had a lot of fun even if it wasn’t in person. I hope I can attend again next year and maybe some day get there in person.

Until then, happy building!

Expanding the Emerald Night (#10194-1) - Creator Expert Train

The last Creator Expert train was #10233-1: Horizon Express and it went off sale in the US in late 2014. Since then we’ve have a number of CITY trains and trains in other themes, but no Creator Expert-like trains. I’m super excited that #10277-1: Crocodile Locomotive is out although out of stock on LEGO Shop @ Home in the US. For those of you that are mad, don’t worry because at the time of the writing of this post it was also out of stock in Germany. I placed my order on day one (1 July) and I’m waiting for it to ship. It has been in “pre-shipment” status for nine days now which has concerned me. Hopefully it will ship shortly and arrive in one piece.

Before the Horizon Express we had the #10219-1: Maersk Train (available 2011 to 2012 in the US) and then starting on 1 April 2009 and ending on 25 November 2011 in the US we had #10194-1: Emerald Night.

Pictured above is the steam engine from the set configured for PF (minus the battery box in the tender). I think it is a phenomenal model and ranks up there in my book as one of the best trains LEGO has released. It was totally outside of what they have ever done before and it was a welcome sight along with the sleek color scheme. The design wasn’t quite perfect, but with the help of some smart AFOLs, I was able to modify the engine for better operation. The $99.99 price tag in the US for 1,085 pieces was reasonable and it included one coach shown below.

The downside to the set is it only includes one coach and that’s it. You could go on Ebay, Bricklink, or on the secondary market elsewhere to get another coach, but that gets pricey. So the benefit of LEGO bricks is the ability to build on your own. After purchasing this set, I did exactly that… or at least tried to.

I ended up building two additional coaches so I would have three total. The coaches I built look similar, but have a few key differences. You’ll notice the windows are not the same for the main part of the coach and the doors. At the time, the exact ones were too expensive for me on Bricklink. Maybe they are cheaper now, but I’m okay with the different set up. If you look closely, there is a small gap by the window on the door as I couldn’t get that design perfect so it doesn’t look as smooth. Also the door is not very sturdy as it is only held together by one stud on the outer edge of the coach car. It still swings open and shut though.

Additionally, there are two rows of darker brown plates on the original car. The color was not as prevalent at the time I built this so I just used the standard brown color. If I go for an update in the near future, I could easily replicate that.

Finally, at the time I built this, the 1x2 brick with a Technic pin hole in the middle in brown was very expensive to purchase (for me). It has reappeared multiple times since then so buying it now shouldn’t be an issue. I have 1x1 tan plates and could easily match the original coach.

The only other problem I have is the light gray plates on the roof has discolored with age. I either need to follow some of the methods online to restore them or replace them. Not a huge deal, but it would help the train to look a lot better.

And it wouldn’t be a complete train without a caboose. I built up a simple caboose design using the same color scheme with some of the same troubles as the coaches in terms of color matching. Additionally, you can tell the windows don’t exactly line up and the slight gap causes them to bow in a bit.

I wonder how it would look using the dark green on the Emerald Night versus the tan and brown of the coaches?

The picture above is how the whole set looks with the additional coaches and caboose. Despite the flaws in design that I have pointed out, I think the train looks much better with multiple coaches and a caboose. In the future, I may look to modify the coaches and caboose. Should I add other cars? A mail car? A sleeping car? A dining car?

Have you tried to build your own coaches or made any modifications to this set? What are they? Let me know in the comments or email me at store@bricksforbricks.com.

Happy building!

20 Years of Bricklink

The famous secondary LEGO marketplace turned 20 years old on 19 June. Bricklink has been posting some special web content to highlight the occasion. If you go here, you can see all of the content for the 20 days. They have gone through history, first members, stories about using the site from users, and a post from an Admin as of the writing of this post. If you want to see more stories or if you want to post your own story, you can go here. There are a lot of great stories about people finally being able to recreate old sets or piecing together lost sets.

