A Place Where Minifigures Can Go to Drink Adult Beverages

Or maybe this post title should have been: Set Review - BrickCon 2022 - Convention Model - The Wooden Duck

If you scroll back in the blog a bit, you can see my posts about attending BrickCon 2022 virtually. As a virtual attendee, I was able to order SWAG and a convention model just like they physical attendees. My order arrived quickly after the event was over. You can see more on the SWAG here.

I ordered the convention model from 2020 as well and you can see that review here.

“The Wooden Duck” was the name of this model and it contains 346 pieces. You can see my write up about a talk Chris Malloy did at BrickCon 2022 here. I tried to summarize the process he went through without typing it out word for word. I don’t remember how much I paid for the model. Maybe $30? I thought the cost was reasonable and BrickCon mentioned that they don’t make a profit on the model. It’s assembled by volunteers and they just pass along the cost to us.

The box has a distinct look to it with a design also made by Chris of the model. The front also has the BrickCon logo and the number of pieces. The back has the BrickCon logo and the year. My box got crushed during shipping and the seal came undone. Not a big deal for me as I intended to build it and not keep it sealed or sell it.

One side of the box has Chris’s name on it. Another had a hand written number stating that I purchased #184 of 250 total models. I’m not sure I've ever owned such a rare product.

The contents were a plastic bag with parts in it and then the instruction booklet. BrickCon used the LUGBulk program to source the parts and then the volunteers went through and helped to put the parts in each bag. The instructions are printed which is nice, but there are a lot of steps crammed into each section. BrickCon assumes the buyers of these models are AFOLs who build regularly so this won’t be a big deal. It probably wouldn’t be great for kids or newer builders.

The set comes with one minifigure who is a bartender. He has a glass and what has been used as a cast, but is being used as a cloth. His face has two prints. The side I took the picture of and then a laughing face. I like the torso with the suspenders and tie.

The set comes with 3 printed tiles. One is an art piece from #10297-1: Boutique Hotel. One is a mirror from… um… I’m not sure. Then the last one is a custom tile, unique to this set. It has the infamous wooden duck, a reference to the 90th anniversary of LEGO and its start in 1932, and finally the number 21 in reference to the 21st BrickCon.

Onto the final build… this design is jam packed with a ton of details considering the size and piece count. Plus, it was designed knowing a lot of great pieces would be used for AFOLs who want to take it apart for MOCs. The brick red color along with the sand green pieces are two colors that aren’t super popular and they’re great to see. The various items used as bottles are very creative and it really looks like how you’d picture a bar. The balls used as lights hanging on the top are all glow in the dark pieces which is cool and one of the bottles glows in the dark too.

Chris threw in a squirrel. I’m guessing it was so you had another opportunity to get a squirrel. I’m not sure why there would be one at the bar. Maybe it’s eating the pretzel?

Overall, it’s a great build. I like the piece usage and the cost was very reasonable considering what you get. There is some play functionality in that you can add more minifigures or add the bar to another scene. If I attend BrickCon again, I hope to have the ability to get the convention model. Nice job Chris!

Brickcon 2022 - Swag

If you go slightly earlier in the Blog, you can read about my BrickCon ‘22 virtual experience. Prior to the start I pre-ordered some swag. My shipment arrived shortly after Brickcon ended (like a few days later). I think I paid a little over $100, including shipping for my swag. Here’s what I received:

A custom printed minifigure is the first item. This one came with pants and a dress. The torso has the BrickCon logo on the front and then “Established in 2002” on the back. It has the original yellow minifigure head with smiling face and then a red hat. Also included is a coffee mug with the BrickCon logo printed on it. I like it!

Next up were printed bricks. You could get 2 custom bricks so I ordered one for each of my kiddos. One was yellow with black lettering and the other was blue with white lettering. They were excited to receive them. I also received a BrickCon 2022 brick, a BrickCon Volunteer brick for being a Trusted Virtual Guide (TVG), and then a Recognized AFOL Networking Event 2022 brick. My collection continues to grow.

Next was a small kit of parts to assemble the BrickCon logo in brick form. I did built and I proudly have it displayed on my desk. Perhaps I’ll have to look into making a bigger version.

This year also included a collectible metal cup with an engraved BrickCon logo on it and then a BrickCon deck of playing cards. I haven’t opened the cards yet, but hopefully they have something related to the theme versus the standard playing card design.

Also included was a back pack/bag branded by BrickNerd. Probably super useful to carry around the actual convention for storage purposes.

