Clutch & Studs

LEGO creations by Jamison Wieser

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Happy Pride from San Francisco's Castro District.

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Classic Space.

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I built a loop long enough I can run both my trains with very little speed adjustments to keep them evenly spaced.

Aside from the freight locomotive, the cars and the California (what I named my steam locomotive) are my own original creations.

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A work progress. I'm not happy with the studs on the siding, but LEGO hasn't made a tile version of this wedge plate... yet.

The slanted color scheme was inspired by Florida's Brightline livery and the overall design by Siemens' "Venture Coach" passenger car.

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In 1978, the first Space-themed LEGO sets landed on store shelves. In the first year, the minifigures came in white and red.

The white minifigures represent NASA's astronauts because it's the color of their EVA suits, and red to represent Soviet cosmonauts. Blue, yellow, and black space minifigs joined over the next few years.

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Tip: I taped white paper to the bottom of the transparent plates so it looks more like ice.

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It's taken me 5 years, but I've finally come up with a rail car undercarriage design I'm happy with.

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I was slowly collecting solid color Minifigures with the goal of creating a minifig pride rainbow – I had 3 of 6 – when LEGO went ahead and released their own set, Everyone is Awesome.

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I started creating step-by-step instructions for custom LEGO train cars a few years ago, but never put too much work into cover art until now.

You'll find my digital downloadable instruction books available for free at Rebrickable.

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An updated version of my earlier snowboarder.

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Anticipating a quieter-than-normal Pride season here in the Castro District this summer, I made a little something to celebrate.

I used grille pieces to recreate our neighborhood's unique pin-stripe pride rainbow crosswalk design, printed custom vinyl stickers for the road signs, and a minifig waving a rainbow flag.

Now available at my Etsy store

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An 8-year-old would be wise to question my sanity and suggest I check in with my psychiatrist for saying this, but... Despite all the time at home, alone in lockdown without all that much to do, my large collection of LEGO® bricks has largely just sat in the cabinet unused.

It hasn't just been a lack of interest in LEGO, we all know this year has been a struggle, and I just haven't had much energy to put into any of my creative interests.

In 2020, COVID-19 took friend, family, my livelihood; crippling my creativity was just kind of a bonus in what's been rightly described as dumpster fire of a year.

[jamisonwieser]

I bought a turban on Bricklink so I could diversify my LEGO village with a Sikh minifig.

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Passenger train in progress. Inspired by the Pacific Sunliner.

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Nobody likes stepping on bricks, obviously, and he hates the sound of train motors, but my dog Disco has been otherwise indifferent to LEGO.

Until I put together the mighty Saturn V.

There is something about the first-stage F-1 engines he's got a problem with. I probably made a noise he didn't like scraping it against the floor.

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I've nearly finished my new locomotive.

I pushed the smokestack forward into the gray (silver) section at the front of the boiler tank and the made the cab a full 8-studs-wide.

The only major thing left is to finalize the transition from the 8-stud-wide cab to the 7-stud-wide stripe, losing the gray stripe elegantly and attractively.

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Eureka

As I've been struggling to recover from foot surgery and infection, made more complicated by old sports injuries, I've been in a creative lull. As a professional designer, creativity is kind-of my raison d'etre.

But things are looking up. In the last couple of weeks, I've been able to walk more than I have since February and I've started a few new projects.

Everything is a work-in-progress I'm not ready to share yet, but more eight-by-eight vignettes are coming.

I'm also finally making good progress on a locomotive to go with my passenger train set. I was painting myself into corners by trying too hard to avoid copying LEGO's own Emerald Night.

So, coming back to it fresh, I started with the Emerald Night as a baseline to build something more akin to the Coast Daylight than a British locomotive.

Perhaps most importantly, mine has the go-faster stripes. I think I'm going to name it Eureka.