My Bricklink story… I joined Bricklink on 31 July 2009 according to my profile. Has it been that long? I found out about the site and had also downloaded Lego Digital Designer (LDD). I started building some MOCs and needed the parts for them. My MOCs are pretty awful and I quickly learned that I was not a good builder… despite that, I’ll post some pictures of my work which was made possible from bricks purchased on Bricklink.

First off was the diesel engine shown below. I really wanted to capture the stripe going across and was very proud of myself that I figured out how to make the stripe angle up. Otherwise, the engine is a bit too long and is very fragile with no real good place to pick it up. Thank goodness for 9v motors and rails though.

Moving on… I built a small train display and it looks pretty scary. I bought #4561-1: Railway Express off of a teenager locally through a site in the place I was living in. He sold all of his LEGO for $115 to buy an iPod. I got a full up 9v train and motor along with some Harry Potter and Star Wars sets. I got the better deal as I’ll bet he doesn’t use his iPod anymore. Anyways if you look at the bottom left, you’ll see my MOC of #4561-1 rebuilt into a “better” train. The engine is pretty awful, but I like the double decker car. Someday I will modify it, but for now it looks good. I later built a second car with a few orders from Bricklink. There are a few other less impressive builds in the picture as well. However, I’m glad to still have #4558-1: Metroliner and #4547-1: Railroad Club Car.

There are a few more MOCs that I sourced through Bricklink, but I am too embarrassed to show them as they are just plain awful. Thankfully three things happened… one is that I discovered modular buildings and that I didn’t need to try and design something awful, when LEGO would produce something incredible. Two was that around that time some amazing trains came out to include #10194-1: Emerald Night (Bricklink helped me build some extra cars and a caboose… sorry no pics of those), #10219-1: Maersk Train, and #10233-1: Horizon Express. Finally, three is I became a Dad and the amount of time I could spend bricking decreased substantially.

I decided to start a store in 2014 as Bricks for Bricks kicked off. I tried some in person sales and that didn’t work out well (see here). In October 2016 I started Bricks for Bricks on Bricklink and did quite well. You can read about some of our giving campaigns here. That ended in May of 2018 when I transitioned with my non-brick job to Germany. I hope to return to selling on Bricklink when I return to living in the USA.

Happy birthday Bricklink! And happy building!

Pre-Designed Alternate Builds - Rebrickable

One of the great things about building with LEGO is the ability to continually modify your builds to design different things. You can take a pile of bricks and create whatever you want, tear it apart, and repeat. All you have to do is scour the internet to find tons of MOCs (my own creations) and you’ll see that there are lots of people out there who do it.

Some people might be like me… I build sets that I buy. I think they look great as they are and I have no intention of breaking them apart. There may be some great pieces in the build that I could use elsewhere, but I keep the integrity of the set anyways. I like to keep the pieces together so even for the sets I had to take apart, I can re-build them anytime I want to without a need for hunting for the original pieces.

So what if that’s your limitation? I want to keep the pieces together, but maybe I want to try building some other things. Perhaps you aren’t into MOC building and you need some ideas to get you going.

Enter the website “Rebrickable.”

(side note, I am not being paid to endorse this web site. I am merely expressing my own personal opinions on the site)

This web site has a lot of features that I will not go into today, but one of them I found interesting was the alternate build section. Let me back up… I found it easiest to create a free login (there are pay options). After creating the login and logging in, I searched around. Under the tab “MOCs” the second option down is “Alternate Builds.” This section allows you to select from existing sets and to see what other alternate builds people have done.

As an example, I selected #7587701: Mercedes AMG GT3 from the Speed Champions line. If you click on it, it says people have posted 82 different alternate builds using the pieces from the set. Here is a clip from the screen. It pictures the first 12, but you can view all of the alternate builds. From there you can look at them and try and duplicate them. Or you can create your own and add an 83rd alternate option.

Not bad… what about the larger sets? How about #10260-1: Downtown Diner? For this one, there are only four alternate builds posted. Three of them are buildings and one is of the car. Interestingly enough, If you click on the first option, a designer has turned it into an internet cafe. It then gives you the option to buy the instructions for the MOC. The cost for me would be 10 Euros… not sure what the cost in the US will be. I assume $10. The builder gives a detailed preview of some pictures of the MOC as well as some examples of the instructions. You can also see pictures posted by others who purchased the instructions and you can post comments or questions for the MOC builder or others to respond to.

