Expanding the LEGO Calendar: The Case for Additional Month-Long Build Challenges

[00:00:00] This is the Battlegorilla LEGO Podcast episode 37, Expanding the LEGO Calendar,

[00:00:06] The Case for Additional Month-Long Build Challenges.

[00:00:11] The secret title of today's episode is Theme Months Wanted, Enquire Within.

[00:00:17] The fourth episode of this podcast was about building a mock

[00:00:21] for the month-long build challenge in September.

[00:00:25] Episode 9 was about building mocks for the month-long build challenge in October.

[00:00:32] Episode 13, Building mocks for the November month-long build challenge.

[00:00:39] Usually, about the third week of the month,

[00:00:42] I've been covering the upcoming month-themed month-long build challenge.

[00:00:48] But I've apparently covered them all now.

[00:00:52] All six of them.

[00:00:54] I find myself lost in the wasteland of month-long build challenge-less months.

[00:01:01] Something has to be done about this.

[00:01:04] And I think I'm just the guy

[00:01:08] to suggest that someone other than me should do whatever that thing is.

[00:01:14] The disclaimer.

[00:01:15] LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies,

[00:01:18] which does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse this podcast.

[00:01:24] Are you ready to listen to the world's number one LEGO podcast?

[00:01:31] Recorded in my apartment.

[00:01:49] Hey, check out this audio stream.

[00:01:57] Welcome to the Battle Gorilla LEGO podcast.

[00:01:59] My name is Mike Sneadon. I'm your host.

[00:02:01] Let's get right into it.

[00:02:03] There is, apparently, a themed month-long build challenge season.

[00:02:10] It starts in September and runs through March.

[00:02:13] A stretch of seven months during which there are six

[00:02:16] themed month-long build challenges.

[00:02:19] It takes a break for December.

[00:02:22] Shiptember, Mechtober, November, Dronuary, February, and Marchacoma.

[00:02:31] Build very big ships.

[00:02:33] Build a team of mechs.

[00:02:35] Build Vicvipers.

[00:02:38] Build drones.

[00:02:39] Build rovers.

[00:02:41] Build think tanks.

[00:02:42] Six month-long build challenges.

[00:02:47] But twelve months in the year.

[00:02:51] That doesn't seem right to me.

[00:02:53] Just the one season.

[00:02:56] I suspect that if I were to hold up a cartoon sign,

[00:02:59] I could get Elmer Fudd to start shooting at month-long build challenges.

[00:03:05] So what happens to a directionless a-fall with the itch to build from April through August?

[00:03:12] I suppose that I could pack all of my bricks away for the warmer months,

[00:03:16] go outside, and enjoy the sunshine or something.

[00:03:21] Actually, between podcasting and my shiny, newly compiled to build list,

[00:03:27] I've got plenty of stuff to occupy my time without participating

[00:03:31] in a month-long build challenge, let alone five of them.

[00:03:35] But for the LEGO fans out there who aren't podcasting

[00:03:39] or continually adding new ideas to their list of mocks,

[00:03:43] I think that we should fill out the calendar year a little more.

[00:03:48] I should probably take a moment here to make the ubiquitous Simon Liu joke

[00:03:53] get it out of the way early this episode.

[00:03:56] Since notable adult fan of LEGO, Simon Liu has become this quasi-mythological figure

[00:04:02] in the short history of this podcast as the unofficial arbiter

[00:04:06] of month-long themed build challenges, I've decided to place the blame

[00:04:11] squarely on his shoulders for the current lack of month-long build challenges.

[00:04:17] That makes sense, right?

[00:04:19] Given his involvement in the creation and or promotion

[00:04:22] of so many of the build challenges that we now see as traditional and ongoing,

[00:04:28] he should have done something by now to fill this gap in the middle, right?

[00:04:33] Get back to work, Simon!

[00:04:35] Do you think that Simon listens to the podcast or is he blissfully unaware

[00:04:39] that he's become the subject of an incredibly good-natured running joke here?

[00:04:46] Huh.

[00:04:48] Maybe something to look into one of these days.

[00:04:51] At any rate, we need some new month-long build challenges, at least six of them.

