Something about this picture by Padozky struck me. I think its the shear awesomeness of the lighting and the “snow.”
I can almost hear the howling below-freezing Hoth wind and the bone rattling roar of the Wampa as he comes to claim his newest meal. 😀
A few days ago I was asked two questions in an email —
1. Do I make bi-racial couples
2. Can I do theme cake toppers.
Naturally my response was yes to both. 🙂
I love the requests I get from people because sometimes I end up making things I wouldn’t make otherwise. So, I created this:
Now I have to admit, I did not make the Stormtrooper helmet. My brother actually designed that and then challenged me to make a full Miniland scale Stormtrooper. He also designed a very cool Darth Vader helmet, but that I’ll leave for another post. 😉
I also drilled into the 1×1 green plates to make the flowers. But as I mentioned in a previous post, sometimes its necessary. The main reason this time was not so the Princess Leia would have a funky bouquet of flowers, but because the bride specifically asked for lime green and purple. And, as LEGO only makes official flowers in a handful of colors, drilling 1×1 round plates was a good solution. Especially as I have a huge bag of them that I got from Pick A Brick.
With the new Star Wars Miniland area at LEGOLAND now open, I’m thinking about creating a whole bunch of the iconic characters. Oh, and here’s a fun fact — when we had Miniland Florida at LEGOLAND California we actually had Han Solo and Princess Leia hidden in the cluster by the Rocket Garden. We also had Agent J and K of the Men in Black with very shiny weapons looking for alien threats. 😀
Normally there’s a little bit more than a two week warning on these things, especially for those of us helping to run the event, but this Memorial Day weekend there is a Building Event going on at the Downtown Disney LEGO Store in Anaheim, CA.
LEGO Store Master Builder Event!
May 27 – 29Help a real LEGO Master Builder construct an 8-foot tall LEGO R2-D2!
Friday, May 27: 11am – 7pm
Saturday, May 28: 10am – 6pm
Sunday, May 29: 10am – 6pmYou’ll get a free LEGO Star Wars Certificate of Achievement for helping, while supplies last! Plus, visit the LEGO Store during the event to enter for a chance to win a $50 LEGO Store Gift Card! No purchase necessary to enter.
If you live in the area, you should definitely come and check it out. I’m planning on going, at least for one of the days. I’ve never done one at Downtown Disney, but LEGO Building Events are always fun. 🙂
Master Model Builder Erik Varszegi talks about how a life-size model is built.
Erik has created many other life-sized sculptures during his tenure at LEGO such as Woody and Buzz from Toy Story, Capitan Rex of Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Batman.
I’m a little bit late on mentioning BrickMagic which happened Mother’s Day weekend. I couldn’t attend unfortunately, but one of the special guests was LEGO Certified Professional Sean Kenney. Sean created a lifesized lime green bicycle while attendees were encouraged to create the most congested traffic jam around the bike.
There are lots of pictures of BrickMagic on Brickapolis’ photostream set and of course on Joe Meno’s photostream (founder of BrickJournal and BrickMagic)
I have to say, one of my favorites is of Joe dressed as a LEGO Stormtrooper 😀
Alex Eylar has created a fun flow chart for any and all who are planning their next LEGO model. Alex protests in the description that its “Done in jest. IN JEST!” 😀
Even so, it is all in fun. Enjoy 😉
Thursday March 31st, 2011 marked the grand opening of Star Wars Miniland. After much anticipation and just a few teaser pictures from LEGOLAND, it was nice to finally see the finished product. I tried to get in on the actual official opening, but it was so packed that I didn’t get a chance to even get into the park until it was all over.
It is really cool, especially to see the Millennium Falcon at over 4 feet long.
There are 6 clusters, focusing on main scenes from the 6 different movies. My only complaint was that some of the classic scenes were so far away from the viewing public (2-3 feet or more) that its really hard to see the details.
While at the same time the scene I thought was a little boring was right up close
Now being as I worked at LEGOLAND and I took care of Miniland for 4 years I do understand why models have to be far away. If models are too close grasping little (and big) hands can make off with models. Its happened before, in fact I had to rebuild the hearse for New Orleans as one of my early assignments due to that very reason. And even if the model is too big to be stolen, they can easily be damaged even if they are glued.
