LAMLradio: LEGO Talk Podcast

For day three of our interview per-day project I talk with Shannon Ocean (MOCpages) about all things brick.

-An introduction to Shannon
-What themes does he build in?
-Where does he find inspiration?
-What sites in the LEGO community does he visit?
-A building tip

Feedback? Email podcast@laml.org or comment in the blog below.

 

 August 3rd - Shanon Ocean: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Update: One question I forgot to ask Shannon in the interview was about his cyborg racers, so I sent him a quick email and got this response:

Initially there were going to be only 1 cyborg racer, a guy called “Thermal Frost” (from a Pink Floyd song. The naming-after-a-song regime only started because I’m bad at thinking up names so I usually raid my CD collection for ideas!) I didn’t have all that many canopy/cockpit pieces at the time so it was easier to just ‘mount’ part of a minifig to a ship rather than enclose him in an airtight cockpit. At first I thought it might seem a little ridiculous to want to be welded to a spaceship, but after building a few, the concept really started to grow on me. Maybe it was mankind’s next evolutionary step: a man/machine hybrid???

I’m not entirely sure where or how I got the idea. I’ve always liked cyborgs in sci-fi books and movies. And Lego minifigs are so interchangeable so I started to attach minifig head to spaceship ‘bodies’ with the original idea to give them articulated wings/thrusters/arms in lieu of their lost limbs. Soon they just turned into heads on ships and it took Nate Bush on MOCpages to show that a cyborg racer could ‘transform’ somewhat and walk around, which was very inspirational and breathed new life into my own cyborgs. So he definitely played a role in the development of cyborg racers, as did the other guys that started building them after him.

The thing I lost most about cyborg racers is that without the need for a cockpit (or indeed a head) the builder can use their imagination to really push the envelope of what a spaceship could look like. Personally I want to build cyborg racers in the future that are very sculptural and abstract and to try to move away from something that’s recognizable as a ’spaceship’ to some really bizarre designs. I also like the diversity; each racer has their own story to tell, their unique personality and some weird and wonderful propulsion systems. hopefully one day I’ll be able to make a Cyborg Racer MOVIE! Now that would be cool…