It's Friday and we have one last 10K Club Interview for the week! Introducing the newest member of the club, Joshua (a.k.a. Bonobo) and his WORKING ORRERY. This project is a lesson for all in perseverance. 17-year-old Josh was not to be disheartened by several projects which didn't make the cut. His first 10K project was inspired by a submission to a Challenge all the way back in 2018. Let us know what you think about Josh's build down below!
ABOUT YOURSELF
- Who are you?
Hi, my names Joshua (or Josh, I don’t mind!), aka Bonobo (formerly LegoMonkey) in the LEGO community.
- Where are you from?
I live in South Africa, but am originally from England.
- How old are you?
I’m 17 years old.
- What do you study or do for a living?
I’m currently in my final year of school.
- What hobbies do you have?
Well obviously LEGO building is my main hobby! I’ve recently been doing a lot of LEGO stop-motion, which has become a big part of my LEGO hobby now. But apart from LEGO building, I enjoy cycling/running/hiking in the mountains around our home and playing Minecraft with friends.
- Do you have a personal LEGO portfolio website that you can share with us?
I do, yes! I post all my latest models (of which there are quite a few!) on my Instagram and Flickr pages
I also have a YouTube channel where I upload various interesting LEGO videos – stop-motions, speedbuilds, tutorials etc.
- Have you created any LEGO MOCs (my own creations) that you’re particularly proud of? What is it, why are you proud of it and do you have a photo of it?
I’ve built a huge amount of MOCs this year, so it’s pretty tricky to choose from, but here are my two favourites:
The first called ‘Garden Life’ is one I built as part of a competition called Iron Forge, where you have to use a seed part in all your builds. The seed part for this model was a tap piece.
The second is a more recent one that (for once!) I just built for the fun of it, called ‘Medieval Watchtower’. Had fun trying out some colour gradients in this one.
- How and when did your interest in LEGO products come about?
I got my first LEGO set when I was 5 (set 6090 the Royal Knights castle – which I recently made a microscale version of for the 90th Anniversary celebrations contest!). I loved it, and used to build it and rebuild it into many different things – and I guess that’s where my love of LEGO building came about, and it’s never left since.
- What is the LEGO hobby to you? What does it mean to you? How does it fit in your life? E.g. build, display, meetups, play the games or 'just' watch the cartoons.
It's definitely a way to express my creativity. I’m not a collector, and the sets I get only last a few days before they get taken apart and used for something else!
- What is your favourite LEGO theme (current or past)? Why? And has any theme inspired your building style or preference in any particular way?
Probably Castle. I’ve always loved medieval stuff, and the Castle theme really captured my imagination when I was younger. I don’t think my building style has been influenced by any LEGO theme at all though – but rather by other LEGO fans and designers.
- What is your favourite official LEGO set ever? Why?
That’s easy. The Attack on the Mill (set 7189). Such a brilliant set with so many amazing parts (including the LEGO goat!). Although I think LEGO Ideas sets like the Tree House and the Medieval Blacksmiths come in at a pretty close second.
- What is your favourite LEGO element? Why?
That’s not so easy! There are so many that are super useful in every model I make, like tiles, SNOT bricks, and cheese slopes – the list could go on! If I had to choose a single element from my collection to be my favourite though, it would definitely be my monkey!
- Is there a LEGO designer (official LEGO designer or fan designer) who you are inspired by and look up to? Who and why?
There are honestly so many out there it’s hard to choose, so here are just a few of my favourites (and their Flickr portfolios): Ranghaal, KitKat1414, Brickleas, Dan The Fan, ForlornEmpire and Markus Rollbühler.
- Is there one or more particular LEGO-related websites (not official LEGO websites) that you visit often and/or are inspired by?
I visit Bricklink a lot, to buy parts, research sets and share my models. Apart from that, I use Eurobricks, Mecabricks and Rebrickable, but all less frequently.
ABOUT YOUR PROJECT
- Where did your interest in this particular model come from?
