BrickLink Designer Program Series 7
Hey everyone! Another BrickLink Designer Program series is here, and I’m thrilled to share some of my own designs once again. I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity that BrickLink and LEGO provide us. Thank you, BrickLink team! I genuinely believe that these contests have been life-changing for some of the designers who have won. I’d like to mention The Sleepless Night and Brickester, who have both won three times already and they are still active in building new and new models. They are both exceptional designers, and their creations truly deserved the recognition. I’m always eager to see what new models these talented designers bring to the contest.
In the BDP series 7, I submitted two designs: an old model from BDP Series 6 that I slightly redesigned, and one new design specifically created for this series. Both models are buildings because I genuinely enjoy designing buildings and I love architecture. While it would be more strategic to design models for various categories, I create LEGO models because I enjoy the process and I don’t want to force myself into something that wouldn’t be as enjoyable for me.
Gatehouse
This is my fourth design ever created. The inspiration came from Brockenhurst Gatehouse in England. Originally built in the French Renaissance style during the 19th century by architect Alfred Waterhouse, I discovered this magnificent building on Pinterest while searching for inspiration for my next model. Today, it serves as accommodation, and you can book a night there here. I aimed to replicate the building as closely as possible, but I made certain modifications to bring the model to life. I completed the rough design in about a week and refined it for a month. This is the model I am most proud of, but the credit should go to the architect, Alfred Waterhouse.
For my BDP Series 7 project, I wanted to take my model presentation to the next level, so I learned the basics of Blender and rendered some footage of the model using that software. If you’re serious about creating awesome videos for your models, you should definitely learn to work in Blender. It’s way more powerful than BrickLink Studio. But I still prefer BrickLink Studio to render my images because it’s so much easier and I love the results.
You can support this model with your vote here - Gatehouse
The Villa of Hope
I submitted this model in the previous BDP series 6. It’s my second LEGO model ever made, and the inspiration came from a house I saw in the Netherlands during a holiday with my family last year. I think real-world architecture is the best source of inspiration for LEGO building models, but you need to make some small or sometimes big adjustments and improvements to make them more engaging. Creating an exact replica of a real-world structure often results in boring and uninteresting models. Since the last series, I’ve made a few changes to the design, especially in terms of dimensions. I wanted to make it smaller, more „cute,“ and reduce the piece count. I also wanted to make it more visually appealing by redesigning the entrance and adding ornamentation to certain areas. The previous version was much closer to the real building, but this second version works much better in my opinion. I also wanted to redesign the window in the attic, but after about 20 or 30 different versions, I got back to the original window design. I’m really happy with the final result.
You can support this model with your vote here - The Villa of Hope
If these models don’t win, I’ll sell the instructions on this website and upload them to Rebrickable. You can buy them there too. Stay tuned for updates! Thanks for your support, and I can’t wait to see you in the next series!
Filip