[00:04:58] Although if we were to get more than six and suddenly had some more choices

[00:05:02] for certain months, that would be fine with me too.

[00:05:06] And all that I'm doing here in this episode is making some suggestions.

[00:05:10] I do not have the time, energy, or resources to get a month-long

[00:05:16] themed build challenge up and running.

[00:05:18] I just don't.

[00:05:20] I know better than to even try.

[00:05:23] But if you have the time, energy, and resources to launch a build challenge

[00:05:29] and one of my ideas appeals to you, by all means run with it.

[00:05:38] One of the things I sometimes wonder about is if the current assortment

[00:05:42] of month-long build challenges is equal opportunity enough.

[00:05:47] Looking at the six traditional month-long build challenges, we've got

[00:05:51] big spaceships, mech suits, little spaceships, robots,

[00:05:56] non-terrestrial ground vehicles, and battle tanks with AI.

[00:06:00] Or in other words, sci-fi, sci-fi, sci-fi, sci-fi, sci-fi, and sci-fi.

[00:06:10] Some of which is traditional LEGO space, others of which are at least space adjacent.

[00:06:17] Is there something specific about LEGO space that generates these build challenge ideas?

[00:06:22] I know that throughout the year there are contests here and there for castle fantasy

[00:06:28] and medieval themes, contests for pirate, contests for collectible minifigures,

[00:06:34] and contests for bionicle.

[00:06:36] All sorts of things.

[00:06:39] So why are the traditional build challenges just for the space and sci-fi crowd?

[00:06:44] I'm actually asking.

[00:06:46] Give us some LEGO city-based challenges here.

[00:06:50] As a placeholder, a single month-long build challenge at least.

[00:06:56] Task us with building gas stations, fire trucks, airports, and campgrounds for a month.

[00:07:02] Or instead of full-size minifig scale buildings, go micro-scale and build

[00:07:07] comparatively larger chunks of a city.

[00:07:09] Or instead of full-size minifig scale buildings, go micro-scale and build

[00:07:14] comparatively larger chunks of a city.

[00:07:16] Or a whole small city.

[00:07:19] I wouldn't mind seeing a friends-based build challenge show up either.

[00:07:25] I realize this is probably unwarranted gender stereotyping,

[00:07:29] but you could schedule it during either April, May, or June.

[00:07:33] Traditional women names.

[00:07:34] April, May, and June are also the names of Daisy Duck's nieces,

[00:07:38] the far lesser known female counterparts to Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

[00:07:45] Over the past couple of years, I've noticed a trend slowly gaining momentum.

[00:07:51] And that's people creating their own mock-style LEGO Advent calendars.

[00:07:56] I imagine there's a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is

[00:08:01] the rising MSRP of the official LEGO Advent calendars.

[00:08:06] The Advent calendar mocks are what stands out to me when I think about

[00:08:09] December on the LEGO calendar.

[00:08:12] And I find myself wondering if we could get a decent build challenge out of it.

[00:08:18] I realize that building an original LEGO Advent calendar, intended for

[00:08:22] someone else to open day by day, would probably be an October and November thing.

[00:08:28] A lot of prep work would have to go into one of those.

[00:08:31] But this wouldn't exactly be that.

[00:08:35] Call it the December Adventure, with the first six letters of adventure

[00:08:40] all being capitalized to emphasize that we're talking about the Advent season.

[00:08:45] Start on December 1st and build one very small mock a day.

[00:08:50] I'm going to arbitrarily say no more than 20 pieces per mock.

[00:08:55] And all with a unified theme, ideally a Christmassy one.

[00:08:59] Santa Claus and related characters, holiday parties, even just winter themed would work.

[00:09:08] At first I wasn't thinking this was a viable idea because Advent is only 24 days long

[00:09:14] and therefore wouldn't qualify as a month-long build challenge.

[00:09:19] Also problematic is that the last week in December, the 25th through the 31st,

[00:09:24] is very notably a time period where a lot of people finally have a little bit of free time

[00:09:30] that could be used for a build challenge.

[00:09:33] After Christmas, but before New Year's.

[00:09:37] Still on winter vacation.

