See Lego artist Paul Hetherington's amazingly detailed 30,000-piece Joker's Funhouse, which won Best of Show at BrickCon 2013. December 2, 2013 7:45 AM PST (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) Where there is Batman, you'll find the Joker. Yin to Batman's Yang, chaos to his order. And for every dark and brooding Batcave, the Joker has his own base of operations -- usually an abandoned funhouse, made deadly according to the Joker's particular brand of macabre humor. For last year's BrickCon, Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey built a massive 20,000-piece Lego Batcave. This year, a Chicago Lego artist by the name of Paul Hetherington upped the ante -- with an even bigger three-level, 30,000-piece Batman and Robin Joker's Funhouse (labeled Gotham Park and seemingly inspired by Luna Park in Sydney, Australia). It even has mechanized moving parts. To build the set, Hetherington had to work around his full-time job at a day program for disabled adults. "There are close to 30,000 pieces in the funhouse," he told CNET Australia. "To give you an idea, there are over 2,600 transparent 1x1 green tiles used on the ocean surface just to make up the strip of water underneath the pier. The model took two months to design and construct. I have lots of presorted parts in my studio so that makes it easier to build quickly." (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) A builder since he was a boy, Hetherington had more than 20 years of collecting Lego to draw from. Over the years, he has bought new sets, found Lego bricks at garage sales, and picked up individual bricks at Lego stores. He also has extensive experience building large-scale Lego sculptures. Since 2000, when he came out of his Dark Ages, he has built at least 20 large projects, most of which are automated in some way. Packed inside the funhouse are several Lego 9-volt train transformers powering Power Functions motors held together with Technic gears. The only non-Lego component in the build, Hetherington said, is the lighting, which came from Ikea. (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) The result is one insanely detailed, fascinating piece of work, which won an extraordinarily well-deserved series of accolades at BrickCon 2013 in Seattle: People's Choice Honorable Mention, Best of Show, and Evil Genius. The most important part of all, though, is that it was built for the love (and fun) of Lego. "I have always had an interest in fantasy worlds and am fascinated with any kind of miniatures," Hetherington said. "Lego is the toy that helped to open the door to my imagination. With so many new colors and elements becoming available each year from Lego, new inspiration is never far away." You can see more pictures on Hetherington's Flickr stream, and see it in action in the video below. (Source: Crave Australia)

Back to Home »
See Lego artist Paul Hetherington's amazingly detailed 30,000-piece Joker's Funhouse, which won Best of Show at BrickCon 2013. December 2, 2013 7:45 AM PST (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) Where there is Batman, you'll find the Joker. Yin to Batman's Yang, chaos to his order. And for every dark and brooding Batcave, the Joker has his own base of operations -- usually an abandoned funhouse, made deadly according to the Joker's particular brand of macabre humor. For last year's BrickCon, Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey built a massive 20,000-piece Lego Batcave. This year, a Chicago Lego artist by the name of Paul Hetherington upped the ante -- with an even bigger three-level, 30,000-piece Batman and Robin Joker's Funhouse (labeled Gotham Park and seemingly inspired by Luna Park in Sydney, Australia). It even has mechanized moving parts. To build the set, Hetherington had to work around his full-time job at a day program for disabled adults. "There are close to 30,000 pieces in the funhouse," he told CNET Australia. "To give you an idea, there are over 2,600 transparent 1x1 green tiles used on the ocean surface just to make up the strip of water underneath the pier. The model took two months to design and construct. I have lots of presorted parts in my studio so that makes it easier to build quickly." (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) A builder since he was a boy, Hetherington had more than 20 years of collecting Lego to draw from. Over the years, he has bought new sets, found Lego bricks at garage sales, and picked up individual bricks at Lego stores. He also has extensive experience building large-scale Lego sculptures. Since 2000, when he came out of his Dark Ages, he has built at least 20 large projects, most of which are automated in some way. Packed inside the funhouse are several Lego 9-volt train transformers powering Power Functions motors held together with Technic gears. The only non-Lego component in the build, Hetherington said, is the lighting, which came from Ikea. (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) The result is one insanely detailed, fascinating piece of work, which won an extraordinarily well-deserved series of accolades at BrickCon 2013 in Seattle: People's Choice Honorable Mention, Best of Show, and Evil Genius. The most important part of all, though, is that it was built for the love (and fun) of Lego. "I have always had an interest in fantasy worlds and am fascinated with any kind of miniatures," Hetherington said. "Lego is the toy that helped to open the door to my imagination. With so many new colors and elements becoming available each year from Lego, new inspiration is never far away." You can see more pictures on Hetherington's Flickr stream, and see it in action in the video below. (Source: Crave Australia)

