Baron von Brunk’s Alice: A LEGO Adventure in Wonderland (brickfilm animation) – COMING SOON!!
Currently I’m in the production phase of animating a short film, which is a fractured fairy tale parody of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. This short video will employ stop-motion animation, and will be made entirely from LEGO pieces with minimal usage of CGI. Unlike most brickfilms, this particular video has few minifigures, and instead has custom-built puppets as the majority of the characters. The script has been completed, and I’m at the point of recording footage whilst simultaneously editing. I’ve taken a break from it in late 2018 to work on other projects, but I plan on finishing it this year.
Electronic LEGO DL-44 Blaster Pistol
This is a life-size replica of Han Solo’s iconic weapon à la Star Wars, recreated with LEGO bricks, and fully rigged to light up and play sound effects with triggered! This particular model — a prototype with crude electronics — may seem rough around the edges, and even uses a lot of improvised jury-rigging in its functionality, based on what LEGO pieces and electronics I had available. Building this project was a challenge to say the least, and had more electronic malfunctions than you can shake a stick at! In making this creation, I’ve taught myself how to program with Arduino, as well as I’ve improved my electronics savvy so that subsequent electronic LEGO models of mine will be more sophisticated.
Electronic Super Mario Bros. Power-ups
These little power-ups contain blinking eyes and a little melody which plays when tapping the button behind their faces. They’re based on sprites from the Super Mario Bros. franchise — namely Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World — but with my own deviation for custom color schemes in some cases. The audio is generated via the Arduino tone library: the tone library is a code function which basically generates beep sounds, but with specific beep sounds tuned to a specific frequency assigned to a real note of the musical scale. In the Arduino code for each model, I’d type out portions of Super Mario songs from sheet music, corresponding to their respective notes. Then in synch with the audio notes are dual blinking LEDs.
Giant Functional LEGO NES Controller
Initially conceived in the late summer of 2012, this titanic brute was been gradually worked on from July to December and finally completed towards the end of 2012. Various obstacles, such as work-related and/or financial problems halted its production, but nonetheless I managed to complete this giant controller, in both its LEGO structure as well as electrical functionality. After this creation was published and posted amongst numerous websites, I was personally contacted by Nintendo of America to create a store display for Nintendo World Store’s release party of LEGO: City Undercover in spring 2013. Currently I’m looking forward to showcasing this mighty monument at some video game conventions.
LEGO/Video Game/Transformer Mashups
The LEGOformers are some of my most popular and most iconic creations ever created, and also some of my most challenging projects to date. Each robot can transform from video game peripherals to robot and back — in most cases without removing any pieces. Some of the handheld/console robots contain transforming accessories/games, akin to the transforming cassettes and weapons of Transformers toys. Since these are my most iconic creations, this is an ongoing series that shall gradually have models added to it.
LEGO City: Undercover Release Party at Rockefeller Center
Following the publicity of my giant LEGO Nintendo Controller in early 2013, I was personally commissioned by Nintendo of America to create a store display for their flagship location at Rockefeller Center for the release of LEGO City: Undercover in spring of that year! A lot of these projects were custom built especially for the store, while others were Nintendo-related projects of mine built prior to the event. Having my own exhibit at Nintendo’s official flagship store in the greatest city in America was truly a thrill for me, and gave me confidence in organizing future galleries of my creations and photography.
“The Fireflower” – LEGO Super Mario Bros. 3 Airship Model
Initially conceived in fall 2011, I present to you one of my largest, most elaborate, and personal favorite iconic LEGO creations — The Fireflower Airship. This titanic brute spanned over a 6-foot folding table and contained over 10,000 LEGO bricks, and best of all had an illuminated stained-glass window in the ships cabin. For game accuracy of mimicking the appearance of being built out of wooden logs, I painstakingly developed a sophisticated design method of riveting panels onto an internal structure. This creation was also my first original LEGO model to have electronics incorporated in it: the crude circuit in the stained-glass window foreshadowed my skills of making illuminated LEGO lamps and trinkets.