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Subject:
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KCCUSA Summer Block Party
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.announce, lugnet.events, lugnet.org.us.michlug, lugnet.loc.us.mi, lugnet.build, lugnet.build.mosaic, lugnet.castle, lugnet.space, lugnet.town, lugnet.trains, lugnet.aquazone
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Followup-To:
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lugnet.events
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Date:
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Sun, 12 Jun 2005 04:22:37 GMT
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Highlighted:
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!!
(details)
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Viewed:
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40459 times
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As promised in this teaser thread...
I am happy to (at long last) announce that Milton Train Works™ has been, as
overall contractor, with significant help from members of MichLUG, working in
partnership with Kellogg’s Cereal City USA™ to provide the statues and displays
for their Summer Block Party 2005.
This has been a pretty busy spring for us, and it’s been hard to keep quiet
about it! ... but we delivered the display case contents (4 cases, 4 themes,
town, castle, space and aquazone) two weeks ago and the statues last week...
everything will be on display all summer. For more information please visit the
KCCUSA site or their block party
page or the Milton Train
Works KCCUSA pages,
or ask questions here and participants will try to answer!
This never would have come together without a lot of help from a large number of
people including:
- Jim Garrett - Jim helped out with construction on Tony, doing much of the torso musculature.
- Ken Koleda - Ken did much of the image processing for, and helped out with construction of, the Froot Loops box.
- “Purple Dave” Laswell - Dave helped with Tony the Tiger, doing the upraised hand, and other details.
- Chris Leach - Chris was Lead Artist for the Froot Loops box.
- Nik Pieniazek - Nik was responsible for the undersea display.
- Spencer Rezkalla - Spencer was Lead artist for Tony the Tiger, by far the largest statue in the project.
- Steve Ringe - Steve was Lead artist for Pop!®, Steve also had design and fabrication responsibility for all the bases and armatures.
- Jason Spears - Jason was Lead artist for Snap!® and Crackle!®. Jason also was the display coordinator and the bulk of the display items are his. As President of MichLUG Jason served as the executive liason to the club.
In addition to the above
MichLUG members
that worked very hard to design, develop and build the displays, the statues and
their associated armatures and bases, a special thanks goes out to Aaron Sneary
for advice, and to Bob Kojima for Bricksiac. We couldn’t have done it without
them!
Also thanks go to a few special sellers who were able to source the parts we
needed in the quantities we needed. If you were having a hard time finding good
quantities of orange or red 2x4 bricks this spring, now you know why! (I would
have preferred to be thanking LEGO® here, but alas, it was not to be)
Lastly we have to thank our spouses, friends and co-workers who all no doubt are
tired of how much we talked about how we can’t talk about why we were so busy.
We hope to see folks at KCCUSA this summer, it should be a lot of fun.
Larry Pieniazek
ILTCO | MichLUG |
BrickFest
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In lugnet.announce, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
(snip info about the show/event/project)
Ugh, can’t believe I forgot announce.moc and build.sculpture! Xposted with FUT
set back to .events
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In lugnet.events, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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In lugnet.announce, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
(snip info about the show/event/project)
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Whoa. Not only an impressive display but an amazing oportunity.
Shazam.
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WOW, What a great project! Tony’s Face is just perfect. Heck all of it just
looks Great!
So that’s where all the orange went. ;-)
Christina
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We hope to see folks at KCCUSA this summer, it should be a lot of fun.
Larry Pieniazek
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Wow! That’s just simply incredible--the characterizations of faces are
beautiful--I hope Kellogs was very impressed!
I heard you had orange--we just got some in at our PaB..I only wished it was
sooner--I could have sent some your way.
Now, I’m curious..did Kellogs purchase Tony, Snap,Crackle,Pop, and the Froot
Loops box? Or, is MichLUG getting it back afterwards?
(I think with the way these looked, Kellogs was impressed and bought them!)
-Scott
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I knew about the mosaic but had no idea the other sculptures were being made.
This is some amazing work! I’m glad i was able to help. It was really cool
looking at the ‘how they were made’ pictures. I especially likes seeing the
pictures of the printed instructions and the partially completed work. I guess
the printed instruction came in handy.
bob
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In lugnet.events, Bob Kojima wrote:
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I knew about the mosaic but had no idea the other sculptures were being made.
This is some amazing work! I’m glad i was able to help. It was really cool
looking at the ‘how they were made’ pictures. I especially likes seeing the
pictures of the printed instructions and the partially completed work. I
guess the printed instruction came in handy.
