jmenomeno

I'm happy to announce that registration is open for BrickMagic 2011, which is being held at the North Raleigh Hilton on Mother's Day Weekend, May 5-8! This is the second BrickMagic convention, and it promises to be larger and better than last year. Our Guest of Honor will be Sean Kenney, a Certified LEGO Professional, who will be displaying his work and talking to fans during the event. Other special guests include Jared Burks, minifigure customizer extraordinaire, and David Pagano, brick animator! We'll have some other guests too that we will announce as the event gets closer. We'll have presentations and demos and display space for all themes. I'm extending an invitation to all you to come and attend and display at this event. Registration is $50 and can be done at Brickmagic's site. For basic information, you can go to the BrickMagic page. I'll be releasing more information here and on Facebook. Hope to see you in May! Joe Meno, Coordinator, BrickMagic

Hi all, If you are in the southeastern part of the US, BrickMagic, a LEGO Fan convention will be taking place in Raleigh, NC May 7, 8 and 9, 2010! It looks to be an exciting show, with quite a few things in the works for public and the AFOLs! I wish I could tell more, but hey, I'm running the AFOL part of the show and have quite a bit of planning yet to do:-). For more information, such as registration (50 USD) and hotel info - the hotel is the convention site - you can go to www.brickmagic.org! I will be updating the site and sending bulletins as the event gets closer! Hope to see you! Joe Meno AFOL Coordinator BrickMagic

Sorry guys, all the photos were provided to me by the LEGO Group for use in the magazine, and all rights beyond are reserved. I was blown away by the images myself. Joe Meno Editor, BrickJournal

Both happened because exchange rates were not updated. It would be wrong to assume a price change would happen so quickly because of poor sales whithin the first month, much less the first five days. As for any one forum influencing any price policy.... Joe

I designed the garage. The cars that I designed up until deadline weren't all that great, but some elements of them got incorporated into the other cars. Turns out that I hit my car stride in the alternates, which are on the box art and in the CD. And you're catching on about the "neither confirm or deny":-) Joe PS Thanks for the compliment!

There's a printed set of instructions for the set. Being one of the designers of the set, I was very happy to see the US price point. And as for stickers and updates...I can neither confirm nor deny that:-) Joe

I should also say that he did a layout = the Children's City article was done by him. The review was a very pleasant change of pace for a review, and I would love to see more. Thanks for the compliments about this issue - the Market Street articles and reviews were done by people in Europe and the US, and to be honest, I wasn't sure how was going to work out until the layouts were done Tuesday night. And yes 12.4 meg is a big file. However, the only way to reduce this is to um...remove photos? The issue was split into 2 files to make things a little easier, but I understand your frustration. And if anyone has an idea for an article, drop me a line - I'm always looking:-) Joe Editor, BrickJournal PS I was notified of Eric's passing as I was finishing the issue. There wasn't enough time to write anything worth printing (and after two allniters, I was in no shape to write), so I requested Mel to add to her Last words at the end of the mag. We'll miss him.

LEGO is not developing this game - it's being developed by a company called NetDevil, which has experience in MMORGs. The concept is one that can be really neat, as they are pursuing a game that has the same type of environment as WoW. I think that they will be heading toward Second Life also in style where your minifig can interact and build online and have this tied in with LEGO Factory. Joe

The challenges I have to figure before I go to paper are: 1. Price - how much would anyone pay for an issue? 2. Sustainability - not the content - we could go forever with that. 3. Quantity - just how many should be printed? Not how many are wanted, but should beprinted. There's many questions that that present themselves on this, and I have to find the best answers. Right now, a lot of answers are contradictory. I personally want to be able to print, sell and not have a few thousand laying around in a warehouse or somewhere. Joe PS Some of the issue are available for print on lulu.com, but they are NOT cheap.

Hi all, It's out and has a interview with the designer of the Caf

Hi all, these are real ads that were done by an ad agency in South Africa: http://login.vnuemedia.com/pdn/newswire/ar...t_id=1002726615 Award-winning too. I really like the simplicity of the concept - with only a few bricks, one's imagination can create any variety of things! As for the tank, that was an interesting choice. Joe

Thanks, this one was a bit late in coming. But I have one more issue due at the end of the year, and then BrickJournal starts converting to a print publication! Joe

Well, it would have been out earlier, but I was busy with BrickFest - and was a major challenge! Now, on to Issue 6.... Joe

Hi all, The late latest issue of BrickJournal is now out and available for download. This issues theme is Really Big Things, and has articles on big ships, big buildings, and big spaceships. There's also an articleonthe REAL LEGO Factory and more than a few building articles! So download and enjoy! Joe Meno Editor, Publisher BrickJournal

This was presented at BrickFest, but people were requested not to make pictures of it. The keynote had pics of all 30 models that could be built with the parts (individually) and the bag of parts was shown - it's pretty darned heavy! Also, the box design was presented. Attendees got to get a little insight as to how the Ultimate Train Builder's Set was created - with a LOT of AFOL help! Joe Meno Event Coordinator, BrickFest 2006 PS the Lego Factory ad on Brickshelf has one of the models shown. PPS TLG is looking to printing instructuions and placing them in the LEGO Factory sets.

You're right - squid don't have teeth, They have a beak. He has one. The Kraken has teeth, like the Sarlacc...but I hadn't seen the movie when I was building so I went for the hidden look: Joe

Hehe , I think a haven't got any pieces which are suited for kraken building, but in this cases, bricklink helps me out :-) I'm an planning to make a comic or a small movie about a ship and a kraken, so i think I only need tentacles and a lot of teeths for the mouth, I think that's not very difficult to do(the most difficult part will be breaking the ship :'-( ). In building my Kraken model, I figured the best approach was to *not* show more than was necessary. The unknown is a lot scarier than the known. In terms of building, I built up the water around the tentacles to hide the joints. Tentacles could be built from click hinges linked together (but they would be pretty thin) Another approach would be to thread 1x1 round bricks with flex tube - graceful curves can be done that way, and you can make larger tentacles with 2x2 round bricks. Teeth? Viking horns. Putthem on clips or in the Technic bricks in the studs. The 1x1 plate with tooth is another idea. The problem with the Kraken is that it is a mostly boneless thing, and LEGO is tough to model. Joe

Glad to see you're back - and thanks! Joe

Then the members of NCLUG are you truly talented builders for a group with no dedicated pirate fanatics amongsts ya'z. After this Piratical building experience how do the members of NCLUG feel about the Pirate theme now? Have they gained a new found appreciation? Have any of the other members checked this thread (and the Pirate Forum) since it was created? Thanks - I think that all of us got something out this - for me it was a new fresh thing to do, and while I have been a micro/space person, I could see wandering into Pirates, especially with things like sea creatures. I also enjoy ed building the compass because it's *real* size. Thtat's something that I don't do very often at all. I don't know if any of the other members check out this forum, but hey, I can point them to it:-) Joe

Lemme see... My comfort themes are micro and space. Others: Sabrina Gravatt: Star Wars. But she's very good in micro! John Riley: Town Mike Walsh: Town There aren't any pirate- exclusive builders in our club, actually. I think that's because most of us weren't in the hobby whne the Pirates theme was popular. that actually caused some initial problems, as I could count the number of Pirates I had with one hand with a couple of fingers chopped off:-)! Joe