Bricklink AFOL Designer Program

If you look at any of the LEGO related fan sites recently you have probably seen plugs for the Bricklink AFOL Designer Program. Back in 2018 I remember this program being announced and the initial response from the community was “huh?” Why should we submit designs for people to vote on and then if they get enough votes, the design gets made? That sounds a lot like the LEGO Ideas program. I will be honest and say I saw it come out and then ignored it. Thankfully, not everyone did… so let me give a quick explanation of how it works in case you haven’t been following this effort.

Over 400 designs were submitted to Bricklink by September 2018. Between November and January, LEGO and Bricklink got together to review designs. The review team ended up selecting 16 designs. Those designs were posted on Bricklink (here) in January. From January until 15 April 2019, anyone can go and vote with their wallet on one (or a few of the designs). If the design you vote on reaches the required number of votes by 15 April, the design goes into production (and you get charged on 15 April). From that point, Bricklink (not LEGO) will work on getting parts and putting the packaging together. Then they will ship (for free if you use the pre-order time) sometime in the May time frame.

I recommend checking out the Bricklink page to get more information on how this project works if it still sounds confusing. Also, the Beyond the Brick team did some press for the program as well. There are some good videos they made to include an interview with Jamie Berard (LEGO Designer), an interview with Tormod Askildsen (LEGO’s AFOL Engagement Team Lead), and then one with Russell Callender (BrickLink Catalog manager). Of the three, I found the interview with Jamie Berard the most interesting. One because it went through how he was selected to join the company and two because he talks about why the Bricklink AFOL program is cool. What it boils down to is that LEGO designers really have to put a lot of thought into how things are constructed and what techniques are used as their designs reach huge audiences across the world. With this program, the goal is not to go in and do major design changes to a proposed set. Since the program is targeted to AFOLs, they figure that AFOLs can handle some different techniques that are not allowed in official sets. To me, that is a big selling point.

Enough about the program, let’s talk about the designs. There is still over a month to go so you have time to put your pre-orders in. As of the writing of this post, 10 of the 16 designs have met or exceeded their crowdfunding goals. I voted for two and I’ll mention two that I deem as honorable mentions.

The first one is called Skyline Express by user Jazlecraz. At 1,373 parts and $139.99, it works out to $0.102 per piece. It’s a bit high, but not too bad. The coloring is very simple, but in my mind this set opens up a ton of possibilities for adding more track, stations, scenery, or even modifying the monorail train itself. The builder has posted that he’s working on instructions for adding an M-motor to the set so make it motorized so that would be a great addition. I don’t know about anyone else, but as I kid I always saw the LEGO catalogs with the monorails in them and was never able to get one so this I saw this as my chance. If you need a reminder, there was the Classic Space version (#6990-1 Monorail Transport System), the theme now known as CITY had #6399-1 Airport Shuttle, and finally another space version (#6991-1 Monorail Transport Base). This set is slightly different as it uses the rail from the Roller Coasters (#10261-1 Roller Coaster or #31084-1 Pirate Roller Coaster). The rails match the color of #31084-1 so you can get that set and use the rail to expand the Skyline Express rail. There’s also a small juice bar in the station with JüS spelled out in tiles (I even figured out how to get the umlaut over the U in there).

Picture from BrickLink.com

The second set I backed is called “Bikes!” and it was built by user mdt.maikel. This one is 529 pieces and goes for $49.99 which works out to $0.094 per piece. It’s slightly under the so called 10 cents per piece average, so not too bad. I like this set because it is something different. I’m a big CITY and Train fan and my goal is to one day have a house with a basement that I can take over with a large CITY display. This one is not in line with the usual stream of CITY sets that come out of the LEGO Group. There are a lot of official sets with cars, fire trucks, and police vehicles, but not one dedicated to bicycling like this set. It will definitely add a welcome change to any LEGO CITY scene.

Picture from Bricklink.com

Two honorable mentions that I liked, but didn’t end up backing.

The first is called The LEGO® Story. It’s by user BrickJonas and contains 1,442 pieces for $99.99 ($0.07/piece).. This one highlights the 60th anniversary of the brick and contains four different vignettes dealing with LEGO”s history from making wooden toys, to the first plastic bricks, to designing the models, and finally modern production. I thought this one was pretty cool, but alas I don’t have an endless budget to buy LEGO sets.