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They certainly did!
That wasn’t the only way that computer power helped on this project either...
most of the base/armature engineering was done in CAD (I forget the brand but
it’s industrial strength stuff, ProE or CATIA or something) by Steve, and we
used a LDrawn partial head model that Steve did to get the brothers to come out
looking similar. (there was also the usual PC stuff for a 21st century
project... lots of spreadsheets to estimate and track things, submit expenses,
lots of email and discussion and filesharing, formal project contracts and
status reports and documents and lots of other mundane stuff)
Thanks again for your help, Bob. I particularly appreciated how you were so
willing to tweak things when we ran into resolution/placement issues with
Bricksiac early on, that really helped us out a lot.
Note for Rob Hendrix’s benefit: Dremel power also played a (small) role, we
still have more pics to post...
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In lugnet.events, Bob Kojima wrote:
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I knew about the mosaic but had no idea the other sculptures were being made.
This is some amazing work! I’m glad i was able to help. It was really cool
looking at the ‘how they were made’ pictures. I especially likes seeing the
pictures of the printed instructions and the partially completed work. I
guess the printed instruction came in handy.
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Bob..LOL that would be my ugly mug in those pics. holding a printout of the
mosaic of the froot loop box(taken by fellow michluger Ken K).It is a great
program and credit goes to Ken for the hours he spent coming up with a printout
we could use with the right amount of colors.Chris
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In lugnet.events, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> Note for Rob Hendrix's benefit: Dremel power also played a (small) role, we
> still have more pics to post...
Quite a few non-purist materials and techniques came into play for the
construction of Tony. Just off the top of my head:
-welded steel
-bolts
-wood
-carpet
-cardboard
-concrete
-glued Lego
-cut Lego
-melted Lego
Spencer
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In lugnet.events, Scott Lyttle wrote:
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We hope to see folks at KCCUSA this summer, it should be a lot of fun.
Larry Pieniazek
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Wow! That’s just simply incredible--the characterizations of faces are
beautiful--I hope Kellogs was very impressed!
I heard you had orange--we just got some in at our PaB..I only wished it was
sooner--I could have sent some your way.
Now, I’m curious..did Kellogs purchase Tony, Snap,Crackle,Pop, and the Froot
Loops box? Or, is MichLUG getting it back afterwards?
(I think with the way these looked, Kellogs was impressed and bought them!)
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Scott..all 5 of the statues were contracted for and purchased by KCC.Chris
Leach.
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In lugnet.events, Scott Lyttle wrote:
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We hope to see folks at KCCUSA this summer, it should be a lot of fun.
Larry Pieniazek
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Wow! That’s just simply incredible--the characterizations of faces are
beautiful--I hope Kellogs was very impressed!
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Thanks. I think everyone at Kellogg’s Cereal City USA™ (KCCUSA) is quite pleased
with how things turned out. I know we are. We didn’t hear directly from
Kellogg Company®(1) corporate.
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I heard you had orange--we just got some in at our PaB..I only wished it was
sooner--I could have sent some your way.
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I was in Orlando in April and MTW did then look into getting elements for the
project from the Disney Village PaB. (MTW had already sourced much of our needs
by then, but could have used more if it was available). Unfortunately the
pricing (at the K3 at a time level) was not at all competitive with hobbyist
resale pricing...
I find that kind of ironic(2), that buying directly from LEGO costs more than
getting the parts from hobbyists who buy at retail, sort the parts out, mark
them up so they make a reasonable profit, and pay to ship them out again, with
turnaround measured in days rather than weeks or months.
Perhaps the LEGO Affiliate program will help alleviate that situation in future.
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Now, I’m curious..did Kellogs purchase Tony, Snap,Crackle,Pop, and the Froot
Loops box? Or, is MichLUG getting it back afterwards?
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Not sure where MTW would keep them!
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(I think with the way these looked, Kellogs was impressed and bought them!)
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Specific contract terms between MTW and KCCUSA are not public, but as Chris
disclosed, KCCUSA owns the statues now. The display items, featured
here, are on
loan for the season.
1 - Note that the Kellogg Company is a separate entity from Kellogg’s Cereal
City USA. The trademarking, pluralisation and possessive notation of these and
other trademarked names throws me for a loop all the time... Kellogg Company®,
Kellogg’s Cereal City USA™, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes®, Snap!, Crackle! and
Pop!®, etc. etc.
2 - but understandable... small one person operations can be nimbler and can do
things for lower margins.