I purchased the shirt separately. As it was the 21st year of the convention, they felt like a party theme fit in so you get a cocktail of some sort with brick ice cubes.

Much like my last time, I got a bunch of bricks for trading. Since I wasn’t there, I didn’t get to trade, but they are some good pieces that they get through LUGBulk. I haven’t looked them all up on Brickset yet, but they all seem like bricks that aren’t super common. I got a bag of printed tiles from the Haunted House set. Not sure what I’ll do with all of them, but there they are. Anyone want to trade?

Lastly, I received convention model #184 of 250 made for the convention. The set box got a bit smashed during shipment, but it’s all good. I intend to build it versus adding it to the store. Sorry if you were looking for one. I will do a separate review of the set during another post.

Happy building!

BrickCon (Virtual) 2022 - Day 4

The last day of BrickCon!

First, I tuned into a Q&A session with Steven Walker about BrickCon and future events. Next year, the physical convention is moving to Bellevue, WA for the first time in 21+ years so there were a lot of questions about that. On the virtual side, they said they will keep it going as long as they can get at least 50 people to attend and they’d like to virtual side to go on 24 hours a day if possible during the convention as they know there are folks in different time zones. Maybe someday, I’ll make it to BrickCon in person.

Next up I attended the BrickCon Commerative Model Q&A with Chris Malloy. Chris has been designing the BrickCon models since 2017-ish. He lost count on the number he’s done in total. Chris went through the design process, challenges with parts, creating the box, designing the instructions, and getting the parts.

Here’s his slide where he introduced himself.

Here’s the final model design. Chris said designing the model was pretty easy. The challenges came in the rest of the process.

Chris mentioned challenges he had with new pieces not being in Stud.io, trying to make sure all the parts could be sourced using the LUGBulk program, and then some issues with printed pieces as seen in some of the examples below.

Here’s the copy of the box. Chris showed how he did a pencil sketch, colored it in, and then it became the box.

The custom tile is original to this set only. The left side shows some of the draft versions before the center one became the final version.

Chris mentioned that he had to add a lot of pieces during each step in the instructions to keep the instructions to a specific page count. This kept the price lower. They considered digital instructions, but decided the better option was to go with printed ones so people could build them at the convention and they wouldn’t have to worry about keeping the instructions active online for years to come.

Great presentation and great model Chris! Thanks to you and the BrickCon team for putting this together. I can’t wait for my set to arrive.

Next up was Stuart Harris from the LEGO® House again. He talked about how they go about developing the exclusive models sold at the brand store in the LEGO® House. Here are the last 3 sets.

Here are some concept models of #40501-1: Wooden Duck. Stuart built the concept models and then turned them over to another designer for the final production model. He also showed how they advertised the set within the LEGO® House.

One interesting note, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen is the one who approves the sets and Stuart said that while he’s honored that Kjeld is the one to approve, it is pretty nerve wracking to bring a set to his office.

Here is #40502-1: The Brick Moulding Machine. It started off as an idea to make the moulds, but then turned into the machine that you can see in the LEGO® House today.

Next, Stuart talked about #40503-1: Dagny Holm - Master Builder. He talked about Dagny, getting the set built, and choosing what they would go with in a final set.

Stuart talked about the models they design for the LEGO Insider Tour as well, but the more popular discussion was this 3D printed duck below. Here’s an article from Bricket.com on the duck. This was recently released at the AFOL Fan Media Day as well as at Skærbæk Fan Weekend (I think). There were a lot of questions on this duck and a ton of interest. Stuart had one on hand to show off. He mentioned that it may return in a wider offering sometime in the future so we’ll see what happens.

The last presentation I participated in was by Becky Gorlin. She is a middle school level educator and LEGO Robotics Instructor at Granite Falls School District in Washington (about a 50 minute drive from Seattle and the convention area). I sadly didn’t catch the whole thing, but it sounded very interesting and it was cool to see how she uses LEGO in all aspects of education. I’m hoping they post this one online later.

Lastly, the closing ceremony. There were words of thanks, some admin notes, info on future conventions, lots of prizes, and then awards. I didn’t capture all of the awards, but here are the honorable mentions and winner of the Best in Show awards.

First, the 2 honorable mentions. These winners got a copy of #10497-1: Galaxy Explorer. Not sure how the group is going to share the set, but great build!

And the winner got a copy of #10305-1: Lion Knights Castle.

Nice work MOC builders!

It was a great convention, even if I did attend virtually. Thanks to those who worked hard to put it on and safe travels to everyone on their way home.