The second is called Eight Studs and it is by user kleinraum. It’s 1,393 pieces for $9.99 ($0.072/piece). This one is a modular living area in the shape of a 2x4 brick or two 2x2 bricks. If you check out the set’s page you’ll see that it can be customized to look a few different ways. Definitely check it out. It’s a cool design.

Photo from Bricklink.com

Photo from Bricklink.com

To be fair, I’m not saying that the other 12 sets I didn’t mention are bad models. I’m just showing you the ones that interested me the most. There are some great designs from some talented builders. If you aren’t interested in purchasing, be sure to check out what is out there anyways. Maybe next time when Bricklink puts out a call for designs you can submit yours.

Happy building!

Set Review - #75956-1 Quidditch Match - Harry Potter - The Wizarding World

I’ve had this set on my shelf for a while and finally got a chance to build it so here’s the review. #75956-1: Quidditch Match was released on 24 August 2018 in the US. It retails at $39.99 and with 500 pieces and 6 minifigures that works out to be $0.08 per piece. I have yet to see it on sale at Amazon.com or Walmart. I got this one at full retail price from LEGO Shop @ Home during the time leading up to Christmas for double VIP points.

Here’s the box. The front shows the full set with the minifigures flying around on their brooms. The back shows some of the play features of the set as per usual.

The set contains 3 parts bags, 2 instruction booklets, and a sticker sheet. The instructions were folded, but the sticker sheet was in-between the instructions so at least it was somewhat protected.

If you’re interested in the Harry Potter line of sets hopefully you’ve either read the books or have seen the movies. I admit that I have only seen the movies. My NLS has read the books though so that’s got to be worth a few points.

Bag one builds two of the four viewing towers. The red and yellow colored one is the Gryffindor tower. It includes a Hermione Granger minifigure with a wand and the bottom part of the tower has a door piece with a sticker that swings out. I assume it is so the quidditch players can fly through there, but I could be wrong.

The green and gray tower is the Slytherin tower and it includes Professor Snape with a wand. This tower is built similar to the other one only it has a Technic pin attached to a translucent orange flame piece to match the scene from the Sorcerer’s Stone where Hermione casts a spell to start a fire to distract Professor Snape.

The second bag completes the remaining two towers. The blue and gray tower is the Ravenclaw tower. I couldn’t tell you any of the characters from the book/movie who were in that house and they don’t appear in this set either. The tower has a speaker/megaphone attached to it.

The other tower is the Hufflepuff tower. It is black and yellow and also contains the scoring display. There is a brick container that holds 1x1 round tiles that you can attach to the Technic pins in the tower to display the score of your game. It also comes with four 2x2 tiles to display the houses playing. Each tile has a sticker to use and there is a tile holder in the back of the tower.

This bag includes the Harry Potter minifigure with his super long cape (why didn’t they use a smaller sized one for him?), broom, and a snitch. It also includes Lucian Bole with his broom and bludger (if you don’t know what that is, Google it).

The third and final bag completes the set (which I took in front of my 71043-1 Hogawts Castle set). It includes the three goals, a clear piece attached to some Technic parts to move the keeper who can protect the goals, and connections for 2 of the towers to the goal area of the pitch. It also includes a chest to hold the parts and a trophy for the winners.

Bag three includes Oliver Wood and his broom (Gryffindor) and Marcus Flint (Slytherin) who is holding a broom with a… I have no idea what that is attached to his broom. I think it’s supposed to be your way to try and shoot the quaffle (yes I had to look that up) through the goal. There’s also another shooter on the ground that has a bunch of 1x1 round black plates. I’m not sure what it is for. Anybody smarter than me on this one?

Overall, it’s a pretty simple build. There isn’t much to this one and I’m kind of disappointed by it. I would feel slightly better about it if I had waited for it to go on sale. I’d definitely recommend waiting for a sale if you are interested in this set. For big Harry Potter fans, buying 2 of these would allow you to have a good start to making a full up quidditch pitch. It would take some additional parts, but you could make the viewing towers a bit bigger and you’d have 2 goals. You’d probably have to supplement with some other minifigures as well.

In terms of building techniques, this one is pretty simple. It definitely fits the 7 to 14 year age range that they list versus an old fart like me. It’s not really a piece pack either. The parts really aren’t that spectacular so don’t buy this set looking for rare parts.

What are your thoughts on this one?

Happy building!