There was also a giant mosaic that was built by park guests earlier this month.
There was a small 6×6 panel missing, but I’m probably one of the only ones who noticed. 😉
What I found almost more interesting than the finished product was the time lapse video LEGOLAND released of all the Model Makers and maintenance workers hard at work getting the Star Wars area ready. I’ve been there; working long, hard hours for weeks and even months on end to get everything ready for opening day. It is a truly unique experience working so closely with your coworkers for so long on such tight time restraints. A lot of minute details have to be remembered, all while making sure to finish it all on time.
I always enjoy seeing LEGOLAND grow, in some ways there will always be a part of me that remains at LEGOLAND with my friends and former coworkers who still work there. Star Wars Miniland is a nice addition to Miniland USA and a much better replacement than Daytona which I never really liked (even when we installed it). I have to admit, I do miss Miniland Kennedy Space Center, as I created several fun models for that cluster, but I also know that the Space Center lives on at LEGOLAND Florida, Windsor, and Billund. 😉
I have a whole bunch of pictures of the whole Star Wars Miniland area on my Flickr photostream. I was also told by one of my friends in maintenance that it looks almost as amazing at night because of all the LED lights. I’ll have to test that out when the park is open in the summer. 🙂
So I know its Thursday, and that I haven’t posted since Friday night. Well, that is partially because Yoda took a lot out of me and partially because I’m still prepping for Bricks by the Bay.
Between Saturday and Sunday Yoda grew and grew and grew:
Until at 5 pm on Sunday when Tiffeny and I placed the very top on Yoda’s head 🙂
But of course that isn’t the whole story. Yoda was needed for a building event this weekend up in Northern California. So, two hours after we built it up, we started to tear it down.
It really gives you perspective when you start taking apart Yoda’s head
About 3 hours later all the bricks were sorted and Yoda was no more.
I was one of the fortunate few to get the special Grand Opening set of Minifigs:
Picture Via FBTB
It was also really fun hanging out with Master Model Builder Dan Steininger who I hadn’t seen for 7 years.
The weekend was exhausting and fun with lots of kids and lots and lots of bricks. I look forward to the next time. 🙂
Well, the LEGO Store in Costa Mesa, California officially opened today at 10 am. Along with the excitement of the store finally being opened there was the 8 foot tall Yoda Building Event. 🙂
Here’s a look at the new store:
And here’s where we set up to do the giant Yoda build:
This was of course before all the crowds and people got there. 😉
Another special model that was on hand for the opening, a newly designed Boba Fett model:
Once the building got started at 11 am, every one was excited and ready to start building. You can see Master Model Builder Dan Steininger talking to the kids
We couldn’t let Dan have all the fun so we got into the spirit of building. Here is Hao with his 2×4 tan brick version of a AT-AT
Also Ace of FBTB.com built a whole fleet of Star Wars ships in brown:
(You can see him in the background looking a little tired 😉 )
As we started to get giant bricks (4x the size of normal 2×4 bricks) from the kids Dan started to build the giant Yoda. The 2 foot tall version is used as a guide to create the 8 foot tall one.
By the end of the day we had made a good bit of progress.
One of the other cool things was that Dan gave several LEGO sets away during the day, and naturally when there is free LEGO involved the crowds gather 😀
Tomorrow and Sunday will be even more crazy but I look forward to being there even if I am super tired (I was there for about 11 hours today helping out). I will be sure to take more pictures to document this weekend. Now I’ve got to go to bed as it will be another very long day tomorrow. Night all!
I stopped by LEGOLAND California yesterday and guess what I saw in the Model Shop window? Miniland Star Wars models!
Now of course this is just a mere taste of what is to come, but I’m already getting very excited.
The area where the Star Wars cluster will be is still dirt, but by the Star Wars grand opening, I know it will look fantastic!
You can see the full set of images on my Flickr photostream.
Modelbuildingsecrets's Weblog 