I will post more once my swag and the convention model arrive.

In the meantime, happy building!

BrickCon (Virtual) 2022 - Day 3

Back for more fun!

We started the day watching a tour of the convention floor before the public was allowed in. It was quick but great to see everything. I hope it gets posted online so I can go through it again and hit pause to look at things.

The first presentation I attended was by LEGO® House employee Stuart Harris. I have heard presentations by Stuart before and am familiar with the LEGO® House based on my 2019 visit there. I tuned in to get an update on some of the changes which was good. Beyond that, a lot of it was a repeat, but that was okay. Stuart was in person at the convention so that was a nice change versus having a lot of the LEGO® employees online.

The next event I attended was titled “Building Feedback: Peer Review in the LEGO Community” and it was presented by Kyle Keller who also writes for the Brothers Brick. Initially, I thought it was a bit ridiculous. Have we lost the ability to communicate with each other without hurting feelings or being rude? I would think this should be obvious, but I need to step out of my box and understand that the world is different. It was probably a good thing for people to realize that they can’t hide behind their online firewalls and need to give good constructive feedback. Kyle gave some lessons and then did practice with some pictures of old builds that he had. Props to Kyle for handling a challenging topic.

The last presentation I attended was by Deb Banerji titled “Lego Mosaics: Algorithms, Software, and Other Fun Stuff.” Deb built an open source program to take pictures and turn them into mosaics out of LEGO parts. He explained how he optimized the program, some challenges still involved, and a lot of other higher math that was above my brain. Very interesting though. The link to his site is below or you can find it here.

The awards ceremony was on day 3, but it was a bit late for me. I hope the best folks won!

BrickCon (Virtual) 2022 - Day 2

Day 2 was another great day. I started off by attending a few presentations. The first one was “The Lego News Room: Working at the Speed of Social Media.” This was about how LEGO in the US handles social media, carries on conversations across multiple channels, and keeps up with real time popular items. I’m not great at social media by any means so this was eye opening to me and it was interesting to hear what they had to say.

The next presentation I joined in on was “New Element Design from a Mechanical Engineering Perspective.” Two engineers from LEGO in Billund, Denmark talked about some of the parts they’ve designed, some of the challenges they’ve encountered, and what their experiences are working on the team.

Here are a few copies of slides they presented with examples of some parts the presenters worked on. They did specific parts, not the full minifigues.

They also showed us some of the software they use to make changes to parts. The picture below is an example of a part that they walked us through to talk about how they adjusted a part to improve its quality.

The next session I joined was an Ask Me Anything session with Jordan Paxton of the AFOL Engagement Team. Jordan helps run the LEGO® Ambassador Network (LAN) and while I have been a part of conversations with the LAN and AFOL Engagement Team in the past, this one was very heated and emotional. I was actually quite shocked how passionate people were. I’m not 100% certain on what is going on, but I guess a few LEGO User Groups (LUGs) were removed from the LAN and with that, they lost access to support from the LEGO Group and discount parts.

Two notes I did take were that we shouldn’t expect to see new set reveals at conventions and the brittle brown bricks issue has been solved, but LEGO has done a poor job advertising it. I guess the brown parts were stored at the top of the warehouse (warmest) and there was a color change issue that took place. Since then, they have added fans to warehouse and the issue has been fixed. What are you all seeing with your newer brown pieces?

The last thing I participated in was the Keynote presentation which was given by Angus MacLane. He is probably best known as a Director with Pixar, but is also an AFOL. I didn’t know it, but he was the fan designer behind set #21303-1: WALL-E. He stated that he was in the perfect position for the build as he was a part of the movie team so he knew about WALL-E well in advance and could start working on a LEGO version. Also, he was the one to approve the IP for Pixar so the LEGO designers had to work with him on any changes they made.

His introduction was given by someone in a Buzz Lightyear costume which was awesome!

He bragged that in making the Lightyear movie, he made sure the ship had a yellow windscreen to make sure that LEGO produced another yellow windscreen part. I don’t know how true that is, but I’m not sure I care. Glad the piece is out there now.

His talk was awesome, well put together, and very relatable for LEGO fans. As someone mentioned, this session was well worth the $25 registration fee to sign up. I actually think it may end up on YouTube in the near future. If it does, I’ll add a link.

The main purpose of the talk was to present how he goes about building MOCs. He uses the SUCCS method (defined below) and he went through various examples of builds he’s done and how he used this method. I don’t think I could do the talk justice here so just stay tuned for the video.

Onto day 3! Happy building!