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BrickArms can help you build your private army with everything youneed, from the superadvanced Colonial Marines' Xeno Pulse Rifles toNATO's G36 Assault Rifles to vintage German Rocket Propeller Grenadelaunchers, PPK pistols with Brausch silencers and Magnum revolvers. Ifyour private army is a bunch of LEGO minifigs, that is. We talked withthe arms dealer himself, Will Chapman, and he spilt the beans on hisBrickarms operation. Interview and amazing full gallery after the jump.
Brickarms is a company thatspecialized in custom LEGO weapons and minifigs. This picture is of alltheir regular weapons, sold as the 'Ultra Arsenal' Weapons Pack for$18. It includes the following:
If you don't need all of those then you can buy the gunsindividually for $1 apiece. There are also some other custom weaponsand minifigs available. Be sure to check them out if you dig militarythemed LEGO. Unfortunately, according to the website:
Disclaimer: All BrickArms tiny toy weapons are made ofsolid ABS plastic, designed to be used with Lego toys. They cannotshoot bullets and cannot be made to fire bullets in any way. Again,they are a TOY! T-O-Y Toyee!
Shit, I need to learn to read before buying stuff online. Oh well, Istole the money from my wife anyway. And by I stole the money from mywife I mean I sold one of her kidneys on the black market.
Several more pictures of Brickarm minifigs after the jump.
Brickarms: Real-World Weapons for LEGO Minifigs [boingboing]
BrickArms Lego Compatible Weapons
BrickArms are designed using the latest Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools to allow for precise details, and yet still retain an artistic sculptural feel of the action weapons. Injection molded to the highest of tolerances, all 21 BrickArms Weapons are made of durable ABS plastic - the same plastic that Lego uses in their own toys, to mesh perfectly with the Lego system you already own. They are all available individually or in discounted assorted Weapons Packs.
Quote:
Jesús Díaz: How long have you been a LEGO fan?
Will Chapman: I'm 39 now, and I remember getting Lego for birthdaypresents ever since I was 5 years old. I still remember the surprise ofgetting my first Technic vehicle as a teen, and being absolutelythrilled with the rack-and-pinion steering system, and holes in thebricks and pegs that allowed for incredible new possibilities. Justbefore leaving for college, I gave my collection to a neighbor boy, andI don't remember buying another set until after I was married and hadmy first son...
JD: ... and then it all came back.
WC: Yeah, a few years later, in 1993, I decided to introduce him toLego when he was 2, and he took to them immediately. His enthusiasm wasa real eye-opener, and I realized how much I missed having Lego in mylife. I promptly went on a spending spree and bought almost everythingI could find on the shelves —including the entire line of Lego 9Vtrains. My son fell in love with them instantly, and we decided tobring the trains and every brick we owned to a local Model Railroadshow in Seattle, where we let all of the attending kids run the trains,and build with our bricks. We brought our Lego trains to the show for afew years after that, each time bringing more and more of ourcreations, and bringing more and more trains and bricks for the kids toplay with.
WC: It was about this time that I posted our experiences on the web,a web that had very few Lego sites at the time, and we attracted manyAdult Fans of Lego (AFOLs) to our shows. I met some incredibleindividuals, and helped inspire them to create the first Lego TrainClub, the Pacific Northwest Lego Train Club, the founding members ofare still active in the Lego Train scene today. As my older son grew,he stopped playing with Lego trains, and we moved on to building otherthings while my youngest son has shown renewed interest in everythingLego! We continue to collect a lot of Lego, with vehicles, Technic,robotics, and minifigures dominating our purchases. The Lego is all"Family" Lego, with all of the parts and sets blended into a communitycollection that fills an entire wall of our Lego room.
JD: So when was the point in which you decided to get into the business of creating weapons for minifigs and military minifigs?
WC: When my youngest son turned 9 in 2006, he became interested in WW2history and weaponry and wondered where we could find compatible WW2minifig accessories for our army. I looked and looked and found no oneprovided them, so we decided to make them ourselves. I have always beeninterested in 3D design, so we started with a few US and German weaponsfrom WW2 and realized that we might as well make enough parts foreveryone that wanted them! And so, BrickArms was born.
JD: Do you have any real weapons yourself?
WC: No. I have never owned a real weapon. I am married, and while mywife tolerates the miniature toy BrickArms, she would never toleratereal firearms of any kind. Honestly, I count myself lucky to have suchan understanding spouse as far as the BrickArms are concerned.