The Making of a Large LEGO® Model

Normally the LEGO fan sites are all over everything that gets posted well before I get to them, but every once in a while I see something that others don’t catch for some reason or don’t deem worth posting. The Detroit Auto Show was 14-27 January 2019 and LEGO worked with Chevrolet to built a LEGO version of the Chevy Silverado. They unveiled it on 19 January and a few days back they released this video describing the build process. This video goes through the LEGO build process to include the software used and how it was built. It also talks about how the metal structure was made as well as how they coat the build with protective materials. It’s definitely worth the watch if you have a few minutes.

Set Review - #71043-1 - Hogwarts Castle - Harry Potter

In 2017 and 2018, I tackled the two largest sets that the LEGO Group had to offer. First off was #10256-1 Taj Mahal, which at the time was the second largest set out there with 5,923 pieces. Then it was #75192-1 Millennium Falcon with 7,541 pieces. Well the previous #2 is now #3 and I got sucked into buying and building the new #2. Hogwarts Castle (#71043-1 ) has 6,020 pieces. It was released on 2 September 2018 or as can be seen below, it was put on shelves in LEGO stores on 1 September. The retail price in the US is $399.99 which works out to be $0.066 per piece.

I used some VIP points, bought during double VIP points, made sure there was a good free offer to go with a purchase over a certain dollar amount, and used EBates (to get $20 back at the time). Still not a cheap set, but not a bad way to get a substantial discount on it.

Below is the box the set came in (it had an outer box to protect the inner box). The tag says it was made in Mexico in August 2018. I bought it in November so it sat for three months after production.

Here’s what the set box looks like. The front shows the front of the set while the back shows the back of the set and some of the details inside the castle that are included.

The contents included 37 numbered parts bags, 3 parts bag with larger pieces and BURPs, and a package that included the instructions and stickers. Some of the parts were in the separate white box shown while some were just in the main box. I’m not sure why they had that distinction.

The first instruction book had a write up about the design team, some info about designing the set, and info about the set designer and graphic designer. Definitely something interesting and out of the ordinary, but cool for a set to have.

There are 3 sheets of stickers. I’ve seen debate on some of the sites about whether to use the stickers or not. There are a lot and I don’t like stickers, but I decided to use them anyways.

The parts box, inside the set box, inside the LEGO big set box, that was inside the shipping box…

Instructions

Set contents

Stickers

The full build is built on two bases if you want to call them that. The first book completes the first base. The bottom portion contains a lot of the BURP pieces as well as a lot of slopes and cheese slopes to make the BURPs look like the bottom base of the castle. The whole assembly is pretty sturdy and it took some time to build as you really had to pay attention to where the cheese slopes went on which part of the BURP. Normally I can just complete each step and move onto the next one, but for this build I had to pull the pieces for that step and then build. That way I knew whether I had done everything for that step or not.

Here are two views of the build from the first instruction book below.

The bags for the first book also included the boats (pictured later). I did some Googling and it looks like the boats are used by first year students to cross the lake from the train station to get to the castle and then return to the train station. They are also used by graduating students. They first appeared in the book/movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

The first book also includes a minifigure for Godric Gryffindor (pictured later). He has the sword of Gryffindor and a wand. The set includes a stand that you build and put stickers on picturing the crest of each house at Hogwarts. That stand is easy to build and I like how they used the stickers to show who each of the minifigures are.

Finally, below the base built with the first instruction book is the Chamber of Secrets. It includes the entrance to the chamber and then the chamber itself with the basilisk inside.

The Chamber of Secrets

The door to the Chamber of Secrets

The second instruction book finishes the first half of the build. It includes the Great Hall, the main tower, and the courtyard. The top also includes a bunch of dementors. It also includes the minifigure for Helga Hufflepuff.

The main tower (is there another name for it?) is built very similar to the building technique of #21309-1 NASA Apollo Saturn V. I’m not sure where, but I thought I saw a LEGO video somewhere where the designers of both sets shared building techniques with each other. Anyone know what I’m talking about?

Inside the Great Hall

Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom (top)
Moving stairs (bottom)
Professor Dumbledore’s office (not pictured above the bathroom)

Tower

Hungarian Horntail Dragon

The third book is the second part of the bottom base. It is very similar to the first base with a lot of BURPs and slopes to add detail. It includes the minifigure for Salazar Slytherin.

Wizard’s Chess Board

The room on the left is the Room of Requirements and the room on the right is a Potions Classroom.

The Flying Keys room with the broom to ride to catch the right key.