++Lar
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In lugnet.announce, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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I am happy to (at long last) announce that Milton Train Works™ has been, as
overall contractor, with significant help from members of MichLUG, working in
partnership with Kellogg’s Cereal City USA™ to provide the statues and
displays for their Summer Block Party 2005.
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Great job guys! Therrrre GREAT! (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)
Excellent job everybody. My favorite being Tony the Tigers head. Really captured
the essence and look perfectly. Cool to see such high caliber work coming from
others out there!
So what do you all think about doing steel and gluing first hand? Makes for
interesting building sometimes.... Just hope you all used plenty of ventilation
(assuming you used MEK).
Cheers,
Bill Vollbrecht
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In lugnet.events, Bill Vollbrecht wrote:
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So what do you all think about doing steel and gluing first hand? Makes for
interesting building sometimes.... Just hope you all used plenty of
ventilation (assuming you used MEK).
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All the steel was designed and fabricated by the amazing Steve Ringe - and it
worked perfectly the first time we installed it in the statues.
For glue, we used Oatey All Purpose. We glued outdoors and in an open garage
with fans running. At the end of the first day I had a little headache. The
following day I was fine - either since there was more breeze present outside
(or I had already killed off all my protesting brain cells the day before.)
We gained a variety of experiences with this - including Lego sculpting itself.
Prior to this project, none of us had any Lego sculpture or mosaic experience!
Spencer
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In lugnet.events, J. Spencer Rezkalla wrote:
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We gained a variety of experiences with this - including Lego sculpting
itself. Prior to this project, none of us had any Lego sculpture or mosaic
experience!
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Spencer is selling himself (and other team members) a bit short here... (1) he’s
proved his chops multiple times at multiple scales, and other team members have
incorporated mosaics into town buildings in the past as well. But he is right,
we did come into this with not a lot of specific experience.
What we DID have going for us though, was the ability to organise and the depth
of resources that a relatively large club has, coupled with the financial and
project management assets and experiences that MTW as able to bring to bear.
++Lar
1 - not on purpose to be sure, he’s just modest that way.
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In lugnet.events, J. Spencer Rezkalla wrote:
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In lugnet.events, Bill Vollbrecht wrote:
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So what do you all think about doing steel and gluing first hand? Makes for
interesting building sometimes.... Just hope you all used plenty of
ventilation (assuming you used MEK).
|
All the steel was designed and fabricated by the amazing Steve Ringe - and it
worked perfectly the first time we installed it in the statues.
For glue, we used Oatey All Purpose. We glued outdoors and in an open garage
with fans running. At the end of the first day I had a little headache. The
following day I was fine - either since there was more breeze present outside
(or I had already killed off all my protesting brain cells the day before.)
We gained a variety of experiences with this - including Lego sculpting
itself. Prior to this project, none of us had any Lego sculpture or mosaic
experience!
Spencer
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Cool.... you guys did a great job. Really high quality stuff for a first time!
Can’t wait to see more stuff like this.
I burned out all my brain cells long ago with MEK, so I stopped being able to
smell the stuff long ago. But at least peanut butter sandwich and the bookshelf
are green.... Dang, sorry, that happens once in a while. : )
I will have to try that Oatey and see how that works. I asssume you can get it
at Home Depot or Lowes?
Thanks,
Bill
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In lugnet.events, Bill Vollbrecht wrote:
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Cool.... you guys did a great job. Really high quality stuff for a first
time! Can’t wait to see more stuff like this.
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Thanks!
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I will have to try that Oatey and see how that works. I asssume you can get
it at Home Depot or Lowes?
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Lowes doesn’t seem to carry it, but Home Depot does. Depending on where in the
state you are, it runs from $4 to $5 a can. I’m not exactly sure, but I think we
went through approx 16 or more cans for the whole project. (Spencer bought the
majority of it, maybe he can give a better number.)
Jason Spears | BrickShelf Gallery | MichLUG | CLB
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In lugnet.events, Jason Spears wrote:
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Lowes doesn’t seem to carry it, but Home Depot does. Depending on where in
the state you are, it runs from $4 to $5 a can. I’m not exactly sure, but I
think we went through approx 16 or more cans for the whole project. (Spencer
bought the majority of it, maybe he can give a better number.)
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I bought 9 cans myself and we went through almost all of them (not all on Tony
however).
One of the interesting lessons we learned about working with glued brick
conglomerations is that they don’t dissipate their energy by shattering apart
when accidentally dropped like “normal Lego” does... instead, big impacts tend
to permanently deform the ABS! (looks away and whistles innocently)
Spencer
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