[00:09:40] But then I realized that since I'm basically making this up as I go,

[00:09:44] there's no real reason to stop when you hit day 24.

[00:09:50] So build 31 small little scenes or objects or what have yous throughout the month.

[00:09:57] Or if you want to double down on the whole Christmas season nature of it,

[00:10:01] go more than 31 days.

[00:10:04] Start on Black Friday and finish on January 6th, which is Three Kings Day,

[00:10:11] the 12th day of Christmas, and the official end to the holiday season for most Christians.

[00:10:20] Inside the LEGO fan community, February is canonically known for the month-long build

[00:10:26] challenge of Feb-rovery wherein one builds rovers.

[00:10:31] But as I alluded to earlier, I believe that a month could comfortably hold more than

[00:10:36] one month-long build challenge.

[00:10:39] You could choose one or the other, or you could do both.

[00:10:44] Outside of the LEGO fan community, February is known in certain circles as National

[00:10:49] Haiku Writing Month.

[00:10:52] Is there any reason why it couldn't also be LEGO Haiku Building Month?

[00:10:58] If you're new to the podcast, here's the concept behind the LEGO Haiku in a nutshell.

[00:11:04] A LEGO Haiku is a complete mock built in three sections, usually lined up in a row.

[00:11:10] The first section is made from exactly five pieces.

[00:11:13] The middle section is made from exactly seven pieces.

[00:11:17] And the final section is made from exactly five pieces.

[00:11:21] Five, seven, five.

[00:11:24] Just like the syllable count of the classic form of Japanese poetry called the Haiku.

[00:11:29] An exercise in minimalism to see if you can bring your vision into recognizable form

[00:11:35] with that few parts.

[00:11:38] Want to build a LEGO Haiku a day throughout February?

[00:11:42] Just something to think about.

[00:11:47] Recently, I've been attempting to get caught up on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic

[00:11:53] book series from IDW.

[00:11:54] They're making a big to do about releasing issue number 150 and then relaunching the

[00:12:02] series with a new issue number one.

[00:12:05] It's not a reboot, simply a relaunch that maintains the current continuity.

[00:12:11] But it got me thinking about reboots and reimaginings and reinterpretations.

[00:12:18] If the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn't the franchise with the largest number of

[00:12:23] reboots and reimaginings, I would be very, very surprised.

[00:12:29] In the first issue of their first comic book, the four turtles slaughter their opponents.

[00:12:35] Street gang, Foot Clan Ninja, Shredder.

[00:12:39] Everyone they face falls to their deadly ninja weapons.

[00:12:43] Then a couple of years later, they're in a sanitized, bright, friendly, and bloodless

[00:12:50] Saturday morning cartoon.

[00:12:53] We've seen six different versions of the characters in movies, at least six different

[00:12:58] versions on American television, a myriad number of comic book incarnations.

[00:13:04] Plus there's also manga and anime that I know almost nothing about and thus haven't

[00:13:10] even tried to add to the total.

[00:13:14] But as I sat there reading the IDW comics, this annoying little voice in my head

[00:13:19] started asking, how would you do it?

[00:13:23] How would you retell the TMNT story from a new version of their origin onward?

[00:13:31] I didn't want to devote a lot of my brain's resources to figuring out how to

[00:13:34] retell that story.

[00:13:37] But once the question had occurred to me, I couldn't stop my wretched brain from

[00:13:42] barreling through all of my memories of various turtle lore to see what I could

[00:13:46] reassemble and how.

[00:13:48] It's nothing more than an intellectual exercise.

[00:13:51] Nothing is going to come of it.

[00:13:53] But me thinking about this overlapped with the time I was spending putting together

[00:13:58] notes for this episode of the podcast.

[00:14:02] I've also got a long held desire to reimagine the Frankenstein mythos.

[00:14:07] So TMNT isn't the only property that I've spent time redesigning in my head.

[00:14:12] I've got something of a fondness for this sort of thing.

[00:14:14] Reimaginings and reinterpretations.

[00:14:18] There have been a number of vastly different retellings of the Sherlock

[00:14:21] Holmes story in the past 15 years or so, with apparently more on the way.