While I haven’t actually purchased any of the instructions, tried to replicate a MOC, or built my own MOC for this site yet, I found this site very intriguing and full of potential. Seems like this site could come in handy right now for people at home bored with COVID-19 quarantine. It’s your chance to explore some of the endless possibilities of LEGO and I just scratched the surface of some of the things you can use this site for.

What are your thoughts? Have you used Rebrickable before? Have you purchased instructions? Have you posted a MOC or instructions there? Let us know what you think.

In the meantime, happy building!

LEGO® Exhibition Visit - Kloster Machern, Bernkastel-Kues, Germany - Part 2

Here’s the second part of my visit to the LEGO® Exhibition in Bernkastel-Kues, Germany. If you missed the first part, you can see it here.

Star Wars did not have a big representation at this show, but there was a hangar of ships on display. Next to it was what looked like Lego Digital Designer and the build of the MOC on a computer screen.

Some nostalgia for you… here is a large 12V train set up with some of the old LEGO sets. It might not be some of the massively detailed train displays you see LUGs set up, but it was still cool to see the 12V trains chugging around the track.

I don’t know if this is a MOC of an actual train station or not, but I thought it was very impressive. I like how the designer incorporated the CITY base plates in the front. There’s a lot of action going on with a tow truck getting a car, construction on the tracks, and a painter at work near the pizza truck.

Next to the train station were a few trains. I would have preferred to see them going around a big display, but I’ll take whatever I can get.

The picture next to it is of a large church with some great lighting behind translucent colored bricks. This would have been cool to see with the lights off.

Next up is a large country western scene with a mid-1800s US-like Army and some Natives about to harass them. The scene was very detailed with the desert scene on the outside of a pretty detailed fort. I took the picture as the builder was showing off the inside of one of the buildings. If I spoke German, I would have more to say about this, but I don’t so just enjoy the pictures.

Not to be outdone, nearby was another country western scene. This one included a train, settlers with horses and wagons, the Confederate Army fighting the Union Army, cattle herders, a steam ship, and some Natives harassing some settlers and their wagon train. This scene was another one where it was hard to know where to look first. I can’t image how long it took to set up each and every single minifigure here. Very impressive!

This display was one of my favorite at the show. I apologize for loading all of my pictures that I took of this one, but as a fan of modular buildings I thought this Venice scene was awesome. The use of different colors helps the buildings to really stand out and the pieces used really create some cool details. I think about some of the pieces that I have and how I often don’t know what to do with them and then I look at buildings like these and realize how I could use them to make some very striking details on buildings.

See if you can pick out some of the pieces used to create details. I really like the scorpions and the Star Wars Battle Droid legs for detail. I also like how the one building uses the ball joints. Awesome work!

Here are 2 more buildings. One appears to be maybe an Asian restaurant while the other appears to be a LEGO® Brand Store.

While a lot of the builders were adults and many were from a LUG, there were also a few teens there displaying some items. I didn’t get pictures of them all, but this group stood out to me. They had a number of mechanical devices to include the amusement park below. They also had a rubik’s cube solver, a machine that held a pen to make some cool drawings, and a few other machines. Here’s a picture of their amusement park.

These may have been the best part of the show. The creativity here is astonishing. They took existing sets and built them using what I can only assume was with parts they had on hand or could get to easily. They had #21303-1: WALL-E build out of various pieces and then the two sets pictured below. The first was #71043-1: Hogwart’s Castle. I first looked at it and was like, that’s a cool looking castle. Then I was like, wait! That’s a real set only with different pieces. How cool is that? That’s some impressive work, but it was probably substantially cheaper than buying the actual set. Next up was #21315-1: Pop-Up Book. They took the design, used the pieces on hand, and added in I <3 U as the item that popped up.

My inability to speak German hit me here as I couldn’t ask questions, but bravo to the person or people who built these. They did an awesome job and did something I have never seen done before. They definitely get my best in show award.

Congrats if you made it this far and thanks for checking it out. I hope to get to more shows in Germany before I depart.

In the meantime, happy building!