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Building Birds with LEGO
Getting creative to sculpt round objects out of square bricks
© Thomas Poulsom
Thomas Poulsom is a hobbyist LEGO builder best known for his models of birds. But making birds out of bricks isn't easy. That’s why he uses special pieces to sculpt something entirely different — like when minifigure carrots became a puffin’s legs. A unique piece called a “snot brick” allows him to build in any direction, making it possible to make a round object out of square LEGO bricks.
BirdNote®
Building Birds with LEGO
By Mark Bramhill
Mark Bramhill: This is BirdNote.
Thomas Poulsom is a hobbyist LEGO builder best known for his models of birds. And he says making birds out of bricks isn't easy:
Thomas Poulsom: Building anything organic at LEGO is actually a real challenge. You're trying to make round objects out of square bricks.
Mark Bramhill: So, how do you do that? Well, one way is to use a special kind of brick…
Thomas Poulsom: …which they actually funnily call a snot brick, and snot means studs not on top. So you have this brick, which has a stud on the side and that allows you to build sideways or upside down or which way that you want to basically. Which allows you to get the organic shape.
Mark Bramhill: Another fun hallmark of LEGO art is "Nice Parts Usage" — basically, where you take a special piece that represents one thing and use it to sculpt something entirely different. For example, when building a European Goldfinch perched at a suet feeder, Thomas used…
Thomas Poulsom: ...little mini figure handcuffs for its legs. So one end of the handcuffs was actually attached to its body, and then the other end was attached to the branch.
[European Goldfinch Song]
Another bird which I built was a puffin, and I used minifigure carrots for its legs, which I think worked really well for its skinny kind of orange legs.
[Atlantic Puffin Call]
That's the beauty of LEGO, just being inventive and creative and having fun.
Mark Bramhill: You can see pictures of Thomas's Nice Parts Usage in his bird models on our website, BirdNote.org. I'm Mark Bramhill.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Atlantic Puffin ML167748861 recorded by Ramit Singal, and European Goldfinch ML99100461 recorded by Dominic Garcia-Hall.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote December 2023
Narrator: Mark Bramhill
ID# poulsomt-01-2023-12-21 poulsomt-01
