Alright, Let’s Start From the Beginning…
Me on my first day at work in front of the arch at LEGOLAND New York.
In the tail end of 2022 I had been laid off for a while and was applying for all sorts of different jobs. One of the many jobs I applied for was at the newly re-opening Boston LEGO Discovery Center, and another at LEGOLAND New York. The last three years now, holy cow THREE YEARS, have been probably both the hardest and best three years of my life.
A global pandemic, lockdown, getting laid off, struggling with depression, turning 30 during lockdown, starting therapy, struggling in my relationship with my partner, starting couples therapy, realizing/learning a lot about myself, meeting a fantastic new group of friends online as I got into building with LEGO as a hobby again, working remotely as a concept artist in games, getting laid off again, our landlord selling the house we’d been renting for nearly 5 years, moving into my partner’s childhood home, unemployment, seeing my favorite band of 15 years Paramore, and after two interviews getting a job at LEGOLAND…
Then apartment hunting, packing, planning, separating from my partner of ten years, both physically and relationship-illy. That last part is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It’s also been maybe the best thing for our relationship, after struggling alone and together through lockdown the space and time has shown me a lot. I look forward to my + our future and everything and anything it may hold.
Me with the freshly installed facade March 31st just before the park opened.
The first thing I got to design and place in the park was a new facade for our hot dog eating contest animation/interactive. We needed a version that kept the same main shape and speaker holes, but filled in the space where previously we had screens that counted the dogs as you spun a wheel to “eat” them. I learned SO MUCH so quickly about SNOT math and sculpting with plates, bricks and jumpers to keep it in line with the rest of Miniland. I had a lot of fun working on the “Coney’’s” logo emulating a famous hot dog brand you may recognize. The last touch was adding some condiment bottles with goobers of ketchups and mustard to bring it all together.
Coney’s hot dog eating contest facade installed in Staten Island, Miniland.
We got this installed just in time for the park to open to guests on March 31st. As you can see I was really proud to get it in the park and still am.
Until next time.
-Cody
2022 and Beyond
reflecting on 2022
The last few years have been difficult and wild, 2022 was no exception. With the rise of all sorts of “technologies” like N*Ts, and AI “art” and the near fall of both Twitter and Artstation as useful places for artists + people who love art to share, connect, and find jobs. It looks like the way the internet/social media has “worked” for us is changing rapidly.
Friends @ BFVA 2022
I’ve had some great experiences this year too though. Getting out to Brickfair Virginia(BFVA) again to see some great people and spend time away from the grind of art and jobs and the world etc. My partner Allison and I went to see Paramore in NYC which was the experience of a lifetime. To see my favorite band of nearly 16 years in person was so surreal I almost can’t describe it. So many other things I could list, but I’ve really come to appreciate what I do have and what I can do. I’m going to keep learning and experimenting and making new things.
Paramore @ the Bacon Theater, NYC 2022
I’m trying to swing into the new year with positivity and momentum. I don’t know what this blog will be/morph into going forward, but I’d like to share more again.
be great, make cool shit, and happy New Years,
-Cody
DIVER KNIGHTS Sketches
These are some sketches for a world/project I started with a friend a while back and never shared. The idea is like a beautiful + colorful, but dark + dangerous deep sea souls-like.
Bio-Cup 2020
Bio-Cup 2022
2020 was a very hard year. I had been laid off from my job at Play-Well Teknologies where I was driving around the state of CT teaching kids engineering principles and creativity with LEGO bricks, due to the pandemic. I was glad when I found a BIONICLE themed building contest to pour my creative energy and time into. The Bio-Cup is the largest community-organized Constraction contest. It is a single-elimination tournament-style competition. Constraction meaning constructible-action figures in the vein of LEGO themes/lines like BIONICLE, Hero Factory, or later CCBS Star War figures.
The Preliminary Round’s theme was “Future” so I combined my love of robots and dinosaurs. I decided to create a build that told a small story of a lost young dinosaur being taken in by a robotic version. A surrogate for the young dino.
I was happy to learn that I’d moved on into Round One where the theme was “The Natural World” and my bracket’s sub-theme was “Mollusks”. I had a blast building a Lovecraft themed creature, taking the theme more into fantasy/cosmic horror. For Round Two the theme was “Mythology and Folklore” and I took inspiration from Albanian folklore. The bracket’s sub-theme was “Slavic Countries/Eastern Europe”. Dreri, Light of the Forest was featured on BZPower’s coverage of the Bio-Cup.
[Dreri, Light of the Forest]
Round Three’s build was my most ambitious yet, I set out to build an entire scene and use some “in-camera” effect to build the golden rays of light behind the statue of the angel. This round’s theme was “Art History” and my sub-theme was “Renaissance”. I ended up losing this round, but I’m very proud of the things I built and how far I made it for a rookie in the cup.
[click on the names of builds beneath them to see more]
Cormorant Dragon
I did a quick entry for another of RJ Palmer’s challenges in his Discord server. With a couple quick studies I did first.
Cormorant Dragons are small wyvern like creatures with a wingspan usually no more than 2 meters. They live in cliffs near the sea, their diet consists mainly of small fishes and crustaceans. They use their brightly colored mouths and beak in mating and dominance displays.