[00:14:27] I've read or watched new versions of old fairy tales, Victorian era

[00:14:33] literature, all sorts of interesting things.

[00:14:36] And I think that the most interesting thing is that I've read

[00:14:41] and I think that the idea of retelling an old story in a whole new way

[00:14:46] could make for a very interesting month long build challenge.

[00:14:51] Take your favorite story, be it from TV, movies, novels, comics or other.

[00:14:59] Then break it down into as many of its component parts as you can

[00:15:03] and see what fun you can have rearranging them to suit you.

[00:15:07] Alternately, take that favorite story and boil it down to its most essential element.

[00:15:16] Turn it from a fully realized work back into just a couple of sentences,

[00:15:23] an elevator pitch or a writing prompt.

[00:15:26] Then ignore what the original writers and designers did with it

[00:15:31] and expand that pitch or prompt your way.

[00:15:34] And then, since we are ultimately talking about Lego here, build it.

[00:15:40] Tell this brand new version of an older story with bricks and minifigure parts.

[00:15:46] Re-imagine.

[00:15:49] You could park this month long build challenge right in between April and June

[00:15:54] and call it re-imagine if you wanted.

[00:15:57] Re-imagine if you wanted.

[00:16:02] Sometimes, you'll get an idea and realize that it's bigger than you want to tackle on your own.

[00:16:08] Or you simply want to share the idea with others.

[00:16:12] In my experience, these kind of ideas usually end up becoming

[00:16:16] collaborative builds at Lego conventions.

[00:16:20] But it would also make sense to investigate

[00:16:23] the month long build challenge format for some of these ideas.

[00:16:28] Especially for those Lego fans who don't live near an area that has a Lego convention in it.

[00:16:35] When I became the superhero's theme coordinator for the Bricks Cascade Convention back in 2015,

[00:16:41] one of the first things I did was to come up with a

[00:16:43] collaborative build to help coax people into building.

[00:16:47] This particular collab was based on crossovers and the concept of the multiverse

[00:16:52] and was titled Crisis on Infinite Base Plates.

[00:16:57] I provided instructions to build a multiversal portal called an Artifice Gate.

[00:17:03] Artifice was an acronym that stood for

[00:17:06] Alternate Reality Transit Interface and Interdimensional Convergence Engine

[00:17:12] because apparently I had had way too much spare time that day.

[00:17:18] After that, the directions were fairly simple.

[00:17:21] Build a scene that includes an Artifice Gate

[00:17:24] and populate that scene with characters from at least two different realities engaged in combat.

[00:17:30] The first two mocks I built for that collab were Marvel's Spider-Man

[00:17:34] versus DC's Mr. Freeze and Marvel's mutant hunting robots, the Sentinels,

[00:17:42] down in the sewers battling the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[00:17:47] Those were both fairly simple.

[00:17:49] The largest one I built had the Fantastic Four and the Batman family teaming up

[00:17:56] to fight Darth Vader, Voldemort, and their combined army of stormtroopers and Death Eaters.

[00:18:03] That one was built on nine base plates, a three by three grid of them,

[00:18:07] and took place in an Artifice Gate repair yard filled with malfunctioning gates.

[00:18:12] I had intended to build one that was even larger and would have seen the Justice League

[00:18:17] taking on the contingent of villains from LEGO's Ultra Agents theme.

[00:18:22] But while I had started picking up parts and minifigures that I'd need,

[00:18:27] some other mock always took precedence and it just never ended up getting built.

[00:18:33] But it seems to me that Crisis on Infinite Base Plates would work equally well as a

[00:18:38] month-long build challenge. There's no great need to have every Crisis module on one table,

[00:18:43] in one place. They didn't form a solid and cohesive display where you couldn't tell

[00:18:49] where one started and the other ended. There were definitely individual units of storytelling.

[00:18:55] No reason why you couldn't do that online and worldwide.

[00:19:01] And this is just an example. I'm not saying it should be a whole lot of work,

[00:19:06] but I'm certainly not suggesting that I organize it as a challenge for one of the otherwise empty

[00:19:11] months. Here's another example. My friend and friend of the podcast, Kyle Smith, is a big fan

[00:19:19] of the Suits episode from season one of the Netflix series Love, Death, and Robots.