The Mirror of Erised

The set includes a number of small builds within the larger set. I will go through them quickly here.

Boats for crossing the Black Lake

The Whomping Willow with the Weasley car. You can see my review of the Whomping Willow set here.

Hagrid’s Hut to include the garden with pumpkins and Aragog (the spider). You can see my review of the Aragog’s Lair set here.

The set includes 28 minifigures. This includes 4 of the standard sized minifigures. The 4 minifigures are the namesakes for each of the houses of Hogwarts. From left to right they are Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin, and Rowena Ravenclaw.

The remaining minifigures are microfigures. There are 24 for some reason my set had 36. The 4x12 plate was not part of the set, but I grabbed it from my spare bricks to put them on.

The fourth instruction book finished the build. As you can see from the pictures, there are a few additional rooms that get finished. The first is the school’s library. The picture I took gives a good view of how the designers gave the windows the stained glass look. Using 1x2 grills and translucent colored plates it gives the windows a pretty cool look. The next picture includes Professor Umbrige’s office from “The Order of the Phoenix” book/movie. It also shows the Defense of the Dark Arts classroom on the right side.

School library (top) with the Room of Requirements (bottom left) and Potions classroom (bottom right)

Professor Umbridge’s Office (top left)
Defense of the Dark Arts Classroom (top right)
Chamber of Secrets Warning (bottom)

So here’s the final set (without Hagrid’s Hut and the Whomping Willow). Was it worth what I paid? Overall, I think yes. I enjoyed the build. It was challenging and fun. There are a lot of great pieces and techniques used in it. I was nervous at first that it would be all small pieces since it is at a smaller scale, but it thankfully is not all small pieces. The stickers were annoying, but not too bad and they do provide some nice details to the set. I think part of the argument is that each book/movie adds different parts to the castle and they weren’t all there at once (like Professor Umbridge was only in one book/movie). In my mind it’s all good. I’m not trying to build the Castle for a specific movie. I wanted to capture it all like the designers built it. So not a big deal. If you want to build the set by book/movie, then go out and buy 7 sets and use only the stickers that apply to each book/movie.

Will this set ever go on sale? Hard to say. Usually LEGO doesn’t discount the really big sets. Sometimes Amazon.com or Walmart will, but you have to be right on the site when they announce the sale to get it because everyone else sitting there and waiting will scoop it up. Using VIP points helped and getting double VIP points was good too.

In the end it was definitely worth the investment. Now I just have to figure out where to put it. Along with where to put the Millennium Falcon and Taj Mahal.

Happy building!

Everything Really is Awesome!

And to continue with the reference, it really is cool to be a part of the team. In this case, I’m referring to the AFOL community. Since my business is shut down for a few years, I haven’t been able to post about helping others. Luckily, today I have a post from Brickset.com that covers it.

Some background… in late November 2018, some vandals broke into an Orange County, California elementary school. They specifically targeted the library where the librarian had a large number of LEGO sets displayed on the tops of the shelves. You can read about the incident here.

Well thanks to Brickset, we have the aftermath of that story. A group of AFOLs took time over their Christmas holiday periods to go to the school and put the collection back together. Not only did they give of their time and talent, but some even gave bricks from their own collections to replace broken parts. You can read the article on Brickset here about the Justice LUG.

It makes me proud to be a member of the AFOL community after reading stories like this. Great job gang!

Bohrok Product Review - LEGO® Bionicle®

James from the site Brick Pals contacted me asking if he could do a post for the Bricks for Bricks blog. I said sure and today I have his post. I’m not a Bionicle fan and I typically don’t go back to past sets to do reviews so you’re getting both from James. If you like his work, definitely head over to Brick Pals. They have some good minifigure reviews… especially of the collectible minifigure series sets. Enjoy his article!

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In 2002, BIONICLE was entering its second year. It had hit the ground running and became more popular than LEGO could have hoped for. It's own comic book series, an online game, a promotional campaign by McDonald's; it had it all. But with its heroes, the six Toa, having fought the Makuta and won, they needed a new enemy.

Enter the Bohrok: mysterious, insectoid beings that appear out of nowhere. Controlled by parasitic brains called krana, the Bohrok seem to have only one goal: to "clean it all." In other words, they were going to destroy every last piece of nature on Mata Nui, and anyone who got in their way. Split between six swarms, each one wielding one of six elements, they were one of the deadliest threats the Toa would ever face.