See Lego artist Paul Hetherington's amazingly detailed 30,000-piece Joker's Funhouse, which won Best of Show at BrickCon 2013. December 2, 2013 7:45 AM PST (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) Where there is Batman, you'll find the Joker. Yin to Batman's Yang, chaos to his order. And for every dark and brooding Batcave, the Joker has his own base of operations -- usually an abandoned funhouse, made deadly according to the Joker's particular brand of macabre humor. For last year's BrickCon, Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey built a massive 20,000-piece Lego Batcave. This year, a Chicago Lego artist by the name of Paul Hetherington upped the ante -- with an even bigger three-level, 30,000-piece Batman and Robin Joker's Funhouse (labeled Gotham Park and seemingly inspired by Luna Park in Sydney, Australia). It even has mechanized moving parts. To build the set, Hetherington had to work around his full-time job at a day program for disabled adults. "There are close to 30,000 pieces in the funhouse," he told CNET Australia. "To give you an idea, there are over 2,600 transparent 1x1 green tiles used on the ocean surface just to make up the strip of water underneath the pier. The model took two months to design and construct. I have lots of presorted parts in my studio so that makes it easier to build quickly." (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) A builder since he was a boy, Hetherington had more than 20 years of collecting Lego to draw from. Over the years, he has bought new sets, found Lego bricks at garage sales, and picked up individual bricks at Lego stores. He also has extensive experience building large-scale Lego sculptures. Since 2000, when he came out of his Dark Ages, he has built at least 20 large projects, most of which are automated in some way. Packed inside the funhouse are several Lego 9-volt train transformers powering Power Functions motors held together with Technic gears. The only non-Lego component in the build, Hetherington said, is the lighting, which came from Ikea. (Credit: Copyright 2013 Paul Hetherington. Used with permission of Paul Hetherington. All rights reserved.) The result is one insanely detailed, fascinating piece of work, which won an extraordinarily well-deserved series of accolades at BrickCon 2013 in Seattle: People's Choice Honorable Mention, Best of Show, and Evil Genius. The most important part of all, though, is that it was built for the love (and fun) of Lego. "I have always had an interest in fantasy worlds and am fascinated with any kind of miniatures," Hetherington said. "Lego is the toy that helped to open the door to my imagination. With so many new colors and elements becoming available each year from Lego, new inspiration is never far away." You can see more pictures on Hetherington's Flickr stream, and see it in action in the video below. (Source: Crave Australia)

Posted by : Unknown Monday, December 2, 2013

See Lego artist Paul Hetherington's amazingly detailed 30,000-piece Joker's Funhouse, which won Best of Show at BrickCon 2013.

December 2, 2013 7:45 AM PST

Where there is Batman, you'll find the Joker. Yin to Batman's Yang, chaos to his order. And for every dark and brooding Batcave, the Joker has his own base of operations -- usually an abandoned funhouse, made deadly according to the Joker's particular brand of macabre humor.

For last year's BrickCon, Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey built a massive 20,000-piece Lego Batcave. This year, a Chicago Lego artist by the name of Paul Hetherington upped the ante -- with an even bigger three-level, 30,000-piece Batman and Robin Joker's Funhouse (labeled Gotham Park and seemingly inspired by Luna Park in Sydney, Australia). It even has mechanized moving parts.

To build the set, Hetherington had to work around his full-time job at a day program for disabled adults. "There are close to 30,000 pieces in the funhouse," he told CNET Australia. "To give you an idea, there are over 2,600 transparent 1x1 green tiles used on the ocean surface just to make up the strip of water underneath the pier. The model took two months to design and construct. I have lots of presorted parts in my studio so that makes it easier to build quickly."

A builder since he was a boy, Hetherington had more than 20 years of collecting Lego to draw from. Over the years, he has bought new sets, found Lego bricks at garage sales, and picked up individual bricks at Lego stores. He also has extensive experience building large-scale Lego sculptures. Since 2000, when he came out of his Dark Ages, he has built at least 20 large projects, most of which are automated in some way.

Packed inside the funhouse are several Lego 9-volt train transformers powering Power Functions motors held together with Technic gears. The only non-Lego component in the build, Hetherington said, is the lighting, which came from Ikea.

The result is one insanely detailed, fascinating piece of work, which won an extraordinarily well-deserved series of accolades at BrickCon 2013 in Seattle: People's Choice Honorable Mention, Best of Show, and Evil Genius.

The most important part of all, though, is that it was built for the love (and fun) of Lego.

"I have always had an interest in fantasy worlds and am fascinated with any kind of miniatures," Hetherington said. "Lego is the toy that helped to open the door to my imagination. With so many new colors and elements becoming available each year from Lego, new inspiration is never far away."

You can see more pictures on Hetherington's Flickr stream, and see it in action in the video below.

(Source: Crave Australia)