geoffreyowenmiller

When I first started we used graph paper and made lots of iterative models to refine a design. The process limited the complexity or scale of what we could handle in a reasonable amount of time. I turned to 3D modeling, rigging, and painting in order to be able to make far larger, more complicated, and more precise models. I started by modifying existing 3D models if I could find a good existing model, but at times would have to make the model myself from the ground up. By digitally rigging the model, as animators do, we were able to have complete control over their position and pose. This was especially important as most models, for safety and longevity, required welded steel armatures. It was important to us to minimize the visibility of the armature. But cladding the metal wasn't enough, we wanted the models to appear as natural as possible. 

Once the 3D model was posed, painted, and given an armature, it had to be converted into a version to be edited further using custom software from the LEGO company. That software allowed the designer(s) to adjust the models as if it was made completely of 1x1 bricks. Clicking each brick individually, we would refine the forms, remove distracting digital artifacts, fix the coloring, and finally export building plans model-builders could use to glue the pieces together in the final sculpture. However, faces and other important details still had to be created by hand using drawers filled with thousands of specialty LEGO pieces.

LEGO COLOR

I made renderings of the 3D models for early visualizations and advertising for venues. Getting LEGO colors right was a huge challenge.  I used a NIX color sensor to make readings of all the LEGO colors, but after struggling with my own Physics-Based Rendering materials, I sent my color readings to Christopher Gearhart-- A VR artist who had created a Shader package and LEGO animation software. 

Nature Pop

Designing life-sized animals that really felt organic out of thousands of little plastic cubes was a very time-consuming process.  I proposed that we could reuse existing designs using only single colors, such as 322-Medium Azur which was a rare color to most LEGO enthusiasts. It would allow us to basically eliminate the development budget and timelines were cut drastically which allowed us to offer them to clients with smaller budgets. Sean loved the idea of models that would be more colorful and would pop out from their backgrounds of greens and browns, while also allowing the viewers to see the care we put into the "sculpting" of each animal. Not content with making things too simple, we also decided to create pieces with multiple colors to really push the use of color. This became the Nature Pop show. 

The deer family was chosen to be placed in The LEGO Company’s new office campus in Billund, Denmark, to showcase innovative work done by the LEGO community. I created a design that visually connected the mother, father, and baby deer, while also allowing each to have their own pattern. This idea of connection was also used with the Dodo and Baby. Along with the idea of using the intense color of a sunset to represent their time on Earth coming to an end. 

Growing Ideas

In 2017 Sean became highly focused on bringing to life our largest and most complicated sculptural idea. The idea was sparked when The LEGO company reached out to the most accomplished LEGO Professionals for ideas for their brand-new museum in Billund, Denmark. Sean envisioned a tree growing out of a city, so large that it became a cloud. A cloud that then rained down Lego pieces onto the city below as a metaphor for the cycle of creativity: an idea can grow to become a reality that then inspires ideas in others.  In the end, we were told the company had decided not to take any proposals-- though we and other LEGO professionals who had also submitted ideas with trees did notice they ended up creating a design with a massive tree. 

My challenge as lead designer was to make this idea possible. It would be by far the largest sculpture we had ever undertaken. A sculpture that was inherently extremely top-heavy, that could be toured along with our other works in outdoor gardens and zoos. It needed to be able to be crated for transport, and assembled and disassembled in short amounts of time, with minimal extra equipment. 

The solution was to make large LEGO-like pieces for the cloud that could be assembled on-site. These sat on top of a custom welded frame made to look like the trunk of a tree, which in turn would sit on top of a two-part box that would elevate the LEGO city to a better viewing height. 

The work had its debut at the National Taiwan Science Education Center in Taipei, Taiwan in 2018, stopped over for a summer show in Israel, and then to Liberty Science Museum in New Jersey.  Hangar 11 in Tel-Aviv Port (on Nemal Tel-Aviv Street)

Our Work

My favorite part of this job was the amazing people I got to work with every day. While individuals were assigned specific defined responsibilities, we had a very communal and supportive work floor. These people are still some of my best friends. 

Jung ah, Eunnye, Haksul, Natsuki, Jisun, Joel, Evan, Chioma, Ian, Luis, David, Valerie, Meghan, Sutton, Caroline, Jaspreet, Gabriel, Ji Hae, Jennifer, Michi, Emily. 

 The design process consisted of Conceptualizing (selecting a subject and deciding on pose and presentation); 3D designing (sculpting anatomy, rigging, posing, designing metal armature to be welded, converting to brick model); digital lego designing (using custom software from the Lego Group); Building model (gluing bricks based on digital schematics, faces and other important parts are designed by hand using specialty bricks and iterative modeling during the building process); Photographing models ( lighting, picture taking, editing (removing backgrounds, problematic reflections and glare) and preparing for web publishing.