Description

There is a saying in the BIONICLE universe about the Bohrok: if you wake one, you wake them all. In this case, if you own one, you own them all. Like the Toa Mata, the Bohrok are copies of each other, the only difference being their shields and colors. So, we will be talking about them as a group rather than individual sets.

Released in the first wave of the 2002 BIONICLE sets, the Bohrok are generally made up of about forty pieces. They're not that tall, only coming up to shoulder height of the Toa Mata. What they lack in size, though, they make up in originality.

The Bohrok were among the most creative sets to come out of the BIONICLE line. I think that their introduction was one of the highlights of BIONICLE. There's something about their alien appearance that can draw people in. The short stubby arms and legs, the shields on their "hands," the eyes and fangs on their mouths, and the domed head. It was like nothing ever seen in LEGO before!

The Bohrok had several unique features that made them so appealing. The first is their actual shape. The Bohrok come in ball forms. Thanks to their design, they can transform out of ball mode into attack mode. This design is incredibly convenient, allowing them to get put in storage without taking up too much space while looking cool.

The next feature is the snapping head. The Bohrok use a combination of gears, a lever, and a rubber band to create this. By pushing down the bar, it will cause the Bohrok's head to lunge forward to attack. Put it in the right place, and it will knock the mask off a Toa!

The third and final feature is inside the Bohrok's heads themselves. Unlike most beings in BIONICLE, the Bohrok do not wear masks. Instead, they wear these tiny, rubber things called krana. Unlike masks, the krana are organic, and thus are alive. There are eight krana for each of the Bohrok swarms, and they got packaged at random, so you never knew what you would get.

The cool thing is that, by pressing down on the Bohrok's eyes, their heads would flip open and launch the krana like a catapult. Even cooler, the krana could attach themselves to the face of the Toa. In the universe, this would assimilate the victims into the swarm.

Benefits

The Bohrok's combination of its features is fantastic! The ability to turn from ball to attack form, the snapping head, the krana, everything is incredible. They even have one final feature: the canisters they come in.

Each Bohrok canister comes with a hook that goes on the lid. This lets owners put the Bohrok ball mode and suspend them from inside their canisters as if they are asleep. This simple yet effective form of immersion made the toys all the more real.

Conclusion

Of the sets to come out of Gen 1 BIONICLE, the Bohrok are among the most memorable thanks to their design, features, and appearance. They made be carbon copies of each other, but their role in the story of BIONICLE was one of the highlights of the original sets. I recommend getting at least one of these things online if you haven't already!

Set Review - #21047-1 - Las Vegas - Architecture Skylines

LEGO released the Las Vegas Skyline as part of its Architecture series back on 2 September 2018. While I’m not a collector of every Architecture set, this one hit home with me because I lived in Las Vegas for 4 years. It retails in the US for $39.99 and with 501 pieces, that makes it $0.08 per piece. I picked it up at Amazon.com for 20% off or $31.99 so no complaints from me on price. I just had to wait for the set to be discounted.

Most of the sets in the Architecture Skyline series like #21039-1 Shanghai feature famous landmarks in the city, monuments, tall skyscrapers, or other key buildings. Las Vegas is the only one that features only resort casinos. I’m not sure what else they would put… the Hoover Dam? Or… that’s really it. So they selected a few of the casinos and given that there are so many in Vegas, they had to choose. They picked mainly from the Strip (except for one) and originally they were in order of appearance as your drive through the Strip or along I-15 that runs parallel to it. Unfortunately for LEGO, one of the casinos they choose was the Mandalay Bay Resort where in October 2017 a really awful thing happened there and a lot of innocent people lost their lives. When LEGO announced the set, there were a lot of comments about it being inappropriate to highlight this Resort after what had happened less than a year ago at the time. So they smartly delayed the set to redesign. Now the skyline is not in order, but it works.

Onto the review…

Here is the box. The front shows the completed set, the back shows the completed set with pictures of the actual buildings nearby.

The box has 5 unmarked bags and an instruction booklet. The instruction booklet has some facts about the city and the buildings in the beginning and then throughout the build. It also has a number of quotes to include the one I posted from the box.

If you’re bored, Google “Cinnamon Stomberger.” It’s not who you think it is…

Onto the build… The base is built first. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Space for the buildings with a printed tile on the front.