JD: I know that LEGO has always been obsessed about the use ofweapons in their sets; was that the reason for you to jump in and startdoing BrickArms?
WC: Although Lego makes some nice weapons, they did not offer modernones. When BrickArms was founded in 2006, the most modern weaponavailable from Lego was a Wild West carbine dating to the 1800's. Itjust wouldn't work for WW2 and the modern era. Lego had always saidthey did not like producing modern weapons, and until their licensedBatman series and Star Wars clone series, they had not. Now they do,but they still don't provide the items that my son and I wereinterested in, and we knew we could make some terrific ones. The onlyreason BrickArms exists is because Lego does not provide modern,well-designed, minifig-compatible weapons.
JD: Did they (LEGO) contacted you about these creations in any way?
WC: Yes, I have been contacted by the Lego company about BrickArms, butnever in any negative way. They were very interested in my customminifigure designs and weapons designs and per their request, I sentthem copies of each one. The company seems to be supportive of anythingthat promotes Lego with the hobbyists, including AFOLs.
JD: I think the simplification of the real world weapons is amazing.How is the creative process? How do you decide on one weapon or another?
WC: Mostly, Ian (my youngest son) finds a weapon interesting and asksif we could make it. It is that simple. Once he finds one he likes, Istudy it and I abstract the design into minifig-scale. For someweapons, it is a distinctive stock, while for others it might be theangle of the grip, or the size and shape of the magazine clip. Finally,I study the design and look for as many places as possible for theoversized minifigure hand to grip the weapon, and I scale theproportions accordingly. There are a few dimensions that you absolutelycannot deviate from, and the grip is one of those locations. Each gripmust be exact. If it is too small, it will be too loose in theminifig's hand, and will also slip out of any mounting areas onaccessories, like gun racks.
JD: How do you actually produce the weapons? What technology do you use?
WC: Once my designs are completed, I check them by placing them in thehand of a virtual minifig in my CAD program. Once everything looksgood, I cut small trial injection molds out of aluminum, on my smallComputer Numerically Controlled (CNC) mill in my garage. After the moldis cut, I inject it with hot ABS plastic—the same plastic Lego uses. Ithen give it to Ian to play with and if it passes his approval I sendthe samples to my quality team (super-fans and moderators of theBrickArms Forums) for further evaluation.
Once a design gets the thumbs-up from everyone, I save the designand after I collect enough designs to fill a production mold (10-15), Isend it to a professional tooling company to produce a mold fromhardened steel. Once the mold is cut, it is sent to an injectionmolding company to shoot hot ABS into the mold and produce the finishedBrickArms parts. The whole process can take up to 12 weeks from startto completion and is definitely not for the faint of heart. It is veryimportant to choose the very best tooling and molding companies, or itwill cost you much more than you bargained for in the long run. I chosethe best, and products are of very high quality, and can stand up tothe scrutiny of hardcore Lego fans.
JD: What about the custom minifigs?
WC: The custom minifigs give my customers something different than thestandard offering from Lego, and allows them to buy not only theweapons from a certain period (like WW2), but also minifigs with theuniforms of the period as well. The custom minifigs also help my soncreate the armies he always wanted. Okay, the armies *I* always wanted!I have my own small decal printer, and I design and produceprofessional decals for the custom minifigs I create and sell. I alsolicense designs from talented minifig decal designers that I've met onthe web, and offer their licensed designs on custom minifigs. I canproduce decal designs for soldiers that Lego would never dream ofproducing—or at least that is what I thought before the Lego releasedtheir Indiana Jones series this year, with their Lego German Armysoldiers!
JD: Do you sell a lot of these? What's your most popular model?
WC: Custom minifigure accessories are a very small niche market. I dothis mostly for the love of designing something that hasn't ever beenproduced at this scale, and also for the challenges it provides increating small recognizable designs. So far, the US M4 carbine is verypopular along with an Aliens-inspired M41a Sci-Fi blaster. While salesare good, I still have a day job, with BrickArms being run out of mygarage. I have a new mold of all new designs that is almost ready forsale. In this mold are some terrific new items that I hope will be evenpopular than anything else I have offered. I will have an M1 Garand, aLight Machine Gun, bipods and monopods for mounting BrickArms, as wellas new sci-fi pistols and rifles and Personal Defense Weapons (PDWs).
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