World War Brick 2013

I recently went to an unofficial LEGO convention called World War Brick 2013. It took place at the Brickmania headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 28th-30th.

"World War Brick is a gathering of hobbyists and fans dedicated to modeling historical and military-related scenes, vehicles, and weaponry using LEGO® brand bricks."

They had a whole slew of military related displays that were either built by Brickmania, the Twin Cities LEGO Train Club, the Greater Midwest Lego® Train Club, and the weekend pass holders who brought their own personal displays.
They had three groups of people.

• Staff. Those people were vendors who were selling items or were employees of Brickmania.
• 100 Weekend pass holders who paid $50 or $60 to display MOCs, get a goodie bag, and attend exclusive activities. (My dad and I fall into this category.)
• The general public during the public hours of the event.

I attended several presentations about many LEGO-related items including minifigure customization, waterslide decal application, and a Brickarms presentation. (Will unveiled a prototype weapon.) They were dozens of huge displays and a huge mosaic of the Flag Raising on Iwo Jima.
Below are some various pictures from the event.
A huge dinosaur rises out of the water on a train display.

A huge castle tower.

A lighthouse.

A picture of "Germany, April 1945."

The 3739: Blacksmith Shop designed by Daniel Siskind.

Some prototype village sets including the Blacksmith Shop.

Some pictures below are from World War Brick's website. Link: http://worldwarbrick.com/ World War Brick's Goody Bag. It had an event exclusive Jeep, WWB T-Shirt, exclusive Brickarms, and a cool bag. Other items were included as well.

Rumrunner’s Micro Battlefield Game. I didn't get a chance to play it, but I heard it was a lot of fun!

Awesome MOC on display.

Various pictures from the Battle of Peleliu Landing display. (My personal photos for this display needed to be resized so I decided to use some professional pictures from Brickmania's blog. Link: http://brickmaniatoys.com/2013/07/03/brickmania-models-photographed-by-doug-heimstead/ (Photos by Doug Heimstead.)

Below are some of my photos of this display. You can barely see the edge of the water at the very top and it shows how big this display truly is.

During Will's Brickarms presentation he unveiled a new Brickarms called the BrickArms M2HB .50 Caliber machine gun. (I talked to Will and he was a very nice guy.) It is in the early production stages. Below is a photo of it.

Raffle tickets were given out for participating in various activities. One teen won 4 times at the closing raffle! Link to the 2 photos below: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toomuchdew/with/9187763905/

The Iwo Jima mosaic was my favorite activity of the event. Here is a description of it from WWB's website.

Participants at WWB created the mosaic depicting US Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the US flag on Iwo Jima — the scene that was the basis for Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph and an iconic moment in US history. The mosaic was constructed on 225 Blue LEGO 10″ x 10″ baseplates and covers 156 square feet of wall space (12.5 ft x 12.5 ft or 230,400 studs)! Participants were rewarded with their choice of a custom US Marine or Army Ranger minifig for each 10″ x 10″ baseplate completed. The mosaic is comprised of the the original LEGO color palette: Blue baseplates and Red, White, Yellow and Black plates and will be on permanent display at Brickmania Toyworks.

My Dad and I ended up completing 5 baseplates so I got 2 U.S. Marines and 3 U.S. Ranger minifigures. It took about an hour and a half complete each baseplate. I'm proud to say I helped complete such an iconic mosaic!
Picture of the owner of Brickmania on the left, (Dan Siskind is a very nice and down to earth guy in the black shirt.), and a Brickmania employee on the right who planned and coordinated the display,(His name is Landon and he was very helpful during the waterslide decal application workshop. Thank you!), in front of the mosaic. It really shows how big it really is!

Lastly here are some pictures of some items I either got in my Goody Bag or I purchased. (I have some duplicate items from my Dad's goody bag.) Minifigures I got for helping with the mosaic.

Brickmania M4 Sherman I bought. Well worth every penny.

A Brickmania M1A1 75MM pack howitzer.

A Brickmania heavy mortar.

My entire WW2 LEGO collection after World War Brick. I have 13 minifigures, a 7622: Race for the Stolen Treasure, a Brickmania M18 Hellcat, a Brickmania M4 Sherman, two exclusive WWB jeeps with canopies, a Brickmania heavy mortar, and a Brickmania M1A1 75MM Pack Howitzer.

Some of the Brickarms I bought.

Overall my WWB experience was awesome! I got to participate in activities, meet with lots of awesome people including Dan, Will, and Landon, help complete a huge mosaic, buy some cool Brickmania sets and some Brickarms, and see some awesome displays. It was a very fun experience!
The following quote is from http://worldwarbrick.com/.

We hope to see YOU next year in Minneapolis!
Join the WWB Mailing List to keep up to be notified when to buy your WWB 2014 Weekend Passes and other important messages.
The next World War Brick military-theme LEGO™ fan convention will be held on the weekend of June 20-22, 2014. We will once again be convening at the Brickmania Toyworks in Minneapolis, MN USA, home of Brickmania custom LEGO kits. We are in the process of evaluating what worked at this year’s convention and will strive to make next year’s event even better. We have already decided to make more Weekend Passes available, so that even more builders can display their awesome models and participate in the activities.

I plan on going again next year.
Thanks for reading this blog post and I hope you liked it! I plan on writing a LEGO Customs article and I also plan on reviewing my Brickmania kits so stay tuned!
If you want to view more photos of this event please visit the following websites.

• http://worldwarbrick.com/
• http://brickmaniatoys.com/
• http://brickmania.com/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/toomuchdew/with/9187763905/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/95492142@N00/