To start the build, you make the Fremont Street Experience and the Stratosphere hotel. Fremont Street is in Downtown Las Vegas and not a part of the Strip. For those of you not familiar, the Strip is actually part of Unincorporated Clark County. So the city of Las Vegas gets mad that it doesn’t receive tax revenue from the Strip. When I was there they were promoting Downtown Las Vegas quite a bit because they got revenues there. At the time, downtown was pretty sketchy, but I hear it has improved. The Fremont Street Experience is much larger than what is in the set so it was scaled down substantially. I get what they tried to do, but it doesn’t to much for me. They should have added another of the better known casinos instead of an inadequate Fremont Street Experience model.

Next up is the Stratosphere which is on the northern end of the Strip. I lived in Vegas before smart phones were big so instead of GPS, we navigated around the city based on where the mountains were and the Stratosphere. I think they did a good job capturing it in a miniaturized LEGO form.

Next up on the east side of the Strip and still on the northern end is Encore which is part of Wynn Resorts. Encore is the second hotel which was built after the Wynn and it looks very similar. My guess is they choose Encore over Wynn to get the Wynn name out of the set given recent misconduct reporting on the company’s namesake CEO. Encore is a curved hotel which makes it a challenge to build at such a small scale. I think LEGO captured the color scheme good, but at such a small scale, adding in the curve makes the building look a lot less sleek than it actually is in real life.

The Luxor is on the southern end and west side of the Strip. The LEGO build has half of the hotel casino and then the sphinx out front. The head piece is pretty cool and they captured the obelisk out front too. The only thing I would have improved on would be the famous Luxor light on the top. They added in the red light on top of the Stratosphere and I think it would have been cool to show the Luxor light too.

The final building is the Bellagio. The Bellagio replaced Mandalay Bay in the set. Mandalay Bay is next to and further south of the Luxor on the south end of the Strip. The Bellagio is actually further north on the west side of Las Vegas Blvd. No big deal…. I think they did a good job capturing this casino and its famous fountains out front. If you have never been to Vegas, definitely YouTube the fountain show. It’s cool to see and even better in person. There is another tower to the left that they didn’t include called the Spa tower. I've spent the night there and got to watch the fountains from above. Pretty cool! The wings of the hotel are held up by some clips so the back of the hotel is ugly looking in this design, but as long as you stick to the front, you’re fine.

Last up is the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas: sign. I think this is the only time I’ve seen a Skyline set have a printed tile versus a build. I get why they did it, but I think it looks tacky. It also doesn’t look quite to scale given the pieces behind it.

Here’s the final set… I think the designers did a decent job capturing the city given the constraints, but I don’t agree with all of their choices. Fremont Street looks dull and the Encore loses out of its sleekness. Could they have added in Caesar’s Palace and its statues? Paris Las Vegas and the Eiffel Tower? Treasure Island and the pirate ship? The Mirage and the Volcano? MGM Grand and it’s awesome bright green color? NY NY? I realize you are limited to space so maybe the goal was to pick buildings where you didn’t have to put a lot of outside detail into the model to get across the resort you’re building.

My overall take is that I don’t think I would have picked this one up if it wasn’t on sale. Also, having lived there, I have a connection to the place too. As a touristy place, I’m sure selling a brick built version of the Strip goes over well to include at the LEGO Store that wasn’t there when I lived there. The build was alright and there are some decent pieces, but overall this one didn’t excite me.

What are your thoughts?

Turning Your LEGO® Bricks Hobby into a Business

If you’re a nerdy AFOL like me, you probably think it would be great to get paid to build with LEGO bricks all day. Maybe you’re a great builder and could go work in Billund designing sets or at one of the theme parks. Or maybe you’re like me and your building skills are just average. As far as I know, the LEGO Group isn’t looking for mediocre to average builders. Maybe I could be a janitor at the LEGO House?

Besides working for the LEGO® Group, a number of fans have turned what they do as a fan into a full time business that pays their bills. I’ll bring up a few of them here and if you know of more, please let me know in the comments or email me at store@bricksforbricks.com.

Beyond the Brick: I posted about this YouTube channel here. My post has a link to an interview of them where they spend some time talking about how they turned traveling around the world to visit LEGO conventions, theme parks, and other events into a full time business that pays the bills. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

Brickset: If you haven’t been to brickset.com and you’re an AFOL, where have you been? Huw Millington decided in the late 1990s that there needed to be a database of all of the LEGO sets out there to include special edition sets and those sold in limited markets. It has since expanded to minifigures and individual pieces as well. Along the way he found that he could add advertising to his site and he used affiliate marketing (you buy LEGO from amazon.com and he gets a cut of the sale if you link through his site) as well. Once it started paying the mortgage, he quit his job and ran the site full time. There are a number of interviews with Huw online. I watched one from Beyond the Brick here. This one is a few years old and there are some newer ones so check around.

