2019 Parts Fest #2: Mansur Soeleman's kitchen, church and temple

Today sees the return of Mansur “Waffles” Soeleman (Flickr & Instagram) to our Parts Festival, who previously blew us away with his LEGO® Star Wars creations. We have a really varied range of creations from him, using the seed parts we provided.

Life Sized Stove

Exploring the jumper plate-like characteristics of the 'Frozone board' (32627) led me to discover its real life counterpart one morning when I spilled freshly brewed espresso on a stove-top: perfect knobs, unlike the ones I had to clean the coffee from.

Everything else sprouted around it - the Toy Story 1x8x3 slopes (49618) being used as parts of the base, and the Fat Boy rim (46334) being used as the big burner head. I guess building a life-sized Italian-style espresso pot will be next on my list, to represent something I can’t live without.

While meant to be a simple build, albeit large scale, I couldn’t resisting using intricate building techniques I constantly learn from more experienced builders. I used a variation of the 12-sided hinge plate technique developed by Filler Brick and Ben Smith.

 A similar technique for a 12-sided circle which uses the Technic pulley wheels, stud with bar parts (32828), and the 1x2 rounded plates, is used in the small burner head. It's a technique I developed which I use in some of my other builds, and has remained useful for me.

Waffle Iron

Indeed, those Frozone boards really grabbed my attention, due to the unconventionally placed studs. It’s like a tile; good for smooth surfaces and SNOT builds - but it can also be adopted by the jumper plate family. Its centre studs are ideal for handles and other assemblies whereas its round shape, well…

The Church of the Holy Hockey Stick

I just had to build a microscale architecture tablescrap with these Parts Festival pieces - the Trafalgar Square 3x3 dome (49308) dictated so - and it has been a while since I built buildings. And I was struggling to put the minifig hockey sticks (64000) to use. 

My microscale mentor in Chicago, Rocco Buttliere, told me once: “any part can be used in architecture builds”, and I realised that the hockey sticks had the perfect shape for flying buttresses.

Everything else fell into place, including the Technic wire clips (49283) as arches/windows, and even a 90º bar from the Batman gun pack (50018) to hold together some intricate connections. The bowl-shaped “headlamp” parts from the same pack also make nice domes/spires.

Kini Nui

Playing around with the Toy Story slopes, I have discovered that standing four of them up created a silhouette that I remember fondly from my childhood. All I had to do was build a simple round assembly that mounted them at a 45º degree angle, as well as utilise more of these slopes as ramps leading up to the centre.

 For those that don’t recognise this piece of architecture - it is the great temple of Kini Nui, as seen in the nostalgic Mata Nui online game and BIONICLE: The Mask of Light. I included a pearl gold minifig trophy part to represent Takanuva, the Toa of Light and titular character of the aforementioned film. The Trafalgar Square dome part also makes a perfect Toa Suva - the dome in the centre of the temple inspired by the top lids of original Bionicle packaging.

Dragon Skeleton

The Technic wire clip is a strange piece, while I did not find any fancy connections for it, I did start to see it as a small skull of sorts. So a few bone parts and hockey sticks helped form the perfect skeleton…

READ MORE: Thorin Finch creates a vast Star Wars scene using the seed parts

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