[00:19:25] Suits focuses on a community of farmers going out to stop a massive swarm of monsters

[00:19:32] or insects using combat mechs with a heavy farm equipment aesthetic.

[00:19:37] They have to hold the bugs off long enough for the local families to get to safety in

[00:19:42] the giant underground bunker. Kyle built one of the farm mechs from that episode and then set

[00:19:48] to work designing a bunch of different bugs that he then made batches of, which he took

[00:19:54] up to Brick's Cascade, which he then used to build the first two mechs. The first two

[00:20:00] which he took up to Brick's Cascade with him this year. He did this as proof of concept

[00:20:05] and a preview of his collaborative build for next year's Brick's Cascade. Swarmageddon.

[00:20:14] I've heard some of his plans for Swarmageddon, and believe me it's going to be incredible.

[00:20:20] It's going to be an incredible collaborative build, but I think it could also be

[00:20:26] an incredible month-long build challenge. In the Love, Death, and Robots episode it is

[00:20:32] revealed where the swarm is coming from, but I don't know that Kyle intends Swarmageddon to

[00:20:37] be part of that same canon universe or not. These bugs could be coming from anywhere,

[00:20:45] which means that the swarm could go anywhere. Build yourself a bunch of these bugs

[00:20:53] and have them invading any sort of mock you want to build, or any mock you already have built.

[00:21:01] Attach them to the hulls of your Ship Timber build. Flood the streets of your personal Lego

[00:21:06] city with them. Swarm anywhere? Swarm everywhere! Like I said, I'm not going to launch a build

[00:21:20] challenge, but if I was going to, I know what it would be and when it would take place,

[00:21:29] but I'm not going to talk about that here in this episode.

[00:21:33] No, I'll be running that particular intellectual exercise in an episode somewhere in mid to late

[00:21:40] June. We've now reached the part of the podcast where I like to talk about the progress

[00:21:47] I've made on my various mock building projects since the previous episode.

[00:21:53] As far as the actual building goes, there's no actual progress to report.

[00:22:00] I have received the floor plan for the Network 23 News Division's daytime control room

[00:22:05] from its actual designer Richard B. Lewis in the mail, so now I've got some actual

[00:22:11] measurements to start working with. As soon as the 3rd of May gets here and there's money

[00:22:17] in my account again, I'm going to start slowly ordering parts for both the mock

[00:22:21] and the minifigures I want populating it from Bricklink.

[00:22:26] I've been thinking about building some opponents in mech suits to face off

[00:22:30] against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mechs,

[00:22:35] currently looking at a few options other than the fairly obvious Foot Clan.

[00:22:39] I'm also rolling some ideas around in my head regarding the design needs for the other mech

[00:22:45] project on my list, a set of mechs which are intended to be piloted by Ghostbusters.

[00:22:53] So that's what's on my very loose build schedule at the moment,

[00:22:57] the Max Headroom mock and some mech suits.

[00:23:01] Oh, and I've also discovered that if you remove the hair-beard combo from the Hagrid

[00:23:06] minifigure and replace it with the mask from the Gorilla Suit guy, it makes for a very intimidating

[00:23:12] looking ape. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I thought I'd mention

[00:23:18] it in case the information could help anybody out. You're welcome.

[00:23:25] Moving from mock plans to podcast plans, the topic for next week's episode is types

[00:23:32] of recognition your mocks can get at conventions, from the classic LEGO trophy to the incredibly

[00:23:39] popular trend of tokens of appreciation left by random AFOL passerby.

[00:23:45] Links to the podcast's social media and wish lists can be found at battlegorilla.com

[00:23:51] slash links. If you're enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to tell your friends about

[00:23:56] it. And of course, if you just absolutely hate my podcast, please feel free to recommend it

[00:24:03] to your enemies. The podcast's intro and outro themes, Podcasting is Awesome,

[00:24:10] inspired by Tegan and Sarah's Everything is Awesome, and Ode to Gibberish were created

[00:24:15] by Michael Reinch.

[00:24:45] Prayers for junk food.