Brick 101: Another YouTube channel… this one is run by fan Dave Pickett. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of this channel until I stumbled upon a video he posted. Dave gave a talk at Bricks by the Bay 2018 about how he turned his love of LEGO and animation into a full time gig. You can watch the video here. He has videos where he explains how to build various creations, he reviews sets, and he does some animation work. He also does some work for non-LEGO toy companies… GASP!!!! (from the purists out there) The video is about 45 minutes long, but it’s interesting to see how he made it work.

The big recurring theme I saw from all 3 of these businesses I mentioned is that their success did not happen over night. It took all of them a few years to turn their hobby into a business. I’m not saying that there aren’t overnight successes out there, but something to keep in mind if you plan to be a full time brick fan starting tomorrow.

I only selected 3 to talk about here and I realize I’m missing a lot of people. I know there are folks that run BrickLink, EBay, BrickOwl, and other stores full time selling sets, pieces, minifigures, and other LEGO related items. I’m sure there are others out there too that Brick full time and don’t run stores. I will look to do an update to this post in the future with some others I find out there who went from hobby to business. In the meantime, happy building!

Amazing Fan Creations of Hogwarts Castle

Normally, I’d have a set review to post, but I’m in the middle of a large build so I guess you could say I’m killing time until I can finish and write a proper post. Most of my “LEGO fun time” has been consumed by building set number 71043-1, Hogwarts Castle. At 6,020 pieces, it’s the second largest set out there by piece count. I’ve been trying to enjoy the build instead of rushing through it so it’s taking a bit longer than usual.

Unlike some of the LEGO themed blogs out there, I don’t run this full time so my goal right now has been to post something new once a week. So while you’re waiting to hear what I think about the latest Hogwarts Castle set (spoiler alert, so far, it’s awesome!), I figured I’d talk about some of the ones out there that fans have created.

I realize I’m going to report on some old news here, but back in 2013, a LEGO builder named Alice Finch built a 400,000 piece Hogwarts Castle to display at a Comic Con. If you haven’t seen it yet, it is phenomenal! Definitely check out her Flickr page, a YouTube video of her set up, or if you can find it, watch the Lego Brickumentary from 2015 as she is spotlighted there too. Beyond the Brick (you can check out my post about them here) has done 3 videos out her. They are:
-A tour of her building area in her home (I’m jealous)
-A microscale version of her larger Hogwarts Castle
-An hour plus long interview with Alice about the 400,000 piece version she built

Onto the smaller scale… on the LEGO Ideas page is a submission titled “Hogwarts Castle Miniature Model.” It was submitted by user “LegoDog0126” and as of 15 January 2019, there are 12 days left with 8,435 votes total. Go to the LEGO Ideas site and do a search for it. It doesn’t say the piece count (that I could find), but you can download instructions and a fan even went out and built it (pics are on the Ideas site as well).

And one more…

I wasn’t able to find more on this one, but there was a BrisBricks LEGO®  Fan event (Australia) back in September 2018 and a builder there displayed a giant Hogwarts castle connected by rail to Kings Cross Station. Here is the link to the article advertising the event and here is the picture. You can go to the BrisBricks site photo book here and see more pictures of the build as well as all of the other awesome MOCs. Definitely check it out… it’s pretty cool with the whole castle and the train leading to it.

Enough stalling… back to building so I can get a set review out!

LEGO® Appearance - CBS Sunday Morning

Normally all of the major fan sites are great at posting LEGO related items that appear in the media. If you’re a regular reader of The Brothers Brick site, you’ll note that on Mondays they do a role up for the week to include LEGO items that appeared on various blogs, websites, and news media outlets.

Well I found one video that I haven’t seen anyone post yet. CBS Sunday Morning pushed a roughly 5 minute long clip about LEGO on 16 December 2018 that you can see here:

The video’s main focus is on the quest to find alternative, sustainable materials to make bricks out of. There are some clips of testing materials and some interviews with the company personnel involved in finding new materials. There is also a short discussion on the material used to make some of the plant parts. Definitely check it out.

Happy building!