It actually came from a model I entered in a space competition on LEGO Ideas all the way back in 2018. I had the idea to build an Orrery for the competition (as seen here) and then submitted it as a Product Idea after the competition ended. It got a grand total of 27 supporters! Three years later I was thinking of ideas for my next LEGO Ideas project, and I was looking through my old projects to see if I could revisit any of them – and I came across that orrery! When I first built the orrery for that competition I didn’t even know what an orrery was – I just had the idea to build a model where the moon went around the Earth and the Earth around the sun.
- How long was the process of making the project, and what did you have to research as well. What kind of prep, research and design phases did you go through to produce your creation?
The model took about 2-3 months to build, photograph and make a video for. I didn’t initially do any research, since I already had an idea of what I wanted in my head, and didn’t want it to be influenced by other designs. I regret that however, as my original design had the moon spinning the wrong way around the earth – which a number of people pointed out to me!The design process went on a lot longer after I submitted, however. During the course of the model gathering support, basically, the whole model was redesigned. The old version was rather weak, didn’t turn easily and the sun was a very bulky, heavy build meaning the whole model was top heavy. I realised that this wasn’t at all suitable for a LEGO set, so over time, I rebuilt it, improving all these aspects (oh, and changing the way the moon spun). I only really finished designing the model a few weeks before it hit 10K. The overall look wasn’t changed though, just the functionality and structure.
- What special challenges did you face creating the model? What was the most difficult part to recreate?
The internal turning mechanism was by far the hardest part of the model to design. The Earth – especially on the end of the turning arm – is quite heavy, and weighs the main gear down on one side. It was very tricky to work out how to get a smooth and easy-to-turn mechanism – but in the end, after rebuilding the whole mechanism about 4 or 5 times, I finally managed it! The final turning mechanism is as smooth in comparison to the turning mechanism for the LEGO Mario NES TV set.
- How did it feel when you reached the magic 10,000 votes and how long did it take?
It was incredible. It’s hard to describe really! But it was really amazing to finally reach 10K – especially since at the beginning, I didn’t think this project would make it! It took just over 8 months in total.
- Approximately how many LEGO bricks did you use to create your model?
The final version of the model contains 1388 parts in 16 colours – I built it digitally to check.
- What is your favourite building technique or part/section that you’ve incorporated into your Product Idea?
Probably the mini model of the earth – it was a really complex build to get all the continents visible, and used a lot of complicated SNOT techniques.
- If you built your model digitally, what software did you use to build and render your model?
I designed and built it physically first, but then built it in Bricklink's Stud.io to check the part count, and to make instructions.
ABOUT LEGO IDEAS
- Do you have any useful advice about creating a successful LEGO Ideas project?
Don’t give up. Learn from your mistakes, keep improving your models and presentation, and don’t give up. That was definitely what was most influential to me in reaching 10K. Obviously, a good model, a good idea and a good presentation is important, but how will you learn those things if you don’t give it a go, and if you give up when your first project only gets 50 supports? A lot of my first projects didn’t even reach 100 supporters!
- What (if any) methods did you use to advertise and attract support to your Product Idea?
Honestly everywhere I could! I built it digitally to share on Bricklink's gallery, and on Mecabricks. I shared it on my Instagram page and even made a promotional YouTube video for it! With this project, however, my biggest boost was getting a Staff Pick on LEGO Ideas – I don’t think I’d have made it without that Staff Pick.
- What is your favourite LEGO Ideas Product Idea (besides your own of course)? Are there any Product Ideas you think have been overlooked?
There have been a number of Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep ideas over the years. Would love to see one of them as a LEGO Ideas set one day.
- What is it about the platform that attracts you? What tips would you give to anyone who is thinking about uploading an idea?
When I was younger all I wanted was to work for the LEGO Group, designing LEGO sets! While that seems more like a childhood dream now (but you never know!), LEGO Ideas has been a great way to give that dream a chance – and have a lot of fun while I’m at it, entering the competitions they regularly post here.
- Do you have plans to submit any other Product Ideas in the future? If yes, can you give us a hint of what that might be?
I’ve had another idea for a while now – but haven’t had the time to start on it, and I don’t think I will for a while. But keep an eye out – maybe one day!
