Tag Archives: brickworld

Brickworld 2016

When we lived in Chicago, we made a couple of visits to the Lego convention, Brickworld. Some of the Lego creations on display were really impressive and I have included them in previous blog posts. It just so happened that, this year, Brickworld was on the same weekend that we were in the Chicago area for my niece’s graduation. We had a little spare time on the morning that we were flying home so we decided to check it out en route to the airport.

The venue has changed from when we last went. It is now at a larger location and everything is in one large room. The previous place had four smaller rooms. This seemed to result in the more advanced pieces being grouped together. Now everything is scattered around the one space. Combined with the many retail stands, it made things a bit more tricky to see in a short space of time. Even so, we managed to cover everything enough to feel like we hadn’t missed out on anything. I even managed to FaceTime my sister in the UK so she could see some of the stuff from a long distance!

As with previous years, there were plenty of impressive creations. A section of downtown Chicago from the area we used to live was very cool. A recreation of a baseball stadium seemed to be incredibly detailed but it was quite hard to see since it was enclosed in a case. A guy had produced a detailed representation of a building from his home town in Europe. A Middle Ages scene from previous years had received some updates. My favorite, though was a scene from D-Day.

The scene consisted of a landing craft with soldiers and vehicles coming ashore on a Normandy beach having taken the area in battle. The level of detail was impressive with the water created from thousands of little pieces. I have no idea how many total pieces were included but it was clearly a lot. It must have cost a small fortune to put together combined with a lot of time and effort. A very impressive effort.

Brickworld 2013

Once a year a Lego convention is held in the Chicago area. It used to be up in Wheeling and I have blogged about it here. This year they moved to a new venue in Schaumburg. We went along again. Some of the creations that people put together for this event are quite stunning. Their creativity and ingenuity are very impressive. Not all of the stuff suits me but I am cognizant of the skill, even for those that I won’t spend much time checking out.

I am not a Lego builder but my family has a few enthusiasts. I hope they enjoy a far larger gallery than usual.

Brickworld 2012

Each year a Lego event called Brickworld takes place just north of Chicago. Last year was the first time I had visited the event and I did write a blog post about it then. If you want to see that, you can find it here. The event is a convention for the Lego artists and they have a number of sessions before the whole thing opens up for the public. That was when we got to take a look.

There are a whole bunch of really cool models that people have made. Some of these are relatively straightforward models of individual subjects while others are far more involved. There are dioramas based on people’s own ideas or themes such as movies. Some are unbelievably complicated. Often there are structures with multiple levels of detail. A medieval castle may look impressive but you might take the top off and find interior rooms fully modeled as well.

Additionally, there was a complex machine that moved little Lego footballs around all sorts of clever contraptions and ultimately back to where they started. It was a never ending path (provided the balls didn’t get stuck or fired out of the capture range of part of the device!). Stills don’t give that device any chance of being appreciated so I tried making a little video of it which is below.

The level of detail in some of these models is amazing. One medieval scene had hundreds of troops and horses set up, all of which had been done for the first time when setting up at the exhibit. Some real effort is involved. The Justin Bieber concert above also involved a lot of minifigs being set up. (It was also surprising to see how many Bieber figs were in different models! What does that mean??)

I will not say any more about the event but below are a bunch of shots of some of the myriad models made. You can see them better than I can describe them.